¿Están equivocados los historiadores sobre los orígenes del islam?
El mensaje de los profetas y de los místicos del islam —desde el sufismo hasta las tradiciones espirituales más antiguas— conserva su profundidad y su luz. Sin embargo, al igual que el resto de las religiones que se expandieron bajo la tutela de los imperios, el islam no se salva de las huellas de la historia política, de las luchas de poder y de las reinterpretaciones interesadas…
Artículos relacionados: Creación de las Religiones Abrahámicas – Creando el Cristianismo – Creando el Islam – Creando el Judaísmo – El Emperador que Re-escribió la Biblia – Del Dogma Religioso al Dogma Científico – El Cristianismo Suprimido de los Primeros Siglos – Similitudes en la Creación de las 3 Religiones Abrahámicas
Nota: Hemos sido adoctrinados para creer que las respuestas espirituales se encuentran únicamente en los llamados libros sagrados, escritos hace siglos en contextos muy distintos al nuestro. Sin embargo, a menudo olvidamos que la divinidad sigue manifestándose en cada época, enviando a los maestros de la libertad y del amor que la humanidad necesita en cada momento. Entre los maestros vivos que más me inspiran y me encantan se encuentran Mooji y Peter Crone( (También Gangagi. Eckhart Tolle, Byron Kartie, Teal Swan y otros)
Are Historians Wrong About the Origins of Islam?
¿Están equivocados los historiadores sobre los orígenes del islam?
📖 Resumen en castellano (aprox. 3000 palabras)
Introducción
El estudio de los orígenes de las religiones siempre ha estado rodeado de un cierto halo de misterio, debido a la escasez de fuentes directas y a la influencia de la tradición en la construcción de las narrativas fundacionales. En el caso del islam, la religión monoteísta más reciente en surgir a nivel global, durante mucho tiempo se pensó que este problema no existía. En el siglo XIX, el erudito francés Ernest Renan afirmaba que el islam había nacido “a la luz de la historia”, sugiriendo que sus orígenes estaban bien documentados y eran accesibles para los historiadores. Según esta visión, el Corán, los hadices, la sira del profeta y otros textos islámicos ofrecían un reflejo fiable de los hechos que dieron forma a la nueva fe.
No obstante, desde la década de 1970, esta convicción comenzó a ser puesta en duda por un grupo de historiadores que se conoce como la Escuela Revisionista de estudios islámicos. Sus representantes argumentan que los textos sagrados no deben ser tratados como fuentes históricas directas, sino como producciones literarias y religiosas condicionadas por las dinámicas políticas posteriores a la muerte del profeta. A partir de esta premisa, se han formulado diversas teorías alternativas que cuestionan incluso el lugar de origen del islam, la figura histórica de Mahoma y la cronología de los primeros califatos.
Este resumen se propone presentar de manera estructurada tanto la visión tradicional como las posturas revisionistas, destacando las principales críticas, los argumentos alternativos y las respuestas de la historiografía más cercana a la tradición. El objetivo es ofrecer una visión panorámica del debate académico, resaltando sus aportaciones y limitaciones.
La visión tradicionalista de los orígenes del islam
La narrativa tradicional, tal como aparece en las fuentes islámicas, sostiene que el islam fue fundado en Arabia por el profeta Mahoma, miembro del clan Quraysh de La Meca. A los cuarenta años, Mahoma habría recibido la primera revelación divina a través del arcángel Gabriel, lo que lo impulsó a predicar el monoteísmo en una sociedad dominada por el politeísmo árabe. Tras ser perseguido en La Meca, Mahoma emigró a Medina en el episodio conocido como la hégira, donde estableció la primera comunidad islámica o umma. Posteriormente regresó a La Meca, consolidando la nueva fe hasta su muerte en el año 632.
Tras el fallecimiento del profeta, sus sucesores inmediatos —los llamados califas bien guiados o rashidun— consolidaron la expansión territorial y estandarizaron el texto del Corán. El califato omeya, que sucedió a los rashidun, transformó la jefatura islámica en una monarquía dinástica y expandió aún más las fronteras del nuevo imperio. Según esta visión, ya en vida de Mahoma y en las primeras décadas tras su muerte, el islam se habría configurado como una religión plenamente formada, con doctrinas, prácticas y textos fundamentales claramente establecidos.
La tradición atribuye una gran autoridad a las fuentes canónicas: el Corán, considerado la palabra revelada de Dios; la sira o biografía de Mahoma, que ofrece un relato de su vida; y los hadices, colecciones de dichos y actos atribuidos al profeta. Estos textos han sido la base de la comprensión histórica y teológica del islam en el ámbito académico hasta bien entrado el siglo XX.
