History Forum / General / General Topics / July 2005

The Quran's Historicity

The Cat      

2005/07/22

N.B.: Since this article really started with some
interventions of mine, in the forum of the
faithfreedom.org site, I will use in here the nickname
used in it as an author's penname.  

The whole article will be made of different internet
sites.

http://sullivan-county.com/x/koran.html  by Joseph Smith.

http://sullivan-county.com/x/koran_prob.html  by Ibn
Warraq.

http://www.flex.com/~jai/satyamevajayate/index.html

by Satyameva Jayate.

http://www.debate.org.uk/topics/history/quran.htm  by
Joseph Smith.

Under fair use agreement.  

- - -

Prior to 750 AD (thus a hundred years after Muhammad's
death) we have no verifiable Muslim documents which can
give us a window into the formative period of Islam. We
simply do not have any ''account from the Islamic'
community during the initial 150 years or so, between the
first Arab conquests, in the early 7th century, and the
appearance (with the SIRA-MAGHAZI narratives) of the
earliest Islamic literature from the 8th century. All we
have, prior to 750 consist ''almost entirely of rather
dubious citations in later compilations'' (Humphreys). It
is incredible that Islam cannot provide a single
corroborated manuscript of their most holy book from even
within a century of their founder's birth.  

Quite a few stories found in the Quran have their root in
second century Jewish apocryphal literature: stories as
the murder of Abel and Cain in sura 5.31-32 is borrowed
from the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziah and the Mishnah
Sanhedrin 4.5 ; the storey of Abraham, the idols and the
fiery furnace in sura 21.51-71 is from the Misdrash
Rabbah ; the amusing storey found in sura 27.17-44 of
Solomon, his talking Hoopoo bird, and the queen of Sheba
who lifts her skirt when mistaking a mirrored floor for
water, taken from the 2nd Targum of Esther. There are
plenty others like the account of Mt. Sinai being lifted
up and held over the heads of Jews as a threat for
rejecting the law (sura 7.171) comes from The Abodah
Sarah. And so on.  

In sura 17.1 we have the report of Muhammad's journey by
night from the sacred mosque to the farthest mosque. In
later traditions, we find this aya refers to Muhammad
ascending to the seventh heaven, after a miraculous night
journey (the MI'RAJ) from Mecca to Jerusalem, on a
winged-horse called Buraq. This comes from a mixture of
different sources: the Testament of Abraham (~200), The
Secrets of Enoch (chap.1.4-10 and 2.1), also the old
Persian book entitled Arta-I Viraj Namak.  

The Quran implies that Muhammad severed his relationship
with the Jews in 624 and thus moved the direction of the
prayer (Qibla, sura 2.144 and 149-150). Yet, the external
documents in our possessions, namely that of the Doctrina
Iacobi Chronicler (in 661) and that of the bishop Sebeos
(in 660) testifies of rather good relations between the
Jews  and the Ishmaelites usually known then as the
Saracens. The later Armenian source even mentions that
the governor of Jerusalem was a Jew in the aftermath of
the conquest. So, these testimonies are conflicting with
the traditional account from the Quran.  

MECCA

In sura 3.96 and 6.92 we find the mention that Mecca
(Bakkah) was the first sanctuary appointed for mankind,
the ''Mother of all settlement'' as Adam placed the black
stone in the original Ka'ba while in sura 2.125-127) it
was Abraham and Ishmael who rebuilt it many years later.
Muslims here have an overriding problem as research
carried out by Patricia Crone and Michael Cook shows that
there is no report of Mecca in any ancient document until
the early eight century, from the early reign of caliph
Hisham who ruled in between 724-743. Remark that this is
a full century after Muhammad's death.  

Yet even more troubling historically is the claim by
Muslims that Mecca was not only an ancient and great
city, but that is was also the center of the trading
routes for Arabia in the 7th century and before. This
belief is the easiest to examine, since we have ample
documentation from that part of the world with which to
check out its veracity. From Bulliet's extensive research
these claims by Muslims are quite wrong. This is further
corroborated by Groom and Muller who contend that Mecca
simply couldn't have been on the trading route since it
would have entailed a detour from the natural route along
the western ridge.  

On these accounts, Patricia Crone adds ''Mecca was a
barren place, and barren places do not make natural
halts. (...) Why should caravans have made a steep
descent to the barren valley of Mecca when they could
have stopped at Ta'if.''  

Furthermore, she asks ''what commodity was available in
Arabia that could be transported such a distance, through
an inhospitable environment, and still be sold at a
profit large enough to support the growth of a city in a
peripheral site.''  

