Skip navigation
Sidebar -

Advanced search options →

Welcome

Welcome to CEMB forum.
Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

Donations

Help keep the Forum going!
Click on Kitty to donate:

Kitty is lost

Recent Posts


Qur'anic studies today
by zeca
Yesterday at 07:11 PM

What's happened to the fo...
by zeca
Yesterday at 06:39 PM

New Britain
Yesterday at 05:41 PM

Do humans have needed kno...
Yesterday at 05:47 AM

Iran launches drones
April 13, 2024, 09:56 PM

عيد مبارك للجميع! ^_^
by akay
April 12, 2024, 04:01 PM

Eid-Al-Fitr
by akay
April 12, 2024, 12:06 PM

Lights on the way
by akay
February 01, 2024, 12:10 PM

Mock Them and Move on., ...
January 30, 2024, 10:44 AM

Pro Israel or Pro Palesti...
January 29, 2024, 01:53 PM

Pakistan: The Nation.....
January 28, 2024, 02:12 PM

Gaza assault
January 27, 2024, 01:08 PM

Theme Changer

 Topic: Qur'anic studies today

 (Read 1272695 times)
  • Previous page 1 ... 185 186 187188 189 ... 368 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5580 - February 25, 2019, 08:45 PM

    It will be difficult to contradict what I say. It is rational, logical, because of the sources.  Each point is sourced and validated by other sources. Especially the very fact that the Arabs have already done the same movement from east to west when they were the allies of the Persians during the wars since 224. For them, it is business as usual.


    I need to re-read the traditionnal narrative and external sources but it doesn't make sense to start a war on one front and then move your troops to open another one once the first front you opened is still an issue. Yarmuk was August 636, al Qadisiyyah was November 636. Something feels wrong.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5581 - February 25, 2019, 08:56 PM

    Marc,

    Who were the Persian allies exactly? Do we have precise sources for that?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5582 - February 25, 2019, 09:32 PM

    I need to re-read the traditionnal narrative and external sources but it doesn't make sense to start a war on one front and then move your troops to open another one once the first front you opened is still an issue. Yarmuk was August 636, al Qadisiyyah was November 636. Something feels wrong.


    Yarmuk according to Ibn Ishaq and Waqidi : August 636
    according to  Ibn Umar :May 634
    They agree on nothing (as usual)...

     I say that the war in Iraq has started in 602. For excellent reason. Therefore Arabs did  not "open" a new front in 630. They just continue to advance as the Persians are crushed by the Romans,  and some of them (without any concertation, there is no unified commandment)  move West for excellent reasons.
    Useless (for me...) to re-read the traditional narrative as it is constructed to fit the Mecca/Kaba frame of an invasion coming from the peninsula. Which has never existed, as Mecca did not exist (at that time).
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5583 - February 25, 2019, 09:35 PM

    Marc,

    Who were the Persian allies exactly? Do we have precise sources for that?


    Well you can start here  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasanian_conquest_of_Jerusalem

    It is only focused on Jerusalem but it gives a certain number of sources and explain the role of the Jews in this war.

    The History according to Sebeos will give other details on this whole conflict. 
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5584 - February 25, 2019, 10:11 PM

    Yarmuk according to Ibn Ishaq and Waqidi : August 636
    according to  Ibn Umar :May 634
    They agree on nothing (as usual)...


    Yeah Pourshariati relies heavily on Sayf b. Umar though she criticizes his dating but not his description of the sequence of events.

    Quote
    I say that the war in Iraq has started in 602. For excellent reason.


    I guess you follow this scholar thinking :
    Some scholars, apparently influenced by the Muslim tradition (e.g., Ḥellī, p. 422; Yaʿqūbī, II, p. 46), have interpreted the battle of Ḏū Qār as part of a prolonged Arab rebellion against the Persians, which culminated in the Muslim conquest of the Persian empire. As Šaybānī tribesmen, led by Moṯannā b. Ḥāreṯa, assisted in the conquest of Iraq, it has been argued that the Bakr, and especially the Šaybān, had followed a distinct anti-Sasanian policy since Ḏū Qār. Fred Donner has shown (pp. 28-30), however, that the Šaybān who supported the Muslims and those who were prominent at Ḏū Qār belonged to different, even rival clans; some Šaybānī leaders allied themselves with the Persians after Ḏū Qār, and others even opposed the Muslims during the conquest of Iraq. The battle of Ḏū Qār thus appears to have had ideological and symbolic meaning for the Arabs far beyond its military and political significance.



