Appendices for An Authorative Response

by Brother 'Abdurrahîm Green

Prologue
Appendix 1
As this paper is based upon the debate, we have included a section relating to the 15
minute rebuttals provided by both speakers. We begin with Smith's main points of
disagreement, followed by a response. Smith's main contentions were:

1. That the debate was supposed to be "Is the Qur’ân the Word of God"
2. That the inscriptions in the Dome of the Rock, didn't date from the 2nd
century Hijra, but were added in later renovations of the mosque.
3. That the manuscript documentation provided had to be attested by experts.
4. That Creswell's testimony was not based on archaeological research, but on
2nd and 3rd century fabricated traditions.
5. That Nabia Abbott had written in 1937 and was therefore too old to use as a
source.
6. That the reason Hajjâj had chosen Makkah as a place of pilgrimage was that
he had wanted the Arabs to have an identity of their own.
7. That various cube shaped sanctuaries had been discovered around Arabia.

Our response to these extremely weak arguments are the following.

1. About the debate:

Smith should have read the letter he was sent by South Bank University Islamic
Society (see below) as well as the tickets, posters and the advertisement material for
the debate that he was given, which stated very clearly that the title of the debate was
"The Sources of Islâm", and on the challenging paper by Smith on this topic. If
everyone attending the debate was clear on this, how did he miss this crucial detail?

2. About the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock:

This paper has not claimed for an instance that the inscriptions date from the 2nd
century. In fact, it is Smith who brought up the inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock.
We were simply illustrating what the verses read. If Smith had a problem with the
inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock, why bring them up in the first place? If the
Dome of the Rock has been rebuilt how does Smith contend that the verses that were
present originally were different from the Qur’ân with us today. Did he travel in time
to see them?

3. About the attesting of the manuscripts:

Maybe Smith should buy a copy of the debate and listen to it again, as he obviously
was not paying attention the first time. Every piece of manuscript evidence we have
provided has been attested by Muslim or non-Muslim experts or both. Read the
sections on 'Manuscript evidence' in sections on 'The Qur’ân' and 'The Hadith' and
'Jews, Greecos and Doctrinas'. As mentioned earlier it is, in-fact, Smith's evidences
that have not been attested by anyone. Crone and Cook tell us regarding the Doctrina
Iacobi that it was "in all probability" written in the 7th century.

4. About Creswell:

Smith doesn't seem to realise that it is him, not us that regard the traditions as 2nd and
3rd century fabrications. We (together with many other non-Muslim scholars) are
happy to accept Creswell's testimony if he based it on the authentic traditions.
However, what does not make sense is that if Smith regards them as 2nd and 3rd
century fabrications, then WHY IS HE USING CRESWELL'S TESTIMONY as a
basis for his arguments!? Smith doesn't seem to realise that he is refuting himself !!

5. About Nabia Abbott:

It is true that Nabia Abbott wrote in 1937. She also wrote in and up to her death in
1985. The main book we have used in this paper by Abott was one written in 1967.
Crone and Cook's book Hagarism was written in 1977. More importantly, we haven't
even used Abbott to attest any manuscripts in this paper. We have used Abbott in this
study in her expertise of Arabic scripts. However, even if we had used her to attest
manuscripts, there are no methods of scriptural analysis which are known today, that
were not employed by Abbott. Manuscript analysis is primarily done through
palaeography of which Abbott is a renowned expert, to this day, whether Smith
accepts her as such or not.

6. About Hajjâj and Makkah:

Smith still hasn't answered the point. We are asking why Hajjâj chose Makkah, an
inhospitable and barren place as a sanctuary and centre for the Islamic world. Taieef,
and any of the other surrounding settlements were just as Arabian as Makkah, and as
Smith himself contends, it is the most logical site for trade to pass through.

