The Hawariyun
- philhoraia
- Dec 1, 2024
- 2 min read
The Hawariyun is quran's name for the Disciples.
S 3:52 Then when Isa perceived kufr among them he said: Who are my helpers to Allah? The Hawariyun said: We are Allah’s helpers. We have believed in Allah, and bear witness that we are Muslims.
S 5:111 And when I inspired the Hawariyun to believe in me and in my messenger they said: We have believed and bear witness that we are Muslims.
S 5:112 When the Hawariyun said: Isa son of Maryam, is your lord able to send down to us a table from the sky? He said: Fear Allah if you are believers.
S 61:14 Those who have believed, be Allah’s helpers, as Isa son of Maryam said to the Hawariyun: Who are my helpers to Allah? The Hawariyun said: We are Allah’s helpers. Then a band of the Banu Isra’il believed and a band disbelieved. So we backed those who believed against their enemy and they became assistants.
Quran repeatedly says 'When'. Is what follows things that his audience might have been familiar with? Could the author be drawing on material from books known to his audience?
Isa speaks of Allah. This is a name. In S 5:114 we find Isa using the word Allahuma. This is a word of invocation. An alternative is Ya Allah 'O Allah'.
Isa son of Maryam said: Allahumma our lord, send down upon us a table from the sky being for us a festival for the first of us and the last of us and a sign from you. And provide us, and you are the best of providers.
Now, as Isa and his Hawariyun were supposedly Israelites, they would not have used Allahumma, which is a term that was used by the Arab pre-Islamic heathens then by the Muslim heathens. If the accounts are based on Syriac books, the characters would have used a word from their language. Syriac (and Hebrew) has neither an allah nor an allahumma. Allahumma is ultimately from the Hebrew Elohim, a plural word used of God. The books from which we might hypothesise the accounts were drawn from might have used the word for 'God'. As God is not a name, the characters would not have been speaking of and invoking a deity named God. We can rule out their speaking of and invoking Allah, a name that did not exist in Israel.
We may note that they don't call themselves Christians. Not even Nasara. The Hawariyun use the term Muslims. As Muslim is an Arabic word and as they are supposed to be Israelites, what word might the characters have used? Even if the original characters had called themselves a corresponding word it doesn't follow that they were what we understand as Muslims. And it doesn't follow that they worshipped Allah.
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