    Quote
    and some of them (without any concertation, there is no unified commandment) 


    You can see this in the muslim sources but on the western front.

    Quote
    move West for excellent reasons.


    I guess I need to find them  Wink

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5585 - February 25, 2019, 11:23 PM

    Quote
    I guess you follow this scholar thinking :
    Some scholars, apparently influenced by the Muslim tradition (e.g., Ḥellī, p. 422; Yaʿqūbī, II, p. 46), have interpreted the battle of Ḏū Qār as part of a prolonged Arab rebellion against the Persians, which culminated in the Muslim conquest of the Persian empire. As Šaybānī tribesmen, led by Moṯannā b. Ḥāreṯa, assisted in the conquest of Iraq, it has been argued that the Bakr, and especially the Šaybān, had followed a distinct anti-Sasanian policy since Ḏū Qār. Fred Donner has shown (pp. 28-30), however, that the Šaybān who supported the Muslims and those who were prominent at Ḏū Qār belonged to different, even rival clans; some Šaybānī leaders allied themselves with the Persians after Ḏū Qār, and others even opposed the Muslims during the conquest of Iraq. The battle of Ḏū Qār thus appears to have had ideological and symbolic meaning for the Arabs far beyond its military and political significance.


    I followed nobody, I found it myself. I do not know this passage, do you have the reference?

    Quote
    I guess I need to find them


    Yes. That's an obvious reason why some went West. Remember that I allude to real history events in the longue durée before Islam.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5586 - February 26, 2019, 12:34 AM

    Quote
    I followed nobody, I found it myself. I do not know this passage, do you have the reference?


    It comes from here :

    http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/du-qar

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5587 - February 26, 2019, 09:12 AM

    Thanks. From the moment where one puts aside the frame Mecca/Zem Zem/Prophet/Kaba,  which have no grounds,  factual reason of the war between people which were allied since ages and episode of this war like Ḏū Qār appear, which replace this frame as explication of the  war/"conquest". Episode which could not be removed from the memory of the people and was accommodated in the Mecca/Zem Zem/Prophet/Kaba frame to be integrated in it. (In the narrative the Prophet see this battle from Medina).
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5588 - February 26, 2019, 09:34 AM

    Quote
    Episode which could not be removed from the memory of the people


    There is nothing that cannot be removed from the memory of the people. But people need narratives to make them fall in line for present and the future. It is in human nature to construct new ones if the old ones are not convenient anymore.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5589 - February 26, 2019, 11:33 AM

    The frame Mecca/Zem Zem/Prophet/Kaba was the only frame which gave an explication to the existence of the Quranic texts. As such, this frame had necessarily  to color any events which had taken place in the recent past, especially those who have nothing to do with it but that it was not possible to removed from memory, namely that the Arabs was in war before Islam against the Persians. It is not a plot. It is simply that the beliefs in the explication to the existence of the Quranic texts, namely that an Arab was contacted by the Biblical God tot give to the Arabs a message was, for Arabs, impossible to deny considering their high esteem of themselves and their ethnical proudness. Therefore this frame had to be the one in which all was going to be read. And the account of Ḏū Qār was integrated in the frame. therefore read according to the Mecca/Zem Zem/Prophet/Kaba which is the frame which give an explication to the Quranic texts.
    Each event could be changed in the memory of the people; put a frame on it is changing it, then remove the real reason of the event. That is the case of  Ḏū Qār whose the frame was removed from the memory of people who knew very well that "Islam" had nothing to do with it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5590 - February 26, 2019, 11:40 AM

    Quote
    ....................". Episode which could not be removed from the memory of the people and was accommodated.......................

     ...................................Muhammad/Mecca/Madina/Zam Zam/ ...........song

    and mundi says  
    Quote
    There is nothing that cannot be removed from the memory of the people. But people need narratives to make them fall in line for present and the future. It is in human nature to construct new ones if the old ones are not convenient anymore.


