I finished reading earlier today Patricia Crone and Michael Cook's "Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World" (1977 ed.). I admit I only skimmed the last section of the book and the first appendix. One of the previous owners of the book (which I had borrowed from the uni library) had some...colorful things to say about the writing in the margins and I was inclined to agree on occasion...
Anyway, the book presents Crone and Cook's theory that Islam did not start off the way it is traditionally thought to have started, i.e., Muhammad decided to create a religion, amassed some followers, they grew, they fought other Arab tribes, eventually becoming strong enough to conquer the Levant, though by that time Muhammad had already passed away. Crone and Cook state that this tradition evolved from efforts of the first Muslims to hide their "true" history, because that history became intangible and detrimental to their religious goals. What was the supposed true history?
Some Pre-Islamic Arabs were influenced by Jews that came to Arabia. Muhammad was the one most influenced by them and he spread the word: Ishmael and Israel are brethren and must join forces to reclaim their joint birthright: The Land of Israel. Jews and Arabs merged into twelve tribes and reenacted the Israelite conquest of the Land of Israel. Once conquered, the Muslims - then called Hagareans - were left with a dilemma: Having conquered the Land of Israel per the Abrahamic birthright, technically that meant they had to concede and hand over control to the Jews, who would then instate the Jewish messianic Davidic king and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. But they were not interested in doing that, because they wanted to carve out their own place in the world. So they split with the Jews, built Al Aqsa on the Temple Mount and began transforming their religion and their historic roots. They borrowed motifs from both the Christians and the Samaritans while preserving some grains of Judaism. They changed Muhammad's biography, including moving his death back by two years (prior to the conquest; originally Muhammad commanded the conquering forces from his HQ in Medina). In short, the conquest of Israel may be deemed as the Jewish-Muslim "parting of ways". The authors base their argument mostly on the relative few non-Muslim sources that describe the Arab conquest of the Levant, which describe things in manners significantly different from Muslim sources.
The book then proceeds to explain how the Islamic forces managed to assimilate culturally and religiously the rest of the Middle East. The entire book is written in a very cumbersome manner. They use very complicated language to explain things that could have been explained with much simpler words, and the second section of the book is even more difficult to follow than the first. A previous owner noted in the margins on occasion: גיבוב של שטויות - a hash of nonsense. Now, while I don't think everything is nonsense, I do agree that much circumlocution was used and that is unfortunate.
My thoughts on the theory: This is not the first time that I have come across a "The winners went back and methodically erased history and everything we know today is wrong" theory. My problem will always be: Nobody can actually tell me who these people were. What were their names? Were they Bob, Joe and Barry? Were they Ahmad, Muhammad and Mustafa? Who were the masterminds of such a successful, methodical, Illuminati-level plan to change history? Did they plan things out that described in these books or did they simply let life lead them wherever it wanted? I demand to see the minutes of the full reports of these master plans being implemented. I hope you catch my drift. Of course, no such minutes or reports exist. No scribe wrote everything everyone said or did. And nobody knows the names of the secret agents who stormed every literary archive and changed dates and names. Ultimately, it makes it convenient to present such theories, because they include many half-proofs and to anyone who disagrees, they will shout "PROVE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN LIKE THAT!" (and of course they can't, because the Egyptian or Perisan or Roman or Seleucid or Jewish or Muslim Illuminati changed everything and made sure that no one would be able to prove anything had ever been different).
Has anyone read the book? Any thoughts?
Anyway, the book presents Crone and Cook's theory that Islam did not start off the way it is traditionally thought to have started, i.e., Muhammad decided to create a religion, amassed some followers, they grew, they fought other Arab tribes, eventually becoming strong enough to conquer the Levant, though by that time Muhammad had already passed away. Crone and Cook state that this tradition evolved from efforts of the first Muslims to hide their "true" history, because that history became intangible and detrimental to their religious goals. What was the supposed true history?
Some Pre-Islamic Arabs were influenced by Jews that came to Arabia. Muhammad was the one most influenced by them and he spread the word: Ishmael and Israel are brethren and must join forces to reclaim their joint birthright: The Land of Israel. Jews and Arabs merged into twelve tribes and reenacted the Israelite conquest of the Land of Israel. Once conquered, the Muslims - then called Hagareans - were left with a dilemma: Having conquered the Land of Israel per the Abrahamic birthright, technically that meant they had to concede and hand over control to the Jews, who would then instate the Jewish messianic Davidic king and rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem. But they were not interested in doing that, because they wanted to carve out their own place in the world. So they split with the Jews, built Al Aqsa on the Temple Mount and began transforming their religion and their historic roots. They borrowed motifs from both the Christians and the Samaritans while preserving some grains of Judaism. They changed Muhammad's biography, including moving his death back by two years (prior to the conquest; originally Muhammad commanded the conquering forces from his HQ in Medina). In short, the conquest of Israel may be deemed as the Jewish-Muslim "parting of ways". The authors base their argument mostly on the relative few non-Muslim sources that describe the Arab conquest of the Levant, which describe things in manners significantly different from Muslim sources.
The book then proceeds to explain how the Islamic forces managed to assimilate culturally and religiously the rest of the Middle East. The entire book is written in a very cumbersome manner. They use very complicated language to explain things that could have been explained with much simpler words, and the second section of the book is even more difficult to follow than the first. A previous owner noted in the margins on occasion: גיבוב של שטויות - a hash of nonsense. Now, while I don't think everything is nonsense, I do agree that much circumlocution was used and that is unfortunate.
My thoughts on the theory: This is not the first time that I have come across a "The winners went back and methodically erased history and everything we know today is wrong" theory. My problem will always be: Nobody can actually tell me who these people were. What were their names? Were they Bob, Joe and Barry? Were they Ahmad, Muhammad and Mustafa? Who were the masterminds of such a successful, methodical, Illuminati-level plan to change history? Did they plan things out that described in these books or did they simply let life lead them wherever it wanted? I demand to see the minutes of the full reports of these master plans being implemented. I hope you catch my drift. Of course, no such minutes or reports exist. No scribe wrote everything everyone said or did. And nobody knows the names of the secret agents who stormed every literary archive and changed dates and names. Ultimately, it makes it convenient to present such theories, because they include many half-proofs and to anyone who disagrees, they will shout "PROVE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN LIKE THAT!" (and of course they can't, because the Egyptian or Perisan or Roman or Seleucid or Jewish or Muslim Illuminati changed everything and made sure that no one would be able to prove anything had ever been different).
Has anyone read the book? Any thoughts?
