Preislamic Arabia

Etude du personnage d'al Muttalib, arrière-grand-père de Mahomet selon la tradition islamique et les biographies. Son identité, son nom et sa très faible personnalité viennent de la construction de son fils, au nom énigmatique d'Abd al Muttalib. La terminologie du nom d'al Muttalib a abouti à la constitution involontaire d'un théonyme arabe.

"Critical notice of : The Qur'ān inContext. Historical and Literary Investigations into the Qur'ānic
Milieu, edited by Angelika Neuwirth, Nicolai Sinai, and Michael Marx,Leiden,
Boston:Brill (TextandStudiesontheQurɛān6), 2010, 864pp."

Pour les sources arabo-islamiques, l’Arabie d’avant l’Islam — période dénommée Jāhiliyya (“ignorance” des lumières de la vraie foi) — est misérable, isolée, vouée à l’anarchie. C’est le pays “du sable et des puces”. Or, les sites antiques donnent une image bien différente. De grandes villes furent fondées en Arabie du Nord, sur les rives du golfe Persique ou dans l’antique Yémen. L’une d’elles, Taymâ’, fut même la résidence du roi babylonien Nabonide vers le milieu du VIe s. avant l’ère chrétienne. Une autre, Ma’rib, était au centre d’une vaste palmeraie qu’alimentait en eau l’un des plus longs barrages de l’ancien monde. Entre ces deux visions, celle d’une Arabie pitoyable et celle d’une Arabie heureuse, qu’en était-il ? Archéologues, épigraphistes et historiens se réunissent ici pour dessiner les contours de la péninsule à la veille de l’Islam. Ils concilient et pondèrent ces deux visions à travers l’étude des productions épigraphiques d’Arabie du Nord et d’Arabie du Sud, des productions artistiques, du peuplement des sites majeurs de l’Arabie préislamique : Taymā’, Madā’in Ṣāliḥ, Yathrib, al-Mulayḥa, Kush, Shabwa, Ma’rib, Ṣan’ā’... Comme le suggère la vision traditionnelle de la Jāhiliyya, ils montrent que la plupart des villes d’Arabie sont sur le déclin après le IIIe siècle de l’ère chrétienne. Seuls quelques sites emblématiques survivent. La production épigraphique diminue fortement. Les émissions monétaires cessent. Mais à l’inverse, un empire se forme, une production artistique éclot. À la veille de l’Islam, il en résulte une situation contrastée, oscillant entre grandeur et décadence.

The Midianite-Kenite hypothesis, the idea that the pre-Israelite roots of Yahwism can be traced back to the areas south and southeast of Palestine, has a long pedigree in biblical scholarship. Analyses supporting this view generally agree in three main points. First, they assume that the influence of the southern cultic practices on Yahwism occurred during a restricted period of time, traditionally dated to the Early Iron Age. Second, theysee the origins of Yahwism through the lenses of diffusionist perspectives, characterizing this process as a movement or migration of one or a few determined groups to Canaan. And third, adequate analyses of the archaeological evidence of the arid areas to the south of Palestine are few. In this article I will turn the interpretation of the epigraphic and archaeological evidence upside down. Instead of looking to the (mostly biblical) evidenceon the origins of the cult of Yahweh and assuming its genesis lies in movements of peoplefrom the southern regions to Canaan in the Early Iron Age, I will focus attention on the historyof the cultic practices in the Negev, southern Transjordan, and northern Hejaz during the entire Iron Age, and how this information is related to the religious practices known in Judah and Israel during the biblical period, shedding new light on the prehistory of the cult of Yahweh. I will evaluate the evidence not as a single, exceptional event, but as a long-term process within the several-millennia history of cultic practices and beliefs of the local peoples.

La poésie antéislamique marque la littérature arabe et lui sert essentiellement de base. La poésie antéislamique de son nom arabe الشعر الجاهلي signifie explicitement la poésie de l'âge de l'ignorance ( ignorance religieuse particulièrement ?).  Il s'agit d'un concept faisant référence à la période d'avant l'avènement de l'islam en l'an 610.  La poésie antéislamique est communément connue -par emprunt à la langue arabe- sous le nom de poésie Jâhilîte.

