Thread by @alawiteuser

"𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗮𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗟𝗲𝗴𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀" 𝗦𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝘀: 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗠𝘆𝘁𝗵𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗹𝗱 𝗢𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘁𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗠𝘂𝘀𝗹𝗶𝗺𝘀

I will be constructing a series of threads dedicated to the critical study and historical contextualization of Islāmic esoteric mytho-historical narratives, with a focus on their theological, symbolic, and sociopolitical dimensions.

This work examines legendary accounts preserved within post-Islāmic religious, mystical, and sectarian traditions, not merely as isolated tales, but as cultural artifacts that encode collective memory, doctrinal polemics, and metaphysical worldviews.

In particular, the series will address the interplay between sacred narrative and historical reality, tracing how oral traditions, scriptural exegesis, and sectarian polemics shaped these legends over centuries.

Special attention will be paid to the intellectual milieu in which these narratives emerged, including the influence of pre-Islāmic Near Eastern mythologies, Qurʾānic cosmology, Bāṭinī hermeneutics, and the theological disputes of the early Islāmic and post-Abbasid periods.

The contest over truth and falsehood in sacred narrative is as old as revelation itself, and nowhere is it more sharply drawn than in the earliest encounters between the Qurʾānic message and its opponents, when al-Naẓar ibn al-Ḥārith, one of the fiercest enemies of Muḥammad -

- from among the Quraysh, sought to deny the narratives contained in the Qurʾān, he said to his people: “Muḥammad relates to you nothing but the myths of the ancients”. He did not say “reports” (Lit. "akhbār", "أخبار") or “tidings” (Lit.

"anbāʾ", "أنباء") of the ancients, two terms which imply the actual occurrence of what is being recounted. Rather, he deliberately described the Qurʾānic narratives as myths and legends, thereby rejecting them as falsehoods.

For in the Arabic language, "asāṭīr/أساطير" refers to fabrications and falsities in speech.

While the adversaries of the new religion from Quraysh received the Qurʾānic stories with denial and mockery, the verses mentioning bygone peoples, such as ʿĀd and Thamūd, the peoples of Abraham and Moses, and individuals such as al-Khiḍr, Dhū al-Qarnayn, King Solomon, and the -

- Queen of Sheba, as well as momentous events such as the creation of the world and the descent of Ādam from Paradise, aroused the curiosity of the newly converted Muslims to learn more detailed accounts of them.

For this reason, some among them did not suffice with what Muḥammad explained to them but sought further detail in the writings of the earlier peoples, especially the Jews, in search of more complete explanations.

This eagerness for knowledge intensified when one of the most prominent transmitters of Jewish lore, Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, embraced Islām during the caliphate of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

He began to relate what was found in the Torah, its commentaries, and the works of the scholars of his former religion.

It is said that ʿUmar Ibn al-Khaṭṭāb would allow him to speak on these matters, both to win his heart and because the Muslims felt assured that there was no sin in it, given the statement attributed to Muḥammad: “Narrate from the Children of Israel, and there is no harm in -

- it”, meaning narration for the sake of moral admonition, without affirming or denying its truth.

There is also a report that ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ, after the Battle of Yarmūk in al-Shām, came upon two satchels containing some of the scriptures of the People of the Book, and he would relate to the people what they contained.

Let us leave that era and move forward two centuries in time, to when the Islāmic state had expanded to gather under its banner ancient nations such as Egypt, al-Shām, Iraq, and Persia, and came to govern, alongside Muslims, adherents of diverse religions, including -

- Christianity, Judaism, Ṣābiʾanism, Zoroastrianism, and others. At this time, the great cities of Islām became hubs for the import and export of culture, especially with the flourishing of the translation movement for the works of earlier civilizations.

This, naturally, led to the infiltration of certain elements from the cultures of the ancients into Islāmic thought, a thought which itself developed into diverse schools and orientations, and some of these elements became interwoven with the religious domain, giving rise to a -

- variety of intellectual schools. The sciences of Qurʾānic exegesis (ʿilm al-tafsīr) and ḥadīth were by no means immune to this influence.

Some exegetes and ḥadīth transmitters were affected by what was found in the writings of the Ahl al-Kitāb [People of the Book], particularly those narratives connected to the Qurʾānic stories, and incorporated them into their own narrations and interpretations.

They would recount these accounts to people in their gatherings and writings, and while among the general populace there were those who readily believed them, others criticized such reports.

One of the critics was the prominent Muʿtazilī thinker Abū Isḥāq al-Naẓẓām, who said:

“Do not be overly trusting of many of the exegetes, even if they set themselves up before the public and respond to every question, for indeed, many of them speak without proper transmission, upon no firm foundation. And the stranger the exegete’s view appears to them, the more -

- beloved it is to them!”

These kinds of reports are classified by specialists in ḥadīth and Qurʾānic exegesis as "Isrāʾīliyyāt". Does the term sound familiar to the reader?

Its common meaning is “that which has slipped into Islāmic religious storytelling from the writings of the Jews, the Banū Isrāʾīl [Children of Israel].”

But to be more precise, the term Isrāʾīliyyāt refers to everything that has come from the scriptures of the People of the Book, especially the Jews, and it falls into three categories:

- Matters that agree with the Islamic narrative, which Muslims affirm as true.

- Matters which Muslims neither affirm nor deny, due to the absence of proof either way.

- Matters that are rejected, either because they contradict explicit scriptural texts or because they are deemed irrational.

However, I do not see it as accurate to limit the attribution of these reports solely to the writings of the People of the Book. An attentive reader will perceive within them influences from other cultures, the remnants of the civilizations of the old world.

For example, in the story of creation, we read of an angel carrying the world upon his shoulders, reminiscent of the story of the giant Atlas, whom Zeus, the chief of the Greek gods, punished by making him bear the vault of the world.

In the story of Dhū al-Qarnayn, we find an overlap with the journey of Alexander the Great. The bull whose horns emerge from the earth resembles the “heavenly bull” of Babylonian tradition.

The tale of the sun being drawn by 360 angels in a daily journey from east to west closely parallels the myth of the ancient Egyptian sun-god Rā and his voyage upon the solar barque.

Thus, we see that the term Isrāʾīliyyāt is far too limited to describe these stories, stories adopted by famous Muslim authors such as al-Qazwīnī, al-Masʿūdī, and al-Thaʿlabī al-Naysābūrī, among others, in their writings on religious narratives, even if they themselves -

- attributed some of these reports to Kaʿb al-Aḥbār, and others to certain companions, such as ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbbās and Abū Hurayrah.

These writers were greatly influenced by the myths of the pre-Islāmic civilizations, regardless of their diverse origins, and incorporated them into their books and narrations.

While it was easy for those engaged in the sciences of ḥadīth and Qurʾānic exegesis to refute and respond to them, thousands among the common people accepted and believed them without applying the standards of discernment and selection between them.

Thus, these accounts became, in their collective consciousness, sacred stories, a part of their religious beliefs, no matter how irrational they might be, or how much they might conflict with the sacred texts.

Consequently, the task of those engaged in the sciences of Qurʾānic exegesis and ḥadīth became all the more difficult.

In this way, what was mythical, over time, was transformed into the sacred.

And in this way, both narrator and listener together turned the Qurʾānic stories into pre-Islāmic legends, myths, and folklore in the very sense described earlier by al-Naẓar ibn al-Ḥārith.

Thus, we came to have what can be called al-asāṭīr al-islāmiyyah [Islāmic myths], and here Islāmiyyah is not an attribution to the Islāmic religion per se, but to Islamic civilization and culture, within whose heritage such myths became embedded.

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