The hidden origin of Islam revisited

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jun 19, 2013 at 07:09

JC you wrote

"What the Modern Martyr Should Know"

I'm very familiar with the book and indeed German historians of early Islam are miles ahead of us here in the US. Most German historians of early Islam have great backgrounds in the Semitic languages and in literary criticism and most significant in Biblical criticism and this knowledge allows them to view the whole picture and not just parts of it as we seem to have here in the US and most significant at least from my point of view education here is the US at present is really very expensive and the concept of "perpetual" student who is studying a subject and in this case the history of early islam just cannot be done. Germans still can do it

Here in the US if you know some Arabic this would be all you need to study early Islam and this is another reason why the US at least from my point of view is not the place to study early Islam.

There is no doubt in my mind that Islam is the product of the civilized Middle East in the late antique period, and to be more specific Mesopotamia, or what John Wansbrough called "The Sectarian Milieu" of Mesopotamia and it has nothing to do with the Hijaz

It makes you wonder why would Mu3awiyya of the Umayyads clan the first real character in the saga of what was to become islam establishes his capital not in Mecca or Medina but in Damascus? Unless he had nothing to do with the Hijaz and he was a local Syrian Arab? Just imagine if the Brits when they invaded India have their capital as Delhi and not London!

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