El surgimiento de la Escuela Revisionista
A partir de los años 70, varios historiadores comenzaron a poner en entredicho la fiabilidad histórica de las fuentes islámicas. El pionero fue John Wansbrough, quien argumentó que el Corán y los demás textos deben interpretarse como “historia de salvación”, es decir, como narraciones religiosas construidas retrospectivamente para dar legitimidad a la comunidad musulmana.
La crítica revisionista se apoya en tres puntos principales. En primer lugar, el problema de la cronología: existe un vacío de aproximadamente 150 años entre la muerte de Mahoma y los primeros textos escritos que relatan su vida y los orígenes del islam. Las fuentes más cercanas en el tiempo no son islámicas, sino externas, y mencionan de forma superficial la aparición de un nuevo profeta y de una religión distinta. En segundo lugar, la inconsistencias narrativas: diferentes versiones de un mismo episodio presentan variaciones significativas, lo que cuestiona su valor histórico. Finalmente, la influencia política: los revisionistas sostienen que los relatos sobre Mahoma y los primeros tiempos del islam fueron moldeados por las necesidades del poder califal, adaptándose a las circunstancias de cada época.
Críticas revisionistas a la tradición
Los revisionistas destacan ejemplos concretos de las inconsistencias internas de las fuentes. Uno de ellos es la multiplicidad de relatos sobre un mismo acontecimiento, como el episodio en que se describe la purificación espiritual de Mahoma, narrado en formas radicalmente distintas según la fuente: a veces son ángeles quienes le abren el pecho, en otras ocasiones águilas; varía el número de testigos y las circunstancias del hecho. Para los revisionistas, estas divergencias demuestran el carácter literario y hagiográfico de la narración, más que un fundamento histórico.
Otro punto señalado es la evolución del concepto de impuestos como la yizia o el zakat. Mientras que en los primeros pactos, como la Constitución de Medina, no se menciona un tributo específico para los no musulmanes, más adelante aparece la yizia como impuesto obligatorio. Los revisionistas interpretan esta variación como el resultado de ajustes políticos y fiscales, no como continuidad de una normativa revelada.
Asimismo, algunos términos habrían cambiado de significado con el tiempo. El zakat, hoy asociado a la caridad, se interpretaba originalmente como “purificación”, y solo después se habría transformado en una obligación económica para los creyentes. Estas reinterpretaciones demostrarían que el islam temprano fue configurándose gradualmente, en interacción con las necesidades sociales y políticas.
Teorías revisionistas alternativas
Dentro de la Escuela Revisionista, se han formulado diversas teorías acerca de los orígenes del islam. Una de las más influyentes fue la de Patricia Crone y Michael Cook en su obra Hagarism. Según ellos, el islam no nació en La Meca y Medina, sino en el Levante, como un movimiento judío-mesiánico en el que colaboraban árabes y judíos palestinos. Su argumento se basa en fuentes griegas como la Doctrina Jacobi, que menciona a un “falso profeta” entre los sarracenos durante las conquistas árabes de Siria. Según esta hipótesis, Mahoma habría liderado un movimiento conjunto con los judíos, que posteriormente se disolvió cuando los árabes decidieron construir una identidad religiosa propia, tomando elementos tanto del judaísmo como del cristianismo.
Otra teoría, defendida por Yehuda Nevo y Judith Koren, afirma que los árabes conquistadores eran aún paganos cuando llegaron al Levante y solo adoptaron el monoteísmo posteriormente, bajo la influencia del entorno cristiano y judío. Según esta postura extrema, el nombre “Mahoma” no designaría a un individuo histórico, sino un epíteto que significa “el alabado”, aplicado quizás a Jesús.
Por su parte, la escuela Inarah propuso que el islam habría sido fundado por cristianos nestorianos que, al separarse de la ortodoxia bizantina, habrían elaborado una nueva identidad religiosa. Para esta corriente, Mahoma no sería un personaje histórico real, sino un título equivalente a “el alabado”, atribuido en un principio a Cristo mismo.
Finalmente, otros revisionistas como Moshe Sharon y Fred Donner han propuesto una visión más moderada. Para ellos, el islam no fue una religión única y definida desde sus orígenes, sino un conjunto de comunidades de creyentes monoteístas dispersas por Arabia, Siria e Irak, que compartían una fe en un solo Dios sin una identidad religiosa uniforme. Con el tiempo, bajo el califato omeya, estas comunidades se habrían unificado y consolidado en lo que hoy conocemos como islam.
