Most of traditional Islamic source is biased scholars since they did not apply the scientific research on primary source, but based on documents that were generated more than 150 hundreds years after Muhammad pass the way.
Hearing Prof. Al-Jallad vocalise these pre-Islamic Arabic prayers so beautifully is magnificent. It's probably as close as we'll get to hearing these people, whose place in popular imagination comes almost entirely from what others (including their distant descendents) said about them, actually speak for themselves.
@@skepsislamicaDo you have an email that so I can contact you please about some ideas which I think are important. I'm a philosophy student interested in the philosophy of religion of Islam
I've watched this 4 times since it dropped last night at 4am my local Time. I was unpatiently waiting for Dr Al jallad to return lol. Thank you for bringing this to us 🙏
An excellent interview. I appreciate Mr. Terron and Ms. Roxanna’s thoughtful questions. They were well balanced and inclusive of those unfamiliar with his work. I am intrigued that Dr. Al-Jallad’s findings regarding Pre Islamic worship, seem to be similar to those of the historian Dr. Ahmed Daoud. It is a marvel to wonder about a discussion between them. I am glad to have found this channel, and look forward to exploring (and learning from) it!
Fascinating subject & good questions. Excellent explanation by Prof Al Jallad. Prof was decisive and confident in expressing opinions & answers that are based on archaeology, epigraphy and pre-islamic literary sources. In this video, I found the answers to a few things that bothered me for quite a while.
But the mythvision episode that just dropped with Dr Al Jallad is 🔥🔥🔥🔥 Derek knows how to take these discussions and frame them in the larger context of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean cultures.
I always understood the folk idea of southern Arabians being the "real arabs" coming from medieval Islamic scholars as being more related to ethnicity rather than language, as in the Arabs recognized the south Arabians as natives to Arabia and viewed them to be of purer Arabian stock, recognizing themselves as later arrivals with a closer connection to the Semites in the North
I wish he were asked that based on the number of inscriptions found what his estimation of the population of Mecca and Hijaz in the early days of Islam is?
@@DelaTheCynic That means just 50 households. Which I guess is false. If Prophet Muhammad had 10000 army to capture the City, then the city must have had quite sizable population. Probably between 20,000-30,000 And the meccans in their first battle with Muhammad called Badar, put 4000 men just to protect a caravan from Syria to Mecca which Muhammad and his companions of 300-400 men intended to hijack.
@@saidhashi2856 so the surrounding converts from multiple tribes and cities in the Hijaz took part in the conquest of Mecca thus the huge numbers recorded that day. As for the 4000 sent to fight in Badr it was multi-tribe agreement to put a stop to the plans of the Muslims to intercept the Caravan, so it wasn’t just the Meccans alone. Caravans were sent twice a year and would carry the products of trade of multiple cities in the Hijaz so the Muslims were threatening the whole regions economy and that’s the reason for the huge numbers of opposition on the day of Badr.
Nabateans themselves were ancient Arabs and gave rise to current Arabs. Like those in Petra were Nabateans and their rock inscriptions was more or less archaic Arabic.
The Arabic language in the Qura'an which was spoken by Quraish and surrounding tribes is what we call it the common tongue that understood & spoke by all tribes all over the peninsula regarding the different and variants of languages spoke among each tribe ....
Fantastic, I only have one note, the Quranic terminology is different than pre-islam terminology, A'raab "أعراب" in the Quran doesn't mean bedouins, because there is the word "bedouins" in the Quran, A'rab in the Quran means: those who became Muslims from the arabs but didn't made hijrah to madinah due to their strong loyalty to place or tribe over Islam, whether they were city settlers or Bedouins. In pre-islam it used to mean to Arabs in general because droughts affects towns and bedouins; after the Abbasid empire, the meaning of A'rab changed whith the influence of persian writers and poets who tend to disguised Arab elements after the ummayad empire. So the word A'rab changed, it's meaning become "bedouins".
So your point is? That the Quran was writen by Abbasids and Not revealed during the time of Muhammad. You may have loved it to be like that in order to explain away the Quran and Islam due to your biases. But it isn't like that. The Sanaa manuscript and Birmingham manuscripts will prove you wrong.
@@saidhashi2856 What I meant is there was a semantic change of the word A'rab after the Abbasid empire, if you read the contexts in which the word A'rab used in the Quran and Hadith, you will find different meaning than the later meaning "bedouin".
@@nadera1830 Read Quran 9 verses 97, 98 and 99. The word A'rab is used to refer to the Bedouin people. 97) The bedouin Arabs (literally A'rab) surpass all in unbelief and hypocrisy and are most likely to be unaware of the limits prescribed by Allah in what He has revealed to His Messenger. 99) And among the bedouin Arabs (A'rab) are those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and regard their spending (in the Way of Allah) as a means of drawing near to Allah and of deserving the prayers of the Messenger. Indeed, this shall be a means of drawing near to Allah. Allah will surely admit them to His mercy. Allah is All-Forgiving, Ever Merciful. It's clear from those verses that the word A'rab means Bedouins and desert dwelling wandering people who are most likely Not aware of religious matters and very few of them are God fearing. So to claim that the Quran does Not use A'rab to refer to Bedouins and that it's later addition is False. A'rab are desert dwelling wandering folks in the Quran as opposed to towns folk.
@@saidhashi2856 ruclips.net/video/eGhWCGH13_Y/видео.htmlsi=GBo1ZmKOkBHUJKv8 Read the book "نزع لثام الأعرابية". If A'rab means bedouins in the quran, what is the meaning of Badow in the quran account of the story of Yousuf?
So we are now fairly certain that Kaba wasn’t a major idol house. Except for what the Islamic sources say. The question is why the Islamic sources had so much insistence on portraying the Quranic mushrikun as idolators? At best it shows that they had no idea about the context of the Quran (which sheds doubt on the rest of their narratives) but also it could show they had some intention in changing certain aspects of Quranic meaning and context.
