Originally Posted by Skybird: A critical history of Islam
As far as the content and verbal style is concerned, generally a split is perceived in the Quran, separating the scriptures of Muhammad’s time in Mekka (beeing more metaphysical in content and style, focussing on ethical and spiritual questions) from those scriptures that are basing on his preachings in Medina, that shows more pragmatical relation to situations and problems of practical life, and are said to be of less prosaic language. (...) It is undisputed amongst Quran-researchers, that the better part of the book without doubt is basing on Muhammad at least actively helping to shape it’s content. The academical voices that defended an opinion that without doubt ALL it’s content is „Muhammad pure“ nevertheless are said to have become rare since a longer while now.
The Quran is regarded as Allah’s revelation to mankind and thus is the basis of Muslim belief. It’s creation must not be explained, because Allah always have been existent and so the Quaran as his word and will cannot have been created by man – as an idea it has always been there. The many doubts that are existent about the tradition that influenced and conserved it’s form and made it to what it is today, are therefor ignored and considered to be irrelevant. Pragmatical from a Muslim point of view, but hardly acceptable for a less metaphysical mindset.
During Muhammad’S lifetime his prophecies had been conserved by verbal delivery and fixing in writing, using palm-leafs, leather, and whatever material was used for that purpose. The effort to do so was unsystematical and unorganized, so that the tradition was scattered around somewhat. Parts of these preachings additionally got lost, when close followers of Muhammad, who had learned to memorize „their“ part of the always increasing collection of preachings, had been killed in one of the many battles they went through. The first Kalif after Muhammad’s death, Abu Bakr (who also was Muhammad’s father-in-law), therefor ordered Muhammad‘s last secretary to collect all written and verbal material that was circulating, to bring it into an order and to fix it in a final writing. The result was a first version of the Quaran about which we know almost nothing today. After Abu Bakr’s death two years after that of Muhammad, his successor, the second Kalif, Umar, is said to have given this version to his daugther Hafsa, Muhammad’s fourth wife, because she should have had such a splendid memory that she seemed to be ideally fitted to become the guardian of a Quaran that now was hoped to see no more changes added to it by circulating different fragments and contents, whose originality was uncertain. However, orientalists raise serious doubts that it could have been like this. It seems to be untrustworthy that the most important document of Islam‘s faith should have been given into the hands of a woman, that – although beeing Muhammad’s wife - was of relatively minor importance in history.
Not that this question is of much importance, because this version of the Quran found no general acceptance, and few years later again complaints were raised, that in the provinces still a growing diversity of different versions of the Quaran were circulating, most or all of them adding new things or reinterpreting it towards a higher level of political relevance, or reinterpreting it in other ways that did not seem to be acceptable, or did not have any authenticity. So the new, third Kalif, Uthman, again ordered Muhammad’s old secretary to collect and form a new version of the Quaran, which he did and compared it with the first version that still was in possession of Hafsa. He also reworked and translated all material into the dominat Arab dialect, that of Mekka, because the fragments that had been scattered around were written or memorized in various different languages. Of this new version he created, only five numbers were written down and were given to the five centers of Islamic knowledge in Mekka, Medina, Damascus, Basra and Kufa.
Scientific research asks some very serious questions about this course of the whole story. It is assumed that there was no single authority, no agreed institution of competence for the Quran existent. That there were two main versions created may have been a sign that there may have been at least two rivalling traditions of interpretation. Criterias for what was accepted for both of these main versions, and what not, are unknown, also who rasied these criterias, if this should mean there were no central figure of evaluationg it all, then this may be interpreted as arbitrariness deciding the second form of the Quran, or choices made that were born out of political opportunism. And why was the first version without influence, why was the number of different versions beside that first collection of writings constantly increasing? All this is in contradiction to Islam’s understanding, that the Quaran was from the very beginning of Islam’s history what it always had been in later times. It cannot have been like that. Islam ignores these questions, and says that all this is unimportant. Despite all the obvious changes it must have gone thorugh, it should have remained unchanged since the beginning. A miracle? But, as P. Raddatz points towards an important question that kept Quran reseach before second world war very busy, how was it possible that during 25 years an ever increasing number of many followers memorized all verbal inspirations and preachings of Muhammad (and that was quite an impressive lot of material!!) , spreading them around all over their living places, giving them to others, so that thousands of passages went through thousands of ears and mouths – and nevertheless all of it shouldn’t have changed the smallest bit, and should have seen no faults and no adulterations (Verfälschungen) of even a minor kind? It is difficult enough to learn the whole Quran from fixed writing only, to learn it without faults by hear-say only seems to be beyond ability of man.
