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 Topic: Qur'anic studies today

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  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5040 - January 24, 2019, 09:54 AM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 09:10 AM
    About Kerr's reply:

    Quite convincing I think.

    Maybe he can add an archeological criterium too. No early Qibla points to the Hijaz/ Mecca...


    He can add that nobody before Islam knows Mecca/Medina/Kaba which are supposed to be (for Mecca) a great city of commerce, etc.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5041 - January 24, 2019, 09:55 AM
    Read Morris on that point, Altara. The link I provided, that is.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5042 - January 24, 2019, 09:58 AM
    "estranged monasteries"

    I just try to make this emergence of the Quran very concrete (without divine intercession). Who could have put an oeuvre like the Quran together? The ideal place seems to me to be a monastery. I have called it a "rogue"monastery before but rightly got a reprimand of Yeez because disrespectful...

    Heresies or alternative religions/interpretation is something of all times. Usually their creators emerge from religious settings. The spiritual background must be there, but also the material background: the access to sources, to parchment, to papyrus, available time....

    I see parallels in modern times. I think of Calvin that was called to Geneva to set up a new doctrine that served the purpose of the city, I think of Joseph Smith of the Mormons that out of his inspiration tried to set up a new state... There is also Luther that started in the monastery.

    So my question again: What setting in Late Antiquity other than a monastery would have matched the ideal place to write a Quran?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5043 - January 24, 2019, 10:02 AM
    Quote
    He can add that nobody before Islam knows Mecca/Medina/Kaba which are supposed to be (for Mecca) a great city of commerce, etc.


    Yes, Altara, that would be an argument but people will say "Mecca existed but was not documented".

    But the early Qiblas exist and they don't point to Mecca. Even like in Ayla, where the early Muslims practically could see the Hijaz with their own eyes, they chose to point the Qibla to the Sinai.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5044 - January 24, 2019, 10:07 AM
    Quote from: Mahgraye on January 24, 2019, 09:55 AM
    Read Morris on that point, Altara.


    What page on that point?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5045 - January 24, 2019, 10:28 AM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 09:58 AM
    "estranged monasteries"

    I just try to make this emergence of the Quran very concrete (without divine intercession).

    Yes.


     
    Quote
    The spiritual background must be there, but also the material background: the access to sources, to parchment, to papyrus, available time...


    Yes. It is (very) improbable that a "city"  in a barren land that nobody knows at that time listen to the Quranic proclamations; these peoples would have been theologians. Only people in the field could understand the subject of the texts. 
    Quote
    So my question again: What setting in Late Antiquity other than a monastery would have matched the ideal place to write a Quran?

    Respond to this question :
    Quran written for Arabs monks? Or Arabs monks writing the Quran?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5046 - January 24, 2019, 10:33 AM
    The entire document. Goes through the sources and concludes that Mecca is not mentioned in any source prior to the expansion.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5047 - January 24, 2019, 10:42 AM
    Quote
    Quran written for Arabs monks? Or Arabs monks writing the Quran?


    Let's compare with Luther. Before him, almost exclusively Latin texts came out of the monastery. Still he was German and German was his mother tongue. And he used that element to set himself apart from the theology he was working against.

    I think the Quranic enablers were Arab monks written for who? That is a separate question. Maybe the leaders of the conquest ordered an Arabic holy book to use as a motivational tool in the conquests (Here the Calvin parallel works, the state placed an order for a theology that fit with the city's needs)?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5048 - January 24, 2019, 11:22 AM
    Quote from: Mahgraye on January 24, 2019, 10:33 AM
    The entire document. Goes through the sources and concludes that Mecca is not mentioned in any source prior to the expansion.


    Yes. Therefore there is no Mecca (as recount Ibn Ishaq) before Islam, hence no "prophet" proclaiming the Quran in that place or elsewhere as the event would have been known one way or another as one is not on planet Mars but in an heavily dcribal area where people voyage . There is nothing, not a piece of allusion to this story.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5049 - January 24, 2019, 11:44 AM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 10:42 AM
    Let's compare with Luther.


