The Religion of the Qur’ānic Pagans

God and the Lesser Deities

Dados Bibliográficos

ID16645704
AutoresPatricia Crone (1Institute for Advanced Study Princeton, autor correspondente)
Ano2010
Volume57
Fascículo2-3
Páginas151-200
Data de publicação2010-01-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoArabica (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0570-5398 • E-ISSN: 1570-0585
EditoraWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1163/157005810x502637
OpenAlexW1965467621
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas14

This article (in two parts) is devoted to the first step of an attempted reconstruction of the religion of the Qur’ānic mušrikūn on the basis of the Qur’ān and indisputably earlier evidence alone. The first part concludes that the mušrikūn believed in the same Biblical God as the messenger and that their lesser beings, indiscriminately called gods and angels, functioned much like (dead) saints in later Islam and Christianity. This is not exactly new since it is more or less what Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhāb concluded three hundred years ago. The second part examines the high God hypothesis and tries to relate the beliefs of the mušrikūn to those of other monotheists in late antiquity, with indeterminate results: in terms of their views on God and the lesser beings, the mušrikūn could equally well be pagan monotheists and Jews (or Judaisers)

Christianity · Islam · Theology · Archaeology and Historical Studies · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Islamic Studies and History · Philosophy · Religious studies