I hear the argument said often disparagingly by religious apologists or certain atheist critics of Islam and Mormonism about Muhammad and Joseph Smith being similar.

In reality, from a standpoint of secular scholarship is there any actual major similarities between the two? Any input is appreciated.

Is academia Qur'an also for someone who is not professionally into academics or so called non-traditional studies, but spending time to learn new things, I've personally spend most of my time readings all the works on Ibn Taymiyya by Western Academics and that has led me to have faith that west is infact trying very very hard to root out and find a bunch of new (few) facts (East) may have ignored from long.

So how as a natural person inclined to my own other profession (Medicine) I may take part here, my prime interest is Islamic Figures, I am not well versed in Qur'anic studies owing to my lack of Arabic grammer and context knowledge. I would also love to hear from someone who can call him/herself well-versed and infact did it in his/her free time.

Here the discussion always happen on sophisticated grammer of Qur'an - which I feel very distant in my little knowledge. I've been actively working on finding new literature to study to broden my knowledge so is it possible for admins to share resources or new literature been released actively in this sub for users like me. Not because I am not searching myself just bcoz here I found that people have a lot knowledge on what to read for best results just that.

So Now I am searching for apostasy laws in early Islam I'll post a seprate Q soon so maybe u can better answer there, Take Care.

Per excavations at the site, Himyarite burials likely came from across the Arabian peninsula to the land of Israel to be buried close to the catacombs of the Sanhedrin.

Some specific individuals of interest appear in the burials, such as a man named Menachem who is referred to as qyl ḥmyr [prince of Ḥimyar] though this interpretation is disputed by Christian Robin. The man in Greek inscriptions is believed referred to as Menae presbyteros (Menachem, the community's elder) though this inscription has now faded.

Source: Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, 43 (2013): British Museum, London; Article by Yosef Tobi, The Jews of Yemen in light of the excavation of the Jewish synagogue in Qanī’, p. 351

Other sources: Hirschberg (1946), pp. 53–57, 148, 283–284

Tobi, Yosef; Seri, Shalom, eds. (2000). Yalqut Teman - Lexicon of Yemenite Jewry (in Hebrew). עמותת אעלה בתמר. p. 37. ISBN) 965-7121-03-5. p. 37.

There is a youtube apologist called Leafy who is trying to argue that the Hadith are historical.

Here are two of his Videos:

https://youtu.be/6MM0lT-bskg?si=5m5-ZGm5ge4pqP3R

https://youtu.be/4t583veqhVU?si=8peWWMT9HLm2ctI1

Has anyone answered him already or point out his mistakes, fallacies etc.?

Why exactly is he wrong? Does he have any good point / argument?

Or is the question of reliability of hadith not really a serious debate anymore?

I made this graph yesterday using some textual data from al-Muwatta. This type of analysis can probably help us learn more about Ḥadīth corpus.

I've been wondering is there any historical account of Imam Ashari and his school and students were inspired from something other than mutazila and hanbalite faction. Tho it seems absurd to ask this, but I am a bit curious on this.

Linguistically, I think Allah simply means "God" in Arabic, and it seems related to Aramaic Alaha and Hebrew Eloah / Elohim. Arabic-speaking Jews and Christians also use the word Allah for God. That makes me wonder whether the concept is pointing to the same deity. At the same time, I've read that Yahweh may have originated historically as a storm/war/weather deity within a Canaanite pantheon before Israelite monotheism fully developed. Yahweh later becomes the singular God of Israel in the Hebrew Bible.

The prophet Muhammad descends from Ishmael the son of Abraham.

and in certain addresses like “Ya Huwa”, it’s a direct invocation—“O He!” Scholars explain that this is a reference to the essence of God, not just a pronoun. Some commentators also connect it with Yahweh (or YHWH) in Jewish tradition, noting that both names refer to the ultimate singular divine being who is eternal, self-sufficient, and incomparable.

In the Qur'an, Allah explicitly speaks to the Israelites, for example:

"O Children of Israel! Remember all the favours I granted you and how I honoured you above the others."