7. About other cube structures:

Smith claims that other cube like structures have been found in the Arabian peninsula.
However given Smith's track record of misquoting and inventing quotes, we prefer to
take this claim with serious scepticism. Smith needs to prove what he is saying. He
has to prove that the structures are dated to the period that Jacob of Odessa was
writing, and not prior to this, otherwise his information is useless. Secondly, he needs
to prove that the cubes have been found within the region of the Hijâz, something we
think is highly unlikely, given the unwillingness of the governors of Arabia, to allow
non-Muslims to be present in the sacred land of the true worshippers of Allah.
Text of the Letter sent to J. Smith by the
South Bank Islamic Society
Thursday, May 16, 1996 All Praise is due to Allah, Peace and Blessings be upon His Messenger
Muhammad.

From: Shabbar Shabbir, Islamic Society of The South Bank University

To: Mr. Jay Smith

Peace be upon those who accept Right Guidance. To Proceed . . .

Concerning our communication with you regarding the forthcoming debate at

3pm on 29th of May 1996 at the South Bank University, we strongly feel that
the topic of the debate should be the issue of your challenging thesis
concerning the sources of the Qur’ân and Islâm.

The majority of Muslims with whom the society have consulted feel that until
now no one has been able from our side to produce a truly convincing
refutation of your material. As you yourself have stated in your paper " there is
indeed much disturbing material with which the Muslim apologist must contend". This, as you
yourself have stated, originates from a new crop of historical experts. Thus we
feel that your integrity as a scholar very much depends on your being able to
consistently defend these ideas. Additionally, we feel that your primary
concern should be to defend your thesis and not to merely capture the
public's attention with rhetoric.

In this regard, our challenge is for you to debate your assertions on the
sources of the Qur’ân. It is necessary for our speaker to have at least 90
minutes in order to cover the issues involved. This is because of the in-depth
and technical nature of the subject matter. We feel that you should have no
problem in responding to this challenge, without adding further issues, such
as the Bible, which in itself needs a similarly lengthy debate. We are more
than prepared to debate the Bible on some other, mutually convenient
occasion.

In light of these considerations, the debate must be on the aforementioned

topic. We challenge you to come and debate on this topic and this topic alone.
Since you have already agreed to the date and length of the debate, we feel
that your refusal to attend will seem to seriously indicate the weakness of your
theories and ideas. This will leave us no option but to proceed to attempt to
counter your claims in a lecture format.

Shabbar Shabbir, Islamic Society of The South Bank University

Appendix 2
Hagarism
A few notes to explain, in more simple terms, the assertions by Crone and Cook.

Section 1. The basic scenario. Crone and Cook intend analysing Islamic
society to'a model political society'!?! The word 'model' here means 'perfect'!!

Section 2. Crone and Cook lay down their absurd conceptions on the history
of human civilisation. They tell us that all human communities appear in pairs,
i.e. one against the other. They tell us that each community wants to thrive
simply for cultural identification, 'within a framework of strategic logic'. Remember
this last statement, it will be discussed later.

This imbecilic logic requires no expert to raise faults with. We must also
understand that Crone and Cook are trying to explain the history of
communities chosen and guided by Allah, using their own assertions on how
history took place. Therefore we can already see that their conclusions will be
completely divergent from what we know as fact. Rather like a rugby player
trying to use his own rules on a football match.

Section 3. After explaining the framework for the progression of human

societies, they tell us, according to them, which is the best type of society: 'One
which is integrated, self ruling and self consistent' (?!!??). What kind of criterion is this?
They then tell us that the most complete example of such a community is
ancient Israel???

Now here is the crunch. According to them, the rest of the world is now
thinking: 'How shall we compete with this amazing society rich in culture and religion. Our
only solution is to copy them.' Hence Christianity occurs by copying Judaism,
Hellenism and Roman Imperialism (a point for Mr. Smith to contend with), and
the Arabs do the same and create Islâm. Going back to the point of 'strategic
logic', here is the scenario that they say has occurred. Before Christianity and
before Islâm, the communities who were to become Christians and Muslims,
had some members of their community sitting and analysing the surrounding
cultures and communities. Somehow someone decided that the Israel
seemed to be much better than their own communities, so they told everyone
in their own communities that everyone had to be like the Jews. So
collectively everyone changed all their habits and culture, all their beliefs and
religious practices to emulate the Jews without a question being asked. This
scenario staggers belief and also contradicts their earlier assertions. What
happened to cultural identification?