    Bad way for me ; each situation is  (very) specific and the outcome is totally different.

     
    Quote
    Before him, almost exclusively Latin texts came out of the monastery. Still he was German and German was his mother tongue. And he used that element to set himself apart from the theology he was working against.


    Luther translated the Bible in German and keep the general Christian faith.
    The  Arab monks have translated the Bible in Arabic?
    The Quranic texts are keeping the general Christian faith like Luther?
    I'm not really sure of that...

    Quote
    I think the Quranic enablers were Arab monks written for who? That is a separate question.

    Not at all. When you write something it is for someone else. Writing is stocking information to be communicated ; it the first admitted reason of the invention of writing (Sumer) : to keep trace for for yourself and others. And not staying outside other people.  Therefore it is not a separate question especially when one see the topics that the Quranic texts is talking about.
    It is interesting that you cannot envisage that writing is for other people. It is yet what you do in this forum. You write for others. And nothing else.

    Quote
    Maybe the leaders of the conquest ordered an Arabic holy book to use as a motivational tool in the conquests (Here the Calvin parallel works, the state placed an order for a theology that fit with the city's needs)?


    The  Arabic "conquests" (630-700) have nothing to see with "Mecca/Medina/Muhammad" therefore the Quran.

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5050 - January 24, 2019, 12:02 PM
    Quote
    Not at all. When you write something it is for someone else.


    I guess you are saying that the Quran was written to evangelise specific people. In a way, this is what the Quran states itself.

    And thus We have revealed to you an Arabic Qur'an that you may warn the Mother of Cities [Makkah] and those around it and warn of the Day of Assembly, about which there is no doubt (surah 42:7).

    I often wonder if this verse is an interpolation or if it was there from the start to target the quranic audience.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5051 - January 24, 2019, 12:05 PM
    Altara,

    1/
    Quote
    It is interesting that you cannot envisage that writing is for other people. It is yet what you do in this forum. You write for others. And nothing else.


    I think I have written a lot on this forum that no one read or no one understood  wacko

    2/ Luther:

    We see him now staying in the Christian faith but I guess he was considered quite some heretic by some at the time... And we know Islam was considered a christian heresy by John of Damascus!

    All comparisons will differ in the details or maybe on essential points, I know. Just used to test the plausibility of the hypotheses I present here.

    3/

    Arabic conquest from 630 on: We dont know when Quran was written. We know it is very early. But are we sure it is earlier than 630? I have read that the conquests in Persia might have started earlier than previously thought... It is all uncertain.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5052 - January 24, 2019, 12:09 PM
    Marc,

    Quote
    I guess you are saying that the Quran was written to evangelise specific people. In a way, this is what the Quran states itself.


    I dont think a people is evangelized or converted by complicated texts.  They are converted by eg a King that decides people will convert, or by advantages a new religion gives them, or by inspiring slogans. The theological texts are on the "back stage"to reinforce the belief of the converted.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5053 - January 24, 2019, 12:11 PM
    Quote
      I have read that the conquests in Persia might have started earlier than previously thought


    I think it would be better to talk about arab raids rather than the conquest of Persia. Nothing proves that conquering this whole territory was the initial goal. Otherwise, yes it did start earlier than what the official islamic narrative says about it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5054 - January 24, 2019, 12:13 PM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 12:09 PM
    Marc,

    I dont think a people is evangelized or converted by complicated texts.  They are converted by eg a King that decides people will convert, or by advantages a new religion gives them, or by inspiring slogans. The theological texts are on the "back stage"to reinforce the belief of the converted.


    Agreed but this is the same thing and still part of the evangelisation process.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5055 - January 24, 2019, 12:27 PM
    Marc,

    Quote
    Agreed but this is the same thing and still part of the evangelisation process.


    Yes, true. But texts like the Quran are used in a later faze in the confrontation with a newly converted people. The people who understood the Quranic text don't need to represent the broad society where proto-Islam emerged.

