Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Bruce Lincoln, Professor of the History of Religions in the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, has conveniently laid out thirteen theses35 for any historian of religion to follow in order to fulfill the duty of a historian. The historian must keep to the methods of historical research […]
Historical Methodology and Dogmatic Islamophilia (Part 4)
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 The provenance of an argument is not relevant, as long as it is submitted to rigorous examination. Now I personally have been accused of having some hidden agenda by a distinguished professor who teaches at a university in a city, which the British satirical journal, Private Eye, would describe […]
Historical Methodology and Dogmatic Islamophilia (Part 3)
Part 1 Part 2 Troeltsch formulated three principles on which he believed the critical historical inquiry was based, and which were incompatible with traditional Christian belief: (1) the principle of criticism: our judgments about the past are provisionally true, open to revision in the light of criticism by peers, by the discovery of new evidence, […]
Historical Methodology and Dogmatic Islamophilia (Part 2)
Part 1 Pace Cook and Crone, the implications of their theses are indeed “devastating“. Any research that casts doubt on the traditional Muslim account of the Koran, the Rise of Islam and the life of Muhammad is totally unacceptable to Muslims. The two final letters reveal the enormous gulf between the attitudes to research in […]
Historical Methodology and Dogmatic Islamophilia (Part 1)
(English Original of „Historische Methodologie und die Forderung nach Wohlwollen gegenüber dem Islam“) Historical Methodology and the Believer A few years ago I was invited to a conference at The Hague by Professor Hans Jansen, the great Arabist. After listening to series of grim papers all day long, Hans and I headed for the nearest […]
Why Should the UN Consider It Its Duty to Protect Islam from Criticism?
TALK GIVEN AT SEVENTH INARAH CONFERENCE IN TRIER, GERMANY, 4 MAY 2022 Good afternoon, welcome to the seventh Inarah Conference. My name is Ibn Warraq. I played, as Dr Markus Gross has adumbrated, a modest part in helping launch the Inarah Institute and the attendant Inarah conferences. I fear some of you may now have […]
The Critical Qur’an: The most comprehensive critical edition of the holy book of the Muslims ever published
A Review of Robert Spencer, The Critical Qur’an. Explained from Key Islamic Commentaries and Contemporary Historical Research. Introduction, 114 Suras, Appendix: Two Apocryphal Shi ‘ite Suras, Endnotes, Index. Pp. 548. Bombardier Books, 2022. In his lucid introduction, Robert Spencer makes an important point that must be borne in mind: his book is a compilation of […]
‘Did Muhammad Exist?’: ‘Intellectually exhilarating.’ ‘Leaves no stone unturned.’
Author’s note: This is the fifth and final segment of my review of Robert Spencer’s new revised and expanded edition of Did Muhammad Exist?. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. Part 4 is here. Here is more from chapter thirteen, “Making Sense of it All,” which gives a wonderful […]
Could the Qur’an have been adapted from a Christian text?
Author’s note: This is the fourth segment of my review of Robert Spencer’s new revised and expanded edition of Did Muhammad Exist?. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Part 3 is here. In Chapter nine, Spencer tackles the vexatious problem of the variants in the Koran, largely but not entirely, due to the […]
If Muhammad is legendary, why were stories invented about him that portray him in a negative light?
Author’s note: This is the third segment of my review of Robert Spencer’s new revised and expanded edition of Did Muhammad Exist?. Part 1 is here. Part 2 is here. Chapter 5 discusses the work of Ibn Ishaq and Ibn Hisham, the earliest biographers of Muhammad, in considerable detail, and shows how totally unreliable […]