Good bye Mohammed

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Good Bye Mohammed: The New Image of Islam by Norbert G. Pressburg is a non-fiction book that aims to provide an overview of the revival of the historical-critical method in Koran exegesis by German-speaking Islamic scholars - starting with Günter Lüling in the 1970s.

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Historical-critical Islamic research in Germany

It shows the attempt to shed light on the first two centuries of the Qur'an through archaeological and philological source research , as has been used in Europe since the Enlightenment in biblical criticism .

German research on Islam in the 19th century was progressive and historically critical. It is associated with names such as Sprenger , Nöldeke , Wellhausen and Ignaz Goldziher . German Islam research experienced a terrifying decline in the course of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was not until Günter Lüling that a turning point was initiated in the 1970s. Oriental studies had got used to adopting the traditional Islamic religious legends 1: 1, as if Ignaz Goldziher had never existed.

The focus is on the research methods and preliminary research results of the Office for Religious Studies at the University of Saarbrücken , where professors under the direction of Karl-Heinz Ohlig - interdisciplinary - critically question the genesis of the Koran and the historicity of Muhammad . The Saarbrücken researchers state that the Muslim tradition is not interested in critical source research up to the present day, the traditions ( hadiths ) are guided by salvation-historical interest and thus represent mythical narrative texts in the sense of a narrative theology . From the first two hundred years of the Islamic calendar, no non-Islamic sources are known that report about a prophet Mohammed and a religion called Islam.

The Iranist and archaeologist Volker Popp concludes from numismatic , iconographic and epigraphic evidence of the 7th and 8th centuries that Arabia was still Christian at that time.

72 grapes and not a single virgin

Semitic scripts - like Arabic scripts - are consonant scripts , which means that vowels can only be found in the form of matres lectionis . In addition, some consonants can only be read clearly with additional dots. The oldest fragments of the Koran have only been handed down in so-called defective script ( Rasm ), which means that there are no diacritics , e.g. dots and lines, through which the meaning of the individual letters and words is clearly defined:

"When the canonical version of the Koran was drawn up (in the 7th-9th centuries), the lack of any diacritical points and other vowel marks made a single reading a fiction."

- Christoph Luxenberg : The Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran. A contribution to the deciphering of the Koran language, p.45.

In the opinion of the Saarbrücken Islamic scholars, this defective spelling has resulted in numerous misinterpretations and many dark, misunderstood passages when creating the canonical version of the Koran :

The preparation of a historical-critical edition of the Koran is obvious. According to the Saarbrücken expert Dr. Gerd-Rüdiger Puin , that one fifth of the Koran, which is also considered difficult to understand by “initiated” people, is largely illuminated. These dark passages are mostly the result of Arabic language interpretations in which the meaning of Aramaic within the Arabic language at the time of the founder of the religion Mohammed and immediately afterwards was misunderstood.

This is where a new study by his Saarbrücken colleague, the Semitist and Koran researcher Christoph Luxenberg , comes in :

The author assumes the linguistic situation that should have prevailed in the first decades of the 7th century. At that time the writing practice of Arabic allowed ambiguities and the Syro-Aramaic , the great cultural language of the Middle East, still exerted a great influence. Luxenberg proceeds in several steps to clarify the disputed points. First of all, he draws on Tabari's great exegesis of the Koran and the main lexicon " Lisan al-Arab ". If that does not lead to a result, then he checks whether there is an identical root in Syro-Aramaic that has a different meaning but fits the context better. Another step is to change the diacritical points in order to get a more meaningful Arabic word. Next, the diacritical points are changed to get an Aramaic root. The last step tries to open it up via the semantics of the Syro-Aramaic expression by translating the Arabic expression back into Aramaic .

Christoph Luxenberg cites as a prime example of such a misinterpreted, "read out" passage from the Koran, the belief in Huris , in virgins of paradise, in Sura 44 - Sūrat Ad-Dukhān (The Smoke) - Verse 54:

"That's how it is). And we give them wide-eyed Huris as wives, "

- 44:54 after Paret

According to Muslim popular belief , the Huris are 72 virgins who will pamper a godly man - also a martyr - in paradise :

Commentators have always been amazed at the sensuality of the otherworldly male fantasies.

The Quran verse 44:54, which was only subsequently provided with diacritical marks in the canonical Quran:

Arabic كَذَلِكَ وَزَوَّجْنَاهُمْ بِحُورٍ عِين, DMG kadālika wa zawwaǧnāhhum bi-ḥūrinʻīnin

would literally mean:

and we give them "white eyes" as wives , which makes no sense. Traditional Koran scholars therefore interpret the passage bi-hur inin as “big-eyed whites”, that is, they project “paradise virgins” into the Koran.
[44.54] So (it will be). And we will marry her to lovely girls who have big, splendid eyes.

