u/Similar-Comment3481

One of the themes that fascinates me most in the Quran is that of "sleeping heroes."

This theme appears notably in the story of the "People of the Cave" (Sura 18). Below, I offer a brief analysis of the mythic background of the Quranic account.

The story of the "People of the Cave" is well known: a group of young people, persecuted because of their faith, take refuge in a grotto, where they fall asleep for 309 years. Upon awakening, they have the impression of having slept "a day, or part of a day."

As is well established, this story draws on a Christian legend from the 5th century: the legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus, whose narrative framework the Quran follows almost point by point.

But the author of the legend, Bishop Stephen of Ephesus, did not invent it out of thin air. He drew extensively on Greek and Mediterranean folklore.

This is particularly true regarding the theme of the "sleeping hero." Ancient Greek literature abounds with examples of this type.

Aristotle already alludes to it: according to the legend, Sardinia was colonized by the sons of Heracles and the Thespiades.

After their death, their bodies were said to have remained intact, giving the impression that they were not truly dead but rather plunged into a deep sleep. Sardinians who went to sleep near the tombs of these mythical conquerors would themselves fall into a long sleep.

Another example: that of the young shepherd whose legendary beauty inspired a violent passion in Selene, goddess of the moon.

Her lover, Zeus, plunged Endymion into perpetual sleep along with his dog in the cave (!) of Mount Latmos, not far from Ephesus (!), where he remained eternally young.

Let us cite, finally, the case of Epimenides. The poet Laertius recounts that this shepherd, after losing his way, entered a cave (!) where he slept for 57 years.

These stories generally follow the same framework: a man (or a group of men) falls into an abnormally long sleep — often several decades or centuries. Upon waking, he believes he has slept for only a short time. It is only afterwards that he realizes what has happened.

This is precisely, as we can see, the framework followed by the legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus and its Quranic version.

We notice in the examples cited above that the scene often unfolds inside a cave. Here again, nothing is left to chance, and this is a second mythic theme worth discussing.

The cave is anything but a neutral place. In Ancient Greece, the cave is the locus of the hero's regeneration.

It is also the place, par excellence, of mystical and initiatory experiences and of the encounter between man and the divine. It is there that poets and prophets, endowed with the gift of god, come to find their inspiration.

The shepherd Epimenides, whom we have already mentioned, thus miraculously becomes an accomplished poet after his miraculous sleep in the cave.

According to legend — which is not without echoes of certain Christian hagiographic narratives — it is also in a cave that Muhammad receives his first revelation.

The cave is likewise a refuge for the persecuted hero. In the Bible, David takes refuge in the cave of Adullam to flee from the soldiers of King Saul (1 Samuel 22:1).

One also thinks of the well-known account in which Muhammad takes refuge in a cave to escape the Quraysh. It was there that a spider, the legend recounts, supposedly wove a web at the entrance of the cave in order to deter the men who sought to harm the Prophet. A similar tale concerning David is found in the Talmud, which probably served as a model for the redactors of the Sira.

In Greek mythology, the cave is also the symbol of Aion, the god of infinite time, who resides in the Cave of Eternity.

Let us return for a moment to the theme of the sleeping hero. Another example everyone knows is that of King Arthur, whose legend tells of his long sleep on the Isle of Avalon.

Interestingly, the name Arthur comes from the Greek arctos, meaning "bear." Now, bears are well known for their long hibernation, often in caves… Does this not bring to mind the sleeping heroes, and notably the Sleepers of Ephesus, plunged into long sleep within their cave?

It thus seems that there exists, across the Indo-European world, a connection between the theme of the cave and that of the sleep and resurrection of the hero.

All of this, in the end, shows that the Quran — like the legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus which it appropriates — draws upon the same manifestly very ancient mythic universe.

This further reinforces the idea that the Quran must be approached as a literary production of Late Antiquity, one that should be analyzed in light of the literature (in the broadest sense, including fairy-tale literature) that is contemporary with or anterior to it.

For more information and academic resources, see https://al-kalam.fr/le-coran/les-sources-du-coran/les-compagnons-de-la-caverne/ (in French but very soon in English !)

Hello !

The Quran's familiarity with the texts of the Bible, the Talmud, or the Syriac writings is well known. But what about Greek mythology and philosophy?

