As Dye is a great believer, he is obliged to state that some parts (according to him) of the Quran was written down where there was Christians, as he is persuaded that (some parts) of the text are (according to him) addressed to them. Mecca/Medina are set aside since there is no historical attestations of their presence there. For him they were written down in Palestine after the conquest.
The premise of the believing of the existence of Muhammad in Mecca/Kaba is implacable: as there is no Christians there, we are forced to move the writing of the text to a place where there are Christians: Dye is then obliged to find a place and he affirms that it is Palestine. But he has no real grounds about this, only the obligation to find a place where Christians are present.
Altara, how are you
The Quranic authors and the aduience had to have a deep knowledge of christian stories in order to compose the text, but most important to understand it properly.
So it is right that the text was written for chrisitanized arabs.
About the rest I see your point.
The quranic texts could be composed anywhere, if the sources to compose it are either available in the menory of the author(s) or if the author(s) could access material to get their inspiration.
What I wonder is why we have christianized arabs from north (edessa) to south (persian Gulf), and Dye ignores them pointing to Palestine. Surah Miriam? Cathisma?
All these places may have been the final intended audience of the text.
As you pointed out it does not look like to be a coincidence that the texts appear in the hands of arabs arriving from iraq to Palestine
I was recently working on one of your points
When we argue that the quran has nothing to do with Mekka/Medina/zam zam/companions and that we must move out from west arabia, then we are in areas with higher scribal presence. Therefore a man called Muhammad, preaching Allah for 22 years would not have excaped the writings of Jews or Christians or others.
I was wondering
- How can we demonstrate that such an individual would not have escaped this?
- And assuming the story of Islamic tradition is false, we may wonder if the quran could originate by the hand of a simple preacher who did not operate for 22 years and did not wage any war nor any other peculiar action, but in a way more limited way. How do we know that a more simple situation could not actually escape from being put down into paper/rock or else
It can be easily demonstrated that Ibn Ishaq work is agiography, but its core, a man preaching for a more limited time and without the exaggerated political and military role as depicted by Islamic sources may have existed.
Your point is clear that any of the supposed early witnesses of muhammad is no more than arabs reading the quran who sopke of muhammad to others who thought that he was real.
Indeed the line here in thin (for me)
I hope my question is clear. I am trying to understand what was the capacity of writers/scribes etc.. of 550 to 650 to catch news of what was happening and put them on paper or onto any other document. (Paper I mean write them down...)
Of course if we can demonstrate that most of these preachers, no matter how relevant they were, more or less they were reported in chronicles, then we can argue that someone who composed the quran and preached it must have been recorded somewhere, and if he was not, then he did not exist
Thanks
Topic: Qur'anic studies today