The Period Before the Renaissance in My Eyes
Tabarek Aldabbagh
Hello everyone! In this blog, I'd like to talk about everything that caught my attention in the module about the period of time that came before the renaissance. I hope you like it.
I really liked and wanted to talk about the difference of Hadiths of the prophet Mohammed (Peace be Upon Him). John Green says “Some sayings of the prophet are really well-sourced, like for instance a good friend or a relative,” and “but some hadiths are terribly sourced, like middle school gossip” (Islam, 5:12-5:24). I thought it was interesting to compare it to the types of sources. Growing up Muslim, I’ve heard a lot of Hadiths and so I always asked my parents how we know it’s true since it’s all hearsay. One day my dad even sat down to explain it to me when I asked him who Abu Hurairah was, since every time I hear of a Hadith it started with “Abu Hurairah quotes the messenger and says ‘.....’”. Apparently, this man is like a primary source that is trusted amongst all Muslims to have recorded many of Mohammed(PBUH)’s words and actions. Abu Tariq Hijazi, an author for Arab News wrote “Abu Hurairah felt that he was very late in joining the Prophet's company so he stayed at the Prophet's Mosque and devoted himself to the service of the Holy Prophet for three years.” and “Subsequently, he noted 5,374 Hadiths from the Holy Prophet in about 1,000 days.” (Arab News, April 20, 2012). I appreciated that it seems we aren’t careless about believing anyone quoting the prophet (PBUH), and I also appreciate that Abu Hurairah is getting credit for all he did.
I honestly didn't know that the Jews were not the ones to crucify Jesus (PBUH). You may see me addressing Jesus (PBUH) the same way I address the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), and that will be because as a Muslim I view them as equal prophets of the lord, I really hope that doesn't offend anyone. John Green says in his video about Christianity "The Romans crucified Jesus, because he was a threat to their authority, later traditions saying that the Jews killed Jesus, very unfortunate, very untrue". What I want to say is that it falls on my ignorance not to study more about Christianity. Seeing as it is our sister religion, I should've done better. I looked into this matter and came across this video by Zondervan on youtube that says "Crucifixion was a Roman, not a Jewish punishment. Jews normally practiced capital punishment by stoning" (Who Killed Jesus? The Historical Context of Jesus' Crucifixion, 0:50-1:00) the video is embedded below. This was another piece of information that I should've gathered through common sense, considering that is the same punishment that was used with Islam a long time ago.
I liked how he said that our history is not the history of Christianity in Europe, but the history of people on the planet. He said that because the majority of the western world is ignorant about Islam and I thought it was interesting because it goes both ways. I already knew the entirety of the story about how Islam came to be, and that was because I’ve taken 2 years of history about it in elementary and middle school. It was back in Iraq, which wasn’t the only country that teaches that.
Here’s a picture of the History book that I was studying in 8th grade. As a whole year's history class it was titled "The Arabic Islamic History" seems quite biased towards Islam doesn’t it? I still loved the class.
Almost every country in the middle east focuses on Islam as a huge part of history in the same way the western world focuses on Christianity and Europe. I think it would be great to listen to John Green and teach the history of the entire world in the least biased way possible. Since he is right, it is the history of the people on the planet.
Sources:
Abu Hurairah: The narrator of Hadith | Arab News
Christianity from Judaism to Constantine: Crash Course World History #11 - YouTube
Who Killed Jesus? The Historical Context of Jesus' Crucifixion - YouTube
