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Historical Errors in the Quran: Difference between revisions
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→Every people had a Muslim warner/prophet: Added a section on historicity issues with 'The Battle of Badr' interpretations.
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This also begs the question on how societies for most of human history are to be judged if the message seemingly got lost before anyone ever recorded it, if the sole purpose of man (and [[:en:Jinn|jinn]]) is to worship Allah specifically ({{Quran|51|56}}). | This also begs the question on how societies for most of human history are to be judged if the message seemingly got lost before anyone ever recorded it, if the sole purpose of man (and [[:en:Jinn|jinn]]) is to worship Allah specifically ({{Quran|51|56}}). | ||
Interestingly, all of the stories told in the Quran are of well-known Jewish-Christian prophets (''see: [[Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature]]'') and three local Arabian prophets Hud, Salih, and Shu'aib. There are none mentioned outside the Near-East of antiquity, and nothing about the entire hunter-gather section of humanity which lasted most of the 300,000 years humans have existed,<ref>''[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ultrasocial/our-huntergatherer-heritage-and-the-evolution-of-human-nature/F0FAE24179317811BE1420E9BA5A290E Our Hunter-Gatherer Heritage and the Evolution of Human Nature.]'' Part I - The Evolution of Human Ultrasociality. John M. Gowdy. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2021.</ref> with the stories taking place in towns that match contemporary one's to Muhammad's time. Critics argue this missed opportunity to explain the history of the world and what happened elsewhere with the prophets (i.e. the Quran only recalls local tales like a human with knowledge limited to the vicinity would), along with the lack of historical evidence of these other messengers where we would expect it, is damning. | Interestingly, all of the stories told in the Quran are of well-known Jewish-Christian prophets (''see: [[Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature]]'') and three local Arabian prophets Hud, Salih, and Shu'aib. There are none mentioned outside the Near-East and Arabia of antiquity, and nothing about the entire hunter-gather section of humanity which lasted most of the 300,000 years humans have existed,<ref>''[https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/ultrasocial/our-huntergatherer-heritage-and-the-evolution-of-human-nature/F0FAE24179317811BE1420E9BA5A290E Our Hunter-Gatherer Heritage and the Evolution of Human Nature.]'' Part I - The Evolution of Human Ultrasociality. John M. Gowdy. Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 October 2021.</ref> with the stories taking place in towns that match contemporary one's to Muhammad's time. | ||
Critics argue this missed opportunity to explain the history of the world and what happened elsewhere with the prophets (i.e. the Quran only recalls local tales like a human with knowledge limited to the vicinity would, where it would have looked to someone in living in Arabia at the time, that monotheism was all over the world as the surrounding Byzantine (Roman), Sasanian (Persian) Empires in the North and Himyarite Kingdom in the South were ''(See: [[Pre-Islamic Arab Religion in Islam#General Judeo-Christian Monotheism in Arabia]]'')), along with the lack of historical evidence of these other messengers where we would expect it, is damning. | |||
=== Suliman's missing kingdom === | === Suliman's missing kingdom === | ||
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{{Quote|{{Quran|46|27}}|Certainly We have destroyed the towns that were around you, and We have variously paraphrased the signs so that they may come back.}} | {{Quote|{{Quran|46|27}}|Certainly We have destroyed the towns that were around you, and We have variously paraphrased the signs so that they may come back.}} | ||