As if this not already raised doubts in the complete originality of today’s Quaran, an even greater problem existed – the changes in written language during the two- or threehundred years after Muhammad’s death. Not before the 10th century the introduction of diacritic punctuation („diakritische Punktierung“) to Arab writing was completed, which changed vocalisation and meaning of words of Arab dialects significantly. I must blindly follow the linguists here, since I do not have any knowledge of that on my own, but they say that the translation of the second Quran version into the new version of Arabic writing necessarily must have increased the level of misinterpretations or changes of understandings of given words, and very drastically so. The new punctuation caused the changes of letters into different ones, and due to the inner nature of Arab language this meant, that words and complete sentences could transform into complete new meanings and understandings. This is the main reason, probably, why the number of different versions of the Quaran, with sometimes very dramatic changes in meaning and content of complete passages, grew constantly in the two hundred years after Muhammad’s death. A caste of professional Quran-readers had been formed by this, and they had high political influence, since due to the unity of religion and politics in Islam their individual interpretations of the Quran really made a difference in local policies. - Even today preachers at the traditional Friday prayers are having high political influence and a significant power to mobilize their community. - They also implemented up to seven differing major traditions of interpretation, that took quite some time to get reduced to a smaller number of traditions again. Like especially radical preachers today, they also may have had personal ambitions, coming from the power that they had to influence the crowds. The impression Islam is giving, that it only were different styles of verbal recitation, has been proven wrong by science, it has not been that simple and harmless and this claim holds no ground. It was not only different styles in presentation, but different conclusions by different styles of interpretation of the Quran, and different versions of Quaran itself. Today’s diversity in possible Quran interpretation, that allows both fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists to justify their deeds by the Quran and find coverage from it, may have found it’s reason in this chapter of history.
Kalif Uthman obviously made a wise decision to concentrate the interpretation of Quaran on the five centers of knowledge that were delivered the only five existing issues of the second official collection of the Quaran scriptures. He made a cut and accepted that an uncertain ammount of falsified, wrong material, that was lacking any authenticity, found entrance into the official Quaran. Anything was better than to allow a further spreading of different traditions to interpret the Quaran that only could have led to an increasing diversity in faith – exactly what Islam ideology does NOT want. The Quran-readers that made their living by interpreting the Quaran, and twisted it to the liking of the political needs of those who ordered and payed for their services, or to their own ambitions, lost their jobs and political influence. The centralization of interpreting the Quaran ended the regional political agitation and strengthened centralized, superregional powerstructures.
Due to lacking knowledge of myself I must blindly point out that linguists are able to illustrate how the origin of the word qur’an links parts of the Mekkanesian (?) scriptures of the Quran to the traditon of Christian liturgy, and Christian tradition and languages. This is critical, because Muslims think of the Quran to have been send down to man in Arab language – the Arab language that is known today. But that form of language did not exist before twohundred years after Muhammad’s death. So how could his preachings have been conserved and delivered, if not by accepting that the first and original version of the Quran had not been send down to man and fixed in punctuated Arabic, but more likely in a mixture of the dialect of the Quraysh and Arameic language, or Syrian dialects? Some commentators say that the Quran originally may have been a liturgic reading for Christian services, and that up to one quarter of the Quran’s content until today raises verbal problems with Islamic interpretations of passages that seem to point more towards Christian tradition and the Old and New Testament than towards the usual Muslim interpretation of this stuff. They also argue that the Quran may not have been a document of it’s own value and religious right, but may have been something like a comment to the writings of the Christians, focussing on them as the main word. These authors argue that the Quran probably has no original identity of it’s own, but was more an added comment on the basis of a foreign religious scripture, which most probably may have been the Bible.
