A Christian Revolution in Pre-Islamic Arabia? | The Emergence of Islam | G.S. Reynolds & Hassan A.

[@IslamicOrigins]

That was quite an important opening 3 minutes. Crucial. Brilliant!

[@jma7600]

Is seems that the bulk of the Qur’anic text is a mixed collection of Christian liturgy and religious debates that were not intended to belong to the religion known as Islam.

[@brendantannam499]

@@mostarac7297 'Therefore the Qur’an is not recycling the old Christian doctrines and debates but it is actually challenging and debating the older Christian doctrines while offering the alternative understandings.' - What alternative understandings?

[@KA-rr6lu]

@@mostarac7297no

[@dodgysmum8340]

@@mostarac7297I think ths true In the sense the Quran takes an especially strong, well preserved, line on the remoteness/ singularity of God (unlike the Hadith/ tafsir which have little comparable preservation or line). And the philosophy was certainly imbibed by some epoch making warriors, in part thanks to the underlying conditions. Im not sure that’s an argument for its veracity though.

[@jma7600]

@@mostarac7297 Your understanding of what the Quran is saying has little to do with what it actually says. You are going against the texts of your own book simply to impose your Islamic interpretations. If you believe that Allah in the Quran is the same God of the Bible, then you have condemned Allah of forgetting who he declared to be all along and that is the Father of Jesus. Nowhere in the Bible that this concept of Fatherhood is contested; which takes us to your other misconception that the Quran came to rectify a problem. There was no problem my friend. If anything, the Quran is supposed to confirm the previous scriptures, and it does ! so why do you go against the words of Allah ? You are accusing Allah of not doing what he proclaimed to do…. to preserve his words. You shot yourself by eluding to Surat Al ekhlas 112 as your support that Allah is One; when in fact this same Surat confirms the Fatherhood and doesn’t even deny the Trinity as found in the Bible (By conveniently omitting a single key word alsamad الصمد that most Muslim exegetes dishonestly or by ignorance misinterpreted.) As I was saying above, the Quran is not a text that supports the Muslim doctrine. It is the most misinterpreted, mistranslated, misunderstood book on earth. And you should also know that it is not even written in pure Arabic as Arabic was still a new language as you eluded that the Quran is the first book written in that language.

[@andiakram1829]

Cuz the religion of islam didn't exist when Muhammad was alive. Even the term "religion" is already a modern term.

[@dressin3767]

Thank you for this content Prof. Reynolds, do you think that it is plausible to explain the emergence of islam as the climax of the arabic monotheistic revolution? This is the idea that i always had when i heard of this transformation from the 4th-6th century.

[@IslamicOrigins]

Chapter 7 sounds interesting.

[@mohamad-alitrad2511]

Dear Prof Reynolds, could we assume that in part the qoranic text is some form of a manual to convert Jews and Christians?

[@sasa_sasa_sasa230]

@Exploring the Quran and the Bible ser, i have pretty hard evidences that surah 17 was originally about Moses Heavenly ascent and not about Muhamed's night journey. If you are interested,how can i sent you?

[@borneandayak6725]

There is only 4 word "mhmd" (Muhammad) in the whole Quran, and it could be refering to Jesus. While Moses mentioned 136 times in the Quran, so surah 17 must be refering to Moses or Elijah.

[@luckheartnoble6718]

What is your proof?

[@sasa_sasa_sasa230]

@@luckheartnoble6718 kzbin.infoHSLOpB4NZ3c?si=GYPUSydiArOfLpc8

[@irfanmehmud63]

Are not most of the engagement and debates with the Christians and Jews in the surahs revealed in Madina?

[@thedudehimself4447]

Dear Professor Gabriel, do you plan to talk a bit about the place of the council of nicaea in that region's history especially around the time this proposed transition to monotheism happened.

[@012345family]

I can’t help find difficulty with the sentence that there is an increased movement to Christianity among Arabic speakers. Wouldn’t an increase movement toward monotheism/Christianity among literate Arabs be more correct?

