Rereading the preface to John Wansbrough's Sectarian Milieu (Oxford, 1978) brought to mind thoughts of a criticism of Islam via tools used by scholars to pick apart the Torah. It was Wansbrough's point to argue that source analysis of the various literary types within any Monotheist scripture can best be understood via comparison with counterparts borne out of the Biblical paradigm.

Muslims loathe any use of Biblical criticism that is applied to the Islamic texts, but their objections are often quite weak. The best attack that they have mounted consists of nothing more than celebrating a few factual errors that have been discovered in the conclusions of Wansbrough. However, a criticism of Wansbrough's conclusions is not truly relevant to his work, as he himself admitted that he was seeking only to study the literary style of the Islamic cannon. In fact, Dr. Wansbrough acknowledged that literary analysis cannot guarantee concrete conclusions regarding the true history of the text. This is because historicity and facticity do not necessarily work hand in glove with one's observations regarding the structural features of a given text.

While the modern philosophy student will wave this off as "post-modernist foolishness," it must still be argued that any attempt at reconstructing history has the potential to fail badly. This is because all conclusions are reached via abduction, which can never bring one to absolute truth; rather an abductive inference is simply the best guess. There is an implicit fallacy being committed (namely, affirming the consequent) in every attempt to adduce the truth, thus the room for error is quite large.

A lack of reliable sources for the study of Islam further complicates such problems,  as the historian is forced to rely even more on the aforementioned methods. The result is an atmosphere where every attempted reconstruction plunges into controversy and disagreement. Numerous scholars of Islam have noted this problem. Consider the following:

Herbert Berg writes:

First, historians are in the business of determining what really happened and why it happened. Wansbrough has suggested that we may never know what has really happened, and "to historians the factor of ambiguity is not especially welcome." (1987: 15) Unfortunately, for the first two centuries of Islam, the required material is not extant. Without blind faith in the reliability of the Sira, for example, there is little for the scholar who wants to study the life of Muhammad in his early seventh century Arabian context to do or say.
[Berg, "The Implications of, and Opposition to, the Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough," Method & Theory in the Study of Religion, 9.1 (1997); also Ibn Warraq, Quest for the Historical Muhammad, (Prometheus, 2000) p. 150]

Scholarly discussion on the historiography of the period 750-850 has undoubtedly been contentious, but the bitterest controversy has been aroused by the earliest phase of historical collecting and composition. This is unsurprising, since our evidence for the decades before 750 consists almost entirely of rather dubious citations in later compilations. Deprived of direct evidence, scholars have had to compensate with bold surmises and moral certitude.
[Humphreys, Islamic History: A Framework for Inquiry, (Princeton, 1991) p. 80]

Discussions on the origins of Arabic historiography have focused almost exclusively on two issues: (1) whether there really was any properly historical collecting and composition by the turn of the 1st/8th century; (2) whether the accounts ascribed by our extant texts to the scholars of that period are substantially genuine or later fictions. The two issues are of course intimately related, but they are nonetheless distinct conceptually. We might well imagine a situation in which "historical" research was going on by 700 A.D., but where this primitive historiography was forgotten or falsified beyond recognition a half-century later. However, most modern scholars have insisted on linking the two propositions: i.e. either there was an authentic primitive historiography which was substantially passed on to later generations, or there was no such thing, and the later texts ascribed to this period are blatant forgeries.
[ibid., p. 81]

An example is the material relating to Abu Lahab and his wife. We may distinguish three possible theses: (i) the Koranic text refers to an historically attested couple (Rubin in BSOAS, XLII, 1979); (ii) an obscure Koranic reference has been interpreted pseudo-historically; and (iii) both the scriptural text and the pseudo-history have been generated by something else, viz. by what Wansbrough terms a "keyword" (see pp. 7f, 10f, 22f [of Sectarian Milieu]). None of these views can be proved, and all are to that extent speculative; but (iii) has the added defect of complexity.
[Cook, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1980, p. 180]

Subhaana allathee asraa bi'abdihi laylan mina al-masjidi al-haraami ila al-masjidi al-aqsa allathee baaraknaa hawlahu linuriyahu min aayaatinaa innahu huwa as-samee'u al-baseeru. "Most glorified is the one who carried his servant during the night, from the inviolable place of prostration to the farthest place of prostration, whose surroundings we have blessed, in order to show him some of our signs. He is the Hearer, the Seer." [Soorat al-Israa' 17:1]

Neal Robinson, in his Discovering the Qur'an (1996, SCM Press), went to great lengths in arguing that there is a deliberate structure to the style of the verse (he tries to explain the structure of the entire sura on pp. 188-195). Unfortunately, many of the conclusions reached by Robinson are downright baffling, and would only be appealing to those who believe the text is divine.

