Historical, linguistic, and manuscript evidence suggests that Islam originated in 7th-century Iraq (Mesopotamia) rather than Mecca, as the Quran contains approximately 70% Aramaic loanwords from the Babylonian dialect, the major Jewish yeshivas (Pumbedita, Sura, Nehardea) and Nestorian Christian center (Al-Hira) were located in Iraq, and the Kufic script and Quranic transmissions predominantly originated from Kufa, Iraq, with Chinese historical records from 801 CE describing Muhammad as a Persian king from the Thai tribe.
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Where did Islam begin?
>> Originally, Kufu did not have what is known as a differentiated constant, which means >> what's noticeable, it did not begin in Mecca. You look at the audience, you can see uh that there are these cities uh these cities of of the Jewish cities of PB, Pumbira, uh Surath, Nihardia, look and see. Then you have Ahira, which is the Christian historian city. These four cities were are all places of learning and much almost much of the words as we said in the earlier uh episode the words 70% of the words the foreign words that are in the Quran are from Aramaic sorry not Aramaic >> and the center of the Aramaic language is then he's also even using evidences that come as far away as China to support the fact that all of this material these people are not from the hijab because they're from >> Welcome to events and history where we explore the origins, teachings, and historical development of Islam with a fact-based analytical approach. What if the story we've been told about the origins of Islam is missing its true setting entirely? What if the earliest debates behind the Quran did not begin in Mecca, but hundreds of miles north in the intellectual crossroads of ancient Iraq? In this explosive investigation, Mel and Dr. J. Smith follow the language, the manuscripts, the theology, and the historical evidence back to the 7th century itself. From Aramaic dialects and Jewishmies to neestoran Christian centers and forgotten Chinese records, the evidence points toward Mesopotamia as the real stage where Islam first emerged. Why do so many early Quranic traditions trace back to Kufa? Why do key Islamic terms appear rooted in Iraqi Aramaic? And why does the traditional narrative only fully appear centuries later? This is not speculation built on legend. It's a deep dive into history, archaeology, linguistics, and early Islamic sources.
Prepare for a discussion that challenges assumptions and reopens one of history's biggest questions. Let's watch the video. Welcome back again. We are just kind of moving right on from what we just did. And uh it's good to see that you're interested. We're getting lots of comments down below. Thanks for those comments. We will be answering the best ones, those who are really serious, those who are not trolling us, those who are actually asking questions, and the good questions. I'm going to get Mel back probably next week, and we'll go ahead and make sure that we get these uh answered, that we get them so you can follow through because one of the great things about what Mel and I are doing is that by putting this up on YouTube, we get peer-reviewed almost immediately.
And in fact, it's it's within minutes, we get peer-reviewed. because of that the the peer review that that's the critique of what we're saying that's what we mean by peers like you you are our peers we that is actually helping us and making certainly helping Mel to then know where he needs to uh funnel his energies where he needs to also unpack material that he has yet to look at and also the realization that because this is so new and it is so new I don't know of anybody besides Mel who's doing this who has found this material or who's actually bringing it out to the public there are areas that he's missed And that's why we need your help and that's why it's so good that you're asking these kind of questions so that it fine-tunes us. It fine-tunes Mel and makes sure that he's on the right track and also the enormous amount of support we're getting from you all. Thank you so much. You're you really have done a real uh blessing to us because you are showing that Mel is on the right track that he is finding the right material and that he's also coming to the right conclusions. Mel, there you are. Thanks for coming aboard again.
>> Great to be back. Yeah, it's a good good reaction to the last video. It's good to to see all the comments.
>> The comments are good and the questions are great. We're not going to answer them in this video because we still want to continue off. There's an awful lot more that Mel has to say about this issue of where the Quran comes from and the fact that it's from much further north up in Mesopotamia and the Euphrates Valley. So, and the fact that he's now gone through the language basis for it. when you look at the words, when you look at the Aramaic, when you look and see these references uh not only in the Quran but also from the traditions al Bhari volume 6 509 and 510 showing that that argument that's going on there is not necessarily an argument about the Qureshi versus everything else. It's actually about Babylonian Arabic Aramaic and Mandic Aramaic. It's actually a very real argument that's happening in a very real place in a very real time which all makes sense. Uh now we're going to go and look at the audience themselves. And this is the second half of the two-part series that we're doing on looking at whether or not it is Iraq that Islam began at. Whether or not this man Muhammad actually lived in Iraq and not down in what we do today know as the hijaz known as Mecca Medina. And who are these gures people? Who are they? Okay, Mel, I'm going to give it back over to you. You're gonna bring up your uh PowerPoint. And as he's doing that, just to let you know this, he's even actually increasing and actually changing it as he's been as he's been going back and looking at the questions. So this is very timely. Over to you, Mel. I can see you've got a map up there. Let's start with this map.
>> Yeah. So I suppose one thing I would like to do is to just go back just momentarily to the second video where I looked at the historical Muhammad which was Easban Kabisa. And I use the evidence from Sebio that that tells us where he was when he met a group of Jewish people. And he points out that he was in a place called Tashkiststan which is between the Tigris and the Euphrates.
And uh Sabius actually tells us that the Jews had left Adessa which is way up in north and they were heading home which presumably would be Babylon where the Jewish exilarch was and between those two points we have Mesopotamia. So this is very interesting because obviously this fits like a glove with all the other evidence that we're going to look at today. And I'm going to start by looking at the Aramaic um that's in this region and uh then move on again to the audience. So as we mentioned the last day there was three different dialects of interest. There was Cyro Aramaic which is in Syria, Babylonian Aramaic in Mesopotamia or Iraq and then off to the east we have Mandic Aramaic. These are distinct dialects. They have similarities between them but there's also significant differences and if you spoke one dialect you could very easily be confused but with some of the words in the other dialect. There is also another dialect which I haven't referred to yet which is in uh the Palestinian area uh which was Palestinian Aramaic.
So that was more a Jewish form of Aramaic. So that's another one. It's not as important for for our purposes which is why I left it out. So going on from there then the audience originally presumably could understand Aramaic and were familiar with Syriak literature both Christian and and heretical because they got the illusions. The last day I mentioned about the fact that there's various Syriak stories referred to in the Quran but they're not told they're just alluded to. Another part of the audience was also familiar with a subject that was quite obscure. A mixture of talmodic sources and various Jewish folklore. Again, they got the illusions. Now, just two things before we go any further. Um, the audience that are reading the Quran or listening to the Quran are actually quite a sophisticated audience. Even though there's lots of mistakes that we can point out in the Quran, this is kind of highbrow stuff to to get all of these illusions. So, we're talking about an intellectual um audience who are familiar with Syriak literature. They don't need to be retold. It just pointed to tel tmodic stories and so on and it's all weaved together nicely. That's that's quite interesting. So bear that in mind. And the third part of the audience then were ofay with mandic incantations and rituals as I mentioned last day as evidenced by the various calling on objects of nature for example on the mount by the pen and various other ones that we could point to. Yet the authors seem to be distinct from these groups. It's like as if the authors of the Quran are in the middle of a group having a discussion with these three um members of the audience.
um not exactly identifying with any one of them, but having similarities with some, agreeing with some aspects, disagreeing with other aspects, and it's like as if they're writing the minutes down of the debate afterwards.
Now, it's interesting that the Quran itself identifies its audience as Jews, Christians, and Sabians.
Now, you can have a look there. I won't go through them, and I'm sure you're all familiar with those three groups. The Quran indicates that its audience are Jews, Christians, and Sabians. And you can take a look there at three different surah uh passages.
Um Surah 262, Surah 569, and Surah 22:17.
