Q: What is 'revisionist Islam'? A: The Da Vinci Code for Muslims

Eteraz links to an article from a few years back, published in the New York Times, which looks at 'radical' new theories on the emergence of Islam from Arabia. The article concentrates on the theories of Patricia Crone and Michael Cook, as developed in their contrioversial book Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, with a nod towards other work by contemporary German scholars.

Hagarism is perhaps one of the most abused theories around. It used as 'historical proof' that the Qur'an Muslims have with them today, and core tenants of their faith, are fabrications with no historical validity. Whatsoever.

Following on from their teacher, John Wansbrough, Crone and Cook did not accept the Muslim views of their own history, and so rather than following the path of someone like Montogemery Watt and examine Muslim historical sources for internal consistency, they dumped the whole history. Indeed, they declared in their book that Hagarism was a book 'written by infidels for infidels'. The whole point of Crone's and Cook's work was to reject the traditional Muslim accounts of the emergence of Islam and reconsruct the history using other, non-Muslim, sources. From this they drew the conclusion that, while a man called Muhammad might have existed, the Qur'an and other Islamic beliefs came into existence much after his death. In fact, the entire first century of Islam was largely a later fabrication. In other words, if you're not a Muslim who accepts the divine origins of the Qur'an, how do you explain the contents of the text? Where did its stories come from? Hagarism is one attempt to answer these questions, by positing that the Qur'an, being a monotheist text, must have been developed in a monotheist culture, where such teachings were existent and accepted; if the Hijaz was not such a monotheist centre, as is supposedly claimed by the Muslim traditions, then how does one who does not accept the existence of divine intent explain Qur'anic contents? Hagarism, basically, asks us to accept a vast conspiracy theory; a sort of Da Vinci Code for Islam, where the falsity of Jesus' divinity by the Catholic Church is replaced by the falsity of the sirah of the Prophet (upon whom be peace) by early Muslims as they expanded out of Arabia.

I do want to mention that Crone's insistence (as reported by the article) that 'there are only two possibilities' is a stretch, and avoids a third possibility. If we indulge in a little speculation of our own we could say that the Quraysh accepted the existence of Abraham (upon whom be peace), and his religion and even the One God, but had distorted Abraham's (upon whom be peace) teachings and practices. All of this could have occured in the Hijaz, and without the need for huge Jewish and Christian groups (however, the Qur'an mentions them in many verses, so there must have been some Jews and Christians in Makkah and Medina). (Incidentally, this is a view put forward by some Muslim scholars.)

Hagarism is a speculative attempt to find answers. Not, as some would have us believe, The Truth. (For example, read this laughable piece. Attempting to bolster your arguments by adding "PhD" at the end of your name is lame. Especially when your area of expertise is somewhere else.) Crone and Cook have revised their own views in recent years, though perhaps they still hold Islamic traditions' view of itself as unreliable and not wholly accurate (I've read more of Cook's work than I have Crone's in recent years). And Muslims should not forget that the Qur'an itself records peoples' derisive attitude towards the Prophet (upon whom be peace); some would dismiss Revelation as "stories of the ancient" (e.g. Qur'an 8: 31). Hardly new, this business of where the Qur'an came from, then is it?

So Muslims should not be perturbed by people asking such questions and producing these sorts of answers. They can respond in kind and show where the faults in such attempts lie. Or Muslims can just ignore such theories and deprive the one thing that most people who push such ideas need: publicity (angry Muslims are good publicity).

Of course, it doesn't help if hostile or lazy journalism constantly repeats these kinds of stories, exaggerating their importance out of all proportion and not considering the crticisims for and and against such theories. For example, last year I looked at a similar article that appeared in The Economist, which discussed some contemporary German scholarship, which similarly exaggerated the importance of some theories.

Comments

[Brian Ulrich]

There were buttloads of monotheists floating around the Arabian peninsula during the 6th and 7th centuries.

[thabet]

Yes, the Hanifs.

[send gifts to Pakistan]

Excellent post and wonderful blog, I really like this type of interesting articles