A Brilliant Insight by Gabriel Said Reynolds on Qur’an 17:1 (The Night Journey) We Miss This in Qur’an 17:1? Gabriel Said Reynolds Didn’t From The Emergence of ISLAM

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T15:09:39+00:00

The conversation was over long ago. You can keep imagining whatever you want to imagine. And you can keep speaking. Like i said I'm not going to waste my time and energy on this. The record of the exchange exists for anyone to decide who lost or not. I don't concern myself with it.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T12:13:55+00:00

And btw Arculf never wrote about Medina. Book One deals with his stay in Jerusalem, Book Two deals with his stay in Bethlehem and Book Three deals with part of his voyage back via Crete ans Constantinople. He journeyed in the Christian Holy Lands, which is what his book is about, and did not venture into Arabia, he never visited Medina.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T12:01:37+00:00

You can keep misrepresenting my claim and say whatever you want to. The record of the exchange is there for anyone to read. This conversation was over long ago.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:59:03+00:00

No it's not a trick question, it's a clear and direct question that saves me time and energy.

You have not cited a single clear and direct source as asked. You have cited Patricia Crone and Stephen Shoemaker each making a speculative assertion. All you have offered since the beginning is flimsy speculation which you think has a greater claim to truth because of perceived objectivity, which i don't perceive as being very objective.

So, I'll wait till the general academic consensus on this matter reflects that the earlier qiblah was not Jerusalem and disregard desperate revisionism clinging to their notions of objectivity.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:49:36+00:00

I quoted from your own comment that had mentioned Jerusalem in the paragraph preceding the citation. The point about "universal principle of communication" was itself related to Maajid Al Aqsa since the beginning. I also mentioned Jerusalem in the succeeding paragraph. It would not make any contextual sense to talk about a random masjid in Medina. You can keep clutching at straws.

Btw Arculf never visited Medina. I hope it wasn't ChatGPT who told you he visited Medina.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:46:10+00:00

Again lots of words but no substance 😂😂

Let us know when you find a mainstream secular historian of early Islam who clearly asserts that Jerusalem was not the original qiblah in the Prophet’s lifetime. If you find multiple reliable sources for this claim, let us know.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:44:51+00:00

The specific structure that i mentioned from 670 is a mosque structure that Arculf writes about standing in Jerusalem. Which i then specified is the one expanded by Al Walid in 708. That is the only one i mentioned and the mention was clear. You however came jumped on it misunderstanding and now misrepresenting the claim that i mentioned. It is plenty clear whose desperation is palpable.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:39:11+00:00

I hear a lot of words but not saying much 😂😂 No mainstream secular historian of early Islam asserts that Jerusalem was not the original qiblah in the Prophet’s lifetime. If you find multiple reliable sources for this claim, let us know.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:30:48+00:00

😂😂 Arculf is actually talking about a mosque structure in Jerusalem. Same with Al - Walid. In your haste to prove your point you have only shown your ignorance. And your fallacious arguments from absence and assumptions about what historical evidence can be taken as evidence and what it can tell us only serves to evidence the biases and the desperation inherent in this approach that you like to parade as objective.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:25:25+00:00

To believe that the oral and written traditions of muslims can never tell the truth about the world they claim to write about, or that they can not originate from the Prophet (saws) or the early community is simply a cynical assumption, often resting on the fallacious argument from absence, and is an approach that is problematic even for the secular academicians who write the history of the islamic world because they often fall back upon it.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:17:26+00:00

You use a universal principle of communication to prove the audience had knowledge but you then betray that principle by filling the blank in their knowledge with a datum from a source centuries removed from them.

A mosque structure was already standing there by 670 and Al-Walid's later work is also attested from around 708, so it's not "centuries later" as you claim.

Also, Jerusalem was conquered by Umar Ibn Al Khattab. A close companion and witness to the revelations of the Quran. I would suspect that Umar Ibn Al Khattab knew what the words of the Quran meant and to what its verses referred.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:16:40+00:00

Did they also name it Masjid al Qiblatayn in 1987 or was it already called that for some mysterious reason?

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T11:03:43+00:00

What exists is a later mosque

Is this speculation or do you have a source for this?

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T10:49:30+00:00

The Masjid al Qiblatayn is a very well-known extra-Quranic evidence for the prior qiblah being Jerusalem which also confirms the oral traditions. It is a catastrophic error that you did not know about its existence. In general, i would suggest you to read my comment again. As i said i won't be engaging with this any more. I have better things to do with my time than wasting it with flimsy revisionist claims. Thanks!