Nous poursuivons ici la publication des inscriptions du Jabal Riyām (Yémen). La contribution actuelle porte sur la publication d’onze inscriptions datant des Ier-IIIe siècles de l’ère chrétienne. Six d’entre elles sont inédites.  Cinq autres sont la réédition de textes relevés lors des expéditions d’Eduard Glaser en 1884  et de Piotr A. Grjaznevič en 1970-71  et dont de nouvelles photographies permettent d’en améliorer la lecture (Jabal Riyām 2006-24 à 28).
Aucune de ces inscriptions ne provient d’un contexte archéologique précis. Elles sont soit exposées dans les ruines pillées du temple de Taʾlab, soit remployées dans des constructions modernes, soit déposées dans la cour d’une habitation du village de Riyām. Par conséquent, à l’exception des inscriptions mentionnant des noms de souverains ou de personnages importants déjà connus, la date proposée reste approximative. Elle se fonde alors sur le style paléographique.
L’apport principal de ces nouveaux textes concerne avant tout la chronologie du IIe siècle. Le sanctuaire de Taʾlab Riyām, d’où proviennent ces textes constituait le cœur religieux de la confédération tribale de Samʿī, qui comprenait les tribus de Ḥumlān et de Ḥāshid. Parmi ces inscriptions, deux offrent un synchronisme entre des rois de Sabaʾ et dhū-Raydān du milieu du IIe siècle è. chr. et des princes (qayls) des tribus de Ḥumlān et de Ḥāshid, respectivement issus des lignages de Bataʿ et de Hamdān. Compte tenu des zones d’ombre qui demeurent sur la chronologie des souverains sabéens et ḥimyarites au milieu du IIe siècle, et de l’importance de la lignée des princes de Bataʿ et de Hamdān, amenés à monter sur le trône de Sabaʿ dans le dernier tiers du IIe siècle, on mesure l’importance de l’apport de ces textes.

L’universo femminile del pellegrinaggio nel Mediterraneo


Mare Mediterraneum, mare di mezzo, mare nostrum: dalla preistoria ad oggi questi sono solo alcuni nomi con cui i vari popoli hanno chiamato le immense distese d’acqua che li hanno divisi e legati attraverso i millenni. Il Mediterraneo, tramite la tradizione giudeo-cristiana, le culture e le religioni del vicino oriente, attraverso l’espansione arabo-islamica sui suoi territori meridionali e certamente la pressione dei molteplici popoli “barbari” dal nord, ha creato una sua koiné: un vero e proprio punto d’incontro di tre differenti continenti, quello europeo, africano ed asiatico. È attraverso questo mare, culla della civiltà e delle civiltà, che sono passate le varie migrazioni e migrantes, i mercatores e nautae, che furono i primi portatori di lingue e idiomi, di idee e filosofie, di culture e tradizioni. Il Mediterraneo è ben presto diventato lo spazio che, con tutte le sue specificità, soprattutto religiose, ha specchiato nel proprio ibridismo il suo essere  tutt’uno.
Il pellegrinaggio come manifestazione della ricerca dell’uomo verso “l’altro” ed il diverso, verso il divino ed il sacro, mostra quell’insaziabile necessità umana al conoscere e riconoscersi. Quest’articolo, nella ricerca delle fonti del concetto del sacro, dalla preistoria ad oggi, e attraverso un approccio comparato alla storia delle religioni che sono nate nello spazio mediterraneo, vuole esaminare quando ed in quali forme questo concetto sia stato tramandato mediante manifestazioni femminili, fossero esse divine o umane, ricercando il sacro nelle sue forme femminili, oppure le donne in quanto soggetti della ricerca religiosa, ovvero del pellegrinare. L’articolo analizza il concetto di pellegrinaggio nell’Ebraismo, nel Cristianesimo e nell’Islam, ed il loro rapporto verso la donna-pellegrina. Partendo dalle figure divine femminili egiziane e preislamiche, fino ad arrivare all’adorazione della Madre di Dio, vengono presentati i tratti in comune della venerazione di figure femminili attraverso la storia fino ad approdare ad un esempio contemporaneo: il multiculturalismo e la multireligiosità del pellegrinaggio alla Madonna nella Roma d’oggi da parte di donne provenienti da differenti culture e religioni che appartengono a questo stesso Mediterraneo e riconoscono in lei la Mater per eccellenza.


