Okay, here's my point by point refutation.
2. The Lakhmids and Ghassanids were destroyed by the Byzantines, and did not gain independence from them.
3. What holds these Arab groups together? What prevents them from assimilating into the older established culture of the region to a greater degree than they did?
4. Conquest by a few Arab mercenaries doesn't fit the narrative of a conquest by "Saracens" (which I believe is a term relating to the Arabs of the Hedjaz, not some latter Ghassanids) and if these Arabs were Nestorian Christians, I believe note of it would have been made. Rather they're clearly described as outsiders and their religion is unclear to the Egyptians of the time, rather than mere heretics.
7. What holds Muwiya's regime together then? Where did the common Arabian identity come from?
8. What do these Arabs worship then? If they're Jews and Christians, why is note not made of it? If they're pagans, how do you reconcile that with non-Muslim source texts describing a "false Prophet"?
9. Why then is the compilation of the Quran attributed much earlier? If the Quran was designed like this, why does it contain so many revelations that really aren't relevant outside of a specific period of history? Why do so few suras make sense as any of your listed examples?
10. Mecca as a city predates Islam. You don't explain why it comes to exist later or why there's no evidence of this.
There's more I could say, but what messianic movement would the Abbasids be a part of? Why is this not recorded better? It's not as if there weren't historians in this period of time. Were they all universally co-opted? How could this be when the Abbasids had so many enemies, including the Umayyad Caliphate?
You also do a very orientalist disservice to the Persian literary tradition. The version of history you espouse made sense within the broader context of your alternate history that you wrote, but it doesn't seem like reality. It's too easily contradicted and the Abbasids after all were not without enemies who would have cheerfully done so if they were actually a "messianic" movement (and if they were, what messiah did they have?).
I can't speak to how many Muslims have understood or read the Quran. Others on the site may have access to that information, and at least from hearing it I'm skeptical. I have however, read the Quran, and I haven't noticed these contradictions or anything that couldn't be explained by changing time and circumstance.
I don't see how this fits the known data. Any absence of tangible evidence could merely suggest a more decentralized early Caliphate - which actually would fit with some of the evidence we have, particularly when it comes to the rise of various Arab governors in Syria, Egypt, and Persia. I'd be willing to believe that the early Caliphate was a looser organization than traditional historiography would assert, but I would still argue it was based in a religious movement from the time period founded by a man who lived in the Hedjaz who became a political and religious leader and that most of the core beliefs of Islam were in that man's philosophy.
It simply is easier to believe than the retroactive invention of a religion to assert political hegemony. Too many holes in the theory, not to mention I can't think of another example of something on that scale ever being attempted.
1. After the Byzantine-Sassanid wars of the 610s-620s both old empires are exhausted.
2. Arab Foederati (Lakhmids et al.) take advantage of this situation to gain autonomy first and then outright independence. This does not take place in an organized or coordinated fashion. Simply, local Arab dynasts in Syria and Irak just stop taking orders from their nominal overlord while not necessarily overtly challenging said overlords.
3. A few decades of anarchy follow, during which Iran, whose central power structure has collapsed, is conquered piecemeal by various Arab groups.
4. The same then happens to Egypt, which has been left completely unguarded (except by a few Arab foederati ...) after the end of the Byzantine-Sassanian war.
5. In the 660s, one of the new regional Arab strong men, Muawiyah, embarks on a consolidation adventure and manages to subdue his most powerful rivals.
6. In order to further cement his hold on power, Muawiyah lauches a raid on Constantinople in order to focus the military energies of the newly federated Arab tribes on an external goal instead on internecine struggles.
7. Even if the siege of Constaninople does not succeed, Muawiyah's goal of uniting the Arabs is met and the Umayyad dynasty's legitimacy is consolidated. Further Arab military adventures are now directed to the West (Tunisia) and the East (Central Asia, India).
