Topics

[Marwah]

SAHIH INTERNATIONAL TRANSLATION

Indeed, as-Safa and al-Marwah are among the symbols of Allah . So whoever makes Hajj to the House or performs 'umrah - there is no blame upon him for walking between them. And whoever volunteers good - then indeed, Allah is appreciative and Knowing.

Marwah

It's not hard to see Marwah is Mount Moriah (Temple Mount) today in Arabic still called ﻣﺮﻭﻩ Marwah.  Wiki link.  The oldest reference to Mount Moriah is in Genesis and in Chronicles (OT).  This landmark has been called Moriah/Marwa for at least 3000 years.

Safa

Safa is a bit harder to identify.    The writing of the historian Josephus were most helpful in identifying this landmark.  Josephus narrates a story about Alexander the great visiting Jerusalem.  Although the story is most likely fiction, the names of landmarks most likely aren't.

From Jewish antiquities 11.317-345:

[11.329] And when Jaddus understood that Alexander was not far from the city, he went out in procession, with the priests and the multitude of the citizens. The procession was venerable, and the manner of it different from that of other nations. It reached to a place called Sapha, which name, translated into Greek, signifies a prospect, for you have thence a prospect both of Jerusalem and of the temple.

Now if you understand Sapha means prospect, it's easy to identify the landmark. Prospect in Latin is Scopus.  The landmark Sapha Quran is referring to is Mount Scopus.  This mount gives a prospect over Jerusalem and Temple mount (mount Moriah).  Wiki link



View from mount Scopus (Safa) towards mount Moriah (Marwa)

PS: Yes, this implies the majority of Muslims in the world are doing pilgrimage to the wrong place and praying towards the wrong place (Mecca instead of Jerusalem).

[hearts is a disease]

In the 7th century the function of the human brain was hardly understood.  Today it's common knowledge functions such as thought and cognition take place in the human brain.  In ancient times people did not accredit the human brain with such functions but attributed it to the human heart.  As we know, the human heart is an organ that serves the function to circulate blood inside the human body.  It has no cognitive functions nor is it capable of thought.

Now let's see what Quran tells about this.  The first thing we can conclude about the Quran is that it nowhere mentions the human brain.  Not one single verse speaks about it, instead we find many verses speaking about the heart.  Here are a few examples:

2.9. Fain would they deceive Allah and those who believe, but they only deceive
themselves, and realise [it] not!
2.10. In their hearts is a disease; and Allah has increased their disease: And
grievous is the penalty they [incur], because they are false [to themselves].

=> Quran is stating disbelief is caused by a heart disease of doubt and hypocrisy

23.62. On no soul do We place a burden greater than it can bear: before Us is a
record which clearly shows the truth: they will never be wronged.
23.63. But their hearts are in confused ignorance of this; and there are, besides
that, deeds of theirs, which they will [continue] to do,-

=> Quran is stating hearts can be confused and ignorant

26.200. Thus have We caused doubt to enter the hearts of the sinners.
26.201. They will not believe in it until they see the grievous Penalty;

=> Quran is stating hearts can be in doubt

7.43 And We shall remove from their hearts any lurking sense of injury;

=> Quran is stating the heart can have a sense of injury

41.5  They say: "Our hearts are under veils, [concealed] from that to which thou
dost invite us, and in our ears in a deafness, and between us and thee is a
screen: so do thou [what thou wilt]; for us, we shall do [what we will!]"

=> Quran is stating heart can be blinded (from perception)

9.77 So He hath put as a consequence hypocrisy into their hearts, [to last] till
the Day, whereon they shall meet Him: because they broke their covenant with
Allah, and because they lied [again and again].

=> Quran is stating the heart can be afflicted with hypocrisy

Of course all of these are contradicting the scientific facts about the human organ called the heart.  In defense many muslims claim these verses are intended metaphorically and shouldnt be interpreted literally.  Well then let's look a little further to see if this argument of metaphorical understanding is true or not:

7.179. Many are the Jinns and men we have made for Hell: They have hearts
wherewith they understand not, eyes wherewith they see not, and ears wherewith
they hear not. They are like cattle,- nay more misguided: for they are heedless
[of warning].

=> Quran explicitly states the hearts are used to understand, just like eyes are used to see and ears are used to hear.  There is no margin for metaphor here. 

5.44  among those who say "We believe" with their lips but whose hearts have never believed;

=> Again leaving no margin for metaphors.  The heart is accredited with believing or not believing what one expresses.

From all of this we can conclude the God in Quran is totally unaware the brain is responsible for thought, emotion, understanding, cognition but instead attributes these functions to the human heart.  This is fully contradicting a divine origin.  It is evidence the author of Quran had no understanding of the human brain and confused it with the human heart.

Remains of a Byzantine-period church were discovered in 1992 near the Monastery of Mar Elias, when the highway between Jerusalem and Bethlehem was widened and a bulldozer accidentally uncovered and damaged a mosaic floor. In the first, limited excavations (October 1992 ? February 1993) only a section of the western part of the church was uncovered, revealing mosaic floors which were re-covered to ensure their preservation.

Located in an ancient olive grove within the southern municipal borders of Jerusalem, on land owned by the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, the site is bordered in the south by a terrace with an open water reservoir, known by its Arabic name, Bir Kadismu.

Bir means water cistern or reservoir, Kadismu preserves the Greek name of the place, Kathisma, meaning "seat."

Renewed excavations in 1997 revealed a large church built in the 5th century and restored in the 6th century. In the 8th century, it was converted into a mosque, and was destroyed shortly thereafter.

The size of the building and its sophisticated, octagonal plan indicate that this was a church of great importance. Surrounding the flat, protruding rock (the "seat"), which is its focal point, were two octagonal hallways: the inner one served as a walkway (ambulatoria) from which the worshippers could view the stone seat; the outer hallway was divided into rooms and four chapels. The whole church was surrounded by a square envelope, divided into rooms with mosaic floors.

Nearly all the rooms of the church were paved in colored mosaics; some had been added in the 8th century. The mosaics are in many shades of red, yellow and green in a variety of floral and geometric designs, the small tessarae laid on a firm plaster bedding.

Among the motifs are guilloches (braided bands) interspersed with medallions of floral designs. Depicted in the corners of the southern room of the church are four cornucopiae (horns of plenty), supporting acanthus leaves from which grape tendrils emanate.

According to the 6th century "Life of Theodosius", the church and the monastery of the "Old Kathisma" were built by the wealthy widow Ikelia at the time of Juvenalis, Bishop of Jerusalem (450 ? 458). The account indicates that the church was built on the resting-place of Mary, halfway on the road from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, and dedicated to Mary Theotokos (God bearer). Also, that St. Theodosius himself, who lived in the 5th century, was sent for training as a monk to the monastery of the "Old Kathisma". From the 12th century onwards, a water cistern in this areas was noted as a holy site; it served as a refreshment and rest station for pilgrims traveling on the Jerusalem-Bethlehem road until the end of the last century.





It's clear to see how this octagonal church (destination of pilgrimage) was the prototype for the later Dome of the Rock also situated on top of a rock.

[Sahih International]

This is a continued effort to shed more light on the "Over it is 19" verse in Quran 74:30

In a previous topic, I explained how this number 19 can be interpreted as referring to a substance "covering" Saqar.  The element with atomic index number 19, potassium, seems to fit the description of hell, as potassium is the biggest remainder in human ashes.  For more information on the previous findings see: http://free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=9607107.0

Let's again read what Quran says about this number and how it should be interpreted:

Sahih International: "And We have not made the keepers of the Fire except angels. And We have not made their number except as a trial for those who disbelieve - that those who were given the Scripture will be convinced and those who have believed will increase in faith and those who were given the Scripture and the believers will not doubt and that those in whose hearts is hypocrisy and the disbelievers will say, "What does Allah intend by this as an example?" Thus does Allah leave astray whom He wills and guides whom He wills. And none knows the soldiers of your Lord except Him. And mention of the Fire is not but a reminder to humanity."

Clearly this number is mentioned as evidence for "those who were given the Scripture".  We know this scripture is not the Quran, as this Quran was still in the process of being revealed.  The Scripture referred to here is the Hebrew Bible.  The judeonazarenes, for when facing criticism of Arab christians, provided their teachers with an argument that is capable of convincing the truth in it by referring to the original Scripture (the Tanakh).

Certainly, this is has to be a very well known example.  Common knowledge to any jew or christian.  A strong reminder of an event that would be an example of hell.  What happens if we interpret this "19" as a bookmark.  Is there any event associated with "19" that could be referred to with the judgment of Hellfire?

The first book of the Hebrew Bible is Genesis.  Let's read Genesis 19 and see what we find...

