Chowk Special

Re: Altaf (43)

Even if one were to say that the present Quran is not what it should have been, there is still no denial to the fact that it contains a moral and spiritual message. To what extent one bases one`s present day society on it is a different question.

If Quranic scholars could undergo a paradigm shift that would allow them to understand this book as a product of an imperfect compilation process, and associate a history to it, then probably they could define some measure of disparity or incompleteness in its verses. That would be interesting, because that could give us clues about the source and the content.

In the case of the Bible, one can from tradition, compare the gospels coming from different sources and then do a comparative study on their styles and content. In the case of HQ one would have to be more subtle I would think, but still given honest scholarship, it should be possible.

Re: Goga (40)

Interestingly enough Sahih Bukhari does not mention that Ali had volunteered to collect the Quran immediately after the Prophet`s death, but was forcibly disallowed to do so. The family of the Prophet always claimed to have the Quran, but they were neither consulted in the process (on the contrary were forcibly kept away from it) nor were they allowed to proceed with the compilation. Again the reason was the political clout that such an undertaking would have endowed on the person responsible.

It is ironic that Marwan was chosen by Uthman to head the compilation of the Quran. Marwan ``converted`` after the fall of Makkah, and his hypocricy and enmity to Islam was very well known. He fell into the same group of people like Hinda and Abu Sufyan. He along with his other family members were forgiven by the Prophet. Uthman superceded all scholars of the Quran and the loyal followers of the Prophet to appoint one of the biggest enemies of Islam to co-ordinate the compilation of the Quran!! Of course our neighbourhood Mullah would not let us think about this!

Another point, unfortunately Sahih Bukhari repeatedly makes the Prophet look like a complete idiot. A man of his intellectual caliber, who kept his other records (of deeds and agreements) somehow forgets to keep track of the Quran?! He who often stressed the importance of not giving in to rumors and to getting reliable information, somehow contends that the memory of people will be sufficient? This guy who was a merchant and knew the importance of accounting leaves the most important thing in his life to the memory of desert beduins?? Extremely unlikely given his achievements in his lifetime. The Prophet was ``deconstructed`` later on by the Hadith writers and inventors so that others may look larger in comparison. Who was there to defend him, his family (who had been killed off) or his trusted companions (who had been marginalized)??

Re: Godot (41)

You write:

``All this talk of Mohammad`s family and the Caliphs, and who did what to whom, sounds more like an episode of Jerry Springer Show than beginning of a great religion. I, for one, don`t give a crap. Knowing the pea-brain Arabs of today, why the Arabs of yesteryears be any different.``

Hold on Godot, that is a very simplistic, naive and arrogant statement on your part!

Is it that you are so used to an idealized and fairy-tale version of any religion that you cannot digest what happens in real life? Does the presence of ambiguity or conflict means that there is no substance whatsoever? Aren`t one`s principles illuminated precisely in an environment of conflict?

Life is not a fairy-tale, it is the ugly day to day life that we live today. It was the same thing fourteen hundred years ago. Ethics, divinity, ``good`` and ``evil`` all arise from this mundane muck. Welcome to reality!

The Arabs are not pea-brains today, neither were they yesterday. Arabia has produced intellects of the highest caliber. Do you really think that the Prophet`s enemies, the wealthy Meccans, were stupid people? Or that the Muslims who prevailed over them and over all the other nations in their vicinity were stupid? Think about it.

Re: SR (39)

As usual, thanks for your original and illuminating point of view. You correctly mention the difference between the ``rich`` and the ``poor`` Muslims. AFter the death of the Prophet, the ``poor`` Muslims, primarily the Ansar, who had sacrificed everything for Islam, were dispossessed by the more wealthy and well-connected people (who went on to produce the first three Caliphs). So really there was no change after all.

The very same rich Meccans who were the powerful people before the rise of Islam became the people who inherited the Caliphate (with the exception of Ali). If there had not been a popular discontent against the greed of Uthman that resulted in his assasination, he would have made sure that Ali would not have become the Caliph. The family and the supporters of the Prophet had almost resigned themselves to this, and were more interested in preserving the ideological aspects of the religion which they considered to be far more important.

It is interesting to note that right after the death of the Prophet, ``Islam`` became outrightly extroverted. The first three Caliphs, particularly Omar and Uthman started a string of military expeditions that resulted in the amassing of incredible amounts of wealth in a very short time. Islam, more than a set of deep and long term ethical principles, became more of a brain-washing doctrine that was employed by these gentlemen to send large numbers of young men to battle. This policy, apart from diverting the attention of a large population of young impressionable people (who could consequently not question the nature of popular Islam) also produced an immense amount of wealth and power for the already rich and influential. Thus the ``idealists`` were forced to either accept complete marginalization or to join in the band-wagon and make a buck for themselves.

