It isn’t just bureaucrats trying to silence free speech online. I learn today that the Jihad-watch and Islam-watch sites were subjected to a Denial-of-Service attack, to load them down with bogus traffic so that no-one could access them. As yet the editors haven’t yet worked out precisely which post or comment the Moslem attackers were objecting to.
We do need better materials on Islamic origins online. For one thing, how many of us can even name the primary sources for the life of Mohammed? I can’t!
Of course you can, dear Roger: it’s Ibn Ishaq’s famous book. The other important sources are the major hadith collections (Muslim, Buchari, or the sixth imam).
+ Best wishes for 2009!
Erm, Ibn Ishaq?
Wikipedia gives me this on Ibn Ishaq.
That’s the one. It’s a nice book, you will like it.
Thanks for the tips, Jona. I’ll follow this up.
I’ll look into this too, I have been slowly trying to collect all of the sources we have on Mani and hope to do the same for Muhammad.
Sounds interesting. Lists of the primary data (with modern-language translations) for such things are always very useful. Are you putting your Mani stuff online?
I’ve found this site which has a good collection:
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/earlysaw.html
I would love to put them online, but most of them are not in the public domain! I just started exploring them, so perhaps I will be proven wrong as I investigate further. Nice link you provided. What is most striking to me is that the word “koran” is not present in the earliest witnesses nor are many details about Muhammad’s life.
I’ve found that Jacob of Edessa’s Chronicle mostly is, tho, and I will attend to this.
It’s not surprising that this doesn’t give a biography or mention the Koran; the format of the Chronicle rather precludes this.