Genesis 19 - New International Version (NIV):

Sodom and Gomorrah Destroyed

19 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 ?My lords,? he said, ?please turn aside to your servant?s house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning.?

?No,? they answered, ?we will spend the night in the square.?

3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom?both young and old?surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, ?Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.?

6 Lot went outside to meet them and shut the door behind him 7 and said, ?No, my friends. Don?t do this wicked thing. 8 Look, I have two daughters who have never slept with a man. Let me bring them out to you, and you can do what you like with them. But don?t do anything to these men, for they have come under the protection of my roof.?

9 ?Get out of our way,? they replied. ?This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge! We?ll treat you worse than them.? They kept bringing pressure on Lot and moved forward to break down the door.

10 But the men inside reached out and pulled Lot back into the house and shut the door. 11 Then they struck the men who were at the door of the house, young and old, with blindness so that they could not find the door.

12 The two men said to Lot, ?Do you have anyone else here?sons-in-law, sons or daughters, or anyone else in the city who belongs to you? Get them out of here, 13 because we are going to destroy this place. The outcry to the Lord against its people is so great that he has sent us to destroy it.?

14 So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry[a] his daughters. He said, ?Hurry and get out of this place, because the Lord is about to destroy the city!? But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

15 With the coming of dawn, the angels urged Lot, saying, ?Hurry! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away when the city is punished.?

16 When he hesitated, the men grasped his hand and the hands of his wife and of his two daughters and led them safely out of the city, for the Lord was merciful to them. 17 As soon as they had brought them out, one of them said, ?Flee for your lives! Don?t look back, and don?t stop anywhere in the plain! Flee to the mountains or you will be swept away!?

18 But Lot said to them, ?No, my lords, please! 19 Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can?t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I?ll die. 20 Look, here is a town near enough to run to, and it is small. Let me flee to it?it is very small, isn?t it? Then my life will be spared.?

21 He said to him, ?Very well, I will grant this request too; I will not overthrow the town you speak of. 22 But flee there quickly, because I cannot do anything until you reach it.? (That is why the town was called Zoar.[f])

23 By the time Lot reached Zoar, the sun had risen over the land. 24 Then the Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah?from the Lord out of the heavens. 25 Thus he overthrew those cities and the entire plain, destroying all those living in the cities?and also the vegetation in the land. 26 But Lot?s wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

27 Early the next morning Abraham got up and returned to the place where he had stood before the Lord. 28 He looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah, toward all the land of the plain, and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.

29 So when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham, and he brought Lot out of the catastrophe that overthrew the cities where Lot had lived.

The story of destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah is depicted here.  A catastrophic event, destroying the cities entirely.  All the elements that are exemplary of hell are present:

• Angels are mentioned, bringing total destruction
• Fire, smoke, brimstone are mentioned.  The analogy with a furnace is made.
• The destruction of the city is a punishment, as is hell, for their wrong ways.

Surely, if the Judeonazarenes wanted to counter Arab christian sceptics, this event of apocalyptic destruction should convince them of being the truth from the Lord.  Again the judeonazarene understanding of Quran reveals the keys to reading and understanding it correctly.

Furthermore, recent research has proven that the total destruction of the cities of the plains may have actually happened.  (See this BBC documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ok24RwKbG28).  In this documentary is explained how the ancient location of Sodom and Gomorrah is situated on the convergence of 3 tectonic plates, but also that the ground contains methane which only recently caused a huge explosion when road constructions were done on the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea.

But runninglikezebras, what about your understanding of 19 as a reference to potassium the substance covering hell and the biggest remainder in human ashes?  Did it land in the bin?  Well, I only recently discovered the Dead Sea itself is a huge natural resource of potassium (potassium chloride).  It is still to this day being industrially exploited (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Works) and is the  world's fourth largest producer and supplier of potash products.

I want to share this excellent BBC documentary on Sodom and Gomorrah.  These cities of the plains are also mentioned in Quran in the story of Lot.  The documentary researches the hypothesis whether this apocalyptic could have actually taken place at the borders of the Dead Sea while using modern scientific tools and they come to an astonishing conclusion which will require much more future research to be done:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvEoPAF1gMk

[The great secret of Islam]

The great secret of Islam

The hidden history of Islam revealed by historical research

The Great Secret of Islam is freely available in French (read and download) from the site http://legrandsecretdelislam.com  The reader will also find a synthesis in two parts as free download (synthesis in 8 pages, main sources and bibliography 10 pages). 

The Great Secret of Islam
Written by Olaf, is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License

Strange thing this uncomfortable feeling towards Islam that is gradually rising among non-Muslims.  With the press repeating this message  (and even more so on the Internet), with almost three quarters of the French acknowledging in a recent survey [1], that there is something disturbing in Islam. Why such terrible fratricidal struggles between Muslims that never end?  Why this doctrinal intolerance of Islam towards other religions?  Why this desire to dominate everything? Why these problems of integration in the modern world, this while they are by definition incompatible?  Why these attacks on freedom and human dignity?  Why is there so little reaction of the vast majority of Muslims themselves in face of  all this? And in particular, why so little reaction to the violence that continues to occur since this religion has become established about 1400 years ago and the great epic of Muhammad, His Prophet? But above all, why is it so difficult or even entirely forbidden to Muslims to address these issues, ask these questions and to engage in critical interpretations?  So what is there to hide in Islam?

The observer can certainly try to characterize some flaws of Islam as a religion and as a political system, which it is both.  Already noted in its normative and social dimension, as the code and law, it struggles to build the ideal society that it aspires to establish in the entire world - this failure was cruelly manifested in the Islamist regimes based on the law of Allah. We can then try to explain and understand by these faults in the light of some contradictions intrinsic to the doctrine, the Muslim dogma by showing that they can believe in paradoxical injunctions of revealed truths little fit to human nature or even common sense. But beyond that, the key to understanding Islam also falls within the scientific work, historical research work on its actual origins. For it is in establishing the truth about its origins, without ideological or religious bias, that we can understand what it really is, and therefore the reason for its flaws, its failures, and also of its qualities and success.  It is a very long work started, but continued in relative indifference, ignored or fought by Muslims, understandably, but also by the media, journalists, scientists, historians, teachers, legal authorities and even by some non-Muslim religious authorities . And for good reason!  They believe almost without question what Islam says about itself - even about its own origins and its own history.  They accept it as historical truth, they print it in textbooks, they teach it to children, and in doing so they legitimize it.

Thus the history of Islam and its revelation are known to most.  A story that is even more interesting since it already disclosed against itself, in its logic and its apparent resorts, a remainder of the historical truth about its origins and its taking shape as a religion and as a political system. This truth is not spoken upon. The true story is hidden, encrypted, secret, forbidden, taboo. Also, in an attempt to retrace the course of true history, one must, a priori, become familiar with this story which Islam tells about itself.  It will allow us to see and understand later what this great secret is, which Islam is trying to conceal so well, this secret that is gradually unveiled by historical research, which we will see in the last part found in traces of Muslim texts themselves.

[1] Ipsos-Le Monde survey in January 2013: "74% of those asked by Ipsos believe that Islam is an "intolerant" religion incompatible with the values of French society


- To be continued -

[End of the 5th century]

End of the 5th century	Coreshites (Quraysh) mentioned on tombstones in Iraq
6th century	The Coreshites become peaceful caravan traders, based at Latakia, a port associated with the silk route. (see map below)
+- 585	Beginning of their indoctrination by Judeo-Nazarenes " to "their cause" (among which a certain Waraqa)
614	Persian Invasion implicating Arabs
621	Beginning of the Byzantine emperor Heraclius' reconquest
622	Exodus to the desert (from Syria to Medina) - Hegira
627	The Persians are defeated, but the Byzantines are exhausted
end of 629	First expedition from Medina to Jerusalem: defeat at Mu'ta
632 or 634	Death of Muhammad or second expedition to Palestine (occupation of the land) before his death; 634 Battle of Yarmouk and gathering of the Arabs of Syria.  Occupation of Damascus (635)
End 637 - 638	Conquest of Jerusalem and construction of the "Cube"
640-641	Crisis because of the Judeo-Nazarene leadership: turning of the Arabs against their Nazarene superiors.  Progressive change of their judaic prerogatives to Arab ones.
644	Assassination of Umar.  Drafts of a compilation of a Book before the justification of power and prerogatives for Arabs.
654	Assassination of Uthman.  Change of the first Book and the exercise of power.
660	Mu'?wiyah (660-680), 1st Caliph of Damascus.
+- 670	creation of Mecca as an Arab town "of Abraham"; 670 & 673 & 678 - sieges of Constantinople
683-685	New intra-muslim conflict: Muhammad is rescued from oblivion as a figure of opposition to the Caliph of Damascus
692	'Abd Al-Malik restores this figure of war chief to make him the prophet of the Book.
696	First "arab" money (coins) ; Muhammad rasuks Uah ; start of the fabrication of the hadiths
after 700	new destructions and changes to the Quran by Hajjaj ; he says "the prophet messenger  is inferior to the caliph". Namegiving of "Islam"
717	New siege of Constantinople
743	Muhammad is said to have received the Qur'an during sleep (John of Damascus ) - not even by the dictation of an angel
VIII-IX century	" Muhammadisation " of Mecca, making the " Biography of the Prophet " and the development of the current Quran and stories of the "revelation" ( night journey to Jerusalem , dictated by the Angel Gabriel , etc.)

