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Maria, Jezus en de keten van revelaties en profeten : een hypothese wat de Koran doet met de protagonisten van het christendom, vanuit welke mogelijke gronden en met welk effect. In D. Praet (Ed.), Christendom en Islam. Brussels: VUB Press, 19-125.
Abstract
In this chapter the question is raised what the Qur'an 'does' to the Christian Jesus and Mary, on which grounds and to what effect. Rather than interpreting parallels and differences with Christian sources as '(sectarian) influences' and 'misconceptions', it is investigated how the changes, as a whole, can be seen as part of a coherent discourse and can be linked to what we now know about pre-Islamic Arabia, the hanifiyya movement, and to what the Qur'an tells about itself. The Qur'an is approached as a late antique testimony of ongoing debates which result in a text which takes position in a landscape shattered by internal strife. Thus we discover that in the Qur'an, there is not just a different story, but sections that can be seen as 'rewritten scripture'; the chain of prophets and revelations is reinterpreted, which is why the story is told differently.
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"The purpose of this article is to determine the extent, if any, of schismatic Christian influences on the Qur’an’s misunderstanding about the nature of Christ. It will identify the dissonant Christian groups present in Arabia at the time of Muhammad, as well as discuss their Christological views, the probability of Muhammad’s contact with them, and the likelihood that Muhammad borrowed from these groups in creating the Qur’anic view of Jesus. In the end, it is probable that the Qur’an partially, though not consistently, reflects some of the competing Christologies among Christian schismatics in Arabia at the time of Muhammad" (taken from the introduction).
In 1902, British Syriac scholar Agnes Smith Lewis published the oldest Dormition manuscript, a narrative about the death of Jesus’s mother. Its fifth-century text described scenes where Mary exorcised, healed, sealed, sprinkled water, preached, and led the apostles in prayer. Later copyists, however, independently redacted these heterodox markers of Mary’s ecclesial authority, and Dormition homilists went further, adding orthodox markers of female respectability to their texts. Supplementing the traditions about female priesthood in the Dormition narrative, other early Christian writings about Mary the mother, or a female protagonist named just “Mary,” contain literary artifacts indicating that their authors believed she had been a Eucharistic priest. The heterodox nature of these writings suggests their composition belongs to the second century at the latest, along with the Protevangelium and the Gospel of Mary. As such, they may contain first-century oral traditions about a Jewish woman named Mary, the historical mother of Jesus.
The Muslim afterworld, with its imagery rich in sensual promises, has shaped Western perceptions of Islam for centuries. However, to date, no single study has done justice to the full spectrum of traditions of thinking about the topic in Islamic history. The Muslim hell, in particular, remains a little studied subject. This book, which is based on a wide array of carefully selected Arabic and Persian texts, covers not only the theological and exegetical but also the philosophical, mystical, topographical, architectural and ritual aspects of the Muslim belief in paradise and hell, in both the Sunni and the Shiʿi world. By examining a broad range of sources related to the afterlife, Christian Lange shows that Muslim religious literature, against transcendentalist assumptions to the contrary, often pictures the boundary between this world and the otherworld as being remarkably thin, or even permeable.
Why and under what circumstances did the religion of Islam emerge in a remote part of Arabia at the beginning of the seventh century? Traditional scholarship maintains that Islam developed in opposition to the idolatrous and polytheistic religion of the Arabs of Mecca and the surrounding regions. In this study of pre-Islamic Arabian religion, G. R. Hawting adopts a comparative religious perspective to suggest an alternative view. By examining the various bodies of evidence which survive from this period, the Koran and the vast resources of the Islamic tradition, the author argues that in fact Islam arose out of conflict with other monotheists whose beliefs and practices were judged to fall short of true monotheism and were, in consequence, attacked polemically as idolatry. The author is adept at unravelling the complexities of the source material, and students and scholars will find his argument both engaging and persuasive.
