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 Topic: Qur'anic studies today

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  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1290 - January 19, 2017, 10:06 PM

    Is this hypothesis completely new? Doesn´t it amount to a variant of the theory presented by K.H. Ohlig (of Inarah group) saying that the "muslims" of the first decennia of the 7th C were christians of an East-Syrian monophysite theology?
    http://inarah.de/bereits-veroeffentlichte-artikel/die-christliche-literatur-unter-arabischer-herrschaft-im-7-und-8-jahrhundert/

    I think Segovia is looking more towards origins in the Hijaz and influence from a South Arabian christology.

    Quote
    I think the early dating of the Quran (beginning 7th C) with  Jesus in a secondary role undermines these theories unless we assume that although Quran existed at the time, no one  read it...

    iirc Zaotar has suggested that the Qur'an may not have been so widely read in its first decades.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1291 - January 19, 2017, 11:14 PM


    I think Segovia is looking more towards origins in the Hijaz and influence from a South Arabian christology.iirc Zaotar has suggested that the Qur'an may not have been so widely read in its first decades.


    I guess we could put Gallez´ theory also in this group of hypotheses, but then that the origin of "muslims" were judo-nazareens. I do think emphasizing the Jewish component makes more sense seen the content of the Quran. What do you think, Zeca?

    Zaotar´s suggestion that the Quran wasnt read very much in the beginning makes sense, but assuming that it had NO importance  beginning 7C has consequences. Two hypothetical scenarios are then possible:

    1/The Quran was already in the possession of the new sect but the anti-Christian content didnt come into play because no one could read the text. The Quran was venerated as a holy object and faithfully transcribed but without understanding it. Only late 7C a deciphering started and the anti-christian nature of the book became clear to the unto then Christian sect, and they then decided to act accordingly.
    2/ The Quran was not the reference book at the beginning of the Muslim Christian sect and thus the muslim faith remained a Christian heresy without the anti-Christian doctrine of the Quran. Only end of 7C was the need felt for a holy book, and someone decided to adopt a book conserved and transscribed somewhere in secret libraries, dusted it, decided to make it the reference book and to adapt the anti-Christian doctrine, together with all the alimentary other rules.

    Both options don´t make sense and are highly unlikely? I think it is more logical to accept that from the beginning of the new faith, the Quran reflected the big lines of the new faith. Not necessarily did the book have the status it later got, but still set out the lines. And the Quran does really not seem to me to be a Christian book, not at all... Huh?

    I hope for some feedback!
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1292 - January 19, 2017, 11:53 PM

    I'm inclined to see the early believers as evolving gradually from some kind of Christian sect towards an identity as a distinct religion over the course of the seventh century. I'd say the Jewish influences are secondary. I think Segovia sees any explicitly anti-Christian rhetoric in the Qur'an as belonging to a late layer in the text, though earlier layers certainly don't represent an orthodox Christianity.

    It's worth reading the articles above by Nicolai Sinai for his take on all this, though I think he does have an agenda of trying to salvage something from the traditional account that doesn't entirely convince me.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1293 - January 20, 2017, 12:07 AM


    Quote
    While it is a moot question how the Qur’an’s milieu of origin is to be most defensibly characterized, I am inclined to envisage it as marked by a syncretistic amalgamation of pagan Arabian rituals with concepts, narratives, and practices derived from the Judaeo-Christian heritage,106 as well as some acquaintance with, yet also widespread dismissal of, Judaeo- Christian eschatology. As indicated above, the thematic and formal convergence of the early Qur’an with Syriac homiletic and hymnic literature makes it historically probable that Christian preaching, and perhaps also Christian liturgy, had some presence in this milieu.107 The appearance in this environment of the early Qur’anic surahs may then be viewed as a highly selective appropriation of Christian eschatological piety, set forth as divine revelation and presented in Arabic.

    From this I don't think Sinai sees the Qur'anic milieu as being Christian exactly. I'm inclined to think that Christianity and syncretism with older religious traditions aren't mutually exclusive, and that the milieu was in the process of developing from a form of Christianity into something else. I'd see 'Islam' as an end result of this process rather than as a cause.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1294 - January 20, 2017, 12:38 AM

    Peter Webb reviews Greg Fisher's Arabs and Empires before Islam

    https://www.academia.edu/31000884/Review_of_Greg_Fisher_Arabs_and_Empires_before_Islam
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1295 - January 20, 2017, 02:24 AM

    To clarify a bit, I see the Qur'an as emerging from a milieu that has already generated a popular non-sacramental soteriology (meaning the way in which believers were saved), focused purely on eschatological salvation (meaning they were saved entirely by ethical purity and devotion to their Lord, in expectation of the Judgment).

