Radical New Views of Islam and the Origins of the Koran

The New York Times ^ | 3/1/02 (for editions of 3/2/02) | Alexander Stille

[truth_seeker]

Tell the Zoroastrians of Persia how peaceful and tolerant Islam was, from the start. They were the practicing monotheists of Iran, who fled the land, upon the onslaught of Islam.

I judge religions, cultures and nations by their works. Islam is bringing up the rear, with a long way to go, before I will concede it has peaceful coexistence with others, at its core.

[krogers58]

I for one still hold to the idea that all these fanatics are going to recieve 72 virgins when they get there....but I think, given the way they have lived, they will all be men....71 other fanatics......sounds like HE double toothpicks to me...

[crystalk]

These guys have sold it all for not 70 VIRGINS, but 70 RAISINS!

Did anybody but me notice the very good Freudian slip in abt para #5, where it refers to "the historical VORACITY and authenticity" of Islam, not the VERACITY! I like it better this way!

[ValenB4]

Finally something that left wing deconstructionists can do that can bring about some good to the world. Unleash the liberals!

[aruanan]

This was St. Ephraem the Syrian who wrote hundreds of hymns. They were his principal means of teaching doctrine. This is also the guy people mistakenly cite as one who held to a pre-trib rapture. They are confusing him with a later writer called Pseudo-Ephraem.

I remember when studying Islam over 30 years ago in comparative religions class that it was described then as having developed from an early heretical Christian movement.

[bjcintennessee]

"What do you mean we only get 72 white raisins?Hey! Heeyyyy...are we allowed to sue in the afterlife? Where are the lawyers? Surely there must be a multitude of lawyers down here!!!

[jennyp]

But many Muslims find the tone and claims of revisionism offensive. "I think the broader implications of some of the revisionist scholarship is to say that the Koran is not an authentic book, that it was fabricated 150 years later," says Ebrahim Moosa, a professor of religious studies at Duke University, as well as a Muslim cleric whose liberal theological leanings earned him the animosity of fundamentalists in South Africa, which he left after his house was firebombed.

What is it with Muslims and South Africa???

[wildehunt]

Music, indeed, to my Irish-American heart... *L*

[missycocopuffs]

Hey, maybe those FReepers who suggested that the "martyrs" were going to get a dried up 72-year old virgin instead of 72 virgins were closer to the truth than they knew.

[CyberAnt]

Big Problem: Gabriel was not the angel who gave the book to Mohammed. Mohammed received the book from "an angel of light". According to the Bible, an angel of light is from the devil, not GOD. For them to say it was Gabriel, says to me the whole thing is a lie, if they are even willing to lie about the name of the angel.

Because of the hatred bred into the muslims by Ismael, it was easy for Mohammed to unleash upon them this book, the Quran, as a means of controlling them. The Bible on the otherhand, is written by GOD and gives instructions on how we are to discipline ourselves. The Bible rightfully concludes that by our free will, we have the right to choose blessing or cursing. The muslims do not believe that. The Quran says if you are not born a muslim, you are cursed. The Bible says, YOU are the person who decides if you are blessed or cursed. Individual freedom is at the heart of the Bible, while the Quran is about slavery.

[livius]

Islam got much of its start in areas inhabited by Arian Christians. Arianism was an early and quite widespread heresy that essentially rejected (or seriously misunderstood) Trinitarian thought. Its simplicity made it very attractive to people with little history of philosophy or letters - such as the Visigothic tribes of Europe and the North African tribes.

That said, I don't see what is so remarkable about this article, except, perhaps, the fact that it got published in the Times! It has long been accepted that Islam was a syncretist religion, taking a bit of Judaism (upon which it is most heavily based), a bit of Christianity, and a bit of the pagan religions dominant in the region of its birth.

Well, actually, the raisins were sort of a shocker...

[syriacus]

Thanks for posting this.

[SunkenCiv]

this raisins-not-virgins thing has appeared umpteen times on FR, here is what I think is the oldest of such topics.

Virgins? What virgins?
by Ibn Warraq
Saturday January 12, 2002

Luxenberg tries to show that many obscurities of the Koran disappear if we read certain words as being Syriac and not Arabic. We cannot go into the technical details of his methodology but it allows Luxenberg, to the probable horror of all Muslim males dreaming of sexual bliss in the Muslim hereafter, to conjure away the wide-eyed houris promised to the faithful in suras XLIV.54; LII.20, LV.72, and LVI.22. Luxenberg 's new analysis, leaning on the Hymns of Ephrem the Syrian, yields "white raisins" of "crystal clarity" rather than doe-eyed, and ever willing virgins - the houris. Luxenberg claims that the context makes it clear that it is food and drink that is being offerred, and not unsullied maidens or houris.