Thomas: Intro to the German 'Inarah' School of Criticism!

Thomas Alexander in this video introduces the main players in the German 'Inarah' School of Islamic Studies, a group of scholars headquartered in the Sarbrucken (primarily) area of Western Germany. He began by pointing to the principal members of the German Critical School on Islamic history: Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921) who was a Jewish Hungarian orientalist and scholar of Islam, considered by many as one of the founders of modern Islamic studies in Germany. Theodor Nöldeke (1836-1930) a German orientalist, and semitist (scholar of the Semitic languages), as well as a linguist, and another of the founders of modern Islamic studies in Germany. Christian Snouck Hurgronje (1857-1936) a Dutch orientalist, Arabist and Semitist, yet another founder of modern Islamic studies in Germany. Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) a Baltic German Lutheran theologian, and prominent Church historian. In his studies he assumed a Jewish-Christian origin to the Qur'an. David Heinrich Müller (1846-1912) a Jewish Austrian orientalist, Semitist, linguist and literary theorist, who conjectured that there was a hidden verse structure in the Qur'an. Alphonse Mingana (1878-1937) an Assyrian theologian, as well as a historian, Syriacist, Orientalist, and a former priest. He is best known for collecting the Mingana Collection of ancient Middle Eastern manuscripts, which are now housed at the Birmingham Universtity. He speculated that the Qur'an contained Aramaic words and phrases. Because of the intervening World Wars, there were no scholarly work in Germany on the Qur'an, which didn't begin until 1970s with the Lüling. Günter Lüling (1928-2014) was a German theologian, philologist, Arabist and scholar of Islam, who is best known for finding earlier reconstructed poetic Christian verses within the Qur'an by changing diacritics. This was his 1970 PhD thesis, which was awarded an "Opus Eximium", the highest award possible in Germany, and a guarantee of a professorship. But by 1972 he was thrown out of the university, and since then was shunned and ignored by German academia. We had his thesis translated into English, and published in 2003, which before his death in 2014 resurrected his reputation. John Wansbrough (1928-2002) was an American historian and orientalist, and recognized as the founder of the so-called "revisionist" school of Islamic Studies. He rejected the historical credibility of the classical and Standard Islamic narratives, using Textual Criticism. Patricia Crone (1945-2015) was a Danish historian, orientalist, linguist (she could read and write in 15 archaic languages), and scholar of Islam. She conjectured that Islam has its roots in Judaism, and rejected the idea of Mecca as the cradle of Islam. Karl-Heinz Ohlig was best known for taking very difficult ideas from the research of others in this field and disseminating them into understandable ideas for the uninitiated. Volker Popp's specialty was the study and usage of Coins in the 7th century, though he was an expert on Turkey, Kuwait, as well as Arabic and Persian. Ibn Warraq (a pseudonym) was, like Ohlig, a communicator of other's ideas, compiling many earlier works, translating them into English, and publishing them in compendiums in order to preserve them for the masses to read. Markus Groß was a linguist and a text analysis expert. Robert Kerr was a Syriology, Hebrew expert, and was probably the best in the group for understanding the 'big picture', and has become the head of the Inarah group in Germany. Johannes Thomas is an expert on Islam in Spain. Gerd Puin and his wife Elizabeth are best know for their work on the Sana'a Manuscript of the Qur'an. He was in Yemen from 1981-1985 working on this manuscript. Geneviève Gobillot, a French scholar is best known for her work on Islamic Mysticism and on the Shias. Marcin Grodzki, is a Polish scholar, and also an expert Arabist. Christoph Luxenberg (a pseudonym), like Lüling, was an Arabist and Syriac scholar, and after breaking new ground on the Qur'an, discovering that much of it comes from previous Christian Lectionaries, written in Syriac, and then interposed into Arabic later on, was ostracized by the German academic community. They never responded to his findings but simply discredited him because he had dared to ask questions which were uncomfortable for them to answer. They did this by 'nit-picking', by finding one item which they could critique, and thus dismissing all the other areas of his research, suggesting that he was simply bringing dissent within the academic community Thomas believed this was due to fear of the Muslims in German academia, as well as a notion of the "Noble Savage", an almost racist view of Muslims as different. Because of his importance, we will delve in more depth into his research in the next video. © Pfander Centre for Apologetics - US, 2021 (57,560) Music: "Travels" by Aleksound, from filmmusic-io