RyanS2

Greetings Wildernesse:

They're just informative, they don't get argumentative until the next chapter where I talk about what is being discussed here. Does correlation equal causation? What is the most plausible theory?

For example, King Arthur basically just called the early Muslism ignorant, but how could they be so? They inherited the Greek and Indian knowledge and they were also more advanced in weaponry for several centuries than their European Crusading counterparts. That's my first piece to the puzzle.

Second, sources such as historian Will Durant, "Our Oriental Heritage" makes it clear the Arabians didn't have a strong belief in God. Likewise, Ibn Ishaq, Sira 3:239 states:

"Our practice towards Allah was shirk and idolatry. We did not worship Allah, nor had we knowledge of him."

In another conversation, Uyayna b. Hasan and Abbad b. Bishr are talking in a Sira recorded by al-Waqid on the authority of Said b. al-Musayyab. Abbad says "we did not worship anything (before Muhammad)," including Allah.

Likewise, in Patricia Crone's book, "Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam", we find that the early Arabians were pretty much atheists:

"What, then, was the nature of religion in tribal Arabia? The basic point to note here is that tribal gods were ultimate sources of phenomena observable in this world, not ultimate truths regarding the nature and meaning of life. More precisely, they were ultimate sources of all those phenomena that are of great importance in human society, but beyond direct human control: rain, fertility, disease, the knowledge of soothsayers. the nature of social roups, and so forth. They were worshipped for the practical services they could render in respect of these phenomena. As Wellhausen noted, they differed from more spirits only in that they had names and cults devoted to them; without a name a deity could not be invoked and manipulated, and he very object of the cult was to make the deity exercise its power on behalf of its devotees. "Ilaha, regard the tribe of Rubat (with benevolence)," as a third-century inscription says. This being so, tribal gods neither required nor received emotional commitment, love, or loyalty from their devotees. Thus a famous story informs us that "in the days of paganism Banu Han-lfa had a deity made of dates mixed with clarified butter. They worshipped it for a long time. Then they were hit by a famine, so they ate it.'' In much the same pragmatic spirit a modern Bedouin vowed half of whatever he might shoot to God. Having shot some game, he ate half, left the other half for God and departed; but feeling hungry still, he crept back and successfully stole God's part, and ate it, boasting that "God was unable to keep his share, I have eaten his half as well as mine.'' Now if hunger could make a tribesman eat or cheat his god without remorse, then it is obvious that practical needs could likewise make him renounce or exchange this god for another without compunction. "We came to Sa'd so that he might get us together, but Sa'd dispersed us; so we have nothing to do with Sa'd," as a pre-Islamic tribesman is supposed to have said in disgust when his idol scared his camels away . In much the same fashion a whole tribe abandoned its native gods for Christianity when its chief was cured of childlessness by a Christian monk. And the numerous other Arabs who found the medical facilities of the Christian God suffi ficiently impressive to adopt Him as their own are unlikely to have found the act of conversion any more difficult. A god was, after all, no more than a powerful being, and the point of serving him was that he could be expected to respond by using his power in favour of his servants. A modern Tiyaha tribesman who was being swept away by a flood screamed in great rage at God, "I am a Tihi! I am a Tihi! God, if you don't believe it, look at the brand on my camels." Obviously, if a deity was so inefficient as to unleash floods against his own followers, or so weak as to be unable to protect them from famine, or to keep his own share of some game, or to work miraculous cures, then there was reason to eat, cheat, abuse, denounce, or abandon him. "What were two little words?" as Doughty was asked on one of the numerous occasions on which attempts were made to convert him, "pronounce them with us and it shall do thee no hurt." The idea that a believer might be personally committed to a deity, having vested the ultimate meaning of his life in it, did not occur to any of these men. Those who tried to convert Doughty were evidently thoroughly committed to Islam, but not to Islam as a saving truth of deep significance to them as individuals. Convert, settle, and we will give you palm trees, as they told Doughty; in other words, be one of ours. Allah was a source communal identity to them, not an answer to questions about the hereafter. And the numerous people who tried to convert him or to penalize him for his Christianity on other occasions were likewise people who neither knew nor cared much about Islam as a saving truth, but who were outraged by his open denial of the God who validated their society. Now, just as tribal gods did not articulate great spiritual truths, so also they were not deeply entrenched in everyday life. Pre-Islamic (or for that matter pre-modern) Arabia was strikingly poor in mythology, ceremonial, ritual, and festivals. Religious life was reduced to periodic visits to holy places, stones, and trees, to sacrifice and consultation of diviners; most Bedouin managed with even less than that; and these practices were not closely associated with belief in specific gods. The great annual pilgrimage was apparently not conducted in the name of any one deity, and the remaining practices could effortlessly be switched from one deity to another; all survived into modern times, among Muslim and Christian tribesmen alike. Renouncing one god for another thus did not require any change in either outlook or behaviour, unless the new deity carried with him a behavioural programme anti- thetical to tribal norms. In principle, the Christian deity did carry with him such a programme, though in practice the holy men active in Arabia were in no position to ensure that ccnversion amounted to more than two little words. But the Muslim deity did not. On the contrary, he en- dorsed and ennobled such fundamental tribal characteristics as mili- tance and ethnic pride. Despite the Qur'anic suspicion of Bedouin, it was only on the development of classical Islam in the Fertile Crescent that the celebrated antithesis between muruwwa and dm, manliness and religiosity, emerged.

