Pages

▼

Thursday, November 05, 2015

The "Proto-Islamic" era

Normally I don't waste my time with Twitter trolls, but this exchange last week was especially interesting:










Muslim coin with Menorah
The term "proto-Islamic" was new to me, so I was wondering exactly what time period this period covers. So I checked it out.

Abraham is indeed the patriarch of the Jews but he is also the patriarch of the Muslims, as in Quranic Muslims. In the Quran, it is stated that Abraham was a Muslim.

Islam is not the name of a religion founded by Prophet Muhammad. Muhammad merely restored Islam to the world. Islam existed before Muhammad. Islam is an Arabic word that means Worship The One God.

Adam is the founder of Proto-Islam, the informal Islam which we are all born with. When Abraham came, Proto-Islam became two, namely Universal Monotheism (Hinduism) which is described in the Quran as the Sabaean faith, and Abrahamic Islam, the religion of Abraham.

Abraham acknowledged both Abrahamic Islam and Universal Monotheism as valid and correct.

Abraham, also called the Friend of God, was the prophet who received the formal Islam from God. This formal Islam, later revived by Muhammad, was a distinct community, with its mission of doing good to the ends of the Earth.

If everyone since Adam was proto-Islamic, then it is hard to argue that Islam came after other religions.

A somewhat more scholarly source - a book synopsis at the National Endowment for the Humanities site from Oxford Islamic Studies Online - identifies "proto-Islam" as being founded by Abraham:

Abraham, one of the many Old Testament figures that appear in the Qurʿān as a prophet of the Biblical tradition, assumes an outstanding role in Islam because of his association with (proto-)Islam, an uncorrupted form of Biblical monotheism that preceded the foundations of Judaism and Christianity.

...As the founder of proto-Islam, Abraham is connected closely with the Prophet Muḥammad. Abraham is the name of the Prophet's son, who did not survive, by his wife Mary the Copt. Abraham also appears prominently in most versions of the legend of the Prophet Muḥammad's Night Journey and Ascension to Heaven (al-isrāʿ wa al-miʿrāj), along with Moses and Jesus; the Prophet meets with him either in Jerusalem or in the sixth or seventh heaven, and in some traditional reports (ḥadīths) Muḥammad refers to Abraham as his father. A number of ḥadīth reports stress the close physical resemblance between Muḥammad and Abraham; he is reported to have stated, “I saw Abraham; I look like his son.”
Scholars of Judaism would recognize that last hadith as a theft from the Talmudic passage that says that God made Isaac resemble Abraham so that no one could doubt the boy's parentage.

Or did the Talmud steal it from proto-Islam - before Mohammed was born?

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
at