    You could call it a condensed peripheral derivative of Christianity, generated by the diffusion of Syriac Christian preaching into old Arabian devotional practice, that insistently rejected any role for priests and baptism/eucharist.

    The critical split was over whether God had saved the believers by assuming human flesh.  There is no doubt in my mind that this view, the core of standard Nicene Christianity, was already rejected at a pre-quranic stage in favor of a generalized soteriology centered on the idea of the Lord's descending eschatological Word, which never put on true human flesh.

    The only form of Christianity this theology could have resembled very closely would be the supposedly-heretical 'Messalian' forms of early Syriac Christianity.  As such, while I see quranic theology as largely a genetic derivative built upon Syriac Christian foundations, its core had already irreparably diverged from Christianity (at a communal level) before it developed a distinctive new revelation theology (i.e. centered on the quranic messenger).  I think it's a mistake to think of the early surahs as being particularly 'Christian' or 'Islamic,' as they are more transitional in their theology.  An even worse mistake is to see this process of creative divergence as somehow a mere passive 'relic' of obscure prior sects (like 'Jewish Christianity') that supposedly influenced the prophet, rather than a broader process of innovative Syrian-Arabian development.

    For what it's worth, my view is probably not much different from Sinai's here, except that I think there was considerably more Christian influence than he accepts...i.e. the process of divergence was probably more protracted, pervasive, and extended more broadly across varied pre-prophetic communities than his prophet-centered view allows.  Sinai is really, really, really good and thoughtful.  Much better IMO than his predecessors Neuwirth and Marx.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1296 - January 20, 2017, 10:25 AM

    Hi Zaotar,

    I enjoyed Sinai´s article very much and retain here a quote:
    Quote
    ...what one is perhaps first bound to notice, especially against the background of its far-reaching convergence with Syriac homiletic literature, is the consistent elimination of the soteriological and eschatological function of Christ, who is not so much as mentioned until a clearly later period of the Qur’an’s genesis.
    For all its thematic and formal affinities to the Syriac mimrē corpus, the early Qur’an shows no trace of the basicChristian conviction that salvation is to be achieved through Jesus Christ.


    1-So if I understood your post correctly, you see the Quran as the expression of ideas of a movement that existed already for some time. But if such a movement existed, how can you explain the reliance on the Syriac corpus? Doesnt this contradiction/discrepancy of the use of Syriac-Christian texts and the non-Christian convictions rather point to a conscious break between the Christian and new faith? There are a lot of examples in history eg Manichaeism, Mormons... So it is not so far fetched that at a certain very specific moment a "prophet" stood up and tried to create its own religion, that was not there before, for his own ends.

    2-If I understood Sinai correctly, his arguments go against the "new" hypothesis of Segovia and Ohlig that early 7th C muslims saw themselves or were seen as Christians with a different christology.

    3- Is there any evidence  that this messalic Quranic christology existed in the region? I understand that C. Robin´s find can give such an indication but those finds are in S. Arabia and the Quran is written in Arabic which is only found in the North, predating the Quran. So this connection as proof is at the moment not very convincing to me.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1297 - January 20, 2017, 10:31 AM

    Thanks Zaotar.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1298 - January 20, 2017, 10:47 AM

    Frédéric Imbert on the 'Qur'an of the rocks' (article in French on Arabic graffiti)

    https://www.academia.edu/30964676/LE_CORAN_DES_PIERRES_STATISTIQUES_EPIGRAPHIQUES_ET_PREMIERES_ANALYSES
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1299 - January 20, 2017, 12:26 PM

    Zaotar and Zeca,

    I found this article of Gallez repudiating Ohlig´s theory of an existing primitive arabic sect where he argues amongst other:
    Quote
    In the face of these major objections, how much is actually left to support the thesis of a
    « primitive Arabic Christianity »? One might wish to appeal to the theological discussions debated
    prior to the 7th century, and which dealt with the definitions of canonical formulations and ways of
    expressing (in various languages) the Mystery of Jesus the Christ and Savior amidst the rising, on
    the one hand, of « Monophysite » tendencies (minimizing the reality of Christ’s human nature);
    and, on the other, of « Diophysite » or « Nestorian » tendencies (insisting on the two « natures
    / Hypostases » without knowing how they coexist in Christ). However, never did these debates put
    in question the general recognition of the historical figure of Jesus as Savior evincing God’s visit
    and revelation to His people. To see therein antagonistic conceptions of the Christian faith is as
    fruitless as conceiving of the many juridical schools in Islam as though they resulted in various
    Islamic « faiths » or antagonistic interpretations of the Koran.


