Early Islam: A Critical Reconstruction Based on Contemporary Sources - Hardcover

Karl-Heinz Ohlig

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 161614825X ISBN 13: 9781616148256

Publisher: Prometheus, 2013

Synopsis

This successor volume to The Hidden Origins of Islam (edited by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and Gerd-R. Puin) continues the pioneering research begun in the first volume into the earliest development of Islam. Using coins, commemorative building inscriptions, and a rigorous linguistic analysis of the Koran along with Persian and Christian literature from the seventh and eighth centuries--when Islam was in its formative stages--five expert contributors attempt a reconstruction of this critical time period.

Despite the scholarly nature of their work, the implications of their discoveries are startling:


   • Islam originally emerged as a sect of Christianity.
   • Its central theological tenets were influenced by a pre-Nicean, Syrian Christianity.
   • Aramaic, the common language throughout the Near East for many centuries and the language of Syrian Christianity, significantly influenced the Arabic script and vocabulary used in the Koran.
   • Finally, it was not until the end of the eighth and ninth centuries that Islam formed as a separate religion, and the Koran underwent a period of historical development of at least 200 years.

Controversial and highly intriguing, this critical historical analysis reveals the beginning of Islam in a completely new light.

About this title

About the Author

Karl-Heinz Ohlig (Saarbr cken, Germany) is professor emeritus of Religious Studies and the History of Christianity at the University of the Saarland, chairman of the Inarah Institute for Research into the Early History of Islam and the Koran, and the author of many books including Weltreligion Islam- Eine Einf hrung (Islam as World Religion- An Introduction). He is the editor (with Gerd-R. Puin) of The Hidden Origins of Islam. For more information, visit www.Inarah.de.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

EARLY ISLAM

A Critical Reconstruction Based on Contemporary Sources

By KARL-HEINZ OHLIG

Prometheus Books

Copyright © 2014 Inarah Institute for the Research on Early Islamic History and the Koran
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-61614-825-6

Contents

Markus Gross: Foreword to the English Edition, 7, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Shedding Light on the Beginnings of Islam, 10, 
Volker Popp: From Ugarit to Samarra' – An Archeological Journey on the Trail of Ernst Herzfeld, 14, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Evidence of a New Religion in Christian Literature "Under Islamic Rule"?, 176, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: From muhammad Jesus to Prophet of the Arabs – the Personalization of a Christological Epithet, 251, 
Christoph Luxenberg: Relics of Syro-Aramaic Letters in Early Qur'an Codices in Higazi and Kufi Ductus, 308, 
Ignaz Goldziher: Read Anew: Islam and Parsism (Islamisme et Parsisme); translated by Markus Gross, 339, 
Volker Popp: The Influence of Persian Religious Patterns on Notions in the Qur'an, 357, 
Markus Gross: New Ways of Qur'anic Research: From the Perspective of Comparative Linguistics and Cultural Studies, 369, 
ENDNOTES, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Shedding Light on the Beginnings of Islam, 556, 
Volker Popp: From Ugarit to Samarra', 557, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Evidence of a New Religion in Christian Literature "Under Islamic Rule"?, 597, 
Karl-Heinz Ohlig: From muhammad Jesus to Prophet of the Arabs, 614, 
Christoph Luxenberg: Relics of Syro-Aramaic letters, 620, 
Ignaz Goldziher: Read Anew: Islam and Parsism (Islamisme et Parsisme), 623, 
Volker Popp: The Influence of Persian Religious Patterns on Notions in the Qur'an, 628, 
Markus Gross: New Ways of Qur'anic Research, 629, 

CHAPTER 1

Shedding Light on the Beginnings of Islam

Karl-Heinz Ohlig

Ignaz Goldziher, one of the "fathers" of Islamic Studies, started off a lecture,which he held in 1900 at the Sorbonne, with the sentence,

"For a long time we have been content with the simple assertion: All of asudden Islam came into existence and immediately sprung up into broaddaylight. (My emphasis, in the original: "au plein jour")."

