In other news
In the current news climate we see that some figures and events tend to dominate the front-pages heavily. Still, there a
Kelhus specifically mentioned the Islamic world in the 8th century, try to keep up. But thank you for acknowledging that indeed there are plenty of primary historical documents from this era besides the Koran.
I specifically said the people in the 800s retrofitted what happened before.
You are either being stupid or disingenuous; and at this point I don’t even care which it is.
and as mentioned above, there's no possibility that we could be using the koran to guide our understanding of that era since the koran has not been updated since 652 and the abbasid caliphate was founded in 750
so the point that there's ample records of abbasid history has absolutely nothing to do with this discussion
I though the claim by you (which was more radical than what Kelhus actually said) was that the Koran was basically the only source of information about the Saudi peninsula during the period leading up the first Islamic caliphate. That doesn't sound exactly correct. It sounds like writings during the Abbasid Caliphate are also a significant source of information. It doesn't follow that those writings from the Abbasid Caliphate were historically accurate. They almost certainly were inaccurate in various respects and for various reasons, including the game of telephone you mentioned and because of bias and political influence.
But the writings do exist.
appreciate you not calling me racist though
I don't recall ever calling you racist.
he said we’re not allowed to question it due to progressive ideology which is complete horseshit.
i see now he did say that on the 3rd response
There is no citations at all. Wikipedia just accepts as "truth" the gospel from religious texts. There is no anthropology, no archaeology, no forensic history, no study of non religious texts. Nothing.The main text documenting the Life of Mohamed and early Islam and essentially the history of Arabia circa 600-800 was written in the 800s, which itself was based off an earlier
that's absolutely true
there's no hot takes here - you guys are trying to make something out of nothing
i think if he happened to choose any region other than the arabian peninsula it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much blowback - which ironically kind of proves the exact point he was trying to make
we truly have no clue what happened and we're basing what we know off a century long game of telephone that's been seasoned by the koran - in fact, there's absolutely zero evidence of any islamic state in medina in 622
and indeed politics and religion prevent further analysis
this is the literal situation in saudi arabia - where they destroy anything that conflicts with the history that they've agreed upon
in short you guys have absolutely no clue what you're talking about but will still happily attack anyone who mentions this as a racist bigot
i'm glad kel started this conversation - i think it's too late for most of you, but i'm hoping this will be an eye opening experience for some of you to stop and smell the roses and check your confirmation biases in life
It seems you are agreeing with me in a more diplomatic way. Do you really think that the first Islamic Caliphate was established in Medina in 622 as recorded in Islamic writings? I would say it is as likely as the events of Exodus being literally true. Yet Wikipedia will just state this as being the "true" history for obvious political reasons. And no real academic scholars
i wouldn't agree with that viewpoint - but that's also not his viewpointthis is his viewpoint - and it's 100% accuratehe then uses arabia as an example and only barely touches on even hinting at what you interpreted his answer to beyou have a very hostile interpretation of "But in this case (and many others) political realities make any serious historical exercise impossible"th
sorry what obvious political reasons do you think he is referring to here?
I though the claim by you (which was more radical than what Kelhus actually said) was that the Koran was basically the only source of information about the Saudi peninsula during the period leading up the first Islamic caliphate. That doesn't sound exactly correct. It sounds like writings during the Abbasid Caliphate are also a significant source of information. It doesn't
oh the last part was a joke 😀
yes the writings exist, but kel explicitly talked about them so it's weird for you to introduce them as a new thing as he mentioned them directly in the quoted post above
I mean in the US today we see both the far left (1619 project) and far right (holocaust revisionism) retrofitting fake histories for contemporary political reasons.
Fair point. I saw somebody claim the other day that the Obamas' private chef died under suspicious circumstances while paddleboarding naked. As you say, crazy attempts to redraw history continue to this very day.
i missed his 3rd post as i was still feuding with db but addressed this in my last post
Fair point. I saw somebody claim the other day that the Obamas' private chef died under suspicious circumstances while paddleboarding naked. As you say, crazy attempts to redraw history continue to this very day.
ok this gave me a good chuckle 😀
i see now he did say that on the 3rd responsethat's absolutely truethere's no hot takes here - you guys are trying to make something out of nothingi think if he happened to choose any region other than the arabian peninsula it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much blowback - which ironically kind of proves the exact point he was trying to makewe truly have no clue what happened a
I think you are being sloppy, lazy, and responding to a strawman. My point was very specific and circumspect, which is that historians already do doubt their data and are aware of how narratives can influence interpretation in history. You and Kel seem to think “oh we’re completely clueless and these dumb historians don’t know” which is obviously very stupid, and when challenged you retreat to the obviously less controversial point about being skeptical of historical sources.