It is due to conflating shirk with idol worship and/or polytheism But I don't think we are fairly certain the Ka'ba didn't contain idols. Why do you say that? It most likely would have even if Quraysh were all monotheist as there doesn't seem to be any antagonism to idols.
@@QuranicIslam That's exactly my point, this conflation b/w idolatry and shirk was committed by the earliest Islamic writers. But why did they do that? I think from Al Jallad's research it is clear that Kaaba in 7th century was not an idol house, as he stressed in the interview there is no indication of the so-called idols in the inscriptions post 4th century AD. While we have stories in the tradition that Ali went up on Muhammad's shoulders to throw down the idols in Kaaba after the conquest of Mecca! You can say this a fabrication but the that fact it exists still means that the early muslim writers had no idea what they were talking about.
@@traveleurope5756 What Al Jallad's research can't show though is what specific shrine/structure contained or did not contain. Especially one in a city where he no one has surveyed for inscriptions and which is impossible to do now since practically 100 times the area of what Mecca used to be has now been convered over with buildings and and construction. So no, Jallad's research can only show a macro view at best, and even that only with enough data. It certainly doesn't say anything about what the Ka'ba housed or didn't house. So i think you are extrapulating where you can't. Besides which, the tradition itself barely mentions any idols in Mecca by name. The tradition says there were hundreds ... and seemingly all insignificant enough to never be named. No one argued really for any specific idols. These idols weren't ancient. They didn't have mythology around them it seems. And why would Mecca have so many insignifcant idols in the Ka'ba? The answer seems much simpler to me; they just played host, accepted and housed any idols anyone brought. And people/tribes would keep their truly venerated idols but bring to Mecca little idols, insignificant throwaways used for the journey perhaps, and the Quraysh would honor the pilgrims by honouring those idols in the Ka'ba. But no one really venerated them. That there were idols in Mecca also seems obvious from the Qur'an's narrative and discourse with the Meccan's ... and that is "eye-witness" testimony. Inscriptions only get you so far. They will never give you the complete history or tell you why. Jallad's work and others can only be used to construct one.
@@QuranicIslam I disagree. If you consider Mecca in the larger context of Arabia of 6-7th centuries, the picture is quite clear. We know that Arabia was mostly (if not entirely) Christian by that time. As far as I know only in the city of Harran there were some pagans left. Who were these tribes making pilgrimage to Mecca to bring and worship their idols? Where were these pagans coming from? We should find a trace of them in other regions. There are none! If they were coming from faraway for Hadj shouldn't we find at least few inscriptions on their paths indicating their travel to Mecca and naming some of their gods/idols? Not only in Mecca but in other areas? There are none!
@1:39 Prof. Ahmad Al-Jallad mentions Baal & his association with the rains/healing waters. Its not insignificant that the word ""water" occurs 722 time in the Christian Bible.....more than faith, hope, worship or prayer. These Semitic pple were all preoccupied with access to water @Sképsislamica ! :)
does Alif Khijariyah in ٱللَّـٰتَ can mean something else? he said the word ٱللَّـٰتَ does not exist but it is used as an epithet for a goddess , but isn't Alif Khinjariyah is to elongate and not add an alif? (ex : اللات). can it mean "the denier / opponent"?
Actually Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhab argues that the people of the (former) Jahiliyya did not so much deny that Allah is the Lord, but that they in practice ascribed his attributes to creatures and asked them for intercession. Just as the qubûriyyûn do.
I have problem when I hear "semitic" languages... which was wordsmithed by Schlosser, a German priest. Before him, Leibniz called them ARABIC languages.
@1:52 Prof Ahmad Al-Jallad is reaching for the term "Henotheist"...these are monotheists in principle and polytheists in practice. They acknowledge the existence of other delegates from a principal deity, even if they dont worship them
They are mentioned in the ancient texts of Sumeria and Babylon. In the pretty much where they are today. Go educate yourself. Also Arab is Not ethnicity but rather diverse groups of people who assimilated and shared culture and geography. Even today who is Arab and who is Not is debatable matter. There are real Arabs and Arabized Arabs. Like Yemen was Not originally Arab.
It is well known that pre-islamic arabs had christians . Also these arabs did believe in Allah yet they associated others with Allah hence they were called Mushrikun.
I respect Jallad, but I don't think his arguments against Peter Webb are particularly convincing. Nonetheless, this was a fascinating interview- thank you!
Dr, Jallad seems to bent that the Arab documented history ( early Islamic writings) are of no credibility. This is a void orientalist approach without any justification whatsoever. The written Arabic history of Arabs and Arabia proved to be quite correct since many of these Arab writers were scholars in there own right and they produced written and fairly well researched material 12 centuries ago. His insistence on ridiculing them and dismissing their reports without any proof to the contrary, is only an insult to his own scholarly claims. Let me give some telling examples to what I am holding; Arab historians talked about Tadmur ( Palmyra)from 200 BCE to 200 CE, its tribes kings and queens those reports proved to be quite accurate. They talked about the tribe Thamoud from well before 2000 BCE( as did the Quran) and there reports were proven to be accurate and since Thamoud was extinct in their age it was only in the twentieth century that we cataloged their inscriptions. The Islamic and early post Islamic Arab historians talked about the monotheistic worship of Allah prior to the prophet Muhammad they termed them ( Ahnaf) but Al-Jallad would discard that ( I hope that he is at least aware of it) and claim that he is inventing the wheel in finding traces of monotheistic Allah knowledge, theology and worship before Islam, although Arab historians reported the fact in detail since it was held by Arabs before Islam that Al-Kaaba was built by Ibrahim and Isma'il and Arabs had a yearly pilgrim to Mecca to worship Allah along with other lesser deities and idols . I call upon him to remember that before Islam Muhammad's father was named Abdullah. I understand that their exsits Islamic ideological tendencies and influences that opted to down play these facts and paint an out right age of ignorance that is Al-Jahilia yet, this a mere current within a see of scholarship that documented with a fair degree of credibility oral traditions of tribes and many of these tribes had literate and educated people who would have critiqued and / or corrected these written reports if they saw them lacking or fallacious. Furthermore, I have listened to Al-Jallad several times and I have heard him pronouncing the Arabic ending (ى) as an ( ai) sound in his northern Arabic phonetic depiction instead of the correct sound (ah). I hope he has a phonetic proof of this strange misrepresentation other than his Orientalist teachers hocus pocus knowing virtually nothing of Arabic and bent on diluting and distorting its history and this is a bitter fact. He should know that his western mentors claimed to have deciphered ( Al-Musnad/ Thamoudic) alphabet in nineteenth century although they had the Arab Yemeni scholar book ( Al-hamathani) its title is (Al-eklil) manuscript deciphering and cataloging Al- Musnad alphabet from well before the 17th century. I welcome his efforts and I have been working my self on ancient Arabic inscriptions and ancient dialects and I know first hand my subject and the orientalist distortion thereof.There is nothing worst than a historian who lacks the knowledge of, or chooses to ignore major facts in his specialty. الا لا يجهلن احد علينا فنجهل فوق جهل الجاهلينا
He doesn't know what he is talking about. He said Nabateans were arabs , ask him what type of Arabs they were he will not be able to answer. The Akkadians are the Arameans who are the Chaldeans who are the Nabateans,. They formed when actual tribe of Thamud Perished which was sometime during the Assyrian empire
Secondly the argument that the tradition admits that there were Christians is not even an argument is that same traditions tells us all kind of things about the Jahikiyyah which are according to Al jallad evidently false !
