Islamic Origins

• Muhammad (570-632)

Muhammad’s Career

• Mecca (611-22) • Allah • Ka‘bah• Qur’an

• Medina (Yathrib)• Hijrah – 622• 630 – Conquest of Mecca

Islam at Muhammad’s Death

Prophets & Messengers

5 Messengers:

1. Noah

2. Abraham

3. Moses

4. Jesus

5. Muhammad

Sacred Writings

• Qur’an – “Recite”– 114 Suras

– ca. 650(?)– Dome of the Rock (691-2)

• Sunna (Hadith): Traditions of Prophet

• Isnad

• Tafsir: Commentaries

Dome of the Rock (691-2)

“Revisionist” / “Skeptical” Approaches

• Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, Patricia Crone (1987)

• “What did the Qur’anic Pagans Do for a Living?”

• An Aramaic Qur’an?

• Apocalyptic?

Apocalyptic?

• Qur’an teaches about impending “Hour”

• Q 43.61: “It is knowledge of the Hour; doubt not concerning it, and follow me. This is a straight path.”

Qur’an & “the Hour”

• Q 79.42-6: They ask you about the hour, when it will come. About what! You are one to remind of it. To your Lord is the goal of it. You are only a warner to him who would fear it. On the day that they see it, it will be as though they had not tarried but the latter part of a day or the early part of it.

• Q 54.1: “The hour has drawn nigh and the moon is rent asunder.”

• Q 16.1: “Allah's command has come, therefore do not desire to hasten it; glory be to Him, and highly exalted be He above what they associate (with Him)”

Qur’an & “the Hour”

Apocalyptic in Hadith

• “This hadith has been reported by Sahl b. Sa'd that he heard Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: I and the Last Hour are (close to each other) like this (and he, in order to explain it) pointed (by joining his) forefinger, (one) next to the thumb and the middle finger (together)”

Muslim, Sahih

Apocalyptic in Hadith

• “‘A’isha reported that when the desert Arabs came to Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) they asked about the Last Hour as to when that would come. And he looked towards the youngest amongst them and said: If he lives he would not grow very old that he would find your Last Hour coming to you the would see you dying).”

Muslim, Sahih

Apocalyptic in Hadith

• “Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: ‘The Prophet prayed one of the ‘lsha’ prayer in his last days and after finishing it with Taslim, he stood up and said, "Do you realize (the importance of) this night? Nobody present on the surface of the earth to-night would be living after the completion of one hundred years from this night.”

Buhkari & Muslim

Apocalyptic in Hadith

• “My coming and that of the hour, the prophet had said, are concomitant; even that one has almost come before me.”

Maqrizi

Apocalyptic in Hadith

• “‘There has been no prophet after Noah who has not warned his audience of the Dajjāl, and I (Muhammad) warn you of him as well.’ The Messanger of God described him to us and said, ‘Some of those who see me or hear my words will live to see him.’”

Ibn Abī Shayba (& many others)