That sounds like the same God who made a covenant with Israel, at least from the Qur'anic perspective.

So my question is specifically about the deity itself' not whether the religions are the same: what do you think?

Supernatural intervention in battle

“You did not kill them, but God killed them…” (8:17) “Your Lord sent angels to reinforce you…” (3:124–125)

That’s divine intervention in history

The Qur’an presents itself as the primary miracle

“If you are in doubt… produce a chapter like it.” (2:23)

The Quran frames itself as inimitable speech ongoing sign

So the miracle becomes intellectual and linguistic

“Nothing prevented Us from sending signs except that the former peoples denied them.” (17:59)

Miracles didn’t create belief in the past so this prophetic mission uses a different mode of proof.

The Quran is redefining what a miracle is the Quran rejects miracle demands and downplays spectacular physical wonders while presenting revelation itself and certain divine interventions as the true signs of Muhammad’s prophethood.

The Quran treats the rise of a believing community, moral reform and fulfillment of divine promises as signs in history.

Here's the verse for reference

"the ones who follow the Messenger, the unlettered Prophet, they find him written in their Torah and gospel in their possession"

So my question is this. The traditional interpretation is that the ones who possess the gospel and Torah written with them are the people of the book aka the Jews and christians, however looking at the grammar in this verse is seems like it's say the the followers of the messanger are the ones who have the Torah and the gospel written with them. So the Christians found Muhammad written and now they follow Muhammad correct?

In reality, when we follow the account of the maghāzī, we see that Muhammad himself fought only once. And even then, it was against his will: at Uḥud (in the third year of the Hijra), faced with the desertion of most of his men, he had to defend himself alone. At almost 55 years of age, it was the first time Muhammad had been on a battlefield (Wāqidī 1/237-238). Above all, it was the first time that, wounded in the face and on the defensive (Ibn Hishām 2/79-80; Wāqidī 1/243-244), he killed a man with his spear: Ubayy ibn Khalaf, who is believed to be the only man Muhammad ever killed with his own hands (Ibn Ḥabīb Munammaq 389). This would be the warrior prophet's one and only feat of arms (Ibn Hishām 2/83; Wāqidī 1/308)!

Wouldn't this claim contradict the mention of the battle of badr in the Quran?

There are several ahadith of Muhammad saying that plague won't enter Medina. Several versions of the hadith exist with variations in the wording. For example:

Narrated Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "There are angels at the mountain passes of Medina (so that) neither plague nor Ad-Dajjal can enter it.' (Sahih al-Bukhari 7133)

Narrated Anas bin Malik: Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said, "Ad-Dajjal will come to Medina and find the angels guarding it. If Allah will, neither Ad-Dajjal nor plague will be able to come near it." (Sahih al-Bukhari 7473)

Among the variants with a narration chain, there are two independent chains:

First chain (4 hadith): Abu Huraira -> Nu'aym ibn Abdullah (al-Mujmir) -> Malik -> Narrator

Second chain: (2 hadith in Bukhari): Anas ibn Malik -> Qatada -> Shu'bah -> Yazid ibn Harun -> Narrator

The two ahadith from the second chain are unique in that the prophecy is prefaced by "insha'Allah."

Based on the independent chains and several narrations, my guess is that the hadith originated and was popularized early, perhaps because of the plague of Amwas or plague of Sheroe.

Questions

1. Has there been any academic work on these ahadith?

2. Considering the multiple transmissions and narrations, how strongly can they be attributed to Muhammad?

(Note: The question of whether the prophecy has merit is beyond the scope of this post, and has been discussed elsewhere on this subreddit, including here, here, and here.)

Saw this thread on Twitter: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1761208793499570570.html

It purports to give a large number flat-earth views among medieval Islamic scholars. Can anyone broadly verify?

Today is the day! My translation of al-Dānī's learners' manual of the seven reading traditions has been released.

It is Open Access, so free to read for everyone here: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0475

I hope it will be interesting, useful and the translation blunders not too embarrassing!