Among the finds in Qumran was this text identified as (4Q535, Manuscript B) also referred to as the Testament of Amram.  It is a pretty remarkable text in Aramaic, describing from Amram's point of view.  The manuscript is dated to the 2nd century BC and describes a vision.  Translation:

I saw Watchers in my vision, the dream-vision. Two men were fighting over me...holding a great contest over me. I asked them, 'Who are you, that you are thus empowered over me?' They answered, 'We have been empowered and rule over all mankind.' They said to me, 'Which of us do you choose to rule you?' I raised my eyes and looked. One of them was terrifying in his appearance, like a serpent, his cloak, many-colored yet very dark....And I looked again, and in his appearance, his visage like a viper....I replied to him, 'This Watcher, who is he?' He answered, 'This Watcher...his three names are Belial and Prince of Darkness and King of Evil.' I said (to the other Watcher), 'My lord, what dominion (have you?)' He answered, 'You saw (the viper), and he is empowered over all Darkness, while I (am empowered over all Light.)...My three names are Michael, Prince of Light and King of Righteousness

The watchers (grigori) referred to in this text are a reference to the second book of Enoch:

Chapter 29, referring to the second day of creation, before the creation of human beings, says that "one from out the order of angels" or, according to other versions of 2 Enoch, "one of the order of archangels" or "one of the ranks of the archangels" "conceived an impossible thought, to place his throne higher than the clouds above the earth, that he might become equal in rank to [the Lord's] power. And [the Lord] threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the bottomless." Although in this chapter the name "Satanail" is mentioned only in a heading added in one manuscript, this chapter too is often understood to refer to Satanail and his angels, the Grigori.

The Quran speaks of Amram:

God did choose Adam and Noah, the family of Abraham, and the family of Amram above all people,-

?Qur'an, sura 3 (The House of Imran), ayah 33

Traditonalists explain Amram to be the father of Moses and Aaron, or as the father of Mary, mother of Jesus.  What is striking about the dead scroll text imho is the dualistic view: light vs darkness.  But this could be caused by the interpolation made in the translation: (am empowered over all Light) is an interpolation by the translator.

In Quran the visual map of the concept of Michael is revealing:



I think the visual map is incorrect.  The branch of Angels should include Iblis (Belial).  The oldest source we have about Amram seems to suggest so as it mentions Iblis (belial) next to Michael, both being Angels.  Belial/Iblis is referred to as Watcher to denote he is a Fallen Angel (as per Enoch 2).

The Quranic identification of Amram seems still ambiguous.  All we know is the Qumran is clearly referring to Amram, father of Moses and Aaron.  I can't possibly refer to father of Mary because in the Judaic texts he is referred to as Joachim not as Amram.

This makes Amram a patriarch in the Abrahamic faith that is often overlooked.

Peace

I'm interested to know which hadith users on this forum reject:

I share with most I think that I reject the hadith that tell us how to pray, how to do zakaat etc.

But I also reject the hadith that tell us about Islams origins (Hejaz, Mecca etc)

I reject the hadith that introduced the current hijra-calendar or uses the hijra calendar to date events mentioned in Quran.

I reject the hadith the current Uthman codex of Quran is authorized by God and is the version of Quran that was known to Muhammad.

I reject the hadith the Quran we know today is still original and has never been changed.

I reject the hadith the Quran was revealed first to Arabs.

I reject the hadith concerning the change of qibla.

I reject the hadith Quran does not contain any foreign words (aramaic, akkadian, hebrew, persian).

Current studies seem to point out the Uthmanic Quran is missing many verses even entire pages...  Let's hope research like that will reveal some more interesting sura that have been surpressed by the early rulers of Islam.  See:

http://rootsofislamtruehistory.com/subpages/Codicology_and_suspected_verses.htm

Peace

    We have often wondered how the term Muslim, which means subjected, could possibly come from a root such as SALAM (Hebrew: Shalom), which means peace.
   The answer lies in a tradition in which the Gospel of Matthew in Aramaic plays a central role.

The fact that the Gospel of Saint Matthew proved a major reference for the Koranic text to draw from has too often eluded the attention of those who took interest in it. This being said, a few scholars have had the right hunch from the simple fact that this Gospel ? in Aramaic ? provided its material to that of the ?Nazarenes? (as reported in several accounts from Antiquity), also known as the injil (literally, the gospel, in the singular form), which the Koranic text refers back to [1].

The question raised here regards the designation ?Muslim? [root slm, like in the word salam + prefix mu-]. Since the beginning of Islam, it has literally meant ?he who is submitted? just like the word islam means ?submission? ? certainly not ? peace ? as we hear claimed here and there in deceiving articles directed to a misguided European readership. Let us recall that Muslims did not refer to themselves as ?Muslims? before the end of the 7th century, early 8th century. Prior to that time, they referred to themselves as Mu-hajirun, literally: ?Those who made the Hijra, or Hegira (i.e. the travel to Medina).?

The difficulty [2] raised by a number of scholars concerns the origin of such a signification as ?submission.?  No equivalent form of this root with this signification is to be found in Hebrew. Moreover, it is in itself surprising: how could the meaning of salam (basic form) ? in Hebrew: ?alom, peace, wholeness, well-being ? slide to islam (4th Arabic form), meaning to submit (to slavishly yield to the power of) to God? Considering the matter from a grammatically logic point of view, the expected meaning can hardly fail to semantically agree with the following: preserving in good shape, as an intact whole.

The case for a bookish explanation was made following with the view of several scholars, most notably Patricia CRONE, Michael COOK, and Kurt HRUBY. It relied upon two earlier (Aramaic) texts in which the root slm is found to be used with the following meaning: to commit or hand [oneself] over [to God], which is to say, to submit [oneself] [3]. Fair enough. But, what living connection can there be made between these two texts and the use of this meaning in the Koran? The Arabs did not know how to read (except for monks and nuns) and their culture was essentially oral, untouched by the methods and ways of literate milieus.

It is therefore in the direction of a popular use that it seems pertinent to turn. In other words, necessarily to the communal and colloquial milieu in which the root slm was actually used to take on the unexpected meaning of to submit to God ? with the result that such a meaning be so understood when the propaganda accounted for in the primitive Koranic folios began. Unmistakably, if one goes on to assume that such a milieu was that of the Meccan community, it becomes increasingly difficult to answer the question, given the fact that Koranic Arabic was not the language they spoke.

It is through Aramaic (the cultural setting of which places us over a thousand kilometers away from Mecca), wherein all the forms of the root slm turn out to match up with occurrences in the Koran, that the question finds its answer. For instance, the 3rd form, also known in Hebrew and expressing the idea of being whole or perfect (see in sura 2:71: to be without blemish in reference to the cow, which gives its title to the sura). There remains the 4th form.
The Aramaic Gospel of Matthew (of which Syriacs and Chaldeans possess an accurate text originating from the Aramaic Peshitta written in the original language of the New Testament) is more enlightening than a grammar. The root slm appears under a variety of forms therein (58 times in total), taking on multiple meanings, beginning with the most evident of all, peace:

                  ?And when you enter into a house, greet the household. And if the household is worthy, let your peace (?lama) come upon it.
                    But if the household is not worthy, let your peace return to you.? (Mt 10:12-13)

The notion of perfection or completion follows from it, as in:

                  ?Again you have heard that it was said to those before you: ?You shall not swear falsely, but you shall bring to completion (t?alem) your oaths to the Lord.?? (Mt 5:33)
                    ?[parall.]? And so it was, when Jesus had completed (?alem) these sayings, that the crowds were astonished at His teaching [4] (Mt 7:28) ?[parall.]?
                   Jesus answered and said to them: Elijah is coming first to bring to completion all things.? (Mt 17:11)

Or again that of transmitted perfection:

                   ?Why do your disciples transgress the tradition (ma?lmanouta?) of the elders and do not wash their hands when they eat bread?? (Mt 15:2)

Next, a semantic variation appears with the sense of delivering. What is perfect, completed, is so made to be transmitted (this meaning of handing down or passing over to, is unknown in Hebrew [5]):