Islam’s claim that the original language of the Quaran has been Arabic is highly questionable from an academical point of view, and it’s belief of the Quran’s delivery in that language (despite the well-documented changes the Arab language went through between the 7th and 10th century) as a miracle does not add anything valuable to discussion. The Quaran’s claimed originality is highly speculative, seen that way.
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Although Uthman had made sure that the Quran was no longer to be mixed and watered by contacts with foreign teachings, there was still the chance that it would be „misinterpreted“ by the simple fact, that the Arab conquerers, when they started to leave the Arab peninsula and spread Allahs word outside, would somewhat mix and water it when coming in contact with the traditions in Egypt and Syria, here factions were living that were hostile to Byzanz and for that reason tend to sympathise with the Arabs - who could not avoid to be influenced by these foreign religions in return, because their leaders even demanded them to treat friendly those that were hostile towards Byzanz – which now was the Muslim Arabs’ enemy. Although it took until late into the 8th century until the Quaran as we know it today had strengthend in structure and content, one thing was undisputed and beyond doubt for every Muslim from the beginning: that it was the word of Allah, without fault, without doubt, without wrong, without any reason to ask, examine or critisize it, always existent, never changing. This „hard belief“, immune to changes, even more consolidating itself in the more than 1300 years to come, made it impossible for Muslim religion to establish a tradition of self-critical examination of it’s own basis of beliefs, as we have seen it in the developement of Christian tradition, that led to the splitting into different Christians churches and sects, eventually, but nevertheless helped to gain a more modern understanding of Christianity‘s own faith, that considered the many changes the mental evolution of western man during the diffrent phases of Western cultural history went through. The raised levels of knowledge and insight changed Christian religion, growing education lowered the need for religously motivated regulation, the implementation of legal laws replaced the enforcment of religious commandments. But Muslim theology did stop to develope very early in Islam’s history in an understanding of critically examining itself (if the heretic’s writings are not counted as part of the official theology), and seen that way one could even say that it does not exist in a western understanding. There also is only a very limited, often non-existent interest in interreligious and intercultural exchange, whereas the West’s Christianity has developed a theological and academical highly differentiated science of comparing cultures and religions, as well as analysing it’S own history of developement, and origins of scriptures. Paradoxically this lacking ability to adopt to changes, that makes it so tough for Islamic communities in Arab countries to arrive in the modern era, is the basis for Muslim argumentation that Islam, unchanged since long, is superior to any other idea: it did not change because it did not need to do so: as the word of Allah, the basis of it’s faith – the Quran - was perfect from the beginning and thus any correctional change could only have meant: weakness, and falsification of the truth. One needs to reflect this if one wants to understand why the simple export of Western ideas to Islamic countries usually do not trigger the effects one expected (social and powerpolitical structures being also a factor, but not the deciding one). It’s the religiously founded mentality and it’s influence on cultural climate.
Quran is understood by Islam as beeing the renewal of the faith (a faith that needed to be restored time and again by a long chain of prophets (Noah, Moses and Jesus beeing just three of them), which in form of Islam itself had found it’s final and unquestionable and most superb expression to which the scriptures of Christians and Jews are inferior, and sinful aberration only of the only true book there is - Quran. Followers of these false doctrine could only win God’s goodwill by giving up their false beliefs and surrender to the superiority of the Quran. Quarn as an Arab word means „recitation“, a repeating and endless recitation of the word of Allah so that it is not to be forgotten ever again, neither by individuals, nor by mankind. It is structured into 114 Sures, in a sequences of presenting the longest in the first, and the shortest at the end (with the only exception of the opening Sure). The single verses (aya=signs of wonder) change by lingual style and prose, depending on wether a given Sure had it’s origin in Muhammad‘s time in Mekka, or Medina. After the second main version of the Quran had been fixed in writing by order of Calif Uthman, seven or eight traditions of conformal recitation builded up, from which – in combination with the increasing introduction of punctuation to Arab language - finally the version of the Quaran emerged that is known today. While the different recitation styles already were collected by Ibn Mudjahid until the first half of the 8th century, the process of verbally transforming the Quran into it’s present form hardly could have been finished until the late 9th or maybe even 10th century.
