'Not Supposed to Be There' - Paganism in Arabia after Muhammad
How Primary Source Evidence Contradicts Later Muslim Sources
If we are to believe the traditional Islamic accounts, the Muslim forces under Muhammad were totally victorious and had, by the end of this life, comprehensively triumphed over the Arabian pagans who opposed his rule.
In fact, the traditional Islamic sources claim that Muhammad’s final campaigns were so successful that paganism was entirely eradicated in the Arabian Peninsula by the end of 632 AD (i.e., just after the death of Muhammad). So much for ‘There is no compulsion in religion’ (Qur’an 2:256) by the way.
So, we are supposed to believe that by 632 AD, Islam was dominant with no pagan remnant to contend with. In fact, Muhammad’s ‘Last Will and Testament’ supposedly declared that this situation should continue, and that the Arabian Peninsula should remain ‘cleansed’ of non-Muslims in perpetuity. Yet, there is plenty of evidence for the survival of paganism among the Arabs long after the last pagan tribe was supposed to have been defeated by Muslims.
The claims about the demise of paganism are taken from sources that were committed to paper more than two hundred years after Muhammad was supposed to have lived (after supposedly existing in oral form for decades). When we turn to actual, contemporary, primary sources, a very different picture emerges.
For example, a Nestorian Christian Synod held in 676 AD declared that believing women among the Arabs should avoid living with pagans. It then goes on to describe the practices of these pagans (including elaborate funeral ceremonies, that have no place in Islam where burials should be simple and held on the day of death), leaving us in no doubt that the reference here is to real pagans and that ‘pagans’ is not just a slur aimed at the Muslims.
Along the same lines, Athanasius II Patriarch of Antioch (683-686 CE) warns Arab members of his flock to disassociate from the pagans (in an area where they are not supposed to be at all if the Islamic account is to be believed). It is, again, clear that he refers to actual pagan practices (and not Islamic ones) as he mentions the strangulation of animals that are sacrificed by these pagans. Strangulation of animals is not something that is a feature of Islamic worship, and is in fact explicitly prohibited by Islamic dietary laws.
These two examples, and others could be added, make it clear that paganism survived in the very areas where it was supposed to have been completely eradicated according to the Islamic account.
The evidence that paganism persisted in Arabia long after the Arab conquests is just one more example of how unreliable the standard Islamic traditions are, and how little they correspond with the witness of contemporary sources. For much more about the fundamental inaccuracy of the canonical Islamic sources, please see my book ‘The Mecca Mystery - Probing the Black Hole at the Heart of Muslim History’.
Kind regards,
Peter
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