    The complete article is here: http://www.lemessieetsonprophete.com/annexes/Hidden_Origins_of_Islam-EN.pdf

    Gallez argues that there is no trace to be found in ME of Christians aligning with the "Quranic christiology. Is he overlooking something?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1300 - January 20, 2017, 12:34 PM


    3- Is there any evidence  that this messalic Quranic christology existed in the region? I understand that C. Robin´s find can give such an indication but those finds are in S. Arabia and the Quran is written in Arabic which is only found in the North, predating the Quran. So this connection as proof is at the moment not very convincing to me.



    Mundi, i think we are underestimating C.Robin, it is not only messalic Quranic christology, but other key aspect of the quran, Al Rahman, Salat, Zakat, Mihrab, the practice of killing young girls, basically all what he is saying ; people in Arabia mange to develop their own form of a mixture of Christianity and Judaism,  long time before Muhammed , he did not invent anything new, all those concept were there already, maybe he preached the end of time at certain point.

    one thing, I fail to comprehend, it is like the Arabs could not possibly come up with a new take on existing religions ?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1301 - January 20, 2017, 12:56 PM

    Hi Hatoush,

    I do think the Arabs could come up with a new take on the existing religions. I just don´t see any evidence that it was a gradual process pre-Islam, with the Quran being the logical expression of these changing beliefs. Seen the content of the Quran, and our knowledge now that it is a very early document , the new ideas seem to have come up quite abrupt (eg like Joseph Smith had a revelation and founded the Mormon church...)

    Does C. Robin pose that the Quranic ideas originated in South Arabia where he found the inscriptions? I don´t remember that. I  thought that he was arguing that the Messiah formulation might be to appease the important Jewish population of the area. I might be wrong, maybe I should relisten...
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1302 - January 20, 2017, 01:11 PM

    Hi Hatoush again,

    I think the early 7C carbon dating of (parts) of the Quran changes a lot. Because of it we know that the anti-Christian ideas existed already at an early time, so Islam being just another Christian heresy just doesn´t make sense.
    Of course if one assumes the book remained on the shelf for 150 years and NO ONE could read it or knew what was in it, then it is possible again. But I guess then the info on graffiti we are getting through F. Imbert (showing that Arabic was widely used by the "common" traveller very early in 7th C) should really be re-examined (I am already skeptical about the early dated KSA graffiti, so why not?).

    Or maybe the verses of the earliest Quran dont contain the anti-Christian parts. Maybe that is another possibility?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1303 - January 20, 2017, 01:48 PM

    Hi Hatoush,

    I do think the Arabs could come up with a new take on the existing religions. I just don´t see any evidence that it was a gradual process pre-Islam, with the Quran being the logical expression of these changing beliefs. Seen the content of the Quran, and our knowledge now that it is a very early document , the new ideas seem to have come up quite abrupt (eg like Joseph Smith had a revelation and founded the Mormon church...)

    Does C. Robin pose that the Quranic ideas originated in South Arabia where he found the inscriptions? I don´t remember that. I  thought that he was arguing that the Messiah formulation might be to appease the important Jewish population of the area. I might be wrong, maybe I should relisten...


    sorry probably I did not write  well , he said a key aspect of quran's ideas were already known in South Arabia, who copy who is not relevant.
     Alrahman, another name of God was known already !!  a fantastic graffiti he found was "in the name of Alrahman, alrahim" and it was old graffiti . allah was added later.

    contrary to popular beliefs, Muhammed ideas were not radical, otherwise he would not have survived. unless you believe he was protected by God,  the only "new" concept in quran is jesus as a prophet, and even that it was already known ?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1304 - January 20, 2017, 02:42 PM

    Hatoush,

    What does the use of the word of "alrahman" prove? Doesnt it come from the Aramean word "rahmana", used very frequently in the Rabinic literature as a name for God? The use of it in S. Arabia just proves the intensive contacts there were between the different parts of ME (someting C. Robin also points out).