When, in 1995, Geoffrey Hartman presented trauma theory in his influential article “On Traumatic Knowledge and Literary Studies” as offering a welcome “change of perspective” to literary studies, not only at the level of theory but also “of exegesis in the service of insights about human functioning” (544), he correctly predicted the huge impact that trauma theory would have on literary criticism. Part of the widespread impact of trauma theory has however been its critique by theorists and critics in the field who have pointed out many controversies, contradictions, and limitations in the theory originally conceptualized by Hartman, Cathy Caruth, and others of the Yale School. In postcolonial literary studies in particular, criticism of the dominant trauma paradigm has been a constant since trauma theory first appeared in this field. In 2008 several publications pointed out the limits of trauma theory for postcolonial studies, such as its depoliticizing and dehistoricizing tendencies. Roger Luckhurst remarked in The Trauma Question (2008) that in overlooking political concerns, trauma theory “shockingly fails to address atrocity, genocide and war” (213). In a special issue of Studies in the Novel (2008), devoted to a project to effectuate a “rapprochement” between trauma theory and postcolonial literary theory, trauma theory was presented in the introduction as having strengths for postcolonial literary studies to incorporate, but also weaknesses to be reconfigured.
Many important western works on the Qurʾān are focused on the question of religious influences. The prototypical work of this genre is concerned with Judaism and the Qurʾān: Abraham’s Geiger’s 1833 Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen , or “What Did Muhammad Acquire from Judaism?” In Geiger’s work – and the works of many who followed him – material in the Qurʾān is compared to similar material in Jewish or Christian literature in the hope of arriving at a better understanding of the Qurʾān’s origins.
In the present article I argue that these sorts of studies often include a simplistic perspective on Qur’anic rhetoric. In order to pursue this argument I focus on a common feature of these works, namely a comparison between material in the Qurʾān on Christ and Christianity with reports on the teachings of Christian heretical groups. Behind this feature is a conviction that heretical Christian groups existed in the Arabian peninsula at the time of Islam’s origins and that these groups influenced the Prophet. I will argue that once the Qurʾān’s creative use of rhetorical strategies such as hyperbole is appreciated, the need to search for Christian heretics disappears entirely.
In the previous chapter, Walid Saleh describes the many portents from Muḥammad’s early life that set the stage for his ultimate role as prophet to Arabia. Such miraculous events are said to have continued throughout the Prophet’s life, confirming his mission and demonstrating his personal connection to God. The present chapter looks more closely at the differences between the two major sources for Muḥammad’s life, namely the Qur’ān, on the one hand, and the extra-Qur’ānic sources, on the other hand. The latter include the compilations of tafsīr (Qur’ānic exegesis), Sīra (Muḥammad’s biography), and ḥadīth (tradition). The comparative analysis will focus on Muḥammad’s image as emerging in his Meccan period, which stretches from the moment when he first received revelation, through his first attempts at preaching God’s warning and promise to the people of Mecca, and up to their final rejection of him. This rejection resulted in Muḥammad’s flight (hijra) to the oasis of Yathrib, later to be known as Medina. When we read the Qur’ānic Meccan passages alone, without benefit of post-Qur’ānic interpretation, Muḥammad emerges as a mortal prophet who still has no miracle other than the Qur’ān, the book he received from God over the last twenty-two years of his life, first in Mecca (610-622 CE) and then in Medina (622-632). Muḥammad appears in these passages as a man who both warns of the oncoming Judgment Day and brings God’s message of mercy.
In recent decades, there has been an intensively renewed interest in the origins and development of 'Christology', religious practices as well as ideas/beliefs, and earliest 'devotion'. Scholars have explored in what ways Jesusdevotion may have drawn upon Jewish tradition and how it may have represented something innovative. In particular, there are questions about the means by which early believers, shaped by Jewish tradition, with its concern for the uniqueness of God, may have accommodated devotion to Jesus as in some way bearing divine significance. The Qumran texts comprise a major and unique cache of material giving access to Second Temple Jewish religious tradition, and are, thus, integral in all of this investigation. This article describes ancient Jewish monotheism, principal angels, and the origins of 'High' Christology.
