|
The Quran's Historicity
Frederic John Decat
2005/07/22
N.B. : Since this article really started with some interventions of mine,
in the forum of the faithfreedom.org site, I will use in here the nickname used
in it as an author’s penname.
The whole article will be made of different internet sites.
http://sullivan-county.com/x/koran.html
by Joseph Smith.
http://sullivan-county.com/x/koran_prob.html
by Ibn Warraq.
http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/index.html
by Satyameva Jayate.
http://www.debate.org.uk/topics/history/quran.htm
by Joseph Smith.
Under fair use agreement.
------------- ------------
Prior to 750 AD (thus a hundred years after Muhammad’s death) we have
no verifiable Muslim documents which can give us a window into the formative
period of Islam. We simply do not have any ‘’account from the Islamic’
community during the initial 150 years or so, between the first Arab conquests,
in the early 7th century, and the appearance (with the SIRA-MAGHAZI
narratives) of the earliest Islamic literature from the 8th century.
All we have, prior to 750 consist ‘’almost entirely of rather dubious
citations in later compilations’’ (Humphreys). It is incredible that Islam
cannot provide a single corroborated manuscript of their most holy book from
even within a century of their founder’s birth.
Quite a few stories found in the Quran have their root in second century
Jewish apocryphal literature : stories as the murder of Abel and Cain in sura
5.31-32 is borrowed from the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Mishnah
Sanhedrin 4.5 ; the storey of Abraham, the idols and the fiery furnace in sura
21.51-71 is from the Misdrash Rabbah ; the amusing storey found in sura 27.17-44
of Solomon, his talking Hoopoo bird, and the queen of Sheba who lifts her skirt
when mistaking a mirrored floor for water, taken from the 2nd Targum
of Esther. There are plenty others like the account of
Mt.
Sinai
being lifted up and held over the heads of Jews as a threat for rejecting the
law (sura 7.171) comes from The Abodah Sarah. And so on.
In sura 17.1 we have the report of Muhammad’s journey by night from the
sacred mosque to the farthest mosque. In later traditions, we find this aya
refers to Muhammad ascending to the seventh heaven, after a miraculous night
journey (the MI’RAJ) from
Mecca
to
Jerusalem
, on a winged-horse called Buraq. This comes from a mixture of different sources
: the Testament of Abraham (~200), The Secrets of Enoch (chap.1.4-10 and 2.1),
also the old Persian book entitled Arta-I Viraj Namak.
The Quran implies that Muhammad severed his relationship with the Jews in
624 and thus moved the direction of the prayer (Qibla, sura 2.144 and 149-150).
Yet, the external documents in our possessions, namely that of the Doctrina
Iacobi Chronicler (in 661) and that of the bishop Sebeos (in 660) testifies of
rather good relations between the Jews and
the Ishmaelites usually known then as the Saracens. The later Armenian source
even mentions that the governor of
Jerusalem
was a Jew in the aftermath of the conquest. So, these testimonies are
conflicting with the traditional account from the Quran.
MECCA
.
In sura 3.96 and 6.92 we find the mention that
Mecca
(Bakkah) was the first sanctuary appointed for mankind, the ‘’Mother of all
settlement’’ as Adam placed the black stone in the original Ka’ba while in
sura 2.125-127) it was Abraham and Ishmael who rebuilt it many years later.
Muslims here have an overriding problem as research carried out by Patricia
Crone and Michael Cook shows that there is no report of
Mecca
in any ancient document until the early eight century, from the early reign of
caliph Hisham who ruled in between 724-743. Remark that this is a full century
after Muhammad’s death.
Yet even more troubling historically is the claim by Muslims that
Mecca
was not only an ancient and great city, but that is was also the center of the
trading routes for
Arabia
in the 7th century and before. This belief is the easiest to
examine, since we have ample documentation from that part of the world with
which to check out its veracity. From Bulliet’s extensive research these
claims by Muslims are quite wrong. This is further corroborated by Groom and
Muller who contend that
Mecca
simply couldn’t have been on the trading route since it would have entailed a
detour from the natural route along the western ridge.
On these accounts, Patricia Crone adds ‘’
Mecca
was a barren place, and barren places do not make natural halts. (…) Why
should caravans have made a steep descent to the barren
valley
of
Mecca
when they could have stopped at Ta’if.’’
Furthermore, she asks ‘’what commodity was available in
Arabia
that could be transported such a distance, through an inhospitable environment,
and still be sold at a profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a
peripheral site.’’
The real problem with
Mecca
, however, is that there simply was no international trade taking place in
Arabia
, let alone in
Mecca
in the centuries immediately prior to Muhammad’s birth. It seems that much of
our data in this area has been spurious from the outset, due to the sloppy
research of the original sources, carried out by the Jesuit Henry Lammens an
‘’unreliable scholar’’. M. Lammens used first century sources (such as
Periplus and Pliny) while he should have used the later Greek historians who
were closer to the events such as Cosmas, Procopius and Theodoratos (P. Crone).
page 1 | page2 | page
3 | page 4
|