    Mohammed´s ideas (or the ones depicted in Quran) must have been quite radical to Christians placing Christ in the role of a second order prophet.

    Maybe the ideas survived because they complemented the existing world with concepts like jihad, polygamy, divine justification of booty. Why is Islam so popular these days? I guess its because its concepts appeal to people, no?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1305 - January 20, 2017, 02:55 PM

    What does the use of the word of "alrahman" prove? Doesnt it come from the Aramean word "rahmana", used very frequently in the Rabinic literature as a name for God? The use of it in S. Arabia just proves the intensive contacts there were between the different parts of ME (someting C. Robin also points out).

    it Prove Muhammed did not invented the word Alrahman,it is not new

    Mohammed´s ideas (or the ones depicted in Quran) must have been quite radical to Christians placing Christ in the role of a second order prophet.

    yes radical for Christians but not original as it was already in South Arabia,

    put it this way, I am not particularly concerned about what or what not Muhammad has said or did, I am more interested in the religious milieu in the 7c Arabia, because i think new religious ideas emerge from existing one

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1306 - January 20, 2017, 03:12 PM

    Hatoush,

    Why would Mohammed invent a new language? Of course he used the language which existed.

    Religious ideas don´t always build on existing ones and sometimes the message can be quite radical. An example of that is Christianity I would think. The spread of Islam seemed to be much faster than the spread of Christianity. I guess Mohammeds message had more appeal and was more effective in its propagation. The radical part in Islam was maybe the degradation of Christ to a secondary role? Sociologically (polygamy, the role of women, booty laws) were quite easy to accept I think, no? Be it in S. Arabia or N. Arabia.

    Since I don´t believe the Quran is the word of god, and we know that throughout history, religious concepts have been fabricated to grab power continuously, I dont see why not to consider the sudden introduction of proto-Islam in a certain society. Proto-Islam seems to have been a power religion from the beginning, having been used to rally the troops and earthly rewarding them. That would fit then with the traditional narritive of a new religion being formed and going on the warpath for more "lebensraum" and booty.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1307 - January 20, 2017, 03:41 PM

    Mundi

    seriously, Judaism think Jesus was a liar, what Radical about Jesus being prophet, i would say Quran was rather pragmatic,

    Sociologically (polygamy, the role of women, booty laws)  they were already there, please don't tell me you think Muhammed invented Polygamy , The Quran is not about muhammed,  he is only cited 4 times.

    why the Arabs were so successful, and i use Arab for a reason, as an example the first Arabs that fought for Iraq were totally independent from Muhammed movement,  i prefer a more historical explanation,  the two biggest powers were weak after a long bloody war, simply they were in the right time.

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1308 - January 20, 2017, 04:14 PM

    Hatoush,

    Judaism: Yes, maybe proto-Islam was attractive for Christians in comparison with Judaism and made indeed conversion for them easier.

    Quote
    Sociologically (polygamy, the role of women, booty laws)  they were already there

    . Indeed, that´s what I said. But Islam reinforced these traditional concepts and sanctified them and that must have been quite popular, just as it is even now in modern times.

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1309 - January 20, 2017, 04:19 PM

     deleted by yeezevee....

    with best wishes..

    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 #1310 - January 20, 2017, 04:23 PM

    Mundi

    you are making projection , you can not understand what happen in the 7th century based on the current time, the Arabs were not interested in spreading Islam, it was more about collecting TAX,  Islam did not spread in a decades it took centuries,  it was a very complex phenomenon.

    but i guess you prefer a simpler rhetoric.    
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1311 - January 20, 2017, 04:29 PM

    seriously guys, this thread is about quranic studies, not theology or conspiracies theories, or muhammed was evil or not, WTF
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1312 - January 20, 2017, 04:43 PM

    deleted......yeezevee

    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 #1313 - January 20, 2017, 04:48 PM

    seriously guys, this thread is about quranic studies, not theology or conspiracies theories, or muhammed was evil or not, WTF


    What ia a conspiracy theory? That the Quran is not the word of god or someone designed it with a purpose? In history, that happened in all societies, why not in Islam?