For the record, it is interesting to note that the family of the Prophet (including Ali) and some of his most devoted companions were completely and utterly against the policy of military expansionism that was eagerly adopted and promoted by the Caliphs. They considered it to be a gross distortion of the message of Islam that the Prophet had tried to spread.

I thought that I should mention something interesting. Hegel`s dialectical process of history talks of alternating episodes of history whereby after a revolution, the very anti-thesis of the revolution can come into power. In the case of Islam this may be true. We find that the Prophet tried to break the old wealth, power and influence barriers through his revolution, but within a few years after his death his poor but devoted followers had been successfully marginalized, eliminated or absorbed while the more powerful ones ended up being still in power. And if we go even further then even the sorry excuse of a caliphate had been gotten rid of and imperialism (styled very much on the Roman, and to a lesser degree on the Persian model) was in place.

About your comments about the parallels between Christianity and Islam, I think you are right. I did not wish to state that there was an exact parallel between the two religions, but only to show that the presence of following of a tradition within a religion does not necessarily imply its authenticity. Any claim on my part that goes beyond that is not warranted since the amount of knowledge about Christianity in my RAM is small.

ABout your parallel between Temujin and the Prophet, I would agree that both of them were supremely successful people given their humble and disadvantaged beginnings. I personally would end the comparison there, because I think that the similarity between their military careers ends there. Islam spread meteorically (in terms of its political sphere of influence) after the death of the Prophet. The family of the Prophet, who claimed to be the heirs of the essence of Islam opposed this pointing to the fact that the Prophet himself during his lifetime had chosen peaceful missions as the method of spreading the religion (the groups that he sent to EThiopia, Iran and Rome). On the other hand, Temujin, employed war and terror as an instrument for his rise during his lifetime. The Prophet brought with him an ethical code that transcended mere military discipline and tribal unity. Temujin`s code did not have any ethical depth, it served as a source of military discipline while maintaining the old tribal traditions.

But then again, one can debate such juicy historical parallels for a long time!

Wasiq and others... if the history that Wasiq relates is correct/true, and if the current Quran we have is merely a compilation that is prone to error, and may indeed be incomplete in some ways (though we do not know to what extent). If that is so, can we or should we still look towards the Quran as a source of wisdom, or spirituality? It appears to me, and even though we have this history, the quran has played a remarkable role in developoing people`s inner being, and even with what we have, there have been profound mystics... such as Ibn `al Arabi, who`ve expounded upon the esoteric aspects of the Quran... But what are your and others thoughts? -Altaf

All this talk of Mohammad`s family and the Caliphs, and who did what to whom, sounds more like an episode of Jerry Springer Show than beginning of a great religion. I, for one, don`t give a crap. Knowing the pea-brain Arabs of today, why the Arabs of yesteryears be any different.

Re: Parvez Manzoor (34)

Your diatribe will fill the heart of the faithful with pure light. That is, if one believes in God and the Koran as His divine words. If one doesn`t, than your argument is pure silly.

You cleverly say ``...let every Muslim, speaking from the depth of Islamic conscience, affirm the academic community`s right to pursue its researches in full freedom and peace.`` Hey, wait a minute! ``from the depth of Islamic conscience``! Sounds to me like anything that questions Koran or Mohammad is not ``from the depth of Islamic conscience``! It`s more like, if a Muslim deviates ``from the depth of Islamic conscience,`` put a price on his head.

Toby Lester did an excellent job. I hope there are Muslims like him and other western infidels who are objective in their quest, yes, even when it comes to the Koran. It is only then that Islam can get out of the jihalat that it has been mired in for centuries.

Zayd ibn Thabit said: Abu Bakr [Caliph 632-634 C.E.] sent to me at the time of the battle al-Yamama, and Umar ibn al-Khattab [Caliph 634-644 C.E] was with him Abu Bakr said: Umar has come to me and said: ``Death was rampant at the battle of al-Yamama and took with it many of the reciters of the Quran in the provinces and so large part of Quran be lost. I think you should give orders to collect the Quran.``

``What,`` I asked Umar, ``do you wish to do something which the Prophet of God himself did not do?``

``By God,`` replied Umar, ``it would be a good deed.``

Umar did not leave off urging me until at length God opened my heart to this and I thought as Umar did.``

Zayd continued: Abu Bakr said to me: ``You are a young man, intelligent, and we see no fault in you; more, you have already written down the revelation for the Prophet of God, may God bless and save him. Therefore go seek the Quran and collect it.``

By God if he had ordered me to move a mountain, it would not have been harder for me than his order to collect the Quran. ``What,`` I asked, ``Will you do something which the prophet of God himself, may God bless and save him, did not do?