It is thus clear that the mass conversion of Arabia to Islam does not testify to any spiritual crisis, religious decadence, or decline of pagan belief. Indeed, in behavioural terms, the better part of Arabia was still pagan in the nineteenth century. What the mass conversions show is that Muhammad's God had something very attractive to offer here and now. When Sa'd, the pre-Islamic deity, scared away the camels of his devotees, the latter concluded that "Sa'd is just a rock": the power that he was supposed to have exercised had proved unreal."

That part is taken from an online portion of her book available:

<a href="http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/crone.html" target="_blank">http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/crone.html</a>

"A better approach might be to have several, more concise, essays about your views on Islam."

I agree, but I haven't really written anything yet. I'm just establishing a historical backdrop for my favorite theory:

Muhammad the political activist, who added a religious element to Islam after coming in contact with Older cultures who had nationalistic religions, (e.g. Zoroastrianism), forcing him to formulate a nationalistic religion. He died before he could do it.

As Crone points out, there doesn't seem to be much philosophical debating in the Qur'an, as compared to say the writings of Paul. Given the repetition also, it seems the Qur'an was written to fill space up in many places, numerous times the Qur'an will repeat the exact same story with minor variations on it. It doesn't make sense for Allah to reveal the same revelation, nor does it make sense for a guy to write down the same thing over and over.

"More documentation. Footnotes might be a good place to start, or maybe a references list"

I list a few sources in my first essay, but not many. The stuff in the first one isn't controversial, so there's not much need for footnotes. The second one is filled with references, as is the bottom portion of the first essay dealing with early Arabian affairs. I don't use footnotes too often, they are a pain for me to work with in programming. For long essays though it's probably best.

"Clearer sentences and more focus on grammar and spelling. I know this might seem like nit-picking, but sometimes it’s difficult to catch your meaning."

No, I agree with you. I haven't proofread it or anything yet, I'm still brain-storming. Despite the verbiage, I haven't really figured out the whole theory yet. There's so little historical data in the Qur'an and the Hadith that reconstructing it is a major pain in the (Fill in favorite noun), it's not just a matter of deconstruction, it's a matter of reconstruction based upon scanty evidence from dubious sources. We know that Muhammad existed because the Doctrina Iacobi (circa 636) mentions Muhammad as the ruler of the Arabians. That's a problem though because the Hadith say Muhammad died in 634 C.E., so either the tract was wrong or the Hadith were wrong.

Here's another brain teaser too. Muhammad, (or the late redactors who actually wrote it), liked to portray that Christianity and Islam were the same thing. Yet the first piece of epigraphic attestment of the Qur'an is on the Dome of Rock in Jerusalem, and it's anti-Christian polemics.

Why was Christianity chosen over say, Zoroastrianism? Because of an admiration for their zeal, Zoroastrianism had faded out of fervor, Arabia invaded Persia without much resistence, and the only people clinging onto Zoroastrianism was the clergy. The Persians as a whole dropped it quickly and became some of the fiercest fighters for Islam. The two religions with the greatest influence, (The Muslims respected Jews for their tradition, and it was almost unanimously revered for traditions sake), and the Christians, admired for their hardcore religious fervor. That's also why I spend the first part of the essay talking about how the Muslism revered the Jewish writings, making it more plausible that they used them for their own, having access to them and accepting them as authentic tradition. This wasn't so much direct copying, as in a Muslim scholar was writing it down, as most of these teachings were until very recently ORAL teachings. As we all know, our memory is highly fallible.

The Muslims heard them, converted them (sub)consciously, and made it for the new faith. That's my theories thus far, and until I finish researching it, I probably won't have time to edit my format and grammatical styles. So pardon the amateurish look on it thus far.

Secular Pinoy

Try this website: <a href="http://www.islamexposed.com/" target="_blank">http://www.islamexposed.com/</a>

B. H. Manners

One source to NOT use is "Islamic Invasion" by Dr. Robert Morey. He is one of Jack Chick's staff members and wrote that book about seven years ago. The sources from the Koran he cites as contradictive or racist are often taken out of context and so untrue as Morey uses them. Some of it is fine, but most of the book I found useless for research and at that time for evangelizing too. Avoid it for the little good it has far outways the incorrect information.

[ July 14, 2002: Message edited by: BH ]</p>

RyanS2

Morey's work is horrible. He misquotes sources deliberately, he takes quotes out of context, as BH mentions, proselytizes, and is willing to ignore large bodies of evidence to make his theory of Allah the Moon-God work. Sadly though, many people take his work at face value.