robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

Recommendations

Info

Arabic language, he was eloquent and well-versed in the law,” and he said that “obedience to the Caliph in his every demand was compulsory for the population.” 44 It is striking that, six centuries after Hajjaj's life, his “pure Arabic language” would persist in the memory of the Islamic community. A pure Arabic language would be useful for writing or editing Arabic scripture out of concern for obedience to the caliph and the political unity of his empire. And, for reasons we will explore later in this book, it may well have been the case that the Qur'an needed to be Arabicized. The Umayyad court of Abd al-Malik and those of his successors began to expand on the hadiths about Muhammad and edit and augment the Qur'anic text to buttress their own practices and political position— a practice that the enemies of the Umayyads, the Abbasids, skillfully employed when they supplanted the Umayyads in 750. If Abd al-Malik built up the Islamic religion for political purposes, then the earlier silence from all quarters about Muhammad, Islam, and the Qur'an can be explained very simply: There was no reference to these things because Muhammad, Islam, and the Qur'an did not exist yet, or did so only in an inchoate state. Further evidence that Islam was newly developing during the reign of Abd al-Malik can be seen in the fact that the ideas did not take root immediately. Even after Abd al-Malik and Hajjaj ibn Yusuf did their work, the official statements that the Umayyads left behind are not unanimously or unambiguously Islamic. Qasr Kharana, a desert castle that Abd al-Malik's successor, Walid I (705–715), built in eastern Jordan, bears this inscription: Allahumma have mercy on Abd al-Malik ibn Umar [not Abd al-Malik the caliph, who was the son of Marwan, but rather the son of Umar] and forgive him his transgressions, the earlier and the later ones, the hidden and the disclosed; No one of himself draws nigh unto Thee but that Thou forgivest him and hast mercy upon him if he believes. I believe in my Lord. Therefore bestow on me Thy benefits, for Thou art the Benefactor, and have mercy upon me, for Thou art the Merciful. Oh God, I beg of Thee to accept from him his prayer and his donation. Amen Lord of Creation, Lord of Moses and Aaron. May God have mercy on him who reads it and says Amen, Amen, Lord of Creation, the Mighty, the Wise! Abd al-Malik bn [sic] Umar wrote [it] on Monday, three [nights] remaining from Muharram of the year two and ninety [A.D. 710]. [Witnessed by] Lam bn [sic] Harun. And lead us so we meet with my prophet and his prophet in this world and the next. 45 The Lord is the Lord of Moses and Aaron. No mention is made of Muhammad. It is an odd omission, unless this newly created prophet Muhammad was not yet established enough in the popular mind to figure in such an invocation alongside the likes of Moses and Aaron. But fame would soon come to the warrior prophet of Arabia. In the year 735 another inscription betrayed a very different popular religious sensibility:
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful Allah! forgive! Hasan bn [sic] Maysarah and his two parents and their offspring Amen Lord of Muhammad and Ibrahim Allah! consider my deeds great exertion (jihad) and accept my compassion as martyrdom in Your cause and Hasan wrote (it) on Tuesday the 22th [sic] of the month of Rabiy‘ al-Awwal, in which passed away Banu Ha[t]im may God have mercy on all of them And this in the year 117 [735] 46 By this time, accounts of the heroic life and exemplary deeds of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, had begun to circulate widely. He had become a figure with whom the faithful could identify—someone they felt they knew. This familiarity was the product of a remarkable court industry, first among the Umayyads and then among the Abbasids, of unabashedly manufacturing material about what Muhammad said and did.
Page 2 and 3: DID MUHAMMAD EXIST? An Inquiry into
Page 4 and 5: Dedicated to all those who do not f
Page 6 and 7: Contents Foreword by Johannes J. G.
Page 8 and 9: scholars will not be interested in
Page 10 and 11: 650s-660s: Arabian conquest of Nort
Page 12 and 13: Muhammad and His Family, According