By addressing various aspects of the Qur'ān's linguistic and historical context and offering close readings of selected passages in the light of Jewish, Christian, and ancient Arabic literature, the volume seeks to stimulate a new interaction between literary and historical scholarship.
This title is available as paperback.
PreliminariesThe Qur'an on Relations with UnbelieversRelations among Believers, and the Definition of BelieverWar, Peace, and Reconciliation in the Early Islamic StateNotesReferences
Amid so much twenty-first-century talk of a "Christian-Muslim divide"--and the attendant controversy in some Western countries over policies toward minority Muslim communities--a historical fact has gone unnoticed: for more than four hundred years beginning in the mid-seventh century, some 50 percent of the world's Christians lived and worshipped under Muslim rule. Just who were the Christians in the Arabic-speaking milieu of Mohammed and the Qur'an? The Church in the Shadow of the Mosqueis the first book-length discussion in English of the cultural and intellectual life of such Christians indigenous to the Islamic world. Sidney Griffith offers an engaging overview of their initial reactions to the religious challenges they faced, the development of a new mode of presenting Christian doctrine as liturgical texts in their own languages gave way to Arabic, the Christian role in the philosophical life of early Baghdad, and the maturing of distinctive Oriental Christian denominations in this context. Offering a fuller understanding of the rise of Islam in its early years from the perspective of contemporary non-Muslims, this book reminds us that there is much to learn from the works of people who seriously engaged Muslims in their own world so long ago.
From the first centuries of Islam to well into the Middle Ages, Jews and Christians produced hundreds of manuscripts containing portions of the Bible in Arabic. Until recently, however, these translations remained largely neglected by biblical scholars and historians. In telling the story of the Bible in Arabic, this book casts light on a crucial transition in the cultural and religious life of Jews and Christians in Arabic-speaking lands. In pre-Islamic times, Jewish and Christian scriptures circulated orally in the Arabic-speaking milieu. After the rise of Islam--and the Qur'an's appearance as a scripture in its own right--Jews and Christians translated the Hebrew Bible and the Greek New Testament into Arabic for their own use and as a response to the Qur'an's retelling of biblical narratives. From the ninth century onward, a steady stream of Jewish and Christian translations of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament crossed communal borders to influence the Islamic world.
"A work of utmost importance, and one that has profound implications for our understanding of how Islam began."-Fred Donner, University of Chicago The oldest Islamic biography of Muhammad, written in the mid-eighth century, relates that the prophet died at Medina in 632, while earlier and more numerous Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and even Islamic sources indicate that Muhammad survived to lead the conquest of Palestine, beginning in 634-35. Although this discrepancy has been known for several decades, Stephen J. Shoemaker here writes the first systematic study of the various traditions. Using methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical studies, Shoemaker concludes that these reports of Muhammad's leadership during the Palestinian invasion likely preserve an early Islamic tradition that was later revised to meet the needs of a changing Islamic self-identity. Muhammad and his followers appear to have expected the world to end in the immediate future, perhaps even in their own lifetimes, Shoemaker contends. When the eschatological Hour failed to arrive on schedule and continued to be deferred to an ever more distant point, the meaning of Muhammad's message and the faith that he established needed to be fundamentally rethought by his early followers. The larger purpose of The Death of a Prophet exceeds the mere possibility of adjusting the date of Muhammad's death by a few years; far more important to Shoemaker are questions about the manner in which Islamic origins should be studied. The difference in the early sources affords an important opening through which to explore the nature of primitive Islam more broadly. Arguing for greater methodological unity between the study of Christian and Islamic origins, Shoemaker emphasizes the potential value of non-Islamic sources for reconstructing the history of formative Islam. Stephen J. Shoemaker is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Oregon and author of Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption. Copyright
One the earliest non-Islamic testimonies to the existence of the Prophet Muhammad can be found within the Byzantine apologetic tract known as the Doctrina Iacobi nuper baptizati. Frequently dated by modern historians to as early as July 634 CE, the tract curiously asserts that the prophet who had appeared "among the Saracens" claimed to possess "the keys to paradise." This essay investigates this claim and the prevalence of the "keys to paradise" motif in late-antique Christian literature and the early Islamic tradition to provide a new evaluation of the text's place in and importance to the historiography of Islamic origins.