I think you are being sloppy, lazy, and responding to a strawman. My point was very specific and circumspect, which is that historians already do doubt their data and are aware of how narratives can influence interpretation in history. You and Kel seem to think “oh we’re completely clueless and these dumb historians don’t know” which is obviously very stupid, and when challenge
can you show your work where either of us said that historians think their data is iron clad?
can you show your work where either of us said that historians think their data is iron clad?
i'm very genuine about this - i wouldn't have ever wanted to convey that historian were either intentionally fooling people or got fooled themselves - i thought i made it abundantly clear that they are fully aware they were working with the best info they had available
i also never saw kel say that either, which is an area i wouldn't have ever defended
i'm pretty sure there's some wires crossed, but a whole lot of posts have gone back and forth so it's possible i misspoke myself at one point in a hastily typed out post or missed kel writing that
nobody is more aware of how tenuous and provisional our understanding of history is than historians. so despite the caveats, I guarantee historians of Mohammed are aware that the Koran isn’t an unbiased source for his life and conquests.the raw data does need to be interpreted, but I think it’s a mistake to call ancient writings the mediator of the raw data rather than just an
bruh, you're talking about the same historians who write books about kings who's sole mention/evidence comes from guys who sandwiched a their story about them in between a tale of the minotaur and zeus banging sheephttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aristagora... - look at this wiki, look at itsee how long and detailed it isnow - bear in mind the entirety of our ancient knowledge on h
.
writing books about stuff and knowing it to be spurious in nature are not mutually exclusive
it happens all the time
i think if he happened to choose any region other than the arabian peninsula it wouldn't have gotten nearly as much blowback - which ironically kind of proves the exact point he was trying to make
We would have laughed at you if you'd said that 15th-centruy France or 9th-century China was barren of historical records. You just picked a particularity bad era to make this argument, sine the Islamic world from 600-800 AD was kinda famous for its literary culture relative to Europe. Obv you picked this period because it dovetails with your preexisting dogshit racist assumptions about savage, backwards Arabs. Which have sadly become a hallmark of this forum thanks to astonishingly incompetent moderation.
we truly have no clue what happened and we're basing what we know off a century long game of telephone that's been seasoned by the koran - in fact, there's absolutely zero evidence of any islamic state in medina in 622
and indeed politics and religion prevent further analysis
This is borderline word salad (what is 'seasoned by the Koran' even supposed to mean here?). I suppose you could argue that all of Western history is just a long game of telephone seasoned by the Bible and we have absolutely no clue what was going on --it's just a really lazy, facile way of thinking about how history works and what it tells us. Of course scholars have very clear ideas about what was going on in the Arab world from 600-800 based on a wealth of historical sources, as many people here have pointed out to you.
this is the literal situation in saudi arabia - where they destroy anything that conflicts with the history that they've agreed upon
Oh boy, here come the racist tropes!
in short you guys have absolutely no clue what you're talking about but will still happily attack anyone who mentions this as a racist bigot
Cry harder and maybe read a book or two.
writing books about stuff and knowing it to be spurious in nature are not mutually exclusiveit happens all the time
I didn’t say that they were mutually exclusive. I said
“ nobody is more aware of how tenuous and provisional our understanding of history is than historians. so despite the caveats, I guarantee historians of Mohammed are aware that the Koran isn’t an unbiased source for his life and conquests.”
to which you responded
“ bruh, you're talking about the same historians who write books about kings who's sole mention/evidence comes from guys who sandwiched a their story about them in between a tale of the minotaur and zeus banging sheep
…
so that lenghty aristagoras wiki entry is based on hundreds of modern pages written about him - all done by puzzle piece sleuthing historians trying to fit in a narrative for a man who for all we know never existed - and if he did exist, what we know is impossible to be accurate - even if herodotus were faithful to the record, he was relying upon oral histories originating from a time decades before he was born“
Implying that you disagreed that they knew that they know how tenuous and provisional history from the ancient world is.