Section 4. The rest of their theories in explaining Islâm are just a cocktail of
pure racism, deep hatred and revulsion for everything Arab and Islamic. The
Arabs, they tell us are so barbaric and backward that even though they tried
to achieve this emulation of the Jews they could never succeed in choosing
the correct attributes from the Jews and always ended up choosing the worst
due to their stupidity. Hence Islâm became the worst civilisation ever known.

The main obvious questions to these theories without even going into the
supposed evidences of them, are CONSTANTLY: WHY, WHEN and HOW did all
this occur?!?!?!? Investigation into their own evidences cause more problems.
The only source of evidence they possess to fit their theories, the DOCTRINA
IACOBI is a 7th century document written by Rabbis (Absolutely NO Muslims
allowed here, they are too biased).

Appendix 3
Hagarism, by Crone and Cook
The Book:

"Hagarism . . . is not only bitterly anti-Islamic in tone but anti-Arabian. Its superficial
fancies are so ridiculous that at first one wonders if it is just a 'leg pull', 'spoof'."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

"It is difficult to imagine that this book is not intended to shock, and partly even intended
to do so."

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"The book appears to be deliberately provocative."

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

"One feels battered by the style, as if by an hour or two in noisy traffic."

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

The Approach:

"This is the argument: if the existence of the Koran is not attested by 'hard evidence' till
the end of the seventh century, or attested in its historical context before the middle of the
eighth, 'the historicity of the Islamic tradition is in some degree problematic', and there are
no 'cogent internal grounds for rejecting it' or cogent external grounds for accepting it' . . .
The Islamic sources are not able to 'arbitrate' between these two different approaches and
'the only way out of the dilemma is thus to step outside the Islamic tradition altogether and
start again'. That is, two approaches are equally feeble, and therefore the only way is to
adopt one of them; if it is the 'only way', why is it 'not unreasonable to proceed in the usual
fashion', that is do just the opposite?"

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

The Sources:

"Given the authors profess to be Islamic Historians, they are sadly out of touch with
contemporary research on Islâm and their aspersions on early Islamic sources are
characterized by a false confidence engendered by a superficial scanning of Western
criticism of hadith. Why should the Syriac sources, not new of course to Islamic historians,
be considered more trustworthy than the Arab historians?

Relying on 'contemporary non-Muslim sources to reconstruct a phase in the history of the

religion 'Hajarism' which the Islamic tradition has itself suppressed' [sic[, the authors have
invented 'Hajarenes'. If those historians dub the Arabian Muslims 'Ishmaelites' or
'Hajarites', this is surely a disparaging allusion to the traditional descent of their Arab
conquerors from the bondwoman Hajar? The Hebrew name means 'stranger', parallel to the
Arabic dhakil, one who has taken refuge with others. Hijrah means neither 'exodus' nor
Warnsborough's 'exile'. The Islamic muhajirun are incontrovertibly 'emigrants' seeking the
protection of others. As a 'phase in the history of the religion' [sic] 'Hajarism' exists only in
the authors' imagination and misinterpretation of texts."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

" . . . The juxtaposition muhajir: Hagar, even if it were etymologically sound, cannot really
support the messianic and irredentist superstructure erected here to explain the Arab
expansion into the Fertile Crescent. The material is upon occasion misleadingly presented,
e.g. Ephrem certainly did not prophesy an exodus of Hagarenes from the desert (p.13), nor
 did Levond report Leo's description of Hajjâj destroying old Hagarene writings (p.18)."

Wansbrough, BSOAS, Vol. XLI, pp.155-156: 1978.