He warned against drawing on "the abundant materials" of Muslim traditionas the source for clarification of "the early years of Islam".

"Modern historical criticism protects us from such an antediluvian method ofapproach."

Historical criticism may still have been modern around 1900, but no longerafter that. Goldziher's warning against the easy way was not heeded and earlyhistory of Islam was and still is interpreted back from the Sirah and Tabari,despite all those reservations expressed incidentally and despite criticalpublications, which were not widely received.

However, the apparent broad daylight did not exist for the first twoMuslim centuries, because the sources used are not conclusive. In the anthology"The Hidden Origins", a number of Western researchers of Islam havehad a go at working on different aspects of this early history by means ofhistoric criticism. The way was cleared to further analysis.

The present volume is continuing along this path. Since not only contemporaryMuslim literary sources – apart from the Qur'an – are missing, regardingthe first two centuries, but also the Christian sources at the time reportof Arabs, Saracens, Ismaelites and so forth, but not, however, of a new religionand a succession of events according to later Muslim historiography, areconstruction of the actual development can only be achieved by falling backon the only dateable and locatable evidence: coins and inscriptions; thishistory is analyzed and illustrated by Volker Popp. Due to the scantiness ofthe symbols and texts documented in this fashion, obviously some statementsconcerning the question of detail remain hypothetical. However, it is stillpossible to identify the fundamentals of historical and theological developmentin the history of early Islam.

Coins make it clear that for a long time muhammad was not a name, but amotto which puts the value of the Messiah Jesus, son of Mary – as in theinscription on the Dome of the Rock –, right at the center of this both religiousand political concept.

'Abd al-Malik brought this concept from the regions of eastern Mesopotamiaand it spread as far as West Syria. The motto muhammad was firsthistoricized and considered to be a name during the 8th century andsupported by a biography in the 9th century.

Qur'anic Material, which retains a theology and a Christology of a pre-Niceankind in its countries of origin, also came from the East to the Westwith 'Abd al-Malik, and has developed further in isolation – in a sect-likemanner.

In the time of 'Abd al-Malik these originally Aramaic (and possiblyMiddle Persian) texts were transcribed into a kind of Arabic originating fromSyria – a Syro-Aramaic mixed language. This "original Qur'an", of which theexact scope is unknown, was expanded during the 8th (and possibly also the9th) centuries.

The Qur'anic material does not only have a history of the spoken word inSyriac, but had evidently been secured in written form before its transcriptioninto Arabic.

By looking at errors which occurred during transcription, ChristophLuxenberg – in an 'empirical' manner – proves the existence of texts writtenin Syriac.

More than a hundred years ago, Ignaz Goldziher already illustratedinstances of the adoption of Persian concepts and notions into Islam. Thistrail has hardly been followed up at all. Here there is a definite deficit both inChristian historiography, in which there is no mention of inculturation of(Syrian and Arabian) Christianity into Persian culture to be found, and inIslamic Studies, which did not take up the idea of I. Goldziher. Volker Poppanalyzes these influences using several illustrative examples.

Previous analyses of the language of the Qur'an will be reinforced by acomparative linguistic analysis by Markus Groß of records of both spokenand written texts from numerous cultures and religions and will therefore beput into a broader context.

As a whole the political and religious development in the 7th and 8th centuriesis quite complex. Many aspects have to be considered: the history of theAncient Near East, the political and military conflicts between the Byzantines,the Sassanians, and the Arabs, the role of the peoples living in these realms,history of religions and missions, the varied cultural traditions and theirinfluences beyond their original peoples and so forth. Thus many questionsnot only concerning details but also very central aspects cannot (yet) beanswered.

