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1/ I've recently been reading the work of Josef van Ess, the great German scholar of Islamic Studies. Here's an accessible interview he did in English, in which he spells out his views of the origins of Islam. Some quotes below (see esp. the last point!)
http://www.goethe.de/ges/phi/prj/ffs/the/a96/en8626506.htm
http://www.goethe.de/ges/phi/prj/ffs/the/a96/en8626506.htm
2/ Q. Is it even true that Islam has never had a Reformation?
A. "I consider the Koran itself to be a reformative text [with] a reformative intention, to the extent that the older religions are dismissed as wrong paths, and the basic intention is simply to go back to the roots"
A. "I consider the Koran itself to be a reformative text [with] a reformative intention, to the extent that the older religions are dismissed as wrong paths, and the basic intention is simply to go back to the roots"
3/ Q. You said that you have your own ideas about how the new religion [of Islam] developed.
A. "[Islam was not one thing at the beginning but] a conglomerate of different nuclei, primarily in the new garrison cities – Basra and Kufa, Fustat in Egypt, Hims in Syria ...
A. "[Islam was not one thing at the beginning but] a conglomerate of different nuclei, primarily in the new garrison cities – Basra and Kufa, Fustat in Egypt, Hims in Syria ...
4/ "... So in these places there are a couple of so-called companions of the Prophet, who are later also revered and around whom a sort of Islam configures. But I’m convinced that it was quite different in Kufa to Hims or Fustat"
5/ Q. Why? Were these areas completely isolated from one another?
A. "The communication between the centres was weak. Of course people travelled, and of course they had some kind of Koran[ic] text that they adhered to ...
A. "The communication between the centres was weak. Of course people travelled, and of course they had some kind of Koran[ic] text that they adhered to ...
6/ "... [But] the question is whether the Koran was even central to the religion at this time. From my point of view: no, it wasn’t ..."
7/ "What united the congregation was far more the manner of their communal prayer. The peculiar gymnastics they perform in the process – the proskynesis – it’s quite unique. And everyone else noticed it...
8/ "Significantly, prayer was led by the governor, or by whichever general was present at the time – almost as a military discipline."
9/ Q. Does that mean that each city developed its own school of Islam?
A. "Yes. Even in places like Kufa, or later Baghdad, I would not assume that there was one unified Islam...As far as Kufa is concerned, we have reports from those crazy Gnostics from the early Islamic period"
A. "Yes. Even in places like Kufa, or later Baghdad, I would not assume that there was one unified Islam...As far as Kufa is concerned, we have reports from those crazy Gnostics from the early Islamic period"
10/ Q. You’re painting an almost atomistic image of Islam.
A. "Or I’m inverting the established image. In the beginning there is plurality – unity comes later… A fundamentalist would see it as the exact reverse ..."
A. "Or I’m inverting the established image. In the beginning there is plurality – unity comes later… A fundamentalist would see it as the exact reverse ..."