Christoph Luxenberg assumes that the Arabic reading of this verse is incorrect. In Arabic he reads incomprehensible words as aramisms , which means that he suspects that these misinterpreted passages from the Koran were originally written in Syriac-Aramaic and only later - incorrectly - translated into Arabic:

However, Luxenberg uses Koranic and non-Koranic cross-references to show that in the context of paradise the (ḥūrin) “whites” undoubtedly mean grapes . The Arabic word "ʻīnin", which is not understood in Arabic, means, as an Aramaic adjective, ʻaynē: "crystal clear, shiny, magnificent appearance". The "ḥūrin" are therefore not beings, especially not huris , but "crystal clear, magnificent grapes". And finally, “bi” does not mean the Arabic “with”, but the Aramaic “under”. The believer is not paired with the Huris, but rests under the "ḥūrin", that is, "under the grapes".

According to Luxenberg, Sura 44:54 means:

We will make you comfortable under white crystal (clear) (grapes).

From the context it becomes clear: it is about paradise, the heavenly garden. The vine is never missing in Quranic descriptions of the earthly garden:

In the Heavenly Garden, the word ( aramism ) “ḥūr” is a metaphorical expression for white grapes. Syrian-Aramaic dictionaries also show that this adjective in the feminine refers to “white grapes”.

The virgins thus become “splendid grapes”, fruits that have long been considered a symbol of well-being and comfort in the oriental conceptions of paradise.

The title of the English edition of Good Bye Mohammed alludes to this Luxenberg Syro-Aramaic reading of Sura 44:54 : What The Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin - The New Picture of Islam ( What today's martyrs should know: 72 grapes and not a single virgin - the new image of Islam ).

This is bad news for those who politically abuse the Koran: the willing Huris are used to lure young men into martyrdom. For everyone who is interested in clarifying the text of the Koran, the more consistent reading should be a reason to be happy.

The Mohammed myth

The Ur-Koran: a liturgical book by non-Trinitarian Christians

The religious scholar and Catholic theologian Karl-Heinz Ohlig suspects - like the Arabist Günter Lüling in 1974 in the book: About the Ur-Qur'an - the existence of a Christian-Arabic Ur-Koran, a Syrian-Aramaic "Qeryan". This original Quran is a lectionary based on a harmony of the Gospels of non-Trinitarian Christians. These Aramaic-speaking Arab Christians of late antiquity , living in the Persian Sassanid Empire , rejected the dogma of the Trinity , as stated in the Trinitarian creeds on the triune God, the Nicene ( First Council of Nicaea , 325 AD) and the Nicano-Constantinopolitanum ( First Council of Constantinople , 381 AD). They represented a strict Unitarian monotheism and thus stood in contrast to the Roman- Byzantine imperial church , which saw this non-trinitarian , Arab Christianity as a heresy :

Christianity is a split from Judaism, Islam is a split from Christianity.

From the honorary title “muhamad Jesus” to the prophet of the Arabs

For these monarchian , adoptian Arab Christians, Jesus was not God's son , but a man, a prophet, a messenger of God , who was honored by the Aramaic honorary title muhamad (MHMD, " the one to be praised " ), as can be found on coins of this time . Muhammad is therefore not a proper name, but a predication , a christological title:

muhamad, the praised, is nothing else than the Arabic version of the Greek Kraestos and the Latin Christ, the anointed: Kraestos, Christ, muhamad: the same, the same, namely Jesus. muhamad abd Allah is the praised servant of God. The Christological predicate muhamad later broke away from its point of reference Jesus and was personified and historicized in the form of an Arab prophet with the name Mohammed :
Towards the end of the eighth and early ninth centuries, when the Koranic movement established itself as a separate religion, Islam, Mohammed became the founder of this religion, and the events were transferred to the homeland of the Arabs.

The historical Mohammed is demythologized as the Mohammed myth : the prophet is not a historical figure, but a theological fiction .

As early as the 8th century, the church father John of Damascus had described the religion of the Arabs - the descendants of Ishmael - as the "heresy of the Ishmaelites" in his Book of Heresies , an excerpt from his dogmatic work Source of Knowledge (Greek Pege gnoseos ) .

The new world religion Islam developed according to this " minor opinion " from a variety of Christianity, from a christological heresy .

