Odon #7: Why & How did the Abbasids make Muhammad? скачать в хорошем качестве

Odon #7: Why & How did the Abbasids make Muhammad?

The Muhammad we know of today was created by the Abbasids in the 8th and 9th centuries, and then redacted back on to the 7th century. But why and how did they need to create him? This is the question Odon answers here. To understand it one has to return to the 7th century where there were warring Arab leaders who were waiting for the Messiah to return, and when he didn't they took on his Messianic figure for themselves, and often referred to themselves as 'Muhammad', which in Arabic means 'The Praised one'. But it wasn't until Abd al-Malik, who considered himself as the 'caliph of God', that a revelation and a prophet, followed by a place was really needed for the Arab people. This was later solidified under the Abbasid rule, post 749 AD. But they couldn't invent a religion out of nothing, because there was already a historical core which was dependent on a text (the early Qur'an), and existing buildings (such as the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem). Similar to Mormonism, which needed a book and a prophet to give them theological legitimacy, so did the Umayyads and subsequently the Abbasids need the same legitimacy. So, the nascent Qur'an was pre-Islamic, thus an Islamic narrative needed to be created to then make it Islamic. This desire to create that narrative was referred to by the French Islamicist Henri Lammens (d. 1940) who said: "Just like the corpus of the Muslim Tradition, the inspiration for the SIra is first and foremost exegetical, derived from the text of the Qur'an. The Sira was intended to serve as a commentary in action. It must be translated into precise and picturesque anecdotes, the most obscure illusions, the least intelligible innuendos of the verses, hunting down the animus, the impersonal, so disconcerting in the reading of the Surahs, everywhere, so-to-speak, affix commemorative places, multiplied dimensions of proper names, dates, so carefully avoided by Muhammad. So, this was exegetical in the first instance, so that the Sira is doctrinal, but with more abandonment, with a sensible affectation than in the traditions itself." Thus, as Lammens suggests, the Standard Islamic Narrative was created to make that which wasn't Islamic (the Qur'an) into an Islamic narrative. That explains why the SIN are so big and long and so descriptive, as they were the vehicle which made sense of what had been before, and given it a body. Muhammad's title existed in the 7th century, used by various Arab caliphs to give them authority as the 'blessed one of God', so this name was quite familiar to those living in that century. Some historical memory existed, and couldn't be done away with (i.e. the story of the Mi'raj) so they were used to give authority to existing structures. Thus, the Miraj became a vehicle to explain the Dome of the Rock as the place Muhammad went up to the 7 heavens, though nothing on the structure itself refers to that event. The story of Muhammad was also used by the Caliphs to hang their difficult practices upon. Since Muhammad killed his critics, so could they then do the same. In time the initial legend became so embellished that it then took on a life of its own, similar to other well known legends (i.e. Robin Hood, or Santa Claus, or King Arthur of Camelot). In conclusion, there are 5 takeaways: 1) The Arabs needed a prophet like the Jews and the Christians had. 2) Prophets needed a revelation, but the one which existed for the Arabs (the Qur'an) had to be explained, thus the 200 years it took to write the Sira, and the 240 years it took to write the Hadith. 3) The Abbasids couldn't destroy the history already well known (i.e. the Dome of the Rock and the Coins), so they created a new narrative. 4) The name 'Muhammad' already existed as 'The Praised One', and was used by many Caliphs, so the Abbasids took that name and created a prophet using that name (i.e. see this evolution in the Rock Inscriptions). 5) The Caliphs needed legitimacy for their questionable actions, so they used Muhammad's biography to hang those actions on to and give themselves the legitimacy they desired, following his example. This was all known are written about almost 100 years ago in the quote above! © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2021 (57,400) Music: "Natural Paradise" by Musiclfiles, from filmmusic-io