Posted on 08/07/2015 12:18:56 AM PDT by Cronos
ISLAM arose with remarkable speed and mystery. Patricia Crone’s well-stocked mind, clear prose and unflinching intellectual honesty were devoted to explaining why. She had little time for Islam’s own accounts of its origins: “debris” as far as historians were concerned, and hopelessly inconsistent. Far better, she reckoned, to fill the gap with contemporary sources and knowledge of other cultures, from messianic Maoris to Icelanders.
That required both personal and intellectual bravery. The central beliefs of Islam, such as the way the Koran took shape, the life of Muhammad and Islam’s relations with other religions, are sensitive subjects. Outside scrutiny can make tempers flare, especially when the conclusions are expressed in a witty and sardonic style.
Her book drew on Armenian, Coptic, Greek, Persian and Syriac sources, as well as archaeology, to argue that Islam started as an Arab-Jewish tribal rebellion against the Byzantine and Persian empires. The Arab “Hagarenes”—a reference to Abraham’s concubine Hagar—reinvented themselves as a separate monotheistic religion only after they dumped their original messianic Judaism.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Islam developed from a messianic sect of "Hagarenes." Muhammad united the Arabs around the concept of One God and preached that being the descendants of Abraham, the Arabs were the rightful heirs of Palestine. The members of this sect were called "muhajirun." The "hijrah" was not from Mecca to Yathrib (Medina) but from Arabia to the "Promised Land," in which Jews participated. Muhammad was alive when the movement's messianic figure, Umar, entered Jerusalem in 638.
The Jews welcomed the new invaders, though the Christians deemed them barbarians. After a while there was a break-up between the Arabs and the Jews, the former asserting its distinct identity by emphasising that theirs was the true religion of Abraham. The Arabs accepted Jesus as Messiah but denied his death and Davidic decent for hating the cross.
Muhammad was first aligned with a number of non-Biblical prophets, then to a "prophet like Moses," recipient of a new revealed book. This is when the Quran was hurriedly composed as Muhammad's scripture, probably at the end of the 7th century. The notion of the hijrah was replaced with that of "Islam" and the believers came to be known as "Muslims."
The Arabs began looking for a new holy city, while still controlling Jerusalem. They needed a sanctuary associated with the grave of Ishmael. Eventually, in Abdul Malik's time, they located one in Mecca. Thereafter, Muhammad's links with Jerusalem were severed and the date of his death was adjusted to a period prior to the conquest and the hijrah was transformed into an emigration from Mecca to Yathrib.
Wow! Helluva find! Too bad she’s not around anymore. We can use more people with her intellectual character.
“Intellectual character” ..????
She tried to kill Sarah after Isaac was born .. and later made an attempt on Isaac. That was why Abraham put her out of the camp.
However, I would love to read her book about Islam. I’ve studied a lot about Abraham and Sarah’s life; and this would just add to the story.
I take it the name of the book is “A scholar in the desert” by Patricia Crone .. is that correct. I’m hoping Amazon has it.
Uhh... I was talking about the author.
Yes, interesting stuff that I have read in various forms before but will give this a look.
What chapter and verse relates Hagar trying to kill Sara and Isaac? I’m having trouble finding anything other then that Hagar had contempt for and despised Sara.
Available here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/27096936/Hagarism-The-Making-of-the-Islamic-World
we begin with the Doctrina Iacobi , a Greek anti-Jewish tract spawned by the Heraclean persecution. 2 It is cast in the form of adialogue between Jews set in Carthage in the year 634; it was in all probabilitywritten in Palestine within a few years of that date. 3 At one point in theargument reference is made to current events in Palestine in the form of a letterfrom a certain Abraham, a Palestinian Jew. 4 A false prophet has appeared among the Saracens ... They say that the prophethas appeared coming with the Saracens, and is proclaiming the advent of theanointed one who is to come [ tou erkhomenou Eleimmenou kai Khristou ]. I,Abraham, went off to Sykamina and referred the matter to an old man very well-versed in the Scriptures. I asked him: 'What is your view, master and teacher, ofthe prophet who has appeared among the Saracens?' He replied, groaningmightily: 'He is an impostor. Do the prophets come with sword and chariot?
and more
Truly these happenings today are works of disorder ... But you go off, MasterAbraham, and find out about the prophet who has appeared.' So I, Abraham,made enquiries, and was told by those who had met him: 'There is no truth to befound in the so-called prophet, only bloodshed; for he says he has me keys ofparadise, which is incredible.
There are several points of interest in this account. One is the doctrine ofthe keys. It is not of course Islamic, but there are some slight indications that itwas a doctrine which the Islamic tradition had been at pains to repress: there is agroup of traditions in which the keys of paradise are sublimated into harmlessmetaphor, 5 and a Byzantine oath of abjuration of Islam mentions the belief thatthe Prophet was to hold the keys of paradise as part of the 'secret' doctrine of theSaracens. 6 The point is not of great intrinsic interest, but it does suggest that wehave in the Doctrina a stratum of belief older than the Islamic tradition itself. Ofgreater historical significance is the fact that the Prophet is represented as aliveat the time of the conquest of Palestine. This testimony is of courseirreconcilable with the Islamic account of the Prophet's career, but it findsindependent confirmation in the historical traditions of the Jacobites, Nestoriansand Samaritans; 7 the doctrinal meaning of the discrepancy will be taken uplater. 8
And tying this around a holy stone (perhaps the black stone of the Ka'aba is related or is indeed the black stone of Emesa (Elagabalus)?) and monotheism to create unity makes sense, right?
what do you think?