The real problem with Mecca, however, is that there
simply was no international trade taking place in Arabia,
let alone in Mecca in the centuries immediately prior to
Muhammad's birth. It seems that much of our data in this
area has been spurious from the outset, due to the sloppy
research of the original sources, carried out by the
Jesuit Henry Lammens an ''unreliable scholar''. M.
Lammens used first century sources (such as Periplus and
Pliny) while he should have used the later Greek
historians who were closer to the events such as Cosmas,
Procopius and Theodoratos (P. Crone).  

Had he done that he would have found that the Greek trade
between India and the Mediterranean was entirely maritime
after the first century. One needs only to look at a map
to understand why. It made little sense to ship goods
across such distances by land when a water-way was
available close by. According to Ms. Croone, in
Diocletian's Rome it was cheaper to ship wheat 1,250
miles by sea than to transport it fifty miles by land.
Why would the traders ship their goods from India by sea,
and unload it at Aden where it would be put on the backs
of camels to trudge 1,250 miles across an inhospitable
desert?  

Had Lammens researched his sources correctly he would
have also found that the Greco-Roman trade with India
collapsed by the third century AD, so that by Muhammad's
time there was not only no overland route, but no Roman
market to which the trade was destined. Ms. Croone also
points out that, had Lammens taken the time to study the
early Greek sources, he would have discovered that the
Greeks to whom the trade went had never heard of a place
called Mecca . If it was such an important place,
certainly those to whom the trade was going would have
noted its existence. Yet, WE FIND NOTHING, though the
Greeks refer to the towns of Ta'if and Yathrib (later
Medina), as well as Khaybar in the north. The unmentioned
of Mecca is indeed troubling for the historicity of a
city whose importance lies at the center of the nascent
Islam.  

There is even some confusion within the Islamic tradition
as to where exactly Mecca was initially situated.
According to the research by J. van Ess, in both the
first and second civil wars, there are accounts of people
proceeding from Medina to Iraq, via Mecca, yet the town
is situated south-west of Medina and Iraq is north-east.
Thus the sanctuary for Islam, according to these
traditions was at one time north of Medina, which is the
opposite direction from where Mecca stands today !  

We are thus left in a quandary. Not only the documentary
evidence contradicts its dating between Arabs and Jews,
but the cornerstone city of Islam is unidentified until
much later.  

ARCHEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

History never takes place in a vacuum. Let's see what
archaeology tells us concerning the Quran.  

According to it, the prayer's direction was finalized
towards Mecca for all Muslims in or around 624. But the
archaeological evidence, which has been and is continuing
to be uncovered from the first mosques built in the 7th
century, by archaeologists Creswell and Fehervari
concerning two Umayyad mosques in Iraq and one near
Baghdad, had Qiblas not facing Mecca but oriented too far
north. The Wasit mosque is off by 33 degrees, and the
Baghdad mosque by 30 degrees. This agrees with
Balahhuri's testimony (called the Futuh) that the Qibla
of the first mosque in Kufa, Iraq, supposedly constructed
in 670 lay to the west, while it should have pointed
almost directly south.    

The Amr b. al As mosque outside Cairo in Egypt shows also
that the Qibla again pointed too far north and had to be
corrected by the governor  Qurra b. Sharik. All above
instance position the Qibla not towards Mecca but much
further north, possibly to the vicinity of Jerusalem .  

We find further corroboration for this direction of
prayer by the Christian writer and traveller Jacob of
Edessa, who, writing as late as 705 was a contemporary
eye-witness in Egypt . He maintained that the Mahgraye
(Greek name for Saracens) in Egypt prayed facing east and
not south or south-east. His letter (still found in the
British Museum) is indeed revealing. Therefore, as late
as 705, the direction of prayer towards Mecca had not yet
been canonized.  

According to Dr. Hawting, from SOAS (school of Oriental
and African Studies in London), new archaeological
discoveries also show that up till that time the Muslims
(or Hagarenes from Hagar) were indeed praying not towards
Mecca but facing north possibly Jerusalem. Yet the Quran
tells us (in sura 2) that the direction of the Qibla was
fixed towards Mecca by approximately two years after the
Hijra, or around 624, and has remained in that direction
until the present. What is happening here? Why are the
Qiblas of these early mosques not facing towards Mecca?
This discrepancy goes as late as 705. Let's look this
time in Jerusalem itself.

THE DOME OF THE ROCK

It was built by Abd al-Malik in 691 and still is an
imposing structure even by nowadays standard. First, we
have to notice that the Dome of the Rock is not a mosque
since it hasn't any prayer's direction, suggesting it was
built as an octagon with eight pillars to walk around.  