    The conquests was probably as you say about collecting Tax and booty, just as in modern times that is what wars are about. And just as now no one admits that is the reason but looks for excuses (human rights?), a narrative was necessary in 7C (Islam?). Far fetched? too simplistic? I think humans now are quite similar to the ones of the 7C (genetically they are, we know that). So why not apply a bit of 21 C logic to 7 C?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1314 - January 20, 2017, 05:12 PM

    Zaotar and Zeca,

    I found this article of Gallez repudiating Ohlig´s theory of an existing primitive arabic sect where he argues amongst other:
    The complete article is here: http://www.lemessieetsonprophete.com/annexes/Hidden_Origins_of_Islam-EN.pdf

    Gallez argues that there is no trace to be found in ME of Christians aligning with the "Quranic christiology. Is he overlooking something?


    It's not so much overlooking as pointing out the evidentiary problem with my view, which is that I see quranic soteriology as essentially emerging on the periphery of the ecclesiastical establishment, born from new ideas of eternal paradise that penetrated into Old Arabian devotional practice.... practice that had previously centered on supplicating the deity in exchange for worldly rewards (fame, wealth, sons, victory in battle, security).  This was replaced by the hope of paradise.  That replacement occurred *outside* Christian ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the periphery.

    The evidentiary problem here is that, being generated outside of a highly-literate hierarchy, we should expect to find (a) no formal written texts that express this generic soteriological attitude; and (b) only find it expressed as folk piety, in short graffiti and recitations.  That seems to have been the case, but we cannot expect to find elaborate written texts by a priesthood which memorialize this type of folk piety.  It is not the kind of proposition that is easily proved historically either way (compare, btw, to evolutionary theory, where 'peripheral' variation in a population tends to be indescernible until it explosively displaces the seemingly static prevalent forms, with this punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record giving the illusion of species bursting forth from nowhere).  In religious history, peripheral simplification tends to survive only as isolated sayings, inscriptions, and above all in the criticisms or narratives of its competing literate orthodoxies.

    On the latter front, Jack Tannous has done great work discussing this kind of folk peripheral 'Christian-ish' devotional practice in Syria, and I see the same/similar environment as existing, with even less clerical supervision, in the more 'Arabian' regions.

    Finally, my view is that Quranic Christology is somewhat misunderstood, and that (like Sinai's quote sort of implies) what you saw was an ur-quranic Christological *collapse*, in which the soteriological value of the human Jesus was suppressed dogmatically, and the divinity of Jesus was assimilated entirely to the Lord, with his divinity 'correctly' seen as God's revelation of himself as a descending eschatological word, non-human (cf. Q 97 here).  Jesus was basically sundered into a purely divine aspect of God, alongside a completely suppressed human residue.  I have a long draft paper written on this subject, arguing that genetically quranic theology is actually most easily seen as emerging from a popularized peripheral form of anti-Chalcedonian (i.e. monophysite) Christianity, just as the quranic lexicon would suggest, rather than from a 'low Christology,' as usually believed.  In my view the 'lowness' of the Christology of Medinan surahs is secondary.  More primitively, Christ was 'collapsed' into the rabb, and his human nature suppressed entirely.  The Lord was the Lord, period.  This meant there never was any truly human Jesus, which is why he doesn't appear until relatively late in the corpus, then appears in a bizarrely faux-docetic form, and is called a 'word' or 'spirit' from God .... and as I argue, this was a secondary assimilation of Jesus to quranic prophetology, built over the basal Christological collapse, essentially a 'compromise' with the musrikun.

    Sorry to go on at great length, but quranic Christology has been an interest of mine recently, and my view is that it tends to be greatly over-simplified by starting with the explicit mentions of Jesus in the Medinan surahs and assuming that these views are (a) unified and (b) identical to precursors implicitly expressed in the archaic surahs, much less in the ur-quranic milieu.  I think that you need to build it out the other way, to articulate a coherent genealogical map by which Syriac Christian theology could be transformed into the archaic surah theology (which has no Jesus, as Sinai points out), and then explain how that later transitions into the explicit mentions of Jesus in the 'Medinan' surahs.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1315 - January 20, 2017, 05:59 PM