[@Justinian125]

Professor Reynolds could the solution to the Christian Elephant problem be that the Hadith and biographies compiled during the Abbasid period are simply legendary and not largely based in fact?

[@sasa_sasa_sasa230]

@ExploringtheQuranandtheBible ser, i have pretty hard evidences that surah 17 was originally about Moses Heavenly ascent and not about Muhamed's night journey. If you are interested,how can i sent you?

[@wmka]

It'd be interesting to look into Byzantium and Arabs in the 5th century and the "isomorphic adaptation" of the Arabic script, poetry and liturgical form.

[@Dushan-o8w]

Hello progessor Reynolds .If this is the case who did Mohammed go to war with in Mecca ? The Christians or some other monotheists ? Or does it seem unlikely that happened and is a later tradition? And what role did the Kaaba and the Haj play in pre-islamic religion ?

[@charlesmartel5495]

A lot of this makes perfect sense, thank you. The elephant in the room for me is the Kaaba and the obligatory pilgrimage to Mekka/Bakkah plus sacrificing animals. That sounds more pagan with Jewish influences to me than Christian and I am struggling to fit this into the greater framework that is being portrayed here.

[@dodgysmum8340]

Look at NW Europe, pagan traditions persisted and were subsumed into Christianity over centuries. Esp including Easter (as a fertility/ spring festival / xmas with all those feasting traditions/ saints days. The Roman church had not crushed them by the time of the reformation. They still persist! Not sure where u live but look at the wells/ springs as you go on a walk in the country.

[@hidden.history]

There’s no historical and archaeological evidence that Kabba and Mecca existed before 7th century.

[@charlesmartel5495]

@@dodgysmum8340 Hi and thanks for your commennt! I live in Germany so I am aware of syncretisms within the Catholic church's tradition 🙂. Usually these are at the fringes of the believe system though, at least that's how it seems to me. The prilgrimage, circumambulation, animal sacrifice on the other hand are at the core of Islam's believe system and I struggle to align this with what is being discussed in the interview and with the very puritan message of the Quran.

[@dodgysmum8340]

@@charlesmartel5495 thanks Charles. I guess what I’m saying is that what you regard as fringe, others might regard as central (self admittedly or not) given the amount of time and energy they devote to it. Specifically on the animal sacrifice: yes, but until the modern era in Christian countries animals were always killed cyclically with environmental conditions, words were almost certainly said over them, at least at grace, then ppl ate them as a feast for xmas/ easter. From Greek times it was tradition to only leave the bones/ skin for the gods so my question is what is really the difference when you dig down? I guess u cld boil it down to a whole lot of ppl didn’t really know why they did things except that their parents did and tht then sometimes these things can become “core” without their being any philosophical basis for it.

[@Dawud-cv8kk]

@@charlesmartel5495could you explain how any of those are pagan?

[@josephbarnabas3568]

The christians mentioned in the Quran are Nasara/ Nazarene version of Christianity, not Pauline Christianity.

[@christiangadfly24]

Are there any texts that survive from that sect?

[@hackbounties114]

They're more likely Arians.

[@MAYBE673]

But its not entirely clear which form that is because when it condemns their beliefs/practices it refers to them by the same group name.

[@Tanjaicholan]

Do you mean they did not practise Pauline doctrines as opposed to the Gospels, Petrine and Johannine literature and doctrines? It is the same exposition, doctrine and practise.

[@josephbarnabas3568]

@@MAYBE673 the common name for all believers of the Abrahamic religion (Jews, Nazarenes and Pauline Christians ) is People of the Book.

[@Madstsone]

Where are the Islamic inscriptions from the 7th Century?

[@johnharrison154]

Very interesting interview, but something that was not mentioned is why this happened. If Arabia was largely or even partly Christian at the time of Mohammed, why was this written out of the biographies? Why is the presence of Christianity a problem for the biographers? Or can some other explanation be offered?

