Unlimited Quote Collections
Organize your favorite quotes without limits. Create themed collections for every occasion with Premium.
Certainly, it can come as a jolt to discover that, with a single exception, we have no extant descriptions of the Battle of Badr that date from befor… - Tom Holland
" "Certainly, it can come as a jolt to discover that, with a single exception, we have no extant descriptions of the Battle of Badr that date from before the ninth century AD.... What if the entire account of the victory at Badr were nothing but a fiction, a dramatic just-so story, fashioned to explain allusions within the Qur’an that would otherwise have remained beyond explanation? A battle on a valley’s edge won against terrifying odds; angels swooping down to strike at infidel necks; plunder seized from routed caravans: the holy text certainly alludes to all these things. Yet, aside from a single name-check, Badr itself is never mentioned.52 There is certainly no confirmation that a great battle—such as the one described by Ibn Hisham—was ever fought there. Whatever else it may be, the Qur’an is no work of history.
English
Collect this quote
About Tom Holland
Thomas Holland FRSL (5 January 1968) is an English author who has published best-selling books on topics including classical and medieval history and the origins of Islam. In addition to his writing, he has worked with the BBC to create and host historical television documentaries, and presents the radio series Making History.
Also Known As
Alternative Names:
Thomas Holland
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
Additional quotes by Tom Holland
Bishop Æthelwold spoke for all those who, enjoying the order brought to lands that only decades before had been scenes of carnage and devastation, felt due gratitude for what had been achieved by Alfred and his heirs. He, close enough in time to Athelstan’s reign to have been the great king’s protégé, understood the full scale of his debt. We, at a millennium’s remove, could perhaps remember it better.
To live in a Western country is to live in a society still utterly saturated by Christian concepts and assumptions. This is no less true for Jews or Muslims than it is for Catholics or Protestants. Two thousand years on from the birth of Christ, it does not require a belief that he rose from the dead to be stamped by the formidable – indeed the inescapable – influence of Christianity.
Loading...