For the last 40 years, there has been an insidious and concerted effort to demolish the theological and historical structure of Islam. Suleiman Mourad’s book The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation with Perry Anderson is its latest manifestation.

These efforts — termed by practitioners the ‘Revisionist History of Islam’ — attack basic facts. Among the other things they seek to establish is that Islam did not originate from Arabia, that Arabic was not the language of the Holy Quran and the Quraish, that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) died not in 632 AD, but in 634 AD and he personally led the conquest of Palestine. Some Revisionists insist the Arabs were pagans at the time they conquered the Byzantine and Sassanid territories and, to distinguish themselves from their subjects, concocted a religion they called Islam.

Earlier Western writers have also been sceptical and critical; what, then, distinguishes the Revisionists from them? For the readers of this paper, it can be explained thus: while those earlier writers would doubt the authenticity of Cyril Almeida’s report in Dawn, Revisionists would say a newspaper such as Dawn was never even published. Their basic plaint is that Islamic sources are unreliable and as such we must write the history of Islam on the basis of non-Muslim sources. Here, too, they have not been successful — accounts of the Prophet and his mission can be found in non-Muslim documents by Ishoyahb III (Patriarch of the Church of the East), Maximus the Confessor, the Doctrina Iacobi [Teaching of Jacob] and The Chronicle of Fredegar. All these documents are contained in Robert G. Hoyland’s Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam.

A new Revisionist history of Islam attempts to question the basic foundations of the religion, but is riddled with errors and omissions

While written by hostile witnesses, the documents confirm the basic facts which Revisionists set out to deny. The Mosaic of Islam, meanwhile, is a dialogue that aims to give a wider and more accessible circulation to the Revisionist position. In the first chapter, ‘The Quran and Muhammad’, Mourad writes: “For a long time, scholars in the field — the most influential was John Wansbrough — believed that the Quran was finalised at the end of the eighth century or the beginning of the ninth. Since we have some early inscriptions and a recent discovery of partial manuscripts of the Quran that can be dated to the late seventh or early eighth century, Wansbrough’s view is now discredited.”

So far so good. It is left to us to explain that the “early inscriptions” mean the manuscripts discovered in 1972 at the Great Mosque of Sana’a in Yemen, and the 2015 discovery at the University of Birmingham of some surahs of the Quran dating to the mid-seventh century. What Mourad does not say is that Wansbrough published Quranic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation a full five years after the discovery of the San’a manuscripts. Wansbrough persisted, despite knowing that the basis of his contentions had gone.

Regarding the San’a manuscripts, Mourad informs us: “A German scholar was allowed to study the finds, but she [sic] has published very little on them for the fear of political consequences of doing so; it seems the Yemeni government threatened Germany with repercussions if anything embarrassing appeared.” Why can’t Mourad name the German scholar and how can he assert that Yemen, unable to withstand a Saudi invasion, could make Germany tremble in its boots?

The scholar in question is Gerd R. Puin who gives full expression of the findings in two places: a paper titled ‘Observations on Early Quran Manuscripts in San’a’ and an article in The Atlantic. So far, Germany has suffered no repercussions caused by these publications.

All historians need to mark two phases in the collection of the Quran: the first after the Battle of Yamama when the second caliph persuaded the first to undertake the collections as so many Qurra [reciters] had been martyred. The other phase, after about 20 years, was when the third caliph recalled manuscripts from the outlying provinces on being told that discrepancies had crept in (this is not surprising since, at the end of the 20th century, Pakistan had to pass a law making the printing of the Quran with errors an offence). These non-standardised copies have survived in the mosque at San’a.

In The Atlantic article, Puin wrote: “The fact is that a fifth of the Quranic text is just incomprehensible. This has caused traditional anxiety regarding translations.” Translations now exist in almost every language in the world, and both Muslims and non-Muslims can judge for themselves the validity of this opinion. Next, Mourad lists what he calls “errors”: “In the canonical Quran, there is a verse with the imperative form ‘say’ (qul) whereas in the San’a text the same verse reads ‘he said’ (qala).” Had Mourad identified the verse, readers would have been able to judge which version was correct by the context, but he does not.