No serious historian says you discount all Islamic literature just because some aspects are wrong. Josephus got lots of things wrong. Because of that, do you believe nothing he said?
Arab tribes in 6th or 7th century are well known in Islamic sources. They lived in places like Doumat Jandal, Yarmouk, Yamamah and Yemen. Most of these places except Yemeb are on the borders of Roman Syria. They were clients of the Roman empire. But the inner deserts of Arabia had 0 influence Roman or Christianity. There are No any archaeological or ruins to proof it. The readon is due to inaccessibility and inhospitable desert environment. But there were Jews in Madina. Islamic sources don't lie. But becoz of your biased eyes, you are trying to explain away the Quran and Islamic history. You somehow wish the whole Quran and Islam thing is just bad dream that you try to forget it ever happened. Very funny indeed.
الفرق انتا عم تفسر من سير شعبية و تأريخ أنتج ما بعد ظهور الاسلام عن هوية اليمن بكل ما تحمله هل تفسيرات و التأويلات من محدودية نتيجة القيود المعرفية لهديك العصور. واضح انك مانك اكاديمي و لا عندك اي مقاربة للمنهج العلمي بالتأريخ او الاركيولوجيا
Arabs didn't come from Yemen, they came from Syria/Jordan, this is where assyrians inscriptions mention the first known arabs, which are the qedarites, traditionally considered one of the ismaelite tribes and in some way ancestors of the nabateans
السؤال اللي ما فهمته للآن هل الدكتور أحمد مسلم أم لا؟ أعلم أنه يبحث بالآثار بشكل موضوعي ويفرق بين التراث الإسلامي وبين الآثار الجيولوجية ولكن هل وجد في الآثار ما جعله ينفي الإسلام كاملاً؟!
@@sam-z8284ياحبيبي كلامه واضح أحمد الجلاد لم يدرس نقوش اليمن فقط مر عليها مثل السلام عليكم نقوش اليمن واضح وصريحه مايحتاج أكاديمي وشهادة عشان يمرر الاعيبه عليك النقوش تقول عرب حضرموت عرب شبوة عرب مأرب وعرب سبأ وعرب مذحج وعرب كندة وكانت تفرق بين اليمنيين الحضر والبدو وليس معناه شمالا اصلاً مافيه قبيلة شمالية داخل اليمن بزمن النقوش هذي
@@nomen8603العرب ليسوا من الشمال اولاً النقوش الاشورية دراستها القديم تعني العرب والدارسات الحديثة تعني غرب ومجموعات بشريه يعني. نقوش الاشوريين اربيا اراب عريبي كلها تعني اتجاهم الغرب وليس الجنس العربي العرق وقيدار كذلك فصلو بينه وبين الاعراق هذي التي تسمى الغرب
AL-Jallad is parroting orientalist non-sense about ancient Arabic . It is not grammar that defines a cluster of languages it is rather syntax, morphology ( cognates) and mutual intelligibility. According to him Middle and old English are an alien language to late/modern English since its grammar was drastically changed to be based on latin starting from the 13th CE. Yet, his mentors fooled him with this crap knowledge which they fed him to believe that ancient Arabic dialects are not Arabic because they had a different grammar ( albeit narrowly) to classical Arabic. Maybe he should study middle and old English or middle and old french to discover according to his erroneous criteria that they are neither English nor French respectively. It is really sad to see and hear an Arab Orientalist historian ( or so he claims) were his knowledge of his own language is derived from foreign pseudo-scholars. We Arabs are really in bad shape.
@@pheeel17 From his reading of the texts with distorted phonetics of letters as his orientalist goons do. He even miss spells words in classical pre-Islamic Arabic according to his masters. Moreover and adding insult to the injury, he holds that there is little in common between old Arabic and classical Arabic. He is not unique or alone in this fallacious narrative . All western educated linguists hold that Arabic is but a late phenomenon and its old dialects ( precursors) are " Semitic" having little to do with Arabic and every thing to do with Hebrew/Aramaic. This position has no proof or evidence it is held by its masters to argue that Hebrews and Aramains are older than Arabs in history and Arabic is derived from these languages and peoples. The proof whoever, is the contrary where Thamoudic Arabic inscriptions date to before 2000 BCE and Ugaritic texts date before 1500 BCE in plain intelligible Arabic. while Aramaic dates at latest to 1000 BCE. Aramiac took most of its words and its script from Canaan which is plain clear Arabic as Ugaritic texts show indisputably.