"It is easier to believe that Muslims are better witnesses to Islâm than Christian or Jewish
who may more naturally be supposed to have known very little about it. Even after living
among Muslims for a millennium they often knew very little; and they do not make more
acceptable witnesses for the earliest days. But the authors are happy to take evidence from
Christians and Jews in the eighth century, though without explaining why this now becomes
acceptable evidence for 'religious events in the seventh century'".

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"A second methodological problem is the deliberate reduction of the available sources. The
authors proceed from contemporary non-Muslim (Christian and Jewish) reports and leave
aside the entire Muslim tradition itself . . . But we should not forget that these texts,
though contemporary, only show how the new phenomenon was seen, not how it actually
was. If we agree that Islâm, at this early stage, was still trying to define its 'identity' then
we cannot demand that an observer from outside who could even less evaluate the radical
novelty of the event should have a clearer concept of what was really happening. We
should rather expect that he tried to describe the phenomenon with his own categories-
which would have been messianism; in the case of a Palestinian Jew. And the fact that he
mixed up or ignored important details ceases to be suprising when we compare the kind of
knowledge people of our well-informed age may have of Arabia or Islâm."

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

More Responses:

"Enemies of this methodology must inevitably say that it consists in . . . magnifying points
of evidence in proportion as they conform to an arbitrary theory; and above all in treating
anything as definitely having happened, once it has been suggested that it might have."

"If a tentative hypothesis quickly becomes fixed as a fact, it may need unfixing again, as
with the invasion of Palestine in the Prophet's lifetime, which had ultimately to be
reconciled with the facts as accepted later. There was 'a chronological revision by which he
died two years before the invasion began' - a chronological reversal, of course, of the
authors' chronological revision."

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"Islamic evidence is apparently admissible when it may be interpreted as unintentionally

revealing truths hidden hitherto."

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"The first characteristic of the method is the rejection of Islamic evidence, except when it
suits . . . The weakness of the method is that the actual evidence used, even if it were true,
is not evaluated; nor is more than a cursory attempt made to evaluate the Islamic evidence
which was discounted in advance - apart from eighth-century evidence when convenient."

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"One learns with astonishment that 'there is some reason to suppose that the Koran was
put together out a plurality of early Hagarene religious works', and that 'the Islamic
imamate is a Samaritan calque'. Have these young authors ever read the Qur’ân
attentively, or, in their more modest way, are they seeking the fame won by the ingenious
Hebraist who associated Jesus Christ with the mushroom?"

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

 " . . . there remains the basic question whether the early Muslims can really be viewed, in
their attitude towards the Koran, as editors patching fragments together and whether they
were not rather believers who recited the Koran in their liturgy; 'Qur’ân' after all means
'recitation'."

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

"When they speak of 'the belated and imperfect editing of materials from a plurality of
traditions' they are begging the question of where this plurality came from. A lot of
revelations? A lot of prophets? One fact that needs to be taken into account with other facts
is that the Koran has given profound satisfaction to millions of people over fourteen
centuries. Are we to fall back on the notion that just anyone could have written any of it?"

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"Unsurprisingly, the Crone-Cook interpretation has failed to win general acceptance among
Western Orientalists, let alone Muslim scholars . . . The rhetoric of these authors may be an
obstacle for many readers, for their argument is conveyed through a dizzying and
unrelenting array of allusions, metaphors, and analogies. More substantively, their use (or
abuse) of the Greek and Syriac sources has been sharply criticised. In the end, perhaps we
ought to use Hagarism more as a 'what-if' exercise than as a research monograph."

R. S. Humphreys, Islamic History - Revised Edition, p.85. Princeton University

Press: 1995

"The reconstructable past as presented in Hagarism relies only on sources outside of Islâm,
and constructs a view of a past so as odds with conventional views that it has been almost
universally rejected. This has been particularly so because the authors' criticisms of the
possibilities of understanding the earliest periods of Islâm would seem, if applied as a
general method to the sources used by historians of religion, to lead toward a kind of
historical solipsism."

