A German scholar of Near Eastern languages proposes a solution to the many incomprehensible passages of the Qu’ran. Since Syriac-Aramaic was the written language of Arabs in Mohammed’s time, and written Arabic did not yet exist, Christoph Luxenberg (a pseudonym) re-interprets the existing Qu’ran as a document originally written in Syriac and finds that this approach clarifies puzzling passages.
It took 300 years until the Qu’ran’s transcription into Arabic became stable and, as an academic reviewer puts it, one “cannot assume that the earliest Arabian commentators understood correctly the grammar and lexicon of the Arabic of the Qur’ān.”
The popular implications of this approach are enormous: some of the most controversial passages in the Arabic Qu’ran are affected by the new interpretations this theory proposes. Would Wahhabi terrorists blow themselves up if they were promised a reward of “raisins” and “juicy fruit” in paradise instead of “72 virgins”?
Even more surprisingly, Luxenberg suggests that Mohammed may have been a Christian describing himself as a “witness to the prophets” rather than the “last of the prophets”.
(Thanks to CWN for mentioning the story.)
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Very interesting, RC. Now pass the juicy fruits!
thanks for pointing out that review to me, RC! It is, in the nature of these things, a very positive review; this means the book has to be taken particularly seriously. Interesting. I just finished bogging about it.
bogging? is that like “angus”?
No doubt we can now look forward to a Mohammed Seminar, issuing iconoclastic press releases just before Ramadan and getting themselves uncritically interviewed as experts for A&E/History Channel documentaries.
John: hmph.
Ed: We could only hope that high minded television would take Islam, the Religion of Peace with a grain of salt. This might help.
Islam is the theological descendant of Arianism (“God is not begotten, nor does He beget…”, etc.). Therefore ‘Christian’ interpretation is most certainly a possibility. I’ve always looked at Mohammed as a “Joseph Smith” myself, preying on Arians as Smith and Young preyed on Protestants…
NB Mohammed did not write the Koran himself. It did not appear until almost 300 years later, in Baghdad if memory serves me right. All of the previous versions were subsequently destroyed by one of the Caliphs’ orders, but many manuscripts survided. The writings on the mosque in Jerusalem and on the Taj Majal in Agra are pre-modern quotes from the Koran.
The Taj Mahal wasn’t completed until a millenium after the Koran was finished — why were “pre-modern” quotations doing on it?
http://rubens.anu.edu.au/student.projects/tajmahal/hist_sign.html
Or maybe you meant Trump’s Taj Mahal in Atlantic City?
http://www.trumptaj.com/
Juicy fruits indeed!
Historically, the Christian world originally viewed Islam as merely a Christian heresy, not a separate religion. This new analysis simply verifies that ancient opinion.
Jim
Not so fast, gentlemen.
Yes, Luxenberg’s theory is extremely interesting as well as plausible. He joins the ranks of those few Quranists who have applied scholarly principles and curiosity to a field normally treated by Westerners with exaggerated respect for Muslim sensibilities and beliefs.
See the anthology “The Origins of the Quran,” edited by another pseudonym, the no-nonsense Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.
The standard scholarly attitude to Islam is itself worth noting. For decades politically correct academics have been berating Western scholarship on Islam for being condescending (the locus classicus is Edward Said, Orientalism, 1978). But it turns out that the opposite is true. Western scholars have not been condescending, but timorous and credulous. Said got it exactly backward.
Now to Luxenberg and his theory. If the Quran is descended from a Syriac lectionary, Luxenberg needs to explain why Quranic Islam seems so Judaic: circumcision, no pork, rejection of the idea that God could become human.
Nor can Islam easily be descended from Arianism, which flourished primarily among the Germanic tribes outside the Roman Empire. How did Arianism survive in Arabia for three centuries without leaving traces in the sources? What exactly is the geographical, cultural, and theological path from Arius to Mohammad?
To Ed: it is not likely that any putative critical scholars of Islam would get much air time. The media are interested in those who trash Christianity, because the media are infected with the standard liberal hatred of the West. They will not be interested in any criticism of Islamic doctrine, because such criticism would offend Muslims and could be seen as pro-Western. Nor will academics, who share these prejudices. Don’t expect any Mohammed Seminar, and don’t expect cynical questions from journalists about where Muhammad got his faith.
And again, not so fast Ian.
The earliest extant copy of the Quran dates from before 750 CE, so that’s only slightly more that a 100 years later…
Granted: it’s an unvocalised text without diacritical points. The type of text Luxenberg uses as his starting point, and it shows marked differences from the text used nowadays by muslims. But the Quran was there a bit earlier than 300 years after the death of Muhammad…
Oh get real folks! Just because another Islam-bashing book with laughable imaginative theories comes out, we should accept it?
What a laughable theory – the Arabs did not know the meaning of their langauge but this modern day German philologist is gonna tell them what the right meanings of those words are?!?!?
As for the posts here that suggest that Islam is not “criticized” as it should be for fear of Muslim sensibilities – what planet have you been living on? Islam is bashed daily in the media. What purpose would they have to bash Christianity vis a vis the West since the two (Christianity and the West) are born-again bedfellows?
Don’t just believe everything hook, line and sinker. The scholarly journals have trashed the book big time – because as appealing as the theories are, they have very little academic value.
See a good review at:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/luxreview1.html
Having eaten white raisins form Eastern Turkistan while in China, I hope the skills of Mideastern and Central Asian raisin driers never dissipate.
But, if Muhammad was not the founder of Islam, and just some sort of misunderstood Christian brother, who was the real founder of the Islam that seeks to supplant Christianity?
Having eaten white raisins form Eastern Turkistan while in China, I hope the skills of Mideastern and Central Asian raisin driers never dissipate.
But, if Muhammad was not the founder of Islam, and just some sort of misunderstood Christian brother, who was the real founder of the Islam that seeks to supplant Christianity?
at the start, some Arabs converted to Judaism, and teamed up with Jews to reconqer the promised land.
when they succeded in invadind and surrendering Syria/palestine, they sepearte from the Jews, to form a new religion. so did early christians.
they choosed a place in Arabia ( Mecca) to anchor this new religion, but used whatever syriac manuscripts to devlop the Quran ….
Islam = Judaism with a taste of christianism put in arabic context and tradition.
Jews have invented the Torah = lies and legends. Moses, Jacob, Isaac etc … never existed.
2 billion christians + 2 billion muslims still believing jewish lies. ( Moses cited 136 times in Quran !!! )
well done smart jews !!!