    ..............Muhammad/Mecca/Madina/Zem Zem/ ...........song  or for that matter songs made from any faith so-called scriptures of FAITH HEADS  .. And  and ..history of humankind   for the past 2000 years or so proves  mundi is wrong.. ......UTTERLY WRONG..

    mundi's assumption/hypothesis appears to be correct in this internet age where few patches  of globe that so-called  "Freedom of expression" is protected ..OR APPEARS TO BE PROTECTED within some limits..

    Hmm look at this news..

    George Pell: The Cardinal found guilty of sexual offences in Australia  ....BBC news

    and let me watch this   George Pell: The Cardinal ..

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD1QHO_AVZA


    and and    let me order this...



    Zamzam Drinking Water 16.5 fl.oz. Pack of 12 - From Mecca Saudi Arabia - ماء زمزم من مكة المكرمة 12 عبوة
    ................4 $59. 51




     Zamzam Water 500 Ml   ............$1199 



    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5591 - February 26, 2019, 11:59 AM

    I need to re-read the traditionnal narrative and external sources but it doesn't make sense to start a war on one front and then move your troops to open another one once the first front you opened is still an issue. Yarmuk was August 636, al Qadisiyyah was November 636. Something feels wrong.

    well Sorry to say this but ...but   dear Marc S .,  ALL OF YOUR EXTERNAL SOURCE YOU HAVE GIVEN SO FAR (and probably what you read) HAVE VERY LITTLE INFORMATION OR NO INFORMATION on early Islam's  Altara song..   

    "Muhammad..Mecca..Madina..Zam..zam..".

    may be I should start writing   that song

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5592 - February 26, 2019, 12:28 PM

    On people's memory:

    Look around you and see how short people's memory is. I come from a place where the local village was destroyed by our own army to get a better shooting range, but yet, everyone believes the Germans did it. Locals of course knew the truth at the time it happened, and yet a generation later... gone...

    People's memory is controlled by culture or institutions (both are linked). Very easy to implant a new memory. It happens all the time.

    Quote
    The frame Mecca/Zem Zem/Prophet/Kaba was the only frame which gave an explication to the existence of the Quranic texts.


    If the frame Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba was not invented (indeed probably with some kernels of truth here or there, but that is not strictly necessary to be believed), another frame would have. Lots of Frames fit with the text of the Quran. If not Mecca, they could have taken another hapax and eg name the holy city differently.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5593 - February 26, 2019, 12:58 PM

    That frame Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba was not invented : it can be easily drawn from the Quranic texts which necessitates a certain time; that is why it appeared near 750. Not before. That is why the Sebeos history is later from the 7th .c as it attests of a relative biased knowledge of it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5594 - February 26, 2019, 02:41 PM

    You should read this book and the introduction by Volker Popp ; an update was made in Early Islam : a reconstruction based on contemporary sources ; I don't agree with everything but this is a must read but not available on the internet as far as I know.

    http://benjamin.lisan.free.fr/jardin.secret/EcritsPolitiquesetPhilosophiques/SurIslam/livres/The-Hidden-Origins-of-Islam-New-Research-into-Its-Early-History_Karl-Heinz-Ohlig_Gerd-R-Puin.pdf


    well that is what Marc S  says on  that wonderful book edited by Karl Heinz & Gerd Putin  on  Hidden Origins of Islam

    ..good book.. good stuff to read in it..

    So Mark  do you agree with Karl Heinz   ?      that  the late 7th century inscription in the Dome of the Rock  , with the  MHMT and that adjective to adjacent names  "Muhammad" as meant by "the praiseworthy"  is an indication of  that word "Muhammad"  is nothing but an honorable title in Arabic refereed to  Jesus,??

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5595 - February 26, 2019, 02:46 PM

    Quote
    is nothing but an honorable title in Arabic refereed to  Jesus,


    To the Quranic Jesus, yes the text is sufficiently ambiguous to get that. Especially that it was not easy to read it in the Dome for people.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5596 - February 26, 2019, 02:59 PM

    Quote
    To the Quranic Jesus, yes the text is sufficiently ambiguous to get that. Especially that it was not easy to read it in the Dome for people.


