Vedic Past of Pre-Islamic Arabia

[Fomalhaut]

While I was reading this article article a few nights ago I googled one of the quotations from the article and bumped into this article about the Vedic Past of Pre-Islamic Arabia.

I knew that Pre-Islamic Arabian continent was pretty much polytheist and was kind of guessing that they may somehow have been effected by Hinduism.

There is quite interesting information in there. It is totally in 8 parts, you can read all 8 parts in there. I am not sure about the reliability of it but still most of the things written sounds logical to my ears.

[Jiva]

My perception of the majority of Muslims and their views on Islam is that they are generally completely unconcerned about what came before Muhammad, or even during Muhammad's supposed lifetime, simply being satisfied with the Quran. Of course this could be said about many religious people, but I think it's greater among Muslims. One of the problems in this respect is the strict interpretation of what “idolising Muhammad” constitutes in Saudi Arabia, where places that Muhammad supposedly visited or lived etc. seem to constantly be in danger of destruction due to apathetic authorities who want to build hotels and other stuff.

Another is that any academics who challenge the orthodoxy – for example by analysing early Qurans and noting differences, or otherwise questioning Muhammad's existence entirely – are immediately attacked. There was a documentary meant to air on British TV that doubted the historical existence of Muhammad and asserted that the Arabs who first conquered Jerusalem weren't Muslim, but proposed that Islam was a reaction to religious debates between Christians and Jews. From someone who knows very little about the subject but with a historian's perspective, I think there were serious problems with aspects of his methodology. However it was cancelled after a load of complaints before it had even aired. For context, a year previously, there was a series where Bible stories were analysed from a historical, mythological perspective that presented views far from the orthodox e.g. that the Jewish god originally had a wife.

The first article about Abraham uses 19th century Orientalists as major sources, when comparative mythology as an academic subject was only just getting started. There are a lot of problems with this that essentially boil down to the common maxim of 'correlation does not imply causation'. In this respect the article completely loses me when the author tries to linguistically link Indo-European and Semitic mythology to South American mythology. This probably reflects the influence of Godfrey Higgins (the author of Anacalypsis) who believed that there had originally been one all-encompassing world culture/religion.

As far as I can tell, almost all the sources in the Sword of Truth article are nationalist or revisionist Hindu historians who make some wild claims that have a fairly overt agenda behind them, such as P. N. Oak's that the Kaaba was originally a Hindu temple. This obviously has an effect on the veracity of the first article.

However, regarding whether there was any 'Hindu' influence on pre-Islamic Arabia – like I say I know very little about pre-Islamic Arabia, but I'm guessing it's more probable than not. The Indus Valley Civilisation – a precursor to Hinduism – traded with plenty of other civilisations in the area, so there was certainly an exchange of ideas. For example, the main route they used to trade with Mesopotamia was via the Persian Gulf where some trade was carried out. In fact, Jewish scholars such as Gershom Sholem, Raphael Patai and Marvin Pope suggest that there was a definitive early Hindu influence on aspects of Judaism. There isn't a massive amount of information of pre-Islamic Arabia, but depending on where the Islamic mythology is traced from there seems to be the possibility of an indirect influence at least, especially from the Jewish tradition that obviously influenced Islam.

This is an extremely difficult historical subject to investigate as the civilisations of the Persian gulf are extremely enigmatic, e.g. Dilmun cannot even be accurately located. Additionally, the Indus Valley script remains undeciphered. If I could magically go back in time to any place it would be to one of the major Indus Valley cities during its heyday . It was a fascinating civilisation and one of the most advanced in basically all areas.

[Mera]

I don't know much about Pre-Arabian practices. But I do know, each religion, Islam/Sufi, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhasim. Ancient civilisation spiritual practices....they all have very similar teachings, using different approaches.

I am not sure it's correct to say that Pre-Arabs had Hindu influence given that they all have similar spiritual attributes.

[Fomalhaut]

I am not sure it's correct to say that Pre-Arabs had Hindu influence given that they all have similar spiritual attributes.

The article was just interesting, but as I have written before reliability of the text is very questionable