First, he makes note of the initial part about glory being to him who takes his servant from one place to another, and argues the words "correspond to the language which human beings customarily employ when engaging in worship, but the reference to Muhammad as 'His servant' safeguards against the inference that these words are uttered by him." [p. 251] This statement is hard to swallow, particularly when one considers that this wholly vague verse makes no mention of Muhammad! One of the few scholars to make note of the anonymous nature of the verse is A. Bevan, stating such in his article "Mohammed's Ascension to Heaven" [Studien zu Semitischen Philologie und Religionsgeschichte Julius Wellhausen (Topelman, 1914) pp. 53-54]. Wansbrough was the only scholar since Bevan to make note of how it is not clear who is being referred to, and wrote the following:

The alternative, namely, that 'abd can only be Muhammad, implies submission to an interpretation of all the Quranic data which, in my opinion, has yet to be demonstrated.
[Wansbrough, "Qur'anic Studies," (Oxford, 1977), p. 68]

Robinson's error is rooted in the fact that he has failed to realize the obvious midrashic style of the story of Muhammad's night journey. Robinson is making the mistake of interpreting the Qur'an in light of later traditions. Regarding these traditions and their impact on one's reading of the Qur'an, Josef Horovitz had the following to say:

They reflect a later stage of the development of Islam and the Koran, and they therefore cannot be utilized as authentic material for the interpretation of the Koran. Modern scientific investigation likewise is again and again exposed to the danger of carrying conceptions of a later period over into the text of the Koran[.]
[Horovitz, "Jewish Proper Names and Derivatives in the Koran," Hebrew Union College Annual, Vol II, 1925, pp. 145-146]

Indeed Robinson fell victim to this danger, though others may still argue that the verse is obviously pointing to Muhammad and his night journey. Regarding such a stance, the aforementioned Professor Berg wrote the following:

The argument assumes the epistemological and chronological priority of the events in Muhammad's life over the passages in the Qur'an. If, as Wansbrough suggests, the biography of the Muhammad is the product of a narrative exegesis of the prophetic logia, the priority should be reversed.
[Berg, "Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough"]

Of course this was not the only problem with Robinson's irenic interpretation of the verse. He further tried to argue that its chaotic structure was deliberate. He states:

The sudden shift to the first-person plural is appropriate in view of the fact that the Night Journey was an expression of God's majesty and power. [...] The shift back to third-person discourse maintains the sense of worship and ensures the cognitive function of communication.
[Robinson, Discovering the Qur'an, p. 251]

Basically, he is arguing that the verse can still be considered the word of God despite the pronoun shifts. This strange argument stems from an acceptance of the tautological apologetics of the Muslims. Earlier in his work, Robinson discussed this view in great detail:

For European readers, one of the most disconcerting features of the Qur'anic style is the frequent occurrence of unexpected (and apparently unwarranted) shifts from one pronoun to another. Non-Muslim scholars have tended either to regard these changes as solecisms or simply to ignore them. Muslim specialists in Arabic, on the other hand, refer to this phenomenon as iltifat - literally 'conversion', or 'turning one's face to' - and define it as:

the change of speech from one mode to another, For the sake of freshness and variety for the listener, to renew his interest, and to keep his mind from boredom and frustration, through having the one mode continuously at his ear.

Far from dismissing it as a stylistic imperfection, they have prized it as shaja'at al-'arabiyya - 'the audacity of Arabic' - and have attempted to explain the purpose of the various types of shift.
[ibid., p. 245]

The definition of iltifaat cited by Robinson above was taken from az-Zarkashee's al-Burhaaan fî 'uloom al-Qur'aan, as cited in MAS Abdel Haleem's

Prior to the statements above, Robinson stated that he would "refrain from discussing whether the 'implied speaker' and the actual speaker are identical" (p. 225). In other words, he sought only to discuss what the style implies. However, in order to accept his claims one must first presuppose that every jot and tittle is deliberate. If one starts from such a presupposition they can then move on to ask "why did the author (be it God or man) write it in this fashion?" Unfortunately, there is no reason to start from this angle.