    Thank you Zaotar for bearing with me,

    True, without evidence all this is hard to prove, but it doesn´t mean it didn´t happen that way of course.
    But why assume that this changing Christiology is the result of  popular movement over time and not just the expression of a limited "powerhouse" , a group of people, waking up one day, deciding to put their long discussions to book, and use it as a means of motivating "the Arabs" to fill the power-vacuum existing by the weakening of Byzantium and the Sassanide empire?
    There are plenty of examples in history of this happening, though none as successful as Islam.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1316 - January 20, 2017, 06:28 PM

    Stephen Shoemaker talking about a newly translated early 8th century martyrdom account.
    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7cO6mztBp4
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1317 - January 20, 2017, 07:26 PM

    But why assume that this changing Christiology is the result of  popular movement over time and not just the expression of a limited "powerhouse" , a group of people, waking up one day, deciding to put their long discussions to book, and use it as a means of motivating "the Arabs" to fill the power-vacuum existing by the weakening of Byzantium and the Sassanide empire?

    I wonder if anyone involved really expected to overthrow empires before it actually happened. Maybe it was more along the lines of raiding parties finding themselves pushing at an open door following the defeat of the Sassanians by Heraclius. I'm doubtful about taking the way history turned out and reading too much of a conscious plan into it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1318 - January 20, 2017, 07:45 PM

    Yes, Zeca, true, doubtful that the initial raiding parties did not exceed their own expectations (but maybe not in their own lifetime...).

    Gallez´ theory (sorry for always referring to him...) explains that this "group" preaching to the Arabs and composing the Quran (the judeo-nazareens)were focussed on reconquering Jerusalem, and this would mean the return of the Messiah and end of the world...
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #1319 - January 20, 2017, 08:27 PM

    Thank you Zaotar for bearing with me,

    True, without evidence all this is hard to prove, but it doesn´t mean it didn´t happen that way of course.
    But why assume that this changing Christiology is the result of  popular movement over time and not just the expression of a limited "powerhouse" , a group of people, waking up one day, deciding to put their long discussions to book, and use it as a means of motivating "the Arabs" to fill the power-vacuum existing by the weakening of Byzantium and the Sassanide empire?
    There are plenty of examples in history of this happening, though none as successful as Islam.


    A valid question for sure, but there are two major reasons to see it as a broader movement.  One, which I can't really explain in detail here, is that the structure of early quranic soteriology (how the believers are saved) looks like something that can only be explained as a simplified popular derivative of Syriac Christianity.  The earliest quranic theology and its Christological silence doesn't look at all like something that somebody designed to legitimate an apocalpytic political/militant movement (like the Medinana surahs clearly are), it looks like something that originally rejected clerical authority in favor of individualized piety focused on paradise.  It doesn't seem to legitimate any form of identifiable worldly authority, not even identifiable prophetic authority.  It seems to do the opposite--the only legitimate authority is Allah, and the believer's sole concern is with Allah's judgement on the Day.  That is why Noldeke, for example, concluded that both Musaylima and Muhammad must have both derived their theology from Christianity.  It wasn't just Mo alone.  And we have the idea of the "hanifs" here to deal with, which if you believe Islamic tradition, were circulating prior to Muhammad.

    The easier point, however, is to look at a very interesting source of contemporary evidence, the early Arabic graffiti.  These inscriptions do not look Christian, and they don't look Islamic.  They never mention Muhammad or Christ.  They do frequently mention biblical prophets, by contrast, and center on obsessively begging Allah to forgive sins and grant entry to paradise.  Plainly this was the most pervasive form of popular devotion.  Since it doesn't look particularly Islamic, or Christian, or particularly constrained by strict confessional ideals of any kind, I tend to think it should be understood as a broader phenomenon of vague monotheism, not just something created out of nothing by a new prophet or a small group of men.  Of course others disagree, and argue that the lack of reference to Muhammad and the Qur'an in the early texts and inscriptions reflects orality and illiteracy problems.  In my view, that is a very forced interpretation of the data, which suggests that Muhammad and the Qur'an just weren't that important at this stage, relative to broader devotional practices (btw, I feel that an even worse interpretation of this absence is to assume that Muhammad and the Qur'an did not exist ....).

    Here's the best article on this subject.  It's awesome, and has been previously linked to in this thread.

    https://www.academia.edu/28761420/The_Ancient_North_Arabian_and_Early_Islamic_Arabic_Graffiti_A_Comparison_of_Formal_and_Thematic_Features
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