Hi Lascelles

RE: You must remember that the most authentic as well as the most voluminous information on the history of Islam is written in Classical Arabic.

Well, I presume that can be readily translated (and doubtless has been).

Besides, I am talking about modern research by well-qualified historians – the kind of thing that has been around for over a century about the origins of Christianity. I can go to any well-stocked bookshop or library and find books of that kind. I never seem to see anything like it for Islam. Why not, I wonder?

Actually, since writing, I've heard a couple of interviews with French scholars about the origins of Islam. Both indicated that it is heavily indebted to earlier, pre-Islamic religions in the Arabian peninsula, and to Christianity and – believe it or not – to Judaism. Which is not at all surprising of course. All religions in the Middle East borrowed from others in some way.

But my questions remains: why are well-researched books on the subject so rare? Or have I just missed them?

DA

http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781586488130

RE: There is a book written by Tamim Ansary titled Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes published in 2010 that seems to be quite well researched

Hmm. Not the kind of thing I have in mind by the look of it.

I am talking about a well-researched, well-informed, no-holds-barred study of the origins of Islam. Preferably by a scholar who knows a lot about pre-Islamic religions in Arabia, and about early Christianity and early Judaism (to which Islam seems to be heavily indebted).

My point is simply this: Christianity has for a long time – over a century – been the subject of careful and well-informed scrutiny by highly qualified historians. Books on the subject have been readily available for decades (I remember many years ago reading one in Penguin called “The Death of Jesus” which was devastating as far as the orthodox Christian story is concerned – and there have many more like it since). Now why can’t I walk into a bookshop and find the same kind of thing about the origins of Islam?  Has no one researched the topic?  I know that’s not true. Are publishers reluctant to publish such books?  Are bookshops reluctant to carry them?  Or do they exist and have I simply missed them?

DA

Oh don’t worry about it yourself, Lascelles. I was only asking the question in a general way and wondering if anyone on the thread knew of such studies.

 DA

Assuming it is correct, this comment from a book I’m reading at the moment seems to answer the question I was asking:

… there has not been a scholarly “quest for the historical Muhammad” the way there has been, and still is, a quest for the historical Jesus. The true identity, words, and deeds of the Prophet of Islam are topics that have only been lightly explored by scholars, largely owing to the paucity of early, reliable sources, and the entrenched Islamic resistance to any questioning of accepted Islamic beliefs, even if that questioning is based on non-polemical, scholarly principles. While historical critics of the Bible have operated freely and wielded tremendous influence in the Christian and post-Christian West, in the Islamic world such studies are virtually nonexistent. The few scholars who work in this field, such as Christoph Luxenberg, receive death threats and publish under pseudonyms.

DA

Interesting. Correct me if I am wrong (and I may be) but beliefs in resurrection were a fairly late development in Judaism, were they not?  I seem to remember reading once that “sheol” was originally a fairly vague concept but that there was no question of an exit.

DA

Interesting again. Thank you. What you say about sheol chimes with what I had thought.

If we assume that at some stage – presumably an early stage – the word simply meant grave or pit or, at the most, some sketchy notion of an underworld, then we could, I imagine, conclude that at that point notions of an afterlife did not play a significant part in Jewish faith (which may still be the case today for many Jews, perhaps?).

I know there have been other religions without a notion of an afterlife so Judaism wouldn’t have been unique in that regard, but it’s interesting all the same. For people (like me) who have grown up in a basically Christian atmosphere, it’s quite hard to dissociate religious faith from a belief in some kind of afterlife. One wonders how the believer reconciles him/herself to the idea of complete extinction – nothingness. How do you think Judaism dealt with that problem?  Was there some compensating factor in the belief system? Perhaps at that point Judaism placed much less emphasis on the individual than we do now and individual “survival” mattered less - so what I see as a "problem" was not a significant problem at all. 

I should perhaps explain that I am an agnostic so I have no personal stake here. But religious belief in all its forms interests me. (Also I realize I may be asking questions that are outside your main fields of study.)

DA

Hi Beau

RE: “I think there is still a lot of room for religious beliefs in the absence of an afterlife.”

Yes, I agree, though it’s not easy to see it - for many post-Christian Westerners anyway. (Actually, I imagine Muslims would struggle with the idea too.)

Some religions – I’m not sure which – divorce God from Creation – i.e. he’s not responsible for the creation of the universe, man etc. That I find hard to grasp too.  As you say, “in a lot of religions, God or the gods serve very practical, mundane purposes”. Granted, but if he(she?) is not the Author of Creation (as the phrase goes) one seems compelled to ask: “Well who is? And wouldn’t that entity be God?” (All very Western thinking again, I realise, but still very hard to shake off). I guess one could just leave the question of creation aside and just consider God to be somehow “there” to help (well, one assumes to help). But then who created God? The same mysterious, unknown, Creator?

So many questions...

PS. If it’s not too personal a question, what drew you to Eastern Orthodoxy? Not that I find that surprising. If one is going to be a Christian, I imagine there are good arguments for the view that Eastern Orthodoxy is as close to – if not closer to – the roots of the faith than anything else. (Dostoyevsky thought so, I gather – though his was the Russian form of course.)

DA

Hi Beau

Thanks for your interesting post. Good points about Greek thought. There’s one school of thought that says that the “ultimate” Greek god, for whom there was no temple, was Destiny – the inscrutable, implacable fate one encounters in Oedipus and other tragedies, for example. Not necessarily a punisher, but a force that simply crushes man if it so wishes.

Your comments on history are interesting. I must confess that, for my part, it was history that put the final nail in the coffin of Christian belief. I read a number of books on the origins of Christianity – not necessarily hostile ones, but books that took a purely historical approach based on close examination of sources – and I realised just how much seemed to be due accretions of various kinds etc. I’m sure you know the kind of thing.

I realise that some people would tell me that faith is a deeper issue than history. And I agree with that. But where a religion is closely linked to accounts of “what happened”, as Christianity is, I think there’s a real problem. (For example, Christianity without the resurrection would seem an odd kind of Christianity. Yet the historical evidence for the resurrection is very shaky.)  No doubt the same kinds of problems crop up with Islam but I gather historical examinations of its origins are not encouraged.

DA