Providing an analysis of the complete story of Mary in its liturgical, narrative and rhetorical contexts, this literary reading is a prerequisite to any textual reading of the Qur’an whether juristic, theological, or otherwise.
On consultera également à ce sujet: Gilliot, "Informants", Encyclopaedia of the Qur'ān [EQ], II, Leyde, Brill, 2002, p. 512-8; Id., Zur Herkunft der Gewährsmänner des Propheten ", in Hans-Heinz Ohlig und Gerd-Rüdiger Puin (hrsg. von), Die dunklen Anfänge. Neue Forschungen zur Entstehung und frühen Geschichte des Islam, Berlin, Verlag Hans Schiler, 2005, p. 148-169/" On the origin of the informants of the Prophet ", in Ohlig (Karl-Heinz) and Gerd-R. Puin (ed.), The Hidden origins of Islam. New research into its early history, Amherst, N.Y., Prometheus Books, 2008, 405 p., p. 153-87
The late Byzantine references to "India" are examined and their relation to geographical and social "reality" is assayed.
Primarly the author's aim was solely to combat the ubiquitous fundamentalistic world of Christianity by showing that the Koran teaches the original ur-christian true concep of understanding Christ. But this endeavour led to unexpected, much more important discoveries of dogma-historical import. The author stumbled across the fact that around 1900, some renowned german islamists already discussed the important circumstance that the Koran contained a comptrhensive vernacula-arabic strophic poetry. These studies became instantly deserted, showed no interest at all in dogma critical text criticism. The author succeeded in developing these forgotten studies of around the turn of the century to become an achievement. The proof is established that the pre islamic Christian hymnody contained in the Koran under early islamic interpretations can be reliably be reconstructed.
A most ingenious paradox indeed: that for Jesus Christ to be one he must be many; or, that we do not contradict ourselves if we say there is one Jesus Christ and then say there are many Jesus Christs. This seeming contradiction is a paradox, a seeming contradiction. Most people, I believe, think that only the proposition 'Jesus Christ is one' can be true, while the second, 'Jesus Christs are many', must be false. They think that when the Epistle to the Hebrews (13:8) declares Jesus Christ to be 'the same, yesterday, today and forever' it gives not only the theologically correct view of the matter but the commonsense view as well. 'Everyone knows' that there is only one Jesus of Nazareth, as there is only one John the Baptist. And Christian dogma seems convinced that its god, the Lord Jesus Christ, is one, unique and unchanging. Quite often I will find myself using the plural forms of the relevant terms or names, i.e., I will speak of 'Jesuses' and 'Christs' and 'Jesus Christs', very much aware that virtually no one uses them. The plurals will sound awkward to us if we live in the presumption that there is only one Jesus. So a range of 'alternative plurals' (especially in book titles) are in use, e.g., The Faces of Jesus, Portraits of Jesus Christ, Images of Jesus, Asiatic Aspects of Christ, Depictions of Jesus, and so on. Such usage, however, suggests that there is someone out there to whom these images or portraits or aspects refer. And yet, all the questing for an original historical Jesus, within or beyond the Gospels, has not produced one. There can be no Life of Jesus Christ. So the images, depictions, faces, are it! Religious images and symbols are not empirically referential; that is, they are not images of anything existing outside a confessional religious context or story or faith-world. It is a profoundly important commonplace in religious studies that religions, and the earth's myriad deities, are made and remade by people who, in turn, can be made and re-made by those same religions and gods. Before proceeding, one could point out that Christianity is built on great paradoxes -on the Incarnation, for example, where God, though defined as not a man, is held to have become one and to have dwelt among us. The Trinity displays another apparent contradiction for God is said to be at once one yet three. Theology This Immense Panorama: Studies in Honour of Eric J. Sharpe calls such paradoxes 'mysteries'. I simply note that what is a contradiction from the point of view of 'n' dimensions is seen as only a seeming contradiction (a paradox) when 'n plus one' dimensions dawn upon us (or when we look with the eyes of faith). This paper, however, does not explore Christian paradoxes from within the Christian theological circle. It is not a contribution to conventional theological or christological debate. It looks further afield to a phenomenon of culture and history too little noted, the multiplicity of Christian gods -and the paradox of Jesus Christ as both one and many. I believe that what identifies both Oneness and Multiplicity