``By God,`` Abu Bakr replied, ``it would be good deed.``

Umar did not leave urging me until God opened my heart to this as He had opened the hearts of Abu Bakr and Umar.

Then I searched out and collected the parts of the Quran, whether they were written on palm leaves of flat stones or in the hearts of men. Thus I found the end of the ``Sura of Repentance`` (Quran 9:129-130), which had been unable to find anywhere else, in the possession of Abu al-Khuzayma al-Ansari. There verses ``There came to you a Prophet from amoung yourselves. It grieves me that you sin ...`` to the end.

The (collected) leaves remained in the possession of Abu Bakr until his death, then in Umar`s for as long he lived, and then with Hafsa, Daughter of Umar.

Anas ibn Malik said: Hudhayfa ibn al-Yaman accompanied Uthman [Chaliph 644-656 C.E.] when he was preparing the army of Syria together with the army of Iraq to conquer Armenia and Azarbayjan, Hudhayfa was astonished by the differences in the (two armies`) reading of Quran, and said to Uthman, ``O Commander of the faithful, catch hold of this community before they differ about their Book as do the Jews and the Christians.``

Uthman send to Hafsa to say, ``Send us the leaves. We shall copy them in codices and return them to you.``

Hafsa sent them to Uthman, who ordered Zayd ibn Thabit, Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr, Sa`ad ibn al-As and Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Harith ibn Hashim to copy them into codices. Uthman said to the three of them who were of the tribe of Quraysh, ``If you differ from Zayd ibn Thabit on anything in the Quran, write it down according to the language of Quraysh, for it is in their language the Quran was revealed.``

They did as he bade, and when they had copied the leaves in to codices, Uthman returned the leaves to Hafsa. He sent the copies of the codex which they made in all directions and gave orders to burn every leaf and codex which differ from it. (Bukhari, Sahih 3,392-394)

RE: Some more incidentals about the Shia perspective :

Usman (Uthman) was a feeble old man of almost eighty, when he was accepted as a `compromise candidate` after Omar`s assassination. The powerful families with close ties to the House of Abu Sufyan (Muawia`s father, and Yazid`s grand-papa) managed to keep the poorer but devoted followers at bay. The have-nots from among the `ansar` and the `muhajirin` (i.e., those who had given refuge to the fleeing Muslims in Medina, and those who fled Mecca, as did Mohammed himself) who had served as the front line soldiers during the persecution years, were loosely aligned with the pro-Ali forces. These more `puritanical` elements felt that they should have more of a say in determining the future of the evolving Islamic society since they were the ones who had followed the Prophet through thick and thin. These partisans represent the leftist view in early Islam as opposed to the establishment `capitalists` from the ruling elite of Mecca. They were resentful that the ruling Quresh elite who opposed the Islamic movement for years was now suddenly, after the fall of Mecca, given such importance that they had virtually taken over the Islamic movement. Abu Bakr, Omar and then Usman (though personally close to the Prophet and migrants to Mecca), all three, represent the established Mecca families with wealth and influence. Old family ties were proving stronger than the revolutionaries would have liked.

Abu Sufyan`s wife, Hinda, of course, is a hated figure by the Ali group, and one of the very few individuals whom Mohammed had to punish despite the general clemency which he issued after the conquest of Mecca. Hinda had ripped open the fallen Hamza and bit into his liver in the aftermath of the battle of Uhad. Hamza, a dear uncle of Ali (and Muhammad, of course), was the heir apparent and would likely have taken precedence over Abu Bakr had he survived and out-lived Mohammed. This sad fact the revolutionaries already begrudged.

Usman, even though he was a close relative of Abu Sufyan, was accepted as a compromise because no one viewed the decrepit old fossil as a threat and it was thought that he will soon pass away and that will clear the way for Ali. The first two, Abu Bakr and Omar had been Mohammed`s fathers-in-law, while Usman was a son-in-law. Thus the other son-in-law, Ali, who was also a first cousin, would surely have the most legitimate claim after Usman. However, upon becoming Caliph, Usman appointed his nephew, Mirwan, as his executive assistant. Mirwan, who was Muawia`s cousin, was a clever little bugger. (He, incidentally, was also Yazid`s main advisor, years later, when Ali and Fatima`s son, Hussein, was killed at Karbala.) It was this Mirwan who actually chaired the commission which was entrusted with the official compilation of the Quran.