Arabia and Ancient Greece

Claiming that there are elements of Greek origin in the Quran may seem counter-intuitive at first glance. The question that arises is how such elements could have made their way into the Quranic text. Obviously, the point is not to suggest that the author(s) of the Quran had direct access to the books of Aristotle or Plato! Rather, we must consider that Greek culture had penetrated the Arabian Peninsula before Islam. Indeed, contrary to the myth of the Jāhiliyya (the Age of Ignorance) imposed by Muslim tradition, pre-Islamic Arabia was largely integrated into the cultural and religious dynamics of the Near East. In particular, Greek — the official language of the Byzantine Empire — was known to the Arabs, as shown by the numerous inscriptions in Greek, or sometimes bilingual (Arabic / Greek), unearthed in the Peninsula. As the archaeologist Leah Di Segni notes, "Greek was the dominant written language in late antique Palestine and Arabia, especially among Christians, who made up the majority of the population in the region from the late 6th century onwards."

Another point worth noting: according to Ernst Knauf, around 10% of Arabs had at least a partial command of the greek language, and even 35% among the populations of northern Arabia.

Let us now return to the Quran. Several scholars have stressed the influence of Greek culture on the Quranic text. Among them is the great Senegalese Hellenist Oumar Sankharé, author of the book The Quran and Greek Culture, who had been awarded the title of "the only African to hold the agrégation in Grammar." Unfortunately, his work came under a fatwā, and the author had to make a public apology. He would die a few months later, probably as a result of the anguish caused by the torrents of hatred and threats he received. Below, we will present a small selection of interesting (and at times unsettling) parallels between Greek culture and the Quran.

The Sleepers of Ephesus

The first example is well known: the legend of the Sleepers of Ephesus, also known as the "People of the Cave" in Sura 18. A group of young men, persecuted because of their faith, take refuge in a cave where they fall asleep for (roughly) 300 years. Upon waking, they have the impression of having slept only a few hours, and it is only by going into the town that they realize what has just happened to them. Historians have long shown that this Quranic story draws on a myth: that of the Sleepers of Ephesus. This myth, very popular in Antiquity, was written down by Bishop Stephen of Ephesus in the 5th century. The author incorporated into it many elements drawn from Greek folklore. For example, the theme of miraculous sleep appears in several legends of the Greco-Roman world. Each time, the story is the same: a man (or a group of men) plunges into a deep sleep for an abnormally long period (sometimes centuries). Upon waking, he has the impression of having slept very little, like the protagonists of the Quran.

Another interesting element in the Quranic account is the dog that remains at the entrance of the cave. This detail is far from trivial. In Ancient Greece, the dog was indeed seen as occupying the threshold between life and death. One thinks in particular of Cerberus, the dog of Hades and guardian of the underworld. When Theseus finds himself on the Chair of Forgetfulness, guarded by Cerberus, he becomes frozen and unable to move. Does this not recall the People of the Cave during their sleep, who are, so to speak, immobilized? The dog is also the symbol of the goddess Hecate (here represented in a 4th-century BCE relief), who represents the cave that allows time and life to be regenerated. In short, the story of the "People of the Cave" in the Quran has its roots in Greek folklore. The historian Michel Tardieu thus rightly stresses that the Quranic account "represents the stratum of the legend closest to the pagan cultural environment in which it took shape as a tale of oral tradition."

Jesus, Apollo, and the palm tree

Another interesting example: the birth of Jesus according to the Quran. We know that in the canonical Gospels, Jesus is born in a farmstead in Bethlehem. But according to the Quran, Jesus was born in the desert, at the foot of a palm tree under which Mary, his mother, had lain down. The historian Suleiman Mourad points out that a similar story is found in Greek mythology. According to the legend, Leto, the mother of Apollo, takes refuge under a palm tree located near a river to give birth to her son, offering a setting comparable to that of the Quran. Thus, both accounts depict a pregnant woman in search of a secluded place, who lies down beneath the trunk of a palm tree by the bank of a river, then brings a sacred child into the world. For Mourad, the Nativity of Jesus in the Quran is therefore an "obvious reworking of Leto's delivery in the Greek tradition."

The youths of paradise

You have all surely heard of the youths and the virgins (the houris) who, according to the Quran, will be offered in paradise. For Walid Saleh, these creatures are inspired by Greek mythology. The Quran describes the youths as eternally young boys who bring the inhabitants cups filled with the finest beverages. This description is not unlike that of Ganymede in Greek mythology — a young youth of splendid beauty who serves cups of wine to the gods. Walid Saleh writes on this subject: "The similarities between the youths of the Quran and Ganymede are too striking to be due to chance. Both are servants who bring drink, reside in the heavens, are eternally young […], and are of exceptional beauty (like hidden pearls, as the youths of paradise are described)."

