Dec 28, 2021
Thomas Alexander realizes that in the 7th century we cannot find any evidence for the first 4 caliphs, nor for the ‘Rushidun’ period; so, in order to fully understand how Islam began, you first have to “Start from the very beginning, a very good place to start…”
To do that he begins by looking at pivotal dates:
100 – 250 AD: Aramaic is the language used by the Christians, as they were now spreading out throughout the Middle East, though there were still Hellenistic and Persian influences.
240 – 270 AD: The Persians began deporting the Christians in their area back West.
325 AD: Following the Council of Nicaea, Trinitarian Christianity becomes much stronger, pushing the Arians and the Anti-Trinitarians back towards the East.
410 AD: There is a persecution of Christians in the East; yet the Persian church began to form, primarily represented by the Nestorian church, who were Trinitarian. The major Christian centres during this time were Ctesiphon (present day Iraq), Shiraz (present day Iran), and Merv (present day Turkmenistan), who were all Trinitarian.
540 AD: The Byzantines and the Sassanids go to war, and the Persian King Khosrow I has massive deportations of Christians to the East.
600 AD: Christianity continues to grow, taking over the Sassanid Empire, with majority populations in Syria, Iraq and Persia.
602 – 628 AD: By 602 AD, the Byzantines empire, warring on two fronts, is running out of funds, and loses Iberia and Italy, so Khosrow II invades Byzantium, at the invitation of the Byzantium rebels. This was an ideal time to go onto the offensive.
610 AD: The Persians continue their offensive and push right to Constantinople, where Phocus is pushed out of power.
610 AD: Heraclius comes to power for the Byzantines, and while his initial forays against the Persians are no successful, he strengthens the administration, giving the military land instead of money (which he doesn’t have).
614 AD: The Persians conquer Jerusalem, destroy the Church of the Sepulcher, and steal the 2 crosses.
618 AD: Heraclius wants to abandon Constantinople to the Persians, but the church there steps in to pay the military, allowing Heraclius to conquer Egypt in 621 AD.
622 AD: Heraclius, leading his army, obliterates and defeats the Sassanids, forcing Khosrow II to withdraw from Syria.
This year is significant as it is the year the Arabs gain their independence from the Sassanids.
But the Byzantines aren’t interested in staying and controlling the land, because of their responsibilities in the West, so they leave Arab client states (the Ghassanids and the Lakhmids) to rule the land for them.
628 AD: Heraclius defeats Ctesiphon (which becomes Baghdad).
Rashidun, were the first four caliphs
Abu Bakr (r. 632–634),
Umar (r. 634–644),
Uthman (r. 644–656)
Ali (r. 656–661
641 AD: Heraclius dies, and the Arab client states mint their own Arab coins, proving that they now ruled that area.
651 AD: The Persian king falls, leaving all the land under Arab rule, as a vacuum of power existed, yet we find no Muslim presence at all.
661 AD: Muawiya comes to power and sets up his capital in Damascus. His name is not Arabic, but Aramaic (thus he is possibly an Ishmaelite), and he is not a caliph (a title which doesn’t come into existence until the 9th century), but an “Emir of the faithful”. It is clear by his coins that he is a Christian.
Rulers are to protect a sanctuary, and he designates his sanctuary where ‘the head of John the Baptist’ is kept. On his coin which he mints is possibly his picture holding John the Baptist’s head, as well as a cross, a dove, a Palm leaf, and a spear, proving he is a Christian.
Thomas then looks at a comparison he put together between political dates in the Byzantine/Sassanid conflict and the later Abbasid attributions to Muhammad’s ministry and rule.
570 AD: Muhammad’s birth coincides with the Turks pillaged the Sassanids in the area of Merv.
573 AD: The Qur’anic Pharoah could be Khosrow I who deported 275,000 Christians from Syria.
579 AD: Muhammad’s 1st prophecy corresponds to the year Khosrow I dies.
610 AD: Muhammad’s 1st revelation corresponds with the Christian Edessa falling to the Sassanids.
619 AD: Islam’s darkest times corresponds with Christian’s darkest times (Jerusalem falls).
In 622AD Mohammed is said to have moved from Mecca to Medina. The Hegira being a new (lunar) calendar was established with the new moon of July 16th, 622AD.
628 AD: Muhammad captures Mecca corresponds with the end of the Byzantine/Sassanid war.
632 AD: Muhammad dies corresponds with the end of Sassanid power, and Arab takeover.
This then concludes the first part of Thomas’ historical overview of how he thinks Islam was created, unpacking the years 100 AD – 674 AD. The next part then begins with Muawiya in 674 AD.
Dec 30, 2021
So, according to Thomas, the political environment in the 7th century was changing dramatically.
674 AD: Thomas notes that Muawiya was well into his reign at this time and attacks Constantinople by sea, but is defeated by “Greek Fire” (an incendiary weapon, consisting of a combustible compound emitted by a flame-throwing weapon, and used by the Byzantine Empire beginning in 672 AD, which set fire to enemy ships).
681 AD: Muawiya is deposed and Abd al-Malik (notice not Marwan, his father) comes to power, which contradicts the Standard Islamic Narrative, as it suggests Marwan first comes to power.