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One of the most basic differences between Christians and Muslims is that in Muslim understanding man is not subject to original sin, but to flawed ways of believing. Consequently it concentrates on lecturing what the right way of believing really is. Since the Quran is seen as the infallible revelation of Allah, it represents Allah’s ultimate will. This excuses the using of every means necessary to enforce the faith in Allah at all costs and by all means necessary. If today’S western Muslims claim Islam to be tolerant towards other religions, than this is a watering of one of the most basic elements of Islam’s self-perception, seeing the revelation of Allah as obilgation to enforce it’s existence everywhere amongst mankind – at all costs. Where in later historical events Islamic rulers showed such tolerance, it more was an issue of pragmatical calculation of efforts needed and expected benefits, than an acceptance of the foreigners false beliefs (that’s how I see it with regard to the Ottomans on the Balkans and in Hungary who concentrated on economically and financially exploiting the country; and the Ummayade’s Califat in Grenada, both beeing the most often quoted examples in defense of Islam‘s tolerance).
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Allah embedds man in a two-level-developement: the constant recreation of life, and by that the constant sharpening and developement of an attitude that is oriented more and more towards the presence of Allah. In Islamic understanding, evolution is not about diversity, survival of the fittest, or growing systemic complexity, but an ever-growing of Muslim faith and awareness for the omnipresence of Allah. Evolution necessarily creates the Muslim man of the future, this as a natural law of evolution excuses any attempts to help in that, by peace or by force: because man’s turning towards a more Muslim state of mind is considered to be always a natural case, the attractor of evolution: one only helps in what without doubt would take place anyway. Islam’s certainity that the future will be his cannot be brought into doubt, for that reason, and this is one of the explanations for it’svery great patience: it is founded on absolute confidence. This can be strength and weakness at different times. It can make Muslim people act very energetic , or it can make the fall victim to passivity that reaches the level of fatalism. The confidence that all evolution necessarily leads towards an Islam future feeds back on the missionary spirit of Islam and it’s expansive identity.
The cult of the Kaaba, the monotheistic reorientation focussing on the founding figure of Abraaham, helped to enforce Islam’s demand to be the absolute, ultimate truth beside which there is no other. Christians and Jews may be „people of the book“, but this term has two meanings, something that most Westerners do not know. Because it also is linked to the term „script-holder“ („Schriftbesitzer“) Not only does „people of the book“ point towards an assumed nearness between all three religions, because all three people are three tribes beeing mentioned in the „book“ (the West beeing very eager to point this out in an attempt to let the differences appear more harmless and raising acceptance for what it calls it’s dialogue with Islam), it also means this: „people of the book“ are also „owners of scriptures“ and script-holders, people that „possess“ their religion as a material good, a script, only, and thus fall victim to their craving for material possession of things: they do not focus on the content of their religious message, but on the material scripture itself, the rites and dogmas raised from that by the caste of priests and pharisees, they get distracted from the essence (in principle the critizism that later was raised again by various Christian mystics). In the language of Zen: they did not look at the moon, but concentrated on the finger pointing at it, and wanted to own it. The sin of these wrong-believers is that they concentrate on a religion of priests, not on the essence of the religion itself – of which Islam thinks itself is the purest form there ever has been. Muhammad himself was unable to read or write. By this new ideology that made a difference between script-owner and those whose religion did not have a written script (Islam so far) he nevertheless was able to overcome theological resistance coming from the script-owners more easily (people that had a holy book already, and had learned to read). The encounters with the Jewish theologists showed that Muhammad had not the knowledge to dispute with Jewish and Christian theologists on equal terms, and his bloody revenge shows how much he felt annoyed („gekränkt“) by that. Later Muhammad attacked the script-owning people also for that these scriptures were the reason why their faith was splitting up in more and more subbeliefs and sects (of which there were plenty), a process that was born by self-reflecting analysis and examination. Thus Islam’s immunity to self-reflection and self-analysis. In it’s understanding this can only lead to weakening the unity of the Ummah. Strength comes from ignorance, insight means: having no doubts, so to say.
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