@@saadhamid6226 Can you be more specific about which texts you're referring to? The script that he deals with most, Safaitic, he would definitely say is Arabic (and he has said this in previous lectures). As to the pronunciation, he's reading them the way they were pronounced at the time. As with all languages, pronunciation changes over time. And I've also heard him say that some of these older forms of Arabic (I can't recall of it was hismaic or safaitic) are closer to classical Arabic than even the modern spoken Arabic dialects of today are.
@@pheeel17 As they were pronounced at the time?? According to who and what ? he reads Arabic inscriptions in Hebrew/Aramaic phonetics and this is the issue with orientalist narrative. Arabic retained its sounds because it kept its 29 letters ( same with ancient Canaani) . But Jallad and his tutors will read old Arabic similar to Hebrew/Aramaic having 24 letters. They have decided that Aramaic is older than its source ( Arabic) and classified old Arabic as " photo Arabic" modelling it after Aramaic. Jailed follows this nonsense although the script ( Thamoudic/ Mussnad) indicates retention of sounds .
He's using the reconstructed pronunciation of the letter as it would have been pronounced by the nomads who wrote the Safaitic inscriptions around 2000 years ago
No, he had a recording of himself reconstructing it on his former Twitter account and it sounded fine to me. Just when he says it in his normal speaking voice@@hamzzaahmed1794
تاريخ العرب ما قبل الإسلام تاريخ خاص وحميمي ولا يُفهم بلا فهم السياق العربي القبلي، تاريخ العرب متواتر ومستمر من ما قبل البسوس إلى الآن بعض النعرات القبلية بين الطلاب في المدارس السعودية قائمة على حرب البسوس و ذي قار، اعجمي لم يتشرب هذا المجتمع والسياق لن يفهم بل سيعجّم تاريخنا من زاويته الضيقة، نفس هذا النسيج المجتمعي من ما بعد العرب البائدة إلى الآن متواتر ومستمر
the comments on the samad article are out of place. how else would an Islamic historian who doesn't specialize in epigraphy access that field except through a database? people not allowed search a database now? the point about the Tayma usage is surely correct in terms of it not being related to s-m-d, and it would have been better not to mention it, but it hardly deserves the gatekeeping disdain seen here. and the s-m-d cases found in The Database do indeed appear to be relevant and informative. not good.
! How else to access? Look up the occurrences in the actual studies where terms are discussed rather than cherry picking from a website. Maybe also asking the specialist if you are not knowing the material. That’s no gatekeeping at all; it is an important point about the use of easy-to-access data.
Exact I am in agreement with you.! one must turn to other people’s work so one must be looking to the other people’s work who have discussed these terms not a website. The database provides references to the studies.
The reference book (website) allows for searching S-m-d, yes? But does not provide interpretations, so it is not enough it is not replacement for consulting works whcih is easy because the website gives references. To go past existence of S-m-d to understand what this word means, one has to consult original studies of whcih database is taking. I have understood Jallad’s point in this way. Database is dangerous if consulted without examination further.
Somehow, I didn’t feel comfortable with the information he gave, I don’t know where he comes from but his method is very much like what they call orientalists of the Middle East.
you mean because he doesn't accept Islamic "tradition" at face value? Well no historian should, since much of it is is bullshit. This isn't controversial though. Muslims themselves know not everything in the hadiths, biographies, tafsirs, etc are true. So what's the issue? Inscriptions on rock don't lie.
No, his and the work of others have confirmed that the Arabic language originated in northern Arabia, and the earliest written references to "Arabs" originate in the north as well. He doesn't say Islam originated in the Levant/N. Arabia. You might want to work on your listening comprehension skills.
![Ahmad Al-Jallad [II]: What Pre-Islamic Arabia was Like Based on the Epigraphic Evidence](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/8fkfYOdubc8/mqdefault.jpg)
I like academic studies about Islam. Especially from unbiased scholars. It's always very interesting!
Most of traditional Islamic source is biased scholars since they did not apply the scientific research on primary source, but based on documents that were generated more than 150 hundreds years after Muhammad pass the way.
Is no unbiased. No reasearch in unbiased. I'm not saying it's not valuable, but it is no unbiased.
EVERYONE is biased in one way or another. This unbiased claim is a fallacy.
Hearing Prof. Al-Jallad vocalise these pre-Islamic Arabic prayers so beautifully is magnificent. It's probably as close as we'll get to hearing these people, whose place in popular imagination comes almost entirely from what others (including their distant descendents) said about them, actually speak for themselves.
thank you to your team for organizing wonderful interviews. May Allah grant you patience and wisdom, ameen.
Our pleasure!
@@skepsislamicaDo you have an email that so I can contact you please about some ideas which I think are important. I'm a philosophy student interested in the philosophy of religion of Islam
@@T_K_R_G tapoole87@gmail.com
Thanks
I've watched this 4 times since it dropped last night at 4am my local Time. I was unpatiently waiting for Dr Al jallad to return lol. Thank you for bringing this to us 🙏
An excellent interview.
I appreciate Mr. Terron and Ms. Roxanna’s thoughtful questions. They were well balanced and inclusive of those unfamiliar with his work.
I am intrigued that Dr. Al-Jallad’s findings regarding Pre Islamic worship, seem to be similar to those of the historian Dr. Ahmed Daoud. It is a marvel to wonder about a discussion between them.
I am glad to have found this channel, and look forward to exploring (and learning from) it!
Ahmad thank you 👍👍✌️
Fascinating subject & good questions. Excellent explanation by Prof Al Jallad. Prof was decisive and confident in expressing opinions & answers that are based on archaeology, epigraphy and pre-islamic literary sources. In this video, I found the answers to a few things that bothered me for quite a while.
What exactly?
Thank you Terrone & Roxanne for this wonderful video
Congratulations on the wonderful work you are doing
Thank you so much!
A precious scholar. A great discussion. Almost like visiting the past. Would be great to make Netflix series on this.
Another great interview!
One of the best interviews with him 👍👍
Salam Alaykum, wow such enthusiastic scholar, I guessed professor Ahmad al Jallad loved his jobs so much. It's a great interview. Thanks 😀
Many many thanks
I enjoy this because it much more calm and less hyped then mythvision
But the mythvision episode that just dropped with Dr Al Jallad is 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Derek knows how to take these discussions and frame them in the larger context of the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean cultures.