Críticas a las teorías revisionistas
Las posturas revisionistas, aunque estimulantes, han recibido fuertes críticas. En primer lugar, se les acusa de basarse de manera selectiva en fuentes hostiles al islam, como crónicas bizantinas, sin otorgar peso suficiente a la tradición árabe. Además, se han encontrado evidencias arqueológicas y epigráficas que contradicen la hipótesis de un islam surgido fuera de Arabia. Inscripciones datadas en la década de 640 mencionan al dios Allah y a califas tempranos como Umar, lo que prueba la existencia de una comunidad monoteísta islámica ya en esos años.
Asimismo, fuentes contemporáneas no musulmanas, incluidas crónicas cristianas y hasta registros chinos, mencionan a los primeros califas y las campañas árabes, lo que apoya la visión tradicional de un islam ya constituido en el siglo VII. Muchos historiadores consideran que las teorías que niegan la existencia histórica de Mahoma son demasiado especulativas y descansan sobre evidencias fragmentarias.
Conclusión
El debate sobre los orígenes del islam revela la tensión entre tradición y crítica historiográfica. La visión tradicional ofrece un relato coherente, transmitido por las fuentes islámicas, que sitúa el nacimiento de la religión en Arabia en torno a la figura de Mahoma. La Escuela Revisionista, por su parte, ha enriquecido la discusión al poner de relieve los problemas de las fuentes, la influencia de la política y la complejidad de la construcción religiosa.
Sin embargo, las teorías más radicales que sitúan el origen del islam fuera de Arabia o que niegan la existencia de Mahoma encuentran dificultades serias ante la evidencia arqueológica y textual. Probablemente, la verdad histórica se encuentre en un punto intermedio: el islam nació en Arabia, pero su configuración doctrinal y política fue un proceso más complejo y prolongado de lo que sostiene la narrativa tradicional.
En última instancia, el mérito de la Escuela Revisionista no es tanto haber ofrecido una explicación alternativa definitiva, sino haber obligado a los estudiosos a cuestionar las fuentes, a considerar los contextos de poder y a aceptar que el islam, como toda religión, se desarrolló a través de procesos históricos de construcción y reinterpretación.
ENGLISH TRANSCRIPTION OF THE VIDEO
INTRODUCTION The history of the exact origins of world religions is often shrouded in mystery, and the subject of much value holy books and texts have as historical documents have been a fierce academic battleground for historians for centuries. Islam, as the most recent global religion in the world, was considered to be the exception to this rule, with the 19th-century French scholar Ernest Renan claiming that it was born “in the light of history.” For centuries, it was assumed that the Quran, Hadiths, Sirah and other religious
texts of Islam reflected the historical reality of the foundation and development of this religion. This persisted until 1970 when a movement spearheaded by the American historian John Wansbrough began casting doubt on the historicity of Islam’s religious texts, a movement which came to be known as the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies.
This movement has questioned a vast array of commonly accepted things ranging from Islam’s place of origin to the historicity of the prophet Muhammad. In this video, we will explore these alternative theories on the beginnings of Islam, reimagining our fundamental understanding of the origins of the Muslim faith, from its place of origin in the deserts of Arabia to the life and times of its founding Prophet.
TRADITIONALIST VIEW We have extensively covered the history and origins of Islam in our previous videos, particularly from the perspective which is now called the traditionalist view. However, to properly contextualize the theories we will discuss today, we must first reiterate the traditionalist historiographic view of Islam.
According to Muslim holy texts, Islam was founded by its prophet Muhammad, a man from the Qurayshi clan of Arabia. The Islamic tradition says that Muhammad received his first divine revelation when he was 40 and started preaching a belief in the single god in the pagan city of Mecca. He was persecuted for this and was forced to emigrate together with his disciples to Medina.
There, Muhammad managed to establish a Muslim community known as the ummah and eventually returned to Mecca. Muhammad died in 632, and soon after his death, his successors standardized the Quran as we know it today. Muhammad was succeeded by the Rashidun caliphate, the four successive caliphs chosen by the Muslim ummah to lead the Muslim world.
However, the legitimacy of this succession was challenged by Shia Muslims. In this period, the Muslim caliphate significantly expanded its territory, an expansion which reached its apex during the Umayyad dynasty. The Umayyad dynasty brought an end to the Rashidun caliphate when Muawiya, the first Umayyad Caliph, transferred power to his son, essentially turning the Caliphate into a monarchy.
