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 Topic: Qur'anic studies today

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  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #990 - September 07, 2016, 01:26 AM
    I've just finished reading all 33 pages of this thread and it took a week (without reading the links). Great work people, I really appreciate it. It's really refreshing to find this information from an academic rather than polemical approach.

    If I knew Arabic, and were a few years younger, I'd strive to be an academic in Quranic+formative Islamic studies. I have some questions and thought bubbles to add, but I'll do it gradually over time.

    The Hadd punishment of stoning for adultery always seemed incongruous to me. Not only is the punishment absent in the Qur'an, the Qur'an specifies two contradictory punishments as well (immurement and flogging). Tom Holland explains it as a later Jewish influence. The hadithist position of 'the Prophet said to gives carte blanche to anything, and still contradicts the Qur'an.

    A hypothesis of mine is that the Qur'an was hurriedly compiled from multiple sources (hence contradictory punishments for the same offence), without time to re-edit (hence absence of the correct death penalty).

    The Qur'an doesn't even differentiate adultery from fornication does it (both are called 'zina')?

    Are there any scholarly articles on this matter? It fits revision of early Islamic history and Qur'anic studies well I think. What are your thoughts?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #991 - September 07, 2016, 09:31 AM
    Thanks fajfall. I don't know of any articles on this, though someone's probably written about it.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #992 - September 07, 2016, 01:30 PM
    Quote from: zeca on August 26, 2016, 09:25 AM
    The earliest documentary evidence for the hajj apparently, from the early eighth century.

    Petra Sijpesteijn - An Early Umayyad Papyrus Invitation for the Ḥajj

    https://www.academia.edu/10389264/An_Early_Umayyad_Papyrus_Invitation_for_the_Ḥajj


    Interesting article. But I understand Altera´s and Yeez´ scepticism.

    The argumentation of Sijpesteijn doesn´t make very clear what parts are based on known historic facts and what part is attributed to the islamic tradition where the lines between story telling and facts are very blurry.

    Her central argument to explain away the strange papyrus contents in which the Caliph calls for a hajj (while it should according to the tradition already be an established phenomenon) by saying it was just informative about it being "the right time" for the hajj, seems contradicted by the content of the papyrus itself. No further explanation is given about this timing.

    The note doesn´t at all seem te be preparatory to a long and stressfull journey from Egypt to a distant place like Mecca. No details about timing, meeting place, provisions, preparations.... Rather seems a call for a journey to a not so far away place, the next door village?

    Does anyone know if the word "hajj" is exclusively used for a religious pilgrimage? Or are other meanings known?

    In Sijpestein´s conclusion she says the following interesting thing:

    Quote
    Our sources indicate that the ceremonies of the ḥajj and even the location at which they were per-formed were not fixed in the earliest period of Islam.


    We know that the first mention of the name "Mecca" is in the Spanish chronicle (Crónica mozárabe) of 754 AD and it placed Mecca in the biblical location for Abraham in Mesopotamia.

    Seen all these uncertainties, is seeing this papyrus as confirmation of the early hajj  to Mecca  a bit optimistic?

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #993 - September 07, 2016, 03:42 PM
    I get the impression that Sijpesteijn relies on the traditional narrative to interpret the papyri. This may work but I can see a risk of a circular argument where the interpretation of the papyri then confirms the traditional narrative. I get a sense of this from this review, previously posted on the random Islamic history thread. I've no doubt her book is significant though.
    Quote from: zeca on August 27, 2016, 07:57 PM
    Hugh Kennedy reviews Petra Sijpesteijn's Shaping a Muslim State

    http://media.leidenuniv.nl/legacy/kennedy---to-and-from-the-taxman-%28tls-28.11.2014%29.pdf

    Also see her discussion of the Islamic narrative tradition here:
    Quote from: zeca on August 27, 2016, 10:21 PM
    Petra Sipjesteijn - Arabic Papyri and Islamic Egypt

    https://www.academia.edu/10502577/Arabic_Papyri_and_Islamic_Egypt

    A report on the Dutch book launch for Tom Holland's Shadow of the Sword, quoting Sijpesteijn:

    https://www.rnw.org/archive/prophet-came-jordan
    Quote
    ....
    For Islam researchers, Holland’s claims will come as no surprise. “It says in the Qur’an itself that it’s a continuation of Judaism and Christianity,” says Petra Sijpesteijn, professor of Arabic language and culture at Leiden University. “Western researchers generally assume that the Qur’an wasn’t written all at once, and Muslim scholars also recognise that Islam developed over the course of the centuries.”

