Based on the post made earlier, I'm wondering if there are any historians who have attempted to or can come away with any conclusion with any details that can be historically verified about the life of Ali and whether the positive or negative assessments of him are true or false or mixed.

Did the roman emperor during time of the first fitnah really write a letter to Muawaiyah and was Muawaiyahs response really a "go f yourself it's a dispute between 2 brothers" when the emperor offered aid to Muawaiyah

He was also asked on Twitter if it could mean "pieces of silver." to which he replied no

Is it still inclonclusive or have Revisionist studies won.

Are there academic attempts that analyzed the hadiths of punishments (such as executing an apostate, amputating a thief's hand, etc.)?

So i was reading this interesting page on Juan Cole’s website on the first inscriptions which mention Muhammad; https://www.juancole.com/2019/06/muhammad-blessings-intercession.html

However, as i was reading the article i almost fell of my chair when i read some of those speak of Muhammad as an intercessor? to quote J Cole:

“The second inscription, from 700, speaks of Muhammad as an intercessor and as a source of divine compassion, twice. Once was the mercy God showed on human beings by sending him in this world as a Prophet. The second is his ongoing intercession from the hereafter.”

”There is a similarity between this idea of Muhammad as an intercessor and the late-antique Christian notion of exemplary saints interceding for the salvation of ordinary believers. But in Christianity the locus of the departed saint was bodily– the relic or the tomb. These inscriptions instead focus on the personality of the Prophet as a transtemporal figure who straddled this world and the next.”

”(Sixteenth and seventeenth-century Protestantism in Christianity and eighteenth-century Wahhabism in Islam, both critiqued the idea of intercession, but has been a widespread belief in those religions up to the present).”

I think this comes from misunderstanding from my side but can someone explain this to me cuz i taught that Muslims are ought to pray to Allah (directly) without any sense of ‘’intercession’’ ?

Also, is there a good survey of earliest exegesis available ?

Mainly non-biblical stories, like apocryphal gospels or talmudic stories or folk tales

I recently stumbled across this video which demonstrates that Muhammad (or presumably Ahadith traditions) utilise a common story and hence is not original to Islam. This may be taken as a charge of "plagiarism", people like Bede use it as well.

The description of the video has some relevant sources, but what do academics make of it?

Why was Ali so unpopular among the Quraysh and somewhat ostracised relative to his stature during Muhammad's lifetime? Ali was eventually granted status in the Rashidun by mainstream Sunni islam but this was at least in part the product of how much he's revered by the Shia and his kinship with Muhammad and therefore not necessarily reflective of how he was perceived in the period after Muhammad's death. What made Ali so controversial, that on the one hand he was the only Sahabi to attract followers devoted to his teachings yet on the other he was disliked by his peers?

Recently, Ramon Harvey tweeted: "It feels like early Muslims were interpreting the idea of “tall buildings” in a way that could “realise” the sign of the Hour in their time, just as Muslims today do with respect to the monstrosities in the Gulf."

I wanted to share this because in the last week, a lot of resources have come up on various twitter discussions about the tall buildings prophecy. Harvey, in particular, was following up on a thread by Ian Cook (see here for the thread or an unrolled version here) where Ian hones in on a number of additional hadith which describe (i) the location of these buildings in Mecca (ii) that they will be taller than mountains. In particular, the reports state that these buildings were tall in the sense that they were constructed on mountains. These reports describe the prophecy in the past-tense, as something that has already happened/been fulfilled.

Another conversation Ian Cook started under Harvey's tweet also contains some interesting additional resources and information. Another user pointed to this text by Qurtubi who believed that the prophecy had already been fulfilled in his time. Ibn Hajar also seems to have believed that the prophecy was fulfilled close to the time of Muhammad (source).

Elon Harvey, a scholar like Ramon Harvey (though unrelated to him) tweeted the following: "Criticism of building new buildings or repairing old ones is a common theme in early hadith (see a related report about 'Umar II). Many viewed the dunya as a bad investment. Presumably, when the spoils of war were used to finance ostentatious houses, they didn't approve." Harvey included some images that you can view by clicking on the link, although the English translation of the report he attached as an image is as follows: "[ʿUmar II] would never [unnecessarily] renovate structures. I once saw that a threshold of a door of his became damaged, and someone suggested to him that it should be repaired. He said [to his mawlā]: "O muzāḥim, should we not leave this [threshold] as it is, and then exist this world without having renovated any [material] thing." He prohibited ṭilāʾ in all the land."