As for the "wide-eyed" houris described in the Quran, Saleh proposes a comparison with Hera, the goddess of marriage and the lover of Zeus. Interestingly, Hera is described as having large eyes (in Greek: Boôpis, "cow-eyed / wide-eyed"), like her Quranic counterparts. Moreover, she too possesses the power to remain eternally a virgin — once again like the houris! As Walid Saleh notes regarding the Quranic depiction of paradise, "we must admit that there is here a significant parallel between two mythical universes, that of the Quran and that of Greek mythology."

Let us linger a moment longer in paradise. Besides the young boys and the houris, the Quran also promises food and drink in abundance, while one reclines leaning on pleasant cushions. These paradisiacal scenes recall the banquets of the Greco-Roman world. These banquets, called symposium, were large gatherings in which "the participants, all male aristocrats, wore garlands of flowers and reclined on their left elbow on couches, and a great deal of wine was drunk, served by young slaves." This is, almost word for word, the paradise described in the Quran. It is also interesting to note that the word "cup" in the Quran — kūb, plural akwāb — comes from the Greek kéō ("to pour"), which also gave rise to the Latin word cuppa.

The torture of Crassus

After paradise, here is hell! In Sura 44, the Quran evokes one of the punishments the inhabitants of hell will face: "Indeed, the tree of Zaqqūm will be the food of the great sinner. Like molten metal, it will boil in the belly." Oumar Sankharé sees in this an echo of the torture inflicted on the Roman general Crassus, one of the richest men in the empire. Captured by the Parthians during an expedition, he was tortured and then put to death. His executioners poured molten gold into his mouth, taunting him thus: "Since you love gold so much, here is some." We do indeed find here the idea of molten metal forcibly made to be swallowed by the tortured man, but the tree to which the Quran refers is absent from it. Its origin probably comes from the rabbinic writings, which mention two palm trees at the entrance of hell.

Plato's cave

Of all the Greek philosophers, Plato is undoubtedly the most famous. We know in particular his famous Allegory of the Cave. Now, as several historians have noted, an echo of this story is found in Sura 36 of the Quran: "Indeed, the Word against most of them has come true: so they will not believe. We have placed yokes upon their necks, reaching up to the chins, so that their heads are forced up. And We have set a barrier before them and a barrier behind them; We have covered them with a veil, so that they cannot see." As we can see, the Quran here mentions men held in chains — "We have placed yokes upon their necks" — in the same way that Plato's men are bound in the cave: "The men are in a cave […], their legs and necks bound in such a way." Admittedly, in the Quran it is not specified that the individuals are in a cave, but the text speaks of "a barrier before them and a barrier behind them." Thus, the spatial arrangement is the same, and the protagonists are consequently shut up in an enclosed place. The Republic and the Quran together insist on the fact that the captives are unable to see: the men of Plato's cave cannot turn their faces to look outside, while Allāh has placed a veil before their faces. Finally, the threat of stoning in the Quran — "if you do not stop, we will stone you" (36:18) — once again finds an echo in Plato: "And if anyone tries to release them and lead them upwards […], will they not kill him?" (Republic, VII, 517a).

Pythagoras's tetractys

In Sura 89, "The Dawn," we read the following passage: "By the Dawn! And by the ten nights! By the even and the odd!" This short passage raises several questions to which Muslim commentators find no convincing answer: what are the ten nights? What does "the even and the odd" mean? Oumar Sankharé sees in it a reference to the famous tetractys of Pythagoras, which is the sum of the first 4 numbers: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 = 10. The Pythagoreans worshipped numbers and swore by the tetractys. This could explain the mention, in this passage of the Quran (which belongs to the genre of the oath), of the even and the odd and of the "ten" nights. Although the hypothesis is interesting, it remains speculative. The number "ten" is probably used here for the constraints of rhyme.