Now let's start with the first group and think about okay we're looking for a Jewish audience uh who are quite quite a knowledgeable group who get the illusions get the references so let's look for the Jewish intelligencia in Iraq where are they so here's a map of Mesopotamia or Iraq and as you can see here are where the yeshivas are the yeshivas being the Jewishmies. So you have Nissibus at the top there. You have Padita, you have Naharia, Mehosa and Sura.
So what is a yeshiva? It's a Jewish educational institution that focuses on the study of traditional religious texts, primarily the Talmud and the Torah and Haka, Jewish law. The studying is usually done through daily c uram or lectures or classes as well as in study pairs called chevrutas which is Aramaic for friendship or companionship.
That's interesting that they had this idea of like a master disciple um process in the learning.
Interestingly, we see the influence here on Islam that also places great weight on the companions of the prophet in Arabic as sah haba.
So that's quite an interesting detail as we move on. So let's look at the different places um that are in Iraq which were the the Jewish centers of learning. Pompedita is in a location which is now Fallujah and then there was another place called Sura. Pompedita had a yeshiva. It was founded by Judah Bar Ezekiel uh in the year 2020 to 299. The Surah Academy was founded in 225 by Aba Ara.
They were both highly influential for about 800 years. So well in well into the Islamic uh time frame at the time.
So in other words, in the seventh century, themies of Pompadita and Sura became the most influential and dominant yeshivas for the Jews and all Torah decrees and other religious rulings were issued from these yeshivas to all the Jewish diaspora. In other words, the Jews living outside of Israel.
Pompadita was key during the period in which the sources for the Quran were being gathered.
After uh with the sealing of the Talmud by Ravina the second sura the era of Savorim began 499 to 589 in which for most of that period proper studying on regular basis no longer took place in Sora only in Pompadita. Now Sora didn't cease to be a center of learning it but it became very much second place to Pompadita which remained the key place of learning at that time. So that's going to be a key clue to where the audience is.
Is it merely a coincidence that the chapters of the Quran which were considered separate books at one time are called suras? That's an interesting coincidence. Perhaps there is a link there. I would throw that out as a suggestion.
Also can mention Naharia, one of the earliest centers of Babylonian Judaism. It was the seat of the Exalar. It traced its origin back to King Yako Akam.
Nardia was destroyed in 259 AD and its place as seat of the second academy was taken by Pompedita. Towards the end of the fourth and at the beginning of the fifth century, Nihardia again became a center of Babylonian Judaism through this sorry though this was overshadowed by that of Sura. So essentially Pompadita was was first then sura and then Nihardia. These were three very important places of learning for Jews.
So as we can see Pompadita was the most important center for Jewish learning in the 7th cent century. So bear that in mind.
We see that they're on the map. Now we see Pompadita and we see Sura and we see Alhira which is the Neestoran Christian center. It's actually the capital in a sense for the Neestorans.
And then way off in the east there you have the Mandane area which some people believe to be identical to the Sabians.
And there is scholarly dispute about that. Um, but certainly if they were the same group, it certainly makes sense.
Now, just looking at the map and this occurred to me when I was trying to think about the audience for the Quran and I looked at the surrounding audience, the obvious thing I thought of was if you were to um go to the center of all of that, say for example where you have Nihardia or Mahosa, that would be a logical place for the dialogue to take place in the Quran. And so that was my intuition. And so from there I thought okay Mahuza is interesting. That's quite an interesting place. There's two cities there. Let's investigate that and see what we come come up with to see does that corroborate my intuition which might be that that's where the Quran came from as we can see there. Okay. So my my my intuition was the audience surrounds Mhosa.
Okay. So let's look at some evidence from surah 112. Considering now that the Quran was written with a Jewish audience, Christian audience and a Sabian audience in the name of Allah the beneficent, the merciful say he is Allah the one who is Allah the eternal who was never born nor ever gave birth. The one beyond compare. Now what's interesting is the word that's used here for one is not an Arabic word. They have borrowed a word which is actually Hebrew. It's a Hebrew Hebrew word aad or aad in Hebrew.
This sura demonstrates a willingness to use pompadita style learning to use as a stick against Christian era.
It is entering the debate and saying on this issue we sided with the Jews over the Christians. It is also a pymic against the wording of the Nyine creed.
So as you can see there if we were to compare the Nying creed with uh line three he is Allah the eternal um you'll see that in the Ning creed it begins with uh God the father uh God almighty. I can't remember the exact words but it it refers to that and then it moves on to talk about uh Jesus and it talks about Jesus being uh begotten not made. So here we can see in the Quran that it's using information from the Jews and using it to attack the Christians and that's interesting. So this would suggest that the the authors are interacting with the Jews and the Christians here and this would make perfect sense if they are interacting with academics from the Jewish side.
Okay. No, >> fascinating because this is what we have seen with the dome of the rock which we talked about earlier in 690 to 691 where you have almost all the reference again 112 is also on those inner amulatories again attacking Byzantine Christianity in this case because you're there in Jerusalem which is the seat not of power political but certainly a religious power for both Jews and Christians with the church of the suppler and also the where the Dome of the Rock sits is where David's temple used to be. So it's fascinating that you see these I mean you're right the these are if you look at the if you unpack it from internally you will see that these are discussions that are happening to a in a certain place but then you have to place to where that place is and in this case uh Padita looks like you've got it well done >> okay so let's look at the alternatives we have Mecca as a possibility did it happen in Mecca well as we've discussed earlier Mecca likely didn't exist even as a hamlet at that time it certainly they wouldn't have had a learned a learned population in its vicinity in which we theology was discussed.
So even if I grant to our Muslim audience that Mecca would have existed in some form or other in the 7th century, it is preposterous to suggest that there was um Jewishmies um in that vicinity. There simply wasn't. There is no evidence for that.
But there is certainly clear evidence that no not only that there were Jewishmies uh near Mahosa but actually it was the academy. It's the the the most important one in Judaism.
>> Listen I I can see the comeback on this and I I know that Muslims will try to shut you down on this and they'll say listen Mecca is where Abraham is went to in chapter 21. Uh if you look at chapter 7 of the Quran verse 24 uh it is Mecca where Adam and Eve are then thrown down to out of the Garden of Eden. They'll come back to you with these. And for those Muslims who do that, look and see where whether Mecca is in any of those verses. When you look at chapter 21 with verse 51 to 71 about Abraham and it is not Mecca. Mecca is not there at all. It is the Cabba. Well, Cabbas are in every major city. That's been well been proven now by Hiti and other scholars. And as far as chapter 7 24, there is no reference to Mecca at all. It just says down to earth. Where do you get Mecca?
You have to go to the 9inth and 10th tradition to say that they were thrown down to Mecca. So again, throw that out because we've already thrown out the traditions. The only reference, as we said earlier, the only reference we can find for Mecca anywhere. The earliest reference is not till the continuant, which is written in 741. That is the 8th century. Again, much much too late. Not the seventh century. So I would suggest that no Muslim can come back up to us and say this is Mecca that this is referring to. This is where the audience is. The audience is not Mecca. Throw Mecca out of this equation. We're in the seventh century. Muslims again. We're not in the ninth and 10th century. We're in the seventh century. We're not even in the 8th century. We're in the seventh century. In the seventh century, there is no Mecca. It doesn't even appear on any maps till 900 AD, which is the 10th century. So just to shut that down because I know that will come up.
>> Okay. So we're going to put if you like a line through Mecca. It's I rule that out as a possibility.
Petra um you know it has certain things to go for it but it was in decline. It had been a capital of the Nabotian kingdom 500 years before in the 7th century. It seems it had no seats of learning and no significantly sized population of Jews and Christians that engaged in the type of dialogue we would expect to find in a more cosmopolitan location. In fact, the two Christian churches that I'm aware of in Petra are sort of out of the the main center. They don't seem to be playing a significant role. It seems the pagans in Petra were the the ones that were more significant at the time. Also, all Jewish theological questions typically were sent to Iraq for discussion and response.