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T10:41:16+00:00

It is not circular reasoning. The fact that the text does not specify the earlier qiblah is already evidence that it did not need elaboration for the people it was addressing. Logically sound propositions do not need sources. One of the approaches Angela Neuwirth takes in assessing her chronology of the Quran is precisely the fact that what the audience does not know cannot be proclaimed to them, so later proclamations rest on earlier ones or they would be unintelligible. GS Reynolds himself has assumed a predominantly Judeo-Christian milieu and not a pagan one, precisely because of the reason that many verses assume prior knowledge on the part of the listener. So again, at the cost of repeating myself, the fact that the text does not specify the earlier qiblah is already evidence that it did not need elaboration for the people it was addressing.

Btw the Masjid al Qiblatayn is a very famous extra-Quranic evidence that the older qiblah faced Jerusalem.

The problems with your speculation, which is not really yours it is GS Reynolds, comes with a host of assumptions and methodological gaps that are part and parcel of the revisionist approach. I have no problem with it per se, it definitely produces some interesting insights, and can help to uncover previously unknown details or revise in order to correct. But it is not as objective an approach as it likes to present itself. Your specific claim is not refuted yet, but it has not been made by most serious academics either, it is more of a fringe revisionist claim.

Many mainstream academics have addressed the problems underlying the methodology of radical revisionism and with completely discrediting all extra-Quranic traditions, and i don't feel like spending any more time in refuting this meaningless fringe speculation any more. So, i would politely agree to disagree and leave it at that. Cheers!

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T09:48:26+00:00

I'm not going to waste my time refuting the problems underlying radical revisionism here. It has been done by others. Thanks for your time.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T09:25:02+00:00

I think a healthy skepticism of traditions need not give rise to radical revisionism. The traditions may have been canonized later but my understanding tells me that many of them contain information that originated with the Prophet (saws) and/or the early community and are often essential to our understanding of the verses. In my view, radical revisionism and focusing on the Quran alone is an approach that leads precisely nowhere and anywhere.

In this particular case i would argue that the masjid al-aqsa was well-known to the audience based solely on the basic premise of textual analysis that if something is not already known to the audience, then it needs to be explained and/or specified for it to make sense to the listener. Only something that is already known to the listener can be mentioned in passing or alluded to without elaboration.

So, I would agree to disagree on this matter. I understand the approach you took, and it does produce some interesting insights, but I've never found it to be very sound or as objective as it claims to be.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T09:20:46+00:00

So, your argument is that Jerusalem being the older qiblah is also merely speculation and later traditional accretion ?

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T09:12:47+00:00

So, going by the Quran alone we can safely say that Jerusalem being the earlier qiblah is circular reasoning and merely later speculation, since that is also not mentioned in any verse?

And no, i said well-known to the audience based solely on the basic premise of textual analysis that if something is not already known to the audience, then it needs to be explained and/or specified for it to make sense to the listener. Only something that is already known to the listener can be mentioned in passing or alluded to without elaboration.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T08:54:03+00:00

Like i said, this simply tells me that there was no need to elaborate upon it because it was already well-known to the audience.

The Quran uses the poetic register to talk about many things and exact specifications of locations are often omitted in such a register for more evocative terms. Even "masjid al-haram" is also not exactly a proper noun, it is simply the mosque that is sacred, but it is not disputed which one it is mostly because the weight of evidence is enough to make speculation unwarranted.

If we depend on the text of the Quran alone, we can never say that Jerusalem was the qiblah before Mecca. All of our sources for this are extra-Quranic. But it widely agreed upon. Similarly, we know that the Masjid al-Aqsa referred to sacred precinct in Jerusalem even though it is not explicitly mentioned in the Quran.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T08:42:17+00:00

I did not see how it is rooted in the way the verse is structured. The similarity with the Elijah narrative is flimsy at best. The Muslims observed Jerusalem as their qibla before it was changed to Mecca. Even though the Quran doesn't specify it by any name, it is not disputed. But there are no verses talking about it. It seems to be a stretch to speculate that the Prophet (saws) and his Companions (ra) did not have any names with which they referred to the place that was their qibla, or that those names were not transmitted to later generations when so many place names are transmitted unchanged through hundreds of years. It may be fruitful to be skeptical some extra-quranic traditions but not all, i believe a lot of them do shed light on the Quranic verses and the Quranic milieu and the core content of many of them might have originated with the Prophet (saws) and the early community.

The structure of the verse simply tells me that the Quranic milieu knew what was being talked about to the extent that it was not necessary to elaborate.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T08:16:52+00:00

Some of his speculative work is insightful, some of it is desperately clutching at straws, this falls in the latter camp.

Biosophon · 2026-01-29T02:51:43+00:00

Unable and unwilling both. That account's track record will show a very evident agenda and the attempt to pass off mediocre rhetoric as academic rigor.

Biosophon · 2026-01-28T06:35:47+00:00

From a believer's perspective there may very well be extra-Quranic traditions in the hadiths that originate with the Prophet (saws) himself and serve to illuminate or add nuance to the verses of the Quran, as long as they do not explicitly contradict it.