Conclusion

In this thread, we have brought to light interesting parallels between elements drawn from Greek folklore, mythology, and philosophy, and the Quran. As stated in the introduction, one must be careful not to see in this the trace of a direct "influence." Rather, it shows that the Quran is a product of Late Antiquity, which has preserved traces of the environment in which it was composed. And this environment was not entirely foreign to Greek culture, which had largely penetrated the Near East — and even Arabia — before Islam.

https://preview.redd.it/3r7n1qee352h1.png?width=712&format=png&auto=webp&s=1d8e37232930133ed6b79e5d5add4f7def596880

Conclusion

In a very fine study, Geneviève Gobillot observed that the proofs of the existence of God given by the Quran are already found in certain texts of Greco-Roman Antiquity. A first argument concerns the perfection of the human body. The Quran places great emphasis on the creation of man and his perfection, presented as proof of the existence of God and of His mercy. This theme had already been developed in the Corpus Hermeticum attributed to the legendary Hermes Trismegistus. The table below (which reproduces the one from G. Gobillot's article) brings to light the parallels between the two texts. As Gobillot rightly notes, the Quran here seems to "answer point by point the rhetorical questions posed by the Corpus Hermeticum."

For more information and academic resources : https://al-kalam.fr/le-coran/les-sources-du-coran/le-coran-et-la-culture-grecque/ (in French, but very soon in English !)

Apart from a handful of die-hards whose theses remain marginal, historians accept that Muhammad is a historical figure. I subscribe to this view.

He is mentioned in very early non-Muslim sources (one of which may even be contemporary). In total, there are around a dozen references in the century following his death. We are therefore dealing with multiple attestation, independently corroborated.

This is significantly better than other religious figures of Antiquity such as Jesus, Moses, or Zoroaster.

But in saying this, some people think we are lending credence to the Muslim tradition, and that, fundamentally, we accept at face value the data emanating from it (hadiths, Sīra, etc.).

This is of course entirely false. By saying that Muhammad existed, I am not saying that he split the moon in two, travelled on the back of a winged horse, and so on.

It is therefore important to distinguish between the historical figure himself and what is said in the Islamic sources, which must be used critically.

The key term here is "critical use," and this is the task that falls to the historian, for the Islamic sources (like, indeed, any religious tradition) obviously cannot be taken at face value.

The reasons for this are numerous, and without dwelling on them at too great a length, here are a few elements of an answer.

First, and this is a well-known fact, the sources are late. Very late. The first "biographies" (the scare quotes matter) are composed roughly 150 to 200 years after the events.

Of course, some biographical material is older, and may even have been in circulation as early as the first generations, mainly orally (though one could, on occasion, make use of personal notes), before being committed to writing at a later date.

This does not make them true for all that, but it is still a point to bear in mind. In any case, the time gap between Muhammad and the earliest Muslim writings made alterations, distortions, omissions, additions of every kind, and so forth, inevitable.

Studies in anthropology ("oral tradition studies") have amply demonstrated that this type of phenomenon occurs after only a few generations — roughly 80 years — beyond which memories fade and give way to a mythical reconstruction of the past.

Studies in clinical psychology and neuroscience have not only confirmed these findings, but have also cast doubt on the reliability of eyewitness testimony. What then to say of testimony mediated by dozens of transmitters?

It is therefore futile to seek, in the Muslim sources, "you-are-there" accounts, and even less so verbatim transcriptions.

Another problem concerns the contradictions and inconsistencies of every kind. We are not talking here about a few divergences, which are, truth be told, inevitable in historical matters. In fact, almost every episode in the Prophet's life in the Sīra and the hadiths is the subject of different and contradictory versions. From the most trivial episodes to the most important.

A good illustration concerns Muhammad's death. One would not expect such an event to be the subject of contradictory versions. And yet a first version maintains that Muhammad died of poisoning, while a second version invokes pleurisy (a pulmonary disease). And this is without counting the non-Muslim sources, which suggest that Muhammad was still alive at a time when the Muslim sources have him already dead. The reality is that we do not know of what (nor exactly when) the Prophet died, and Muslim authors, in order to fill the narrative gap, fabricated different accounts which inevitably end up contradicting one another.

The contradictions do not appear only at the level of narrative sequences. They also appear at the "macro" level. This is due to the fact that the redactors of the Sīra drew on biographical models that were, to say the least, irreconcilable: on the one hand, the Christian hagiographic model (that of saints and monks), and on the other, that of the epic genre.