    So Altara by saying that., Are you not saying that word  "Muhammad"  was  present in Arabic language  or even in Persian, Aramaic, Syriac  languages........ say in 3rd or 4th or 5th century  Arabic stories or in  stories /manuscripts of  other languages of middle east of that time?  ...

    well on that   let me add a  mundi's favorite  link here

    https://www.islamic-awareness.org/history/islam/inscriptions/earlysaw.html

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5597 - February 26, 2019, 03:52 PM

    Altara,

    Quote
    That frame Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba was not invented


    I dont get it. What do you mean? Was the Quran written around "Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba"but early 7th C readers didnt realise?
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5598 - February 26, 2019, 04:07 PM

    Quote
    So Altara by saying that., Are you not saying that word  "Muhammad"  was  present in Arabic language  or even in Persian, Aramaic, Syriac  languages........ say in 3rd or 4th or 5th century  Arabic stories or in  stories /manuscripts of  other languages of middle east of that time?  ...


    The root ḥmd and the use of mḥmd was present in Arabic language of Yemen ( but not in the Quranic script) qualifying pagan God, and sometimes the Biblical one. But the odds that Palestinians Arabs, Iraqi Arabs knew that are improbable.
    No  mḥmd in Aramaic, Syriac languages to my knowledge, Persian is not a Semitic language.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5599 - February 26, 2019, 04:09 PM

    Altara,

    I dont get it. What do you mean? Was the Quran written around "Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba"but early 7th C readers didnt realise?


    That frame Mecca/ ZemZem/ Prophet/ Kaba was not invented from nowhere : it can be easily drawn from the Quranic texts which necessitates a certain time of elaboration; that is why it appeared near 750. Not before. That is why the Sebeos history is later from the 7th .c as it attests of a relative biased knowledge of it.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5600 - February 26, 2019, 04:59 PM

    The root ḥmd and the use of mḥmd was present in Arabic language of Yemen ( but not in the Quranic script) qualifying pagan God, and sometimes the Biblical one. But the odds that Palestinians Arabs, Iraqi Arabs knew that are improbable.
    No  mḥmd in Aramaic, Syriac languages to my knowledge, Persian is not a Semitic language.


    what is your opinion on this Fred . Donner  article??


    .
    Quote
    ...........Perhaps the most extreme position has been to assert that Muhammad never
    actually existed, a hypothesis sometimes building on the fact that the name of
    Muḥammad is not found in Muslim coins and inscriptions until the second half of the
    seventh century. Volker Popp, relying heavily on numismatic evidence, presented a  reconstruction according to which Arabic-speaking Nestorian Christian contingents
    of the Sasanian military, held in reserve when the Sasanian forces were defeated by
    the Byzantines in 627-8 CE, launched a counteroffensive against the Byzantines,
    whom they detested for their long persecution of Nestorian Christians. They
    persuaded other disaffected Christian groups such as the Miaphysite Christians of
    Syria and Egypt to join them, chased the Byzantines out of the Levant and Egypt, and
    established a new state. The Umayyads, in this presentation, thus began as
    Nestorian Christians.....

     

    please read it  along with that book  Mark mentioned  "Hidden Origins of Islam"  or you may have already read them...

    Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything   
    I renounced my faith to become a kafir, 
    the beloved betrayed me and turned in to  a Muslim
     
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5601 - February 26, 2019, 05:55 PM

    Quote
    .Perhaps the most extreme position has been to assert that Muhammad never
    actually existed, a hypothesis sometimes building on the fact that the name of
    Muḥammad is not found in Muslim coins and inscriptions until the second half of the
    seventh century.


    I do not build my position on that.

    Quote
    Arabic-speaking Nestorian Christian contingents of the Sasanian military, held in reserve when the Sasanian forces were defeated by the Byzantines in 627-8 CE, launched a counteroffensive against the Byzantines, whom they detested for their long persecution of Nestorian Christians.


    It could  be appeared like that from an amateur,  except that historical facts (sourced) give a plausible explication to the invasion against toward the West.  Popp is talking nonsense. (yawn)...

  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5602 - February 26, 2019, 06:52 PM

    Thanks Yeez for the link to "The hidden origins". Ashamed I haven't read it yet. Will start right away.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5603 - February 26, 2019, 09:19 PM

    The root ḥmd, as well as the name mḥmd, is attested in South Arabian languages, such as Sabaic and Qatabanic, and these languages are obviously Semitic. There are, however, no attestation in Arabic to my knowledge.