Furthermore, even if one were to accept this subconscious presupposition, there is no reason to believe that Robinson's (or Haleem's) answers to the "why" question are correct. Robinson claimed that he is offering an analysis that is "acceptable to believers and unbelievers alike" (p. 225), but this cannot possibly be the result in light of the aforementioned (though admittedly subtle) presupposition.

While Robinson may think it is relevant that Muslims do not dismiss these problems as being a "stylistic imperfection," others may seriously wonder about the source being considered. One wonders if there is any part of Allaah's kitaab that the Muttaqeen have dismissed as being a "stylistic imperfection." Among the Orthodox (read: fundamentalist) Muslims, the answer would have to be no; indeed the same is the case with Orthodox Jews as well.

This is where we see how attitudes towards the Jewish scriptures seem to also fit quite well within the Islamic paradigm. To use an example, I would like to look at Genesis 1:26-27, and the Rabbinic commentary that has swirled around these two verses. It should be noted that the first verse uses a plural pronoun, while the second makes an unwarranted shift to a singular conjugation. Of course, the pious Rabbis all argued that even this was part of God's plan. Genesis 1:26 begins:

The implications of polytheism are already apparent, but commentary on the Torah argues it away. On this part of the verse alone, Rabbi Nahum Sarna writes:

The extraordinary use of the first person plural evokes the image of a heavenly court in which God is surrounded by His angelic hosts. [...] It is noteworthy that this plural form of divine address is employed in Genesis on two other occasions[.]
[Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, (JPS, 1989) p. 12]

First, the reference to "two other occasions" (3:22 & 11:7) implies that this was a special amiraah (), or "utterance," as was mentioned by the early 13th century Spanish scholar HaRav Moshe ben Nachman (Ramban, Nachmanides). However, we must concede that ben Nachman took it in a different direction than that of Sarna. For ben Nachman's interpretation, see Rabbi Meir Zlotowitz (trans.), Bereishis, (Mesorah, 1977) p. 67; or Rabbi Charles B. Chavel (trans.), Ramban: Commentary on the Torah, Genesis, (Shilo, 1971), p. 52.

More interesting, however, is the reference to the angelic court. Christians often argue that the verse is an example of scriptural evidence supporting their Trinitarian beliefs. When such Christians are told that Jews believe that the verse implies God speaking with the angels, some become apoplectic and yell that there is no evidence to support the claim that God is talking with the angels. Ironically, there is no evidence that Jesus or the Holy Ghost are being mentioned either (save for when the Christian is reinterpreting the text in light of later traditions, paralleling the aforementioned sin of scholars of Islam). The "evidence" that Sarna gives is as follows:

For the celestial court, cf. I Kings 22:19-22; Isa. 6:8; Ps. 29:1-2; 82; 89:6-7; Job 1:6; 2:1. In Job 38:7, divine beings are present at creation. The present interpretation is found in Gen. R. 8:3; Rashi.
[ibid., p. 353, n. 20]

So now we see that Rabbi Sarna derives his interpretation from HaRav Shlomo ben Yitzchaq (Rashi). Now we should take a look at what Rashi wrote regarding these two verses (Gen 1:26-27):
 
 

Invtanuto shel haqab''h lamadnu mikan L'fi she'adam bidmut ha-malaakhim nivraa V'yitqanu vo L'fikhakh nimlakh bahem, ukhshehu dan et ha-M'lakhim hu nimlakh B'famalyaa shelo sheken matsinu v'achaav (Melakim A, 22) she'aamar lo mikhah: ra'iti et h[ashem] yoshev al kiso V'khal Tseva ha shama'im omrim ala'iv mimino umismolo V'khi yesh yamin usmol L'fanaiv? Ela Eloo maiminim lizkhut V'elu mashmilin L'chovah, V'khen (Daniyel 4): bigzerat irin pitgamaa uvmemar qadeesheen Sh'eltaa af kan B'famalyaa shelo natal r'shut amar lahem: yesh ba'elyonim kidmuti im ein kidmuti batachtonim harei yesh qinaah B'ma'aseh b'reishit. Af al pi shelo siyyuhu vitsirato V'yesh maqom L'minim lirdot, lo nimna ha-katuv millamed derekh erets umidat anavah sheyhe ha-gadol nimlakh V'notel r'shut min ha-qatan. V'im katav: e'eshe aadam, lo lamadnu sheyhe medaber im beyt dino, elaa im atsmo. The modesty of the Holy One, Blessed be He, we witness in this verse. Man was to be created in the image of angels, and they would be jealous of him, therefore He took counsel with them. When He judges the kings, He likewise takes counsel with His heavenly household; as we see in the case of Ahab (1 Kings 22:19), to whom Micah said: "I saw the Lord sitting on His throne, and all of the hosts of heaven were standing by Him, on His right hand and on His left." Does this mean he has right and left [hands]? Actually, [it means] there are [angels] on the right for acquittal and on the left for conviction. And thus (Daniel 4:14): "The matter is by the decree of those who watch, and the sentence by the word of the Holy Ones." Here also He sought permission with His household. He said to them: "There are some higher beings in my likeness. If there was nothing of my likeness among the lower beings, there would be jealousy among the works of creation." [cf. Sanh. 38] Even though they did not help Him with His creation, and there is room for the skeptics to criticize [the plural conjugation], scripture does not shrink from teaching the world [proper conduct] and the trait of modesty, as even the mighty should consult with the lowly. And if it was written "I shall make man," we would not have learned that He spoke with His court (Beit Din), we would think He was speaking alone.