Here's a previous post I made on the subject: https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicQuran/comments/18q02xf/is_the_tall_building_prophecy_referring_to_an/

Why did Muawaiyah fight Ali, https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Siffin says

Muʿāwiyah, governor of Syria, refused to recognize ʿAlī as the new caliph before justice for the murder of his kinsman, the third caliph, ʿUthmān, was done; for his part, ʿAlī relied on the support of individuals who had been implicated in ʿUthmān's murder and was therefore reluctant to prosecute them.

What are some academic works on the disputed during the first and second fitnah?

Welcome to this week's open discussion thread!

The Weekly Open Discussion Thread allows users to have a broader range of conversations compared to what is normally allowed on other posts. The current style is to only enforce Rules 1 and 6. Therefore, there is not a strict need for referencing and more theologically-centered discussions can be had here. In addition, you may ask any questions as you normally might want to otherwise.

Feel free to discuss your perspectives or beliefs on religious or philosophical matters, but do not preach to anyone in this space. Preaching and proselytizing will be removed.

Enjoy!

QUESTION: Could this unconfirmed archaic Aramaic language be associated with the Sabaean colony in Ethiopia?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yeha

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%CA%BFmt

and with the inscription Hadad-yith'i from Tell el Fakhariya?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadad-yith%27i

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadad-yith%27i_bilingual_inscription

Thank you.

QUOTES FROM: Classical and Modern Standard Arabic, Marijn van Putten

download : https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/43774/external_content.pdf?sequence=1#page=65

2.4 Ethio-Semitic and Old South Arabian

It is widely recognized that some degree of influence from Ethio-Semitic can be identified within CA (§3.2.3; 3.4.1). Many of the Ethio-Semitic words that have entered into Quranic Arabic presumably arrived there through South Arabian contact after the invasion of Yemen by Christian Ethiopia in the sixth century. Also previous South Arabian contact must probably be assumed, and the divine epithet ar-Raḥmān is usually thought to be a borrowing from South Arabian, where it in turn is a borrowing from Aramaic (Jeffery 2007 [1938]: 140–141). While Ethio-Semitic contact has been fairly well-researched, research into contact with Ancient South Arabia is still in its infancy. The exact classification of the Old South Arabian languages and their relation to Modern South Arabian and Ethio-Semitic is still very much under debate. A simple understanding of this highly multilingual region seems impossible. Due to the extensive contact within South Arabia and the South Arabian languages, it is not always easy to pin down the exact vector of contact between CA and these languages of South Arabia and Ethiopia (§3.4.4).

......It is interesting to note that Aramaic loanwords in Gəʕəz reflect a similar archaicity, in those cases where this is detectable. The expected lenited ḵ is not represented with Gəʕəz ḫ but with k, and short vowels in open syllables are retained. This might suggest that, when looking for religious influences on Islam, we should rather shift our focus to the south, where during the centuries before Islam both Judaism and Christianity were introduced, presumably through the vector of Gəʕəz. ...

...As of yet, there is not a clear historical scenario that helps us better understand how both CA and Gəʕəz, and, from the scanty information that we currently have, also Old South Arabian, ended up with similarly archaic forms of Aramaic. This seems to suggest an as yet unattested, very archaic form of Aramaic in South Arabia. Alternatively, the syncope and lenition so well-known in Syriac may have had a much less broad distribution across the written Aramaic dialects than previously thought....

Hello,

On a simply Quranic basis, what is the punishment for theft?

The relevant verse is the following:

“As for the thief, both male and female, cut off their hands as a recompense for what they have earned. It is an exemplary punishment from Allah; and Allah is the Mighty, the Wise.” (5:38)

One might say that it clearly means to just cut off the hand, but I came upon other verses (12:31, 12:50) in which the same words seem to have a different meaning. Plus, is it possible that, per 5:33, this is in a context of war (doesn’t seem like it, but still asking)?

Also, is the punishment abandoned if one, say, returns the stolen items (or whatever amending might entail)? As per the following verse:

“But whoever repents after his iniquity and makes amend (his evil deeds), then surely Allah turns to him (mercifully), verily Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.” (5:39)

Or is this referring to a subsequent “amendment” in which one just asks forgiveness from God, for example, but still gets his hand cut off.