This is gold
I always understood the folk idea of southern Arabians being the "real arabs" coming from medieval Islamic scholars as being more related to ethnicity rather than language, as in the Arabs recognized the south Arabians as natives to Arabia and viewed them to be of purer Arabian stock, recognizing themselves as later arrivals with a closer connection to the Semites in the North
Awesome interview!
great scholar
This video and splendid videos like it are why the Internet exists. Bravo! 🙌
I wish he were asked that based on the number of inscriptions found what his estimation of the population of Mecca and Hijaz in the early days of Islam is?
The accepted scholarly estimate was about 500 people lived in Mecca at the time
@@DelaTheCynic
That means just 50 households. Which I guess is false. If Prophet Muhammad had 10000 army to capture the City, then the city must have had quite sizable population. Probably between 20,000-30,000
And the meccans in their first battle with Muhammad called Badar, put 4000 men just to protect a caravan from Syria to Mecca which Muhammad and his companions of 300-400 men intended to hijack.
@@saidhashi2856 so the surrounding converts from multiple tribes and cities in the Hijaz took part in the conquest of Mecca thus the huge numbers recorded that day. As for the 4000 sent to fight in Badr it was multi-tribe agreement to put a stop to the plans of the Muslims to intercept the Caravan, so it wasn’t just the Meccans alone. Caravans were sent twice a year and would carry the products of trade of multiple cities in the Hijaz so the Muslims were threatening the whole regions economy and that’s the reason for the huge numbers of opposition on the day of Badr.
best chanel on youtube related to actual scholarship and scholar and not those akh bros anf bints channel lol.
So if the goddess Alat is not found in Arabia but only in the Nabatean realm, where does the Quran get alat from ?
Nabataean territory went all the way down into the Hijaz.
they called Ishtar, Alat.
I know that the Quran speaks of Alat but I believe that there is not epigraphic evidence for the existence of Alat in the Hedjaz! Is there ?
Nabatea is a part of Arabia.
Nabateans themselves were ancient Arabs and gave rise to current Arabs. Like those in Petra were Nabateans and their rock inscriptions was more or less archaic Arabic.
I wish this was 10 hours
fascinating
The Arabic language in the Qura'an which was spoken by Quraish and surrounding tribes is what we call it the common tongue that understood & spoke by all tribes all over the peninsula regarding the different and variants of languages spoke among each tribe ....
1:49 that’s the punch line. Well done prof Ahmed ‼️
Fantastic, I only have one note, the Quranic terminology is different than pre-islam terminology, A'raab "أعراب" in the Quran doesn't mean bedouins, because there is the word "bedouins" in the Quran, A'rab in the Quran means: those who became Muslims from the arabs but didn't made hijrah to madinah due to their strong loyalty to place or tribe over Islam, whether they were city settlers or Bedouins. In pre-islam it used to mean to Arabs in general because droughts affects towns and bedouins; after the Abbasid empire, the meaning of A'rab changed whith the influence of persian writers and poets who tend to disguised Arab elements after the ummayad empire. So the word A'rab changed, it's meaning become "bedouins".
So your point is? That the Quran was writen by Abbasids and Not revealed during the time of Muhammad. You may have loved it to be like that in order to explain away the Quran and Islam due to your biases. But it isn't like that. The Sanaa manuscript and Birmingham manuscripts will prove you wrong.
@@saidhashi2856 What I meant is there was a semantic change of the word A'rab after the Abbasid empire, if you read the contexts in which the word A'rab used in the Quran and Hadith, you will find different meaning than the later meaning "bedouin".
@@nadera1830
Read Quran 9 verses 97, 98 and 99.
The word A'rab is used to refer to the Bedouin people.
97) The bedouin Arabs (literally A'rab) surpass all in unbelief and hypocrisy and are most likely to be unaware of the limits prescribed by Allah in what He has revealed to His Messenger.
99) And among the bedouin Arabs (A'rab) are those who believe in Allah and the Last Day, and regard their spending (in the Way of Allah) as a means of drawing near to Allah and of deserving the prayers of the Messenger. Indeed, this shall be a means of drawing near to Allah. Allah will surely admit them to His mercy. Allah is All-Forgiving, Ever Merciful.
It's clear from those verses that the word A'rab means Bedouins and desert dwelling wandering people who are most likely Not aware of religious matters and very few of them are God fearing.
So to claim that the Quran does Not use A'rab to refer to Bedouins and that it's later addition is False.
A'rab are desert dwelling wandering folks in the Quran as opposed to towns folk.
@@saidhashi2856 ruclips.net/video/eGhWCGH13_Y/видео.htmlsi=GBo1ZmKOkBHUJKv8
Read the book "نزع لثام الأعرابية".
If A'rab means bedouins in the quran, what is the meaning of Badow in the quran account of the story of Yousuf?
So we are now fairly certain that Kaba wasn’t a major idol house. Except for what the Islamic sources say. The question is why the Islamic sources had so much insistence on portraying the Quranic mushrikun as idolators? At best it shows that they had no idea about the context of the Quran (which sheds doubt on the rest of their narratives) but also it could show they had some intention in changing certain aspects of Quranic meaning and context.
It is due to conflating shirk with idol worship and/or polytheism
But I don't think we are fairly certain the Ka'ba didn't contain idols. Why do you say that? It most likely would have even if Quraysh were all monotheist as there doesn't seem to be any antagonism to idols.
@@QuranicIslam That's exactly my point, this conflation b/w idolatry and shirk was committed by the earliest Islamic writers. But why did they do that? I think from Al Jallad's research it is clear that Kaaba in 7th century was not an idol house, as he stressed in the interview there is no indication of the so-called idols in the inscriptions post 4th century AD. While we have stories in the tradition that Ali went up on Muhammad's shoulders to throw down the idols in Kaaba after the conquest of Mecca! You can say this a fabrication but the that fact it exists still means that the early muslim writers had no idea what they were talking about.