Muslims contend that it was erected to commemorate the
night when Muhammad went up to the heaven to speak with
Moses and Allah concerning the number of prayers required
for the believers. But, according to the researches made
by Van Berchem and Yehuda Nevo, the inscriptions found
there say nothing about the Mi'raj but rather attest the
messianic status of Jesus, the acceptance of the
prophets, Muhammad's receipt of revelation, and the use
of the terms ''Islam'' and ''Muslim''. Why, if it was
erected to commemorate the Mi'raj does it say nothing
about it? This imposing structure built so early suggests
that this and not Mecca became the first sanctuary and
the center of nascent Islam until at least the late 7th
century.  

According to Islamic tradition, the caliph Suleyman, who
reigned as late as 715-717, went to Mecca to ask about
the HAJJ. He was not satisfied with the response he
received there, and so chose to follow Abd al-Malik (i.e.
travelling to the Dome of the Rock). This fact alone,
points out Dr. Hawting, indicates that there was still
some confusion as where the sanctuary was to be located
as late as the early 8th century. One can understand why,
according to the tradition, WALID I, who reigned as
Caliph between 705 and 715 wrote to all regions ordering
the demolition and enlargement of the mosques. Could it
be that at this time the Qiblas were then aligned towards
Mecca? If so it points to a glaring contradiction in the
Quran.  

The Dr. John Wansbrough, an absolute authority on early
Islamic tradition, found interesting observances as to
this man Muhammad was. The best non-Muslim sources on
this period which we have are those provided by the
Arabic rock inscriptions scattered all over the Syro-
Jordanian deserts and the Peninsula, especially the Negev
desert. The late Yehuda Nevo, from the University of
Jerusalem,  made extensive research and published his
results in 1994 book ''Toward a Prehistory of Islam'',
which I'll refer.  

Nevo has found in the Arab religious texts, dating from
the first century and a half of Arab rule (7th to 8th
century) a monotheist creed ''demonstrably not Islam, but
a creed from which Islam could have developed''.  

He also found in all Arab religious institutions during
the SUFYANI period (661-684) a complete absence of
reference to Muhammad or any Mohammedans formulae that he
is the prophet of God. This is true, until around 691,
whether the main purpose of the inscription is religious
or simply commemorative, such as the inscription at the
dam near Ta'if, built by the Caliph Muâwiya in the 660's.
How come that Muhammad's name is absent on all early
inscriptions, is significant.  

The first occurrence of the phrase Muhammad rasul Allah
(Muhammad is the prophet of Allah) is found on an Arab-
Sassanian coin of Xalib ben Abdallah from the year 690,
which was struck in Damascus . The ''Triple Confession of
Faith'', including the Tawhid (God is one), the phrase
setting that Muhammad is His prophet and the human nature
of Jesus (rasul Allah wa-abduhu) is found in Abd al-
Malik's inscription in the Dome of the Rock, dated 691.
BEFORE THIS,  THE MUSLIM CONFESSION OF FAITH CANNOT BE
ATTESTED AT ALL. After that, through the MAARWANID
dynasty (until 750), Muhammad's name usually occurs
whenever religious formulae are used, such as coins,
milestones and papyrus ''protocols''. Yet, the first
Arabic papyrus, an Egyptian receipt for taxes paid, dated
642, written in both Greek and Arabic is headed by the
''BASMALA'', yet it is neither Christian nor Muslim in
character.

Rock inscriptions, though bearing religious texts, never
mention the prophet or the Mohammedan's formulae, a full
30-60 years and more after the death of Muhammad, though
they contained a monotheist form of belief developed with
a Judaeo-Christian literary style. What's more, when the
formulae is introduced during the MARWANID period (after
684) it is carried almost ''overnight''. Suddenly, it
became the state's only form of official religious
declaration. Then again, they were not accepted by the
public so promptly.

According to Y. Nevo, the Mohammedan's formulae only
began to be used in popular inscriptions sometime during
the reign of Caliph Hisham (724-743). EVEN THESE, THOUGH
THEY ARE MOHAMMEDANS, ARE NOT MUSLIM. For that, Nevo
believes, we must wait until the beginning of the 9th
century (around 822), coinciding with the first written
Quran, as well as the first traditional Muslim accounts.
It thus seems that it was not during his lifetime that
Muhammad was elevated to the position of a universal
prophet and, EVEN THEN, THE FORMULAE WHICH WAS INTRODUCED
WAS STILL NOT EQUIVALENT WITH THAT WHICH WE HAVE TODAY.

