MUST READ: THE ORIGINS OF ISLAM

The Origins of Islam
by Ibn Warraq

The most important stages in [Islam's] history were characterised by the
assimilation of foreign influences. ...Its founder, Muhammad, did not proclaim
new ideas. He did not enrich earlier conceptions of man 's relation to the
transcendental and infinite. ...The Arab Prophet's message was an eclectic
composite of religious ideas and regulations. The ideas were suggested to him by
contacts, which had stirred him deeply, with Jewish, Christian, and other
elements.l08 Ignaz Goldziher

Muhammad was not an original thinker: he did not formulate any new ethical principles, but merely borrowed from the prevailing cultural milieu. The eclectic nature of Islam has been recognized for a long time. Even Muhammad knew Islam was not a new religion, and the revelations contained in the Koran merely confirmed already existing scriptures. The Prophet always claimed Islam 's affiliation with the great religions of the Jews, Christians, and others. Muslim commentators such as al-Sharestani have acknowledged that the Prophet transferred to Islam the beliefs and practices of the heathen or pagan Arabs, especially into the ceremonies of the pilgrimage to Mecca. And yet Muslims in general continue to hold that their faith came directly from heaven, that the Koran was brought down by the angel Gabriel from God himself to Muhammad. The Koran is held to be of eternal origin, recorded in heaven, lying as it does there upon the Preserved Table (suras 85.21, 6.19; 97). God is the source of Islam-to find a human origin for any part of it is not only vain but also meaningless and, of course, blasphemous. Perhaps Muslims have the unconscious fear that if we can trace the teachings of the Koran to a purely human and earthly source, then the entire edifice of Islam will crumble. But as Renan used to say, "Religions are facts; they must be discussed as facts, and subjected to the rules of historical criticism."109 To paraphrase Renan again,110 the critical study of the origins of Islam will only yield definitive historical results when it is carried out in a purely secular and profane spirit by people uninfluenced by dogmatic theology. Only then will we recover the historical Muhammad, and only then will his extraordinary life be integrated as a part of human history, with a secular meaning for all of us- Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

The works of Ignaz Goldziher and Henri Corbin on the influence of Zoroastrianism on Islam; the works of Geiger, Torrey, and Katsch on the influence of Judaism; Richard Bell's pioneering work on the influence of Christianity; the work of Wellhausen, Noldeke, Hurgronje, and Robertson Smith on the influence of Sabianism and pre-Islamic Arabia; and the work of Arthur Jeffery on the foreign vocabulary of the Koran, all combine to make us concur with Zwemer's conclusion that Islam "is not an invention, but a concoction; there is nothing novel about it except the genius of Mohammad in mixing old ingredients into a new panacea for human ills and forcing it down by means of the sword."111

...


Pertinent Links:

1) The Origins of Islam