Islam and plaigarism

I am reading this old book from 1905 by Clair Tisdall, "The Original Sources Of The Qur'an", and it shows that fasting, praying times and praying towards Mecca etc. are identical to what the Sabians did (they existed before Mohammed):

The title "People of the Book" refers to the four communities who then possessed book religions in Arabia, i.e. the Jews, the Christians, the Magians or Zoroastrians, and the Sabians.

The Sabians existed before Muhammad and lived in the Arab peninsula and had a religious book called the ‘Book of Seth’. The Sabians had certain religious rites, among which are seven fixed times of prayer, five of which correspond with that of the Muslims. The sixth is the prayer at dawn, and the seventh a prayer, the time for which is at the end of the sixth hour of the night. Their prayer, like that of Muslims, is one which requires real earnestness and that the worshiper should not let his attention wander to anything else when offering it. They prayed over the dead without either bowing down or prostration, and fasted thirty days.

The connexion with their fast they observed the festivals of Fitr (breaking the fast at the end of the month) and Hilal (new moon), in such a way that the festival of Fitr occurred when the sun entered Aries. And they used to honour the House of Mecca" (the Kabab).

From this account we see clearly that the Muslims have borrowed from this obscure sect not a few of their religious practices all of which they believe were taught them by Muhammad at the command of God through the Angel Gabriel. The Fitr feast at the end of the month is still celebrated by the Muhammadans. They have, as is we known, five stated times of prayer each day, at which prayer is optional, thus having exactly the same number as the Sabians had. Bowing down (raku) and prostration (sujud) are enjoined in Muhammadan worship, but not during the prayers offered at burials. Finally we have seen that the Muslims still most highly honour the Kabab. . The supposition that many of these religious customs were borrowed by Muhammad from the Sabians, and that their religion in general had great influence on Islam at its foundation is confirmed by the fact that, when the Banu Jadhimah of Taif and Mecca announced to Khalid their conversion to Muhammadanism, they did so by crying out, "We have become Sabians” (Tafsir Ibn Kathir)

Ibn Warraq briefly mentions the Sabians in "Why I Am Not A Muslim". It seems that there are two groups of Sabians that could be referred to by this. The first one being the Sabians who originated in Jordan, and the second one being a pagan sect who worshiped stars. Regardless, the similarities in rituals are definitely solid evidence that Islam was by no means an original religion and is heavily based on pagan rituals.

So much for the destruction of the idols in the kaaba.

u/Mojomaniac666

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Jul 3, 2015, 2:19 AM

Exactly. Tisdall's book I am reading (the one linked in the OP) states "And they had festivals at the time of the descending of the five planets to the mansions of their dignity. The five planets are Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury."

This all makes sense now. Mo basically took over parts of other religions. I only started reading the book, but I noticed that later on, it will also discuss Judaism, ancient Arabic rituals etc. it took over. This probably made it easier to sell the new religion to the current believers. In the book, it states that "Muhammad declared that he was Divinely commissioned not to found a new religion but to recall men to the "Faith of Abraham"", so he was basically selling old stuff.

u/CadmeusCain

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Jul 3, 2015, 2:20 AM

The entire Hajj process is stolen from pagans in the area. But then this is unsurprising. ALL religions steal blatantly from religions that came before. See my post below.

u/Atheizm

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Jul 3, 2015, 4:14 AM

It's plausible but I'm also sceptical. The Sabian tribal religion, like so many others, has unfortunately been lost.

All new religions are based to greater or lesser degrees on extant religions. Islam is not different. The wudu, miswak and ghusl ritual cleansing as well as the five prayers every day are seem to be copypasted from Zoroastrianism but just because they come from Zoroastrianism doesn't mean they weren't shared elsewhere by other faiths.

I've read that Sabians were Arabian Manichaens* as well as Mandaeans. I've also read that Hanifiyya were another Jewish sect like the Ebionites but Nazoreans that refused to accept Christ, so it seems much of what we know is filtered in through scraps of witnesses or the speculation that fills its void.

*I firmly believe that the world is a poorer place that the Gospels of Mani weren't incorporated as the New Testament rather than Christianity. Manicheaesm is an amazing sword and sorcery romp; it has half-demon assassins, zombie warriors, sorcerers and magic spells, strange gods and more.

u/CadmeusCain

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Jul 3, 2015, 2:19 AM

Wow. Thanks for the link and the info, I'll definitely check this out. I knew previously that Islam had stolen wholesale from Christianity, Judaism and Zoroastrianism but not that it still so much ritual from Sabianism. Also: were you aware that the Hajj was a Pagan ritual that Muhammad stole and 'sanitized'? The process (walking between two mountains, stoning devils, circling the Kabah, animal sacrifice) is practically unchanged from the old Pagan form.

That being said: all religions are built off practices stolen from another culture or religion with their own twists added in; it's turtles all the way down. Christianity, for instance, stole quite a lot from Greek/Roman religion (i.e. that the Gods can have children; Jesus also has many parallels with Dionysus).

Judaism itself, the father of Abrahamic religion, stole wholesale from all kinds of other religion including Babylonian and Egyptian Mythology. For instance: the Flood Myth is stolen (as well as most of Genesis) from an old story in many cultures, (one version exists in the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh but the story is likely older). The Book of Proverbs is essentially a plagiarism of some old Egyptian books of wisdom including the Instruction of Amenemope, The Moses story and the Jewish law steals a lot from the legends around Hammurabi. Job was probably not even written by a Jew and likely predates Judaism. Even the Jewish God 'Yahweh'/'Elohim' is also likely connected to El, the God of the Canaanites and some Egyptian Gods.

It goes on and on. Look at storytelling today: movies often shamelessly steal from previous famous movies, books and television shows do the same. I think it's a very human thing to steal older popular stories and put new twists on them.