I don’t have time to read the thread now, but why do you think Mohammed never existed? He’s pretty late, historically, is there really doubt that he was a real guy? I mean, the whole prophet gig might have been BS, or something attributed to him later, that wouldn’t surprise me, but it doesn’t sound like that’s what you are saying here.
Mohammed existed, but he didn’t invent consanguinous marriage — the latter is one of the big reasons Islam exists. Mohammed was a plagiarist and a gatherer of of largely misguided folklore, a power-hungry humorless cult leader, mass-murderer, and pedophile.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagarism
http://www.amazon.com/Hagarism-The-Making-Islamic-World/dp/0521297540
https://books.google.com/books/about/Hagarism.html?id=Ta08AAAAIAAJ
https://archive.org/details/Hagarism
Hagarism - Assyrian International News Agency
[pp. 55-60]
www.aina.org/books/hagarism.pdf
[from the recesses of the hard drive]Was the Kaaba Originally a Hindu Temple?[Note: A recent archeological find in Kuwait unearthed a gold-plated statue of the Hindu deity Ganesh. A Muslim resident of Kuwait requested historical research material that can help explain the connection between Hindu civilisation and Arabia.]
by P.N. Oak
Glancing through some research material recently, I was pleasantly surprised to come across a reference to a king Vikramaditya inscription found in the Kaaba in Mecca proving beyond doubt that the Arabian Peninsula formed a part of his Indian Empire.
The text of the crucial Vikramaditya inscription, found inscribed on a gold dish hung inside the Kaaba shrine in Mecca, is found recorded on page 315 of a volume known as 'Sayar-ul-Okul' treasured in the Makhtab-e-Sultania library in Istanbul, Turkey. Rendered in free English the inscription says:"Fortunate are those who were born (and lived) during king Vikram's reign. He was a noble, generous dutiful ruler, devoted to the welfare of his subjects. But at that time we Arabs, oblivious of God, were lost in sensual pleasures. Plotting and torture were rampant. The darkness of ignorance had enveloped our country. Like the lamb struggling for her life in the cruel paws of a wolf we Arabs were caught up in ignorance. The entire country was enveloped in a darkness so intense as on a new moon night. But the present dawn and pleasant sunshine of education is the result of the favour of the noble king Vikramaditya whose benevolent supervision did not lose sight of us- foreigners as we were. He spread his sacred religion amongst us and sent scholars whose brilliance shone like that of the sun from his country to ours. These scholars and preceptors through whose benevolence we were once again made cognisant of the presence of God, introduced to His sacred existence and put on the road of Truth, had come to our country to preach their religion and impart education at king Vikramaditya's behest."For those who would like to read the Arabic wording I reproduce it hereunder in Roman script:"Itrashaphai Santu Ibikramatul Phahalameen Karimun Yartapheeha Wayosassaru Bihillahaya Samaini Ela Motakabberen Sihillaha Yuhee Quid min howa Yapakhara phajjal asari nahone osirom bayjayhalem. Yundan blabin Kajan blnaya khtoryaha sadunya kanateph netephi bejehalin Atadari bilamasa- rateen phakef tasabuhu kaunnieja majekaralhada walador. As hmiman burukankad toluho watastaru hihila Yakajibaymana balay kulk amarena phaneya jaunabilamary Bikramatum".
his evidence of Judeo-Arab intimacy is complemented by indications ofa marked hostility towards Christianity on the part of the invaders. Theconverted Jew of the Doctrina protests that he will not deny Christ, the son ofGod, even if the Jews and Saracens catch him and cut him to pieces. 31 TheChristian garrison of Gaza put the same determination into practice, and wasmartyred for it. 32 A contemporary sermon includes among the misdeeds of theSaracens the burning of churches, the destruction of monasteries, the profanationof crosses, and horrific blasphemies against Christ and the church. 33 A violentSaracen hatred of the cross is also attested in an early account of the arrival ofthe invaders on Mt Sinai. 34 And the doctrinal corollary of all this finds neatexpression when the Armenian source mentioned above has an early Ishmaeliteruler call upon the Byzantine emperor to renounce 'that Jesus whom you callChrist and who could not even save himself from the Jews'. 35 There is nothinghere to bear out the Islamic picture of a movement which had already brokenwith the Jews before the conquest, and regarded Judaism and Christianity withthe same combination of tolerance and reserve
What the materials examined so far do not provide is a concrete pictureof the way in which this Judeo-Arab involvement might have come about. Forthis we have to turn to the earliest connected account of the career of theProphet, that given in an Armenian chronicle written in the 660s and ascribed toBishop Sebeos. 36 The story begins with the exodus of Jewish refugees fromEdessa following its recovery by Heraclius from the Persians towards 628:They Set out into the desert and came to Arabia, among the children of Ishmael;they sought their help, and explained to them that they were kinsmen accordingto the Bible. Although they [the Ishmaelites] were ready to accept this dosekinship, they [the Jews] nevertheless could not convince the mass of the people,because their cults were different. At this time there was an Ishmaelite calledMahm•t, 37 a merchant; he presented himself to them as though at God'scommand, as a preacher, as the way of truth, and taught them to know the God
Where did you get this? I haven’t been able to find one for less than $1200. I can’t even find the thesis that you quote. You said it is a must read. How?
What bible are you reading? If it’s that gnodtic stuffuse it for a fire starter.
What is the Koran?
atlantic monthly | J A N U A R Y 1 9 9 9 | Toby Lester
Posted on 11/20/2002 3:13:18 PM PST by dennisw
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/792720/posts
I was commenting about Haggar .. and not the author of the book; while the post I was answering .. was talking about the author ONLY.
And .. the Bible I read is the Amplified version.
Wasn’t one of King David’s ancestors a daughter of Lot? God works in mysterious ways...
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