is the same thing: the Christian Story -the story of Jesus as the Christ -in all its simplicity and fantastic elaboration. The problem of definition is never settled, says Sykes, it simply reappears in different form throughout Christian history.1 I believe (a) that it is 'the Christian Story' that 'defines' or identifies the Christian religion (its 'oneness') and (b) that it is 'the Christian Story' that sustains the multiplicity of alternative Jesus Christs in history and culture and in many non-Christian religious traditions. So this paper is an exercise in Religious Studies -historical, descriptive and reflective. It belongs to the empirical study of the worlds of the religions. In this general sense I call it basic Phenomenology of Religion and turn first to identifying and describing some of the world's many Jesus Christs.
After briefly describing the principal non-Muslim and Muslim approaches to the Qur'anic material about Jesus and Mary, the author explores four aspects of this material which have been relatively neglected. In the first section he shows how the representation of Jesus and Mary is integrated in the structure of the Qur'anic discourse. In the second section he lists the similarities between Muhammad and the Qur'anic Jesus. In the third and fourth sections he draws on the Qur'ān and on Islamic tradition in order to show that both 'Aisha and Muhammad had a number of things in common with Mary. In the concluding discussion he states that the Qur'anic story of Jesus and Mary serves to authenticate the prophetic ministry of Muhammad and then makes some more specific remarks about the observations listed in the four main sections.
There are various accounts of the origin of Christianity in Ethiopia, but most of them have no satisfactory historical basis. One tradition, found in the Royal Chronicles and other native works, claims that the Apostle Thomas was responsible for the introduction of Christianity into Ethiopia. Origen refers to the Apostle Matthew as a missionary to the Ethiopians, an association which Rufinus also gives. Gelasios of Cyzicus links the name of Bartholomew with Ethiopia. There is also the well-known account by Luke of the baptism by Philip of the Ethiopians,” around which a legend has developed. Candace, however, was a name used chiefly in Nubia and ancient Ethiopia, and not to be found among the queens of Ethiopia proper. There is actually no trustworthy record of Christianity in this country in the first century. These traditions have probably resulted, for the most part, from a confusion of terms. Early historians were not at all clear about the geographical limitations of Ethiopia and, in using the name, might have meant Nubia, or Egypt, or even India. In fact, Ethiopia was sometimes referred to as “India ulterior.” Even as late as the fifteenth century this confusion remained.
In 1986, Michel van Esbroeck published a remarkable new Life of the Virgin that not only is among the most profound and eloquent Mariological writings of early Byzantium but also presents a useful compendium of early apocryphal traditions about Mary. Some of the Life's episodes are already well known from their original sources, such as the Protevangelium of James and the early dormition apocrypha, but many other extrabiblical traditions appearing in this Life of the Virgin are not otherwise attested in early Christian literature. This is true especially of the section that overlaps with the gospels, where the Life expands the canonical narratives in ways unprecedented (to my knowledge) in Christian apocryphal literature. By writing Mary into the story at key points and augmenting several of her more minor appearances, the Life portrays Mary as a central figure in her son's ministry and also as a leader of the nascent church. The result is a veritable “Gospel of Mary” in the section of the Life that emphasizes Mary's essential contributions to her son's earthly mission and her leadership of the apostles in the early Christian community: the Life gives a brief account of the same events recorded in the canonical gospels, but with the Virgin Mary brought to the fore at nearly every instance. The origins of these traditions are not entirely clear, and while they may be the work of the Life's author, it is equally possible that they reflect now lost apocryphal traditions about Mary that once circulated in late antiquity. In any case, the attention that this earliest Life of the Virgin lavishes on the activities of Mary and other women as important leaders in the formation of Christianity is rather striking and quite exceptional among the literature of Christian late antiquity. In its emphasis on the roles played by these women it represents a surprising ancient predecessor to much of the recent work in New Testament scholarship to recover the importance of women in the early Christian movement.