In olden days when publishing houses didn`t exist, a `book` consisted of several serially numbered rolls of parchment assembled in a `book-bucket`. This is how the Greeks and Romans maintained `books`. Each roll of parchment was of a fixed size. Chapters and verses could overflow from one to the next, since the scrolls were only physical space delimiters, much like today`s floppy disc. It was also customary to divide things up in 40s. Forty was a convenient number for the camel herders. Presumably, that was as far as most felt comfortable counting. (Thus for example, we see `zakaat` described as one part in forty, etc.) Presumably following this thinking, it has been suggested that the original compiled Quran was divided in 40 equal physical parts (siparah), ten of which, or 25%, were lost. It is said that Mirwan had a goat and he let the goat loose on the ten siparah`s of the Quran that vanished. They were supposedly written on dried leaves which the ignorant goat mistook for gourmet, rather than God`s Book. [Was it God`s Book or was it a facsimile copy (`HQ` as one reader imaginatively suggests) of the original manuscript (he calls it `EQ`), which must be preserved in the Heavens, presumably on microfiche, since even acid free paper wouldn`t last till eternity.]

RE: Noor,

Thank you for raising the real fundamantal issues. Its good to see your name again. As long as you are there no one will get away with supersititious bullshit without being taken to task.

RE: Wasiq,

Great commentary. You hardly left anything for me to add. ``Khilafat-aur-Mulukiat`` is also available in Nasim Hijazi`s version.

In an earlier message you mentioned the evolution of the Christian creed and implied a parallel with Islam. They are somewhat different because of the respective time lapse involved. The First Council of Niece was held in 325 AD, after the Aryan controversy had been raging for some years. It was at Niece the God-the-Father, and God-the-Son issue was decided and they were deemed to be ``of the same substance``. The third leg of the Trinity did not come till the Council of 387 AD. ( If memory serves me, that was the Council of Constance.) In Islam, by contrast, most such matters were decided within a Century of the Prophet`s death. (Of course, the notable exception is that whole episode of the 12th Century when Al-Ghazali spearheaded the brutal, barbarious but successful assault against the scientific and intellectual revolution in Islam, and abolished `Ijtihad`. But that`s another story altogether.)

Jesus in his short life was not successful in establishing the Christian religion. He was, as Vidal says, only ``a renegade Jew from Bethelham``. Paul is the real founder of Christianity, not Jesus.

The Prophet, on the other hand, is a success story. He is one of only two people in history who started life as destitute orphans with absolutely nothing, and within their lifetimes became powerful founders of new empires. The other is Changiz Khan.

...SR

Saima Shah:

You ask is random the same thing as irrational? Is belief the same as love? Is trust always, if ever blind?

The way you phrase it, there is no simple yes and no answer. Qualifiers can fill pages. But I do see and appreciate your perspective.

You have said it LACK OF TOLERANCE. I`ve said the same thing in different words elsewhere on the Chowk. INTOLERANCE is the single common characterstic of the Muslims around the globe these days.

I am all for a renewal, if not a renaissance, from within, not without. That is why we need tolerance, debate & inquiry. God knows we have enough view points here to sustain a healthy debate.

regards

Re: Saima Shah response to Noor

``Can we conclude that it is not the Quran at fault but the lack of tolerance
of diversity within the religion?``

I think you have nailed a very significant point which explains the lack of an internal debate within Islam itself.

Thanks for brining it up!

Re: Noor

A fascinating reply. Your response about renaissance was thought provoking. The idea that the absence of practical gains from rationalism was the primary reason why renaissaince did not happen begs the question; We must remember that it was `reason` that yielded practical S and T.and not the other way round. My bone is that every time someone challenged basic orthodoxy, he was killed or ridiculed or the books were burnt. Belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy, would you agree? and the entire belief structure was so strong that a few dissenters could not tip the balance.

What is the fundamental difference between Eastern and Western Philosophy? The first is that in the East, the individual ego is negated. Self-negation and denial is considered spiritual nirvana whereas the West had self-affirmation and the value of the individual. Instead of ethics our morality was derived from ratified belief. Instead of plato`s greater good = ethical, we had divine good = ethical. Instead of society sanctioning and defining ethics we had an obscure God approving or disapproving behaviour.

This value fits neatly in the structure of a
feudalist society. Both co-relate and are interdependent. I feel this is the reason for the parallels between Hindu, Muslim and other Eastern society as far as marginalization of the individual is concerned.