[@Michiganfan105]

Because the biographers want Islam to be portrayed as something entirely organic and not as a Christian heresy, which it almost certainly was.

[@andiakram1829]

​​@@Michiganfan105if that's how you say it then Christianity is a heretic Judaism. The God of Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad is the same. They're all chosen by God to teach humans that their Lord is the one true God that created everything. Who cares about heresy anyway, one person's heresy is another's orthodox. Only God knows who is the real orthodox. And He will certainly tell us one day, so just wait for it, I'll wait too.

[@PaulTheApostate]

@@johnharrison154 So you’ve never heard of “The Boy and the King” and the “People of the Ditch” mentioned in Surah 85 and expounded on in the ahadith and books of seerah?

[@johnharrison154]

@@PaulTheApostate No I've never heard of those. What is the relevance to my question?

[@PaulTheApostate]

@@johnharrison154​​⁠ It answers your question on whether “Christian” presence in Arabia was really “wiped” from Muhammad’s “biographies” [S].

[@ashishmantri3684]

The sufis talked about the insaan al kamil , the perfect being who embodies the divine logos principle. Generally after the revelation of muhammad ,this term was used for muhammad but as we know this has its basis in neoplatonic thought and hellenistic tradition which lead to its appropriation to Chrsit as the word of god incarnate. So i think these sufi metaphysics owe their origin to the christian monks in arabia.

[@mcosu1]

Al‐Jallad, A. and Sidky, H., 2022. A Paleo‐Arabic inscription on a route north of Ṭāʾif. Arabian archaeology and Epigraphy, 33(1), pp.202-215.

[@dodgysmum8340]

I love these learned videos and the ppl who constructively contribute to the debate. Thank You.

[@ashishmantri3684]

The pre islamic arabia was experienxing a transformation not just from the prophet but even before that as well and given the evidences of worship of god called ar rahmanan and al ilah the father of the christian and ishmaelites etc who were other group of monotheists already existing in pre islamic arabia along with many jewish tribes and syriac christains, this tells us that the landscape was undergoing a major transformation in terms of religion. Many ablution, sacrifices and tribal codes of conduct and pausing of warfare during pilgrimage times also tells us that this soviety was not an illiterate society but of thrawling religious diversity given it was sanwiched between the great persian and byzantine empires. The dualist ideas of zorastrianism plus the monotheistic movement along with native poetic traditions were the right concoction readying arabia to get its own distinctive revelation which muhamamd and his companions who we know are very intelligent have been able to use. This was a wild wild world of religious syncretization , so this traditional account of jahil pagans etc should go and into dustbin of history.

[@kilianklaiber6367]

If paganism had vanished from the Arabic peninsula by the 7th century and Christianism had basically taken over, does that not suggest that the Kaaba was not originally a pagan temple but a Christian Church? THe part extending in one direction truly looks like the apsis of a church and Jesus is the cornerstone according to the bible. Thus, the veneration of the cornerstone of the kaaba was originally a form of praying to Jesus? The Ur-quran is based on pre-islamic monotheistic christian scripture? This explains the engagement in christian theological debates about christology and that way the quran presumes detailed knowledge of the reader with biblical events. I think these hypotheses are supported by this evidence. The evidence contradicts the standard islamic narrative!

[@jado2k]

Holy, ground yourself in reality mate. The desperate conjectures to challenge Islamic history are astounding. Orientalist historical scholarship is dubious at best. All love

[@andiakram1829]

I advise you to erase the word "religion" from your head mate. Let's just focus on God and His decree, known by humanity through His prophets like Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. We're all one community that believes in the one true God, all glory to Him alone.

[@mapa3781]

The nasara are Jewish believers in Christ, not gentile converts.