According to the traditionalist view, Islam had become a fully formed religion during the prophet’s lifetime and immediately after his death. According to Robert Hoyland, “all the fundamental teachings of Islam had been established before Muhammad’s death,” and “the source material tends to give the impression that Muhammad and his Companions brought forth Islam complete and that later scholars merely codified and interpreted it.
” As such, the Quran, the Sirah, or biography of Muhammad, and other interpretations of the religion, such as the hadiths and later Muslim writers such as al-Tabari, became accepted as the key sources of understanding the period of the foundation of Islam. PROBLEMS POSED BY THE REVISIONIST SCHOOL For a long time, this narrative was commonly accepted by academia.
However, in the 1970s, several scholars started questioning the historicity of the Islamic scripture and, in so doing, launched the Revisionist school of Islamic study. While the views of revisionary scholars at times clash with each other, they are in agreement that the Quran, Sirah and hadiths should be viewed not as historical sources but as literary sources and, as John Wansbrough put it, “salvation history.
” Indeed, revisionists believe that these Islamic texts, which were codified sometime after the life and death of the Prophet Muhammed, were heavily affected by the political reality and power dynamics of their respective periods. So, what are the most commonly noted problems referred to by revisionist historians in Islamic sources? The main point of contention brought up by revisionists is the 150-year time gap between Muhammad’s death and the first Islamic written sources about his life and the emergence of Islam. Indeed, there are no surviving written sources from before the second half of the 8th
century describing the events that led to the foundation of Islam in detail. While external sources from the 7th century do mention the emergence of a new religion and a prophet, they do so only superficially. Another thing often pointed out by revisionists are the contradictions between Muslim accounts of the history of Islam and Muhammad’s biographies.
The same events or stories are described inconsistently. For instance, a prominent revisionist, Patricia Crone, notes that the Muslim sources present the same purported encounter of Muhammad with non-Muslims in 15 different ways. Another example is the story of Muhammad’s soul being cleaned. The common theme here is that the prophet’s belly was opened by some beings who cleansed his soul from evil.
The details of this story differ wildly between different Muslim sources, varying from the nature of beings who did this, who ranged from angels to eagles, the number of people or beings who did this, and the number of people who witnessed this event. To be fair, it is rather strange that revisionist historians even analyze this story in the context of inconsistent reports since it is clearly an example of hagiography and religious passage.
Many would argue that this story is meant to be taken allegorically, not literally, so from a historical and academic point of view, it does not really matter that there are inconsistencies in this religious story. The third common problem that revisionists refer to is the impact of political power and dominant narratives on the early Muslim historians of Islam.
This argument refutes the notion that the knowledge about Muhammad and the origins of Islam has been preserved. Revisionist historians mention the difference in the description of the jizyah tax in Muslim sources as the evidence of influence of the political dynamics of the age on these sources. The jizyah is mentioned in Muslim sources as the tax that non-Muslim ‘peoples of the book’ must pay to their Muslim rulers.
However, in the earlier Constitution of Medina, a treaty between Muhammad and the elite of the city of Medina, including the Jewish community, there is no mention of the jizyah. Moreover, the goalposts of who within the Caliphate had to pay the Jizya were periodically shifting.
Initially, all converts to Islam were exempt from paying the jizyah tax, but the increasing number of converts meant that the state was now getting less tax revenue, which obviously was not an ideal situation. Hence, the Caliphate gradually started to sophisticate and complicate its taxation system in order to keep the state revenues flowing. Another revisionist historian, Jorgen Simonsen, mentions another example in his work.
According to him, the term “zakat,” which is now associated with the obligation of Muslims to give to charity, originally meant “purification” in the Quran. It means this term was later reinterpreted in Muslim sources to legitimize the transfer of some social burden from the state to the Ummah.
It is beyond doubt that Islam’s holy scripture and other religious texts have been interpreted and reinterpreted on many occasions, and this is occurring to this day. Muslim rulers, including the Caliphs, have used religious authorities to reinterpret the verses of the Quran and hadiths. Some hadiths are universally rejected in the Islamic tradition for being fabricated for political purposes.
However, it is not entirely clear how this argument of the revisionists poses problems to the traditionalist reading of Islamic history. The Quran is, first and foremost, a religious book, not a history book or a legal text. Many laws of the Islamic states have indeed taken their legitimacy from the Quran and Islam’s other religious texts, eventually leading to the emergence of the Islamic law, the Shariah.