In fact as I pointed out earlier, there’s a whole section in that wiki about how scholars are skeptical of herodotus as a source.
of course if you want to say you didn’t mean to imply that I’m happy to just say, ok good thing you agree with me that historical methodology is more than just applying a narrative to raw data to try to cobble together an argument to support a conclusion we already have. that would be pretty dumb because publishing novel research is what they all want, so going with the preconceived narrative would be a strange way to publish novel research, especially if you could blow the whole field wide open. if you or dunyain want to to in and intellectually dominate these credulous early muslim historians, be my guest bud.
i think we have some wires crossed
i was agreeing with and not refuting your statement - and i think everyone would agree it's far better to have all that history on that man rather than just leave at "insufficient data" and leave that space blank
i also made repeated mentions that they are doing their best with the limited data - see my post on pork in jerusalem
Most people's issues with Kelhus is summed up in this post imo:
It seems you are agreeing with me in a more diplomatic way. Do you really think that the first Islamic Caliphate was established in Medina in 622 as recorded in Islamic writings? I would say it is as likely as the events of Exodus being literally true. Yet Wikipedia will just state this as being the "true" history for obvious political reasons. And no real academic scholars
The first section is a deliberate exaggeration (or insane position to hold if he truly believes the two things are equally likely) and the second is his consistent habit of claiming that anything that might run contrary to some point is taboo for politcal reasons, despite obvious evidence to the contrary like that there is a section in the wikipedia article explicitly talking about the fact that there is little to no hard evidence for the existence of the first Caliphate or that there are plenty of respected scholarly articles talking about the same.
Most people's issues with Kelhus is summed up in this post imo:The first section is a deliberate exaggeration (or insane position to hold if he truly believes the two things are equally likely) and the second is his consistent habit of claiming that anything that might run contrary to some point is taboo for politcal reasons, despite obvious evidence to the contrary like that t
you're confused - he's not saying that the existence of the first islamic state in medina in 622 is as preposterous as the events of exodus - he's saying both have a 0 percent chance of being accurate
and it is indeed taboo in saudi to the point where an archaeologist or historian can literally be executed for a capital offense if they don't stick to the official history - the subject is stifled - digs are forbidden and they've destroyed 98% of their historical sites and artifacts
this is the literal situation in saudi arabia - where they destroy anything that conflicts with the history that they've agreed upon
i think we have some wires crossed
i was agreeing with and not refuting your statement - and i think everyone would agree it's far better to have all that history on that man rather than just leave at "insufficient data" and leave that space blank
i also made repeated mentions that they are doing their best with the limited data - see my post on pork in jerusalem
I don’t really know if I should believe what Herodotus said or not. I imagine it’s like the Bible, where the stuff you trust with the most confidence is “this person was in this place” and “this is approximately when the person died”
Like I don’t doubt that Jesus went to Jerusalem and had some kind of confrontation that led to his death. Or that he made statements that made his followers believe that the world would end soon. Extracting the truth from unreliable historical witnesses is precisely what makes a historical analysis useful to me.
I do think that if your goal is to be entertained, which I agree is often the goal of retelling history, it’s much more fun to take the maximalist approach when relying on historical witness/speculation. That’s precisely why alternate histories and crackpottery are so popular, because they don’t have to worry about being accurate. But I’m doubtful that’s what’s going on at universities in societies with higher levels of academic freedom.
Anyway, the point might be more of a meta-disagreement about how we should cast the role of politics in myth-making in academia. It’s true that there are progressive political pressures in academia, there are also conservative political pressures, some of which you have pointed out. Just last year, we saw a seemingly unprecedented level of university funding cuts in areas where we are some of the top in the world, all over a moral panic about research into transgender medicine and “anti-American” values. I’m not trying to tone police, but the general distrust of academia has made for really disastrous consequences in recent years, so I feel like being skeptical about potentially anti-academic positions is justified.
