Oh really?

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), May 22, 2007 at 06:56

Hi Ibrahim

You seem to be sure, and that is fine with me. However, I happen to believe that we really do not know "what really happened" in al-Hijaz prior to the Arab invasion of the Middle East in 633CE. I believe that Wansbrough was correct that such history transmitted to us by the Islamic tradition is as he called it: "Salvation history". Doner believes that the Arab historians got the outlines of what really happened but they did not get the details. But history is all about details.

So what does this have to do with Hubal/Allah? The truth is we do not know because debating what I believe is "fiction" is not really history. Having said this Wellhuasen made very interesting points. Crone does not seem to agree with him. But this sounds like the debates in late antique Alexandria about what Homer was really saying! But again Homer's work was all fiction and meant to be fiction and so is the sira and the hadith and tarikh.

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