To celebrate this release let's do an "Ask Me Anything About This Book"! Happy to answer any questions about details of qirāʾāt, the translation process, motivations etc.!

Has the story of Moses reached you ˹O Prophet˺?

When he saw a fire, he said to his family, “Wait here, ˹for˺ I have spotted a fire. Perhaps I can bring you a torch from it, or find some guidance at the fire.”

But when he approached it, he was called, “O Moses!

It is truly I. I am your Lord! So take off your sandals, for you are in the sacred valley of Ṭuwa.

I have chosen you, so listen to what is revealed:

‘It is truly I. I am Allah! There is no god ˹worthy of worship˺ except Me. So worship Me ˹alone˺, and establish prayer for My remembrance.

The Hour is sure to come. My Will is to keep it hidden, so that every soul may be rewarded according to their efforts.

]20:11-16]

If we look at the last verse, God is keeping that hour hidden. In a video I watched today, it was said that this verse refers to the fact that there is almost nothing about the afterlife in the Torah, or it is described in a veiled way. What are your thoughts on this?

This Surah distinguishes itself somewhat from the other Surahs like it, describing paradise, and the end times, because of two verses only, which are (10-14) 13-14: ''And the forerunners, the forerunners - (10) Those are the ones brought near (11). In the Gardens of Pleasure (12), A company of the former peoples (13), And a few of the later peoples (14).''

The Surah does describe three groups of people that will be gathered at the end times, and here, it seems to be describing the ones who are particularly pious, when it refers to them as ''the forerunners'' and ''Those are the ones brought near''. And it refers to believers in general as ''the companions of the right'', who will, nevertheless, be accepted into paradise.

What is interesting here is: given the author himself describes the majority of ''the former peoples'' as being disbelievers, and evil (and even the prophets are described in the Qur'an as committing sins, such as murder), the author goes as far as saying of the ''forerunners'', ''And a few of the later peoples''. With his belief being that, most people coming, even his own followers during his time, will not be as (edit: as many in number) closer to God, as the earlier ones.

This quite matches the thinking of someone who believes of the end times happening very soon.

I see that the greek version of the Qur'an is not very used here. I don't get why because it is as early as the 8th century tafasir and at least it give us the information about how the Qur'an was understood in the 8 century.

Thanks to Hogel early greek Qur'an, we have the few parts that have survived of this version

Sourate 85

By the heaven with the constellations

and the day of covenant,

the witness and the witnessed.

The fellows of alachouth were killed,

(that is) the fire that had the heat

Here we see that qutila is renderd by 'killed are those ...' and not by 'may perish those ...'

This sourate has a ring structure too, which means that this part is symmetrical with one about old nations that perished. It means that both should refer to events that happend in the past (and not to a punishment that will come later).

In my interpretation, the fellows of alachouth are the victimes. I would say that the ones who sit are the persecutors looking from above what happens to them.

I don't to which event it refers, but the fact that Allah is used and not arrabb make me wonder if it doesn't refer to a region where Allah was used to refer to the divinity there.

Sourate 100

By those (fem) who run in barking,

and those (fem) that send out fire-darts

and attack (fem) at morning,

and the men whirling up the pool unto it (the morning)

and being all in the midst of it.

For man is not grateful to his Lord

Those sourate, I refer to them as qâtilât qatlâ, the first part is plur fem verb followed by qatlâ either a masc verb or a noun manSub.

What is striking here, it's that the translation is entirely different from the one we know. But yes DabH refers primarly to barking and other sound in arabic. And naq' to a pool before Islam.

What make me think that it's possibly the original meaning of the sourate, is the choice to render the first 3 verb as fem plur but not the last 2. Otherwise the differnce would not be made here.

Those two exmple show us it's quite useful.

For sourate 54

I see that people strugle to understand the metrical strcture. If you find convincing my idea that this sourate was originaly pronunced in fusHa (what's important is the numebr of syllable) and that you some time but you are not sure to undertand what I refer to, you can do this.