THE QURAN

Coming to the Quran itself, the sources suggest that it
was put together rather hurriedly. Mr. Wansbrough states
that ''the book is strikingly lacking in overall
structure, frequently obscure and inconsequential in both
language and content, perfunctory in its linking of
disparate materials, and given to the repetition of whole
passages in variant versions. On this basis it can
plausibly be argued that the book is the product of the
belated and imperfect editing of material from a
plurality of traditions'' as quoted in Crone-Cook
''Hagarism''.  

As to when that event took place we can only make an
educated guess from the earlier discussion concerning the
dating of the earliest manuscripts. From this, we can
conclude quite scholarly that there was no Quaranic
documentation in existence in the mid-late seventh
century. The earliest reference from outside Islamic
literary traditions to the book called ''Quran'' occurs
in the mid-eight century between an Arab and a monk of
Bet Hale, but this certainly not implies that the book
was then as we know it now. Both Crone and Cook conclude
that except this small reference there is no indication
of the Quran before the end of the seventh century.  

In their research, both Crone and Cook go on to maintain
that it was under the governor HAJJAJ BEN YUSUF (663-
714), around 705 that a logical context in which the
Quran (or a nascent body of literature) could have been
compiled as Muhammad's scripture. From an account
attributed to Leo by Levond, the governor Hajjaj is shown
to have collected all the old Hagarene writings and
replace them with others ''according to his own taste,
and disseminated them everywhere among his nation''. That
is also logical with the fact that both the Samarqand and
the Topkapi manuscripts, the oldest Quran we have, are
written in Kufic, a Persian dialect from Kufa, and not in
Arabic. A reasonable conclusion is that it was during
this period that the Quran began its evolution, possibly
beginning to be written down, until it was finally
canonized in the mid to late eight century as the Quran
which we now know.  

Still the archaeological evidence for the historicity of
the Quran proves to be the most damaging. Not only do the
seventh and eight century ruins and inscriptions from the
area seem to contradict the notion that Muhammad
canonized a direction of prayer during his lifetime, or
that he had formulated a scripture known as the Quran,
but the idea of his universal prophethood, that he was
the final ''seal'' of all prophesy is brought into
question. This indeed is significant and troublesome.  

We now uncovered coins with supposed Quaranic writings on
them, dated from 685, coined during the reign of Abd al-
Malik. Furthermore, the Dome of the Rock he constructed
in 691 attest of the same discrepancies in its
inscriptions from the quotations we now find in the
Quran. Two etymologists, Van Berchem and Grohmann, after
extensive research on these inscriptions, maintain that
they contain ''variant verbal forms, extensive deviances,
as well as omissions from the text which we have today''
(''Arabic Papyri from Hirbet el-Mird'' as cited by Crone-
Cook).  

If these inscriptions had been derived from the Quran,
with the variants which they contain, then how could the
Quran have been canonized prior to the late seventh
century? One can only conclude that there must have been
an evolution in the transmission of the Quran through the
years, IF INDEED THEY WERE ORIGINALLY TAKEN FROM THE
QURAN.  

We now may summary this short thesis:  

1)     The Jews were friends with the Arabs until at
least 640.

2)     Jerusalem was the original Holy Sanctuary for
Islam until the beginning of the eight century.

3)     Mecca was unknown as a viable city until the end
of the seventh century and it wasn't known as a trade
route.

4)     The Qibla was not fixed towards Mecca before the
eight century.

5)     Muhammad was not known as the seals of prophets
until the late seventh century.

6)     The earliest we even hear of any Quran is not
until the mid-eight century.

7)     The earliest Quaranic writings do not coincide
with the current Quaranic text.

8)     The Quran which is in our possession is NOT the
same as that which was supposedly collated and canonized
in 650 under caliph Uthman, as Muslims contend.

9)     The documents which we now use (from 790 onwards)
were not written 16 years after Muhammad's death but
rather 160 years later, and thus not 1,400 years ago, but
more so 1,200 years ago.

- - - - -  

The whole article relies on the authority of John
Wansbrough (from SOAS, University of London) ''Quaranic
Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural
Interpretation'' (1977) and his ''The Sectarian Milieu:
Content and Composition of the Islamic Salvation
History'' (1978). Also on the authority of Patricia Crone
and Michael Cook  (from Oxford University) ''Hagarism:
The Making of the Islamic World''. Then of Patricia
Crone's ''Slaves on Horses: The Evolution of the Islamic
Polity'' (1980) and ''Mecca Trade and the Rise of Islam''
(1987).

-From Joseph Smith's

http://debate.org.uk/topics/history/bib-qur/qurmanu.htm  

- - - - -

END OF PART 1.

To be followed.  

The Cat, for faithfreedom.org  

Disclaimer: This article is published for its academic
value and does not necessarily reflect the views of FFI.

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    "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the
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    "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.
- Matthew 10:34-36.

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