Islam: The Untold Story Page #4

---

This is an example of the time

before the direction had

actually been preferred

towards Mecca.

So the implication of that is that,

at this early stage of Islam,

the focus of prayer has not yet

been absolutely fixed?

The direction of prayer had not been

well-established yet.

So it's bit like

the concrete hasn't yet set.

Yeah.

You can still play with it,

you can still fiddle around with it,

you can experiment with it.

Very much so.

Yeah. Wow.

'Not a decisive clue perhaps.

'But it is suggestive that,

'even though there are

no Muslim sources,

'there are reports

from Christian writers of the time

'that the Arab conquerors bowed

their heads in prayer

'not in the direction of Mecca,

'but in a quite different direction,

'somewhere further north.

'In the Qur'an...

'it never actually states

that Mohammed lived in Mecca.

'Nor that Mecca was where

the first revelations took place.'

Does the material in the Qur'an

point to Mecca being the setting

for God's revelations

to Mohammed ?

No, it doesn't.

'I mean,

there is mention of a sanctuary,

'there is a sanctuary, for sure.'

Where is that sanctuary,

that's, of course, we can't tell.

It's devilishly difficult to,

sort of, extract what the context

might have been from the text itself.

'In Muslim tradition,

the people of Mecca are pagans,

'worshippers of idols.

'But, in fact...

'the people the Qur'an describes

'have a deep

and sophisticated knowledge

'of the biblical tradition.'

The Qur'an retells biblical stories

and alludes to biblical stories,

not just biblical,

but also post-biblical developments.

'All this is clearly known

to the audience.'

It suggests that what we have is

a kind of response, on a part of,

let us say, Mohammed to the debates

that were going on

in Christian

and Jewish communities.

Where they were debating

theological issues and questions

that come out of the Hebrew Bible

and come out of the New Testament.

And the Qur'an seems to be

an effort to engage in the discussion

and so there's a strong connection

with Late Antique

religious discourses

that were alive

throughout the Near East.

'So it's obviously not a pagan world

we're looking for.

'The people in the Qur'an worship

a single god.

'But it then accuses them

of praying to beings other than God.

'And there's something else.

'The people the Prophet addresses

in the Qur'an are farmers,

'agriculturalists, but there was

no agriculture in Mecca.'

'Mecca does not have

an agrarian base.'

In Mecca, it seems to have been

quite an arid valley.

If Mecca is this barren,

infertile place,

how is it that, in the Qur'an,

the opponents of the Prophet

are described as keeping cattle

and growing olives and vines?

'Hm, good question.

'This is one of the reasons

why some scholars feel

'that the text of the Qur'an is

really plugged in to, say, Syria.'

'Because that's where vines

and olives grow.'

'Yeah.'

'Much further north.'

Geographical, Syria. You don't find

olive trees in Mecca.

'So if Mecca wasn't

the starting point of Islam,

'what was?

'If you're following the clues

in the Qur'an itself...

'then you're looking for a landscape

inhabited by olive-growing Arabs,

'who have a deep knowledge

of the biblical tradition,

'but whose worship of a single god

'might seem, to some,

a little shop-soiled.

'This is the city of Avdat,

'in the Negev Desert.

'Back in the early 7th century,

'it was an Arab city on the very

fringes of the Roman Empire.

'Nominally Christian, but with

hints of a recently pagan past.'

There can be no doubt that this is

a Christian place of worship.

There are two crosses

on the ceiling.

But there's also something

very interesting in the corner,

which is a bull complete with horns.

And the bull is an image that,

very probably,

is drawn from much older,

native Arab pagan traditions.

That doesn't mean

that the Christians who built this

were, themselves, pagan,

but it does mean, I think,

that they are giving

their monotheism,

their belief in a single god,

a little bit of pagan colour.

And that, essentially, is the crime

that Mohammed, in the Qur'an,

seems to be accusing

his opponents of.

'But Avdat had more than

the right religious complexion.

'It also had agriculture

and olives.'

In the lifetime of Mohammed,

all this would have been green.

It would have been agricultural

fields as far as the eye can see.

Archaeology leaves no doubt

that there was a sophisticated

irrigation system here

that really did make

the desert bloom.

And so, while that doesn't mean

that this Avdat

is the actual spot

where the Qur'an was composed,

it does imply, I think,

that the region, as a whole,

seems to fit the wider context

of the Qur'an

better than somewhere

much further south,

in the arid region of Mecca.

'When you read through

and through the Qur'an,

'what's really striking,

as compared, say, to the Bible,

'which is full of allusions

to recognisable landscapes

'that we know.

'In the Qur'an, it's an effort

to find an allusion to any landscape

'or natural setting

that we could actually pin down.

'In fact,

in the whole of the Qur'an,

'there's really only

the one exception.

'Not far from Avdat,

'a strange hint about

where the Qur'an might actually

'have come from.'

We are on the southernmost shores

of the Dead Sea.

Between, what is now,

Israel and Jordan.

Lot was the nephew of Abraham

and he went to settle down

in a city called Sodom.

And the people of Sodom

were notoriously racy.

Unsurprisingly,

this provoked the wrath of God.

He destroyed his city and this is

said to be the remains of Sodom,

where the anger of God

was poured down upon it.

And the Qur'an,

"So also was Lot

among those sent by us.

"Behold, we delivered him

and his adherents,

"all except an old woman who was

among those who lagged behind.

"Then we destroyed the rest.

"Truly, you pass by their sites

by day and by night."

'But if the people being addressed

by the Prophet

'are passing this place

by day and by night,

'then what's it doing here?

'1,000 kilometres from Mecca.

'In terms of someone

who is looking for clues...

'..you are very much in the

situation of someone who is panning

for gold.

'And I think that this passage

is just one little fleck.

'I mean, there is one possibility,

of course,

'which is that this one fragment

originated in this neighbourhood.

'Perhaps the rest came

from elsewhere.

'But that then begs the question

'of where all the various component

parts of the Qur'an are coming from.

'Are they necessarily

to be attributed

'to one person living at one time?

'Again, when you start asking

that question,

'it's very hard

to know how far to push it.'

'It's from the West

that this kind of history came up.'

That its reason is our ultimate

decider and judge of the truth.

'But what I'm saying is that those

are not really going to give you

'the reason

that is logically satisfying.'

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes