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Origins of the Quran/Islam - various academic perspectives

Exactly, its not meant in a negative light,

Plagiarism can never be 'not negative'. It is an accusation of dishonesty and theft of intellectual property. Two things having similarities is not necessarily plagiarism, the context is all important.

If you think a charge of plagiarism (without qualification) can be 'not negative', perhaps you are misunderstanding the term.

It is more a copied religion in my opinion more so then any other. Just changing abrahamic traditions and myths slightly for their own needs... And adopted is another name for "took" they took the Abrahamic traditions plagiarized them heavily, and claimed the prophets words are more divine then the source they took it from.

Cultures and religions always occur from adaptation of existing cultures to peoples distinct needs.

When my RF namesake Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus claimed his divine status, this was done through connection with the existing gods. Deifying Julius was a break with tradition and a radical innovation, but it was made to look as much as possible like a continuation of tradition. Part of what allowed them to be divine was their outward veneration of tradition and the gods.

Likewise, any hypothetical new religion in the late antique Middle East could only occur as a continuation of previous tradition. The divide between the religious and the mundane was not as distinct as it is today. There wasn't 'history' and then theology for most people, they were one and the same thing.

A hypothetical prophet teaching a completely new religion, with a different God, different mythology and history would find it almost impossible to get any following. Only new religions that operate within the existing paradigm are possible: iterations and evolutions not virgin territory.

You couldn't be a successful prophet without acknowledging Abraham, Noah and Moses as your spiritual forefathers.

I think most ACADEMIC scholars are afraid to call it what it is, because they know devoted followers will most likely kill anyone that poses with credibility the truth about the religion, that undermines the whole thing with logic and reason.

This is a problem caused purely by your being completely unfamiliar with any academic material. It's better to read them than to assume something must be the case. Islamic studies is one of the most dynamic areas of the humanities/social sciences with all sorts of differing and contradictory views and scholarly disputes.

Wansborough, Nevo and Koren, Crone and Cook, Luxenberg (fair enough a pseudonym), Schacht etc hardly kowtow(ed) to Islamic orthodoxy.

It's certainly not the case that only brave "scholars" like Robert Spencer are willing to "tell it like it is". You have jumped to the conclusion that all scholars are simply spineless apologists on several occasions. Read them and you might be surprised.

It's not that they secretly agree with you but are afraid to admit it, maybe it's just that they don't agree with you. Try to be open-minded and think as to why this might be the case, even just as a thought experiment.

Here is what it comes down to. Israelites created their traditions by plagiarizing and modifying previous traditions. What makes them more original is that their text evolved in their own society.

What makes you think Islam didn't evolve in 'their own society'

NOT islam, not sacred enough to keep the text as is. They had to plagiarize and copy and rewrite all of it, and then claim there version is the only one creating a huge religious division responsible for millions of death, which are mostly their own! due to a vague plagiarized book that mulsim still murder each other over their literal interpretations.

This is part of the problem, you dislike Islam and want to attack and discredit it. You want to show Mo was a fraud and a cheat who "plagiarised and perverted" and so your bias makes you unwilling to look at the situation critically. You have already decided on the answer, and see no need for further enquiry.

Instead of thinking about history, you are focusing on polemics against the Islamic tradition and theology.

Without realising it, you are basing much of your argument on theology. You act as if Islam emerged fully formed, just as in the way the tradition teaches it. You just see a cartoonish version though where a dishonest plagiariser copies a load of Waraqa's texts and 'reveals' it to a bunch of credulous disciples who don't know any better as they are unfamiliar with the source material. You treat the Arabs as 'outsiders' to the traditions, people who are stealing the culture of others rather than participating in an evolution of their own cultural environement.

The Islamic tradition and academic history are two very different things though. From an academic perspective, much of the tradition is 2+ centuries late and appears to have been created for exegetic purposes. As such, it is often not given much credibility in terms of working out what the real events of 7th C Arabia actually were.

The classical exegetes simply don't know how to interpret numerous parts of the Quran; some of them have as many of 10+ completely different interpretations from different scholars. Often, aspects of the sirah appear to have been built around offering explanations for these, often unconvincingly.