Before ConstantineAfter Constantine's AccessionNotesReferences
IntroductionSurvey of the First or Charismatic Phase of the ConquestsTraditional Views of the Charismatic Phase of ExpansionA Revisionist View of the First or Charismatic Phase of the ConquestsStructural Developments during the First Phase of the ConquestsThe Second or Institutional Phase of the ConquestsImpact and Consequences of the Islamic Conquests
Thesis (Ph. D.)--Universität Zürich. Includes bibliographical references (p. 9-12).
This article draws attention to hitherto unnoticed Arabic texts in which the word furqān features as a genuine Arabic term denoting ‘dawn’ or ‘morning’. It suggests that this genuine Arabic word is reflected in
the Qur'ān, especially in those passages in which the term furqān stands for revealed scriptures. The Qur'an calls these scriptures furqān in the sense that they are a guiding light that leads one out of darkness. The Syriac/Aramaic connotations of the term as
encountered in other Quranic passages —mainly those referring to Moses — are also discussed, and their origin in the Syriac
and Aramaic translations of the Book of Exodus is further clarified. The article shows that in these translations the Syriac
/ Aramaic purqān stands for redemption through separation, and this seems also to be the meaning of the Quranic furqān of Moses. The conflation of the Arabic and the Aramaic furqāns in the Qur'an is also demonstrated, and finally the evidence of the tafsīr is analysed. It is shown that the exegetes are aware of the targumic sense of furqān (redemption through separation), but they tend to prefer the sense of the local Arabian furqān (light of dawn), so much so that they have derived from the sense of light as opposed to darkness a series of secondary meanings
revolving around the idea of separation of truth from falsehood.
Deze informatie komt uit de oudst beschikbare 'dormition tekst', een palimpsest uit Egypte, vermoedelijk uit de 5e of 6e eeuw, die gepubliceerd werd door A
- Kateusz
Kateusz (2013), pp. 75-76. Deze informatie komt uit de oudst beschikbare 'dormition tekst', een palimpsest uit Egypte, vermoedelijk uit de 5e of 6e eeuw, die gepubliceerd werd door A. Smith Lewis (1902),
Apocrypha Syriaca: The Protevangelium Jacobi and Transitus Mariae, Studia Syriaca 11, London.
geeft aan dat haar interpretatie van Rachel als vrouwelijke heilige gedurfd is
- Sered
Sered (1991), p. 132 geeft aan dat haar interpretatie van Rachel als vrouwelijke heilige gedurfd is.
Bij de hemel met zijn sterrenbeelden, en de beloofde Dag (des Oordeels), bij wie getuige is en dat waarvan men getuige is! Mogen de makers van de kuil dood
- Sered
Sered (1991), p. 133 wijst erop dat zij nauwelijks in het voetlicht treedt in het Nieuwe Testament, maar
des te prominenter aanwezig is in de populaire apocriefe literatuur.
'Bij de hemel met zijn sterrenbeelden, en de beloofde Dag (des Oordeels), bij
wie getuige is en dat waarvan men getuige is! Mogen de makers van de kuil dood
Aan 'Umayya b. 'Abi ṣ-Ṣalt wordt het vers toegeschreven 'Ik weet dat ḥanīfiyya waar is, maar heb mijn twijfels bij Muḥammad
- Rubin
Rubin (1990), pp. 85-99. Aan 'Umayya b. 'Abi ṣ-Ṣalt wordt het vers toegeschreven 'Ik weet dat ḥanīfiyya
waar is, maar heb mijn twijfels bij Muḥammad.'