@@traveleurope5756
What Al Jallad's research can't show though is what specific shrine/structure contained or did not contain. Especially one in a city where he no one has surveyed for inscriptions and which is impossible to do now since practically 100 times the area of what Mecca used to be has now been convered over with buildings and and construction.
So no, Jallad's research can only show a macro view at best, and even that only with enough data. It certainly doesn't say anything about what the Ka'ba housed or didn't house. So i think you are extrapulating where you can't.
Besides which, the tradition itself barely mentions any idols in Mecca by name. The tradition says there were hundreds ... and seemingly all insignificant enough to never be named. No one argued really for any specific idols. These idols weren't ancient. They didn't have mythology around them it seems. And why would Mecca have so many insignifcant idols in the Ka'ba? The answer seems much simpler to me; they just played host, accepted and housed any idols anyone brought. And people/tribes would keep their truly venerated idols but bring to Mecca little idols, insignificant throwaways used for the journey perhaps, and the Quraysh would honor the pilgrims by honouring those idols in the Ka'ba. But no one really venerated them.
That there were idols in Mecca also seems obvious from the Qur'an's narrative and discourse with the Meccan's ... and that is "eye-witness" testimony. Inscriptions only get you so far. They will never give you the complete history or tell you why. Jallad's work and others can only be used to construct one.
@@QuranicIslam I disagree. If you consider Mecca in the larger context of Arabia of 6-7th centuries, the picture is quite clear. We know that Arabia was mostly (if not entirely) Christian by that time. As far as I know only in the city of Harran there were some pagans left. Who were these tribes making pilgrimage to Mecca to bring and worship their idols? Where were these pagans coming from? We should find a trace of them in other regions. There are none! If they were coming from faraway for Hadj shouldn't we find at least few inscriptions on their paths indicating their travel to Mecca and naming some of their gods/idols? Not only in Mecca but in other areas? There are none!
@QuranicIslam Maybe the idols that qur'an alludes to were statues of jesus, mary, crosses and other christian symbols?
Spiritual relationships with guardians of preoslamic life in Hebrew ; ☆
@1:39 Prof. Ahmad Al-Jallad mentions Baal & his association with the rains/healing waters. Its not insignificant that the word ""water" occurs 722 time in the Christian Bible.....more than faith, hope, worship or prayer. These Semitic pple were all preoccupied with access to water @Sképsislamica ! :)
Pre. Islamic Nabataeans in Arabia were masters of Desserts , expert in reading of movement of Stars.
Ahmad Al Jallad makes the Levant the center of the universe.
does Alif Khijariyah in ٱللَّـٰتَ can mean something else? he said the word ٱللَّـٰتَ does not exist but it is used as an epithet for a goddess , but isn't Alif Khinjariyah is to elongate and not add an alif? (ex : اللات).
can it mean "the denier / opponent"?
Actually Muhammad b. 'Abd al-Wahhab argues that the people of the (former) Jahiliyya did not so much deny that Allah is the Lord, but that they in practice ascribed his attributes to creatures and asked them for intercession. Just as the qubûriyyûn do.
Who knew macho men could indirectly help scholarship through stubbornness lmao
Edit: that was an amazing interview, thank you for sharing
I have problem when I hear "semitic" languages... which was wordsmithed by Schlosser, a German priest. Before him, Leibniz called them ARABIC languages.
@1:52 Prof Ahmad Al-Jallad is reaching for the term "Henotheist"...these are monotheists in principle and polytheists in practice. They acknowledge the existence of other delegates from a principal deity, even if they dont worship them
sooo Monolatry?
By the way El-kawther in Qura'an equals Kusher in hebrew , not as tafseer books said that it's a river in the heavens.
1:02
يتطابق مع ما ورد فى الاثر ان بن لحى اتى بالاصنام من الشام
اذن الالهه الوثنيه للعرب لم تكن اختراع عربى بل وارد الشام
Very exiting material that shows there iwas no such thing as arabs until very late in history and ina very specific area
sounds like you weren't paying attention
huh? Arabs are mentioned as far back as 8th century bc
They are mentioned in the ancient texts of Sumeria and Babylon. In the pretty much where they are today.
Go educate yourself.
Also Arab is Not ethnicity but rather diverse groups of people who assimilated and shared culture and geography. Even today who is Arab and who is Not is debatable matter.
There are real Arabs and Arabized Arabs. Like Yemen was Not originally Arab.
It is well known that pre-islamic arabs had christians . Also these arabs did believe in Allah yet they associated others with Allah hence they were called Mushrikun.
timestamp 1:44:07
"A language is a dialect with an army and navy"
I respect Jallad, but I don't think his arguments against Peter Webb are particularly convincing. Nonetheless, this was a fascinating interview- thank you!
How so?
Both Jallad and Webb are correct. There is a way to reconcile both of their ideas on Arab identity.
2:06:04 wow 😲😳😲😳😲 wow. .😅😊😂.......
Dr, Jallad seems to bent that the Arab documented history ( early Islamic writings) are of no credibility. This is a void orientalist approach without any justification whatsoever. The written Arabic history of Arabs and Arabia proved to be quite correct since many of these Arab writers were scholars in there own right and they produced written and fairly well researched material 12 centuries ago. His insistence on ridiculing them and dismissing their reports without any proof to the contrary, is only an insult to his own scholarly claims. Let me give some telling examples to what I am holding; Arab historians talked about Tadmur ( Palmyra)from 200 BCE to 200 CE, its tribes kings and queens those reports proved to be quite accurate. They talked about the tribe Thamoud from well before 2000 BCE( as did the Quran) and there reports were proven to be accurate and since Thamoud was extinct in their age it was only in the twentieth century that we cataloged their inscriptions. The Islamic and early post Islamic Arab historians talked about the monotheistic worship of Allah prior to the prophet Muhammad they termed them ( Ahnaf) but Al-Jallad would discard that ( I hope that he is at least aware of it) and claim that he is inventing the wheel in finding traces of monotheistic Allah knowledge, theology and worship before Islam, although Arab historians reported the fact in detail since it was held by Arabs before Islam that Al-Kaaba was built by Ibrahim and Isma'il and Arabs had a yearly pilgrim to Mecca to worship Allah along with other lesser deities and idols . I call upon him to remember that before Islam Muhammad's father was named Abdullah. I understand that their exsits Islamic ideological tendencies and influences that opted to down play these facts and paint an out right age of ignorance that is Al-Jahilia yet, this a mere current within a see of scholarship that documented with a fair degree of credibility oral traditions of tribes and many of these tribes had literate and educated people who would have critiqued and / or corrected these written reports if they saw them lacking or fallacious.