Thus Muhammad is sometimes described as a saint, and sometimes as a conquering prince. At times he is depicted as an ascetic, depriving himself of food and undertaking spiritual retreats in a cave (a typical theme of Christian hagiography); at other times the emphasis is on his wealth, his love of women, and the goods of this world. Sometimes he is portrayed as a persecuted man, who refuses to fight and prefers to endure blows (the typical martyr model of Christian hagiography), at other times he is a conqueror "in the manner of Moses," ruthless with his enemies and organising raids to enrich himself and his own.

Third, and echoing precisely what we have just said, the traditional biography of Muhammad is in large part of a purely legendary character. One finds in it many fairy-tale motifs, or motifs borrowed from the bio-hagiographies of the great figures of the Near East.

The aim of the Muslim historiographers is not to write history as it actually unfolded, but rather as they wanted to present it, in accordance with obvious apologetic interests (and political ones, see point 4).

The objective, indeed, is to present Muhammad as a true prophet, in the line of the biblical and Near Eastern prophets, and this within a context of political rivalries. The Muslim authors therefore "draw" on prior narratives to construct the figure of an Arab prophet in the image of the characters he was meant to equal.

Thus many episodes of the Prophet's life can be seen as pastiches, reproductions, of pre-existing literary themes and motifs. An example I am fond of concerns the celestial ascent. This is a well-known theme in the Near East, apparently of Persian origin. Already in the 3rd century, an inscription claims that the Magus Kirdīr made an ascent to heaven, in the course of which he successively encountered several divinities. Jewish and Christian authors took up the theme and produced writings in which Moses, Solomon, Mary… also undertook a celestial journey.

Another example I find amusing takes place shortly after Muhammad's emigration to Yathrib/Medina. The Prophet is then looking for a site in his new city to establish his dwelling. After much hesitation, he finally lets a she-camel, guided by Allāh, wander freely. It stops at a certain spot: that is where the Prophet's house will be.

There is a similar story concerning an Egyptian saint, whose remains are carried on a horse. Along the way, the horse stops and refuses to move on. It is concluded that God has chosen this spot to be his eternal dwelling place.

Fourth point: there is a definite collusion between the Muslim historiographers and the political power. The Abbasid caliphs, and already before them — though to a lesser extent — the Umayyads, intervened directly in the process of composition of the writings of the Sīra. Many authors even wrote at the request and under the patronage of the caliphs, who paid them handsomely in return.

Thus it is not uncommon to find elements of political propaganda in the Sīra. The accounts from the Umayyad period contain an anti-Alid bias (the "ancestors" of the Shīʿa), and an obviously favourable view of the Umayyad family.

The accounts from the Abbasid period contain an anti-Umayyad bias (the rival dynasty) and a favourable view of their own dynasty. One need only see how al-ʿAbbās, the ancestor of the Abbasids — without whom (so we are told!) the Prophet would never have come into the world — is treated, compared with the blackened portrait of Abū Sufyān (ancestor of the Umayyads), enemy of the Prophet and whose wife is said not only to have ordered the killing of one of the Prophet's uncles but also to have devoured his liver. One may reasonably doubt the good faith of this type of account, which aims to demonise the adversary by way of his ancestors.

In conclusion, and following the proper approach (that is, the historical-critical approach): doubt everything. Make critical use of the accounts you come across. Ask yourself why this account exists. To what need or interest (political, theological, apologetic…) it answers.

But once we have engaged in this critical exercise, you may ask, what is left of Muhammad?

Maxime Rodinson, a French historian and author of a much-noticed biography of the Prophet of Islam, and who cannot really be categorised as a "revisionist," conceded that if one were to retain only the facts of which one can be "certain," the whole would fit on just a few pages.

I confess that I find Rodinson still a little optimistic. In reality, we know almost nothing of Muhammad, except that he existed, that he was active at the beginning of the 7th century in western Arabia, and probably also in Palestine towards the end of his life; that he initiated a "military-religious" movement which would later become Islam; that he was a religious preacher in the biblical/Abrahamic tradition; that he (probably) announced the imminence of the end of the world and the return of Jesus to earth (which explains his interest, and that of the first "Muslims," in Jerusalem and the Holy Land). One can add, on top of this, a few anecdotes about his personal life.

But as frustrating as this may seem, and barring a future discovery that might change the picture, one must doubtless give up the idea of writing a biography of Muhammad, however "critical" it might be. What he was has, for the most part, been forgotten and lost irreversibly, leaving room for the mythical and idealised portrait of the Muslim tradition.