Very Jewish?
Islam can be seen as a tribal rebellion against the Byzantine and Persian empires, with the Arabs and Jews being allies against these empires.
("The gospel truth?" Patricia Crone - Wikipedia)
Tom Holland
Tom Holland suggests in his book, In The Shadow of the Sword, that Islam took many, many decades to evolve.
Islam: the Untold Story, review
Were the Arabs of the seventh century Muslim at all?
"Tom Holland kept on asking questions like that during Islam: the Untold Story." (UK's Channel 4).
Islam: the Untold Story, review
"Tom Holland kept on asking questions like that during Islam: the Untold Story." (UK's Channel 4).
Islam: the Untold Story, review
What is the historical evidence for the seventh century origins of Islam?
Tom Holland writes: "What I actually said in the film was that I had expected to find contemporaneous Muslim evidence - 'but there's nothing there.'
"And the Koran aside, the first mention of the prophet Muhammad's name in Arabic is on the coin that we featured in Part Five, and on the Dome of the Rock."
Professor Fred Donner has written:
"We have to admit collectively that we simply do not know some very basic things about the Koran - things so basic that the knowledge of them is usually taken for granted by scholars dealing with other texts.
"They include such questions as: How did the Qur'an originate? Where did it come from, and when did it first appear? How was it first written? In what kind of language was - is - it written?"
Islam: The Untold Story - Tom Holland responds.
Tom Holland suggests that the caliphs used Mohmmed in the same way that Constantine and other Emperors used Christ - to help bolster their Empires.
Tom Holland suggests that the caliphs used Mohmmed in the same way that Constantine and other Emperors used Christ - to help bolster their Empires.
He also suggests that it developed out of Jewish, Christian and other cultures.
Holland does not see the Koran as History.
Holland says: "I think there’s a degree to which Muslims, far more than Christians, have felt that the foundation myths of their religion are somehow historical fact, and it seems to me that they’re clearly not. There must be a bedrock of fact, but it is more sacred history than it is history....
"There’s a sense in which I think as Islam evolves and as, let’s say, Muslims start to realize that they are in competition with Jews and Christians, they need to have their Prophet have a revelation from an angel...
"The horror of the Near East in the seventh century beggers description - it’s a place ravaged by plague, by war, by gangs, by factionalism and of course in such a world women are objects to be stolen and plundered and abused.
"A lot of the things about Islam which seem retrogressive to us now at the time must have been an absolute blessing to women.
"One of the reasons why it’s specified that a man can have more than one wife is precisely so women will have a protector.
Islam in Spain.
"The requirements to keep themselves covered, which seems to us so sexist, actually in a world where a
woman’s flesh is a commodity, is something incredibly precious.
woman’s flesh is a commodity, is something incredibly precious.
"So I think that looking at it in that light you see, ethically and morally, just how much better the world is for these revolutions.
"And so it’s so tempting to buy into the notion that everything was great before these miserable Christians with their grey breath and these Muslims with their stern repellent warrior king came along, but I have absolutely no doubt that I’d rather be living in a monotheistic world than a premonotheistic world."
In The Shadow of the Sword, by Tom Holland