Astaga....
Ya ampun, ada sejumlah sarjana Jerman lagi sibuk membongkar landasan ajaran
agama islam
Apakah Kedutaan Jerman akan dibakar orang islam karena ini??
Atau orang Islam itu mulai sadar bahwa ajaran agama Islam itu, seperti
yagntidak henti-hentinya saya katakan, ya emang cuman berdasarkan omong kosong
dan kibulan orang Arab.
----
Wednesday, 11/19/2008
DISPUTE AMONG ISLAM SCHOLARS
Did Muhammad Ever Really Live?
A number of Islamic associations have put a quick end to their collaboration
with a professor -- and trainer of people who are supposed to teach Islam in
German high schools -- who has expressed his doubt that Muhammad ever lived.
Islam scholar Michael Marx spoke with SPIEGEL ONLINE about what lies behind the
debate and the historical person of the Prophet.
ANZEIGE
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Marx, someone studying Islam learns that the Prophet
Muhammad was born on the Arabian Peninsula in A.D. 570 and died in Medina in
A.D. 632. Is there any reason for doubting that this is true?
Michael Marx: Those are provisional dates that we should hold on to until there
are better figures. The Islamic sources are rich with material about the person
of the Prophet and his life story. Some of it is has elements that are somewhat
mystical. But we can generally rely on the solid core of Islamic tradition.
ZUR PERSON
Since 2006, Michael Marx has been the director of the "Corpus Coranicum"
project at the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. The project aims to
document the text of the Koran based on early manuscripts and differing
traditions on how to read unclear passages. In doing so, and in the context of
creating a comprehensive commentary, the project also conducts research on the
intellectual environment the Koran emerged in.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There is a group of prominent German Islamic scholars, who are
becoming increasingly aggressive about questioning whether the existence of the
Prophet is even historically accurate. The theory got its most recent backing
from the University of Münster's Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch, who is in
charge of training teachers for Islamic education at the secondary-school
level. The Ministry of Education of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia is now
planning to calm the waters by appointing an additional professor of Islamic
pedagogy. Are we witnessing a split into two camps?
Marx: I don't see it that way. But we should note that what we have from
Kalisch at the moment are only the things he has allegedly said. From them, it
sounds like he has decided to back the thesis of Professor Karl-Heinz Ohlig,
which Ohlig publicized three years ago in his book "Dark Beginnings" ("Die
dunklen Anfänge"). There, Ohlig posits that the Koran is a Christian text and
that Muhammad probably never lived. But this group, which also includes the
numismatist Volker Popp and some others, is very small. I'd say that their
position isn't really within the realm of accepted scholarship.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why?
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Marx: There are far too many pieces of evidence that make Ohlig's thesis that
the Prophet never lived untenable. In the 14 centuries of polemics between
Christians and Muslims, this issue has never made an appearance. Even in
Syrian-Aramaic sources, however, there is some documentation about the prophet
from an earlier time.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Your scholarship focuses on the early period of Islam and the
Koran. What is the evidentiary situation? How could we prove that the Prophet
lived?
Marx: You have to be a bit delicate about it. In general, when it comes to
history, you can't point to any scientific proof. How would we, for example,
prove the existence of Charlemagne? We can't conduct any experiments; we have
to work with evidence. And, for this issue, the evidentiary thread is the
Koran. In this case, the evidentiary situation is better than it is for any
other religion. We know of manuscripts of the Koran and Islamic inscriptions
already 40-50 years after the Prophet died. It would be hard to explain the
Koran, if you took the prophet out of the equation. Ohlig claims that Islam was
actually a Christian sect up until the Umayyad Caliphate, that is, the eighth
century. In this case, I run into this massive issue: It doesn't match up with
the text of the Koran. Why isn't Christ a more central figure in the Koran,
then? You hear about Abraham, Moses and Noah much more frequently.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: And what about with the format of the Koran?
For Muslims, the Koran is the unadulterated word of God.
Zoom
DPA
For Muslims, the Koran is the unadulterated word of God.
Marx: That's the second evidentiary thread. As can be shown in even linguistic
terms, the Koran is a kind of speech. It isn't a narration like the New
Testament, a piece of correspondence like the epistles of Paul, an account of
the Apocalypse or a Psalm. The genre only makes sense when I have a person that
I can attach it to -- a charismatic orator, a prophet. Why would a community
that doesn't have a prophet invent one after the fact and make up a text, which
is then also Christian, as Ohlig sees it? Ohlig's thesis is uneconomical; it
raises more issues than it solves.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In other words, if the Prophet did not live, in order to
explain the literature, there must have been an enormous conspiracy.
Marx: Precisely. And that -- from Morocco to India -- not a single trace of
this conspiracy remained. And who would have implemented the conspiracy?
Already after the middle of the eighth century, we no longer have any central
Islamic political authority that could have implemented the fabrication of the
Prophet in Asia and Africa.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Are you saying that Ohlig and his fellow combatants are either
demagogues or pseudo-scholars?