    Altara - I would appreciate a reference for the Arabic of Yemen attesting ḥmd and mḥmd.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5604 - February 26, 2019, 09:29 PM

    well Sorry to say this but ...but   dear Marc S .,  ALL OF YOUR EXTERNAL SOURCE YOU HAVE GIVEN SO FAR (and probably what you read) HAVE VERY LITTLE INFORMATION OR NO INFORMATION on early Islam's  Altara song..   

    "Muhammad..Mecca..Madina..Zam..zam..".

    may be I should start writing   that song


    Well that is because you don't read me or the sources I give Smiley
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5605 - February 26, 2019, 09:35 PM

    well that is what Marc S  says on  that wonderful book edited by Karl Heinz & Gerd Putin  on  Hidden Origins of Islam

    ..good book.. good stuff to read in it..


    The update to Hidden Origins , that is Early Islam : A critical reconstruction based on Contemporary sources, is the one I was mentionning as the must read though hidden Origins is a good introduction to it because the basic framework and methodology of the author are there. 

    Quote
    So Mark  do you agree with Karl Heinz   ?      that  the late 7th century inscription in the Dome of the Rock  , with the  MHMT and that adjective to adjacent names  "Muhammad" as meant by "the praiseworthy"  is an indication of  that word "Muhammad"  is nothing but an honorable title in Arabic refereed to  Jesus,??


    To be honest, I have read arguments against and for it so I cannot really tell. If I have to say something, I would say that :

    - Muhammad doesn't refer to Jesus,
    - Muhammad has a link to the Mahdi concept,
    - you could even extrapolate to say that the Mahdi/Muhammad/Paraclete concepts are all linked and were one and the same at some stage,
    - those concepts have nothing to do with the Quran and were added to the Quranic world to form Islam later on



    By the way, they say that Mu'awiya isn't a name but an alias, and they are right if we look at the different inscriptions where the lineage of Mu'awiya is never mentionned because that wasn't his name.
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5606 - February 26, 2019, 09:40 PM

    Thanks Yeez for the link to "The hidden origins". Ashamed I haven't read it yet. Will start right away.


    For me, the authors bring 2 very important things to the scholarship of early Islam history :

    - use of numismatics, and I think this field will provide a lot of insights when someone really tackle it,

    - the mention of gnostic concepts in Islam
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5607 - February 26, 2019, 09:47 PM

    The root ḥmd, as well as the name mḥmd, is attested in South Arabian languages, such as Sabaic and Qatabanic, and these languages are obviously Semitic. There are, however, no attestation in Arabic to my knowledge.

    Altara - I would appreciate a reference for the Arabic of Yemen attesting ḥmd and mḥmd.


    Quote
    A more curious example of a name or a title derived from ḥmd is found in Ja 1028, an inscription with a clear Jewish background dated to 518 AD. This inscription recounts the exploits of the Jewish ruler of Ḥimyar, Yws¹f ʾ s¹ʾ r Yṯʾ r, who, as he claimed in the inscription, burnt the church of the Abyssinian Christians in Ẓafār (k-dhr qls¹n w-hrg ʾ ḥbs²n b-Ḍfr) and then attacked the Christians in Najrān (w-ʿ ly ḥrb wmqrnt Ngrn).78 The inscription ends with the following dedication to Rḥmnn: ḏn ms¹[ndn] wtf
    w-s¹ṭr w-qdm ʿ ly s¹m Rḥmnn wtf Tmmm ḏ-Ḥḍyt rb-Hd b-mḥmd, “This inscription was placed,
    written, executed in the name of Rḥmnn. Tmm of Ḥḍyt placed it, by the Lord of Jews, the
    Praiseworthy one.”

    SULEYMAN DOST   AN ARABIAN QUR’ĀN: TOWARDS A THEORY OF PENINSULAR ORIGINS, 2017
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5608 - February 26, 2019, 09:51 PM


    - the mention of gnostic concepts in Islam


    There is no gnostic concepts in the Quran...
  • Qur'anic studies today
     Reply #5609 - February 26, 2019, 10:12 PM

    There is no gnostic concepts in the Quran...


    In the Quran you are right but, in Islam, what you are saying is wrong.

    Quote
    - the mention of gnostic concepts in Islam


  • Previous page 1 ... 185 186 187188 189 ... 368 Next page « Previous thread | Next thread »