    It’s obvious that during the Arab conquests local customs and rituals were adopted, says Sijpesteijn. “The new world view had to connect with the world of the people living in a region, or it wouldn’t have been accepted.”

    Sijpesteijn also points out that there are sources from the time of Muhammad or shortly afterwards, both Islamic and non-Islamic. She studies Arabic writings on ancient papyrus scrolls. “In the writings of 12 years after the death of Muhammad, Muslims are referred to as a separate religious group, first using the term muhajiroun, migrants who had left hearth and home with a purpose, or Saracens, descendents of Sarah and Abraham,” she says. “And from around 730AD, terms like Islam, Muslims and specific religious customs such as zakat (charity) were already being practiced and described.”

    Sijpesteijn also disagrees with Holland about the place in which Islam arose. “Mecca is already described as a holy place in pre-Islamic manuscripts. So why wouldn’t it exist?” She does think that Arab Christians from more northerly regions played a major role in the further development and distribution of Islam.

    In short, there is nothing particularly new in Holland’s book, though it’s “nice that he makes it accessible to ordinary people,” says Sijpesteijn.
    ....

    It would be interesting to know which pre-Islamic manuscripts she sees as referring to Mecca.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #994 - September 07, 2016, 04:53 PM
    Sijpesteijn (sheesh, delete some consonants in your name ...) also put up this article about another early hadith about Umar, written on papyrus.

    https://www.academia.edu/27677629/A_%E1%B8%A4ad%C4%ABth_Fragment_on_Papyrus

    What is particularly fascinating, as Van Putten points out, is that this hadith was written down in the same type of Arabic (loss of final short vowels etc) as the Qur'an itself, rather than being written in Classical Arabic like all the other hadiths that have come down to us.  Remarkable!!!

    http://phoenixblog.typepad.com/blog/2016/08/a-non-classical-hadith.html
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #995 - September 07, 2016, 04:59 PM
    Quote from: fajfall on September 07, 2016, 01:26 AM
    I've just finished reading all 33 pages of this thread and it took a week (without reading the links). Great work people, I really appreciate it. It's really refreshing to find this information from an academic rather than polemical approach.

    If I knew Arabic, and were a few years younger, I'd strive to be an academic in Quranic+formative Islamic studies. I have some questions and thought bubbles to add, but I'll do it gradually over time.

    The Hadd punishment of stoning for adultery always seemed incongruous to me. Not only is the punishment absent in the Qur'an, the Qur'an specifies two contradictory punishments as well (immurement and flogging). Tom Holland explains it as a later Jewish influence. The hadithist position of 'the Prophet said to gives carte blanche to anything, and still contradicts the Qur'an.

    A hypothesis of mine is that the Qur'an was hurriedly compiled from multiple sources (hence contradictory punishments for the same offence), without time to re-edit (hence absence of the correct death penalty).

    The Qur'an doesn't even differentiate adultery from fornication does it (both are called 'zina')?

    Are there any scholarly articles on this matter? It fits revision of early Islamic history and Qur'anic studies well I think. What are your thoughts?


    The classic critical modern theory of Islamic law, by Schacht, argues that the Qur'an had relatively little influence on the initial development of Islamic law, which was instead cobbled together from peripheral legal systems (Roman/Persian/Jewish).  From Wiki on this point:

    "Muhammadan [Islamic] law did not derive directly from the Koran but developed ...out of popular and administrative practice under the Umaiyads, and this practice often diverged from the intentions and even the explicit wording of the Koran .... Norms derived from the Koran were introduced into Muhammadan law almost invariably at a secondary stage.”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Quran#Jurisprudence

