Danes feel Obama is greater than Jesus

[kandrathe]

The Cambridge History of Islam sounds to me like it would give a pretty accurate impression of the state of the scholarship - certainly the Cambridge History of Latin America does for my field. I would think carefully before dismissing it as just what a couple guys scrawled down 40 years ago.

I agree that Bell and Watt are one of the mainstreams of the field, just that two guys and one opinion does not encompass the sum of Islamic scholarship. They were part of that 70's Carter middle east peace era, "we just need to understand them and embrace them more", crowd.

Three things make this topic difficult; 1) Fatwah, 2) political correctness, and 3) bias from Christian and Judaic scholars.

Ok, one (of many) example of why I don't hold the "prophet" in much esteem;<blockquote>From the Hadith, Volume 7, Book 62, Number 16: "While we were returning from a Ghazwa (Holy Battle) with the Prophet, I started driving my camel fast, as it was a lazy camel A rider came behind me and pricked my camel with a spear he had with him, and then my camel started running as fast as the best camel you may see. Behold! The rider was the Prophet himself. He said, 'What makes you in such a hurry?" I replied, I am newly married " He said, "Did you marry a virgin or a matron? I replied, "A matron." He said, "Why didn't you marry a young girl so that you may play with her and she with you?" When we were about to enter (Medina), the Prophet said, "Wait so that you may enter (Medina) at night so that the lady of unkempt hair may comb her hair and the one whose husband has been absent may shave her pubic region."</blockquote>This was in reference to his marriage to Aisha, aged six at the time. But, he waited until she was nine to consummate the marriage.

This will be fun, see you and Zenda try to defend Mohammad as misunderstood. :) Wait until we go over some of the horrific slaughter of innocents.

As for scholarship, what do we know about the man called Mohammed? Sirat Rasul Allah by Ibn Ishaq, edited by Abd al-Malik ibn Hisham, translated by Alfred Guillaume and titled "The Life of Muhammad", 1955, Oxford Press. Ulmar al-Waqidi of Medina, "The Expeditions of Muhammad" 825 A.D. "The History of al-Tabari" by Abu Muhammad bin al-Tabari between 870 and 920 A.D. translated and published in 1987 through 1997 by the State University of New York Press. Al-Bukhari's Hadith, titled: Sahih Al-Bukhari and The True Traditions collected by Imam Bukhari, 850 A.D. And, then, there is the Quran itself in various translations.