8. Religiously, there is no "Islam" yet by this point; just a tolerant religious policy pursued by the early Umayyads in order to win the allegiance of their subjects who are mostly Monophysite and therefore resentful against Constantinople's earlier persecutions.
9. In order to appear acceptable to as many people as possible, the Umayyads officially embrace a form of "minimal Monothism" enshrined in a series of texts in Arabic, some of which may predate the Arab conquest and come from various sources (Christian missionary tracts, heretic sectarian texts, etc.) These texts will later be collected in "the Quran" (i.e. "The lectionary") but they are still circulating independently at this point.
10. Towards the end of the VIIth century, this "neutral monotheism" is enshrined in the building of the "Dome of the Rock" in Jerusalem which is then still considered the central location of all forms of Monotheism as there is no Mecca yet.
11. In the 750s, after a century of Umayyad rule, a dissident religious movement originating in lower Mesopotamia and Khurasan finally overthrows the last Umayyad Caliph and installs the Abassids in their stead.
12. Contrary to the vaguely Monotheist Umayyads, the Abbasids are a militant messianic movement. They are strongly ideological, with quasi-totalitarian tendencies. In order to legitimize their rule for good, they embark on a wholesale history-rewriting program, weaving various stories of local conquest into a coherent whole supposedly centered around a prophet who had preached a new religion a century and a half ago which is in fact the very creed the Abbassid sectarian backers have just invented.
2. The Lakhmids and Ghassanids were destroyed by the Byzantines, and did not gain independence from them.
3. What holds these Arab groups together? What prevents them from assimilating into the older established culture of the region to a greater degree than they did?
4. Conquest by a few Arab mercenaries doesn't fit the narrative of a conquest by "Saracens" (which I believe is a term relating to the Arabs of the Hedjaz, not some latter Ghassanids) and if these Arabs were Nestorian Christians, I believe note of it would have been made. Rather they're clearly described as outsiders and their religion is unclear to the Egyptians of the time, rather than mere heretics.
7. What holds Muwiya's regime together then? Where did the common Arabian identity come from?
8. What do these Arabs worship then? If they're Jews and Christians, why is note not made of it? If they're pagans, how do you reconcile that with non-Muslim source texts describing a "false Prophet"?
9. Why then is the compilation of the Quran attributed much earlier? If the Quran was designed like this, why does it contain so many revelations that really aren't relevant outside of a specific period of history? Why do so few suras make sense as any of your listed examples?
10. Mecca as a city predates Islam. You don't explain why it comes to exist later or why there's no evidence of this.
There's more I could say, but what messianic movement would the Abbasids be a part of? Why is this not recorded better? It's not as if there weren't historians in this period of time. Were they all universally co-opted? How could this be when the Abbasids had so many enemies, including the Umayyad Caliphate?
You also do a very orientalist disservice to the Persian literary tradition. The version of history you espouse made sense within the broader context of your alternate history that you wrote, but it doesn't seem like reality. It's too easily contradicted and the Abbasids after all were not without enemies who would have cheerfully done so if they were actually a "messianic" movement (and if they were, what messiah did they have?).
I can't speak to how many Muslims have understood or read the Quran. Others on the site may have access to that information, and at least from hearing it I'm skeptical. I have however, read the Quran, and I haven't noticed these contradictions or anything that couldn't be explained by changing time and circumstance.
I don't see how this fits the known data. Any absence of tangible evidence could merely suggest a more decentralized early Caliphate - which actually would fit with some of the evidence we have, particularly when it comes to the rise of various Arab governors in Syria, Egypt, and Persia. I'd be willing to believe that the early Caliphate was a looser organization than traditional historiography would assert, but I would still argue it was based in a religious movement from the time period founded by a man who lived in the Hedjaz who became a political and religious leader and that most of the core beliefs of Islam were in that man's philosophy.
It simply is easier to believe than the retroactive invention of a religion to assert political hegemony. Too many holes in the theory, not to mention I can't think of another example of something on that scale ever being attempted.
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