    So that would fit your theory.  Schacht has been criticized by various later figures, but his main arguments (that the development of early Islamic law is strangely non-quranic) seem difficult to contest.  Some have taken this disjunction to indicate the non-existence of the Qur'an until much later, like the 8th/9th century, but I myself take it to instead indicate that the Qur'an as a detailed compiled text was relatively peripheral and limited in its circulation and influence until much later, relative to the early spread of Arabian conquest (and the development of its institutions of rule).
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #996 - September 07, 2016, 05:06 PM
    Quote from: Zaotar
    Sijpesteijn (sheesh, delete some consonants in your name ...) also put up this article about another early hadith about Umar, written on papyrus.

    https://www.academia.edu/27677629/A_%E1%B8%A4ad%C4%ABth_Fragment_on_Papyrus

    What is particularly fascinating, as Van Putten points out, is that this hadith was written down in the same type of Arabic (loss of final short vowels etc) as the Qur'an itself, rather than being written in Classical Arabic like all the other hadiths that have come down to us.  Remarkable!!!

    http://phoenixblog.typepad.com/blog/2016/08/a-non-classical-hadith.html

    Quote
    I was surprised to see such a "dialectal" feature in a Hadith, which today is only ever published in impeccable Classical Arabic. If there is any place in Early Islamic Papyri where one would expect Classical Arabic to rear its head, it would be here. And yet, that is not what we find. This brings into question the very nature of Classical Arabic. Where did it come from? Who used it? What was it used for? When did the Diglossia come to be?

    Zaotar - do you think this may be an indication that Classical Arabic was influenced by an older, and lost, Christian Arabic scribal tradition that preserved grammatical features missing in the early Islamic papyri?
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #997 - September 07, 2016, 05:10 PM
    Quote from: Zaotar on September 07, 2016, 04:53 PM
    Sijpesteijn (sheesh, delete some consonants in your name ...) also put up this article about another early hadith about Umar, written on papyrus.

    https://www.academia.edu/27677629/A_%E1%B8%A4ad%C4%ABth_Fragment_on_Papyrus

    What is particularly fascinating, as Van Putten points out, is that this hadith was written down in the same type of Arabic (loss of final short vowels etc) as the Qur'an itself, rather than being written in Classical Arabic like all the other hadiths that have come down to us.  Remarkable!!!

    http://phoenixblog.typepad.com/blog/2016/08/a-non-classical-hadith.html


    I seem to see a discrepancy between Sijpeseijn´s article and the blog. Sijpesteijn says that the early hadith fragment is 8-9 C, the blog says it´s 7-8 C. Quite important in this discussion, no? Or did I miss something?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #998 - September 07, 2016, 05:22 PM
    Zeca,

    Quote
    can see a risk of a circular argument where the interpretation of the papyri then confirms the traditional narrative. I get a sense of this from this review, previously posted on the random Islamic history thread. I've no doubt her book is significant though.


    As an outsider but with a scientific background in other fields, I don´t understand that an academic like Sijpesteijn doesnt clearly distinguish between the scientific facts and the elements deduced from the islamic tradition. As a result, I think it is very difficult to value her work as she probably deserves. Reading her "hajj article", discouraged me completely from continuing with her other work. I´ll leave that to the more motivated experts...

    I concur completely with you on this Zeca:

    Quote
    It would be interesting to know which pre-Islamic manuscripts she sees as referring to Mecca.


    Cant imagine she would keep this info hidden... As I said, I read that the first mention of Mecca (in Mesopotamia) dates from a Spanish chronicle of 754 AD. The whole academic world must be waiting for Petra´s sources.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #999 - September 07, 2016, 05:50 PM
    To be fair she's being quoted by a journalist in that report and I'd imagine she'd have given the sources if the journalist had thought to ask the right question.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1000 - September 07, 2016, 06:03 PM
    Quote from: zeca on September 07, 2016, 05:06 PM
    Zaotar - do you think this may be an indication that Classical Arabic was influenced by an older, and lost, Christian Arabic scribal tradition that preserved grammatical features missing in the early Islamic papyri?