Gordon Newby, A History of the Jews of Arabia, p.110. University of Carolina

Press: 1988

"The 'Haggerenes' are treated as empty shells which had to be filled with foreign ideas in
order to acquire an 'identity'. They were bedouins who had no 'answers to the problems of
settled life' . . . The authors do not mention the fact that Arab tribes were already living in
Syria and Iraq in pre-Islamic times, and not simply as bedouins. The Ghassanids and the
Lakhmids are hardly incorporated into the picture, the Yemen not at all."

"According to the authors, the 'Hagarenes' were first influenced in Syria and only
afterwards exposed to 'the more integral traditions in Iraq', but we are not informed how
this move from Syria and Iraq were conquered at the same time and developed a Muslim
civilization concurrently"

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

"If we work with the hypothesis of an intentional 'editing' of the past on the scale assumed
by the authors we would have to presuppose not one forger, but a host of them, and not
only one in Syria, where AbdulMâlik could have 'manipulated' the process, but also in Iraq
and in the Hijâz. Not only a historical tradition would have been invented, but also much
poetry showing the impact of the religion (cf Doctoral thesis of Omar A.Farrukh 1937
obviously unknown to the authors). In this respect, the situation is different from that in
early Christianity; we are not dealing with a few isolated gospels."

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

" . . . a refutation is perhaps unnecessary since the authors make no effort to prove it (the
hypothesis of the book) in detail . . . Where they are only giving a new interpretation of
 well-known facts, this is not decisive. But where the accepted facts are consciously put
upside down, their approach is disastrous."

Joseph Van Ess, The Making of Islâm.

An Old Approach:

"We can detect a similar structural approach to this same subject in the 'Agarenism' of
mediaeval writers about the origins of Islâm. In the Middle Ages, the word Saracenus,
wrongly supposed to derive from the Vulgate Latin form of the name Sara, in order to deny
descent from Hagar and Ismail, was believed to be used by the Arabs themselves, and
mediaeval authors had a simple kind of 'Hagarism' to rebut this; they often preferred to use
Aragenus and Ismailitus.

The two groups seem to have been alike in a low opinion of the Arabs of the Jâhilliyah, but
the mediaevals were more particular - 'rough, uneducated, simple men', 'brutish people',
'rough wandering men' - and, close to the Crone and Cook judgement 'religiously parvenu',
is 'uneducated people who had never seen a prophet'.

In the modern example, the authors are asking us to throw out the Islamic sources and try
again with what residue remains; in the Middle Ages, apocryphal legends (as we have
hitherto thought them) were gradually extruded by more authentically Islamic material. The
astonishing ability of mediaeval writers to bend Muslim sources to support ancient Christian
libels is nearly equalled by the ingenuity of our present authors in creating this new overall
pattern of Toynbee-like shapes.

Congruity (or suitability) and credibility, are criterion to the two schools of thought:
congruity with a point of view chosen in advance, credibility judged from the same view.

The authors' acceptance of the sparse evidence for the conquest of Palestine in the
Prophet's lifetime is based on little more than credibility, and credibility on assumptions
unacceptable to scholars accustomed to different criteria. Phrases like 'it does make sense'
mean 'one can make patterns, and one is free to choose the prettiest one can make.'

