808God Damn Religion
Bibliography
The documented references in God Damn Religion were derived from English translations of ancient Islamic manuscripts. While hundreds of scholars and researchers have written about Muhammad, his god, Allah, and the religion Islam, only five sources can be considered original, authentic, and, to the extent possible, credible.
All other writings present a cleric’s or scholar’s opinion drawn from the original sources. So rather than study someone’s interpretation of Muhammad, Allah, and Islam, we can read what the oldest and most credible sources report that Islam’s lone messenger had to say about himself, god, and his religion. If Muhammad got Islam wrong, no one has it right. And without Muhammad, there would be no Quran and or a god named Allah.
Since translations of the Quran are wildly divergent due to the remedial nature of the text, I began by presenting a thoughtful composite of the five most commonly cited representations. And while these include The Noble Quran, Pickthal, Shakir, and Yusuf Ali translations along with the Ahmed Ali sanitized paraphrase. By volume two of God Damn Religion I began favoring the more literal, expansive, and expressive Quran Word By Word interlinear with translations provided by The Noble Quran’s Muhammad Muhsin Khan for Maktaba Dr-us-Salem Publishers in coordination with the King Fahad National Library. Then in volume four, I became so frustrated with the editorial liberties Islamic scholars were taking with the text to make Allah appear literate, I began examining every word using Arabic lexicons and dictionaries, while contemplating their Hebrew roots. This led to far more accurate, expressive, and revealing 809expressions of Allah’s recitals.
The oldest Quran fragments date to 725 CE – a century after they were allegedly recited – and at a time when the contents were in a state of flux and still evolving. A comprehensive analysis of these findings and the book’s history is presented in the opening chapter of volume two of God Damn Religion, and again in the first chapter of volume five, entitled Islam’s Dark Past. One of the more interesting assessments of the Quran’s formative years was written by the world’s foremost authority on Quranic paleography, Dr. Gerd R. Puin, for The Atlantic magazine in 1999.
“The Quran is a cocktail of texts that were not all understood even at the time of Muhammad. Many of them may even be a hundred years older than Islam itself. Even within the Islamic traditions there is a huge body of contradictory information, including a significant Christian substrate; which one can derive a whole Islamic anti-history. The Quran claims for itself that it is mubeen, or ‘clear,’ but if you look at it, you will notice that every fifth sentence or so simply doesn’t make sense. Many Muslims will tell you otherwise, of course, but the fact is that a fifth of the Quranic text is just incomprehensible. This is what has caused the traditional anxiety regarding translation. If the Quran is not comprehensible – if it can’t even be understood in Arabic – then it’s not translatable. People fear that. And since the Quran claims repeatedly to be clear but obviously is not – as even speakers of Arabic will tell you – there is a contradiction. Something else must be going on.”
Beyond its seriously deficient writing quality, the Quran also lacks the organizational structure of context and chronology. It, therefore, must be read in conjunction with the chronological Hadith Collections of Ishaq and Tabari to be understood. And to that end, God Damn Religion was composed using this approach.
810The Sirat Rasul Allah was compiled by Ibn Ishaq in 750 CE. It was edited and abridged by Ibn Hisham in 830 CE and translated by Alfred Guillaume under the title, The Life of Muhammad in 1955 by Oxford Press. Referred to as the Sira, or Biography, Ishaq’s Hadith Collection is comprised of oral reports from Muhammad and his companions. It provides the only written account of Muhammad’s life and the formation of Islam that was composed within two centuries of the prophet’s death. There is no earlier or more accurate source.
The History of al-Tabari, called the Ta’rikh, was compiled by Abu Muhammad bin al-Tabari between 870 and 920 CE. His monumental work was translated and published in 1987 through 1997 by the State University of New York Press. I quote from volumes I, II, VI, VII, VIII, and IX. Tabari’s History is comprised entirely of Islamic Hadith. It is arranged chronologically. Tabari is Islam’s oldest uncensored source.
Al-Bukhari’s Hadith, titled: Sahih Al-Bukhari – The True Traditions was collected by Islamic scholar Imam Muhammad ibn Isma’il al-Bukhari between 840 and 860 CE. I have quoted from the nine-volume original English translation by Dr. Muhammad Muhsin Khan, the Director of the Islamic University, Al-Madina. It was published by Maktaba Dar-us-Salam in Saudi Arabia of the King Fahd National Library in July 1997. However, since the nomenclature cataloging Bukhari’s Hadith varies between the printed and digital presentations, I have used the more prevalent online nomenclature.
Imam Bukhari reviewed some 600,000 Hadith Traditions and distilled them down to 7,563 full-isnad (chain of hearsay reporters) narrations of which he was certain were Sahih | Authentic. Paired of duplications and contrasting accounts of the same episode, there are 2,600 Hadith in his collection, each shedding light on Muhammad, Allah, the Quran, and formation of Islam. 811Muhammad al-Bukhari began his research in the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca before moving to the Al-Masjid an-Nabawi in Medina, establishing the final collection in 846 CE (232 AH), where it was thoroughly examined and verified by the most celebrated Islamic scholars of the day. The oldest surviving partial copy of his manuscript dates to 984 CE / 340 AH and complete copy to 1155 CE / 550 AH.
Sahih Muslim, a 9th-century topical Hadith arrangement of Sunnah, was collected by Persian scholar Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj al-Naysaburi. A stickler for an unbroken chain of reporters, or isnads, at least two of whom were contemporaries of Muhammad, he deduced 300,000 oral reports emerging from Allah’s Messenger and his companions down to 4,000. The subsequent Hadith Collection is compiled into 56 books and presents 3,033 independent narratives.
Sahih Muslim is among the most valued books in Sunni Islam alongside Sahih al-Bukhari. In fact, Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, along with Muhammad ibn Isma’il al-Bukhari, comprise the two most important Kutub al-Sittah (six books containing Hadith) and are considered Sahihayn | the Two Who Are Authorized Sahihs. His collection was translated by Nasinuddin Al-Khattab for publication by Maktaba Dar-us-Salam in Saudi Arabia for the King Fahd National Library. An online version was retranslated and prepared by Abdul Hamid Siddiqui and converted to an electronic database by the DEED-IIU group as inspired by “the dedicated work done by the Muslim Students Association at the University of Southern California.”