However, there is a fundamental prospect of finding answers that are justifiablebased on the historical-critical method, provided that research canavoid getting in the way of itself. This self-limitation essentially comes downto not questioning the fundamental theories of Islamic literature of the 3rdcentury AH (Islamic year), i.e., the 9th century CE, despite all reservationsabout its historic and religious validity. These tenets are the following:

(1) The Qur'an is attributed to the proclamation of the Prophet of theArabs Muhammed, who lived and preached from 570 to 632;

(2) All of this took place on the Arabian peninsula, in Mecca andMedina;

(3) The final version of the Qur'an already existed soon after the deathof the prophet;

(4) Islam was already a complete new religion in the early 7th century;

(5) The language of the Qur'an is pure Arabic.

A scientific approach to these theories calls for them to be treated at leastonce with systematic scepticism and to check whether they can be verifiedusing contemporary historical documents and the literary characteristics ofthe texts. If so, there would be a definite starting point; if not, research mustendeavor to document, analyze, and interpret the source material stillavailable.

This is what the present volume attempts to do. The whole work demonstrateshow the beginnings of a Qur'anic movement originated from a specificform of Christianity and came from regions much further east of Mesopotamiaand not from the Arabian Peninsula. Basically after the victory of Heracliusin 622, and factually after the collapse of Sassanid rule, which happenedsoon after, this peculiar tradition was able to find its way from the East to theWest, to Jerusalem and to Damascus, and was documented there in anArabian-Syrian mixed language. Further complex, though to a certain extentunderstandable developments led to the formation of the Ši'a (Shi'ah), whichinitially was still characterized by Christian motives, and shortly afterwards toan independent religion (towards the end of the 8th and in the first decades ofthe 9th century). Traditional literature, which was shaped following Persianconceptual patterns, later on composed a splendid re-interpretation of thesefirst two centuries of Islam from the perspective of the putative "knowledge"of its own time about the alleged origins of the religion.

Theological, and in this case Islamological analysis, only makes sense ifmethods are used which stand the test of historical criticism. Of course, mistakesmay be made in the process which have to be corrected during one ofthe subsequent academic discussions. The authors of this volume are aware ofthis and do not consider their theories to be unalterable and the last word.They are, however, convinced that the contemporary sources available up tothe present day provide the only (in the historical-critical sense) sound accessto the earliest stages of the religious and political history of the 7th and 8thcenturies in the Ancient Near East and adjacent territories, its peculiaritiesand motives.

It must be mentioned that already in the 19th century there had been aseries of valuable detailed analyses, which, however, often failed to understandthe relevance of their own findings. If the authors of these studiesthemselves frequently did not draw the obvious conclusions, it is not surprisingthat their colleagues did so even less.

Self-limitation and the refusal to take into consideration what neighboringdisciplines have found was and is another major obstacle in IslamicStudies. Only if History of Theology, Church History, Islamic Studies, IranianStudies and philological and linguistic disciplines cooperate, can the phenomenato be analyzed be properly investigated, as the objects of research canhardly be assigned to only one field of research and thus have to be looked atfrom different angles. Interdisciplinary cooperation in terms of research isimperative for such questions.

The objective must be to understand historical phenomena as they originallywere. Research is at no time concerned with damaging any religion,which, in this case, would be Islam. In comparative religious studies, all religionsare analyzed theologically in this way, from religions of the past toreligions of the present and those which have potential for the future. TheAge of Enlightenment – after an initial phase of antagonism and disruptions– has not harmed Christianity, indeed, quite the opposite, it has facilitated itsmodernization; difficulties only occur with incidents of regression behind thecritical level of knowledge already reached.

Understanding the historic beginnings – for Islamic Studies a givenpostulate from the start – will not harm Islam and its theology –, but couldserve to bring it forward into a modern and pluralistic world.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from EARLY ISLAM by KARL-HEINZ OHLIG. Copyright © 2014 Inarah Institute for the Research on Early Islamic History and the Koran. Excerpted by permission of Prometheus Books.
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Edition details

• Publisher: Prometheus
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 161614825X
• ISBN 13: 9781616148256
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 647
• Editor: Karl-Heinz Ohlig