  ?And it came to pass that when Jesus had completed (me?tlem or delivered in the sense of handed down) all these sayings, He said to His disciples:
  ?You know that after two days is the Passover, and the Son of Man is to be delivered up to be crucified.? (Mt 26:1-2) [?]
  And he [Judas] said to them: ?What are you willing to give me if I deliver Him to you?? And they promised him thirty (pieces) of silver.
  And from that time, he sought opportunity to deliver Him. (Mt 26:15-16) [?]
Judas the ? deliverer ? (ma?lmana?) answered and said: ?Rabbi, is it I? Jesus said to him: ?You have said so.? (Mt 26:25)
?Then they will deliver (= submit) you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for my Name?s sake.
  And then many will be offended, and they will hate one another, and will deliver each other up.? (Mt 24:9-10)

We thus end up with the equivalent of the 4th Arabic form against which emerges the religious connotation of to commit or hand oneself over (or again to submit) to God, which Jesus uses in reference to Himself:

                  ?Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man is handing Himself over to the chief priest and to the scribes.
                   And they will condemn Him to death, and deliver (hand over) Him up to the Gentiles.? (Mt 20:18-19a)

This form has systematically been rendered in Greek by use of the verb paradidomi. The same connotation of to commit or hand oneself over to, is found occurring in that section of the First Epistle of Peter which precisely refers to the Passion of Jesus: 

                  ?He committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth; reviled, He did not revile in return;
                    when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself (entrusted or again handed Himself over) to the righteous Judge.? (1P 2:22-23)

It must be emphasized, against the usual meaning associated with the term submission [6], that to commit oneself to God does not stand for bringing oneself down before God (= subordinating oneself to an All-Powerful Tyrant). This negative meaning clearly is a distortion Judeo-Nazarenes first introduced, and which the Koran inherited.

In a way, the Gospel of Matthew in Aramaic is the living semantic source of the expression ? submitted to God, ? at least before it took on the connotation of subservient abasement of man before his Creator. By the time the Judeo-Nazarenes began to indoctrinate them, it still resounded with the noble sense of ? he who trusts in God, ? ? who commits himself to Him ? to the ears of Arabic Christians. It is the concealment and distortion of the real history of the origins of Islam which have created a lot of confusion, in particular regarding the origin of the meaning of the word muslim ? not only confusion, but also a good deal of absurdity. Consider, for example, the passage we find in a verse of the Koran (5:116), and which is read in such a way as to place Mary in the Trinity, while it is well-known that what is behind points to a common way, among Aramaic people to this day, of referring to the Holy Spirit as ? Mother of Jesus. ? Once again, we see that the Koran can only be properly understood in an Aramaic cultural milieu, as Christof Luxenberg has shown, following in the footsteps of other conclusive research. Scholars knowledgeable in Syriac or Aramaic suspect it and see it for themselves as soon as they start reading the Koran in Arabic. However, the subject is still very taboo. 



[1] The Koranic text abundantly and implicitly refers to the Gospel of Matthew (and to no other!), see Le Messie et son proph?te, in particular in tome II ? The Index des auteurs et ouvrages antiques ou patristiques (page 549) gives some sense as to the number and frequency of the references. A systematic study of the whole Koranic text would probably double the number.
[2] See tome II, p. 102 to 104.
[3] Respectively in Memar Marqah, a Samaritan text, and the Acts of Saint Thomas, produced in the (Chaldean) Church of the Eastern. We read in the latter that some young people ?were convinced by Our Lord and put their faith in him [= they submitted themselves to him, root slm],? see p. 103.
[4] See Mgr. Alichoran, L??vangile en aram?en. Traduction de la Peshitta et commentaire (Abbaye de Bellefontaine: COLL. Spiritualit? Orientale n? 80, 2002) p. 130.197.
[5] That is one of the key objections against the idea of a Hebrew original of the Gospels rather than Aramaic. Here J.-M. van Cangh and A. Toumpsin, who both posit the hypothesis of an original Hebrew version of the Gospels to justify their alleged retroversion of Marc, are obliged to assume an Aramaic Semitism that would have passed in Hebrew. The whole enterprise amounts to too many suppositions ? see L??vangile de Marc. Un original h?breu ? (Bruxelles: Safran Editions, 2005).
[6] It is another verb that expresses the meaning of submission-subordination, and which corresponds to the Greek upotasso precisely found in 1P 2:13.18 and 3:1, and elsewhere as well.

Source: http://rootsofislamtruehistory.com/subpages/Muslim_the_Word.htm

[Where does the term ?surah? come from?]

Where does the term ?surah? come from?

It is common knowledge that a chapter of the Koranic text is called a ?surah ? .

But where did we get the term?

If we are to believe assertions frequently penned in the West, its origin is unknown. In The Messiah and his Prophet (vol. II p.184-185), we evidenced a certain similarity with biblical Hebrew, but one that is still too distant; another similarity, found with the rabbinical Hebrew term ?ura?  ( i.e. a paragraph or a margin note) seems more convincing. We are coming closer to the meaning of ? writing ? or ?chapter?, but not yet in a fully satisfying way.

If we turn to the Aramean language however, we begin to approach the answer. Many are a priori opposed to this examination, as Islamic rhetoricians hold that the origins of Islam owe nothing to the Aramean culture and are instead rooted in the other side of the Arabian peninsula ? but of course the same tell us that Muhammad often travelled in the direction of Syria, where he met Bah?ra the monk, for example...

So, what do we find in Aramean? A word, śirţ? (transposed in Hebrew writing: ), means line, but more essentially, writing [1]! The word seems to derive from the old Aramean root śfr, to write, which became in Hebrew ś?fer ( , the one who writes, found in the Koran in 80:15, safarat, scribes). However, in certain Aramaic formulations, the ?f? changes into ?w?, and writing is expressed by the word ś?rat [2].

This time again, we had to turn to the north of the Arab cradle of the time to find an answer to the question of the origins [3].



[1] See for example K?bert?s Vocabularium Syriacum, 1956, p.133 which provides as an illustration: ?the Jacobite writings.? As a general rule, the K?bert explains that   in Aramean corresponds to  in Arabic (whereas corresponds to  ).

[2] The question was brought up by Christoph Luxenberg at the March 13-16, 2008 Inarah Otzenhauzen Conference (Saarland), on ?The Early History Of Islam And The Koran?.

[3] Aramean, a very ancient oral and written language, has a lot more to teach us, particularly in regard to our knowledge of the first centuries of our era. Doesn?t the same Aramean word reappear in the word ?soutra ?, also meaning ?writing?? Research finds a stimulus in questions that are posed and in what appears to be coincidences. Several Pali and Chinese manuscripts from the first centuries of our age suggest a total of ? 42 soutra-s.? No one can say for sure what this number represents. But it could very well refer to the -as yet- little known collection of Aramean-Christian holy scriptures in existence during the first century. The word we use today to designate the text of the Gospel only applied to its content then (literally, it meant: the Proclamation). Moreover, today?s ?gospels ? didn?t exist as such: no specific term designated the memory aids or transcriptions of the twelve Apostles? preaching, whose only prescriptive value rested on oral teaching. According to the Judeo-Aramean way of counting, what we call today the ?Old Testament ? consisted of thirty books (the ?other writings ? being left aside), namely: the five books of the Torah, the Psalms (=1 book), the six ?major prophets ? (i.e. Joshua, who is believed to have written the book of Joshua; Samuel, the presumed author of the books of Judges and Samuel; Jeremiah, the presumed author of the books of Kings and Jeremiah; Isaiah; Ezekiel, and the twelve ?minor prophets ?, from Hosea to Malachi), giving a total of 30. If one adds the twelve ?Memoirs of the Apostles ? mentioned by Papias and several oral Eastern traditions, one arrives at 42 texts. All these ?books ? must have been referred to as ?writings ? / śirţ? ?s in first-century Aramean. To be continued.

Source: http://rootsofislamtruehistory.com/subpages/Sura-the-word_EN.htm

[Why does the Quran use the name of ??s? for the name of Yas?? (Jesus - equivalent arab of the hebrew Ye???a) as was always used by the christian arabs?]

Based on: Dye Guillaume and Kropp Manfred, The name of Jesus (??s?) in the Quran and some other biblical names: comments on the quranical onomastics, in Biblical Figures in Islam, under the direction of Guillaume Dye and Fabio Nobilio, Brussels ?d. E.M.E., 2011

Why does the Quran use the name of ??s? for the name of Yas?? (Jesus - equivalent arab of the hebrew Ye???a) as was always used by the christian arabs?

Since the existence of western islamology, researchers have wondered why one finds the consonants ?YSW for the quranic name of Jesus instead of YSW?, as if the final ?ayn final (?) was moved to the front.  In effect, the quranic text reads ??s?, this while the christian arabs say Yas??.  A consonant moving from fourth place to the first is an impossible evolution.  We are faced with an impasse that can not be resolved by any hypothesis. 