From there Rashi takes a subtle swipe at the Christians, and writes:

Utshuvat ha-minim kaatav b'tzido "vayivraa et ha-adam,"
V'Lo khaatav "vayivru."
And the rebuttal to the heretics is written in the next [verse],
"and He created man." It was not written "and they created."

There are copious amounts of Rabbinic commentary from which we can derive more thoughts on the nature of this single archaic verse, but that is not necessary. The point is simply to set an analogy. If a non-believer were to criticize the sloppiness of Genesis 1:26-27, a pious Orthodox Jew could yell "HA! Stupid kofer! Rashi already explained that nearly a millennium ago!"

It is in the mind of the theist a certain logic that holds that if an attempted answer was given before a modern questioner was born, that answer is automatically correct. In other words, despite the fact that Rashi gave a defense of the verse centuries before I was born, one still wonders why anyone should accept his argument as valid.

Yes, the Rabbis believed every aspect, every jot and tittle, every nook and cranny of the Torah was deliberate. Indeed the Islamic historians have felt the same was about the Qur'an. Does not every theist have a deep love for his respective holy writ? Does not the contemporary Latter Day Saint find the writings of the Prophet Joseph Smith to be beautiful? The answer is yes, but there is no reason to assume any level of validity can be derived from this allegiance to scripture. If anything, the view of the believer should be considered a deeply biased one.

A religious interpretation of a Monotheist scripture is one that evolves over time. There are interpretations of the text, interpretations of the interpretations, and then yet more interpretations built on the latter! The primitive (read: earliest layer of) interpretations are often lost, and the believers assume that the contemporary view has always been that way.

This is why the scholars of the Arabo-Judaic faiths need to explain archaic words in their text. The Jewish and Islamic historians take a verse and say "when it says XYZ, it means ABC..." Examples have been given before: the Rabbis claim that when the Torah reads B'Tsalmenu (in our image) in Gen 1:26, it really means Bidfus Shelanu (with our mold). An Islamic parallel can be found in Arab commentators stating that when the Qur'an makes a reference to yad Allah (God's hand) in Qur'an 58:10, it really means 'ahd Allah (God's covenant). Why do the believers need to be told what their text means? Are not these commentaries written in the same language as the scripture itself? It is obvious that by the time these seemingly early commentaries (from Qur'anic tafseer to the Jewish Talmud) were written, the original understandings were already lost.

An example from Islam might be the ever evolving view of Iblees' species (was he a human, jinn, angel, or something else?). We need to paint a picture of what the early Muslims thought (via Abu Ja'far Muhammad bin Jareer al-Tabaree's Tareekh al-Rusul Wa'l-Mulook). First there is a tradition given by al-Tabaree with a chain of transmitters that goes: al-Qaasim bin al-Hasan, from al-Husayn bin Daawood, from Hajjaaj, from Ibn Jurayj, from Ibn Abbaas:

Iblees was one of the noblest angels and belonged to the most honored tribe among them. He was a keeper of Jannah. He had authority over the lowest heaven as well as the earth.

This is an interesting tradition considering the fact that today most Muslims vehemently oppose the idea that Satan (Iblees) was an angel (they wave it off as Judeo-Christian nonsense). Some may try and argue that the above contradicts the Qur'an, but in reality it only contradicts their interpretation of the Qur'an (note that the text never explicitly says that Iblees is not an angel).