With that said the reinterpretation of Islam’s religious texts in different and, at times, contradictory manners does not explicitly refute the traditional understanding of the history of Islam. Revisionist historians pose several other arguments in their critique of the traditionalist point of view. But what is their alternative reading of the history of Islam’s emergence? Bear in mind that different historians propose different alternative understandings and they are often not in agreement amongst themselves.
ISLAM DID NOT EMERGE IN ARABIA Perhaps the most controversial theory posed by the Revisionist School of Islamic Studies was developed by Patricia Crone and her colleague, Michael Cook, and puts into question the land in which Islam originated.
While Muslims and traditionalist historians believe that the Arabian cities of Mecca and Medina were the places of origin of Islam, the aforementioned skeptics present a different methodology relying on available foreign historical and linguistic data along with archeological evidence. The revisionists refuse to base their scholarship solely on Arabic sources and on sources which make up the Islamic tradition, believing that non-Muslim sources who wrote about Islam during the time of the religion’s founding provide a better understanding of the early history of Islam.
In their work called The Hagarism, Crone and Cook argue that Islam originated as a Jewish messianic movement of Arab warriors and Palestinian Jews led by Muhammad. Their evidence for this comes from a Greek Christian source, the Doctrina Iacobi, which was written during the Arab conquest of Syria between 632 and 634.
The Doctrina Iacobi talks about “a false prophet” appearing “among the Saracens…with sword and chariot.” This source tells a story of a Byzantine commander being killed by the Saracens and how Jews «were overjoyed» by this. Assuming this prophet was probably Muhammed, the Greek writer referred to his movement as the Hagarenes, descendants of Hagar – Abraham’s wife and, Magaritai or emigrants, a term strikingly similar to the Arabic term “muhajirun,” which referred to the earliest Muslim community, who emigrated from Mecca to Medina under the leadership of Muhammad. Crone and Cook argue
that after a successful conquest of Palestine under the command of Muhammad, the Arabs gradually broke their alliance with the Jews in fear of being assimilated by them. Instead, they borrowed heavily from Christianity and Judaism to forge a separate religious identity for themselves – Islam. To that end, the Arabs accepted Jesus as the Messiah.
They designated Muhammad as a figure similar to Moses on the way to creating their own version of an Abrahamic religion. The authors claim that Islam gained its current form under the Umayyad dynasty when the Arab control over the Holy Land was solidified and entrenched. Thus, Islam did not originate in Arabia but in the Levant several generations after the prophet Muhammad’s death.
This theory is problematic for several reasons. First, it completely ignores Arab sources and relies on foreign sources, ignoring the fact that non-Arab sources about Islam can be just as biased as Arab sources. Second, even though the Doctrina Iacobi mentions a false prophet, it does not specifically name Muhammad.
The traditionalist approach argues that the Islamic conquest of the Levant took place under the first caliph, Abu Bakr and the military command of Khalid ibn al-Walid. So, it is possible that contemporary Christian sources simply confused the commander of the army coming from Arabia with the prophet of a religion coming from Arabia. Third, Jews being happy about the killing of a Byzantine commander does not prove that early Muslims and Jews were allies.
Perhaps this Byzantine commander was a common enemy? Perhaps like many other Christian commanders in history, he oppressed Jews and they were pleased to see him killed by another group, which was unrelated to them? It is difficult to be sure, but it is clear that this narrative is based on meagre and incomplete evidence. Even John Wansbrough, the founder of the revisionist school, criticizes this work based on the selective use of hostile sources.
Two other revisionist historians, Yehuda Nevo and Judith Koren, came to a similar conclusion about the geography of the emergence of Islam based on archeological evidence and non-Muslim sources. They argue that when the Arabs conquered the Levant, they were still pagans and became monotheistic after solidifying their rule there and coming in contact with the Christians and Jews who lived in the region.
Only during the reign of Muawiyah did the Arab people solidify their control over the Levant and only during the reign of Abd al-Malik did Islam as we know it emerge. They even go further to add that the proper name Muhammad did not represent a real person but an adjective, “the praised one.” This whole argument is based upon several inscriptions found around the river Jordan and the lack of evidence in contemporary Christian sources about the important figures of Islamic history like the Rashidun caliphs or early Islamic era battles Other scholars have refuted this ultra-revisionist position and dismissed it as a conspiracy theory,
noting that traces of monuments and battlegrounds from the period of the emergence of Islam can, in fact, be seen in and around Mecca and throughout the Arabian peninsula. Let us give you several relevant examples. There is an inscription from Wadi Khushayba dated to 650 CE, which begins with “May Allah have mercy…” suggesting that the Arabs who wrote it were not, in fact, still pagan at the time.