These authors show how philology alone can explain the changing of YSW? to ?YSW, by changing the perspective to that of spoken arab language.  In their writings, one can find evidence of a tendency "to add a ?ayn to "arabicize" a borrowed word.  This is still the case today, eg ma?kar?na, borrows from italian maccheroni? (p.184).  This kind of understanding has been little known until now, possibly because the research remained hypnotized by the idea of a divine language of the Quran (God calling who He wills however He wants) or by that of supposed arab "polytheists" (who were unlikely to use the name of Jesus).

To illustrate the evolutions that had to have taken place in the popular arab pronunciation, the authors point to a multitude of examples of Quranic deformations of proper names (eg the Syriac ?l?m?n that becomes  Sulaym?n in arab, the ? becomes an s like in ??s?) - but they are giving example entirely outside of Quran as well and state:

"If one wishes to explain the form of ??s? based only on linguistic elements, one will conclude that it will appear reasonable to start with the aramaic form YSۑ, of which one knows it is represented, in the aramaic dialects of later times, in many different ways, for example: ysw? to syriac, vocalised Y? in western syriac and Κ?? in eastern syriac oriental (pronounced Κ?, the ?ayn final falling into the eastern syriac pronunciation)? (p.184).     

"In effect, it is "simple (and plausible) to start from the idea that the transmission was most of all spoken.  And there, starting from the pronunciation of Κ??, that is to say Κ?, things are explained very easily, like Fraenkel rightly staded: a) fall/drop of final ?ayn in the pronunciation of the aramaic word; b) change from  ?? to ?? ; c) change from -?- to -s-; d) addition of an initial  ?ayn [?]

"The question is not the amount of changes but rather the logic by which they are applied - and they appear less arbitrary here as they all appear (except for the drop of the final ?ayn, which depends on the term that is being borrowed) in another example, this example being the name of the town of Ascalen (Ashqel?n), often mentioned in the Bible (eg Amos 1, 8 ).  In effect, the arab ?asqal?n or ?asqul?n has to be compared to the syriac ?a?qal?n and the hebrew ?a?qel?n: one will find the change of the alif (?) to ?ayn (?) in the beginning, just like those from -?- to -s- and from ? /? to ?? (p.187).

In "The Foundation of Islam" (2002), A.-L. de Pr?mare had already revealed the writing of ??s? in arab graffiti (thus close to verbally spoken) discovered by Y. Nevo in the Negev - they are not dated but appear contemporary to the origins of arab Islam -; such a popular pronunciation of the name of Jesus could thus have been written in formulations that did not depend on those of the Quran (p. 197)  The question is even more simple when one bears in mind that these leaflets who would serve later to compose the Quran with were drafts designed to indoctrinate the Arabs with: every wise preacher reproduced the names in such a way as those as they reckoned to be addressing pronounced it.  Moreover those addressed had to be already very familiar with the content, or not understand a word of it at all: this necessarily implies those addressed were arab christians.  More than likely these arab christians were their geographical neighbours - which the Coreshites effectively were, living in northern syria and before that in Mesopotamia.  We are sorry for for destroying the myth of "polytheistic" arabs which was invented to support the idea of a new Revelation given by God to Arab muslims in Mecca.

One could say this study reveals an old enigma: how to explain the writing was missing diacritic markers in the oldest versions of Quran, while diacritical markers were already in use at that time?  More than likely, the leaflets that would later constitute the Quran were draft writings used for preaching.

A final remark: Another quranic name, that of John, looks to be also deformed: Yahya.  Like with ??s?, was the name of Yahya a deformation (from Yuhanna, arab form of the hebrew Yohannan) reflecting the popular speech of christian arabs?  Nabataean inscriptions (older than the Quran) attest for such a usage.  With this we object to the explanation of a bad reading: the consonantal ducus (i.e. removed from diacritic markers) ىحٮ can be read equally Yahya as Yuhanna.  Coincidence or not?   

[The defeat of Muhammad in the Holy Land and surah 30 "the Byzantines" (ar-R?m)]

The defeat of Muhammad in the Holy Land and surah 30 "the Byzantines" (ar-R?m)

"The battle of Mou'ta in 629 is one of the very few events in the life of Muhammad that are attested for by non-muslim sources.  This historical fact is often silenced, most likely because it speaks of a defeat and it is considered bad to say Muhammad could have been defeated by the Byzantines.

This being said, the later written muslim historiographies paint the picture of a new battle having taken place one year later, or rather not having taken place, with the Byzantines withdrawing before the thirthy thousand men gloriously assembled by Muhammad.  The honour of the Prophet of Islam is thus saved, even though this non-battle of Tabuk (N-W of Saudi Arabia) isn't attested for by any non-muslim historian, and one can wonder what a Byzantine army was doing in the desert.

So what can we say about the objectives of Muhammad during the Battle of Mu'ta?  Fred Donner thinks he wanted to submit the arab tribes (The Early Islamic Conquests, p. 102), with the objective to enlist them in the war claimed by the Quranic revelation - this author, ignoring all the exegesis of the text, assumes the Quran already existed.  But, what really motivated Muhammad and his men?  Can one say the project envisioned the conquest of the Holy Land and of Jerusalem to which, rightfully, everyone prayed?  Did the location of the battle, situated in south-east of Jordan, express a fundamental symbol for the people of that time, the conquest of the "Holy Land" starting with the crossing of Jordan?" (PFJ).

Having verified things, two small towns present themselves in history using the name of Mou'ta (Mu'tah): one was situated in the N-E of Joran (nearby Bosra or Bostra) (1), the other, more southern, is today a university city of Jordan.  The latter, being the military post of the IVth military byzantine region, gave its name to the battle.

The Holy Land was organised by the Byzantines (or Romans as they still used to be called at that time) using four regions: Judea, Galilea, the south from the Dead Sea to Aqaba, and, in the east-south-east, "Arabia".  The military post of this IVth region was composed of cavaleers (equites), troops on foot (scutarii) and auxiliaries (Illiriciani).  By the end of 629 this byzantine force, supported by a contingent of Lakhmid Arabs, confronted the troops led by Muhammad.  The event is being told about in the "Chronicle of Theophanes"; but the idea of why Muhammad chose to attack these Arabs of the N-W does not make sense.  Verily, the byzantine  authors never really understood the ideological nature of the project: much later, they still believed that the Arab invaders were nomads who simply followed a policy of razzias!

A much embarrassing fact

Multiple elements, resulting from convergent analyses, have to be taken into account here, to leave the myth and to enter the historical reality.  It is this convergence that constitutes the certitude of the historian; in contrast to a single document or indictator (for example, the direction of prayer which effectively was Jerusalem): on itself, every document will always be contestable in one way or another.

In this specific case, the Quranic text itself - as will be demonstrated - has some data that reveal a history completely different from that written down in muslim historiographies two centuries after the events took place, under the authority of the Caliphs.  At least one verse refers to the defeat in Mu'ta; or, it was modified!  Could the goal of this modification have been solely to wipe out this memory?  It's sufficient to invent a new battle in which Muhammad was victorious, and that's exactly what the historiographies have done with Tabuk.

"And We have already written in the book [of Psalms] after the [previous] mention that the land is inherited by My righteous servants." (sur. 21,105 - the allusion is referring to Psalm 37 verses 9.11.22.29).

"Indeed, the earth belongs to Allah. He causes to inherit it whom He wills of His servants. And the [best] outcome is for the righteous." (sur. 19, 40)

"And it is He who has made you successors upon the earth and has raised some of you above others in degrees [of rank] that He may try you through what He has given you." (sur. 6, 165)

These verses are relating to the nazarene-arab coalition established in Yathrib-Medina and known elsewhere.  The route taken by the troops of Muhammad coming from Medina is all together very revealing.  A map orientated north to south reveals immediately they were arriving from the south, but they did not enter in Palestine from that direction: they travelled through Transjordania. The idea was to arrive facing the Jordan.  Crossing the Jordan would have been the sign of the victorious conquest of the Holy Land: similar to what the Hebrews of the Exodus did according to the Biblical description (cf. Numbers 33).  They wanted to enter the Holy Land, crossing the Jordan barefooted, corresponding to the extraordinary account given in the book of Joshua (3, 14-17).