So, you know, >> may just interject. May I just interject something? I know you're going to talk about this when our question and answer period and what do you do with Petra versus what do you do with Iraq or Mahosa?
>> I would suggest that we're looking at two and you are right there is a diminuation. Remember Petra would be the historic place for uh the historic tombs and temples. It would be the historic sanctuary for the Nabotans leading up until the 7th century. But remember >> once you start getting a political capital in Damascus as we do know this is where the this is where Muya had his capital. This is the first time we see Arabs having a capital in a place like Damascus already politically speaking if that is the capital then you got to ask what what happens to Petra. Petra never was a political capital, but it loses its significance as we're going to see as we go on this whole civil war that was happening between the Arabs the Arabs and when when Abd Malik then come in comes and introduces and puts the Dome of the Rock there in Jerusalem Petra no it's still significant for Abdul Malik and that he has his uh both the Dome of the Rock and the Alexa mosque that were then uh created in 705 are facing Petra that is true but can you see what's happening to Petra. Petra is becoming less and less significant because you have these two great powers and we haven't got into this and this is not the time to necessarily bring it up. The um and the Abbasids who are now vying for power and that's going to come into your discussion because the Abbasids are where are they located interestingly the very same place we're talking about in these in these three lectures. Yes, >> that's in Iraq. That is that. So, people pull back a little bit and start to look at the political powers that were vying for ascendancy, vying for for people's uh control. Meanwhile, while that's all happening, it stands to reason that politically speaking, Petra is still important. But theologically speaking, theologically speaking, and this is what Mel's talking about, theologically speaking, look and see where the learning centers were. And it looks like the learning centers were in Pembita. uh pimpa or how you pronounce it in surah >> pompadita and nihardia and of course all of that surrounding mahosa and of course you have the al-h for the historian Christians all of this that's where all of these discussions are happening that's where the debates were happening >> absolutely >> if the debates were happening there and the discussions were happening there that would make sense then why the Quran is bu is is created there and that would make sense what you said in the last episode why this argument about this is a book written for in Arabic. In Arabic, are you hearing me? Who are they talking to? They're talking to someone who we're having the discussion with. You can only have a you can only make an argument with another person. An argument takes two. So, who are who are who is the audience that they're having this argument with? Take a look and see where the centers of learning were. Take a look and see where the senses centers of theological learning were. And it looks like they're all right here in the Mesopotamian area, which is makes sense again because that is where historically everything takes place for all the great civilizations happen in that area. No wonder then that's where the Jewish have their greatest centers of learning. So do the Netorian Christians have their greatest centers of learning. Possibly even the Mandians or the Sabayans also have their their center of learning in that area. But much too far north and much too far east. Back to you.
>> Exactly. Okay. So let's look at that Mehosa again. Now Mehosa was the name in Aramaic for the cities of Salucia on the west bank of the Tigris and Tessifon on the east bank of the river Tigris. Okay.
In Arabic the name is alin the cities. The singular uh for that is Medina which is city. So we see the word medina.
Now obviously that's interesting the word medina. It's not massively significant. It's just the Arabic word for city. But it gets better than that as in the Cassenian times Tessifon was called Medina alika the old city. The emphasis on the old city.
This is not any old city. It's rightly referred to as the old city as it was the capital of both the Parthean and Ceanian empires. This is a hugely significant city. Much much more significant at least from the Persian point of view than Petra was. Obviously Petra is very important from the Arabic point of view or the Arabian point of view but but there is no city like uh this old city as it's called Medina alatika this is the city for the Persians so that is very significant okay now we mentioned in the very second I was going to say the first video but the second video of our series I spoke about my idea that Muhammad Ahmed was this guy mentioned uh by uh Seavius and who I identified with Eas Iban Kabisa. Savius says the following just to remind ourselves of where he was located just to see how it works out. So the Jews departed taking the road through the desert to Tash Castan Arabia to uh the sons of Ishmamail. The Jews called the Arabs to their aid and familiarized them with the relationship that they had through the books of the Old Testament. In that period, a certain one of them, a man of the sons of Ishmamail named Muhammad, or actually I should say it correctly, Mahmed became prominent.
Mhmmed taught them to recognize the God of Abraham. He ordered them all to assemble together and to unite in faith.
Now have a look on the map is Adessa which is up here. I don't know if you can see my cursor. Um way down here is the seat of the Jews. Okay. Way down here. Um it's probably actually just north of Babylon actually. Okay. So the Jews have been asked by the Byzantines.
Well, it's probably more ordered to leave Adessa.
They had there had been a siege beforehand and the agreement was that they open the gates and they they head home which is down here. Okay. So it tells us that on their way they meet Muhammad and they have a discussion with him. Now it's interesting that that here is where we find old Medina. So so far all of the things that I'm saying so far all fit together like a glove. It all makes perfect sense. We don't get this uh corroboration if we place it in in Petra. And we certainly don't get this corroboration if we put it in Mecca.
Mecca requires incredible um back flips to make it fit here. It's straightforward. There are no holes in the narrative. It all makes sense. You bring it down to the hijaz then you have to say Sevius got it wrong. Writing the 660s he got it wrong.
That to me that doesn't make sense. Yes, he may have got some details wrong, but he uses this word Tashkistan, which appears to be a Persian name for Mesopotamia.
So, he's very specific.
Did he get it wrong? It makes perfect sense. If if his starting point is a desa and he's saying that the Jews went home, then it stands to reason that he's correct in terms of the location. Okay, so that's Oops. I'll just show you that's where Sabius is locating Muhammad. Okay, in that 7th century source where you find a place called Old Medina or the old city.
Now another detail is the battle of Dikar which occurs in the Islamic traditions is actually southeast of Old Medina as you can see there. So old Medina is say up here just east of Najaf and Dar is down here and as the bird flies it's 135 miles. It's a little bit longer if you take a windy road but there you have it. It's you know it makes sense.
Um however if you take the old tradition you have lot of explaining why they're making these really long trips to various places. It it makes perfect sense when you set it in Iraq. Okay.
Now, um, a question that is often asked, what about the Islamic calendar? Surely that contradicts what I'm saying.
According to the Islamic tradition, the story behind the Islamic calendar is that Muhammad was exiled from Mecca and he went to Medina.
So surely then I'm wrong. I I, you know, I've got something wrong here. That's what the Islamic tradition says. And is the Islamic tradition ever wrong?
Doesn't that presuppose Muhammad was exiled out of Mecca and went to Medina because the calendar says so many years since this particular year or whatever.
Um it is possible that it relates to Muhammad being deposed from Ha because the historical person that I mentioned was deposed from Hera. So there's him getting kicked out of Ha and moving to this Medina which is inside the Persian border. And as someone in the comment section pointed out, Muhammad was a Persian proxy. In other words, he was chosen to work for the Persians and he was made a king in that area. So that kind of makes sense for him to go back to the Persian side after being deposed. So again, that makes sense. Or maybe this whole idea of being exiled from Mecca to Medina is just a foundation myth that somehow um was an accretion that occurred over time as they started to turn it into a legend and romanticize the whole thing because very often people want to add details to places to make them more significant.
The early inscriptions don't include um ah with the year but write in the year of the Arabs.
Um they most most likely this marks the year that the Arabs of the Gastnetss and the Lakmuts united to put off the yoke of the Persians or more specifically the Cassanian house and the Byzantines.
Again, Iraq is central to to this. The Hijaz is outside the sphere of the action.
Now I spoke to well actually I had communication by email with a professor of Utah University uh Dr. Peter von Cyvers because it is his thesis that the reason for the idea of in the year of the Arabs was this unity between the gas and the lackmates.