Marx: It's not for me to make that type of judgment. But that's what it seems
like to me. Of course, it's perfectly legitimate to discuss issues. And the
Koran definitely contains a number of open questions. We at the Corpus
Coranicum project (see author box) are first trying to conduct basic research
before deriving overarching theories.
CAUSA KALISCH
Professor Muhammas Sven Kalisch, of the University of Münster, teaches Islamic
theology and heads the program that is in charge of training people who, in the
future, are supposed to teach courses about Islam in Germany at the secondary
level. Last week, a quarrel erupted between Kalisch and the Coordination
Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM), an umbrella organization of leading
Islamic associations. "The associations represent a conception of theology that
is not aligned with the times," Kalisch said. In response, the KRM has said
that there is a "formidable discrepancy" between Kalisch's positions and the
fundamentals of Islamic doctrine. The apparent cause of the conflict is that
Kalisch has questioned the historical existence of the Prophet Muhammad.
Kalisch has been quoted by the German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung as saying that
he tends "to be closer and closer to accepting that (Muhammad) did not live, in
any case not like it has been described
in the Koran or the Hadith, the recorded tradition." And if Muhammad never
lived, Kalisch said, "then it might be that the Koran was truly inspired by
God, a great narration from God, but it was not dictated word for word from
Allah to the Prophet."
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Muhammad Sven Kalisch operates in a sort of border region, that
is, between science and theology. And, then, he's supposed to be training
religion teachers, too. The Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany (KRM)
isn't going to support him anymore because they believe that Kalisch is
questioning fundamental elements of the Islamic faith. Is it conceivable that a
person can be a Muslim and at the same time say that the Prophet might not have
even ever lived?
Marx: That's hard to imagine.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Mr. Kalischi is a Zaidi Shiite, not a Sunni. Does affiliation
with this branch of Islam allow for another image of Muhammad, which could
explain these pronouncements?
Marx: At least not that I know of.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: By taking this position, Mr. Kalisch has once again ignited the
debate in Germany -- and that's something that won't escape the notice of the
Arab world. For example, a historian at the Free University of Berlin's
Institute of Islamic Studies, Gudrun Krämer,has said in an interview that
Kalisch's isn't an isolated viewpoint.
Marx: Ms. Krämer has been wrongly -- that is, incompletely -- quoted. For
example, she has said very clearly that the majority of Islam scholars adhere
to the details that have been handed down, and she in no way numbers among
those who challenge the existence of the Prophet. But, unfortunately, the
imprecise quotes have been published in a number of Arabic newspapers.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Does this have any consequences for someone like you, who also
cooperates with Muslim researchers from abroad?
Marx: By all means, something like this has the consequence of bringing
discredit to Western scholars of Islam. Rumors and reports like this spread
very quickly in the Internet age. We at the Corpus Coranicum don't want to be
associated with it. We have Muslims and non-Muslims working side by side, and
we have very trusting collaborative relationships with institutions in the Arab
and Islamic world.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is research on Muhammad such a sensitive topic at all?
After all, according to Muslim dogma -- differently than Jesus in Christianity
-- the Prophet was just an exemplary person whom God selected to convey a
message but did not endow with divine attributes. We already witnessed
indications of this sensitivity in the controversy over the Muhammad
caricatures in Denmark.
Marx: The best way to explain these fierce reactions is to say that many
Muslims feel that it is tantamount to continuing to fight the battle between
the West and the Islamic world -- which they still see as being waged -- but on
another level. That is often interpreted as being an attack on their identity,
as psychological warfare.
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SPIEGEL ONLINE: Could we ever see the thesis -- that the Prophet Muhammad might
not have ever lived -- brought up as a matter of discussion in an Islamic
university?
Marx: I wouldn't know where.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: As a researcher, how do you steer clear of this tense issue?
You use what is a completely critical-historical approach. As long as your
findings don't contradict mainstream Muslim theology, it's no problem. But what
happens when it does?
Marx: Well, then it would probably be a problem. But we're still a good way off
from that situation. Don't forget that what we're doing here is basic research.
The Koran deserves to be studied in a serious, scientific manner. I think it's
essential that we take these steps with Muslims. We're doing that with our
(Corpus Coranicum) project here at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences.
What the Muslim community takes out of it in terms of inspiration and whether
it uses it as a foundation for a process of some type of reform -- that's its
own issue. Pragmatic coexistence probably continues to be much more powerful
than the force of philology, which we have a tendency to overestimate.
Interview conducted by Yassin Musharbash
© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2008
All Rights Reserved
---------------
Jusfiq Hadjar gelar Sutan Maradjo Lelo
Allah yang disembah orang Islam tipikal dan yang digambarkan oleh al-Mushaf itu
dungu, buas, kejam, keji, ganas, zalim lagi biadab hanyalah Allah fiktif.