A coin minted in 681 shows Malik in power, though Muslims say the coin simply shows Persian dating, which makes no sense, since none of the Umayyads used Persian dating before or since.
690 AD: A Christian Inscription made in Fustat, Egypt, by Aziz, the brother of Abd al-Malik, ends with the word “Amen”, which only Christians would use.
At around the same time Abd al-Malik erects the ‘Dome of the Rock’ in Jerusalem with the reference to ‘Muhammad’ (‘the praised one’) which was clearly referring to Jesus, not to a prophet named Muhammad.
697AD – 698AD Masjid al-Haram was built in Mecca
On the inner ambulatory there are pictures of grapes, which are known as “Houris”, a common reference to the grapes in heaven, as they are the fruit of Paradise in Christianity.
Jay referred to a 5th century fresco (sent to him by Mel), which depicts Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in heaven feeding grapes to the newly arrived believers in paradise, proving that the term ‘houris’ in Aramaic always meant grapes and not women. This again goes against the later Qur’anic interpretation of this word, as well as the Standard Islamic Narrative, for what awaits men in paradise.
715 AD the first qibla is built facing Mecca.
750 AD: The Abbasids now take over and begin to introduce their ‘Standard Islamic Narrative’ (SIN). To do this they destroy the earlier Umayyad history and introduce their own narrative, based on a prophet named Muhammad, and a Qur’an which is still being written; in fact, as late as the 9th century.
756 AD: Now Muhammad’s tomb is built, but this term is still used to suggest ‘the praised one’, and not a prophet, though this is the last time it is used as such.
825 AD: The Caliph Ma’mun, also from Merv (Turkmenistan today) is definitely a Muslim, and he lives in Baghdad. Yet, it’s ironic that he did not believe at this late time (early 9th century) that the Qur’an was eternal, and even assumed that parts of the Qur’an were wrong.
It is from this time onward that Islamic Fundamentalism begins to show itself with the introduction of the Hanbal school of Islamic jurisprudence, which preferred a literalist approach to the Qur’an.
This was also the Persian golden age, as those in Baghdad began to be more powerful, introducing new science and philosophy, much of it borrowed from the lands they conquered.
It was also at this time that the ‘Chronicle of Seert’ was written, a Nestorian document about the Nestorian church, yet there is nothing written in it about Islam, or of a new religion favorable to Arabs.
Aramaic is now dying out, replaced by Arabic, and those who are writing the Qira’at Qur’ans in the 8th and 9th centuries do not understand the Aramaic from where the Arabic Qur’an was derived, and so write many variations to the text, which is a problem we are only now, since 2016, finding out about.
Notice that much of what Thomas is introducing here confronts and contradicts what we find in the later Standard Islamic Narrative, passed down for the past 1300 years.
Yet, Thomas’ material is all based on evidence which can be found in that time period, and in that place, 1400 years ago, which makes it much more formidable, and thus extremely dangerous for those who still want to hang on to the Standard Islamic Narrative concerning how Islam began.
Next Thomas will be looking at the theological mileau which existed at that time, and thus had an impact on the origins of Islam as well.
1) In 651 AD a Chinese document entitled the “Old Book of Tang and the Ce-Fu-Yuan Gui” referred to a rebellion by the ‘Tayaye’ 34 years earlier, thus in 617 AD. The important of this document is that it was written far away from the later Abbasid empire, and so could not have been tampered with by them, which is what we know they did with almost all the Umayyad documents written during this time, so this would be a valid window into that period and that place.
685-705 Abd al Malik mints coins that are non trinitarians.
2) In 719 AD another document, this time a letter of the ruler of Kang (Samarkand), which is in present day Uzbekistan, mentioned that the Tayaye (again in present day northern Iraq) began a rebellion 100 years earlier, which would put it in the same time period as the Chinese document, around 617-618 AD.
3) In 754 AD a Hispanic Chronicle referred to a Saracen (Arab) rebellion in 618 AD, corroborating the earlier Chinese and Samarkand documents.
This period was an apocalyptic period where empires were falling and being replaced by new ones, with new religions and new leaders coming to the fore.
What about the year 622, the year of the Hijra?
Mel then goes on to deal with this date, saying that the Jewish Exilarch, Shallum (ben David), the brother of Nehemiah ben Hushiel (referred to earlier), was deported in 612 AD from Jerusalem to Persia for a 10- year period, which would place it 622 AD, the year later chosen by the Muslims for their ‘Hijra’.
Huzziel was killed in 617 AD, and his brother was subsequently exiled in 622 AD.
In conclusion, we can find 4 things of note:
– We have definite evidence of a Jewish belief that Nehemiah Ben Hushiel was the Messiah Ben Joseph and that the Jews expected another Exilarch to be the Messiah Ben David.
– We also have evidence from a 6th century Jewish inscription of the use of ‘MHMD’ just 3 years after the Exilarch Zutra II was killed by the Persians.
– It is a fair assumption that talk of the MHMD in the 7th century is a messianic expectation in relation to the death of the Exilarch Nehemiah ben Hushiel (the Jews used the word to refer to the coming Messiah).
- His brother Shallum is remembered strongly in the SIN as a companion of their prophet Muhammad. This could simply be due to this dual messiah expectation.
945 AD first mention of Islam.