Um, and uh I just uh I asked him for his source and he had a source from the seventh century and uh I can't I can't remember the exact uh uh sorry I can't remember the exact name of the source. I I'll have to um add that to the comment section later. But um the key idea was that he saw in the source that there were a western group and an eastern group and they united at this time. And so he identifies this as the beginning uh for the Arabs. Okay. So it wasn't about a mythical exile but was actually a unification amongst the Arabs and there was a leader which we call Muhammad. This is you know when I had my discussion with uh Robert Spencer he brought this up as well when I asked why is the year 622 so important and he says this is the time when the Arabs really rose up against their their oppressors and that is why it's important historically why 622 then is c is now then chosen later on uh as the year uh of the hijra that which is the exodus it looks like no the reason 622 is chosen is because and you've mentioned this before This is when the Arabs started to get their identity in the fact that they were now rising up against those who had so far been in power over them. And this is what you always do whenever you've been oppressed or whenever you are uh you've been colonized and you rise up against that colony. Then you that becomes your independence days. That's how we we here in the United States or we have our independence on July 4th.
Okay. Again, against the tyranny of British. Sorry if you're being British.
That's that I shouldn't use.
>> I'm so that doesn't matter.
>> But that's why I love tea so much. And that's um but the same thing you can say uh and anytime you have a you have a specific date where then you your identity comes to the four then you you everything all the dates start with that date and that's why ah then has been interpreted as reinterpreted as in the later traditions as the time Muhammad moved up to Medina. No, it looks like this is when the Arabs came into their own.
>> Yeah, this is a later invention and was projected back. I call this a retro version. You know, it's it's taking um an idea from a future time and pre pretending essentially that this happened in the seventh century.
>> Yeah, we call that red we call that redaction. That's called reduction. And what you're doing here is redaction criticism. And that's one of the things that you have to do when you look and see in almost everything we have been talking about when we we the one of the biggest problems we have with much of the later 9th and 10th century red uh traditions is they do this redaction all the time. and they do it so that Muhammad comes to the forest. So that's Muhammad's life that is that that takes that significance when in reality this didn't really have to do with one person named Muhammad. It had to do with a whole people of whom Muhammad was part of as we're going to find later on.
>> Okay. So I'm just going to move on. So what we're referring to here in terms of the year 622 is the gaset kingdom there off in the west which essentially is Syria and the Lakmid which is essentially Iraq.
There's just a slight difference in terms of the terminology in terms of the geographical location but approximately that those two are that now. So if we just move on from there, we are going to look at a Chinese source which I believe is very rarely referred to in any uh look at Islamic history. Um so it's probably a good time to bring this one up. Um it is from 801. So it's quite late. Um but there's reasons to suggest that this may stem from a much earlier source. to you funny name from an English point of view perhaps to you presented his encyclopedic writing uh Tongqen to the throne so obviously a very important source he had begun it in 768 which is approximately around the same time as Iben Isach um so it is late but as you can see it's Chinese source so it's independent so it can't be accused of being biased it's well outside of the Some parts he took from other sources.
So potentially could be much earlier.
Please note that Mesopotamia is called Tashkan by Sevio as we saw which might explain why the Chinese refer to the Arabs as Tashi.
The term may relate to the Tay or Thai tribe. We're not entirely certain, but there's certainly a similarity there. um on a section in this massive tome on the Arabs, he reveals the following. And I just note that I'm getting this from Robert Hland uh seeing Islam as others see it. So you can look this up yourself if you want to see the full excerpt.
Now the key details that he reveals is the following. That Muhammad was a king.
So that's a confirmation. He was a Persian, which is going to be a bit of a bombshell for some of you. And that he belonged to the Thai tribe.
So he says during the young hu reign period 650-56 of the great Chang the Arabs tashi sent an embassy to the court to present tribute.
It is said that their country is west of Persia.
Some also say that in the beginning there was a Persian who supposedly had the help of a spirit in obtaining edged weapons with which he killed people.
Subsequently calling for all the Persians to become his followers. There were 11 Persians who came and according to their rank as Mushu which I would suggest is a Chinese attempt to say the word Muslim or the equivalent of Muslim were transformed into kings. So he's suggesting that it started with this Persian who was the leader and then there was a series of other Persians who became uh leaders or kings after that.
After this, the masses gradually gave their allegiance and subsequently Persia was extinguished and Bzantium was crushed as were uh also Indian cities.
The Arabs were everywhere invincible.
Their soldiers numbered 420,000 and by this time their state was 34 years old when the original king had died. His office passed to the first Moshu and now the king was the third Moshu. The royal surname is Tashi.
So this might suggest that uh if if we think back to uh our guy in northern Iraq that we mentioned uh EAS, we mentioned that he is from the Thai tribe. That would fit with this Chinese source. So I find that interesting. Now, the source that he's using is probably from well before Iben Issach. Certainly wasn't from after the time of Iban Issach because we can imagine that Iban Issach would have um overruled any later traditions. So, it's likely that this source that he used and and essentially dropped into his encyclopedia was from an earlier period. Um I would suggest it probably came from sometime in the 7th century. So what we're seeing here from an independent source is a very different story to the Islamic tradition. We are seeing Muhammad as an outsider.
Um we are seeing him as a Persian particularly and who belongs to the Thai tribe. And it's interesting in the Quran it talks about um the person I can't remember the exact surah and verse but it talks about someone having a foreign tongue. I don't know Jay if you remember that verse.
This is someone >> there. Um this is someone of a foreign tongue. There there's an accusation in the Quran. Now the word for foreign in uh in the Quran is an Aramaic word ajami which means foreign but it also means Persian.
So there is an accusation in the Quran.
It's it's it's peculiar that says this person has a Persian tongue. It's actually surah 16 ayia 103 that you're referring to. Let me just read it. I've got the Quran here in front of me. And indeed we know that they and it's in parenthesis they they're talking about the polytheist the pagans those who are not believers say it is only a human being who teaches him the tongue of the man they refer to is a foreign while this is a clear Arabic tongue.
>> Okay. So a reinterpret reinterpretation of that is that the word is ajami which in uh is a Persian word sorry is a an Aramaic word which means either foreign or Persian.
So what the Quran is referring to is someone is teaching the author but he's not uh Arabian, he's Persian. So that's you know that adds to our case that there is a strong Persian angle to the Quran which locates it again as here on the border lines between Iraq and Persia.
Okay. So let's move on from there.
Another interesting detail is that Ali was governor of Alhira in Iraq just as was before him. It's a very important city, the capital for the Neestoran Christians.
Now again, Iraq remained central under Alhaj, its governor from 694 to 715 AD under Abdal al- Malik and al-w he also ruled.
>> Can we go back to that previous slide >> on Ali? You're you're bringing in then the whole I mean you're you're you're actually you're actually supporting the whole Sunni Shia divide >> by saying this.
>> Are do you realize that? So you're actually saying now this now makes sense why there is a Sunni Shia divide with the son of Muhammad of Mahmed who Mahmed or whatever the name you or Ilas uh his son lives in Al-Hira >> not necessarily his son but certainly a possibly a descendant or a successor of him. Okay. So it could be in the traditions he is the son but in this case or the adopted son but in what you're saying is in fact that may be reason why he is the adopted son not the biological son in the later traditions they had to do that for so that they would not give ascendancy to his uh blood blood relation >> and it looks like this is where the controversy is if he is a governor of of H in Iraq uh as was before him then it stands to reason the Sunnis say no he is not the rectus descendants, whereas the Shiite said, "No, he has to be the direct descendants." And so they've introduced that into the story later on.
>> Fascinating because you're bringing it up and saying this all now is situated in Persia, not down in the Hijaz.
>> Yeah. Okay. So again, Iraq remains central under Alhaj, its governor, 694 to 715 AD, under Abdul al- Malik and al-Wal. He also ruled the eastern territories.
Um so you can see al haj is obviously very important as we'll see in a moment.
So so if we think about all the significant details in relation to al-haj and the the origin of Islam.
