There is some good stuff at that conference.. It is not completely new way of thinking on the origin of Islam but it gives different out look
10:45–12:30 – Session 4: ... Carlos A. Segovia
"A Messianic Controversy behind the Making of Muḥammad as the Last Prophet?"; Respondent: David S. Powers
The abstract of that paper says
Abstract:
Still in its infancy because of the too conservative views and methods assumed by most scholars working in it since the mid-19th century, the field of early Islamic studies, however, is one in which the very basic questions must nowadays be addressed with decision.
There is, to start with, no evidence that Islam was the main cause behind the Arab take over of the Near East in the 7th century. Nor is there evidence that the latter followed a linear development. Just as it is difficult to speak of a unified Arab state until 692, it is hard to regard Islam as a new religion before that date.
How then should we reinterpret the struggle for a new Arab supremacy in the Arabian Peninsula after the abolishment of the Himyarite, Jafnid and Nasrid kingdoms in the late 6th and early 7th centuries?
Which was the political and religious background of Muhammad's eschatological visions in the 610s? How should we read his politics in the 620s and the early 630s and the opposition that he matched with amongst other Arab leaders?
What can we make of the fact that from the 630s to the early 690s not everyone in the Hijaz, Syria and Iraq claimed to follow him?
How must we represent the religion of the Arab groups involved in the afore-described events before the emergence of Islam as a new religion in the time of 'Abd al-Malik and his son al-Walid (692-715)?
What can be deduced from the fact that several South-Arabic inscriptions dating to the mid-6th century appear to contain a Christological formula akin to that found in the Qur'an?
Why is it that the first documented occurrence of the word Islam speaks of Jesus to the Christians of Palestine and is located in a building that seems to reproduce a Christian church within the remains of a Jewish sanctuary?
Were the first Muslims allies of the Jews, as has sometime been said, ecumenical monotheists as has more recently been proposed, or non-trinitarian supersessionist Christians who tried to publicly affirm their own religious beliefs?
And which was their political agenda, anyway? Lastly, when is the collection of the Qur'an to be dated and what kind of new document did their editors attempt to produce?
Our purpose in this book is to explore these and other related issues from a critical-historical standpoint and to offer new insights on the gradual formation of the Islamic state and the likewise gradual making of the Islamic faith. For to overlook them would be like explaining the emergence of the earliest Christ-believing groups by exclusively relying on the author of Luke-Acts, who offers a rather monochrome picture of Christian beginnings centred upon what s/he retrospectively imagined as Paul’s mission; or like accepting the Mishnaic and Talmudic legends about Yavneh as the actual birthplace of Rabbinic Judaism.
If some progress is to be made in the future in the field of early Islamic studies, scholars working in it should abandon once and for all the grand narrative of Islam's origins set forth in the early Islamic sources and confront the complex material evidence that we do have about the dawn of Islam with an open, both critical and imaginative, mind.
On any subject., whether it is science., or history., theology, physiology, biology, cosmology of Quran .. asking questions is the first step to make some progress..
but allah says in the book
(1) Rather you wish to put questions to your Apostle, as Musa was questioned before; and whoever adopts unbelief instead of faith, he indeed has lost the right direction of the way. .........(Al-Baqara, Chapter #2, Verse #108)
(2) O you who believe! do not put questions about things which if declared to you may trouble you, and if you question about them when the Quran is being revealed, they shall be declared to you; Allah pardons this, and Allah is Forgiving, Forbearing.................... ( Al-Maeda, Chapter #5, Verse #101)
(3) people before you indeed asked such questions, and then became disbelievers on account of them. ..........(Al-Maeda, Chapter #5, Verse #102)
So you rascals ....
READ QURAN, READ HADITH, READ SUNNAH follow the footsteps of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), RA..SAW..DA..DE.... Sallallahu Ala Muhammad Sallallahu Alayhi Wasallam).. marry some 13 women in 13 years.. Eat well,
grow pot bellies, preach Islam, enjoy the life
and work for Jannah and..and stop asking the questions about allah book
otherwise hell fire to you in this life and after this life..
fools talk nonsense and each year brain wash 1000s of 17 year old kids across the globe in so called prayer houses of Islam .. the Mosques
Topic: Qur'anic studies today