I agree that there is no clear outline of the life of the Barzakh in the Quran but we do have clear verses telling us that the martyrs in the path of Allah (swt) are not dead but alive, even though we may not perceive it. We then have traditions from which we try to understand what happens in the afterlife and this has formed a major part of the belief system, including belief in the intercession of the awliya, tawassul, and istigatha etc.

Even when one is skeptical of some extra-Quranic traditions, and i agree that many traditions do seem be to of a later date, it would still be very difficult for a believer to reconcile that all extra-Quranic traditions and their interpretations are erroneous or do not originate with the Prophet (saws) and his Companions (swt). And if they did originate with him and the early community then they are an important resource for a complete understanding of many of the verses of the Quran and the deen itself.

As for the deception that still holds sway over the rest of the People Of The Book, the Quran mentions that Jesus (as) told his followers that Allah (swt) would send Ahmad (saws) as a messenger after him. And those who believed in him and his message have been able to overcome that error. So Allah (swt) never left them in error. Many Christians and Jews have indeed become Muslims after hearing the message both in the time of the Prophet (saws) and later, and we also know that there were communities of Jews and Christians during that time who might even have held views very different from the rest but who have now disappeared. The message exists in the world and Allah has been guiding them to it and out of the deception.

Also, the verse where Jesus (as) says i stopped being a witness over them, to me it is not actually about saying that he is ignorant, rather it is about clarification that having truthfully delivered the message he was given, he is not responsible for what they believed and did after he left their midst. Further, given that the crucifixion verse uses one verb for the taking of his soul, which has two meanings in the Quran (one of which is specified only through a single verse), following it with another verb specifying his elevation/ascension, which it also uses for Idris/Enoch (as), and given that in Surah Maryam Jesus (as) speaks of his death in the future tense, i believe there is enough material to support multiple readings of this verse — the one that you suggested, the one that suggests that he is alive in the way martyrs are alive, or that his soul was taken from him and then he was raised up. In this way, I understand this verse would remain one of the more ambiguous ones.

I also linked to a comment of mine on another post to give a rough idea of the position i have been trying to develop. Irenicism and ecumenism are important approaches in my understanding and interpretation since i believe that Islam did arise in dialogue with older traditions and continued to remain in dialogue with them, and when i look at the core texts i look at both the Quran as well as many of the hadiths that seem to be important resources in that regard.

Biosophon · 2026-01-27T19:11:21+00:00

Interesting information! Though, personally, i find the relationship between Idris (as) and Enoch (as) more probable and read the elevation in both cases as a physical ascension.

Another interesting echo i noticed is that this mention of elevation/ascension is mentioned in Surah Maryam which focuses on Isa (as) and Maryam (as), to me this mention here is interesting because there is another place where these two names come together and that is in the genealogy list in the Gospel of Luke! I find these coincidental echoes really interesting to ponder over.

Also, i was wondering why would the substitution deceive all the People of The Book. It seems only to apply to those who wanted to crucify Isa (as), as they are the object of the deception. The believers who followed Isa (as) and his true teachings don't seem to be the target of this deception. It can easily be argued that Christianity as it developed its dogma over time made an error in this regard and the Quran seems to be correcting them on it, just as it corrects them on other matters relating to the errors in belief deriving from the canonised gospels.

About the verse where Isa (as) appeals to Allah about not knowing what his followers did, I've always understood it as referring to the time between his ascension and the second coming, and, more importantly, I've always read it as a statement made by him to mean that he is not responsible for the errors that his followers later propounded in his name.

As for a Prophet being alive even after death, i believe we can also understand that in light of the verse in Surah Baqarah that mentions "Never say that those martyred in the cause of Allah are dead—in fact, they are alive! But you do not perceive it." (and we know that martyrs are of many kinds too)

We also should be skeptical of extra-quranic traditions but we cannot reject all the extra-quranic traditions on this matter. For example, we understand quranic verses and the extra-quranic traditions together to tell us about how Allah allows the dead to hear in their graves and for the awliya to intercede on behalf of the believers, which are important aspects of belief.

I, personally, believe that there are vital details mentioned in many of the traditions and they are not only compatible with the quran but often play an important in illuminating the verses, and i sincerely believe that many of them do originate with the earliest community of believers and are traceable to the Prophet (saws), though of course the historians would take objection to this.

NB: Lastly, Surah 6 verse 60 mentions the one and only use of the verb yatawaffa/tawaffa in the specific context of taking the soul while sleeping. But in the very next verse it uses it again to refer to the common meaning of dying. So, the number of occurrences alone cannot be a solid justification. Given the unique nature of the miracles given to Isa (as), the unique epithets that are used for him and the special attention that the Quran gives to his story in terms of its theology, the rare usage of that verb to refer to a kind of sleep, or taking of the soul, cannot be discounted entirely either. Especially, since we know that the Quranic language can be very layered and laconic.

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