So we have uh hag which is the hebrew for festival and the equivalent of that in Arabic is haj.
The Jewish festivals of boots hag hash sukkut or sukkat even hash sukkat involved a circumambulation seven times on the seventh day which sounds remarkably familiar.
The circular is called the hag or in Arabic the or I'll say it fully alhaj.
So it's interesting that according to the Hebrew, the person who does the circumambulation is referred to as the hag, which in Arabic is the alaj.
So that's interesting. We know that al-haj is said to have gathered the Quran.
Um he is said to have introduced the use of the Quran in mosques and uh Robert Spencer mentions that he is said to have introduced the diiacritical marks as well. The earliest verifiable reference to the haj is in the first decade of the 8th century when al-haj was governor. So again and again we see a lot of uh corroboration.
The circumstantial and artifactual evidence would suggest that he was the one that started this pilgrimage practice. This is a separate issue from the kibla. We're talking about a specific type of haj somewhere off in the west. The location for the hajj could have been either Jerusalem or Petra.
No. So, just as some evidence, this is the earliest Haj Rock inscription. You can see it's from 701 to 702 CE. It's right smack in the middle of Alhaj's reign. The location is 350 km southwest of the current Iraqi border. And as you can see, it's from Hil Arabia.
Now, there's also parchment evidence um and it involves a son-in-law of Abdul al- Malik in Egypt writing to one of his governors in Egypt saying essentially, are you coming with me to the Haj?
Doesn't say where exactly. So, that's two independent sources of evidence again that points to the early uh 8th century um in terms of the beginning of the Haj.
But, you know, maybe there maybe there's going to be evidence discovered somewhere that might point it to to it in the seventh century. But, as it stands, it looks like it started in the 8th century.
>> Can I stop you there a minute and go back to the previous slide again?
>> Yep. One before that.
>> Um, let me make sure that I'm hearing you correct, Mel. uh you're you're focusing in on the Huds, but I'm focusing in on those two other references you said that he is the one that's responsible for gathering the Quran and then introducing the Quran into mosques and introduces the diritical marks. Is that what you're saying here that he is the one that's >> Well, if that's >> Yeah.
>> Go ahead. Yeah, I'm just going to say well you know that is also in the tradition also in the tradition apparently uh Abu Bakr does the same and um Udman but it it's possible that the first person to do it may have been Alhaj and then it was redacted twice back. Maybe they they put it further back in time in order to make it more authoritative and to um avoid accusations that it was simply invented during the time of all of these references to Hajj is the one who is gathers the Quran introduces the mosque put into the diiocritical mark and also the first varified reference to the Hajj. These are all from the traditions.
Um the well the the first reference to the Haj being uh from the early part of the 8th century is actually is outside the tradition. This is actually the earliest proof that we have of the Haj.
>> So strike out the thing about gathering the Quran introducing mosque and dire critical marks. I would say strike that out. That's not that significant because that's nothing that's nothing more than than or if you want to say this what I would say Mel in this case is isn't it interesting that it is actually alaj who actually even in the traditions supports the notion that he changes it 11 times.
Why would that be important unless of course this actually did happen? Maybe he was one that actually introduced it.
the traditions then say no no no this happened actually earlier with Abu Bakr and Uman and then they have to admit the fact that Alhaj actually introduces it because if he's the one that introduces it into mosque that's usually significant because he is that's where the f where are the first mosques that he would introduce it well his mosques where does he live well look and see where he lives he doesn't live in the hij lives way up there and he's well known as being the governor of Kufa Kufa is just southwest of what is today Baghdad again in uh or as we we know as Mihoza as you're introducing in this talk.
>> Well well actually um Kufa is the uh replacement city for Hira. So when when Hia got destroyed in mysterious circumstances it's uh I haven't really got to this. It's it's it's part of my future research is to find out exactly what happened to the city. But from what I what I learn, the the city somehow got destroyed and they used the the building material from that city to to to build Kufa next door. Um that's hugely significant for the 8th century because it is Kufa that is that there are I mean when we're getting into the Kat Qurans you do know when we get into the Kat Qurans that of the 10 readings the 10 major readings of the 10 major readings you have two in Mecca one in Damascus and all the other are in Kufa which is three seven of the 10 are from Kufa I'm sorry six of the 10 are from Kufa because there's there's actually three in Mecca and Medina and one in Damascus. Hugely important for the 8th century.
>> So it looks like if everything is surrounding the 8th century, even when you look at the earliest Qurans that we do have, I mean this is for a whole another video that we can do just on where was the Quran put together.
Suddenly now it's now making sense why the major part of these Qurans are coming out of Kufa. The Huff's Quran comes out of Kufa. Yeah. And that's why when you look at then the narrators or the transmitters of the 20 transmitters of of them, 12 of them are from Kufa, just from that one city. So the majority of all the Qurans because you look 12 plus six, you're getting to 18 of the 30 are from Kufa. Just one city where they should be from Mecca and Medina. At least from Mec Medina, the others from Damascus, but Basel and Kufa. Sorry, I shouldn't say just Kufa, Basel and Kufa, but from Iraq. this place that we're talking about today. So that's hugely significant by the time you get into the 8th century. Fascinating because you're now moving right into what we're the biggest conversation that's happening right now on the internet and that is the kak problems. So this is to me this is exciting because you're bringing up that halaj may be the one that actually introduced this idea of putting together a book a k and it's fascinating that you're saying that this got this was probably introduced at this period uh in 705 or early 8th century by him which then makes sense of another 30 years later before the first Quran actually comes into existence that we can look at today and that is the uh the the Quran of uh Ib fascinating though his is from Damascus.
The second one would be I even gir from Mecca and then the third one would be assets from Kufa and then they all start to proliferate after that.
>> Yeah, at least according to the tradition. But what I would point out, you know, if we think back to the last video, we spoke about the idea that perhaps the they turned material that was in Aramaic into Arabic. In other words, the Arabized it. Now in order to do that you have to change it in a in a location where people had some idea of what they were reading. So it would sort of necessitate doing that work somewhere where Aramaic was still spoken. So we get back to the idea again that you know it all fits together very well >> and that can you then understand why there are I mean this is just I mean you can just start steamrolling with this because then you understand then why you have different Qurans that have completely different uh diet critical loss that's what the kid all about and why you then have 10 different readings and no one complaining about it.
>> Yeah. But notice when those 10 were chosen, they weren't chosen till 936, the 10th century. By that time, there would be all kinds of training centers and locations, but almost every one of them are in what is now today Iraq, not down in the hij.
>> So all the more supporting what you're saying.
>> Yeah. this the um the Aramaic script as well when you look at it in in terms of its rasom form you can actually read it um very much as if it were Arabic. So it's very easy to imagine that perhaps you know if we were to look at the earliest Qurans in what we think is Arabic what you could be looking at is Aramaic. Um, and so if that's the case, then you you have when you apply the the dots to that text, um, you could be talking about a completely different meaning or significantly different meaning to the original text.
>> Well, this is what your friend Murad brings up because he does he does speak and he reads Aramaic and so he says this very thing, doesn't he? He refers to this all the time and he talks about this fact that when you go back to that map again when you look at that when you look at see what the Arabic is and this is what Al Jalad has been saying Jalad saying that the Arabic that we see in the Quran even in the Quran that we have today it is not central Arabia it is actually much further north in this case it would be Aramaic these kind of things that they don't exist in the the Arabic that would have they've been there in the hijaz area fascinating I mean this is for another talk this for another video >> there's Something there something else I want to point out as well is that the Nabatian script which you know was is key here it was developed in Ha and then continued in Kufa. Okay. So essentially when we when we talk about taking a text which is in Aramaic and then Arabizing it and and putting it into an Arabic script and so on it all makes sense as being connected with Ha and Kufa. So I actually I would suggest that you know the story of of the Quran um having been first written in Mecca and I can't remember the other location you mentioned but I think that's another read action. I think really the work was done in Kufa but uh yeah >> it looks like everything has been done in Kufa and that's one reason why Muslims have not been able to explain why so many of the 30 20 what we're talking about 22 of the 30 Qurans that are now the official Qurans the katak Qurans today come from Iraq >> why if it if the whole premise was to have them from Quresh okay back to you >> okay so a little bit more on her and Kufa Hira capitulated in 633 and a new city was built nearby called Kufa in 636.