Another inscription from the year 644 or 645 was found in Qa’al-Mutadil saying, “In the name of Allah; I, Zuhayr, wrote this at the time when Umar died, in the year twenty-four.” These inscriptions explicitly point to the deity the Arabs believed in – Allah, along with the second caliph Umar. Along with that, historians like Robert Hoyland and Fred Donner point out that there are contemporary Christian sources from the 7th century talking about the early Rashidun Caliphs.
Not only that, there are Chinese sources talking about them as well! All of this easily refutes Nevo’s and Koren’s theories. Ultimately, this theory relies on several small pieces of evidence on the way to creating a dubious story of the emergence of Islam while ignoring plenty of contrary evidence that conflicts with its narrative. Another radical theory about the emergence of Islam outside of Arabia is proposed by the Inarah school.
They argue that Islam was actually founded by the Nestorian Christians, who seceded from the Church after rejecting the First Council of Ephesus in 431. Some of them were Arab Christians, and at one point in the 7th century, they ousted the Byzantine military from the Levant. According to the Inarah School, at some point and for reasons not precisely specified by the authors, these Nestorian Arab Christians decided to give up their Christian identity and create another Abrahamic religion, which by the end of the 7th century evolved into Islam. Similar to Nevo and Koren, the
Inarah school proponents doubted the historicity of the prophet of Islam. They argued that Muhammad was not his own person but a title meaning “the praised one,” which was just another name for Jesus. This assertion is largely based on a coin from 660 with the word “Muhammad” containing a sign of a cross on it.
Similar arguments used for the previous theory can be used to refute this radical revisionist theory as well. It is just another case of using disconnected evidence and ignoring the wealth of other evidence on the way to constructing a very elaborate theory. The next revisionist theory we are going to discuss has been supported by historians like Moshe Sharon and Fred Donner. Both suggest that Islam did not emerge solely in Arabia.
Instead, it was a collection of scattered and initially unconnected groups of believers in a single god. According to Sharon, after the death of Muhammad, different groups of believers emerged throughout the Middle East, including Eastern and Northern Arabia, Iraq and Syria.
Each group had its own leader – the Amir al-muminun, or the commander of the Believers, a common reference to the caliphs. This theory asserts that the group in Syria was led by the Umayyad family. In Kufa, Ali ibn Abu Talib was the leader, while in the Mecca-Medina region, Abd Allah ibn Zubayr was the commander of the believers. These groups competed and fought for power.
Ultimately, the Umayyad dynasty won this power struggle and established Islam as the religion of their state to forge a unique religious identity. The proponents of this theory argue that at the initial stages, this movement of monotheistic believers, or muminun, did not have a distinct identity and prayed together with Christians. Donner believes that the fact that the word “Muslim” and its derivatives appear only 75 times in the Quran, while the word “mumin,” meaning ‘believer,’ occurs nearly 1000 times. This, he argues, demonstrates that at the time when the Quran emerged,
this new religious movement identified themselves not as Muslims but as believers. Donner claims that Quranic passages sympathetic to Christians and Jews and historical reports of joint prayers demonstrate this. He argues that only during the reign of the fifth Umayyad Caliph, Abd al-Malik, did Muhammad become the central figure of Islam and Islam gain a separate and unique identity from the other Abrahamic faiths.
Revisionists claim that Abd al-Malik ordered the construction of the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem to divert pilgrims from Mecca, which at the time was not ruled by the Umayyad. This is an interesting theory, but it suffers from a problem similar to other revisionist theories. Proponents of this theory cherrypick evidence that suits their narratives, ignoring all the rest.
There may be more mentions of “believers” than “Muslims” in the Quran, but Islam’s holy scripture does mention “Muslims,” and this cannot be ignored. What if these terms were used interchangeably, meaning more or less the same thing, as is the case now? What if Abd al-Malik tried to divert pilgrims from Mecca to Jerusalem simply because he did not rule over Mecca? The Quran indeed does have passages lumping together Muslims, Christians and Jews as people believing in the same God, but it also has many passages condemning non-Muslim monotheists for straying from the righteous path.
CONCLUSION All in all, the revisionist school of Islamic study has been an interesting, if controversial addition to the scholarship of Islam’s history. There is one more video coming on this topic, which will look at other alternative theories on the emergence of Islam.
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