This similarity hasn't escaped the best islamic scholars, who saw the analogy between the concept of  traditional Exodus, ending in the miraculous crossing of the Jordan, and the idea of Hijra.  This concept of Hijra used to determine how the first "muslims" were referred to.  Before calling them "muslims" (starting from the end of the 7th century, beginning of the 8th century), they were given the name of mu-hajir?n (root hjr of Hijra), more specifically those who made the Hijra, or the emigrants.  There was similarly a muslim tradition "who implicitly regarded Palestine as the objective of the hijra: there was hijra after hijra, but the best of men follow the hijra of Abraham - towards the Holy Land" (2)

This was the only expedition made by Muhammad in his life in that direction: the nazarene-arab coalition had difficulties overcoming this defeat, as the text illustrates.  It's only later, under Umar, that this project of conquest was again taking shape and eventually realized.

The Quran speaks about the consequences of Mu'ta

A passage in the Quran refers to these events: the beginning of surah Ar-R?m (the Romans). They are dated to 630, at the end of the Medina period.  In the immediate aftermath of this defeat, his goal was to raise spirits and moral again and to promise a future revenge.  This dating of the battle (by Greek historians) is at the same time the only trustworthy dated indicator we dispose of about that person who will be later known as the Prophet of Islam!

As Blach?re explains (3), the start of this surah The Romans (30,2-5) is stating something absurd - at least if we look at it today:

"The Romans (being the Byzantines) have been defeated (g?ulibat) in the nearest of the Land.  They, after their defeat (g?alabi-him), will be victorious (sayag?lib?na) in a few years."

Were the muslims invited to celebrate over the victory of the Byzantines?  Who on earth would celebrate over the victory of their enemies, and this "within a few years"?   The absurdity of this text does not escape to muslim commentators, who prefer to talk about other things.  Where is the error?

Another reading of the text is possible, based on the different vowelization of the three most important words of the same root: being defeated, victory (the root g?lb, winning, can thus not give a noun meaning defeat), and winners.  The question is legitimate because the vowels weren't added to the Quranic text until quite some time later.  It's exactly these vowels who determine whether the form of the word will be passive or active.  And if we read the text with active instead of passive and vice versa we come to the following result:

"The Romans were victorious (g?alabat) in the nearest of Land.  They, after their victory (g?alibi-him), will be defeated (sayag?lab?na) in a few years."

The text becomes perfectly clear and logic again - what it was originally.  It is not a  prophecy but a reference to a recent and desastrous event that took place at the "gates to the Land" - the defeat at Mou'ta in 629.  This verse wants to raise the moral of the defeated, by promising them to be victorious "within a few years" and that they will have the help of God (this effectively took place 5 years later, when Muhammad wasn't alive anymore).

1) Cf . ABEL F.-M., G?ographie de la Palestine, Paris, Gabalda, tome II, 1938.
2) Crone Patricia, Cook Michael, Hagarism. The Making of the Islamic World, Cambridge University Press, 1977, p.9.
3) Blach?re R?gis, Le Coran, Paris, Maison-Neuve, 1957, p.429-430.


http://www.lemessieetsonprophete.com/annexes/mou_ta.htm

Did the Sira of the Prophet borrow from ancient stories?


                                     Subjective and Objective Problems with the Canonical Biography
                          known as the S?ra, with special reference to Q 9:37 and Q 44:54

                                                                                                            by Johannes J.G. Jansen, Amsterdam
                                                                                       Otzenhausen, 4th In?rah Conference, 21 March 2014
                                                                                                              (+ 6 footnotes added by E-M Gallez)

     The academic establishment, the state media and the general public all accept the canonical biography of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, as the gospel truth. Nevertheless, the canonical biography largely consists of stories that have obvious parallels in the Biblical, Graeco-Roman, Near Eastern and Mediterranean world. Like Jesus, Muhammad feeds the multitudes, but Muhammad uses a handful of dates, not bread and fishes.

     Muhammad digs a defensive ditch around Medina, the famous khandaq. This he did on the advice of a Persian convert to Islam, Salman Al-Farisi. The same story is told about the East-Roman general Belisarius who in 530 dug a similar ditch to defend his camp against the Persians at Darعa. Darعa is an ancient town in Syria, close to the present-day border with Jordan, a little to the East of the Sea of Galilee. Both in time and place Belisarius and his ditch are not far removed from the canonical Muhammad or the beginnings of Islam. It is difficult not to suspect that the story of the Ditch as told in Muhammad?s canonical biography has its roots in the Belisarius story.

     In the canonical biography, Omar, later the second caliph, several times draws his sword with the intent to kill someone who behaved improperly in front of his Master, Muhammad. Muhammad then orders his disciple to put his sword back where it belongs, exactly what Jesus ordered Peter to do in the Gethsemane scene in the New Testament passion story. If Omar, after many similar scenes, still did not expect his Master to forbid him to draw his sword and to strike Muhammad?s interlocutor, Umar must have been stupid or have had a serious memory problem, which is not the case in the later stories when Umar fulfils the caliphate. A modern scholar cannot fail to suspect that these stories about Umar are the result of rewriting the New Testament passion scene where Peter draws his sword and is ordered by his Master to put the sword back where it belongs (Mt 26:52).

     There is more of a similar nature. Like Mithras, Muhammad releases water by firing an arrow (Guillaume 452). The famous and much quoted hadith ?War is deceit?, Arabic Al-Harb khidaaع, sounds very much like a version of Proverbs 24:6, ?By tricks you will make war?. Christian Bible translations are surprisingly restrained in rendering this verse, probably because Christians should not approve of war, but the meaning of the verse is unmistakable, the Hebrew תחבולות, ?cunning acts?, is connected to a verb that means ?to ensnare? but, of course, it has other meanings as well.

     In the canonical biography, examples of adaptations of earlier material abound. Allow me to bring into the discussion one case that is speculative but of some interest. It is not taken from the canonical biography, but from the Koran itself: the beginning of Surat ar-Rum, Sura 30 1. Here the Koran announces that: ?The Romans have been vanquished ? after their vanquishing they shall be the victors?. These words are an almost exact replica of the oracle which the Macedonian king Pyrrhus of Epirus received when he asked the oracle to predict the success of his invasion of Italy. The oracle answered ?I say that you will be able to win a victory over the Romans?, but Latin Aio te Romanos vincere posse may mean as well ?The Romans will be able to win a victory over you?.

     The ambiguity of the Arabic personal pronoun in ghalbihim in Q 30:3, which can be the subject but the object as well, matches exactly the ambiguity of the Latin accusativus cum infinitivo in the text of the oracle. Moreover, the oracle and Q 30:1-3 both speak of Romans. As you know, King Pyrrhus was victorious in a number of battles but eventually he lost the war against Rome. I would like to argue that such stories must have been of exceptional interest to soldiers in the Roman army, and easily crossed over to the Arab foederati, local mercenary military confederates, and the later Arab Muslim armies who fought the Byzantine Rūm in Syria and North Africa. If I am correct, which is far from certain, the Koran would in 30:1-3 quote an ancient pagan oracle, which, I feel, would be even more exciting than the innumerable allusions to the Bible the Koran contains 2.

     Another parallel, noticed earlier by others, is the decade before the walls of Troy and then the decade needed to sail back to Ithaca. Are these two decades mirrored in Muhammad?s decade as a prophet in Mecca and then his decade as a warlord and prophet in Medina? It is difficult to say, perhaps both Homer and the canonical biography use ?decade? in the meaning of ?a substantial number of years? 3.

     Also, the theme of the just commander who has to sentence his son to death and sees himself forced to have him executed, because the son went against the law, occurs frequently in Roman military story telling. The theme is regularly discussed in the canonical biography. Perhaps this theme is common amongst warriors and their story-tellers all over the world, but I doubt that.

     The Montanists in Phrygia, in what is now west-central Turkey, believed that their prophet Montanus received revelations directly from God. Sounds familiar. Montanus acquired two prophetesses, Maximilla and Prisca, as followers. They preached that the end of the age was to arrive very soon. Sounds familiar. In the words of the prophetess Maximilla: ?After me there will be no more prophecy, but the End?. Sounds very familiar. Could it be that we have to understand the Islamic dogma of Muhammad as the ?seal of the prophets?, as an echo of the Montanist viewpoint that there would be no more prophets simply because there was no more time left?

     There is another connection to Montanist teaching. Muhammad, in his canonical biography, forbade his wives to remarry after his death. Montanists, too, insisted that a widow should not remarry (according to New Testament doctrine, widows are free to remarry.) These things all could be coincidences. On the other hand, they might help to make plausible that the biography and teachings ascribed to Muhammad developed out of ideas and stories that circulated in the Near East, and that were attributed to the founder of Islam. Certainly the standard Christology of the Koran, ?Jesus was just one of the prophets and was not physically crucified? falls in this category. Several Christian groups that are now lost taught this.