Are there any academic (or otherwise) answers that are based either on historical interpretations or merely on the text itself?

Any answer would be appreciated,

Thanks!

View Poll

Saudi Arabia recently made the Quranic inscriptions on Mount Uhud public and Muslims claim these inscriptions of the Quran are written by the Sahabas themselves.

Comparing these inscriptions to the modern quran, how much discrepancy is present?

Does the quran or the hadtih corpus ever warn the Arabs? I recently read a claim that said Allah warned the Arabs in the quran but the Arabs soon went astray so Allah took the power from them (mongol invasions) and gave them to another class of people ie the turks

This article has been forthcoming for ages, but it is finally out. Hythem and me are very proud of it, and it is completely free to download for everyone!

https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2023.2195077

The findings of this article (which has been in publication hell for like three years) was a main inspiration for writing up the ERC grant proposal that I've by now actually gotten aiming to research the variation in reading traditions that are present in vocalized Quranic manuscripts.

The article is rather maximalist in scope, so it's difficult to summarize all that can be found in it. but we show that in the first three centuries of so, there was a vibrant negotiation as to what was going to be the "proper" Clasiscal way of doing pronominal morphology. Both the Quranic reading traditions and manuscripts are fossils form a time that this negotiation had not yet landed on the Classical system as we know it today.

I attempted to summarize our finding in a Twitter thread, but I suggest you try to read the article for yourself!

Twitter Thread: https://twitter.com/PhDniX/status/1786518955193950656

Currently, I only know of Anbya 105 quoting from Psalms and Ma'idah 52 quoting from the Talmud.

Why don't hadtih critiques such as Joshua little use methodologies practiced by early Muslims such as ilm-ul-Mustalah, this is the practice of deeming a particular hadtih/narrator/Transmitter to be reliable or unreliable.

Do hadtih critiques in general even try to consider the traditional methodology of classifying hadtihs?

Why is this phrase one of the most used throughout the Quran to describe heaven? And what does it actually mean/describe

Recently, I've been looking at the issue of the Trinity in the Quran and read the wikipedia article on this problem (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_view_of_the_Trinity) and of particular interest was Surah 5:73 that seemingly implies tritheism as the belief of Christianity:

"They have certainly disbelieved who say, "Allah is the third of three." And there is no god except one God. And if they do not desist from what they are saying, there will surely afflict the disbelievers among them a painful punishment."

However, according to the wiki article, it has been argued by Sidney Griffith that this is infact a reference to Jesus being called the "third of three" in Syriac literature and Surah 5:73 is therefore a continuation of the warning against identifying Allah and Jesus as one and the same in the previous verse, Surah 5:72

"They do blaspheme who say: "Allah is Christ the son of Mary." But said Christ: "O Children of Israel! worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Whoever joins other gods with Allah,- Allah will forbid him the garden, and the Fire will be his abode. There will for the wrong-doers be no one to help."

Unfortunately, I don't have access to Sydney Griffith's article in the Encyclopedia of the Quran and therefore I cannot see what exactly he is reffering to. Does anyone know anything more about this?

Is he competent?

I'm asking because I'm literally a layman so while I have some level of awareness, I just want to be sure

I recall a video in which he was interviewed where he discussed something very pertinent to a topic I've been thinking about, but before I start sending the video here and there I want to be sure that I'm not just using a terrible source.

What's he useful for?

What's he not useful for?

etc

Ancient South Arabian like Sabean, Qatabanian, Minaean, are classed by some as South Semitic languages, within the same branch as Ge’ez. This would imply South Arabian languages are closer to Ethiopia than Arabic, which is Central Semitic.

Is this classification correct?

There is a common story I hear where it goes a man was thinking about becoming a Christian, Jew, or Muslim so he got their scribes and added more words or removed words from the text and asked scribes to makes copies.

For the Jews the Jews made copies of their texts as did the Christians but the Muslim threw the book in his face and said it is not Quran.

From this story I have three questions.

1. Is this a authentic traditional account from their perspective?

2. Is this a true story from a Historical perspective?

3. Is the Islamic preservation at such a high height that this is a very plausible situation?

I have heard All life comes from water and to wash hands before eating but is there anything else?