This is a very good, short and non-technical article by Gabriel S Reynolds with some examples (I know you have decided that I am an apologist who only links to apologists and you must instinctively try to refute everything I say, I've absolutely no idea why you decided this, but if you actually read some of them with an open mind you will quickly see otherwise):

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2009/11/reading-the-quran-through-the-bible

Another case is the Qur’an’s reference to the laughter of Sarah (a name that does not appear in the text; the only woman given a name in the Qur’an is Mary). In Genesis, Sarah laughs after she hears the annunciation of Isaac’s birth, but the Qur’an refers to her laughter first. Accordingly, Muslim commentators struggle to explain why she laughed. One famous commentator, the tenth-century al-Tabari, wonders if she laughed out of frustration when the visitors would not eat the food she prepared or if she laughed out of relief when she realized that the visitors did not have the habits of the Sodomites. Yet the reader who knows the Bible will understand that Sarah laughed out of surprise at the promise of a son in her old age, even if the Qur’an—for the sake of a rhyme in Arabic—reports these events in reverse order.

In such cases the Qur’an seems to count on its audience’s knowledge of the Bible. Indeed, by taking a liberty with the order of the story, the Qur’an seems utterly confident in that knowledge. It expects that the reader has the Qur’an in one hand and the Bible in the other.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
You act as if Islam emerged fully formed, just as in the way the tradition teaches it.

False.

This is your red herring.

Its a typical act so you can avoid the fact, I'm talking about the text and only the text. I don't even have a clue what is being or what was taught.


The text was plagiarized from Abrahamic traditions, plain and simple. Much like how all the Abrahamic traditions started. BUT with more plagiarizing then the others
 

outhouse

Atheistically
You have jumped to the conclusion that all scholars are simply spineless apologists on several occasions.

Trying not to be murdered by islamicist is a huge problem. Cant even draw a picture of a prophet without getting murdered. Let alone undermine the whole religion.

They view this as calling their prophet a liar, instead of understanding that is juts how religions form.

Look at you, you defend this the same way. Academia states islam took biblical mythology for its own, and claimed superiority over the perverted biblical text.

Which is plagiarizing, but you cant even admit the truth here.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
Plagiarism can never be 'not negative'. It is an accusation of dishonesty and theft of intellectual property

No, look up the definition. Your factually wrong. That may be how most muslims view it. As I noted in the reply above :rolleyes: its a BIASED view.


It is however, to take someone else's ideas or thought and claim them as your own.


pla·gia·rize
[ˈplājəˌrīz]
http://www.religiousforums.com/javascript:void(0)
VERB
  1. take (the work or an idea of someone else) and pass it off as one's own.

It is an accusation of dishonesty

How honest is it ????


To TAKE the bible and rewrite it, copy mythology, then claim the previous version is corrupt and no good where it differs from this new version. Is that honest?

It does not say we copied this mythology and we call it TRUE!!!!!!! because god said so! even though they copied allegory and metaphor and claim it is literal.



theft of intellectual property.


WHO did Abraham, Moses, and Noah, and Adam and Eve FIRST belong to ??????????


Judaism and Christianity is the only honest answer. Anything else is an excuse.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
Cultures and religions always occur from adaptation of existing cultures to peoples distinct needs.

When my RF namesake Imperator Caesar Divi Filius Augustus claimed his divine status, this was done through connection with the existing gods. Deifying Julius was a break with tradition and a radical innovation, but it was made to look as much as possible like a continuation of tradition. Part of what allowed them to be divine was their outward veneration of tradition and the gods.

Likewise, any hypothetical new religion in the late antique Middle East could only occur as a continuation of previous tradition. The divide between the religious and the mundane was not as distinct as it is today. There wasn't 'history' and then theology for most people, they were one and the same thing.

A hypothetical prophet teaching a completely new religion, with a different God, different mythology and history would find it almost impossible to get any following. Only new religions that operate within the existing paradigm are possible: iterations and evolutions not virgin territory.

You couldn't be a successful prophet without acknowledging Abraham, Noah and Moses as your spiritual forefathers.

These are all excuses for plagiarism.

Not a refutation of any kind.


It is admission of plagiarism with a long explanation. One I'm very familiar with.
 
Trying not to be murdered by islamicist is a huge problem

I guess so, Fred Donner is pretty violent after all :smile:

Judaism and Christianity is the only honest answer. Anything else is an excuse.

:smile: Judaism AND Christianity? :smile:

Academia states islam took biblical mythology for its own, and claimed superiority over the perverted biblical text.

By your own admission, you have never even read anything 'academia' has to say yet claim it supports you :smile:

You also still confuse history and theology.

I'm talking about academic history, you aren't.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
So the REAL question is and becomes.

WHERE did Muhammad collect this heretical text that would later become the koran?
 
Trying not to be murdered by islamicist is a huge problem.