Ženski univerzum hodočašća u mediteranskom kontekstu


Mare Mediterraneum, mare di mezzo, mare nostrum: od prapovijesti do danas to su samo neki od izraza kojim su razni narodi imenovali prostrane vode koje su ih dijelile i spajale kroz tisućljeća. Mediteran je kroz judeo-kršćansku tradiciju, istočne kulture i vjere, kroz arapsko-islamsko širenje južnim prostorima i dakako pritiskom mnogobrojnih „barbarskih“ naroda sa sjevera stvorio jednu vlastitu koiné: pravo sjecište 3 različita kontinenta, europskog, afričkog i azijskog. Kroz to more, kolijevkom civilizacije i civilizacija, prošle su razne migracije i migrantes, mercatores i nautae koji su prvi bili prenosioci jezika i govora, ideja i filozofija, kultura i tradicija. Mediteran je vrlo brzo postao prostor koji je, u svim svojim specifičnostima, a posebno vjerskim, zrcalio u svojoj hibridnosti vlastito jedinstvo.
Hodočašće kao izraz ljudskog traganja za „drugim“ i drukčijim, za božanskim i svetim, pokazuje nezasitnu čovjekovu potrebu za upoznavanjem i prepoznavanjem. Ovaj rad u traženju izvorišta pojma svetog od prapovijesti do danas, te kroz komparativni pristup povijesti religija koje su nastale na mediteranskom prostoru, želi preispitati kada i u kojim oblicima se taj pojam pronosio kroz ženske manifestacije, bilo da se radilo o božanskome ili ljudskom, to jest o svetome u ženskom liku, ili o ženama kao subjektima religioznog traganja, to jest hodočašćenja. Rad analizira pojam hodočašća u židovstvu, kršćanstvu i islamu, te njihov odnos prema ženi-hodočasnici. Kroz egipatske i predislamske ženske božanstvene likove sve do štovanja Majke Božje predstavljaju se zajedničke crte u štovanju ženskih figura kroz povijest do primjera sadašnjice: multikulturalizam i multireligioznost hodočašća Majci Božjoj u Rimu žena raznih kultura i vjera koje pripadaju tom istom Mediteranu i koje prepoznaju u njoj sveopću Mater.

Recent scholarship has shown that there is no solid archaeological or epigraphic evidence to deem the narratives about the rise to kingship of David and his son Solomon as reflecting the rise and consolidation of Israel as a Nation-State during the 10th century BCE. It is rather during the 9th century in the Palestinian highlands that we can find the emergence of a socio-political entity named Bīt Ḫumri/ya or Israel in the contemporary archaeological and epigraphic records, but with an ambiguous character as a state. In this paper, it is suggested the possibility that the rise of such a polity and the constitution of an ethnogenesis are notably and directly related to the appearance
of the Arabian network of exchanges in the early first millennium BCE in the Near East. Furthermore, from a critical point of view, one may suggest that there is no direct ethnic connection between the kingdoms of Israel and Judah and the later Jewish cults of Yahweh in Palestine.

Abstract - As the evangelization of nomadic populations appears to have occurred later than the history of the East Syrians, we assume that it goes hand in hand with the process of the constitution of the Church of the East. Looking closer, we can find quite early signs of Christianity among the Arabs regarding the chronology of Christianity in Sasanian Empire. The topic raises three main questions: the connections of the Arab tribes and their circulations during Late Antiquity, the Christianization of the nomadic populations and the link between Christianity and loyalty to the Roman Empire which is a sore point in the Persian Empire. Al-Ḥīra (Ḥirta in Syriac) was the capital of an ally and a principality independent from the Persians, known as the “Laḫmid” kingdom: regarding the Ecclesiastical hierarchy, it was part of the Church of the East. It was the main target of an original policy of the patriarch of the Church of Persia (called catholicos since the 5th century) aimed at the nomadic populations at the edge of the Empire extending to al-Anbar and the Jazīra.

in: Macht des Geldes-Macht der Bilder. Kolloquium zur Ikonographie auf Münzen im ostmediterranen Raum in hellenistisch-römischer Zeit (ed.: A. Lykke), Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins (ADPV) 42 , 2013, p. 209-226.

English abstract:
This article is about "monetary transculturality" along the Silk Road. It's a project of the author to collect coinfinds and hoards from Levant to China for visualization. One feature for this cultural exchange are imitations of certain coins. Therefor an imitation system in a hierarchical view has been based using the example of Arabia deserta imitations. The system is as follows: Imitation of the face design (A), the composition (B), the basic type (C), the production style (D) and style (E). In a hierarchical view we have the original, 3 steps of imitation and at the end a new cointype.
Another topic is the difference between Rome and China in its understanding of coinage composition and the question of representation of illustration of a ruler by portrait or by the conception of chinese signs symbolizing from its edge to the square hole the chinese emperor as middleman between heaven and earth. Additionally to that the author interprets the direction from right to left as direction of metal and as guarantee to be a valid currency.

This book is a neoteric research on the Abrahamic prophets, in particular, Mohammad, the prophet of Islam.  The common message between all the prophets and what inspired them to spread the message they claimed to receive, and above all how did they receive the message in the first place.

