The House of David

Wednesday, July 23, 2003

Polygamy, and the Synoptic Problem

The Muhajabah has noted something I did not already know, which is that Matthew 25:1-13 claimed a Jesus tradition which assumed a groom with 10 virgin brides. (Link from Aziz, for whose comments I made some additional points more relevant to Islam.)

I posted a new project - go read it.

This poses interesting problems for "Liberal Christians", those who claim to believe in "the true sayings of Jesus" first and in the canon second. It is very likely they are stuck with polygyny as a doctrine. They ought to consider that, next time they turn their noses up at "fundamentalists", and remain humble.

This also has implications for liberal Muslims. Matthew 25:1-13 was a saying of apocalyptic prophecy - precisely the view of Jesus's mission held by Muslims. Matthew 25:1-13 is Injil and so Muslims cannot ignore it the way a liberal Christian might. So even if it were not true that Muhammad had multiple wives, it is true - from a Muslim perspective - that 'Isa al-Masih approved of multiple wives.

posted by Zimri on 18:11 | link |

Sunday, July 20, 2003

The Byzantine betrayal of Syria

I just picked up Crossroads to Islam: The origins of the Arab Religion and the Arab State by Judith Koren and the late Yehuda Nevo. Readers of this blog and website know that I consider the latter's Towards a Prehistory of Islam ("TaPhoI") a seminal influence.

This book is an attempt to update the theories of Wansbrough and Crone, and also to bring them into the popular domain. It is, unsurprisingly, published by Prometheus, who also publish Ibn Warraq's books; in fact iW is singled in the Acknowledgements as giving particular encouragement.

This book has been a decade in the making since Nevo's passing. Nevo's organisational skills as employed in TaPhoI were, in my opinion, seriously wanting; here, fortunately, there is no such problem. (Koren deserves high honours for that alone.)

It is divided into three "parts", of which I have read only the first. But that part is mind-blowing enough.

I already knew that the East Roman Empire had reorganised the Syro-Palestinian provinces in the late 3rd century. I also knew that the Empire had firstly devolved its defence responsibilities onto subsidised Arab tribes, and had further allowed organised opposition movements in the form of rival Monophysite (and Nestorian) Christian churches. I had thought that much of this was out of necessity, given barbarian (Avar, Slav) raids from the Balkans. As for alienating the "heresies", I just put that down to bigotry and folly (mostly Justinian I's), of the sort we are used to from Christian fundamentalists.

Nevo and Koren disagree. They think that the Byzantines destroyed their own empire on purpose:

The Empire abandoned its forts - not during the sixth and seventh centuries, but during the third century's reorganisation. (p. 17)
The Arabs did not fight Byzantine armies. Where they faced any resistance, they only fought ad hoc local conscripts and civilian militiae. (p. 17, 98-99) The local Christians complained about Arab raids and Arab takeover, but not on the scale of war and conquest - formerly controlled Arabs suddenly started to do as they please. This by way of contrast to earlier wars, which the Christians did notice. (pp. 106-108, 115-119)
The Empire relied on bribery. (pp. 23-4)
The Empire adopted Arab tribes as foederati. (p. 30) These foederati ran a "parallel administration" in their regions. (p. 33, 44-46)
Justinian put Arabs within his own borders under the protection of an Arab state outside those borders: the Arabs of Phoenicia III under the state of Phoinikon. (p. 35, given special emphasis) This would be like America providing Mexican citizenship for American citizens of Mexican descent throughout the Southwest - in effect, Justinian told them they were no longer Romans.
The actual differences between Byzantium and Monophysitism were vanishingly small. But the official "persecutions" were calibrated only to annoy Monophysites - never to destroy them. In such a manner the local churches were forced to set themselves up as a rival hierarchy to that of the Byzantine church and state both. The Monophysites didn't even want to leave communion with the Orthodox. (p. 51-55)
The Caliphate was a de facto client of the Empire, at first. Mu'awiya started minting his own coinage in Syria, but only put his own name on it after defeating 'Ali for the East. He did not bother with the Negev nor with Byzantium proper, (p. 159, 161) and the Empire left ambiguous whether the Arabs would keep their empire until 680 CE (when the Church - on behalf of the state - shifted doctrines against provincial Byzantine loyalists). (pp. 159-160)
Marwanid wars with Byzantium were phony wars - comparable to "army exercises". (p. 167) Pirenne is wrong; there was trade between the two sides. (p. 163-165)

The reason? The Emperor didn't control his own bureaucracy. It decided what the Emperor knew. The Emperor typically took charge violently, and tended to be ignorant of policy. This enabled the civil service, powerful businessmen, and great lords to run the Empire according to Constantinople's interests - not those of its provinces. (pp. 18-21) These interests were to divert Near Eastern trade from the Levantine coast through to Constantinople. Once said coast was in the hands of a "hostile" party - the Arab Caliphate - the Empire could legally blockade its own former ports without having to deal with provincial complaints. (p. 165)

To carry out this grand strategy, Constantinople ensured that, firstly citizenship was associated with Orthodox belief, and secondly Orthodoxy was to be defined and enforced in a way unacceptable to local belief - for example by rendering local saints (Nestorius, Theodoret, etc) posthumous heretics.