    No, I think that is unlikely.  The Arabic of the Qur'an is relatively easy to explain, because it is continuous with the northern dialects of Arabic in almost every respect, in fact almost identical.  Classical Arabic comes in much later, and so the big question is why and where does it come from.  It seems probable that it was propounded as part of some imperial/state effort (which? unclear) to promote quranic recitation, and for whatever reason the classical reading approach was seen as more prestigious/beautiful/impressive/divine, perhaps because of the influence of eastern Arabic poetry.  So it was recited in a pseudo-poetic eastern Arabic register, and that is the approach which was pushed and became dominant with imperial backing.

    Al-Jallad, as far as I can tell, thinks the quranic orthography reflects the practice of scribes who worked in the administrations of the northwest Arabian oasis towns, a practice which had its roots in the old Nabatean imperial system.  In other words, it was a secular script, used in ephemeral writing on papyrus (hence the cursive ligatures).  Why was such a defective script used?  Al-Jallad argues that it was probably primarily used for commercial/inventory purposes, like a receipt, which requires very little detail to understand because its context is so specific (e.g. '4 shp, 2 hrs,' four sheep, 2 horses).  By contrast the early Arabic script was truly awful as a means of recording religious texts, and so there seems to be little reason why Christian scribes, unconstrained, would be the driving force behind use of such a script unless it was already tightly embedded within the state economy.  Al-Jallad talks about this at some point during this wonderful dialogue, which was linked earlier in the thread.

    https://15minutehistory.org/2016/04/27/episode-82-what-writing-can-tell-us-about-the-arabs-before-islam/
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1001 - September 07, 2016, 06:19 PM
    Hi Zaotor,

    Strange for a script not to differentiate btw eg "b" or "n". Isnt it possible that the diacritical marks existed from the beginning but were dropped out of sloppiness when simple "shopping lists" were compiled and consciously omitted when writing the Quran, thus creating more mystery for the revelations?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1002 - September 07, 2016, 06:21 PM
    Quote from: zeca on September 07, 2016, 05:50 PM
    To be fair she's being quoted by a journalist in that report and I'd imagine she'd have given the sources if the journalist had thought to ask the right question.


    So Zeca, you think these pre-Islamic Mecca sources exist or was Petra misquoted by the journalist?

    Thanks
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1003 - September 07, 2016, 06:30 PM
    Quote from: mundi on September 07, 2016, 06:19 PM
    Hi Zaotor,

    Strange for a script not to differentiate btw eg "b" or "n". Isnt it possible that the diacritical marks existed from the beginning but were dropped out of sloppiness when simple "shopping lists" were compiled and consciously omitted when writing the Quran, thus creating more mystery for the revelations?


    Yeah the lack of consonant differentiation reflects its Aramaic origins, since it is a good script for the relatively few Aramaic consonants, but terrible for the vast array of Arabic consonants.

    It is curious that we don't see diacritics in the early texts, because diacritics were certainly already known and occasionally used for the Arabic script when the early quranic manuscripts were written, but still they were not used.  Why not?  Al-Jallad has suggested this was 'archaizing' orthography, implying that writing texts in the old style made them look more authentic, although it was a defective way of writing the recitations down.  It took a long time for a literary/religious mode of Arabic orthography to emerge, with a more full script, against what had been a sort of crude shorthand script used for commercial records and brief inscriptions.  The practice of writing down the Qur'an seems to have remained relatively conservative, which after all is what we'd expect.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1004 - September 07, 2016, 06:32 PM
    Quote from: mundi
    So Zeca, you think these pre-Islamic Mecca sources exist or was Petra misquoted by the journalist?

    I expect sources exist which she believes refer to Mecca. Whether she's right would be another question. Probably the journalist missed the opportunity to ask about the sources rather than misquoting her but this is also possible. Also there was probably far more said than ended up in the report, as you'd expect from an academic talking to a reporter.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1005 - September 07, 2016, 07:03 PM
    Zeca,

    Well if Petra has these pre-islamic Mecca sources up her sleeve I expect a breath taking scientific article soon in which she exposes these sources. Petra must know the controversy surrounding Mecca and that numerous academics have written entire articles about the non-existence of these sources. I m waiting with impatience and am real curious.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1006 - September 07, 2016, 07:14 PM
    Fair enough. Actually reading the report again I'm wondering if she may have been misquoted.

    -----

    Another, fairly technical, article by Sipjesteijn about the clay seals used on official documents. One interesting point is that initially the seals followed earlier practice in using figurative designs, which were only replaced by textual designs in the eighth century following similar changes in the design of coins.