[@davereinhardt615]

I guess this tells us that the Quran has its roots in paganism and it makes sense since many passages were taken from pagans, even the Torah and injl and other Jewish and Greek writings. It is not original but a collection that created not only another god and prophet but an entire religion

[@anaveler432]

One god at a time

[@M1idx]

It's should be said. Pre-Quranic Arabia ✅️. Not Pre-Islamic ❌️. Islam is the religion of all the prophets & messengers before prophet Muhammad according to Quran.

[@mapa3781]

The mushrikun are trinitarian Christians since they "associate" Jesus and the Spirit with God. Basically, the Quran can be located in the midst of Judeo-Christian debates of late antiquity.

[@dressin3767]

@@mapa3781 i think it would be a little bit beyond the data to suggest that the word only refers to trinitarians, because of the generell description of these mushrikeen, where the qur'an asks them for example about al-lat and al-uzzat, which would make much more sense that the mushrikeen also included arabian henotheists (as Patricia Crone argued)

[@mapa3781]

@@dressin3767 That may certainly be true, I don't know. But the traditional claim argues that the mushrikun are exclusively pagans. That's simply wrong. Also, in light of the discoveries mentioned in the video, it is probably necessary to rethink what the verses mentioning those godesses really means since we have some 100-200 years without any pagan inscriptions before the Quran was written. I think it is reasonable to think of the mushrikun mostly of trinitarians and the other instances as exceptions.

[@dressin3767]

@@mapa3781 i'm happy that we can agree on this point. I think it was a flawed decision to begin with to take this later muslim accounts (Of for example ibn al-Kalbi) about the pre islamic arabs as 1) literal history without exaggeration and 2) as an accurat description of them, because these sources are extremley biased and biased sources are not known for giving us accurat information about their enemies, the lie about them all the time and exaggerate the details extremley.

[@mapa3781]

@@dressin3767 I agree. Probably they didn't even think of themselves as people who made things up. There were many things going on, especially political pressure to create a certain contrasting idea of faith. This then probably lead to this situation of creating accounts that projected the ideas of the 9th century onto the 7th century.

[@mapa3781]

@@dressin3767 I agree. Probably they didn't even think of themselves as people who made things up. There were many things going on, especially political pressure to create a certain contrasting idea of faith. This then probably lead to this situation of creating accounts that projected the ideas of the 9th century onto the 7th century.

[@alem8100]

Could this possible Christian revolution in Arabia be attributed to Aksumite conquests in Arabia? We know Abraha's conquest wasn't just relegated to Southern Arabia but his army extended their dominion all the way up to the northern Hijaz.

[@benefactor4309]

Can we have dr Jason Jorjani here on this channel

[@M1idx]

💯 Quran 6:116: "And if you obey most of those on the earth, they will mislead you away from the way of Allah. They follow nothing but assumption, and they do nothing but guess." ⛔️ Hadiths and Tafsir books are unreliable sources, often containing false narratives propagated by enemies of Islam or individuals with malicious intent. Many of their interpretations and directives contradict the teachings of the Quran. ☢️ The Quran explicitly advises believers against adhering to any sources or narratives as authorities aside from God's revelation (refer to Quran 7:3 and 45:6). - Quran 45:6: "Those are Allah’s verses We recite/read to you in truth. So in which 'Hadith' (statement/discourse), after Allah and His verses, will they believe?" - Quran 7:3: "Follow what has been sent down to you from your Lord, and do not follow other masters/protectors apart from it. Little do you remind yourselves." 🔻 Thus, Sharia law based on sources outside the Quran must be scrutinized. 🔴 It's crucial to emphasize that all sources apart from the Quran, including Hadiths and Tafsir books, are susceptible to errors or fabrications, potentially diverging significantly from Quranic teachings. 📛 The Quran categorizes adherence to sects as polytheism, a grave sin unforgivable by God (see Quran 30:31-32, 4:48, and 4:116). ☝️ The Quran unequivocally does not allow practices like child marriage, honor violence, or forced marriage. 💥 Notably, the disputed phrase "اللائي لم يحضن" ("those who have not menstruated") in verse 65:4 refers to divorced women who may experience delayed menstruation, indicating their status as sexually mature adults, not children. 💯 It's essential to note that in the Quran, there is no exact synonymy, meaning that no two words have precisely the same meaning, emphasizing the uniqueness of each term's significance. 👼 The Quran solely mentions the equivalent term for "child," which is "Al-Tifl" (singular) and "Al-Atfal" (plural) (refer to Quran 24:31 and 24:59). ℹ️ Notably absent from the Quran are references to circumcision or the term "Hijab" as women's head covering. ✅️ Similarly, Quranic injunctions for stoning or the death penalty for offenses like adultery, homosexuality, disbelief, or apostasy are absent. ◻️ Understanding Quranic verses on warfare and fighting requires contextualization, aligning with the Quran's overarching message of restraint and defense: - Quran 2:190: "Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight you, but do not transgress. Indeed, Allah does not love the transgressors." ◻️ When quoting from Surah 9, consider verse 13 to clarify its historical context of defending against aggressors. 🔆 Regarding interactions with the People of the Book, the Quran encourages respectful discourse and emphasizes shared beliefs in one God (see Quran 29:46).