Of course, the Qur'an does say that Iblees was a jinn, and this may create room for a contradiction (angel or jinn?). Al-Tabaree gave a tradition to explain this as well. The tradition originates with Ibn Abbaas, and goes as follows: "There was an angelic tribe of jinn, and Iblees belonged to it." . However, this one is quoted by both(?) Saalih bin Nabhaan and Shareek bin 'Abdallaah bin Abee Namir; from them the next name is Ibn Jurayj, then Hajjaaj, then al-Husayn, then al-Qaasim, and then al-Tabaree. This, I think, should absolutely be questioned even by Muslims, considering the fact that the two who quote Ibn Abbaas are Saalih (the mawlaa of al-Taw'ama), who died in 125 AH, and Shareekh, who died around 140 AH!

Regardless, al-Tabaree put this in his compilation, thus he really believed that the early Muslims thought Iblees was from "an angelic tribe of jinn." Of course, there is then the question of the etymology behind the word "jinn." To explain this, al-Tabaree gives another tradition, where Moosaa bin Haaroon al-Hamdaanee heard from 'Amr bin Hammaad that Asbaat, who heard from al-Suddee that both Aboo Maalik and Aboo Saalih quoted such esteemed types as Ibn Abbaas, Murrah al-Hamdaanee, Ibn Mas'ood, "and other companions" as saying the following:

Iblees was made ruler over the lowest heaven. He belonged to a tribe of angels called jinn. They were called jinn because they were the keepers of Jannah[!!!]

The question now is, why did al-Tabaree have to be told what "jinn" meant? The reason is obvious: no religion is borne in a vacuum, thus words are borrowed from earlier cultures; this transition often results in the word being stripped of its original meaning (Sabt is a great example of this).

For scholars who engage in critical studies of Judaism, this is no secret. As one such expert wrote:

It [...] is impossible to begin research into rabbinic Judaism with the presupposition that in their present form rabbinic narratives or legal sayings accurately reflect the original concerns, much less represent the original language, of the authorities who initially told them or the figures to whom they are attributed.
[William Scott Green, Persons and Institutions in Early Rabbinic Judaism, (Brown Univ., 1977) p. 3]

To elucidate the argument being put forth in the above passage, Dr. Wansbrough wrote the following:

Now, what does all this really mean? It seems to me that the obvious conclusion must be that history is literature, that the documentation of 'fact' is itself a creative process, and that we are there confronted less by eye-witness testimonia than by the desire to represent a logical and compelling sequence of 'events'.
[Wansbrough, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 42, 1979, p. 141]

It is quite obvious that Islam has a very similar structure to that mentioned above. This is why criticism used to analyze the Hebrew Bible can also be applied quite well to the Islamic cannon.

Unfortunately, apologists for Islam now want to call such criticisms "Islamophobic," and others go as far as calling it "racist." Such asinine and hysterical objections have actually caused a collective guilt trip to fall upon the shoulders of many of today's non-Muslim scholars. The result is a tendency, as was seen with Robinson above, to make presuppositions that are far too sympathetic. This is discussed in a loose translation of Shlomi Tal's infamous Faqtulullah Qabla Yaqtulana, now offered by the

Islamicists seem on the whole very reluctant to say anything which might be interpreted as critical of Islam, including its own sacralized "origins" and "history". [...] The works of such scholars as Wilfred Cantwell Smith and W. Montgomery Watt exemplify this irenic approach to the study of Islam. [...] Modern Islamicists are perhaps more inclined to adopt these approaches because of a sense of collective guilt. That Islamicists have been culpable has been convincingly demonstrated by Edward Said ([Orientalism] 1978). The sins of our ancestors in the study of Muslim peoples has made modern Islamicists wary of committing the "sin of orientalism" and rightly so. However, if the result is a fear of asking and answering potentially embarrassing questions — ones which might upset Muslim sensibilities — this "restitution" is disturbing. The popularity of an anti-theoretical and sensitive approach in order to atone for or allay some perceived guilt is not exclusive to Islamicists. The work of early cultural anthropologists also contributed the colonial oppression of the people they studied. The response of many of today’s anthropologists is described by Lawson and McCauley as "throw[ing] the scientific baby out with the colonialist bath water[.]"
[Berg, "Methods and Theories of John Wansbrough"]