Tradition holds that the Arabic script was developed there. The Kufik script ought really to be called the Hira Kufi script and uh this is actually um a building that was found. I think that is a building from a monastery. Um, so there's not much left of it, but um, it seems it was destroyed in quite a ferocious manner. Um, I'd love to know more about the the the manner in which this all happened, but as I say, I don't want to go beyond on what we see. Uh, here's another picture of that area.
And, uh, a lot of it has emerged as the sand blew off. So, luckily, it's kind of coming into view now. It was hidden for centuries.
Um, and there's another nice piece. Um, you can see there it's a image of a church from Ha.
And so it's clear that Hia was a Christian city, an historian city. And also another detail is the cave of Hia is that story an echo of historical origins in the Lakmid capital of Ha.
That's another um aspect of the story that pops up and kind of makes you think hm there's something funny about that. Um so Kufik is the oldest calligraphic form of the various Arabic Arabic scripts. It consists of a modified form of the old Nabatian script. The name of the script derives from Kufa, a city in southern Iraq which was considered an intellectual center within the early Islamic period. Kufik is defined as a highly angular form of the Arabic alphabet originally used in early copies of the Quran. And there's Kufa there on the map. Um I want to show you an image of it there so you can see what it looks like here. I used the Nabotene Arabic script. After Ha's demise, Kufa took over as an intellectual center. Again here uh Hia and Kufa were intellectual centers which again fits in with Pompadita as well. Originally, Kufik did not have what is known as a differentiated constant, which means for example that the letters TB and tha and th were not distinguished but by dietritical marks and look the same which leaves us uh with lots of possibilities of reinterpret uh misinterpreting the text.
>> Oh, this is fascinating. I mean what you're bringing up here this this could be an entire study in and of itself because we've always known that you have the m script which is this the perpendicular slightly slanted m means slanted in Arabic to the right and that you find in the the 2165 manuscript that you have in the bib biblioch I'm sorry the British library uh there in the ribbl gallery you also then have the kufik scripts which you're look what you're pointing out there the elongated much more triang uh much more angular and much more stylistic and we've We've always assumed that they coexisted simultaneously. But on you look when you look and just visually when you look at the uh the the the early let's just call it the the m the early look it looks it looks much crudder which suggests it is much earlier when you look at the kuf look how stylized that it's much more beautiful. It looks like it comes from a place of learning. So what we could be saying and this is why we're going to have to redo if you if the archeological evidence and the historical evidence suggests that this is all coming out of Kufa which makes sense now that's the word Kufik then you're going to have to understand that this would all have come out during the Abbasid period. The Abbasids were the ones that introduced this script. The Abbasids don't come into power until 740s 749.
That doesn't say that they that they had you have to have the political power for these manuscripts to start to be produced. But that would also suggest to me that the kufik comes after the m the would be the earlier cruder script which would be for and that's would be and we're going to have to now start putting that onto a timeline but that's for another time another date I what I love what you're doing here because you're actually you're not only using the language you're not only using the audience but now you're going into the script itself and that's how you define that's how you date manuscripts by looking at the script and what you're suggesting to me here is is that this is a later script that was introduced in the 8th century not in the seventh century. It would have not made sense in the seventh century because of the fact as we've already said the Arabic Arabic was the wrong type of Arabic there in the hij but in the 8th century when you then starting when all these centers of learning like in places like you're saying in Kufa uh and these other Jewish places uh >> Ma Padita and uh Sura and Nihardia all surrounding Mhosa that would make sense that th this is where that script then came into its own this is where that script was then introduced Which then suggests to me that we're going to have to redate a lot of our manuscripts. Love it.
>> Yeah. Lots of implications.
>> Lot of implications because you're going in lots of different areas here, Mel.
You're pulling up an awful lot of material, but it all fits to a piece.
And this is what you would expect to happen when you are looking historically. You're trying to stick to the seventh century and you're trying to stick to the 8th century. You've got to see what's in your in your hands. What are you looking at? And what I'm looking at here is a much later script then from what you're telling me.
>> Yeah.
Okay. Um, >> one just one more thing. Go back there.
Just so people don't come back. If people say, "Well, yes, but look at the dots are there." Um, yes, those dots are there. But look, you notice they're in a different color, which could be suggest they're putting at a later date when there were dire critical marks. That would suggest, and if you look, you can see where the where the uh where the the circles um there there's a pyramid of circles there. That is the end of a verse. That obviously is put in a later date because it doesn't accommodate it.
It's so that's that's the end of the verse. That is a later rendition as well.
>> I should I should point out as well that this is just an example of of the Kufik script. It's not necessarily the earliest one that's that exists. Just one example. So it could represent a much later one. Okay. So let's look at HS that you mentioned a few minutes ago.
There's his name and at the end of a very long name which I won't repeat, but you can see he he's uh got al Kufi there. It says that he was born in 706 and died 790. Okay, so uh the 8th century. He's born in Baghdad. So again, Iraq. His name suggests a link with Kufa Al Kufi. According to tradition, he moved all the way to Mecca in the Hijaz where he picked up the Kufa recital method from his father-in-law, Aim Iban Abi al- Najud. This name would suggest he came from Njaf, as you can see on the map, which is right next to Kufa.
The only way this makes sense is if Kufa is Mecca, because it seems silly if he had a father-in-law that he would go from uh where he was all the way down to the Hijaz to meet a father-in-law, which you you'd imagine his father-in-law probably lived nearby. And you know, if you just look at it logically, it makes more sense for him to simply go to from u Baghdad to say uh the Nijaf area um and learn from his father-in-law there rather than going all the way to the Hijaz. It seems like a reduction is going on. Um and it's interesting that 95% of Muslims read the H Quran, i.e. a Qanic recitation of an Iraqi student from an Iraqi narrator. In other words, 95% of Muslims read an Iraqi Quran.
>> Just to be just to be fair, uh that was only chosen in 1924 and it was because the Ottomans loved it. The Ottomans were the one that chose it. I'm just in case people do want to come back on you. But that's the irony. That's one of the ironies and we we've brought that up many times. when it was finally chosen uh in 1985 by King King Fod. Why in the world did King Font whoever was giving him his his material? Why did they not understand that you're choosing Iraqi script for the all the world when you have at least four others that you could have chosen that were from the hiji dialect proving that they didn't understand that anymore than many of the Muslims today.
>> Yeah. I think uh one explanation I've heard is that they chose the script that was the the simplest for the printers of the time and >> exactly why they chose you're talking about now you're talking about the Ottomans >> Ottomans. Yeah, the Ottoman period. So that's that's probably the reason. It's just a coincidence but it's a coincidence that just reminds us of the Iraqi thesis again. Um so you can't make too much of it but it's but if we if we um just look at the fact that even >> well you can make up that it began there and it ends there. You can say that much.
>> That's what also ends.
>> Even though they've uh they've tried to hide it, it's it's come back to haunt them. I would put it that way. So um so on in terms of the final thoughts then um the Iraqi thesis helps join the dots on a lot of holes in the Islamic narrative that never made sense such as why the kaiffs didn't rule from Mecca but instead uh way up north in Ha supposedly and Damascus it recognizes there were some kiblas that point towards Petra but prior to the 690s the religious buildings were not Islamic mosques but precurs precursor such as Abraham's places of worship uh directed towards Petra maybe because it was the burial site of uh Harun and what is most important is where we could likely find an audience competent enough to get the obscure illusions to Syriak and Talmudic stories. Mahosa Old Medina verifiably fits that requirement.