Furthermore, I have listened to Al-Jallad several times and I have heard him pronouncing the Arabic ending (ى) as an ( ai) sound in his northern Arabic phonetic depiction instead of the correct sound (ah). I hope he has a phonetic proof of this strange misrepresentation other than his Orientalist teachers hocus pocus knowing virtually nothing of Arabic and bent on diluting and distorting its history and this is a bitter fact. He should know that his western mentors claimed to have deciphered ( Al-Musnad/ Thamoudic) alphabet in nineteenth century although they had the Arab Yemeni scholar book ( Al-hamathani) its title is (Al-eklil) manuscript deciphering and cataloging Al- Musnad alphabet from well before the 17th century. I welcome his efforts and I have been working my self on ancient Arabic inscriptions and ancient dialects and I know first hand my subject and the orientalist distortion thereof.There is nothing worst than a historian who lacks the knowledge of, or chooses to ignore major facts in his specialty. الا لا يجهلن احد علينا فنجهل فوق جهل الجاهلينا
Atleast have the common sense to write in paragraphs so people can actually read your book you wrote here
When we sick we go to hospital see doctor and eat medicine, didn't this intercessors
He doesn't know what he is talking about. He said Nabateans were arabs , ask him what type of Arabs they were he will not be able to answer. The Akkadians are the Arameans who are the Chaldeans who are the Nabateans,.
They formed when actual tribe of Thamud Perished which was sometime during the Assyrian empire
Secondly the argument that the tradition admits that there were Christians is not even an argument is that same traditions tells us all kind of things about the Jahikiyyah which are according to Al jallad evidently false !
No serious historian says you discount all Islamic literature just because some aspects are wrong. Josephus got lots of things wrong. Because of that, do you believe nothing he said?
Arab tribes in 6th or 7th century are well known in Islamic sources. They lived in places like Doumat Jandal, Yarmouk, Yamamah and Yemen. Most of these places except Yemeb are on the borders of Roman Syria. They were clients of the Roman empire. But the inner deserts of Arabia had 0 influence Roman or Christianity. There are No any archaeological or ruins to proof it. The readon is due to inaccessibility and inhospitable desert environment. But there were Jews in Madina. Islamic sources don't lie.
But becoz of your biased eyes, you are trying to explain away the Quran and Islamic history. You somehow wish the whole Quran and Islam thing is just bad dream that you try to forget it ever happened. Very funny indeed.
لا ادري من اين اتى الجلاد بمعلومة ان حضارات اليمن تطلق اسم الاعراب على منهم شمالا
الفرق انتا عم تفسر من سير شعبية و تأريخ أنتج ما بعد ظهور الاسلام عن هوية اليمن بكل ما تحمله هل تفسيرات و التأويلات من محدودية نتيجة القيود المعرفية لهديك العصور. واضح انك مانك اكاديمي و لا عندك اي مقاربة للمنهج العلمي بالتأريخ او الاركيولوجيا
Arabs didn't come from Yemen, they came from Syria/Jordan, this is where assyrians inscriptions mention the first known arabs, which are the qedarites, traditionally considered one of the ismaelite tribes and in some way ancestors of the nabateans
السؤال اللي ما فهمته للآن هل الدكتور أحمد مسلم أم لا؟ أعلم أنه يبحث بالآثار بشكل موضوعي ويفرق بين التراث الإسلامي وبين الآثار الجيولوجية ولكن هل وجد في الآثار ما جعله ينفي الإسلام كاملاً؟!
@@sam-z8284ياحبيبي كلامه واضح أحمد الجلاد لم يدرس نقوش اليمن فقط مر عليها مثل السلام عليكم نقوش اليمن واضح وصريحه مايحتاج أكاديمي وشهادة عشان يمرر الاعيبه عليك النقوش تقول عرب حضرموت عرب شبوة عرب مأرب وعرب سبأ وعرب مذحج وعرب كندة وكانت تفرق بين اليمنيين الحضر والبدو وليس معناه شمالا اصلاً مافيه قبيلة شمالية داخل اليمن بزمن النقوش هذي
@@nomen8603العرب ليسوا من الشمال اولاً النقوش الاشورية دراستها القديم تعني العرب والدارسات الحديثة تعني غرب ومجموعات بشريه يعني. نقوش الاشوريين اربيا اراب عريبي كلها تعني اتجاهم الغرب وليس الجنس العربي العرق وقيدار كذلك فصلو بينه وبين الاعراق هذي التي تسمى الغرب
AL-Jallad is parroting orientalist non-sense about ancient Arabic . It is not grammar that defines a cluster of languages it is rather syntax, morphology ( cognates) and mutual intelligibility. According to him Middle and old English are an alien language to late/modern English since its grammar was drastically changed to be based on latin starting from the 13th CE. Yet, his mentors fooled him with this crap knowledge which they fed him to believe that ancient Arabic dialects are not Arabic because they had a different grammar ( albeit narrowly) to classical Arabic. Maybe he should study middle and old English or middle and old french to discover according to his erroneous criteria that they are neither English nor French respectively. It is really sad to see and hear an Arab Orientalist historian ( or so he claims) were his knowledge of his own language is derived from foreign pseudo-scholars. We Arabs are really in bad shape.
From where are you getting your statement that he believes "old Arabic dialects are not Arabic?"
