Origins of Islam: Mohammed and the Koran

Send us Fan Mail This is a class lecture delivered near the end of the semester.  We had spent three months discussing different religious traditions from a political perspective.  As I told students, political scientists know nothing about God or about miracles.  We deal with people and politics.  I also told students on the first day, and repeated it more than once, that they were not required to accept anything presented in class   All they had to do was understand it well enough to explain it.  Then they could say, I don’t believe a word of it.  This talk has a provocative thesis  about the influence of Nestorian Christianity on  Mohammed.  These are not my own ideas.  I borrowed all these insights from reputable scholars.  I also presented various disputes from within Islam itself.  As with Christianity and the dispute over the nature of Christ, there are “official” perspectives but there are also other perspectives that continued to exist under the radar.  My goal is to inform you and to make you think.  Not to convince you of anything. Don't overlook the other two lectures in this series.  Lecture One was on Background to Islam.  The other lecture was on the Satanic Verses.  Both are interesting. Anecdote:  I had a student who pursued a doctorate and at one point took a class on Islam from a noted scholar.  He asked the professor about the influence of Nestorian Christianity on Mohammed.  The professor said he believed these were true, but when the direction of prayer changed from facing Jerusalem to facing Mecca, some things changed. Better terms:  I referred once to the close followers of Mohammed as disciples.  A better term is companions.  Also, what Mohammed received from the angel Gabriel/Jibril are better called revelations than prophecies.  Glitch:  In one of these two talks (I forget which) I might have used the wrong word.  Fatiha is the opening passage  of the Koran.   It is often used to start a meeting, almost like a prayer.   Shahada is the Islamic statement of faith.   Names and terms used along the way ConstantinePeople of the BookDuophysite MonophysiteNestorian / ArianMutazaliteIbn Rushd / AverooesAli, Abu TalebMecca/ Medina/ TaifI hope to do a separate podcast on the Christian teachings over the Nature of Christ, and the Trinity.  Worth waiting for.  (But who knows when it will be ready?)