    The scholars looking for the "audience" and who try to reconstruct the society Mohammed functioned in this way are looking too far imo.

    eg:
    If the hypothesis is right that the Quran was developed in a dissident monastery, that doesnt mean that Mohammed's broad society and co-combattants shared the knowledge of the monks. In fact when islamic scholars began to study the Quran in detail a century later, a lot of that knowledge was already lost. So maybe the text was written, preserved, used but hardly underdstood.

    possible?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5056 - January 24, 2019, 12:28 PM
    https://twitter.com/CellardEleonore/status/1088392315167752192?s=19
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5057 - January 24, 2019, 09:16 PM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 12:27 PM
    Marc,

    The people who understood the Quranic text don't need to represent the broad society where proto-Islam emerged.




    I agree but the people who spread and built islam were not the ones who wrote the Quran.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5058 - January 24, 2019, 09:23 PM
    Quote from: Marc S on January 24, 2019, 12:02 PM
    I guess you are saying that the Quran was written to evangelise specific people. In a way, this is what the Quran states itself.


    It is (for me) written for others, I don't see (whatever is written down) what else it's for.

    Quote
    And thus We have revealed to you an Arabic Qur'an that you may warn the Mother of Cities [Makkah] and those around it and warn of the Day of Assembly, about which there is no doubt (surah 42:7).


    I often wonder if this verse is an interpolation or if it was there from the start to target the quranic audience.
    [/quote]

    When you understand that the text is for others, you get many things about it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5059 - January 24, 2019, 09:28 PM
    Marc,

    Quote
    I agree but the people who spread and built islam were not the ones who wrote the Quran.


    I agree too. I dont think the Quran was that central to proto-Islam. Probably it was important to have the Holy Book. But what exactly was in it, did not matter too much.

    Although minimising its role too much isn't realistic either. The broad guidelines must have corresponded with the propagated message of the early conquerors: monotheism, a loose relationship to judaism and christianity, social guidelines (polygamy, circumcision, slavery rules).

    Probably the exact content became more important as time went by.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5060 - January 24, 2019, 09:30 PM
    Altara,

    The text being for others:

    No doubt the author had the intention to be read and to be influential. But did the text have that result in the beginning? Like I said, I doubt its efficiency for conversion.

    Just like the text of the Bible didnt convert the Germanic tribes...
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5061 - January 24, 2019, 09:45 PM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 12:05 PM
    Altara,

    2/ Luther:

    We see him now staying in the Christian faith but I guess he was considered quite some heretic by some at the time... And we know Islam was considered a christian heresy by John of Damascus!


    1/I said ; general Christian faith. Not the case of the Quran.
    2/ Nope the title is "treskeia of the Ismaelites" not "Hairesis" : Courtieu article : http://digistore.bib.ulb.ac.be/2017/i9782800415840_f.pdf

    Quote
    All comparisons will differ in the details or maybe on essential points, I know. Just used to test the plausibility of the hypotheses I present here.


    Next time choose a better one, this one is not efficient.

    Quote
    3/

    Arabic conquest from 630 on: We dont know when Quran was written. We know it is very early. But are we sure it is earlier than 630? I have read that the conquests in Persia might have started earlier than previously thought... It is all uncertain.


    The war between Arabs and Persians starts in 602. No  Mecca, no Kaba, no Abu Bakr, no Zem Zem. Check the sources.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5062 - January 24, 2019, 10:10 PM

    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 09:30 PM
    Altara,

    The text being for others:

    No doubt the author had the intention to be read and to be influential.


    Then stop to say the contrary each time... Afro

    Quote
    But did the text have that result in the beginning?

     

    What beginning? Can you describe it ? With a sourced reasoning?

    Quote
    Like I said, I doubt its efficiency for conversion.


    For conversion of whom? The Meccan/Medinan population?

    Quote
    just like the text of the Bible didnt convert the Germanic tribes...


    Bad comparison ; the Bible has converted (via Jesus) Romans and Syrians...