So essentially if we look at the abundance of evidence and this is a small part of an even greater amount of evidence um I think it's fair to say that there are massive holes in the Islamic tradition and there seems to be um an effort to hide um what really went on in the um early days now. So, I'm just going to unshare there.
>> Well, while he's bringing it back to the two of us, I I Let's just wrap this all up and bring it into a conclusion. I've taken notes as you've been going along like I usually do. I want to just from a from a person who's hearing it from the outside, this is what I picked up from what you've said. Uh jump in at any time to correct me like you did in the earlier video. I think that's good that you do that. But this is what I'm hearing you say, Mel. And I think this is important that you are saying what you do because you're actually saying not only is the language, as we said in the earlier video, not only is the language from the Iraqi area, the audience is from the Iraqi area. And this is where you're pointing to. Look at the audience. And when you look at the audience, you can see uh that there are these cities uh these cities of of the Jewish cities of PB, Pumba, uh Surath, Nihardia.
Look and see. Then you have Ahira, which is the Christian historian city. These four cities were are all places of learning and much almost much of the words as we said in the earlier uh episode the words 70% of the words the foreign words that are in the Quran are from Aramaic sorry not Aramaic >> and the center of the Aramaic language is this part of Iraq exactly where this is going on but it's fascinating because you have the Jews have their center of learning therefore the whole area that's where their center of learning There is is is there in Pumbata fascinating because that's just around what is today Bhagdat very close to what is today Bhagdat earlier was Stafon and Mahosa and then you say that um you look at surah 112 and you notice that surah 112 is very clear that's the same surah that is introduced on the dome of the rock why is that such a significant sur because it's attacking those they're having a discussion with and it looks like the discussion they're having are with the Jews and the Christians if that is the case then In a sense, the reason that they're attacking the person of Jesus Christ, his begotteness, and also his divinity, which is in chapter 112, you talk about Medina, the city of Medina, which is main city. You're right. But then you look at Medina al uh alikah, which means the old city, the old Medina, the old city, which is the Persian name, which is fascinating because that that suggests that maybe that's the Medina that the later traditions are getting confused with.
And if he the whole exile going as we know the hijra hijra means the exodus from one place to another. The exodus has always been uh in the traditions the later traditions is always from Mecca to Medina. It looks like what you're saying is it's not from Mecca as in Saudi Arabia it could from Alhira to Medina.
Al-Hira which would be the previous because that is where the center of power was. That was the center of theology for the Netoran Christians. And now they're moving away from the Christians, attacking the Christians, and moving back now to the Medina, the old Medina, where is now the the central part of where the Muslims are now coming into their own.
>> I do want to bring some >> I do want to bring something in actually was something I forgot to mention and it's actually very significant. Um there are a number of other words in mand which are very significant that uh I want to tell people about. Issa is how is a mandake spelling of the word. It's how it's pronounced in mandake Aramaic.
It's isho in other forms of Aramaic.
It's uniquely how it's pronounced and spelled in mandake Aramaic. So that's significant. Yaya or uh yaya. Yeah, I've got it said right. The first one yaya is also the mandake form of John Yan.
So those are significant word words there. Um so >> now just just remind people mand >> extra support >> mandake is what part?
>> Yeah so Mandake is actually from the Persian side.
>> It's just east it's the eastern part.
It's literally over the river in the Tigris area. Um so it's not it's not far uh in fact it's >> it's it's inside the border uh where Mahosa is which is old Medina. So we find that's like the intersection between two dialects. So you have the Babylonian dialect meeting the Mandic dialect. And so you can see why it's using a bit of both there. Um so you know it's interesting that the only place that we can find the word Issa in terms of a dialect is mandake. So it's much easier to suppose that the Quran was written there than weigh down the hijaz that doesn't have this explanation for the particular spelling of it.
>> Fascinating.
>> So I thought I'd end with that bombshell. I think it's significant, you know.
>> Wow. That is a bombshell. I mean that's I'm going to have to now change my my lectures if this is the case because we've been asking where is issa come from because the word in Arabic today is Yeshua which is like Yeshua from Hebrew.
Why is it is in the Quran? If that is the case, if it's Mandic Aramaic, then that places it right there, right around Mendoza again, right around Med the Old Medina, right around Steson, right around Bagghdad, right in the middle of Iraq. Brilliant. Thanks, C. Another bombshell as we're going to be seeing.
>> Yeah.
>> So, the exile goes back to that also the year of the Arabs. And that's what's just fascinating. You're looking at the year that today we call it after Hijra, but this is actually pointing to when the Gossin and the Lockwoods come together and push out the Persians and the Byzantines. That's why that year is always because when did that happen?
6:22. As we saw in an earlier episode that we have they push them out and they throw out the yoke from that. That's why from there on out that becomes the year of the Arab identity. They now have their identity. They now no longer are colonized and they're taking they're throwing out the oppressors. Fascinating you brought in this whole thing from China. I love that. So you're not just looking at what's happening there on the ground. You're saying even as far away as China back in the 8th century. Yes, it's in the 8th century. But >> well 9th century beginning of 9th century. Yeah. Just to be >> sorry 768.
>> Oh yeah. From 768 to Well, if I'm being say the final date would be 801. It finished in 801. So yeah. Okay.
>> Okay. Okay. One year into the 9th century. But more than likely this is written in the 8th cent >> to 801. This is a Chinese and again it's so far away no one would have had it. It is completely ex uh ex and I love what you said. It is not dependent. No one could have had control over this writing from that far thousands of miles away.
So here is an independent completely independent source that's referring to these people as Persians and that they they are the Moshu which you think are maybe is their way of calling these people Muslims. That's their derivation.
Is that what you're saying? I'm assuming.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know exactly what word they were hearing in in terms of Persian. I suppose that the linguists um listening will probably provide some evidence on that.
>> Well, as we desecrate the Arabic today and as you try to do so in your reading.
So they would have desecrated it even more because that is symptomatic.
Whenever someone tries to take a word they hear they put it into how they hear it in their own language. Which are interesting because they do talk about Muhammad as a king as a Persian and from the place of Ti >> which could be a derivation of the Tatkasan which is Mesopotamia again >> again placing him. So even the Chinese place him in the right place get him >> and they say he was and and they say it happened west of Persia as well very significantly not not south of Persia not south west of Persia not south >> nowhere south this is west of Persia you talk about Ali he that he could be the that he could have been the descendant or in some way related to Muhammad but they're both from Alhiraas is who you're referring to and then you go into Alhajan And you say that al-Haj who is the governor of Kufa. So what we've been told under the ruling of Abd Malik but he was way over Kufa. Look at where Kufa is. Kufa is Iraq. And look at the significance of this man Alachad. He is the one that starts the pilgrimage. Well pilgrimage to where? Well then that's where you're going to have to get into some of Dan Gibson's material because he does say that he has these Wats mosque the in between mosque. And if you take a look and you see now Dan Gibson and you are going to have to have a discussion as to how you how you interpret these these different kiblas. But go ahead.
>> I I do I do want to say something about about that even though it's quite brief.
So if you think about the three groups, the Jewish group, uh the Christian group, um well, let's say no actually we'll focus on the Abrahamist group which are the the main writers I would suggest of the of the Quran. The Abraham group, the Christian group, and then you have the Mandic group, which we might refer to as the salience. So the the Neestorans being Christians pray to the east. That would be their kibla essentially. You have the Abrahams would have prayed to the west and then you have the Sabians. They prayed to the south. So in terms of the tussle where they're praying towards suggests who's in charge. Now it's interesting once the Abbassadas take power where you find the mandate group who pray to the south suddenly Mecca gets moved way down south. So I'm just suggesting that this may be a possible explanation for why they moved things way down south to fit with the mandate point of view which is they they were used to praying south.