IMO this self-negation eventually led to stagnation in intellectual, economic and cultural
institutions. If you notice, Ghalib wrote poetry not essays. Poetry is a relatively less direct
form of expression. The pre-partition intellectuals grafted more `western` ideas in their poltical ideas e.g., Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, Iqbal. The process stopped after the creation
of Pakistan--which was to be the ideological utopia a la the Western model of democracy.

One reason why change or any form of Ijtehad is extremely difficult in the Islamic world is the
belief that the Q as is, is the entire word of God. I remember when I first read SNisah, I more or less accepted that I am a subordinate individual since that is the will of God and divinely legitimate. Fear is a powerful force and is easily manipulated to form belief.

I agree that we will have to be more tolerant of disbelief in order to reform and adapt to the
demands of the new era. Unfortunately historically anyone who has said this has been called a non-muslim or kafir, and therefore their arguments are rendered invalid. This is the very reason why belief suffocates what it seeks to
preserve--brotherhood and community. It is sad to see how many have seen the west as anti-east rather than just `west` or viewed them as white, therefore anti-brown.

Some questions to Temporal. We dont need common definitions to debate. I know that common
definitions are considered scientific. We will never as a society or as a community speak the
same language. We just need to recognize that fact. Social sciences are not lab experiments. The
words change with the advent of new ideas. I have a few questions for you. Is random the same
thing as irrational? Is belief the same as love? Is trust always, if ever blind?

If you said no to all these, we are on the same wave length. If you said yes than that is even
better, because you may have something new to tell us.

Thats rationality. Anything else is usually some level of bigotry or dogma.

Re: Anita and Wasiq

Thanks for the Shitte point of view. A friend recently educated me a bit on this and I find what
you said stunning. Can we conclude that it is not the Quran at fault but the lack of tolerance
of diversity within the religion?

Wasiq: since you did bring up this point; in early Shiah traditions there are questions about the ``original Quran.`` It would indeed be intriguing to say the least, if there was a Quran out there with sustantial diffrences. Unfortuantley the Atlantic Montly article doesnt go much into this... and Muslim scholars may be too scared to go into this territory.

There is a book that explores some of the questions of a Quran with some additional verses:

The Divine Guide in Early Shiism by Mohammad ali Amir-Moezzi -This is an

excellent book to understand the esoteric tradition in Islam. The book also

briefly discusses the implications of the esoteric becoming exoteric. i.e. the

original ideas being taken over by the current jurist-ulemas.

-altaf

The Atlantic Monthly article on the Koran, I believe, justifies neither religious frenzy nor `secular` complacency! It offers, after all, a misinformed, indeed tendentious, summary of an academic debate that is far from over. Any Muslim retort of Lester`s inconclusive statement would therefore be premature. In fact, our rebuttal, even of its factual distortions and half-truths, is likely to be construed as a Muslim attempt to quell the scholarly controversy. Before anything, then, let every Muslim, speaking from the depth of Islamic conscience, affirm the academic community`s right to pursue its researches in full freedom and peace. Islam is not a faith that shuns the light of history. The believer, however, is justified in demanding from the scholars that they, prior to entering into any ideological polemics through journalistic mouthpieces, resolve the methodological and textual issues! Only then may an unqualified and frank dialogue between the historian and the believer take place; for only then can it be an enriching and sobering experience for both.

At present, however, when Muslims do not own `the free press`, retribution can only come through the good will of others! Let`s hope that some non-Muslim publicist, of impeccable integrity and erudition, responds to Lester`s slanted article in a spirit of impartiality and fairness. Let him/her bring home the fact, long accepted within the scholarly community, that what Lester projects as reputable scholarship of the Qur`an is but a rabidly fundamentalist _tariqa_ of the Orientalists. The revisionist theories of Wansbrough and his ilk, it must also come to the attention of the unsuspecting reader`s of the American journal, have been flatly rejected by an overwhelming majority of their academic peers and mentors. The revisionist stance is questionable, in other words, not because of its ideological inflamability, but because of perfectly valid epistemological, methodological and historical counter-arguments. Of course, there no denying that Wansbrough/Crone thesis is ideologically suggestive and carries great appeal for the Islamophobic zealot. Nevertheless, its reckless debunking of established authorities fails to answer the very questions that it raises. In short, there is no sound reason - academic, humanist, Western, Islamic - for surrendering to this irredeemable `fundamentalism of doubt`.