     The Old-Testament prophet Daniel is one of those who receives messages from God through Gabriel. The parallel with Muhammad is striking, since Gabriel (Dn 8:16, 9:21) is ordered to explain to Daniel the visions he saw. Also, after meeting Gabriel, Daniel feels exhausted and sick (Dn 8:27) which cannot but remind us of a number of stories from the canonical biography of Muhammad, not only the account of the first Call which is described as leaving Muhammad feeling suffocated but also other description in the standard Koran commentaries of the process of the revelation of the Koran. But again, these might have been general stories, well known over the centuries. Every now and then such stories were connected to a specific prophet. Nevertheless, the coincidence of the presence of Gabriel who has to explain the person he addresses what is being revealed to him is striking.

     However this all might be, it may be a worthwhile project to select the stories that cannot be suspected of being a rewrite of earlier stories and try and find out whether this category of stories, if it exists, might give a picture of a possibly historical Muhammad. New Testament scholars apply a similar technique: Sayings of Jesus that sound very Christian, and sayings that sound very Rabbinic are more or less discarded, and on the basis of the remaining sayings attempts are then being made to see what picture emerges from sayings that are not too Christian and no too Jewish either. This method may not be very fruitful 4 in the case of Muhammad?s biography, because there may be only few stories that are original, but it seems imperative to anyhow see what this method may produce if anything.

     The canonical biography tells us many stories that are definitely poor in details. It is surprising how little information the stories contain. For instance, Muhammad visits a Jewish school in Medina. The reader is left with a feeling of unreality. We get no information about the school at all. Is it a building? If so, where does it stand? What do they teach? How can a true historian or a true reporter be so uninterested in the details? Or, we come across a list of the names of a Jewish tribe or subtribe. The names the list gives are not Jewish. Can that be real?

     There is another point to be made about the conflict between Muhammad and the Jews of Medina. It is odd that the Jewish tradition does not remember the destruction of the Jews of Medina 5. This could easily be taken as an indication ? not proof, an indication only ? that these stories are not historical but instead do aim at delivering a message. The main crime of the Medinan Jews, the canonical biography reports, was trying to forge a coalition that could resist Muhammad. This crime may have been more common amongst Near Eastern Christians who resisted the advance of the Arab armies than amongst Jews.

     Are the stories about the destruction of the Jews of Medina a warning to Christians who might consider to join forces with others against the Arab invaders? Do the stories wish to convey the idea that trying to forge an anti-Islamic coalition is a mortal sin? If the stories would be about Christians being punished for this crime, the warning might miss its effect because a Christian audience might be inclined to feel sympathy for the Christian victims that the Muslims made at these occasions. Jewish victims, however, would not make the Christians worry unduly.

     In the New Testament passion story Peter denies his Lord three times the way Jesus had predicted. Do the Jews of Medina mirror Peter?s denial by three times committing the mistake of not accepting Muhammad as their Lord and Master?

     Or the names of Muhammad?s two most famous wives: Khadiga means ?still-born?, ?dead?. Aisha means ?living?. Possible, but very odd. Amina, the name of Muhammad?s mother, may mean ?fostermother?, אומנת in Hebrew. Possible but odd. ?Abu Bakr? means ?the father of the virgin?, and well, his daughter is the only virgin Muhammad married. Possible, but odd. And so on.

     On the whole, the canonical biography will leave many readers wondering. Too many echoes of similar stories from other religions and cultures. The canonical biography is too one-dimensional to be a real report about real events, but this, of course, is a subjective feeling. However, for hundreds of pages the characters of the individuals that play their role do not develop or change. Some individuals seem to be forgotten by the author already a few pages after they were first introduced, e.g. the colorful Juwayriyya. Too often one cannot but be surprised to see in one scene a number of individuals coming together whose offspring plays important interacting roles in a much later period, and the reader gets the feeling that the narrator already knew this. Too often the stories lack details ? but of course our judgement on which details should be included when telling a story cannot be the same as the judgment of the ancient editors of the canonical biography.

     A difference in outlook and culture may explain a number of cases in which details are not mentioned, but probably not all cases where this happens. Each story from the canonical biography should be examined carefully. It does not matter if it is implausible, because life itself is implausible. But it does matter if the story is identical to other stories ? the only difference being that the protagonists have other names. A story that betrays that its author was not familiar with a part of the rest of the story may be problematic. Are we reading the work of the writer of a sequel who did not know about the prequel that figures in the final version of the story? Also, stories that contradict each other present a problem. Only one of them can be historically true in the common meaning of that word. And maybe there were three versions once ? but the third version, the true one, got lost. There is no way to know these things.

    It is weird that scholars in the 19th and 20th century did not pay more attention to these multiple oddities in the canonical biography and to the many similarities between Muhammad and earlier religious and military figures. If the extant stories about Muhammad reflect the historical reality, there can be no doubt that Muhammad was the Messenger of God since so much coincidence is not humanly possible. However, to a modern mind the similarities suggest another explanation. It is reasonable to suspect that these stories are not historical reports but adaptations of existing lore. These adaptations were made, perhaps with undue haste and at breathtaking speed, in order to propagate a creed that was novel at the time: Muhammad is the messenger of God.

     There is, however, also at least one argument that is not subjective at all and that pleads fervently in favor of the fictional character of the canonical biography. Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham are the authors of the first complete consistent biography of Muhammad, around ? 800 AD. Much of their account is arranged according to a clear-cut chronological order. Until recently this order impressed scholars because it looked authentic: the biographers give a month-by-month account of Muhammad?s acts and whereabouts. However, this month-by-month structure is peculiar. The ancient Arabs, the canonical biography and the Koran assure us, reckoned in solar years that consisted of twelve lunar months to which a leap month had to be added when necessary. Q 9:37 abolishes this system and replaces it with the Islamic lunar year as we know it today. Ibn Ishaq confirms this alteration. This reform of the calendar is assumed to have taken place in March 632, not long before Muhammad?s death.

     Muhammad?s last twenty years, that is the decade as a prophet in Mecca and the decade as a warlord and prophet in Medina, must have counted seven leap months. The lunar year is about eleven days shorter than the solar year, so after each three solar years one leap month would have to be added to keep the lunar calendar more or less in harmony with the solar year. Now the following question has to be answered: Why does Ibn Ishaq not report a single exploit by Muhammad that took place in one of the leap months? Did Muhammad seven times refrain from all action during a whole month? This is inexplicable. It suggests that the stories were put together long after people had forgotten about the leap months, that is: at an even later date than we usually assume.

     Other explanations are imaginable, but none of them will enhance the prestige of the canonical biography of Muhammad. Could Q 9:37 be a misunderstood reference to the end of chapter 6 of the apocryphal Book of the Jubilees? (See R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudoepigraha of the Old Testament, Oxford 1913 & repr.; pp. 22-23). Could the whole story of the assumed calendar reform be nothing but an attempt to explain the mysterious verse Q 9:37, and to create a historical context for this verse? If so, how much more of the canonical biography is not based on any form of historical memory, however vague, but exclusively the product of exegesis? Q 9:37 is an important verse in this connection, since it is difficult to imagine that the verse is not a misunderstood adaptation of the end of Jubilee, chapter 6. It was the lecture by Dr Genevi?ve Gobillot (Lyon) at Otzenhausen, March 23, that made me understand that Jubilee 6 could have decisive importance for the genesis of Q 9:37 6.

     The spiritual power the Churches declined when historical criticism of the Bible convinced the public that, in the words of Gershwin?s Porgy and Bess, ?it ain?t necessarily so?. Could something similar happen in the world of Islam if the true nature of Muhammad?s canonical biography becomes more visible, and better known? Anyhow, already internal evidence suggests that the canonical version of the early history of Islam is untenable as history. This makes research like that being done by Luxenberg, Ohlig, Popp, Puin and others a moral and intellectual duty.

      As you all know much has been said of Luxenberg?s emendation of Q 44:54 and Q 52:20, zawwagnaahum, usually understood as ?we gave them in marriage?. Luxenberg here suggests the text should be read as rawwaHnaahum, ?we gave them rest?, a perfectly proper thing to do to the deceased, much more fitting than to supply them with a stream of virgins. Nevertheless, Luxenberg?s emendation has been laughed out of court by many widely respected colleagues, who obviously did not realize that rawwaHa in the meaning ?to give rest? is common in ancient Arabic inscriptions. (See: Enno Littmann, ?Thamud und Safa?, in: Abhandlungen f?r die Kunde des Morgenlandes, Band 25, Nr. 1, 1940. Kraus reprint, Nendeln (Liechtenstein) 1966. [See index at p. 161, sub רוח, r-w-H]. W.G. Oxtoby, Some Inscriptions of the Safaitic Bedouin, New Haven 1968, p. 52-53. Corpus Inscriptionum Semiticarum: Pars Quinta Inscriptiones Saracenicas Continens, Paris 1950, xvi + 656 pp.; Inscription 4956: p. 607. 2718: p. 355).

