Putting the Birmingham Quran into Perspective

The world of Islamic scholarship was jolted in recent weeks by the age of the parchment from an early Quran fragment. The pages had been sitting in a University of Birmingham library for almost a hundred years, and only recently piqued the curiosity of scholars. According to radio carbon dating, the parchment was made between 568 and 645 AD. This is a potentially significant finding because according to Muslim tradition,

Muhammad was not born until 570.

The revelation of the Quran to Muhammad did not begin until 610.

The reign of the Caliph Uthman, during which the Quran was organized and canonized, did not begin until 644.

This timeline shows how it all fits together:

Some conservative writers, Pamela Geller, for instance, have noted that the finding “challenges Islam’s origins.” Certainly if parts of the Quran existed before the traditional date for the revelation of the Quran to Muhammad, or even before Muhammad was born, that would shake the roots of Islam and cast aspersions on Muhammad’s claim of divine revelation. While that's consistent with the radio carbon dating results, it is by no means certain. It’s only one of several possible conclusions that can be drawn. Others include,

The age of the parchment is at the later end of the range, closer to 645, after the period of revelation and consistent with the traditional narrative.

The organization and canonization of the Quran began earlier than the reign of Uthman. This would strengthen the authenticity of the Quran, in that it resembled its final form closer to Muhammad’s lifetime.

The text is much more recent than the parchment itself. There’s much to be said for this theory. According to the New York Times,

Saud al-Sarhan, the director of research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, said he doubted that the manuscript found in Birmingham was as old as the researchers claimed, noting that its Arabic script included dots and separated chapters—features that were introduced later. He also said that dating the skin on which the text was written did not prove when it was written. Manuscript skins were sometimes washed clean and reused later, he said.

I hope we'll hear more about the Birmingham Quran in the months to come. It would be interesting to see if there are other tests that could be applied to determine whether the parchment was reused or the ink was from a later date.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com.

Canada Attacked- Arab Opinion Divided

My thoughts today are with my Canadian friends, who yesterday saw a Jihadist gunman attack their Parliament, killing a soldier.

It’s clear from the reaction on Twitter that the debate we have in the West, whether Jihadism is the essence of Islam, or an aberration of a few extremists, is mirrored in the Arab world.

@ALE2756 clearly takes the latter view,

while @mazennino thinks Canada deserved what it got.

@NouredineHicham had a unique take, also unsympathetic to the Canadians:

@MarcoDentoo seemed to be on the fence; perhaps that’s why he used the hashtag #Islamic_Schizophrenia

@ElsayedWalid shares my own sympathy for the victim, and sadness at the effect this will have on the Canadian Nation.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Arab Tweet: What’s in Kerry’s Bag?

Photo Source: http://en.alalam.ir/

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was seen in Cairo last week carrying around a rather undignified white plastic shopping bag. Many in the Arab world had fun speculating what was in it, and soon “What’s in Kerry’s Bag?” was trending on Twitter. Some guesses were stereotypically Middle Eastern:

Others were more creative:

“Diapers” could alternately be translated “feminine hygiene products.”

Many tweets played on the similarity between Kerry’s name and a popular type of cheese:

Photo Source: https://www.karouncheese.com

@Tallouza went straight to the source:

So far there’s no response from the State Department.

(Thanks go out to D.K., K.H., and M.A. for helpful discussions.)

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Arab Tweet: Proud of Malala

Despite cartoon Muslims on Family Guy flying into a rage at the sight of a girl reading, Arabs responded with pride to Friday’s announcement that girls’ education activist Malala Yusuf will share the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Some typical tweets:

No Twitter conversation would be complete without the obligatory conspiracy theorist, albeit this one may be joking.

And of course there’s always that one tiresome person who, regardless of the topic of conversation, must make it about something else.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Arab Tweet: Girls on Motorcycles

#Youth_seen_with_girls_in_Jeddah is trending in Saudi Arabia in the wake of sightings of young women riding on the backs of motorcycles. Mz-mz.net reports,

Young women seen on motorcycles in Jeddah October 9, 2014 A number of drivers were surprised at the South King Abdulazziz Road roundabout in the city of Jeddah at three o’clock Thursday morning by more than ten sports motorcycles going at high speed with young women riding on the back.

The reaction on Twitter has been generally negative. Some blame decaying values:

Others blame immigration:

@mamdohmohamad finds the practice unhygienic,

while @mohmd_5173 doesn’t believe they’re women at all:

@alqhtani_omar merely writes,

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

ISIS and Ghazali: the Smoking Gun

In a recent talk, The Islamic in Islamic State, I argued that to understand ISIS, you need to understand the 11th Century Muslim scholar Abu Hamid Ghazali. Ghazali is revered in the Muslim world; some have called him the greatest Muslim after Muhammad. During my talk, I cited examples of Ghazali’s disdain for science, and hatred of Jews and Christians. I then showed the resemblance to statements made by ISIS.

But it turns out the evidence for Ghazali’s influence on ISIS runs deeper than mere resemblance. Last week ISIS released a propaganda pamphlet in which it argued for the legitimacy of its leader Abu Bakr Baghdadi’s claim to rule the Muslim world as caliph. In the pamphlet, which was titled Extend your Hands and Pledge Loyalty to Baghdadi, I found the following quotation about the ascension of the first caliph, who not coincidentally was also named Abu Bakr:

The Imam Ghazali, the mercy of Allah upon him, said, “If Umar had been the only one who swore allegiance to [Abu Bakr] as caliph, and the rest of the world remained opposed, or were divided into equal factions, with no distinct majority among them, then [his bid for the caliphate] would have been defeated. For the primary prerequisite for the caliphate is unity: when it is unified, [the caliph’s] influence rises and hearts turn away from partisanship.

The quotation is from Ghazali’s book Exposing the Batinites. In an age when regime change was common, the question of the legitimacy of a ruler was of great interest to medieval Muslim intellectuals. Ghazali set out to demonstrate the legitimacy of the Sunni caliph of his time against the claims of the rival Shiite sect known to Muslims as the Batinites and in the West as the Assassins.

ISIS uses the quotation to argue that Abu Bakr Baghdadi, like his seventh century namesake, is qualified to be caliph because his people have overwhelmingly sworn allegiance to him. The argument is firmly in line with the medieval Muslim tradition, and demonstrates that the ISIS propagandists are familiar with even the minor works of Ghazali, and that they hold him in high enough regard to cite him as an authority for their own legitimacy.

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com

The Islamic in the Islamic State

Last week I gave a talk to the Holbrook, MA Tea Party. In it I addressed the comment Mr. Obama made in a recent speech that “ISIL is not Islamic.”

I said, “The approach to take to this question is to look in the history of Islam. What are the great currents? What are the great intellectual trends? What were the key, pivotal moments, and so on? And once you understand those, see how ISIS fits into that.”

Here’s how my talk started,

And here it is in its entirety,

BTW, The book I'm holding is The Incoherence of the Philosophers, by the 11th Century scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazali. Its publication was one of those key, pivotal moments; I talk about it in the video.

(Thank you TR for the videography!)

Michael Isenberg is the author of Full Asylum, a novel about politics, freedom, and hospital gowns. Check it out on Amazon.com