Would this be the earliest primary resource on Islam?

Quote from: moi on July 04, 2015, 08:52 PM

I just read a bit of the Quran had been dated to the 500's, everyone muttering some mistake, but is it?

Honestly if it does turn out to be accurate dating, I'm sure the apologists will find a way to incorporate that into their beliefs. Here are a few options:

The parchment was erased and reused, and so the parchment is that old but the text on it isn't.
If the text is also that old, then it is clearly because Allah had sent this part of the message to an earlier prophet and Mohammad repeated/quoted it. This contradicts the idea that he was sent to a people to whom no other prophets have been sent, but that's no biggie because then they'll say it wasn't from an Arab. If it was clearly originally Arabic, then what is meant by that phrase is that no prophets were sent to his particular tribe/clan.
If all that fails, Mohammad was the seal of a school of prophets, the last of a group; the first was the first sent to that tribe, but Mohammad was the last sent to the world. This is an idea you could come up with from studying the Jewish and Christian texts. Both have a school of men listening to God and deciphering what he's saying.

In the time of Elijah and throughout the rest of the pre-exilic period, there were said to be schools of prophets, where a teacher would lead presumably people who showed some promise in being able to hear God to listen to God and figure out what God was saying. Or something. Not a lot is said about the schools themselves; they're just mentioned like you're supposed to know what's going on there, and there are descriptions of specific instances of things happening, like Elisha helps un-poison a pot of stew at a school of the prophets, a widow whose husband was a student at one such school (and was murdered for it) asks for help getting out of debt, the schools were forced underground by the wicked king Ahab and one of his servants claims to Elijah that he hid 1,000 of the students in two caves in a bid to keep Elijah from killing him, that kind of stuff. Interestingly, it doesn't seem like at that time, whoever wrote about that thought that only their god could do send prophets, tho, since Ba'al also had prophets. They were monotheists in that they only worshiped only one of the gods, but didn't seem to exclude the possibility that there were other gods in the universe.

The later-written but earlier-set books of the Torah have a similar idea for a set of prophets who work as a team, while giving the authority for leading them to Moses. The way it sets it up is that Moses had too many people coming to him asking him what to do, and he couldn't answer them all because he didn't have enough time in the day, so his father in law suggested that he ask God to let some other people also answer questions. So Moses brings that up to God, and God says "ok get 70 respected community leaders who you want to be prophets and bring them over here, and I'll make them capable of helping you" ["I will take of the spirit which is upon thee, and will put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone."] So Moses selects 70 men, gathers them, there's a little ceremony and they start prophesying, also two other guys who he didn't select also started prophesying and everyone was like "wtf, are these dudes faking it or what?" And Joshua, Moses' administrative assistant, said "Should I go kill them?" And Moses said "Art thou jealous for my sake? would that all the LORD'S people were prophets, that the LORD would put His spirit upon them!" (Basically, "God I wish everyone was a prophet it would make my job so much fucking easier.")

Whoever wrote Luke and Acts tries to bring out the same ideas for the early Christian leaders, having them all gather in one place for like two months and then suddenly, they're all prophesying and everyone comes and listens to them and is awed by their wisdom and shit. Anyway so this is a long answer and might make some people unhappy, but I think the Saudi government would actually like something like this to be the official story, because they seem want to downplay the individuality of Mohammad and make the religion less about him as an individual (personality cult) and more about what rules you need to follow (eg destroying the home where he is supposed to have been born.to make hotels for pilgrims on hajj). Not just because he as an individual gets a lot of criticism, I think, and also not just because it will probably increase religious tourism in the long run; I think the reason is a lot more complex and has to do with what they really truly believe.

So yeah that's something to think about.

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Topic: Would this be the earliest primary resource on Islam?

curiousarabgirl

OP - July 04, 2015, 08:07 PM

moi

Reply #1 - July 04, 2015, 08:52 PM

gal_from_usa

Reply #2 - July 05, 2015, 09:35 AM

yeezevee

Reply #3 - July 05, 2015, 10:49 AM

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