    Seals and Papyri from Early Islamic Egypt

    http://www.academia.edu/10486342/Seals_and_Papyri_from_Early_Islamic_Egypt
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1007 - September 07, 2016, 08:03 PM
    What I found remarkable is that Petra has found a papyrus from 643 AD saying " “Declaration of the Muslims who have taken over the 93 horses according to the sealed documents.” I thought the term "muslims for muslims" was of a later origin, or was that not the case in Arabic? I must say I am confused here.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1008 - September 07, 2016, 08:14 PM
    She seems to be referring to a document in Greek there, so it may be a question of what Greek word she is translating by 'muslims'.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1009 - September 07, 2016, 08:19 PM
    Zeca,

    Seen all the research that has been done by famous academics concerning the subject , that would be rather sloppy to be imprecise, no? Maybe it is really the term "muslim" she has found, and that would make this find very important, no?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1010 - September 07, 2016, 08:28 PM
    Agreed on the first point, though if she is being imprecise she certainly wouldn't be the only academic who does this. I'd be surprised if it really was the term 'muslim', though who knows. I wonder if she's written about the manuscript elsewhere.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1011 - September 07, 2016, 08:38 PM
    Yes, I have the impression imprecision is quite common in islamic studies. Of course that means we need always to be very critical with published material. Since so many academics are imprecise on crucial matters.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1012 - September 07, 2016, 08:56 PM
    Quote from: mundi on September 07, 2016, 08:03 PM
    What I found remarkable is that Petra has found a papyrus from 643 AD saying " “Declaration of the Muslims who have taken over the 93 horses according to the sealed documents.” I thought the term "muslims for muslims" was of a later origin, or was that not the case in Arabic? I must say I am confused here.


    Actually there are some indications that "muslims" was used broadly but was not a term specific to the groups we think of as muslim, who would have been called mu'minun.  If you look at the so-called Mecca constitution document, it seems to treat the 'believers' (mu'minun) as a subset of the 'muslims,' who seem to encompass all biblical monotheists, roughly.  For whatever reason, that latter category appears to have steadily displaced the former.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1013 - September 07, 2016, 09:16 PM
    I havent read any analysis of this Mecca constitution yet. Very interesting element...
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1014 - September 07, 2016, 09:18 PM
    Should that be the constitution of Medina? Or a different document? But yes that's a very interesting point.
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1015 - September 07, 2016, 09:36 PM
     Smiley must be Medina  constitution... are we being sloppy?? But I´m no academic, so have an excuse..
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1016 - September 07, 2016, 09:46 PM
    Yes, must be Medina. Another question for Zaotar (or anyone else who feels like answering) - how certain is it that the constitution of Medina is actually about Medina?
    Which side are you on?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1017 - September 07, 2016, 10:28 PM
    Quote from: zeca on September 07, 2016, 09:46 PM
    Yes, must be Medina. Another question for Zaotar (or anyone else who feels like answering) - how certain is it that the constitution of Medina is actually about Medina?


    And how certain is the  place  Madina  that we have in the sandland  is Yathrib .. the migrated place  Madinat al-Nabi  and who was Madinat al-Nabi ?

    and   What is meaning of the word "Madina" in Arabic?

     
    Oh well   big Al knows the best
    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1018 - September 07, 2016, 10:37 PM
    Sorry yes all this talk about Mecca led me to the typo.  And this is how myths are made.

    At least in my view, the so-called constitution of Medina is clearly a composite document, but it likely is assembled from several very early records that genuinely preserve something about Medina, i.e. Yathrib, and its relation to the prophet's historical rule.

    Yathrib only appears once in the Qur'an, Q 33:13, interestingly, and Q 33 is actually my personal candidate for 'surah most likely to have been interpolated last.'  It's the only surah that mentions Yathrib, and it's also the surah with the infamous Q 33:40, 'Muhammad is not the father of any of your men but the messenger of Allah and the seal of the prophets.'  These are clear anachronisms by my light.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1019 - September 07, 2016, 11:13 PM
    Thanks Zaotar.
    Which side are you on?
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