Constantinople also ensured the borders were kept on edge, so that the Byzantines could claim them as "indefensible". To do so it provoked silly wars with Persia. The borders were of course not in any natural danger; when the Empire had to fight Persia (in the 600's, say), it won a victory so crushing that the Arabs had no problem filling the vacuum. (p. 23)

Oh, and Constantinople imported Arabs into the provinces. Lots of Arabs. (pp. 71-75) They were trained to maintain the provinces, so when the Empire did walk away, the Arabs simply kept taxing the place on their own authority. (p. 23, 97-98)

And here is the kicker - the entire policy was kept secret for centuries. To provincials loyal to Rome, it was incomprehensible that Rome should give up lucrative provinces to desert barbarians. But Nevo and Koren say that these provinces were more lucrative to the right people if the provinces were outside the Empire than if inside.

If Nevo and Koren are right, this ranks among the greatest and most successful conspiracies in history. And among the greatest betrayals.

posted by Zimri on 16:12 | link |

The benefits of a false Mahdi

Not all Shi'a believe in the Mahdi even in theory. An example recently brought to my attention is the Ismaili sect, who believe in Imams as spiritual guides rather than as messianic leaders (and also disagree with other Shi'a over which Imams are the rightful ones, how to read the Qur'an, etc). But the previous post would apply to Ismailis too - because a Mahdi is just one possible solution.

I submitted that Shi'a as a whole - including Ismailis - have the motive (distrust of 'Uthman) and the means (taqiyya) to put the Majority-Text Qur'an to the question - as long as they do it in secret.

Shi'a beliefs are private, but the fact of privacy is itself public. Breaking that silence would therefore be a political act. As stated earlier, to make that act would be impossible barring a change in Islam's political situation. I submit that the change would have to include (1) a change in attitude in the peoples who control the Islamic sites of pilgrimage and (2) a homeland in which believers in an altered Qur'an might live without fear of persecution in the foreseeable future.

My knowledge of Shi'a doctrine is (predictably) largely dependent on that of Iran, which holds that the Twelfth Imam is still alive and is set to return (here is one take on it). Iran is also an example of (2): it is majority Shi'a (thus anti-'Uthman), defensible, and likely to remain both.

As for (1): an Iranian "Mahdi" might be able to crack open the Sunni door wide enough to allow for alterations in the accepted Qur'an. He (or she?) would not have to be accepted as Mahdi by all Shi'a, and would not have to convert all or even most Sunni to this cause. This leader only need make it safe for his Shi'a to break taqiyya over this issue.

In fact such a one need not be Iranian - or a Mahdi - or a Shi'a - or even Muslim. Another alternative, for instance, is a revived Sunni Umma under a Mutazilite caliph, who might (on his own authority as Vicar of God) declare the question temporarily reopened in view of modern discoveries. But I think that is unlikely, because the trend in Sunni caliphism at this time is toward Qur'anic literalism first and political power second.

Also, victory for a revised Qur'an in Mecca need not imply that other Shi'a would then feel safe to agree with it in their own homelands. There would surely be holdover old-style Sunni in - say - Pakistan in a position to harm minority Shi'a. In that case those Shi'a would need to maintain taqiyya and not admit to reading the "new" Qur'an. And taqiyya would still be necessary for other beliefs.

And all of this, above and prior, assumes that Shi'a even want to change the Qur'an - and this, because of taqiyya, is impossible to know. But I am only here concerned with the mechanism by which they could do so while maintaining their ability to do hajj.

posted by Zimri on 14:52 | link |

Saturday, July 19, 2003

The Shi'a dilemma

There is an interesting post out on Shi'a Pundit, referring to a plan to publish the "San'a Qur'an" recently recovered from the Grand Mosque of Yemen. It runs:

I personally don't fear any research that shows differences in Qur'anic text in the same way that a Sunni believing in the Qur'an as an uncreated text would, or a Catholic faced with proof of Christ's bloodline via Mary Magdalene. The fact that these early Qur'anic texts were found in Yemen, favored by Ali AS in those times, speaks volumes to me.
Regardless of whether the Qur'an was created or uncreated, the perfection and completeness of the Qur'an is absolute. I think that the whole created vs increated debate is really about whether the Qur'an even NEEDS to be interpreted or not (and if so, by whose authority? We Ismailis certainly have our own perspective on that!).

