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  • From: Mike.Conley AT t-online.de (Mike Conley)
  • To: Corpus-paul AT franklin.oit.unc.edu
  • Subject: Re: Ignatius and all that! (Part One)
  • Date: Thu, 16 Aug 2001 15:12:52 +0200


Fellow Earthlings!
In developing my response to David C. Hindley" dhindley AT compuserve.com
and Robert Brenchley RSBrenchley AT aol.com let us keep Roberts assertion
to the fore, namely that I…"need a lot more detail." And then you
continue, "How far was there a conscious plot to take power, and how ar
was the pre-Constantine clash a [YOUR THESIS] matter of two alternative
versions of society, each insecure, threatened by the other, reacting o
the situation in which they found themselves?"
I shall begin by way of indirection by examining the parallel case five
hundred years later. Hold with me through the following narrative; its
immediate, germane relevance will become more than apparent as we
proceed.

At the death of Muhammad (June 8th 632), the multiple versions of the
Koran in existence varied substantially from one another. The prophet's
scribes enjoyed the liberty of spreading ever new copies of the one or
the other Sures or, indeed, the bulk of the Koran, among the wealthy nd
pious who beseeched them for such benefices. But it was not only the
distracted scribe who caused conflicting copies of the Koran to arise
which would be adjudged spurious later on. Mohammad himself, in the
course of this life, disavowed, altered and elaborated his own
pronouncements. On top of this, hardly anyone possessed copies of all f
the Koran and the pages were not bound in the form of a codex (bound
book) but only in rolls. This makes it understandable that the order in
which the Sures were to follow one another remained uncertain, making
cross-references impossible. Indeed, it is well to point out that the
very word, `Koran,' did not refer to a single object, but rather to a
collection of "individual texts (intended) for declamation."

Mohammad himself was well aware of the status of the precepts that had
emanated from him and confronted by followers who insisted that the one
or the other of his axiom was to be interpreted only in accordance with
the disputant's exegesis, replied that all the portions of the Koran
"had been revealed to him in seven different versions (= `ahruf').
Rather than soothing tempers, this bon mot, itself, provoked additional
quibbling till some thirty-five interpretations of this well-known
response had come into being. (cf. I. Goldziher, "Richtungen der
islamischen Koranauslegung," p. 37ff.) It was self-evident that the
absence of order threatened the sustainability of the faith.

The matter came to a boil when the Iraqi and Syrian troops, confronting
the forces of the Byzantine Empire, put off their war-making with the
infidels to strike blows against one another. The muslim general,
Hudaifa, reported back to Othman (644-656 C.E.), the third Kalif,
alerting him to the consequences of those "seven different versions"
and he, in turn, saw to the immediate creation of a commission. Their
charge: produce as quickly as possible a unilateral, pragmatically
useable Koran and suppress/ destroy everything that can't easily be
fitted in!

This meant that the version in the possession of Aischa, the widow of
Muhammad, and the one in the possession of Hafsa, the daughter of the
Kalif Omar (634-644), were irreplaceably destroyed. As the largely
reliable historian al-Ya`qubi related the commission went to great
lengths to collect and destroy every scrap not integrated into their
final version. (Nöldeke-Schwally, "Geschichte des Qorans," II, p. 52,
114.) The Koran, as we know it today consequently contains three very
dissimilar elements: the Ebionite portions (second century C.E.), the
prophetic pronouncements, contain pre-islamic, muslim elements and,
lastly, grossly reworked, politically slanted, later elements. As the
Koran critic, John Wansbrough declared ("Qur`anic Studies, Oxford,
1977,
p.. 115), the version we know today is "patchwork, mechanically linked
prophetical logia."
So! Now to the parallel five hundred year before.

Let me stress straight out from the start that 1) though extremely
similar struggles, power-wise, dogma-wise, characterized the expansion
of Christianity, 2) WE HAVE NO COMPARABLE INFORMATION ON IT. WHY: The
elite of the Roman Church were incomparably more efficient and thorough
in suppressing information than their counterparts of the sixth and
seventh century in central Arabia!!

END FIRST HALF





  • Re: Ignatius and all that! (Part One), Mike Conley, 08/16/2001

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