The Muslim interest in the debate, let it be spelt out unequivocally, transcends the purely academic squabbles over matters of historical detail and textual variations. It reaches to the very heart of foundational, moral and metaphysical, argument. For, it remains to be seen whether an immanentist conception of `historicity` is able to sustain any conception of `truth`, any edifice of values, or whether the atomization of history into pure - secular – temporality robs human existence of all meaning and normativity. Little wonder that our tradition conceives of historicism and temporalism (_dahriyya_) as the opposite of God-consciousness. The really stimulating debate, I believe, will start when modernity/postmodernity succeeds in superimposing the square of _norm_ on the circle of _history_ and proclaims a normative doctrine of its own! Until then, the hallowed cult of historicism may be rightfully deposed by the silent sneer of Muslim irony!



The Muslim`s stake in the history of the Revelation, let it also be spelt out, is as paramount as it is in its truth. Thus, it is not merely Muslim squeamishness that insists that of all the sacred texts of the world, Western scholarship singled out the Qur`anic revelation for carrying out its senseless acts of vandalism, an academic hooliganism that shocked even its own champions. For instance, a scholar like Ignaz Goldziher, hardly to be accused of pro-Islamic partiality, had to cry out in protest exclaiming: `What would be left of the Gospels if the Qur`anic methods were applied to them?` Given this insight, then, it is really baffling that in the face of a highly circumspect, perforce subversive, neo-Orientalist movement that seeks under the pretext of critical scholarship to untie the Muslim from his historical moorings, all that the scholars of Islam seem to be doing is to bury their heads in the proverbial sand.

Much of the present craze to dismiss early Muslim sources as `unreliable` is based on a tendentious view of Islam`s role in world history. Thus, even in purely academic studies, dealing with the first two centuries of Muslim rule in the Near East, one comes across indictments like `the ideological intransigence of Islam vis-à-vis the Western world today` (P Crone & M Hines). Or, there is a feeling of utter despair at the scholar`s ability to sift the Islamic material and reconstruct a plausible historical scenario. The Islamic source-material, we are told, `has an extraordinary capacity to resist internal criticism...: one can take the picture presented or one can leave it, but one cannot _work _ with it.` (P Crone) Occasionally, one encounters even the confessional: `The overall situation is thus an unfortunate one... _Instead of the data serving to determine our general notions, it is our general notions which determine the way in which we interpret the data_.` (M Cook.) One is reminded of Rumi`s famous tale in the Mathnawi: Like blind en feeling an elephant, each revisionist has his/her particular view of Muslim history.

For instance, Wansbrough`s own pupil, John Burton advocates, most paradoxically and more than any traditional Muslim claim, that the entirety of the Qur`an in its present textual arrangement is the work of the Prophet himself! Understandably, the Orientalist establishment has reacted with caution, circumspection and scepticism to Wansbrough`s chronology that relies not on history but on `literary analysis`. The Encyclopaedia of Islam, for instance, sums up the majority-view of the Orientalists as: `Neither [Wansbrough or Burton] has given convincing reasons for his own hypothesis, or for the shared assertion that the Muslim accounts should be rejected altogether` More outspoken dismissals of Wansbrough`s startling assertions have not been lacking either. R.B. Serjeant, for instance, expresses the gist of the counter-argument against Wansbrough as such: `An historical circumstance so public [as the appearance of the Qur`anic revelation] cannot have been invented`! Not to be overlooked in this regard is the position of the late Professor Fazlur Rahman of Chicago, whom Lester puts in the revisionist camp (!) but who delivered on more than one occasion very firm, pithy and scholarly rebuttals of Wansbrough`s `methodology`. Indeed, FR accused Wansbrough of straight-faced duplicity, `of running with the hare and hunting with the hound.`

That all historical narratives contain an irreducible element of interpretation is not a point of dispute with Islamic consciousness. Hence, the classical Muslim account of the genesis of Islam is a historical narrative that is also a criterion of revelation. The event of the Koran is simultaneously a theory of truth. For historicist consciousness and method, on the other hand, there is no God, only the world; no transcendence, only time; no truth, only history; no values, only facts. Hence, unless we totally submit to the immanent truth of historicism, or like the postmodernists discard all distinctions between `fact` and `fiction`, we are obliged to resist any disfigurement of our history in the name of a morally vagrant and non-committal relativism. Our silence in the face of the current subversive movement merely confirms the fact that our traditional intellectual establishment is incapable of meeting the modern assault. We do not even have academically competent scholars of Arabic any more! In our intellectual hierarchy, the scientist and the technician rank much higher than the historian and the humanist. Let no one forget, however, that the nation that prefers its topmost brains to become nuclear physicists may acquire the Bomb, but it is sure to loose its soul.



ends -

Italics are contained within _XXXX_ marks.