It was a joke. Islamicist is most commonly used to mean 'an academic in the field of Islamic studies', like Fred Donner.

It is admission of plagiarism with a long explanation. One I'm very familiar with.

So you believe that Augustus committed plagiarism by deifying Julius (and thus himself)?

Let alone undermine the whole religion. They view this as calling their prophet a liar, instead of understanding that is juts how religions form. Look at you, you defend this the same way. Academia states islam took biblical mythology for its own, and claimed superiority over the perverted biblical text. Which is plagiarizing, but you cant even admit the truth here.


Just for fun, I did a quick search on JSTOR for Quran/Islam/Plagiari* (205 results) and used the 'find' function on the pdf's trying to find a single example of it being used by an academic in the past 75 years and couldn't find a single one. I only spent 10 mins on it so might have missed one, but most uses of 'plagiarism' related to exegetes/scholars/poets being accused of plagiarism by other exegetes/scholars/poets rather than Muhammed.

For accusations of plagiarism, that were related to Muhammed, there were articles discussing Maimonides claims of plagiarism, and those in Byzantine polemics, a few citation hits for "Ibn Ishaq and al-Waqidi: the Dream of 'Atika and the Raid to Nakhla in Relation to the Charge of Plagiarism," BSOAS, XXII (1959)", but no scholars using the term themselves (There were several examples of authors specifically pointing out why it is incorrect when modern polemicists or naive 1st year students the term plagiarism though).

I doubt you will believe me as you simply reject/ignore everything I post but you are welcome to try this for yourself. It is impossible that a tertiary level educator such as yourself cannot access journal databases directly, or at least know somebody who can provide you with access. You can easily check yourself and verify that I am being truthful here, would take 2 mins tops.

If you think that this is based on political correctness, why don't articles written in the 1940s use it?

You also have this strange idea that everybody secretly thinks it but are afraid to use the term for fear of being murdered. Again if this was true you would expect to see common usage of the term pre Satanic Verses, with a disappearance sometime after that, which doesn't appear to be the case.

Your 'theory' is also weakened by the fact that you acknowledge you haven't actually read any scholarship on the topic, yet feel qualified to comment on what it does/does not say. Many scholars have presented far more 'blasphemous" ideas: For example, Koren and Nevo (incorrectly) argued that not only did Muhammed not exist, but neither did the Rashidun Caliphs and Wansborough argued the Quran was compiled over several centuries. It's not really plausible that they are willing to make such claims, yet are scared to use the term plagiarism for fear of causing offence.

Feel free to use the term yourself, but don't pretend it is supported by 'academia', especially when you acknowledge you are ignorant in this field and have never read the work of any scholars.

Serious question: Do you feel it is 'academically honest' and 'credible' to decide what views scholars do/do not hold without ever actually reading any of their work?

*edit* I really wanted to find someone using the term plagiarism so kept looking, I even checked 2 Robert Spencer books without success :fearscream:

I eventually found an example though in the forward to Rev W St Clair-Tisdall' The sources of Islam. (circa 1900)

“A curious example of a purely local source may be found in a number of verses of the Koran which are shown to be taken from the Mu’allaqat, a plagiarism rather difficult for the Muslim to conjoin with the heavenly origin of his revelation.”

Although this does rest on theological claims rather than the academic study of history.
 
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outhouse

Atheistically
WHERE did Muhammad collect this heretical text that would later become the koran?

The first thing someone who wants to debate has to do, is answer simple questions directly and honestly.
 

Shad

Veteran Member
WHERE did Muhammad collect this heretical text that would later become the koran?

The first thing someone who wants to debate has to do, is answer simple questions directly and honestly.

You are arguing a priori that you hold. Consider many of the academic sources posted link verses from the Quran with other sources; Talmud, Syrian Christians, anti-chalcedonian Christianity, etc. I do not think there is a single text to be copied from nor should be argued for.
 
WHERE did Muhammad collect this heretical text that would later become the koran?

The first thing someone who wants to debate has to do, is answer simple questions directly and honestly.

Your simple question assumes far too much to be of academic value.

The actual question would be 'how did the text now known as the Quran come into being?'

The answer is lots of people have lots of differing perspectives. You can read about most of them if you read the 30+ articles I provided links to.
 