Mourad also points to what he has the temerity to call “grammatical errors”: “Sometimes a sentence starts in the singular and ends in the plural.” As Mourad has identified this verse, we can check it: “Of them is he who saith grant me leave to stay at home and tempt me not. Surely it is into temptation that they have fallen. Lo, hell verily is all around the disbelievers. So if good befalleth thee it afflicted them and if calamity befalleth, then they say ‘we took precaution’ and turn away well pleased.”

Now “Of them” (wa minhum) is not singular, rendering Mourad’s objection void. He goes on to say: “Or two particles are connected when they should not” (eg Q 3:178). Here is Marmaduke Pickthall’s translation: “And let not those who disbelieve imagine that the rein we give them bodeth good unto their souls (khayrun li anfusihim). We only give them rein that they may grow in sinfulness. And theirs will be a shameful doom.”

Another charge Mourad makes is that “some vowels go wrong in the declensions” (Q 22:78). We give the translation here so that readers with access to the original can see for themselves: “And strive for Allah with the endeavour that is His right. He hath chosen you and hath not laid upon you in religion any hardship. The faith of your father Abraham (is yours). He hath named you Muslims of old time and in this (Scripture) that the Messenger may be a witness against you and that ye may be witnesses against mankind. So establish worship, pay the poor due and hold fast to Allah. He is your Protecting Friend (huwa maula lakum), a blessed Patron and a blessed Helper.”

On principle, one needs to note that the rules of grammar and inscription evolve. Mourad himself notes the difference between the Arabic of the Quran, the Arabic of the Abbasid era and the colloquial Arabic of today. Grammar is usage codified; codification does not precede usage. Linguists have gone deep into the subject.

When Perry Anderson asks Mourad, “What is your view of Donner’s argument that Muhammad was addressing a community of believers that, in his mind, was defined simply by its faith in one god as against several — rather than preaching a new creed, which would come to be called Islam?” Mourad replies: “Although questions can certainly be raised about Donner’s theory, there is a lot in the Quran that speaks to it.”

The reference is to Fred M. Donner’s book Muhammad and the Believers wherein he says: “We shall see how, during the late first century AH and early second century AH, the Believers movement evolved into the religion we now know as Islam, through a process of refinement and redefinition of its basic concepts.”

Mourad says questions can be raised about Donner’s theory because Patricia Crone, co-author of Hagarism: The Making of the Islamic World, raised them in her Tablet Magazine review of Donner’s book. As for Mourad’s claim that there is much in the Quran that speaks to Donner’s theory — that is, the Muslims (muslimoon) evolved from the community of believers (mominoon) — we actually find in the Quran the order reversed: “The Arabs say we believe. Say, you believe not (qul lam tuminoon), but rather say we submit (lakin qooloo aslamna), for the faith hath not entered your hearts.” (Q 49:14).

One final question and answer, and this reviewer shall take your leave. Anderson asks: “The Quran issues one specific, clear-cut rebuke to Christians: belief in the Trinity is a lamentable deviation from monotheism. Is there any comparable point of doctrine where the Quran takes issue with Jewish belief?”

Mourad responds: “There is one — and no one knows where it comes from. The Quran attacks the Jews for saying that Uzayr is the son of God (Q 9:30).”

Mourad links Uzayr to Ezra (as Isa to Jesus) and at least one scholar knew where the belief came from: in the book Muhammad, Maxime Rodinson wrote, “The first of these assertions begins to look less unjustified than it seems at first sight when we find, in a first-century Jewish ‘Apocrypha’ which later enjoyed great popularity, the fourth book of Esdras, the following words spoken to Esdras by an angel: ‘Thou shalt be taken up from (among) men and henceforth thou shall remain with my son ... Let go from thee the cares of mortality, cast from thee the burdens of man.”

Rodinson in turn gave his own reference: Esdras of the Geneva Bible (1560) and of subsequent English versions, also known as the Apocalypse of Ezra. This translation is from R.H. Charles’s 1913 book The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English. These references mean that Mourad is not aware that the source of the Jewish belief as given in the Quran has been known since 1971, when Rodinson’s book was published in English.

The reviewer is a retired associate professor of Islamic history, National College, Karachi

The Mosaic of Islam: A Conversation
with Perry Anderson
By Suleiman Mourad
Verso, UK
ISBN: 978-1786632128
176pp.

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, November 5th, 2017