Reply to the absence of contemporary sources

However, according to other accounts, there are numerous mentions of an Arab military leader Mohammed who refers to the God and the successor of Abraham, to be found in Christian chronicles according to the Islamic calendar just a few years after the death of Mohammed . This wealth of sources is due to the Islamic expansion , which was perceived as a decisive event in the Christian world, especially in Byzantium. Probably the oldest source in which Mohammed is mentioned goes back to the Syrian chronicle of Thomas the Presbyter , who wrote around 640:

"On February 4th, 634, early in the morning, there was a battle between the Byzantines and the Arabs of Muhammad."

According to this, Mohammed was already portrayed as a military leader by contemporaries. In the anonymous history of Armenia , which ends with the victory of Mu'awiya I in the first civil war (656-661) and which is considered an authentic source from the 7th century, although the ascribed authorship of Bishop Sebeos is partly doubted Muhammad quoted as follows - addressed to his followers:

“You are the sons of Abraham, and through you God wants to keep the promise he made to Abraham and his posterity. Love the God of Abraham, go out and take possession of the land that God gave your father Abraham, because no one will be able to fight you in battle, for God is with you. "

Here, too, it is clear that Mohammed initiated these conquests and led some of them himself. The Christian chronicles from the middle of the 7th century also confirm that Mohammed saw himself as a renewer of Abraham's monotheism. They also state in detail that it was Mohammed who “introduced the God of Abraham to the Arabs” - according to the Armenian chronicler Sebeos - and gave them new laws. Johannes bar Penkaye , a monk in northern Mesopotamia who, according to his own information, lived in the “67. Year of the rule of the Arabs ”(i.e. 686-687) wrote, reports:

"They (the Arabs) hold on to the tradition of Muhammad so strongly that they punish anyone who disregards his (Muhammad's) laws with death."

Hijra or victory of the Byzantines over Persian "fire worshipers"

The starting point of the Islamic calendar is the year 622 AD: the year 1 AD (according to the Hijra ), in which, according to Muslim tradition, Mohammed emigrated from Mecca to Medina. The Saarbrücker Islam research group around Karl-Heinz Ohlig, on the other hand, advocates the thesis that the Arabic calendar , which was clearly documented as early as the 7th century, is not based on the hijra:

Long before the idea of ​​a hijra came up, there was an Arabic-Christian count of the years from 622, which was only reinterpreted as Muslim in the early 9th century,

Since Ohlig denies the existence of a prophet Mohammed, he could not have left Mecca either . The year 622 actually refers to the decisive victory of the Byzantine, Eastern Roman emperor Herakleios over the Sassanid great king Chosrau II in the year 622. The special thing about the campaign against the Sassanids was that Herakleios apparently designed it as a kind of " crusade " against them Persian “ fire worshiper ” understood: Images of Christ were placed in the army camp, and several fire temples were destroyed in revenge for the devastation of Jerusalem and the taking of the Holy Cross . Arab auxiliary troops on Herakleios's side played an important role in this struggle and, as a thank you, were able to found their own kingdom this year as a Foederati in eastern Iran (area around Marw ). The calendar refers to the beginning of the autocracy of the Arabs in these areas. Volker Popp also attributes the Koranic figure " Dhū l-Qarnain " to Herakleios.

Anonymous publication

The name of the book author NG Pressburg is a pseudonym , as is that of the German-speaking Semitist Christoph Luxenberg. This hiding of one's own identity and the fact that Pressburg's book could not be published by a normal publisher, but only as an anonymous book-on-demand , is what Eckehard Peters rated in his review of the book Good Bye Mohammed , published in the journal Die Politische Demokratie the KAS was published as follows:

“There is no further information about the author in the book or on the Internet. One must assume that 'Norbert G. Pressburg' is a pseudonym, as is the case with the Semitist Christoph Luxenberg ('The Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran'). This illustrates the extremely worrying fact that more and more authors and publishers are self- censoring when it comes to issues critical of Islam , as they apparently fear acts of violence by radical Muslims. So the question remains whether the fact that the book was published by the ' Samizdat ' publishing house Books on Demand is already a victory for radical Islamic intimidation . It would have deserved proofreading by a renowned non-fiction publisher.

- Eckehard Peters

Political impact

There was a "political issue" around the book Good Bye Mohammed : Eckehard Peters, the foreigner commissioner of the Thuringian state government, lost his post because he had 500 copies of the book Good Bye Mohammed distributed to those responsible in authorities, schools and cultural institutions:

State Secretary for Social Welfare Hartmut Schubert had declared in the state parliament that the statements contained in the book contradict the integration concerns. Peters did not discuss the distribution with the state government.