Wasiq Bohkari writes: ``Just by reading about the procedure that was followed in the time of Caliph Uthman to standardize the Quran would have convinced any reasonably intelligent person that the process could not be perfect.``

Indeed.

And if one concedes this point, then the imperfections in compiling the sayings of the Propeht become even more obvious. It`s a little unsettling to think that for centuries Muslim jurists and scholars have been invoking the Hadith as a bedrock of Islamic doctrines when the compilation of the Hadith falls short of any reasonable standards of historiography.

There was once a Christianity versus Islam debate at the Duke Divinity School in which the Christian view was being predicated on the apostle Paul. Finally the Muslim debator, an Egyptian academic, asked the Christian debator, ``What is more important, what Paul said or what Jesus said ?``

To which the Christian said, after a pause, ``They are both equally important.``

It is hard to ignore that individuals other than the Prophet may well have embellished, consciously or unwittingly, the contents of the Hadith. In continuing to attribute to the Prophet statements that we cannot be absolutely certain came from him, we are being not much different from that Christian scholar at Duke.

Saad

Anita has brought up a very interesting point, which I did not want to bring up because it inevitably collides head on with deep-rooted religious convictions of the majority of Muslims. But here it goes, nevertheless.

Let us suppose for a minute that no-one had ever discovered any ``non-standard`` copies of the Quran. Just by reading about the procedure that was followed in the time of Caliph Uthman to standardize the Quran would have convinced any reasonably intelligent person that the process could not be perfect. Consider the following:

1) By the time the Quran was compiled, the Prophet had already been dead for about 30 years. Most of his closest companions had also passed on. The compilation of the Quran, its chronology and the definition of the context of different injunctions and verses were left to the interpretation of the committee of people chosen to be the compilers, none of whom I might add can be called great Quranic scholars. According to tradtions, people brought Quranic verses in for compilation in various formats, written on tree barks or hides, or memorized etc. The possibility for (a) omission (b) addition (c) loss of proper ordering of verses (d) definition of the context of different verses is therefore quite present.

2) In a move that continues to astound history, Caliphs Abu-Bakr, Omar and Uthman systematically and consistently secluded the family of the Prophet from this process. The family members of the Prophet were his closest companions who had seen the rise of Islam from its very inception. They were the ideal keepers of the Quran and the Hadith. After the death of the Prophet, Caliph Ali asked that he be left alone so that he could compile the Quran. That wish was vehemently denied. (It resulted in a bunch of people storming the house of Ali). People who are aware of the compilation of the Hadith will also recall that although the Prophet considered his household (Ahl-ul-Bait) to be sacred and closest to him, the number of Hadith associated to Hadrat Fatima, Ali, Hassan and Hussein are minute compared to the ones attributed to people of much lesser stature in Islamic history.

3) The question arises why should this have been done? The compilation of the Quran served an immensely important political purpose. Although people on pulpits from across the Muslim world never cease to paint a picture of the companions of the Prophet being sinless and untainted beings, nothing could be further from fact. They were people who had grown up in a highly politically active atmosphere, and frankly the vast majority of them were out for themselves. Doesn`t sound too different from what we are today!

The compilation of the Quran fell into the same fate. Immediately after the death of the Prophet a slogan was invented (whose inventor remains anonymous but loyally followed to this day): ``Prophethood and Caliphate can never go to the same family``. This slogan encapsulated the traditional tribal jealousies that the Prophet had tried to eradicate but was unsuccessful. It also betrayed the fact that people never understood the meaning of Prophethood and Caliphate, and kept on equating Caliphate with Temporal Kingship (with all its benefits).

A historical parallel to this example is found again in the Banu Umayya, who were the cousins by lineage of the Banu Hashim family, and had been deported from their ancestral lands by a multi-tribal judgement. After the fall of Makkah, Abu-Sufyan who was from the Banu Umayya family became a ``Muslim`` because it was politically expedient for him to do so. His son Muawiya was installed by Caliph Omar in Syria, where he enjoyed a virtually autonomous rule as a governer for about twenty years. Why Muawiya should have been given such a politically important post by Caliph Omar given that his father was an arch-enemy of Islam is not so surprising if one considers the enormous political benefits the Caliph stood to reap from the presence of Muawiya, if there was a strong pro-Hashim movement in the Hejaz. This is exactly what happened during the Caliphate of Ali when Muawiya wrongly, unlawfully and unjustifiably revolted against the Caliph of Islam and brought in the dark ages of Imperialism into Islamic history, whose legacy hounds us to this day. (When Maudoodi came to the same conclusion, his book ``Khilafat-o-Malukiat`` was immediately silenced by his own companions.) The case of Imam Hussein and Yazid was the next logical link of this scenario. Being the good son of Muawiya, Yazid did what his father taught him well.

