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The Quest For The Historical Muhammad (Ibn Warraq)
''The Quest for the Historical Muhammad'' (2000), edited by Ibn Warraq, is an anthology of 15 studies examining the origins of Islam and the Quran. The contributors argue that traditional Islamic accounts of its history and the origins of the Quran are fictitious and based on historical revisionism aimed at forging a religious Arab identity. Reception Well-known American scholars such as Fred Donner has criticized the selection of essays, and described it as a "monument to duplicity". Donner writes that Warraq unduly favors revisionist theories in order to advance "anti-Islam polemic", forwarding that "this lopsided character makes ''The Quest for the Historical Muhammad'' a book that is likely to mislead many an unwary general reader." Alfons Teipen, a professor of religion at Furman University, criticized the editing: "The two introductory articles ... are one-sided, rather polemical overview of ... scholarship on the life of Muhammad." Asma Afsaruddin describe ...
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Ibn Warraq
Ibn Warraq is the pen name of an anonymous author critical of Islam. He is the founder of the Institute for the Secularisation of Islamic Society and used to be a senior research fellow at the Center for Inquiry, focusing on Quranic criticism. Warraq is the vice-president of the World Encounter Institute. Warraq has written historiographies of the early centuries of the Islamic timeline and has published works which question mainstream conceptions of the period. The pen name Ibn Warraq ( ar, ابن وراق, most literally "son of a papermaker") is used due to his concerns for his personal safety; Warraq stated, "I was afraid of becoming the second Salman Rushdie." It is a name that has been adopted by dissident authors throughout the history of Islam. The name refers to the 9th-century skeptical scholar Abu Isa al-Warraq. Warraq adopted the pseudonym in 1995 when he completed his first book, entitled '' Why I Am Not a Muslim''. Warraq's commentary on Islam has been critic ...
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Furman University
Furman University is a private liberal arts university in Greenville, South Carolina. Founded in 1826 and named for the clergyman Richard Furman, Furman University is the oldest private institution of higher learning in South Carolina. It became a secular university in 1992, while keeping ''Christo et Doctrinae'' (For Christ and Learning) as its motto. It enrolls approximately 2,700 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students, representing 46 states and 53 foreign countries, on its campus. History Beginnings (19th century) Furman Academy and Theological Institution was established by the South Carolina Baptist Convention and incorporated in December 1825 in Edgefield. With 10 students, it held its first classes January 15, 1828;"Furman University" in ''The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture'', (Volume 17: Education), Clarence L. Mohr, ed. (UNC Press Books, 2011) p221 although another source says it opened in January 1827. Through 1850, average enrollment was 10 students ...
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Prometheus Books Books
In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, knowledge, and more generally, civilization. In some versions of the myth, he is also credited with the creation of humanity from clay. Prometheus is known for his intelligence and for being a champion of humankind, and is also generally seen as the author of the human arts and sciences. He is sometimes presented as the father of Deucalion, the hero of the flood story. The punishment of Prometheus as a consequence of the theft of fire and giving it to humans is a popular subject of both ancient and modern culture. Zeus, king of the Olympian gods, sentenced Prometheus to eternal torment for his transgression. Prometheus was bound to a rock, and an eagle—the emblem of Zeus—was sent to eat his liver (in ancient Greece, the liver was ...
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Biographies Of Muhammad
This is a chronological listing of biographies of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, ranging from the earliest traditional writers to modern times. Earliest biographers The following is a list of the earliest known Hadith collectors who specialized in collecting Sīra and Maghāzī reports. 1st century of Hijra (622–719 CE) * Sahl ibn Abī Ḥathma (d. in Mu'awiya's reign, i.e., 41-60 AH), was a young companion of Muhammad. Parts of his writings on Maghazi are preserved in the ''Ansāb'' of al-Baladhuri, the ''Ṭabaqāt'' of Ibn Sa'd, and the works of Ibn Jarir al-Tabari and al-Waqidi. * Abdullah ibn Abbas (d. 78 AH), a companion of Muhammad, his traditions are found in various works of Hadith and Sīra. * Saʿīd ibn Saʿd ibn ʿUbāda al-Khazrajī, another young companion, whose writings have survived in the ''Musnad'' of Ibn Hanbal and Abī ʿIwāna, and al-Tabari's ''Tārīkh''. * ʿUrwa ibn al-Zubayr (d. 713). He wrote letters replying to inquiries of the Umayyad c ...
