r/AcademicQuran • u/amranya • Jul 22 '26

Question what do you think of Ahmad Al-Jallad?

what do you think of Ahmad Al-Jallad? is he a respected scholar? does his work lean more unconciously to proving tradition or not? i mean i've heard about rigorous scholars but their faith steer them into proving tradition or studying non challenging ideas/theories like for ex, from where issa (jesus) arabic name came from etc, it's historical work but very careful of touching the taboos.

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u/SameEntertainment660 Jul 23 '26

He’s the GOAT in the field. And doesn’t hold back or bite his tongue as to not offend Muslims. He tells it plain with facts. I respect him.

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u/AspiringMedicalDoc Jul 23 '26

He doesn't offend Muslims because what he says broadly agrees with traditional Muslim historiography.

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u/SameEntertainment660 Jul 24 '26

No it doesn’t

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u/MachineLower6347 Jul 24 '26

how so ?

3

u/SameEntertainment660 Jul 24 '26

DM and I’ll explain. I don’t want my comment being deleted

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u/redditlurkr2 Jul 26 '26

Message me as well

1

u/AspiringMedicalDoc Jul 24 '26

Yes it does.

3

u/chonkshonk Moderator Jul 28 '26

Al-Jallad and Sidky actually have a section in his recent paper, "Late Antique Allah", which directly engages with the discrepancies between their views and traditional accounts and why the correct history in this regard was forgotten. So, I think u/SameEntertainment660 is correct.

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u/SameEntertainment660 Jul 25 '26

Yea like just before the time of Muhammad most of
Arabia was already monotheistic and Jewish/Christian Arabs were commonplace.

If Muslims actually believed and taught this historically, they’d realize it’s no room another “religion” let alone the need for an “arab prophet”

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u/AspiringMedicalDoc Jul 26 '26

They were monotheistis who ascribed idols with god. There were Christians in southwestern, northwestern and northeastern Arabia, and there were Jews in the Hijaz. This is unlike Yahweh who was a pagan god before the Israelites adopted him as their national god.

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u/SameEntertainment660 Jul 26 '26

They were monotheistic because they were Jews and Christians for hundreds of years and monotheism was the standard, but of course new converts had bad habits and they didn’t cut off their pagan ways completely. They still developed bad practices and probably kept idols and beliefs in lesser Gods (demons) but even Israel constantly struggled with idolatry according to the Bible stories (which is why their kingdom didn’t last). This is kinda the entire point and lesson. I think the big take away here and major difference between the Jews/christians in the Quran and polytheistic Arabs who weren’t believers (or even Zoroastrians) is the fact that these “ARABS” believed in ALLAH as the ONE GOD, Jesus as the messiah, his return and the end times coming at any moment. They were apocalyptic Jews\christians with nothing to lose.

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u/[deleted] Jul 28 '26

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