You are arguing a priori that you hold. Consider many of the academic sources posted link verses from the Quran with other sources; Talmud, Syrian Christians, anti-chalcedonian Christianity, etc. I do not think there is a single text to be copied from nor should be argued for.

snap
 

Shad

Veteran Member
A couple of interesting articles on the night journey with different interpretations if you are interested:

The relevant narrative in question from the Bookof Exodus(Ch. 19:4) recalls what God 'did to Egypt' in the course of the Jewish flight to freedom, and how He raised the Children of Israel 'on wings of eagles' (al kanfeinesharimin) bringing them close to Him. The Aramaic translation describes how God placed the Israelites on clouds, as if on the wings of birds, and carried them from Pilusin, to be identified with Ramses in Egypt, and brought them to the site of the Beit Mukdasha(Temple)situated in Jerusalem. Thus, as the Yonatan Ben Uziel exegesis continues to explain, the Israelites were brought to the Temple in order to slaughter the Passover sacrifice animal there, that same night returning to Pilusin in Egypt. So the Israelites who were in the desert were brought to Mount Moriah, where the Temple would later stand, and there offered the sacrificial Passover lamb on the altar;thence, they quickly retumed that same night to Egypt. (Noteworthy is that neither the Qur'anic verse about the 'furthestmosque' nor the Targum Yonatan on the Biblical verse from Exodus mention Jerusalem by name, but that may be due to the fact that the city only acquired its special status by virtue of the holy mount itself.)

Note on a Possible Jewish Source for Muhammad's 'Night Journey'
Mordechai Nisan
Arabica
T. 47, Fasc. 2 (2000), pp. 274-277
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4057478



Further, as Stephen Shoemaker has argued, early mu’minūn evidently viewed Muḥammad’s death as an unexpected calamity. He had planned to enter Jerusalem in eschatological triumph, but failed.2 How could Muḥammad be God’s final prophet when he had died in exile from the Holy Land, just like the disobedient Moses? God had instead made Jerusalem the Holy City of Jesus, Romans, and Christians, as Q 17:1-8 confirmed.

To fix this vulnerability, Q 17:1 was interpolated to claim that Muḥammad had made a miraculous journey to Jerusalem. The interpolator adapted a distinctive anti-Chalcedonian pilgrimage tradition: When a holy man could not enter Jerusalem because the city was controlled by heretics, he could instead make a spiritual pilgrimage. As interpolated, Q 17:1 clarified that Muḥammad had not, like Moses, failed to reach Jerusalem. Instead God took him to the city, where he saw its holy signs and encountered the divine presence they embodied (a topos of Christian pilgrimage). Q 17:1 does not describe signs witnessed in heaven. Rather the text describes the servant of God as being shown the signs in Jerusalem itself, embedded in the city’s sacred geography, as revealed by God to the successor Qur’anic prophet.

Like Jesus, Muḥammad had fulfilled his destiny within the Holy City. His nocturnal pilgrimage allowed him to evade the corrupt Christian mushrikūn who controlled Jerusalem, while still claiming the Holy City’s sacred space, just as Peter the Iberian, the hero of Palestinian anti-Chalcedonians (and a central historical personality behind conversion of Arabia Petraea to Christianity), had famously made his own late 5th century nocturnal pilgrimage to Jerusalem, communing with God’s signs in the city while flouting Chalcedonian power.


Muḥammad’s Night Journey in its Palestinian Context – a Perfect Solution to a Forgotten Problem (Q 17:1)

https://www.academia.edu/17318352/M...rfect_Solution_to_a_Forgotten_Problem_Q_17_1_

Seems like we read the same material
 

outhouse

Atheistically
I do not think there is a single text to be copied from nor should be argued for.

Is asking where muhammad collected his material, that is not a statement of the koran being copied. I have never implied a single source. ONLY the possibility of one of many sources.

The first thing someone who wants to debate has to do, is answer simple questions directly and honestly.

WHERE did Muhammad collect this heretical text that would later become the koran?

So a real answer might be, from Christian and Jewish communities who did not follow the orthodox methods of typical worship.


AGREED????
 
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outhouse

Atheistically
Well its true. The various sources you and I have mentioned show a patchwork of materials rather than a single one unified source

Which is fine, it probably took decades to collect the text.


So a real answer might be, from Christian and Jewish communities who did not follow the orthodox methods of typical worship.

All the links OP has provided have stated we don't know, he has only provided a few cherry picked articles that say we don't know.

So I'm providing what we do know.
 

outhouse

Atheistically
#1 with certainty we know muhammad possessed heretical jewish and christian text as the foundation for what would be rewritten in Arabic and changed for personal religious agenda by unknown author/s.

Agreed?
 
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