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Historicity Of Religious Figures
Historicity is the historical actuality of persons and events, meaning the quality of being part of history instead of being a historical myth, legend, or fiction. The historicity of a claim about the past is its factual status. Historicity denotes historical actuality, authenticity, factuality and focuses on the true value of knowledge claims about the past. Some theoreticians characterize historicity as a dimension of all natural phenomena that take place in space and time. Other scholars characterize it as an attribute reserved to certain human occurrences, in agreement with the practice of historiography.Jones, Michael S.,Lucian Blaga, The Historical Phenomenon: An Excerpt from The Historical Being (2012). Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper 1. Herbert Marcuse explained historicity as that which "defines history and thus distinguishes it from 'nature' or the 'economy'" and "signifies the meaning we intend when we say of something that is 'historical'." The ''Blackwel ...
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Books Critical Of Islam
A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arrangement is ''codex'' (plural, ''codices''). In the history of hand-held physical supports for extended written compositions or records, the codex replaces its predecessor, the scroll. A single sheet in a codex is a leaf and each side of a leaf is a page. As an intellectual object, a book is prototypically a composition of such great length that it takes a considerable investment of time to compose and still considered as an investment of time to read. In a restricted sense, a book is a self-sufficient section or part of a longer composition, a usage reflecting that, in antiquity, long works had to be written on several scrolls and each scroll had to be identified by the book it contained. Each part of Aristotle's ''Physics'' is called a bo ...
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As'ad AbuKhalil
As'ad AbuKhalil ( ar, أسعد أبو خليل) (born 16 March 1960) is a Lebanese-American professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus. AbuKhalil is the author of ''Historical Dictionary of Lebanon'' (1998), ''Bin Laden, Islam & America's New "War on Terrorism"'' (2002), and ''The Battle for Saudi Arabia'' (2004). Biography AbuKhalil is a professor at California State University, Stanislaus, and was briefly a visiting professor at UC Berkeley.Robin AbcariaBetween disparate worlds Los Angeles Times (2005-06-07). Retrieved on 2011-10-17. Political views AbuKhalil describes himself as "a former Marxist–Leninist who is now an anarchist"."A Statue to Reason"
Ken Silverstein, Harper's Magazine, 2006-07-13
He is an opponent of th ...
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William Montgomery Watt
William Montgomery Watt (14 March 1909 – 24 October 2006) was a Scottish Orientalist, historian, academic and Anglican priest. From 1964 to 1979, he was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh. Watt was one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the West, and according to Carole Hillenbrand "an enormously influential scholar in the field of Islamic studies and a much-revered name for many Muslims all over the world". Watt's comprehensive biography of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, ''Muhammad at Mecca'' (1953) and '' Muhammad at Medina'' (1956), are considered to be classics in the field. Early life and education Watt was born on 14 March 1909 in Ceres, Fife, Scotland. His father, who died when he was only 14 months old, was a minister of the Church of Scotland. Career Ordained ministry Watt was ordained in the Scottish Episcopal Church as a deacon in 1939 and as a priest in 1940. He served his curacy at St Mary The Boltons, West Br ...
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Ad Hominem
''Ad hominem'' (), short for ''argumentum ad hominem'' (), refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically, this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than addressing the substance of the argument itself. The most common form of ''ad hominem'' is "A makes a claim ''x'', B asserts that A holds a property that is unwelcome, and hence B concludes that argument ''x'' is wrong". Fallacious ''ad hominem'' reasoning occurs where the validity of an argument is not based on deduction or syllogism, but on an attribute of the person putting it forward. Valid ''ad hominem'' arguments occur in informal logic, where the person making the argument relies on arguments from authority such as testimony, expertise, or a selective presentation of information supporting the position they are advocating. In this case, counterarguments may be made that ...
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Asma Afsaruddin
Asma Afsaruddin (born 1958) is an American Islamic scholar and Professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington. Biography She was an associate professor in Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. She has previously taught at Harvard University and the Johns Hopkins University, from which she received her PhD in 1993. Her fields of specialization include the religious and political thought of Islam, study of the primary Islamic texts (Qur'an and hadith), as well as gender studies. Afsaruddin has been an editorial board member for the Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, published by Cambridge University Press. She was an editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Medieval Islamic Civilization and a consultant for The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2002). Afsaruddin chairs the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy board of directors. She also sits on advisory committees for the Muslim World ...
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Historical Revisionism (negationism)
Historical negationism, also called denialism, is falsification or distortion of the historical record. It should not be conflated with ''historical revisionism'', a broader term that extends to newly evidenced, fairly reasoned academic reinterpretations of history."The two leading critical exposés of Holocaust denial in the United States were written by historians Deborah Lipstadt (1993) and Michael Shermer and Alex Grobman (2000). These scholars make a distinction between historical revisionism and denial. Revisionism, in their view, entails a refinement of existing knowledge about an historical event, not a denial of the event itself, that comes through the examination of new empirical evidence or a re-examination or reinterpretation of existing evidence. Legitimate historical revisionism acknowledges a 'certain body of irrefutable evidence' or a 'convergence of evidence' that suggest that an event – like the black plague, American slavery, or the Holocaust – did in fact o ...
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