     Antique funeral inscriptions in the area of modern Jordan use rawwaHahu Allah in the sense of requiescat in pace, ?may he rest in peace?, or perhaps rather Dona eis requiem, ?Give them rest?. The editors of the Koran may have been motivated to change روح ?rawwaHa?, ?to give rest?, into زوج ?zawwaga?, ?to give in marriage?, by the contents of Matthew 22:30:
?For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are they given in marriage but are as the angels of God in heaven.?
     The New Testament preaches that the dead are not given in marriage, so the editors of the Koran made the Koran preach that they are, and this by the simple addition of two dots, thus fulfilling the Islamic command khaalifuuhum, ?be different from them?.

     It is difficult to imagine that the editors of the Koran were not familiar with the standard form of the expression ?May he rest in peace? if this formula occurred in funeral inscriptions in their time. Could it be that they changed the text on purpose? If so, similar cases may exist, and one is justified to speculate whether this may help to explain the Muslim obsession with taHriif, the alleged Jewish-Christian distortion of the text of the Bible.

     It will take solid German nineteenth century scholarship to determine which suggestions are idiotic and unfounded, which suspicions can be dispelled and disregarded, and what will stand. And here we have a problem: the material to work on might be scarce, or difficult to find and to interpret. Many of our esteemed colleagues will hesitate to join such research projects, because of the complexities involved - or out of respect for Islam and the Muslims. To these colleagues I can only say: rawwaHakum Allah, ?May you rest in peace?.


And always a unmistakable reference: the book of 1977 of Patricia Crone et Michael Cook, https://archive.org/stream/Hagarism/Hagarism%3B%20The%20Making%20of%20the%20Islamic%20World-Crone%2C%20Cook#page/n1/mode/2up
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1    Sixty years ago, Regis Blachere gave the wright meaning of Q 30:2-5 by showing that its vowelization was inaccurate (Le Coran, Paris, Librairie Orientale et Am?ricaine, 1957, p.429) ? see lemessieetsonprophete.com/annexes/mou_ta.htm. The correct translation of these verses is:
?The Romans [i.e. the Byzantines] have overcome (g?alabat) in the nearest of the Land [i.e. the Holy Land, in 629 at Mu?ta].
But they, after their victory (g?alibi-him), will be defeated (sa-yag?lab?na) within some years.
To Allah belongs the command before and after. And that day the believers will rejoice?.
      It makes sense.
2    A comparison with Pyrrhus based on a wrong understanding of the verses cannot be exact; was it besides plausible in itself?
3    An exact number of years doesn?t show up at the beginning of verse 4. Many translators render ?some years? or ?less than ten years?. The Islamic reading sees here a kind of prophecy (by Muhammad) although it simply means a prospective (also in order to raise the courage).
4    This method has not been fruitful at all in the case of the NT: except that the method is simplistic and based on a philosophical presupposition (the Gospel texts cannot be genuine), before studying the texts in their Greek or Latin version, we have to read them in the Aramaic Peshitta. The good question always is: why? Why did the Caliphs change the biography of Muhammad? What must remain hidden?
5    No, it fits with history: the Jewish tribes of Medina did not belong to the rabbinic-Judaic movement (the Jews of Taif well); so, they are not on the list of the Jewish tribes that the Sanhedrin of Babylon controls. Many other tribes were not under their control (the Qaraits by instance). Indeed, the Jewish tribes of Medina were not Judaic but ?Nazarenes?.
6    We read: ?36. For there will be those who will assuredly make observations of the moon-now (it) disturbeth the seasons and cometh in from year to year ten days too soon. 37. For this reason the years will come upon them when they will disturb (the order), and make an abominable (day) the day of testimony, and an unclean day a feast day, and they will confound all the days, the holy with the unclean, and the unclean day with the holy; for they will go wrong as to the months and sabbaths and feasts and jubilees. 38. For this reason I command and testify to thee that thou mayest testify to them; for after thy death thy children will disturb (them), so that they will not make the year three hundred and sixty-four days only, and for this reason they will go wrong as to the new moons 1 and seasons and sabbaths and festivals, and they will eat all kinds of blood with all kinds of flesh? (Book of the Jubilees, VI, 36-38).
   A lunar year consists of 354 days. Jubilees wages a polemic against the use of the moon for determining the seasons and feasts. But a lunar year seemed to be accepted by the Pharisees.

[A polytheism contradicted by what the text says about mu?rik?n]

The traditional account of the Arabs of the 7th century (of the Hejaz or elsewhere) pictures them most of the time as "polytheists" until the revelation of Quran, unfamiliar with any bilblical or judeo-christian tradition.  But can we really believe or support the idea that travelling caravan-traders during a period of six centuries of infrequent contacts with jews and christians, were totally ignoring the judeo-christian revelation?

In the Quran, the word used to denote the polytheistic arabs is that of mu?rik?n, which according to the etymology and all the authors of the 8th and 9th century, signifies "associators", and such is the continued reproach addressed to the christians.

The supposed "arab polytheism" from which the islamic doctrine would give rise to the new Revelation and proto-islam, is in reality little convincing in respect of the quranic text itself: multiple verses give explicit proof of the monotheistic faith of these mu?rik?n who were supposed to be polytheists.

A polytheism contradicted by what the text says about mu?rik?n

The detailed study of the quranic text does not only shed light on what the mu?rik?n-associators are not (i.e. horrible polytheists who burry their little daughters and who attribute to God daughters-goddesses); but also tells us what they effictively are: real monotheists.

The "associators" who confirm believing in One God

First of all, they believe in the existence of a Creator and believe that this Creator is called Allah:

"If you ask them:  Who created the heavens and the earth, and subjected the sun and the moon?" Surely they would say "Allah"

(s.29,61.63 || 31,25 || 39,38).

Allah was the name used by the Arab christians even before the rise of Islam (1), corresponding to the hebrew El or Elohim.  Furthermore, the faith of the mu?rik?n was not only montheistic, but trinitarian, which one can deduce from the anti-trinitarian polemic (2) of another verse:

"By Allah, our Lord, we were not of those who associate."

(s.6,23)

Who are those the author accuses of being "associators" and who defend themselves verbally against it?  Do polytheists say they aren't polytheists?  In this verse, the author wants to expose in advance, in the spirit of his disciple, the objection the christians will raise in defense of their faith, saying they only worship God.  The reply is connected to the following verse: it will be sufficient to treat these christians as liars:

"Look how they lied against themselves"

(s.6,24)

Jean de Damas, who visited the court of the Caliph, gives already explicit testimony of the primitive denominator of the christians and only the christians using the term mu?rik?n:

"They call us associators, because they claim, we introduce an associate besides God, by saying that Christ is the Son of God and is God.";

According to this witness report, the word never meant idolators (3).  A writing known as "Against Muhammad (Kat? Mwamed), dating from most likely the same time, gives the same meaning to the word associators, reserved to denominate the christians with (4).

Even the Quraysh (the tribe of Muhammad), according to the Quran and Tabari, are veritable polytheists.  In the unique and short surah 106 where it mentions them, one can read:

"They worship the Lord of this House (rabb h?d? l-bayti)" (s.106,3)

Tabari explains that the "Lord of this house" (5) they worship, is Allah.  Would it then be necessary to explain this if this Lord is Allah?

(1) The name of 'Abd-Allah (meaning servant of God) is an arab christian name predating the Quran.  Even if this looks insignifcant, it suffices to remember that "Allah" is "the christian name of the Deity, by which millions of christian arabs call to their God in the morning and evening before Mohammad" (Les arabaes chr?tiens ..., Paris 1933, p. 126)

(2) This kind of anti-trinitarian polemic is very present in the Quran: see also 6,41.136; 10,12.22; 16,38.54; 23,86-89 || 31,32 || 43,87 and the remarks of Sfar Mondher, Le Coran, La Bile et L'Orient ancien, Paris, diffusion Cerf, 1998, p. 108-109

(3) Jean de Damas used the particular denominator of idolators to refer to the groups of Arabs who he believed to have remained polytheists before Mohammed:

"The Saracenes were idolators, and worshipped the morning star as well as Aphrodite ...  [The muslims] wrongfully accuse us of being idolators, cause we worship the cross, which they resent. (Trait? des h?r?sies written in around 746 - la 100e h?r?sie, 4,1.13, S.C. n? 383, Paris, Cerf, 1992, p.217).

(4) This treaty "Against Muhammad"(Kat? Mwamed ? P.G. 104, 1456 B) is sometimes wrongly considered as a sort of continuation of Refutation against the Hagarenes  by Bartholomew of Edessa, which was written later.

(5) And that the "House" undeniably is the Meccan Ka'ba.  Which is very debatable - see Pr?mare Alfred-Louis de, Les fondations de l?Islam..., Paris, Seuil, 2002, p.70.