What Have I Been Researching Lately

I have been researching an interesting topic which is not related to Muslim Sects.


Why do the Westerner or Western Scholars of Islam think that the message of Prophet Muhammad or al-Islam is a continuation of Christianity and Judaism.


Muslims generally accept past religions, such as Judaism and Christianity. Muslims believe the divine origin of Christianity and Judaism. But they also believe that these religions have been been corrupted by their followers.


Westerners/Orientalist have an aggressive and an opposite reaction (stance) against Islam. To counter-act Islam's position towards the above Abrahamic religions, they consider Islam as a copy-cat religion by claiming that the Prophet of Islam created his religion from a hybrid of other religions, such as, the pagan belief in Arabia, Christianity and Judaism and other Mythical beliefs which was common to the region at the time.


The evidence that are usually provided by the Westerners or Orientalist are generally very speculative.

• They claim that the Prophet of Islam was a tradesman, so he must have known people of other religions. He must have learn from them before setting up this new religion in Arabia
  
• Secondly, they claim that since many Jews used to live in Arabia, then the Prophet must have learned from them by observing and then incorporating it in his religious belief
  
• They then claim that the Prophet of Islam must have met some of the Zorastrians living in the area at the time. They talk about Zorastrians influence on Islam by looking at some of Islamic beliefs and speculating on its origin.
  

I am still reading a number of Western sources that portray the Holy Prophet as someone who has created a hybrid religion called Islam based on his observation of other religion and belief systems.


Most of the works by Westerners on this topic are very speculative. It is not based on written sources.

• Sources are not presented showing that the Holy Prophet meeting specific persons (like priests or a rabbis). 
• Sources are not quoted showing that the Prophet went somewhere to learn or get schooled about other religions. 
• Sources are not provided about his involvement with any group of people.
• Heck, there are not even sources of him sitting down writing and analysing views and ideas from other religions.

The premise used by Westerners is that Islam is not original hence it must come from somewhere.

The Prophet must have learned and picked sources from other religion to create his own hybrid/copy-cat religion.

I am still reading but one thing that I find hard to believe is that no solid evidences have been provided to support the Westerners premise that the Prophet of Islam has learned from the Jews, Christian or Zorastrians.

This is a very good comment

ali_hussain left a well-researched comment on one of my post. It contains hadith references, both from the Sunni and the Shia sources, on why the Zorastrians are considered Ahl al-Kitab or The People of the Book.

I thank him for taking the time to find the information and for posting it here.

Who are the people of the book?

An anonymous user posted the following question

If these people were not in iran do you think they would be considered as people of the book? I serioulsy doubt it, going by this flimsy definition of who are the people of the book, every religion should be included.

This is a good question. Since I know very little about the Zoroastrianism, I don't know for sure why they are considered as People of the Book.

However, I do know for sure that we don't define and classify people based on geographical location.

There are verses in the Quran that refer to groups of religious people as Ahlul Kitab (29:46, 3:113-115, 3:199, 2:62, 3:64)

A common theme in all the verses is that these religions have a divine origin; divine revelations or prophets from God. Perhaps Jews and Christians are the two most well known religion. Other faiths that are more obscure are the Sabians and Mandaeism

I find this topic very interesting. I am not knowledgeable enough at the moment to give a concise answer on why the Zorastrians are included as the people of the book. The answer given by the Shaykh seems to indicate that Zorastrianism has a divine origin; a reveled scripture and a prophet of god. Also remember that Zoroastrianism is not an extinct religion. You will find people, until this day, that profess this religion.

Are Zoroastrians People of the Book?

This question was answered here.

Many scholars regard Zoroastrians as People of the Book because Zoroastrianism was originally a monothesitic religion. Allah (swt) sent them a prophet, who some say his name was Zoroaster or "Zardosht." They also have a sacred book which was revealed to them commonly called the "Avesta." Therefore, since Zoroastriansm had a divine origin, even though it has now been significantly changed and adulterated, some classify its followers as part of the People of the Book. In the history of Islam, for some time the Muslims treated them as the part of the People of the Book and imposed the jizya on them.

Thanks to the Sayyed for answering the question.