Page 14 and 15: Introduction
Page 16 and 17: historicity of Muhammad. Although t
Page 18 and 19: No one knows, for it has never rece
Page 20 and 21: Some of the bold scholars who have
Page 22 and 23: Influenced by this, the historians
Page 24 and 25: 1
Page 26 and 27: ut this could apply to any of the Q
Page 28 and 29: Was That Muhammad? In light of all
Page 30 and 31: leader as the “devil.” It is un
Page 32 and 33: them, reprimand them, warn them, an
Page 34 and 35: was not even able to save himself f
Page 36 and 37: of polemical hyperbole or using a t
Page 38 and 39: 2
Page 40 and 41: encountering some mention of Islam,
Page 42 and 43: The first biographer of Muhammad, I
Page 44 and 45: Allah [is] great in greatness and g
Page 46 and 47: This Qur'anic material is the earli
Page 48 and 49: that orthodox theologians produced
Page 52 and 53: 3
Page 54 and 55: The same can be said of an explanat
Page 56 and 57: “anyone who establishes in Islam
Page 58 and 59: But with Muhammad held up as an exe
Page 60 and 61: When Ibn Umar says that yes, he did
Page 62 and 63: these are known as as-Sahih as-Sitt
Page 64 and 65: was self-contradictory or absurd on
Page 66 and 67: latter's “godlessness and opposit
Page 68 and 69: Switching On the Full Light of Hist
Page 70 and 71: Ibn Ishaq's Reliability So are thes
Page 72 and 73: Muhammad's virtues, or a combinatio
Page 74 and 75: Jansen administers the coup de grâ
Page 76 and 77: Central to Islam, therefore, is the
Page 78 and 79: (Nor, for that matter, do Muslim hi
Page 80 and 81: 5
Page 82 and 83: The problem with the third option i
Page 84 and 85: years of age. 6 The earliest Islami
Page 86 and 87: elationship, the Qur'an also has Ma
Page 88 and 89: einforced the point that Muhammad h
Page 90 and 91: “worked on Allah's Apostle so tha
Page 92 and 93: The Unchanging Qur'an Changes The Q
Page 94 and 95: during the eighth and ninth centuri
Page 96 and 97: did not worry over such matters, wh
Page 98 and 99: Rajam be inflicted on him who commi
Page 100 and 101:
telling indications that it has bee
Page 102 and 103:
ut suddenly verses 238 and 239 inte
Page 104 and 105:
The Non-Arabic Arabic Qur'an A Book
Page 106 and 107:
“We know indeed that they say,
Page 108 and 109:
Puin explains: “The Koran claims
Page 110 and 111:
a person dies, his Book (of deeds)
Page 112 and 113:
The Syriac influence is not restric
Page 114 and 115:
To provide the new religion with it
Page 116 and 117:
What the Qur'an May Have Been A Clu
Page 118 and 119:
An Islamic scholar writing late in
Page 120 and 121:
Luxenberg states that if Qur'an “
Page 122 and 123:
symbolism of the wine of Paradise.
Page 124 and 125:
Syriac connection, has revealed—c
Page 126 and 127:
unbelievers, may say, “What did G
Page 128 and 129:
gods except the Creator of all, nor
Page 130 and 131:
in Paradise reserved exclusively fo
Page 132 and 133:
9
Page 134 and 135:
who have been true in their covenan
Page 136 and 137:
for them to brandish. Nor is it eve
Page 138 and 139:
The First Mention of the Qur'an If
Page 140 and 141:
Uthman approved did not survive, ev
Page 142 and 143:
10
Page 144 and 145:
years after its birth, Islam has re
Page 146 and 147:
The realm of political theology, th
Page 148 and 149:
The real proliferation of material
Page 150 and 151:
from long after the time he is supp
Page 152 and 153:
Notes Introduction: The Full Light
Page 154 and 155:
34 Ibid., 63-64 (= Patrologia Greca
Page 156 and 157:
6 Al-Qastellani, X, 342 (quoted in
Page 158 and 159:
7 Arthur Jeffery, “The Quest of t
Page 160 and 161:
Chapter 6: The Unchanging Qur'an Ch
Page 162 and 163:
29 Ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir, v
Page 164 and 165:
49 Nevo and Koren, Crossroads to Is
Page 167 and 168:
Further Reading There is a great de
Page 169 and 170:
Acknowledgments I could not have wr
Page 171 and 172:
Muhammad and, 2, 7, 24-28, 41, 48,
Page 173 and 174:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 1 Ephraem
Page 175 and 176:
Islamic calendar, 48-49, 204 Islami
Page 177 and 178:
Mufid, Sheikh al-, 81 Mughira, al-,
Page 179 and 180:
Rosenthal, Franz, 154 Ruqayya (daug
show all

robert spencer-did muhammad exist__ an inquiry into islams obscure origins-intercollegiate studies institute (2012) (1)

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?