Bismika Alllahuma

Das Buch betitelt Hagarism: Das Bilden der islamischen Welt Fragen gerade über alles Moslems glauben als historische Wahrheiten. Es fordert den allgemeinen Glauben heraus, daß das Qur' zum Prophet Muhammad über eine Zeitdauer von 22 Jahren (610-632) in Mecca und in Medina aufgedeckt wurde. Stattdessen ringt das Buch, daß das Qur', vielleicht in Syrien oder der Irak, mehr als fünfzig Jahre nach dem Tod des Prophets bestand, zurück in Zeit projiziert wurde und dem Prophet zugeschrieben. Das Qur', entsprechend dem Buch, wurde während der Herrschaft von Caliph Abdul Malik (685-705 C.E.) fabriziert um ein erweiternreich zu legitimieren.

Das Buch ringt auch, daß das Wort „Moslem“ im 8. Jahrhundert erfunden wurde, um das Wort zu ersetzen Muhajirun (Immigranten), das der ursprüngliche Name der arabischen Gemeinschaft war, die Palästina eroberte und die Haube des Felsens errichtete. Das Buch selbst schreibt einen neuen Namen für frühe Moslems vor. Es benennt sie Hagarenes, das heißt, die biologischen Nachkommen von Abraham durch Hagar. Dieses rassische Namengeben der frühen Moslems wird eingesetzt, um sie von den Juden zu unterscheiden, die die Nachkommen von Abraham durch Sarah sind. Hagarism, ist der Titel des Buches, ein quasi-abwertendes und vielleicht ein Rassist, der Aufkleber, zum des historischen Phänomenes der frühen Moslems zu beschreiben.

In den Autoren,' Wörter zu besitzen, wird das Buch geschrieben „durch Ungläubige für Ungläubige.“ Angriffe auf der Echtheit des Qurans, der Vollständigkeit des Prophets oder islamischer Geschichte sind nicht neu. Das Quran selbst bestätigt ähnliche Angriffe die gebildeten unbelievers, während das Quran aufgedeckt wurde. Für mehr als tausend Jahre, ist westliche Gelehrsamkeit festgestellt worden, um herauszustellen, was sie betrachtet, zu sein „betrügerische Grundlage“ vom Islam. In dieser Richtung, Hagarism dennoch ist ein anderes Buch im großen Dump der Angriff Literatur.

Jedoch was unterscheidet, ist dieses Buch die Tatsache das seine Autoren, Michael Koch und Patricia altes Frau, unterzeichnen nicht mehr zu seinen kritischen Entdeckungen. Am 3. April 2006 hatte ich ein Telefongespräch mit Michael Koch und wir sprachen Hagarism. Er sagte zu mir das folgende, das er später mittels eines email bestätigte: „Die zentrale These dieses Buches war, ich denken jetzt, verwechselt. Over the years, I have gradually come to think that the evidence we had to support the thesis was not sufficient or internally consistent enough.” On April 6, 2006, I interviewed Patricia Crone, as well, to see what she now thinks about the book. She was even more candid in repudiating the central thesis of the book. She agrees with the critics that the book was “a graduate essay.” The book was published in 1977 when the authors lived in England. “We were young, and we did not know anything. The book was just a hypothesis, not a conclusive finding,” said Crone. “I do not think that the book’s thesis is valid.”

Many Western scholars, Christians and Jews, have dismissed Hagarism as a “thin argument” rather than “credible research.” One historian who appears to admire the book is Daniel Pipes, who has taught at Chicago and Harvard universities. Pipes, an embittered Zionist known for his ugly utterings against Islam and Muslims, argues that while Western scholars like Crone and Cook “in the role of termites” are eating away at the magnificent Islamic edifice, Muslims are “acting as though the beams and joints were as strong as ever.” Even Pipes, however, describes the book as “wild.” Notwithstanding scholarly repudiations, Internet websites continue to rely on the book to malign Islam, assuming that the book’s thesis is derived from credible research.

Even online Wikipedia features the book, citing a large quotation from Daniel Pipes. The article concludes: “Although this line of research is discounted by Islamic traditionalists, Western scholars have generally applauded Crone and Cook’s advances in tracing the origins of Islam.” When I insisted that Wikipedia provide a source to support the above conclusion, the editor added “citation needed” to the conclusion. As of today, no citation to support the conclusion has been furnished.

Part of the confusion arises from the fact that Cook and Crone have made no manifest effort to repudiate their juvenile findings in the book. The authors admitted to me that they had not done it and cater no plans to do so. Repudiating scholarly work is not easy because sometimes errors are intertwined with valid findings. No scholar is obligated to rewrite books to correct errors. Scholarly decency, however, demands that the authors officially repudiate a scandalous thesis, one in which they no longer believe and one that maligns the faith of more than a billion people.

It appears however that the authors do not wish to discount a book that launched their careers and brought to them contacts and fortune. Patricia Crone teaches at the Institute for Advanced Studies, the academic home of Albert Einstein, an institute that proclaims itself as “one of the world’s leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry.” Michael Cook is a chaired professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, who in 2002 (a few months after 9/11 terrorist attacks) received a $1.5 million Distinguished Achievement Award from the Mellon Foundation “for significant contribution to humanities research.”

One needs no brains to write against Islam in the Western world. After 9/11, anti-Islamic literature has become a big business that even acclaimed academics have generously exploited for self-promotion. In this milieu, repudiating even a false anti-Islamic book will be condemned as apostasy. We need not burn the book. Crone and Cook themselves must muster the courage and put out the brushfire they started three decades ago, albeit in youthful excitement.

Dr. Ali Khan is a professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas. This excerpt is taken from his forthcoming law article, “The Externalist Scholarship on Islamic Law”, which will be published in Michigan State Law Review.