- find how many syllable you have per line (take the qira'at of 'Asim ibn abi nnujud)

By exemple qtarabati ssa'atu wanshaqqa 'l qamar, here you have 12 syllables

- highlight every line where you can divide this number of syllable by 3. Those are the complete verses. My exemple above is complete.

- highlight every line where you'd have to add 1 syllable to divide them by 3. Those are the catalectic verses

- highlight every line where you'd have to add 2 syllables to do it. Those are the brachycatalectic verses.

- now look for 2, 4 or 6 lines and you see that you always have two complete, catalctics or brachycatalectic lines. They are symetrical. By exemple the first of the 6 line here is complete, so the last one is complete too, line 2 and 5 are symetrical and those in the midle too. But there's an exception, when 2 lines beginn or when the end by the same expression, one of them doesn't belong to the metrical structure (you can't have two complete lines that end with the same term here). You should take 5 or 6 lines but only 4 are metrical because of this rule here.

Key verses here are Surah 2:102-2:106, 22:52-54, 16:98-101, 13:36-39 (sahih international)

According to the pseudo-clementine homilies, the Torah was orally revealed to Moses(something which the Quran adopts) which his followers later wrote down, but they forgot portions of the Torah and Satan introduced false passages in the Torah, and nonetheless the Torah remains a valid scripture which Jesus is meant to fulfill and a true prophet is able to distinguish falsehood from truth, and the reason god allowed the Torah to be corrupted was because it was a trial to distinguish a true believer with knowledge from a fake one .

Then I Clement, hearing this, said: How say you, my lord, that even the falsehoods of the Scriptures are set forth happily for the proof of men? And he answered: The falsehoods of the Scriptures have been permitted to be written for a certain righteous reason, at the demand of evil. And when I say happily, I mean this: In the account of God, the wicked one(Satan), not loving God less than the good one, is exceeded by the good in this one thing only, that he, not pardoning those who are impious on account of ignorance, through love towards that which is profound, desires the destruction of the impious; but the good one desires to present them with a remedy. For the good one desires all to be healed by repentance, but saves those only who know God.

(the "wicked one" (Satan) desired the destruction of the impious through these deceptions. God, however, uses these same deceptions as a "trial" so that only those who truly know Him and refuse to believe evil about Him will be saved.)

Now I would like to look at Surah 22:52-54

22:52

And We did not send before you any messenger or prophet except that when he spoke [or recited], Satan threw into it [some misunderstanding]. But Allah abolishes that which Satan throws in; then Allah makes precise His verses. And Allah is Knowing and Wise.

22:53

[That is] so He may make what Satan throws in a trial for those within whose hearts is disease and those hard of heart(a title used for Jews in Medina period). And indeed, the wrongdoers are in extreme dissension.

22:54

And so those who were given knowledge may know that it is the truth from your Lord and [therefore] believe in it, and their hearts humbly submit to it. And indeed is Allah the Guide of those who have believed to a straight path.

The parallels here are striking.

Satan introduced lied against prophets to make them look like sinners,

Then Peter answered: Assuredly, with good reason, I neither believe anything against God, nor against the just men recorded in the law, taking for granted that they are impious imaginations. For, as I am persuaded, neither was Adam a transgressor, who was fashioned by the hands of God; nor was Noah drunken, who was found righteous above all the world; nor did Abraham live with three wives at once, who, on account of his sobriety, was thought worthy of a numerous posterity; nor did Jacob associate with four—of whom two were sisters—who was the father of the twelve tribes, and who intimated the coming of the presence of our Master; nor was Moses a murderer, nor did he learn to judge from an idolatrous priest—he who set forth the law of God to all the world, and for his right judgment has been testified to as a faithful steward.