Both groups are culturally intolerant at worst and patronising at best . . . "

N. Daniel, Journal of Semitic Studies.

Last Words:

"After plodding through this tiresome travesty of history one finds on the dust-cover the
authors' self assured assertion, 'This challenging book will be of interest to all those
concerned with the study of Islamic history and civilisation . . . It is also a major
contribution to the history of religion and history of ideas.' Scholars of mark - Lyall,
Browne, Nicholson, Arberry - have published with the Cambridge Press. The more the pity
that it has been so ill advised as to be 'conned' into giving its imprimatur to this pretentious
humbug."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

Appendix 4
Qur’ânic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation by Dr.
J. Wansbrough

"Readers who do not have a thorough knowledge of German, Latin, Greek and Hebrew,
apart from Arabic and English (the language in which the book is written although that is
not obvious in many instances!) will probably find no use for it and are advised not to take
it up."
G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"Since the earliest Arabic literary remains date from the second half of the second century
onwards, he therefore assumes that there was nothing going before that time that warrants
tracing back the origins of Arabic literary activity to an earlier period . . . Logic alone might
preclude serious consideration of this version of Islamic history . . . Suffice it to say that
Wansbrough's implication and logic are his, and his alone."

G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"It is perhaps tempting to think of him as one of those scholars whose premises and
conclusions are drastically wrongheaded, but whose argumentation is brilliant and filled
with intriguing perspectives. (To be sure, it is often difficult to say just what his arguments
are, for he affects a ferociously opaque style which bristles with unexplained technical
terms in many languages, obscure allusions, and Teutonic grammar.)"

R. S. Humphreys, Islamic History - Revised Edition, p.84. Princeton University

Press: 1995.

"His conclusion, based on literary and rhetorical analysis, but unsupported by corroborating
historical evidence, is that there was a long process of 'canonisation' (at least two
centuries) in the Islamic as in the Jewish and Christian cases."

William A. Graham, Beyond the Written Word, p.207. Cambridge University

Press: 1987.

"What makes Wansbrough's theories so hard to swallow is the obvious disparity in style and
contents of Meccan and Medinan suras. If, for the sake of argument, we assume, as he
states, that the Qur’ânic canon is the end product of a basically oral transmission of logia
ascribed to "an Arabian prophet", but which most probably originated gradually with later
generations, how then can we account for that difference between the one genre and the
other which is, with the acceptance of the historicity of the Hijra and with that of at least
the main traits of the Sira, so adequately explained?"

G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.

"Wansbrough avers (p.47) that in certain Qur’ânic passages "ellipsis and repetition are such
as to suggest not the carefully executed project of one or many more men, but rather the
product of an organic development from originally independent traditions during a long
period of transmission". In this he is of course attempting to fit the process by which the
canon of the Hebrew Bible was established, onto the Qur’ân, but it won't wash! J.Burton in
his recent Collection of the Qur’ân (Cambridge 1976), argues vastly more cogently than
Wansbrough's unsubstantiable assertions, that the consonantal text of the Qur’ân before us
is the Prophet's own recension."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

"It is hard to see, however, how the author . . . proves that its composition must have
taken eight or ten generations rather than only one to complete. The identification of
various pericopes, older scriptural motifs, and language taken from Judaic usage is
suggestive of many new interpretive possibilities, but it is not clear that it necessitates the
radical conclusion that there was no generally recognised, fixed Qur’ânic text before A.H.
200 (especially in view of the difficulty of imagining the development of a community such
as that of the 3rd century without such a text). Dr Wansbrough's convincing emphasis . . .
makes as much sense when applied to creation of a community in early 7th century Mecca
and Medina as to the creation of one in late 8th century Iraq."

William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.

 "Why should he insist that the Sira is concerned to locate the origins of Islâm in the Hijâz
(implying that this is not the case) when the plain and uncontested evidence is that the
Hijâz was its birthplace?"

"A canonical consonantal text was plainly early established. It may be compared with
Epigraphic South Arabian, which has a consonantal text but no surviving oral tradition of
vowelling - whereas the early Qur’ânic text has."

"An historical circumstance so public cannot have been invented."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

The Data

"Like some other writers Wansbrough has neglected the significant new data emerging from
Epigraphic South Arabian."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

"Other early literary remains such as Hassan al Basri's Qadar letter to Abdul Mâlik which, if
proven authentic, must have been written before 110 A.H., does not fit within
Warnsborough's proposed chronology of the development of the Qur’ânic canon since it
offers a number of correct quotations from the Qur’ân.