Eckehard Peters, on the other hand, thought the book was suitable

"To initiate a discussion process about the current state and possible developments of Islam in Europe, provided that we succeed in gaining an understanding of a historical, enlightening view of Islam."

The year before, Eckehard Peters, in his capacity as foreigners commissioner at the Thuringian Ministry of Social Affairs, Family and Health, invited the religious scholar Karl-Heinz Ohlig to give a lecture on research critical to the Koran in Erfurt and started a distribution campaign for the lecture brochure. Entitled: Early History of Islam. Professor Karl-Heinz Ohlig presented the historical-critical research activities of the Saarbrücken School of Islamic Studies to a broad audience with the religious studies question about the beginnings . As part of his public relations work, Eckehard Peters had 2000 copies of this lecture printed, in which theories critical of the Koran were presented as they are divulged in popular scientific form in the book ' Good Bye Mohammed' , published the following year . In his words of welcome to the lecture, Eckehard Peters explained his intentions:

Enlightened Christians of the 21st century can serve the Muslims in all solidarity with an experience: In the 18th and 19th centuries, with the onset of the Enlightenment into theology, a worldview for some Christians apparently collapsed when they were supposed to take note, for example, that Adam and Eve should not be understood as historical figures, that the Bible is neither a physics nor a biology textbook, that instead it contains diverse literary genres and many biblical texts refer to history, but by no means as historical protocols in the modern sense Chronicles are to be read. Ultimately, the enlightened historical biblical criticism did no harm to the churches or to religious belief. On the contrary, it has contributed to bringing Christianity into the modern age and to inculturating it into scientific and technical civilization. Could it not be that Islam in Europe still has this way to go? If so, then we should accompany the Muslims on this path - in solidarity and with humility. It is important to ensure that the deepest binding forces that human beings are capable of, the religious ones, can develop freely and that at the same time any attempt to abuse them politically is resolutely opposed.