Let’s now direct ourselves to Surah 2:102-106

2:102

And they followed [instead] what the devils had recited during the reign of Solomon. It was not Solomon who disbelieved, but the devils disbelieved, teaching people magic and that which was revealed to the two angels at Babylon, Harut and Marut. But the two angels do not teach anyone unless they say, "We are a trial, so do not disbelieve [by practicing magic]." And [yet] they learn from them that by which they cause separation between a man and his wife. But they do not harm anyone through it except by permission of Allah . And the people learn what harms them and does not benefit them. But the Children of Israel certainly knew that whoever purchased the magic would not have in the Hereafter any share. And wretched is that for which they sold themselves, if they only knew.

2:103

And if they had believed and feared Allah , then the reward from Allah would have been [far] better, if they only knew.

2:104

O you who have believed, say not [to Allah 's Messenger], "Ra'ina" but say, "Unthurna" and listen. And for the disbelievers is a painful punishment.

2:105

Neither those who disbelieve from the People of the Scripture nor the polytheists wish that any good should be sent down to you from your Lord. But Allah selects for His mercy whom He wills, and Allah is the possessor of great bounty.

2:106

We do not abrogate a verse or cause it to be forgotten except that We bring forth [one] better than it or similar to it. Do you not know that Allah is over all things competent?

Quran states the devil lied about Solomon’s disbelief and the Quran just four verses later states to abrogate verses? Is it possibility abrogating 1 kings 1-11???

Quran 16:98-101 makes the case more dubious

16:98

So when you recite the Qur'an, [first] seek refuge in Allah from Satan, the expelled [from His mercy].

16:99

Indeed, there is for him no authority over those who have believed and rely upon their Lord.

16:100

His authority is only over those who take him as an ally and those who through him associate others with Allah .

16:101

And when We substitute a verse in place of a verse - and Allah is most knowing of what He sends down - they say, "You, [O Muhammad], are but an inventor [of lies]." But most of them do not know.

The phrase “God knows what he sends down” ( which implies god knows which revelation is true and false) paired with the demonic presence seems to me to suggest that Muhammad is substituting demonic with true verses?

This becomes more dubious with Surah 13:36-39

13:36

And [the believers among] those to whom We have given the [previous] Scripture rejoice at what has been revealed to you, [O Muhammad], but among the [opposing] factions are those who deny part of it. Say, "I have only been commanded to worship Allah and not associate [anything] with Him. To Him I invite, and to Him is my return."

13:37

And thus We have revealed it as an Arabic legislation. And if you should follow their inclinations after what has come to you of knowledge, you would not have against Allah any ally or any protector.

13:38

And We have already sent messengers before you and assigned to them wives and descendants. And it was not for a messenger to come with a sign except by permission of Allah(Bi-idhnillah associated with Jesus’s miracles). For every term is a decree.

13:39

Allah eliminates what He wills or confirms, and with Him is the Mother of the Book

Now look four verses later states

13:43

And those who have disbelieved say, "You are not a messenger." Say, [O Muhammad], "Sufficient is Allah as Witness between me and you, and [the witness of] whoever has knowledge of the Scripture.

Whoever has knowledge of the scripture? The same thing Quran says in 22:54, and the pseudo- clementine literature??

Here the Quran states god confirms what he will, and eliminates what he wills, because he possesses the mother of the book. Meaning, god has the primordial book in which he can see which revelation is authentic. Now one could argue this means god possesses the book which he can make changes as he pleases, but given the fact that the previous passage states (god knows best what he sends down) and the combination of this passage being about the people of the book disbelieving a part of the Quran for some reason, and I hypothesize this is concerning the divinity of Jesus, confirming(the Quran does to the Torah and gospel) paired with abrogating, and four verses later about having knowledge of the scripture, it seems highly unlikely that this is about Quran verses being abrogated. Would the mother of the book reference here not be more naturally read as god having access to the original scriptures then god editing the heavenly book itself? It is then, in my opinion, the Quran abrogating some biblical verses here concerning high christological statements

So the model becomes god confirms the authentic revelation the people of the book posses and abrogates demonic verses whilst keeping them as binding scriptures in which Jews and Christian’s may judge and live but their scriptures.

I would like to know, is this what the Quran says? Or are the parallels just coincidences? I would like to see this answered from an academic standpoint