They're the ones who prayed five times a day and uh there's lots of other similarities between them and uh the later Islam. So I just throw that in >> throw that in. I think this is this is I I'm I'm I'm going to put a big question mark on this because I I do like what Dan has done Dan Gibson has done with this and and he look for me right now his view of why you have a Mecca from Petra down move down to uh to the present day Mecca. If you look at all the five stages of the uh of the Hutch that you do see there they can all been re they are all reproduced in Petra but that's for another time. That's for another debate. Again this is a white paper. We're putting it out there and we're saying both are possibilities. let wig and that this will continue and may may need to have both you and Dan on board to actually talk to each other and just put your theories back and forth and let the the general audience come to their conclusions. But that's what we're doing, isn't it? You all come to your conclusions. Are you now seeing what Mel has done here? And this this is I hope you're picking this up. Mel is supporting both linguistically from the Arabic itself, moving from the Aramaic to the Arabic. He's also looking at it from the as far as the physical evidence that's on the ground. He's looking at it from the historical view of where the big centers of learning are coming from.
He's even using references that are words that are also definitions of words that come that uh that could only be Persian or could only be uh Iraqi. And then he's also even using evidences that come as far away as China to support the fact that the all of this material these people are not from the hij they're from much further north and they're from much further east and they are all from the area of Iraq which should not surprise us as Mel said because everything we've known about the great civilizations is from that area of the world. This is the seat this is the cradle of all the great civilizations. If that is the case, then why are we surprised that not only the Jews are centered there, so are the Samans, so are the mand Mandics, so are uh the Christians, Netorians especially, they're all centered in that area. And that's where the dialogue is going on.
And with that debate going on between them, it stands to reason why the Quran keeps on talking about the fact that they always refers to the Jews and the Christians. And then it also says, why is it that this book, this book is an Arabic book? Why is it an Arabic book?
because there's a discussion going on as to whether or not it is an Arabic book and whether there are other languages that are influencing it. Great stuff, Mel. I mean, this is starting to get our juices going. It's getting our our our not only our brain cells functioning again, but I'm sure there's going to be huge discussion about this. We want you to discuss. Put your ideas out there. If you don't like what Mel has been saying, say so. If you do like what Mel has been saying, say so. But come back and peerreview us so that we can then get together and we'll probably do it next week. you and I will get together and we'll actually answer some of these questions, but we need you to put them out there. Send us out to other people because we are actually we're revising the whole history of Islam in one fell swoop. And we're saying we're sick and tired of all the traditions that are from the nth and 10th century that have kept on imposing and only giving us one narrative and that's the only narrative that has been taught in all our schools and all our uh seminaries and all of our seats of education here in the West and also around the Muslim world. We're sick and tired of it because they're in the wrong people, the wrong place, much much too late and at the wrong time. And we also as historians have asked where then is the evidence on the ground. What Mel has done in these series of videos, this is the third one we put up this week, these series of videos, what Mel has done is what every historian should be doing. Why they haven't done it till now, I don't know, but he's going back to the time period when this all took place. He's going back to the 7th century. We're only interested on the seventh century. He's gone back to the languages. He's gone back to the names.
He's gone back to the cities. He's gone back to the set centers of training all from the seventh century. He's gone back to quotation after quotation, even looking at artifacts, even looking at the script of the Arabic. And he's saying in every case it they all point to one place and that place is where surprise of surprise is where it should be. It should be Iraq. So you start out with Iraq, looks like we end with Iraq.
It looks like, as you're going to say in later time, it is where civilization began, is it not? If if that's where the Garden of Eden began, it's in Iraq. If it's where the civilization began, then why are we surprised? It's also where Islam began. But how did it begin? And why did it begin? It began because of these discussions that were going on in the Abrahamic fold. the discussions that were happening between the Jews and the Christians and these Arabs or these Persians as who who then wanted to have ascendancy. So can you see why this is important at this time now in the 21st century we're starting to connect the dots and what Mel has done a great favor. Thanks a lot Mel. God bless you for all the work you do. God bless you for your humility and God bless you for the fact that you really are striking a nerve here. I keep it up. We want to hear more and as you can see from the many comments, people are excited. We're going off the records as far as number of people who are hitting this and are watching it and are also responding to it. So over to you Mel, you have the last word.
>> Well, thank you Jay for having me on again. Um, as I say, this is a thesis or you know, I've gathered up evidence from different sources and this is how I interpret it and and others may question it and they may say, well, I disagree with this point or that point. But I challenge people to refute me. Um, tell me tell me if you think I'm right or if I'm wrong and uh tell me why. Tell me why we should trust Islamic tradition and why we shouldn't trust the historical evidence. So, I'd like to hear from you.
>> I was fascinating. I got a email from Robert Spencer last week and then he said, "Hey, I want to could you please call me?" So, I called him up and he said, Robert Spencer says, "I'm have gonna have to rewrite my book. I'm going to have to rewrite Did Muhammad exist and uh my editors are agree with me." So he is now in the process of rewriting did Muhammad exist from 2012. He's going to have 10 years later a completely new book and he's going to introduce some of your material and he's going to put that and says we've got to redirect. We've got to un re understand we've got to start going back to the seventh century and look at it a new.
>> So you're you're getting a lot of people on board with you Mel. They're not necessarily agreeing with you. I'm not saying they're all agreeing with you.
No. Okay. But at least what they're saying is you're putting up you're bringing up you're bringing into this whole discussion a whole new category that we've not thought of before. And I think from years to come people are going to look back and say Mel you opened up a real mailtorm. You opened up maybe Pandora's box but what a box and this is because it's getting us back to the truth.
>> What I would like to say to the Muslims who are watching is I don't want you to just accept what I'm saying. I want you to think because you've been told one story. Don't trust me. Go and look up the sources. Go and look at the evidence that I've suggested. Work it out for yourself. Think for yourself. Don't trust the people around you. Trust your own instincts. Trust your own eyes, your own ears. Look at the evidence for yourself. You may come to a different conclusion. That's fine. But at least think and see what happens. Because it's more important to find the truth than to live your life according to a myth or a legend. It's more important to find the truth. Um, and actually it doesn't matter how how it turns out because at the end of the day at least you know you found what is true and not something that's false. You know that's important.
>> Mel, thank you so much. We're going to talk to you and we're going to say you're the Iraqi man. We're going to call Gibson the Jordanian man. So the Jordan against Iraq. Which is it? Where did Islam begin? Jordan Iraq. What's noticeable? It did not begin in Mecca.
>> History changes when people are willing to question inherited narratives and follow the evidence wherever it leads.
What this investigation has revealed is not a small discrepancy in Islamic history, but the possibility that the entire geographic and intellectual framework of early Islam has been misunderstood for centuries. From the Aramaic roots buried in the Quran to the Jewishmies of Mesopotamia to the Christian and Mandian influences surrounding Kufa and Al-Hira, the pieces appeared to converge in one direction.
Iraq, not Mecca, as the true cradle of Islam's earliest development. The implications are enormous. If the language, theology, script, and political centers all point northward, then the traditional narrative may be a later reconstruction rather than a contemporary memory of events. But this discussion is far from over. What Mel and Dr. J have introduced to us in this video changes everything. The real challenge now belongs to historians, scholars, Muslims, and skeptics alike.
Examine the sources, test the evidence, and decide for yourself whether the story we inherited is history or redaction shaped centuries later. Thank you for watching this video. Please like and share this video so others can see it. Don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications for more Islamic history content. Stay with us as we sift through history to find out what the standard Islamic narrative on the Islamic Awareness website is hiding regarding the origin of Islam. Jesus is Lord.
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