For plato and real history and the problem of the sources

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Mar 2, 2007 at 18:31

You wrote:

>read the banu Quraiza stroy. You can argue that the history is suspect as some people have argued.

Listen logic would dictate that such story could have taken place. But what matters in the case of such story is the source of the story and it is the sira and the tarikh and the maghazi and the hadith. But we know that the sira and the hadith and the maghazi have only one aim and that is to explain what the Quranic logias and pericopes are really saying. But all of these literary sources are very late (non can be dated before the 3rd century of Islam) and almost all of it come from mesopotamia and Iran and almost non of it come of the Hijaz, and the material is indeed tendentious as would be expected. This is what historians call salvation history and it is not real history for sure.

Can we really reconstruct the life of Muhammda from any of these sources including the story of Banu Quraiza? The answer is: No we cannot.

But what is amazing here is that the Rabbinical sources are silent about any Jewish communities that resided in the Hijaz period and you know what? My guess is none of this is true.

How did this come about? Well, It was pointed out by Michael Cook that in Qur'an 37:133-138 it says and it is addressed to Muhammad or so we are told:

"Lot too was one of the envoys when we delivered him and his people save an old woman among those that tarried then we destroyed the others and you pass by them in the morning and the night will you understand " (credit for translation goes to Michael Cook)

Notice that the Biblical story of Lot takes place in Palestine and not in the Hijaz. This very well could mean that who ever composed such pericope was talking about Muhammad as residing in palestine which he did not do so according to the tradition. So the only way out here is could Islam be indeed the product of the Middle East and not of the Hijaz? and do you know what? This is what most historians of early islam think that Islam is indeed the product of the great civilizations of the Middle East in late antiquity and it is not the product of the Hijaz for sure.

Also notice the topos of ummam khaliya (and for this see later) as in the case of banu Quriaza.

What is also amazing is we have no extant literary sources that come to us from the HIjaz before the death of Muhammad. The silence of the sources here is very significant.

So the chances are the story of banu Quraiza have never taken place. So why do we have it in the tradition? The only explanation that I can guess here is that it might be what is called the topos of ummam khaliya (the nations that perished and for this see QS) and indeed a known topos in semitic religions.

Now do you see why you must approach a text of history not as a book that tells you much about what really happened but about what the author _believed_ had happened. If you do not get this you would be beyond help.

>But they are from the scripture

No, this is bogus reading of the Qur'an. The Qur'an as a literary text does not tell us very much about anything, not even about the life of Muhammad, and i challenge you to reconstruct his life by reading the Qur'an only. You can only understand the Quranic allusions by reading sources external to the canon but these sources are unhistorical be it the hadith or the sira or the maghazi or even tarikh it is all unhistoical

>and history that are accepted across the muslim world

And this is due to the poor eduaction in the muslim world. Just imagine telling the stupid Pakistani tablighees with the beards stained with henna who emulate the looks of Abul Qasim that we do not know, very much about his life and for sure we do not know if he indeed stained his beard with henna or not. I bet you they will declare you a dangerous kafir.

So your problems are: You need to do some reading about how to read history and you must understand that if you pontificate about Islam you must be able to read the primary sources in Arabic. Sorry buddy this is the way it goes. It is also OK to have your diatribes against the West and Christianity but you must try to learn a bit about how to read history before you pontificate about issues that are very much beyond you.

And one issue here was the question of the Armenian genocide. For good reading about the legal case against Turkey and in a court of law you can read Pierre Vidal-Naquet's book: "A crime of Silence The Armenian Genicide." And shame on you for even questioning the validity of the Armenian genocide.

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