So when I see Dunyain suppose that perhaps there are political reasons that no one questions our narrative about the first caliphate, I get suspicious that there might be incorrect presuppositions about how academia receives early sources on the subject. Now if the point about politics was a very specific point about how Saudi Arabia is executing people that question the official narrative about Mohammed’s life, then if it’s true it’s true. But when it’s a more nebulous point about how guilty Westerners or some nefarious force doesn’t want to criticize Islamic history, I get very weary going down that road.
yeah i think that's fair
my favorite writer is arrian - who prefaces his work on alexander with this little mic drop:
I have admitted into my narrative as strictly authentic all the statements relating to Alexander and Philip which Ptolemy, son of Lagus,11 and Aristobulus, son of Aristobulus,12 agree in making; and from those statements which differ I have selected that which appears to me the7 more credible and at the same time the more deserving of record. Different authors have given different accounts of Alexander’s life; and there is no one about whom more have written, or more at variance with each other. But in my opinion the narratives of Ptolemy and Aristobulus are more worthy of credit than the rest; Aristobulus, because he served under king Alexander in his expedition, and Ptolemy, not only because he accompanied Alexander in his expedition, but also because he was himself a king afterwards, and falsification of facts would have been more disgraceful to him than to any other man. Moreover, they are both more worthy of credit, because they compiled their histories after Alexander’s death, when neither compulsion was used nor reward offered them to write anything different from what really occurred. Some statements made by other writers I have incorporated in my narrative, because they seemed to me worthy of mention and not altogether improbable; but I have given them merely as reports of Alexander’s proceedings. And if any man wonders why, after so many other men have written of Alexander, the compilation of this history came into my mind, after perusing13 the narratives of all the rest, let him read this of mine, and then wonder (if he can).
so this has always been a problem - and most of our history - both jesus and herodotus included is not written by people who were around at the time but usually several centuries later - ie the works arrian mentions above are lost to us - we only have his interpretation of their works
herodotus is especially bad though as he's not even riffing on earlier works but writing down his version of an oral history - so he's writing down stories that have been told and retold by different people and half remembered and made up along the way - often times stuff that supposedly happened centuries earlier
highly rec anyone interested in alexander to read that
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46976/46...
caesar's work is also amazing to read
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/55926/55...
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you're confused - he's not saying that the existence of the first islamic state in medina in 622 is as preposterous as the events of exodus - he's saying both have a 0 percent chance of being accurate
This is still an insane claim. The chance that the first islamic state was founded in Medina in 622 might be tiny but it's not zero (for at least some definitions of what would constitute a state) and is many orders of magnitude more likely to be true as the events of Exodus.
and it is indeed taboo in saudi to the point where an archaeologist or historian can literally be executed for a capital offense if they don't stick to the official history - the subject is stifled - digs are forbidden and they've destroyed 98% of their historical sites and artifacts
If you think Kelhus was referring specifcally to the politics of Saudi Arabia (or the ME/Muslim world in general) with his statements then you haven't paid attention to anything he has said in his thousands of previous posts on this forum.
This is still an insane claim. The chance that the first islamic state was founded in Medina in 622 might be tiny but it's not zero (for at least some definitions of what would constitute a state) and is many orders of magnitude more likely to be true as the events of Exodus.
i think a lot of this is that you are familiar with the impossible elements of exodus but not the ones in its counterpart
that if we said "the jews left egypt in 1446 bc" as according to exodus it wouldn't sound so outlandish of a comparison
i also think you're missing the nuance here, likewise nobody is refuting that jews were once in egypt and did migrate out - nobody is refuting that an islamic state did form and likely somewhere around medina
i believe he's saying that the version of events of both of those things as we know it is not likely
you can't base your information on the jews leaving egypt based upon "well there were frogs falling from the sky and parted oceans ldo" much in the same way that you can't say "muhammed made it to medina in 622 with the aid of invisibility, magical barriers, and angel soldiers from heaven"
both are based on real history - both are taking general concepts that did occur and wrapping them up with religious narratives - neither have any remote chance of being genuinely accurate
If you think Kelhus was referring specifcally to the politics of Saudi Arabia (or the ME/Muslim world in general) with his statements then you haven't paid attention to anything he has said in his thousands of previous posts on this forum.
he's far more reasonable than you guys give him credit for - i wouldn't have to spend so much time debunking all the attacks on his statement from people who fundamentally don't know what they're talking about if it didn't come from him
just look at how trolly not only was off by a full century in his rebuttal but also insisted there were racist undertones
even if he meant a vague and generalized "it's taboo to question it" that's definitely true as well - again, just look at trolly's response, not only was he absolutely incorrect but he ascribed malice towards any notion of discussion that the history was not solid - thus proving kel's point