This discussion adds a new political dimension to Islam and the Quran. One distinctly comes off with the feeling that the Family of the Prophet was decidedly ill-treated by essentially everyone after the Prophet`s death. (Muawiya for example started a tradition where Caliph Ali was verbally abused in every khutba delivered by every mosque imam. This tradition went on for almost forty years before it was abrogated by Umar bin Abdul-Aziz. Almost all of the Shi`a Imams, for example, died unnatural deaths. In Kerbala, for example, one saw the ludicrous and ironic situation that the soldiers of Yazid`s army would praise the Prophet and his family in their prayers, and then rise up to kill the same family of the Prophet.) The traditional point of view on all of this is to present a harmonious picture that makes everyone pure and pristine. Such a point of view can only be supported in a fairy tale, and not in the real world. In the past (and sadly even in the present) to say something like this was suicidal -all opposition was brutally crushed. The reason, again that religion was deeply interconnected with the politics. The State derived its legitimacy and power from religion, and therefore, religious dogma served the exact purpose that propoganda served in Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany. (Think about Saudi Arabia for a second in the modern days.)

I think we are lucky that we are born in an era where ideas can be accepted or rejected based upon their scientific merit. That the traditional histories of Islam will be re-written is inevitable, and perhaps the increasing rise of fundamentalism in the Islamic world is partly also due to the anticipation of this change.

Dr Anita Zaidi

I alway thought that the bit about the Quran having inferences to Hazrat Ali and his Imamate was a Shia joke. I grew up with people jokingly saying that the real Quran had 40 suparas with the last ten devoted to the praise of Hazrat Ali, and that the enemies of Hazrat Ali had destroyed those sections.

Mujahid Ali Rizvi

Anita:

Thanks for introducing the Shia perspective. (subconsciously) in the Sunni induced mindset I almost forgot one incident. In mid eighties, Dr. Abid Reza Baidar, then the Director of Khuda Bakhsh Memorial LIbrary in Patna showed me some manuscripts of Qur`an that reportedly had more surahs than the standard text. Wonder if any translations exist.

regards

Outstanding discussion. One has to commend Lester, Puin and associates for stirring this hornet’s nest again (it was about time). However, that doesn’t excuse Lester’s poorly substantiated and obscurely referenced writing. The article comes across as overly sensational, unscientific, and extrapolative. After all, all that has been found are some very old copies of the Quran with ``small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text``. The rest is all speculative. So Muslims need not worry yet. Of course, the downside of using science to discredit the infallibility of the Quran may have the ill-desired effect of complete abandonment of the scientific method as a means of progress among the Muslim world (shudder). Needless to say, the woman in me waits with bated breath to find out what these intriguing aberrations are.

Some in this discussion have said that all discussion about what constituted the text of the Quran ceased after Uthman’s compilation. This is simply not true - you are forgetting the Shia angle. Early Shia (7th and 8th century) actively discussed what had been omitted from the Quran by Ali’s enemies. They believed parts of the text praising Ali and pointing to his Imamate had been deliberately excised, and that the Quran had been altered so that the names of the Imams and the hypocrites (munafiqeen) had been dropped. Some examples of these early beliefs and statements are compiled by Muhammad Baqir Majlisi in Bihar al-Anwar.

For instance:
a) In the verse ‘God has chosen Adam and Noah and the families of Abraham and Imran in preference to others’ (Quran 3:33, Ahmed Ali translation), the phrase ‘and the family of Muhammad’ is considered to have originally have been present.
b) Regarding the verse ‘Woe alas, ah would I had not taken so-and-so as friend!’ (Quran 25:28, Ahmed Ali translation), the Sixth Imam, Jafar as-Sadiq said that in Ali’s copy, this verse read as ``Woe alas that I had not chosen the second as a friend``.
Some of these early Shia believed that whole verses and suras from the Quran are missing.
The later Shia abandoned arguing this position for unclear reasons and accepted the standard Uthmani Quranic text (perhaps relentless Abbasid persecution was a contributing factor). However, very intriguing is the fact that some of the most rebellious and Ghullaat-influenced Shia belonging to the Zaydi sect (relatives of mine - who knows?) settled in Yemen, and formed an independent kingdom there. Here’s an alternative hypothesis: May be these wayward Qurans belonged to them!

Anita