Wansbrough's refrains, however, from drawing attention to equally old texts that abound in
Qur’ânic quotations such as Al Alim wa 'l - muta'allim and Risala ila'Uthmân al-Batti, both
ascribed to Abu Hanifah (d.150 A.H.).

Moreover, there are more of those allegedly very early risalas such as the one attributed to
Hassan b. Mohammad b. al-Hanafiyyah (d.c.100 A.H.) recently published by Van Ess in
Arabica. If that risala can be proved to be authentic it totally undermines Wansbrough's
theory since it contains many quotations from the Qur’ân."

G. H. A. Juynboll, Journal of Semitic Studies.

Other Sources

"It must be said that the extensive reliance upon Jewish tradition to explain the forms and
usages of Muslim scriptural and other early texts constitutes a substantial bias that
predetermines many of the conclusions put forward . . .

The very choice of Jewish categories ("haggadic", "halakhic", e.t.c.) to apply to Muslim
religious materials smacks too strongly of a cultural-historical bias that tends to gravitate
towards a theory of one-way, direct influence from the older tradition to the newer, or of
parallel historical development based on the identification of parallel concerns and ideas."

William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.

To Sum Up

"Wansbrough appears to set out to convince us of his learning."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

"Qur’ânic Studies is so radical in its basic hypotheses as to ensure that many will reject its
conclusions out of hand".

William. A. Graham, Journal of the American Oriental Society.

 "It cannot be accepted, as arrogantly asserted, that: 'As a document susceptible of analysis
by the instruments and techniques of Biblical criticism it [the Qur’ân] is virtually unknown .
. . '."

R. B. Sergeant, Journal of Royal Asiatic Society.

Appendix 5
The Curse

The final question at the Debate was posed to both speakers. The question was in
accordance with the following verse of the Qur’ân:
"Come let us call our sons and your sons, our
women and your women, ourselves and yourselves,
then we pray and invoke the curse of Allah upon
those who lie." [Qur’ân 3:61]

Many misunderstood the question. The request was not for any of the
speakers to send out curses upon each other, but rather to pray to God for
Him to curse those who are the liars.

Smith, perhaps as to be expected, refused to accept this challenge. Why? He

(and others in the audience) hid behind the banner that, as a Christian, he
was not allowed to curse due to his religion not permitting it. We find this hard
to accept when we read that the Bible has the following to say: Jesus Curses
the Fig-Tree:

"In the morning, as they went along, they saw the fig-tree withered from the roots. Peter
remembered and said to Jesus: 'Rabbi, look! The fig-tree you cursed is withered'." [Mark
11:20-21]

Noah Curses Canaan:

"He (Noah) said, 'Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of the slaves will he be to his brothers.'"
[Genesis 9:25]

An Angel Curses Meroz:

"Curse Meroz, said the angel of the Lord. Curse its people bitterly, because they did not
come to help the Lord." [Judges 5:23]

Peter Curses Himself:

"Then he (Peter) began to call down curses on himself and he swore to them: 'I don't know
the man.'" [Matthew 26:74]

God Curses the Wicked:

"The Lord's curse is on the house of the wicked, but he blesses the home of the righteous."
[Proverbs 3:33]

God Warns the Priests of His Curse:

"And now this admonition is for you, O priests. If you do not listen, and if you do not set
your heart to honour my name, says the Lord Almighty. I will send a curse upon you and I
 will curse your blessings. Yes, I have already cursed them, because you have not set your
heart to honour me." [Malachi 2:1-2]

We might therefore ask: If, in the Bible, God curses, Noah curses, an Angel
curses, and Jesus is prepared to curse, who is it then that the Christian's
claim to be following when they assert that they are neither permitted nor are
they prepared to curse? Certainly, they are not following any of the
aforementioned, nor the Bible!

"Truth has come and falsehood has vanished.

Surely, falsehood is ever bound to vanish." [Qur’ân
17:81]