MUḤAMMAD’S NIGHT JOURNEY...p.19, note 75.
Surprisingly few Qur’anic scholars have focused on the connections between anti-Chalcedonian asceticism, Arabia, and Christological controversy in the late fifth-late sixth centuries. That is disappointing given how well this milieu suits the emergence of archaic Qur’anic texts and discourse – an Arabic-speaking population that fiercely opposed the Chalcedonians, seething with Christological controversy, largely bereft of (and often hostile towards) priestly hierarchy, populating Biblical locations outside the Holy Land, and suffused with ascetic messengers who followed Syriac Christianity. It is hard to picture a better milieu for the early evolution of Arabic discourse that privileged pious ascetic messengers against a corrupt ecclesiastical establishment, to the point of creating an innovative Arabic counter-liturgy and counter-rituals (rejecting sacraments administered by Chalcedonian priests).
Yet traditional conceptions of Qur’anic origins in Mecca, and revisionist conceptions of very late Qur’anic composition in Syria and Mesopotamia, have tended to overshadow the potential role of this earlier milieu.
I agree here to the points highlighted. However, I read somewhere that the conceptions of Wansbrough can be applied to an earlier milieu : that "islam" was formed not after the conquest in Irak, but 100 years before the emergence of an Arab power in Syria. By "islam" I mean the writing of the texts of what will be the Quran which is a corpus.
It has to be outlined that the Quran describes the divisions between Christians, (Q 5,14 : And with those who say: "Lo! we are Christians," We made a covenant, but they forgot a part of that whereof they were admonished. Therefor We have stirred up enmity and hatred among them till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah
will inform them of their handiwork).
Therefore it places iself
outside the melee. It has therefore
nothing to do with the Christian Factions : the Quran observes the situation, it is not a part of it, from its point of view.
From my point of view it is
of course a part of it, I mean here that the Quran is a part of the world of the Biblical Revelation, then it is engaged in the combat of "who has the right interpretation" after the "Jesus event".
To its audience, the Quran uses the division between Christians not to judge who is right or not, he uses it to point that the division itself is the sign that "Christianity" of its time is false.
Topic: MUḤAMMAD’S NIGHT JOURNEY IN ITS PALESTINIAN CONTEXT – A PERFECT SOLUTION TO A FO