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5063 - January 24, 2019, 10:12 PM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 09:28 PM
    Marc,


    Although minimising its role too much isn't realistic either. The broad guidelines must have corresponded with the propagated message of the early conquerors:


    For me, the conquerors didn't bring no Quran, didn't have no religious propaganda ; all this came later ; those conquerors just did what they were used to do for centuries except that, this time because of specific events, they were able to turn looting raids into conquest.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5064 - January 24, 2019, 11:42 PM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 12:09 PM
    Marc,

    I dont think a people is evangelized or converted by complicated texts. 


     Depends on which people. Mecca/Medina unknown people, surely not. Semi literati Arab monks? More probable.

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5065 - January 24, 2019, 11:43 PM
    Quote from: Marc S on January 24, 2019, 09:16 PM
    I agree but the people who spread and built islam were not the ones who wrote the Quran.


    Of course.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5066 - January 24, 2019, 11:46 PM
    Quote from: Marc S on January 24, 2019, 10:12 PM
    For me, the conquerors didn't bring no Quran, didn't have no religious propaganda ; all this came later ; those conquerors just did what they were used to do for centuries except that, this time because of specific events, they were able to turn looting raids into conquest.


    Muawiya is called Abd Allah amir al muminin in 660. (Hamat Gader inscription). Yet not an allusion about Mecca/Medina/Kaba/Zem zem/Abu Sufyan (his supposed father) in none of its inscriptions.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5067 - January 25, 2019, 06:51 AM
    Marc,

    Quote
    For me, the conquerors didn't bring no Quran, didn't have no religious propaganda ; all this came later ; those conquerors just did what they were used to do for centuries except that, this time because of specific events, they were able to turn looting raids into conquest.


    If there was no different ideology holding the conquerors together, they would have gone up in the existing culture. They would have taken up one of the established religions of their conquered people. The fact that they stayed differentiated and continued their conquest West and East proves that from the beginning there was an ideology keeping them together.

    I wonder how much of that ideology was adapted from the Quran, or how much of that ideology was absorbed in the Quran.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5068 - January 25, 2019, 11:08 AM
    Mundi,

    Quote
    If there was no different ideology holding the conquerors together, they would have gone up in the existing culture.


    Yes, but what was their ideology (of the leaders, not of the soldiers, cf Tannous which quotes attestation  which explains that in the new build mosques in Syria, Arabs recite secular poems...) in 602, when the Arab/Persian war started? Islam as recounted by Ibn Ishaq? What was it in 628 when Kusrau II because of his defeat with the Romans was assassinated  by a coup whereas the war with the Arabs still continued (cf.Pourshariati 2008) what was it in 636 at Yarmuk ? In 640 when Muawiya entered in Damascus?

    Quote
    They would have taken up one of the established religions of their conquered people.

     

    It is the leaders who decide and conduct people. The penetration of what will become Islam starts  from outside into its leadership and elites, not by the soldatesque which follow them because of plundering and pillaging.

    Quote
    The fact that they stayed differentiated and continued their conquest West and East proves that from the beginning there was an ideology keeping them together.


    Nope ; for the soldatesque the ideology is plundering and pillaging.
     I therefore  repose the questions : what was their ideology (of the leaders, not of the soldiers, cf Tannous which quotes attestation  which explains that in the new build mosques in Syria, Arabs recite secular poems...) in 602, when the Arab/Persian war started? Islam as recounted by Ibn Ishaq? What was it in 628 when Kusrau II because of his defeat with the Romans was assassinated  by a coup whereas the war with the Arabs still continued (cf.Pourshariati 2008) what was it in 636 at Yarmuk ? In 640 when Muawiya entered in Damascus?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5069 - January 25, 2019, 11:24 AM
    Quote from: mundi on January 24, 2019, 10:02 AM
    Yes, Altara, that would be an argument but people will say "Mecca existed but was not documented".

    But the early Qiblas exist and they don't point to Mecca. Even like in Ayla, where the early Muslims practically could see the Hijaz with their own eyes, they chose to point the Qibla to the Sinai.


    It is (very) improbable that a great city of commerce  as recounted by Ibn Ishaq (great merchant and travellers ...)  and  et al. was not documented in an area which is heavily scribal from Edessa to Egypt and Iraq  until  and including Yemen and Ethiopia.
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