And as Patricia Crone mentioned in her 2008 article [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/mohammed_3866jsp/ ''What do we actually know about Mohammed?''] ''<nowiki/>'There were many such ruined sites in northwest Arabia.','' while they are not known to be around Mecca, though archaeological digs there are currently limited.<ref>Schick, Robert, “[https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/archaeology-and-the-quran-EQSIM_00031?lang=fr ''Archaeology and the Qurʾān'']”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Johanna Pink, University of Freiburg. Consulted online on 09 March 2024 <<nowiki>http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQSIM_00031</nowiki>></ref> | And as Patricia Crone mentioned in her 2008 article [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/mohammed_3866jsp/ ''What do we actually know about Mohammed?''] ''<nowiki/>'There were many such ruined sites in northwest Arabia.','' while they are not known to be around Mecca, though archaeological digs there are currently limited.<ref>Schick, Robert, “[https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/archaeology-and-the-quran-EQSIM_00031?lang=fr ''Archaeology and the Qurʾān'']”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Johanna Pink, University of Freiburg. Consulted online on 09 March 2024 <<nowiki>http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQSIM_00031</nowiki>></ref> | ||
=== The Battle of Badr === | |||
Muslim tradition expands upon vague mentions in the Quran to create an extremely important and detailed historical memory of the 'Battle of Badr', with 'Badr' being mentioned [https://corpus.quran.com/search.jsp?q=badr once by name] in the Quran ({{Quran|3|123}}): | |||
{{Quote|[https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Badr Battle of Badr. Islamic History. Britannica Entry]|Nearly two years after the Hijrah, in the middle of the month of Ramadan, a major raid was organized against a particularly wealthy caravan escorted by Abū Sufyān, head of the Umayyad clan of the Quraysh. According to the traditional accounts, when word of the caravan reached Muhammad, he arranged a raiding party of about 300, consisting of both muhājirūn and anṣār (Muhammad’s Medinese supporters), to be led by Muhammad himself. By filling the wells on the caravan route near Medina with sand, Muhammad’s army lured Abū Sufyān’s army into battle at Badr, near Medina. There the two parties clashed in traditional fashion: three men from each side were chosen to fight an initial skirmish, and then the armies charged toward one another for full combat. As his army charged forward, Muhammad threw a handful of dust, which flew into the eyes and noses of many of the opposing Meccans. Despite the superior numbers of the Meccan forces (about 1,000 men), Muhammad’s army scored a complete victory, and many prominent Meccans were killed.}} | |||
Traditional exegetes commenting on this verse unanimously date the battle falling during Ramadan,<ref>''E.g. [https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/3.123 Tafsir Ibn Kathir Verse 3:123]''. Ibn Kathir d. 1373.</ref> and link it to other verses such as {{Quran|8|41}} (which it is not mentioned by name in). However, as British historian Tom Holland notes (''citation 50: refencing Crone (1987a), pp. 226–30: The papyrus fragment is Text 71 in Grohmann),'' an earlier (than the Islamic historians/exegetes) manuscript mentions the Battle of Badr, but does not lists a date in Ramadan, which raises questions on the traditional interpretation of these verses. | |||
{{Quote|Holland, Tom. In The Shadow Of The Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (pp. 39-40). Little, Brown Book Group.|– a tiny shred of papyrus discovered in Palestine and dated to around AD 740 – serves only to compound the puzzle. Reading it is like overhearing a game of Chinese whispers. Over the course of only eight lines, it provides something truly startling: <b>a date for the Battle of Badr that is not in the holy month of Ramadan.</b> 50 Why should this come as a surprise? Because later Muslim scholars, writing their learned and definitive commentaries on the Qur’an, confidently identified Badr with an otherwise cryptic allusion to ‘the day the two armies clashed’ – a date that fell in Ramadan.51 Perhaps, then, on this one point, the scholars were wrong? Perhaps. But if so, then why should they have been right in anything else that they wrote? What if the entire account of the victory at Badr were nothing but a fiction, a dramatic just-so story, fashioned to explain allusions within the Qur’an that would otherwise have remained beyond explanation?}} | |||
Islamic Scholar Gerard Hawting also discusses these issues in his 2015 paper 'Qur’ān and sīra: the relationship between Sūrat al-Anfāl and muslim traditional accounts of the Battle of Badr'.<ref>Hawting, Gerald. “[https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbtznq1.6 QUR’ĀN AND SĪRA: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SŪRAT AL-ANFĀL AND MUSLIM TRADITIONAL ACCOUNTS OF THE BATTLE OF BADR.]” In ''Les Origines Du Coran, Le Coran Des Origines'', edited by François Déroche, Christian Julien Robin, and Michel Zink, 75–92. Editions de Boccard, 2015. <nowiki>https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvbtznq1.6</nowiki>.</ref> | |||
== External Links == | == External Links == | ||