Re: "The Quest for the Historical Muhammad"
- From: "Denis Giron" <denis_giron@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 08:19:28 -0600
"Robert" <robert_45@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
<1134735299.268700.255890@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Again instead of producing arguments and evidence you sideline
> discussion by offering links. I note that all your references are to
> islamic-awareness; they would be more impressive if they were to
> peer-reviewed international scholarly journals as befits scholarly
> work produced by Crone and others.
With all due respect, this is nothing more than an attempt to poison
the well. If you really wanted to offer a response of substance to Dr.
Saifullah, you might consider reading the articles he linked to, or
maybe assessing how many of the relevant positions of Cook, Crone and
Wansbrough have been refuted by these articles, and which relevant
positions remain (assuming, of course, you have actually read the
writings of Cook, Crone and Wansbrough, rather than merely reading
*about* them).
As for the links Dr. Saifullah gave, they lead to articles which are
extremely well researched, and while you complain of discussion being
sidelined, the reality is that you have offered no response of
substance to those articles. Dr. Saifullah posted links because he
already amassed the relevant information more than four years ago in
every single case. Ask yourself this question: would the value of the
arguments found within those links be any different had Dr. Saifullah
merely copied and pasted the text into his post to this thread? It
would seem to me that Dr. Saifullah is obviously a great deal more
familiar with the subject, and thus the articles on his site caught you
off guard and overwhelmed you.
As for you chastizing Dr. Saifullah for referencing articles on his
site rather than "peer-reviewed international scholarly journals," this
only shows that you didn't even bother to *click* the links (much less
read the information found therein). Had you done so, you might have
noticed that his third link...
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Dome_Of_The_Rock/Estwitness.html
...is actually an online reproduction of an article which appeared in
the Journal Of The American Oriental Society in 1998. In short, isn't
that precisely what you were asking for? Furthermore, the other three
articles quote extensively from the scholarly corpora.
Look, I am actually a huge fan of Cook, Crone and Wansbrough, and even
have endorsed some of their views in this newsgroup (Dr. Saifullah can
attest to this fact). I also enjoy the books of Ibn Warraq (I even
wrote a small bit for his fifth book), and recognize them as
informative compilations of literature which is critical of Islam (a
sort of extensive beginners guide to polemics against Islam). But you
have to realize that his books are not sufficient in themselves for
discussion in SRI. The reality is that Ibn Warraq's books are silent on
the scholarly literature which is critical of Cook, Crone and Hagarism,
and such academic criticism does exist. You can find much of the
criticism of Cook, Crone and Wansbrough compiled on Dr. Saifullah's
Islamic Awareness site; he's actually read the sources (i.e. you could
say he's "read beyond" what is found in akhoona Ibn Warraq's books,
though to be more accurate he seems to have started researching this
subject well before most of Ibn Warraq's books were published). As a
result, Dr. Saifullah is well versed in "the other side" of the issue,
thus if you're coming into these discussions armed only with what you
read in the books of Ibn Warraq, you're going to be at a substantial
disadvantage. You also need to "read beyond" what is found in the
writings of Ibn Warraq (I'm confident even Ibn Warraq himself would
agree with me on this).
If you're going to take part in these discussions, you should try
grappling with the arguments presented (I think you'd be amazed at how
the subject becomes significantly more enjoyable if you dust off your
library card, begin checking the claims made on Dr. Saifullah's site,
referencing his sources, and attempting to digest the information so as
to answer the question "which part of the good Doctor's article do I
agree with and which do I disagree with?"). If you're not going to
consider the counter-arguments being presented, why even bother
responding? But then, if you never responded to the posts commenting on
your arguments, you'd just be a hit-and-run poster (i.e. a troll), now,
wouldn't you?
-Denis Giron
http://www.geocities.com/freethoughtmecca/home.htm
.
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