@@pheeel17 From his reading of the texts with distorted phonetics of letters as his orientalist goons do. He even miss spells words in classical pre-Islamic Arabic according to his masters. Moreover and adding insult to the injury, he holds that there is little in common between old Arabic and classical Arabic. He is not unique or alone in this fallacious narrative . All western educated linguists hold that Arabic is but a late phenomenon and its old dialects ( precursors) are " Semitic" having little to do with Arabic and every thing to do with Hebrew/Aramaic. This position has no proof or evidence it is held by its masters to argue that Hebrews and Aramains are older than Arabs in history and Arabic is derived from these languages and peoples. The proof whoever, is the contrary where Thamoudic Arabic inscriptions date to before 2000 BCE and Ugaritic texts date before 1500 BCE in plain intelligible Arabic. while Aramaic dates at latest to 1000 BCE. Aramiac took most of its words and its script from Canaan which is plain clear Arabic as Ugaritic texts show indisputably.
@@saadhamid6226 Can you be more specific about which texts you're referring to? The script that he deals with most, Safaitic, he would definitely say is Arabic (and he has said this in previous lectures). As to the pronunciation, he's reading them the way they were pronounced at the time. As with all languages, pronunciation changes over time. And I've also heard him say that some of these older forms of Arabic (I can't recall of it was hismaic or safaitic) are closer to classical Arabic than even the modern spoken Arabic dialects of today are.
@@pheeel17 As they were pronounced at the time?? According to who and what ? he reads Arabic inscriptions in Hebrew/Aramaic phonetics and this is the issue with orientalist narrative. Arabic retained its sounds because it kept its 29 letters ( same with ancient Canaani) . But Jallad and his tutors will read old Arabic similar to Hebrew/Aramaic having 24 letters. They have decided that Aramaic is older than its source ( Arabic) and classified old Arabic as " photo Arabic" modelling it after Aramaic. Jailed follows this nonsense although the script ( Thamoudic/ Mussnad) indicates retention of sounds .
Calling him Arab is inasane, other than him being from Salt Lake City, he have nothing to do with Arabia
The way Al Jallad is pronouncing ض is weird
He's using the reconstructed pronunciation of the letter as it would have been pronounced by the nomads who wrote the Safaitic inscriptions around 2000 years ago
No, he had a recording of himself reconstructing it on his former Twitter account and it sounded fine to me. Just when he says it in his normal speaking voice@@hamzzaahmed1794
ما أدرى هالاعجمي
تاريخ العرب ما قبل الإسلام تاريخ خاص وحميمي ولا يُفهم بلا فهم السياق العربي القبلي، تاريخ العرب متواتر ومستمر من ما قبل البسوس إلى الآن بعض النعرات القبلية بين الطلاب في المدارس السعودية قائمة على حرب البسوس و ذي قار، اعجمي لم يتشرب هذا المجتمع والسياق لن يفهم بل سيعجّم تاريخنا من زاويته الضيقة، نفس هذا النسيج المجتمعي من ما بعد العرب البائدة إلى الآن متواتر ومستمر
دعنا وشأننا!
the comments on the samad article are out of place. how else would an Islamic historian who doesn't specialize in epigraphy access that field except through a database? people not allowed search a database now? the point about the Tayma usage is surely correct in terms of it not being related to s-m-d, and it would have been better not to mention it, but it hardly deserves the gatekeeping disdain seen here. and the s-m-d cases found in The Database do indeed appear to be relevant and informative. not good.
! How else to access? Look up the occurrences in the actual studies where terms are discussed rather than cherry picking from a website. Maybe also asking the specialist if you are not knowing the material. That’s no gatekeeping at all; it is an important point about the use of easy-to-access data.
Not true. Ever heard of research footnotes citing others work? That’s how it operates, and necessarily so since no one can do everything.
Exact I am in agreement with you.! one must turn to other people’s work so one must be looking to the other people’s work who have discussed these terms not a website. The database provides references to the studies.
@@brothersgrim07 we’re just talking about a reference book that happens to be online that one can cite like anything else
The reference book (website) allows for searching S-m-d, yes? But does not provide interpretations, so it is not enough it is not replacement for consulting works whcih is easy because the website gives references. To go past existence of S-m-d to understand what this word means, one has to consult original studies of whcih database is taking. I have understood Jallad’s point in this way. Database is dangerous if consulted without examination further.
Somehow, I didn’t feel comfortable with the information he gave, I don’t know where he comes from but his method is very much like what they call orientalists of the Middle East.
you mean because he doesn't accept Islamic "tradition" at face value? Well no historian should, since much of it is is bullshit. This isn't controversial though. Muslims themselves know not everything in the hadiths, biographies, tafsirs, etc are true. So what's the issue? Inscriptions on rock don't lie.
Ahmad Al Jallad and his fanatics spread Levantocentric theories about the origin of the Arabic language and the ancient Arabs.
CRY L
That's what the evidence points to, no need to get angry about that just because you hold opposing beliefs.
Ahmad Al Jallad propagates the Levantine origin of Islam
You completely misunderstand Dr Al-Jallad’s work
No he doesn’t. Islam as a movement definitely came from Hijaz. Arabs on the other hand did come from the leveant.
@@TheUnique69able why are the inhabitants of the Arabian Peninsula genetically different from the Levantines?
No, his and the work of others have confirmed that the Arabic language originated in northern Arabia, and the earliest written references to "Arabs" originate in the north as well. He doesn't say Islam originated in the Levant/N. Arabia. You might want to work on your listening comprehension skills.
@@pheeel17 if the ancient Arabs come from the Levant, why are the Arabians not like the Syrians and Lebanese and Jordanians?
Ahmad Al Jallad hate Islam and Arabia.
That is demonstrably untrue
CRY L
Ahmad Al Jallad Christian and Levantine Nazi
You are just hurling slander
fear Allah , stop slandering.
awww... an offended muslim has always been the cutest. Surprised that knowledge is larger than islam and islam is not perfect do you?
CRY L
Wtf is wrong with you ?
52:17 this is important...