The book expands prophets’ consciousness and sub-consciousness as recorded in Muslim traditions in often voluminous compilations. Attention is being paid to early Islamic traditions and prophet’s sayings that were spread from his companions to his successors, called hadiths, usually preceded by one through a list, called certificates, which includes the names of different transmitters.

Various narratives found in early Islamic exegesis related to prophet having visions is a phenomenon that continues to impact the psychology of a believer. Reflection is made on prevailing traditions on the reality of the divine, the vision, and the narrative of holiness in monotheism that overwhelmed Islamic history in significant to the revelations.

It is no secret to scholars and researchers in Arab’s history before Islam that the religions in the Arabian Peninsula before Islam varied and differed. Some of them were the pre-Islamic religions, which included: Christianity, which was the last of the heavenly religions, before the Prophet's mission, which accounted for the largest number of followers when compared to other religions. And Judaism, which was almost confined to the Jewish people, as well as pagan religions, including: worship of idols and the worship of heavenly bodies and planets, which was spread throughout the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the worship of statues of some animals. Also, there are other acts of worship as a result of the mixing of Arabs with other peoples, such as the Persians, the Magi, the worshipers of fire. Among these religions and beliefs, the Arabs were influenced by Magusia and Muzdika. There was also mention of remnants of the Arabs who continued to worship the Hanafi religion of our master Abraham and his son Ismail peace be upon them. In this brief study, we have explained each religion on the basis of the importance of religions in the division, domination and start, not on the basis of how old these religions are. We relied heavily on Arabic and Islamic sources, especially history books, biographies, dictionaries, literature, geography and some modern Arab foreign references interested in this kind of research. We ask Allah to benefit with it the interested, researchers, scholars and readers in ancient Arab history.

Syriac - Christianity - Arianism - Arab Peninsula before Islam - Yemen - Hijaz - Arabs - Theophilus Christian - Jewish - Magusian - Mozdakia - Bartolomos - worship idols - statues - planets - celestial bodies - Christian chapels.

Interferențe iraniene in iudaismul canonic și teosofia subsidiară (Răzvan Bunea)
Iubirea creștină la Sfantul Evanghelist Ioan și compasiunea buddhistă după Shantideva (Marian Victor Bușoi)
Gnosticismul Valentinian: Relația dintre Om și Lumea Materială (Cristina Mirzoi)
Le Mariage et le divorce dans la période préislamique (Virgil Nicolae)
Ipostazele apei în Regula comunității (1QS), Documentul Damasc (CD) și Ioan 4:1-42 (Georgian Toader)

Para referirnos a los siglos anteriores a la predicación del Profeta Muhammad en la península Arábiga se ha acuñado el término historiográfico de periodo preislámico. Un tiempo en el que los diversos pueblos árabes poseían una rica cultura, materializada especialmente en una interesantísima literatura, la más antigua conocida en lengua árabe pero que ya alcanzó altas cotas de calidad y expresión. Destaca una amplia producción poética, entonces de transmisión oral y posteriormente recopilada y fijada por escrito, que permite deducir los parámetros conceptuales en los que se movía el pensamiento estético de estos pueblos. Aquí se tratan de modo sucinto e introductorio algunos de estos conceptos, en concreto la visión que se tenía de las mujeres y su apreciación estética, así como algunas pistas que encontramos para reconstruir las ideas en torno a la Arquitectura de los pueblos preislámicos, tratando de relacionar estos ámbitos entre sí y buscando lo que tienen de antecedente para desarrollos posteriores de la cultura árabe, ya islámica, llegando plenamente elaborados al propio al-Andalus.

The aim of the present article is to analyze, compare and translate accounts referring to Qays b. ‘Āṣim and Ṣa‘ṣa‘a b. Nājiya, two noblemen of the last stage of the jāhiliyya who were involved in the custom of wa’d, the alleged pre-Islamic practice of burying female infants alive at birth. Qays is depicted as a man who finds himself obliged to commit wa’d in a certain period of his life in order to safeguard his honour. In the opposite position is Ṣa‘ṣa‘a, who becomes the saviour of the maw’ūdāt, baby girls on the verge of being buried alive. To achieve the proposed objectives, pertinent sources have been thoroughly examined and relevant excerpts extracted. These texts have been analysed, translated, and classified according to their content. Taken together, the results of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the custom of wa’d and they shed light on the mechanisms used by the sourced to turn the acts of Qays b. ‘Āṣim and Ṣa‘ṣa‘a b. Nājiya into symbolic representations of good and evil in the context of the pre-Islamic period.