According to him, "the Qur'an" is perfect. On the other hand, he would welcome the recovery of a Qur'an of a different textual type than the one with which we are familiar - especially if it came from a Shi'i-friendly source.

It follows from those statements that our Qur'an (i.e. 'Uthman's) is not the Qur'an. It may be politic to profess in public that they are the same, and our Qur'an may be the best available copy of "the Qur'an" (I would dispute this); but given reason to prefer another Qur'an and the freedom to do so, this Shi'a pundit would abandon the 'Uthmanic recension and adopt the other one (as I already have done over suras 47 and 3 - for rationalist reasons).

Even more interestingly, the same pundit revealed on another comment-board that "certain Shi'a groups" already admit to not accepting the 'Uthmanic Qur'an:

there is actually a doctrine among certain Shi'a groups that states that Uthman (whose hatred of Ali was well documented) made changes to the Qur'an in order to obfuscate the special relationship of Ali to the Prophet and to God. Uthman ordred all other copies burned, which is shocking in and of itself.
I must be deliberately silent in public about whether my specific sect adheres to this doctrine. It's an intensely personal matter.

One could also add the ancient Shi'a refusal to accept sura 66, which gave Qur'anic sanction to wives of Muhammad other than Khadija, mother of Fatima.

The Shi'a hate the Umayyad family and yet publicly accept the Umayyad Qur'an. They are willing to say that some Shi'a do not accept the whole Qur'an and yet they maintain a coy silence over whether they do not accept it themselves. I might also add that there is the doctrine of Taqiyya among Shi'a - perhaps best translated into English with the phrase "pious fraud".

The stakes are, of course, high. If a Shi'a were to announce that he now believes in a different Qur'an, the majority Sunni would denounce him as an apostate. He would first be banned from the Hajj. Second, the Sunni would be reminded that other Shi'a might not be trustworthy. This would affect other Shi'a, whether they publicly accepted 'Uthman's Qur'an or not.

The worldwide Shi'at 'Ali could, I suppose, unite under a charismatic leader, and force the greater umma to reform or at least downgrade the Majority-Text Qur'an. But to do so, the Shi'a would have to have a reasonable suspicion that they could win. A Shi'a leader that could win over enough Sunni to do so would have to be near-messianic in stature. The Mahdi perhaps?

Unfortunately, the Mahdi has not arrived yet; so in the meantime, the Shi'a position on the Qur'an must remain publicly supportive, but ultimately an "intensely personal matter".

posted by Zimri on 22:19 | link |

Wednesday, July 09, 2003

The year in review

While I'm putting off reattaching my April posts to HTML format, and waiting for my big date with Orlando Bloom, I am taking the opportunity to sit back and take stock of the past year. After all, one of those April posts was the "blogiversary" of the House of David, which went by with but a self-pitying bleat about how sick I was. So this will be the post I should have posted then.

See, now I've got around to archiving the posts (hah! take THAT, Blogger; or else hackers; or whatever it was that nearly killed off April and May). I can thus go back and compare how much I actually posted from month to month, and about what.

It seems that I had started out with the assumption that I was going to be an "A-List Blogger" within weeks. That may explain why in the first month I put in a never-yet-surpassed 250 kB of hit-and-miss blather. Most notable articles include: my first "Fisking" outside UseNet, a confused affair that induced me to give up the genre; another failed attempt at parody; defences of Mark Steyn and cultural "genocide" that both got cited (albeit probably unfavourably) at Airstrip One; and a clumsy sucker-punch at a more highly-regarded blogger. The rest of it was subpar libertarian editorialising, interspersed with the occasional plug for my biblical-studies web pages (back then, the hot issue for me was the "Deutero-Synoptic Problem" rather than the Qur'an). This initial spurt of activity ran up to 6 May and then stopped until June, while I buried myself in the pages and Real Life.

The highest-posting month on record, not counting April (or better, 2 April-6 May) 2002, was October of that year. There were, like, elections going on and stuff.

The lowest-posting month on record - even lower than May 2002! was August 2002, entirely devoted to a single polemic against Shostakovich, and serve him right. Other than that, for each month so far this year, I have not managed to match even the "six days in May" of last year.

Despite appearances, it was not one of my New Year's Resolutions to give up blogging. I will probably give this record an analysis at some later date. 'Til then, you are welcome to come up with your own theories.

posted by Zimri on 21:16 | link |

Housekeeping

I've updated the template some. Most notably, I've decided I would finally give Tacitus his own link. Also I've noticed that the April and May archives somehow went missing, so I rebuilt the latter. I'll repost the former when I get a chance. In the meantime I'm going to go FTP the archives to a safe location.

posted by Zimri on 19:34 | link |