The response in the Arab world to "Revisionists" the likes of Ibn Warraq and Luxenberg

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Oct 14, 2014 at 17:18

Dr. Pipes

I have not seen any review in Arabic of Ibn Warraq's new book. However, there is no doubt that there is great interest among educated Arabs about what the "revisionists" of the history of early Islam are saying.

Here is a link to the Arabic translation of Patricia Crone's book Hagarism by Nabil Fiad نبيل فياض He is Syrian and he translated Hagarism as الحجاريون or al-Hagariuun and here is a link to his translation

http://www.mohamedrabeea.com/books/book1_9520.pdf

And no I have not been able to find any translations for John Wansbrough's books

As for Luxenberg there is indeed great interest in what he is saying and it is too bad but most Arabs have no command of Syriac or Hebrew but they seem to follow his arguments and agree with his conclusions as in the case of let us say the word al-Raqeem الرقيم in Surat al-Kahf (The story of the 7 sleepers of Ephesus) and if you read al-Tabari's tafseer he does not know what the word al-raqeem means and he tells us it could be a village or a valley or may be the name of the dog or a stone tablet or a book which means that he does not know and here is the summary of the tafseer from islamweb

http://fatwa.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=61160

Luexenberg believes that this was misreading of the word الرقاد by misreading the final dal as a meem and the ya as an alif and in the Qur'an the verese is

ام حسبت ان اصحاب الكهف والرقيم كانوا من ايتنا عجبا

Or Have you thought/reflected? truly that the owners/people of the cave and al-raqeem they were one of our signs

Here is Luexnberg's reading

ام حسبت ان اصحاب الكهف والرقاد كانوا من ايتنا عجبا

Or Have you thought/reflected? truly that the owners/people of the cave and (their) sleep they were one of our signs

And indeed the word الرقاد in Lisan al-Arab means النوم or sleep

Indeed Lexenberg deciphered it very well and here is a Arabic language thread about it and it is very good reading

http://vb.tafsir.net/tafsir4367/#.VD2IT2ddUex

And here is a review of the works of many revisionists Luxenberg included

http://www.alhekam.com/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=14278

It is very clear that the author identifes the liguistic issues addressed by Luxenberg but he also dismisses them without providing a good reason

And here is a complete review of Luxenberg's original work Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran and it is a tendentious review as expected but nontheless educated Arabs are reading his work and do not have a coherent response yet

http://www.hurras.org/vb/showthread.php?t=42984

There is no doubt that Luxenberg's approach has its merits but we readers have to read and judge his claims to be true or not based on evidence provided

Luxenberg brings to the attention of his readers that he believes that there is a Qur'an written in Garshouni (Arabic text written in Syriac script) in al-Azhar library and if this is true this would be a great leap forward to reading the real Ur Qur'an

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