See also

literature

Reviews

Web links

Book author Norbert G. Pressburg

Saarbrücken School of Islamic Studies

The book becomes a political issue - press reports

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 3rd edition. Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2012
  2. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition, p. 14
  3. ^ Uwe Topper : Lüling: An orientalist against the current. A review of the life's work of the theologian and orientalist Günter Lüling , Berlin 2005
  4. ^ A b c Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Early history of Islam. The religious studies question about the beginnings . (PDF; 504 kB) Lecture given on December 1, 2007 in Erfurt. Editor: The Foreigners Commissioner at the Thuringian Ministry of Social Affairs, Family and Health Eckehard Peters, Print State Office for Surveying and Geoinformation, 2000 copies, January 2008
  5. ↑ Markus Groß, Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Volker Popp, Gerd-Rüdiger Puin : Comments on the criticism of Inârah In: From the Koran to Islam. Hans Schiler Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-89930-269-1
  6. ^ Zainab A. Müller (Berlin): Conditions in Islamic Studies. Günter Lüling on his 80th birthday (PDF; 74 kB) In: Enlightenment and Criticism 2/2009, available on the server of the Society for Critical Philosophy Nuremberg (GKPN)
  7. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition, pp. 13/14
  8. ↑ Office for Religious Studies ( Memento from July 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) of Saarland University
  9. ↑ Associated with the Office for Religious Studies at Saarbrücken University is “Inârah” (Arabic for “Enlightenment”): INAHRAH - Institute for research into the early history of Islam and for the establishment of the historical-critical method in Islamic studies
  10. ↑ Volker Popp: The early history of Islam according to inscribed and numismatic evidence , pp. 16–123, In: Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Gerd-Rüdiger Puin  : The dark beginnings. New research on the origins and early history of Islam , 3rd edition 2006 Schiler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89930-128-1
  11. ↑ How much truth is there in the mysterious Quran? In: Die Welt March 13, 2010
  12. ↑ Christoph Luxenberg : The Syro-Aramaic reading of the Koran. A contribution to deciphering the Koran language . Verlag Hans Schiler 3rd edition 2007, ISBN 3899300289 , p. 45.
  13. ↑ Saarbrücker Islamic scholar: "About a fifth of the Koran has to be read again!" Press office of the Saarland University (Dr. Manfred Leber) December 8, 1999; available on the idw server .
  14. ↑ Mona Naggar: How Aramaic is the Koran? ( Memento from October 12, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , Zurich February 3, 2001.
  15. ↑ Sura 44:54 ( memento of October 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) on koransuren.de
  16. ↑ in English: Ibn Warraq : Virgins? What virgins? It is widely believed that Muslim 'martyrs' enjoy rich sensual rewards on reaching paradise. A new study suggests they may be disappointed In: The Guardian, Jan. 12, 2002
  17. ↑ What is paradise like? (72 virgins) , available on the server of EFG Berlin Schöneberg
  18. ↑ a b c No Huris in Paradise In: Zeit online May 15, 2003
  19. ↑ a b > Sūrat Ad-Dukhān 44.54 , Suras of the Koran in Arabic and German, available at www.koran-unterricht.de
  20. ^ A b Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition, p. 31.
  21. ↑ a b The Koran explains the Bible in Arabic - Christoph Luxenberg calls for a new understanding of the reading of the Muslim scriptures . In: Die Welt , September 29, 2004; Interview by Jan Rübel.
  22. ↑ p. 260
  23. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: What The Modern Martyr Should Know: Seventy-two Grapes and Not a Single Virgin - The New Picture of Islam , CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (June 23, 2012), ISBN 978-1-4681-2903-8
  24. ^ Günter Lüling : About the Ur-Qur'an. Approaches to the reconstruction of pre-Islamic Christian verse songs in the Qur'an . Erlangen 1974, ISBN 3-922317-18-9 . (Reprint 1990, 3rd corr. Edition 2004). Quoted in: NGPressburg: Good Bye Mohammed , p. 29.
  25. ↑ a b Wilhelm Maia Maas: The Koran - a Christian lesson? Written finds shake the foundations of today's understanding of the Koran (PDF; 288 kB), p. 19 In: NOVALIS Journal for European Thought 11/12 2003, pp. 18–21
  26. ↑ From Binary to Trinity , chapter p. 77, in: Helmut Fischer: Do the Christians have three gods? Origin and understanding of the doctrine of the Trinity, Theological Verlag Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-290-17497-2 .
  27. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition. Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8448-5372-8 , p. 145; available from Google Books
  28. ↑ Karl-Heinz Ohlig: References to a new religion in Christian literature “under Islamic rule” , pp. 223-325, in: Karl-Heinz Ohlig (editor): Der early Islam. A historical-critical reconstruction based on contemporary sources . Berlin 2007, ISBN 3-89930-090-4 ; on Google Books
  29. ↑ Karl-Heinz Ohlig: From muhammad Jesus to the prophet of the Arabs. . The historicization of a christological predicate , available at inarah.de
  30. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition, p. 93
  31. ^ Disputes among Islamic scholars: Did Mohammed really live? In: Spiegel online September 17, 2008
  32. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition. Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8448-5372-8 , p. 119.
  33. ↑ Tilman Nagel : Free the prophet from his religious grip! , Source: FAZ, September 21, 2007, No. 220 / page 39
  34. ↑ Alan Posener : Islam is a Christian Heresy In: The European December 24, 2009
  35. ^ Robert G. Hoyland : The Earliest Christian Writings on Muhammad : An Appraisal. in: Harald Motzki (Ed.): The Biography of Muḥammad. The Issue of the Sources. Brill. Leiden 2000, p. 276 ff., Here p. 278.
  36. ↑ Karl-Heinz Ohlig: Why dark beginnings of Islam? , Pp. 9-10, in: Karl-Heinz Ohlig, Gerd-Rüdiger Puin  : The dark beginnings. New research on the origins and early history of Islam , 3rd edition 2006 Schiler Verlag, ISBN 978-3-89930-128-1
  37. ↑ Karl-Heinz Ohlig: On the emergence and early history of Islam In: Apuz , Issue Islam No. 26-27 / 2007, June 25, 2007 (PDF; 3.4 MB)
  38. ^ Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed: The new image of Islam . 3rd, revised edition, n Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2012, ISBN 978-3-8448-5372-8 , pp. 82–84; available from Google Books
  39. ^ V. Popp, K.-H. Ohlig : Early Islam. A historical-critical reconstruction based on contemporary sources. Schiler Verlag, 2nd edition. 2010. p. 36 ff.
  40. ^ Eckehard Peters: Read: Norbert G. Pressburg: Good Bye Mohammed. Mohammed and Reality . (PDF) In: The Political Opinion ( KAS ), No. 491, October 2010, p. 45; Review by the former foreigners commissioner of the Thuringian state government.
  41. ↑ a b Thuringia sends controversial foreigners commissioner into retirement In: LVZ-Online , September 9, 2010
  42. ↑ Thuringian Tabum maker. A popular science book on the history of Islam and its consequences . In: imprimatur:, issue 8/2010. Archive server of the Saarland University and State Library; Chronology of the political issue around the book Good Bye Mohammed in connection with the dismissal of the Thuringian commissioner for foreigners Eckehard Peters.