[@Buz_makinasi]

I think how yeshua opposed corrupt jewish religion which became Christianlity it was same for mohammad he also did same for Jewish religion, which became islam. So at the end all Jewish religions which is also a a mix of Babylonian religions

[@OtherSide73]

From Monotheism to Trinity & from repentance to crucifixion. This is blatant corruption of the Bible

[@borneandayak6725]

Then from Trinity to kaaba worship. This is blantant corruption of the Bible, that give birth to heretical book of Quran.

[@arbitScaleModels]

The Quran was writtwn by one Person, with one voice, and clear consistent vocabulary and syntax. Run a textual analysis, and put all these speculations to sleep.

[@MrDaftFunk]

Yeah it was probably an Arab who got his hands on some Aramaic lectionaries on the Bible and some Jewish and Christian’s fairytales.

[@almazchati4178]

There were monotheist Arabs, not jewish or Christian, followers of Abraham. Neither Christianity nor Judaism are monotheists.

[@MrDaftFunk]

They worshipped the Moon God Allah, yes the worshipped one God after allat manat and Al Uzzah.

[@almazchati4178]

Hypothetical scholarship. Even talking about as a conjecture is a non-scholarly act. Christian merchants were coming to Mecca for trade. Apparently they were not really practicing Christians, they did not know their religion. Arabs travelled to Roman territories. I suppose they were not impressed with Christianity. That is a good enough argument for not being influenced by it. They must be rational thinkers. Especialy nomadic life style is not compatible with organized religion.

[@mcosu1]

As a Christian, what I love about the Quran is that it's seems to reconcile all of the crazy stuff in Christianity that doesn't make sense. As Hegel says, Islam is the religion of sublimity. However, I love the Gospels too much to ever convert: greatest story ever told.

[@markmusatau1929]

Are you kidding me? Crazy stuff? What do you think of the crazy stuff in Quran like 9:29-30; 4:5,24

[@justapointofview7625]

@@markmusatau1929 Good question. He/she is NOT a Christian, but a Muslim portraying as a Christian

[@MrDaftFunk]

Change you name to Abdul

[@mcosu1]

@@justapointofview7625 I'm Christian, but I struggle with some of the history and theology. My point is that I think it was intentional that the Quran corrected or smoothed out inconsistencies in Christianity. There's a lot to deal with in the Nicene Creed!

[@Dawud-cv8kk]

@@mcosu1who other than god would clear out misconceptions whilst answering problems

[@arbitScaleModels]

The Quran was writtwn by one Person, with one voice, and clear consistent vocabulary and syntax. Run a textual analysis, and put all these speculations to sleep.

[@tanzimat2039]

Oh yeah. Thanks man now I am unsubscribing Gabriel. You gave me all the answers I had been looking in this channel for months