Islam in Europe: Germany: Professor featured on WSJ

I read through the German text of Professor Muhammad Sven Kalisch's hypothesis. He is arguing that the Muhammad of Islam is not the Muhammad of history just as the Jesus of Christianity is not the Jesus of history and just as the Moses of Judaism is not the Moses of history. He goes a step further to propose that there probably was no historical Muhammad just as many Bible scholars argue that there was no historical Moses.

He hypothesizes that Islam developed out of some form of gnostic Christianity or gnostic Judaism, and he investigates the geneology of the family of Ali. Most of his analysis works backward from current Islam to Ur-Islam.

I prefer to think about this issue by starting with second Temple Judaism and looking for a religious current that could develop into Islam. I have no need to use gnostic religion as a sort of deus ex machina to proclaim "Let there be Islam."

Unlike Professor Kalisch, whose failure to mention the Apostle Paul verges on gross scriptural negligence, I start with Jamesian Christianity, can explain why early texts do not use the title rasul, and link the development of Islam both

• to the transformation of the ancient world into the medieval world and also
• to the beginnings of Medieval Rabbinic Judaism (Les origines des juifs actuels and The Origins of Modern Jewry).

Yet, there is some logic for Professor Kalisch's position, for my framework is neither as sexy as a denial of the historical existence of Muhammad nor would it sell as many books.

Readers of the WSJ article should keep in mind that the WSJ is now a Murdoch publication, which belongs to the extremist Zionist racist and Islamophobic discourse that is so powerful in the USA. Sphere: Related Content