Al Kudr Invasion- destroying the islamic narrative on 'riddah war' or worse.

[u/atarius_cassius]

So Muhammed decides to raid the Banu Salim/Sulaym (it gets transliterated differently depending apparently) and there is an incredible detail hidden there, with islamic historians hoping you won't find it, which frankly somewhat debunks the idea that there was a sudden 'riddah' this idea everyone in Arabia became muslim and then suddenly when Muhammed died (and only then) did everyone suddenly convert back to paganism or new 'Riddah Prophets' suddenly spawned out of nowhere (with zero details about them, rather suspiciously) this is the islamic tale as they like you to know, but let's look at this one case study because it is fascinating. 

Muhammed apparently received intelligence that the Banu Sulaym located in Nejd (central Arabia) were coordinating with a mysterious army in Bahrain, decides to raid them, steals 500 camels and goes back. The Military logic is fine and dandy, raid them disrupt them from coordinating, spook them basically so they think twice about fighting you. Ideologically ehh, if anything it made the Banu Sulaym hate Muhammed and the muslims even more, 500 camels is a legitimately large amount of livestock to steal. 

But the real detail is the "armies amassing from Bahrain" who the fuck were they? No one bothers to tell you, Ibn Hisham doesn't seem to mention it, but there is a few things worth knowing. The Sassanians in 624 could not have been the army in Bahrain, again my map (but it is relevant) the Arab tribal allies of the Sassanians were 

1. weak and fighting the Romans. (the 602-628 war)
2. Completely disloyal, the battle of Dhi Qar (which occurred somewhere between 604-611) meant the Bakr Ibn Wa'il were totally disloyal, and they are basically the gateway to Bahrain so this kind of precludes this possibility, (look at my map) right that corridor is not open to the Sassanians.
3. The Sassanians themselves were likewise far too preoccupied with the Romans to deal with central Arabian self proclaimed Prophet (which they couldn't access anyway).
4. After the Sassanians annexed the Lakhmids the situation was anything but stable, the Tay and Taghlib were likewise not that cooperative. 

Therefore the mysterious army in Bahrain had to be Musaylima (there is another possibility which is even funnier*), but this of course would be highly embarrassing for islamic historiography he's only supposed to come 8 years later if Musaylima was organising his army in 624ce, that means 'riddah' is fundamentally a lie. You can't apostatise if you never were, and it is fundamentally a parallel movement, not 'riddah,' it was organising and massing all the way to 632 not just suddenly spawning out of nowhere.  

What happened therefore is Musaylima (the supposed 'riddah' prophet) organised with the Banu Salim/Sulaym to attack Medinah, found out that the Banu Sulaym were attacked and turned back. It's important to understand that the Banu Hanifa (musaylima's tribe) were regional rivals with the Abdul Qays in their rear, therefore yeah this puts a limiter on Musaylima's ability to conduct operations and would force him back. For muslim historians to admit "yeah Musaylima" was active before 632 all the way back 8 years earlier is a big thing to give up, but there's actually a funnier option. 

Option B is that Ibn Hisham an Iraqi and one of the main islamic chroniclers (but there were others) for this event simply misread Bahran and wrote down Bahrain. بحران or للبحرين being from Iraq, the idea is he probably didn't know of a "bahran" (the technical term is lectio facilior: when you read an unfamiliar term you default to the option you're familiar with the, i.e the easier option; Bahrain is far more familiar to Ibn Hisham than 'Bahran' a watering hole in nejd next to the Banu Sulaym) 

of course if the Muslim admits this, then "perfect preservation" goes straight out the window because they admit "yeah our scribes make mistakes sometimes."  "remember the Bahrain-Bahran thing" this means 'isnad' doesn't actually catch errors as much as they think, and who knows how many other 'errors' they didn't catch, they don't know right? How many more Bahrain-Bahran's are there.

Option C: which is A+B, is that it could honestly be both. Ibn Hisham making a spelling mistake doesn't mean Musaylima wasn't operating in 624CE, the muslims might have been hiding that information from us anyway. 

But either way the islamic tradition is checkmated. 

Either they admit
A)-> Musaylima did in fact operate in 624ce far before the 'riddah' rendering the supposed apostasy null, because you never apostatised if you never were right 

OR 

B)-> islamic historiography is so poor and couldn't distinguish too wildly different places because a scribe made a spelling mistake. The consequences being extremely drastic for the muslims, because that opens the possibility to other 'spelling mistakes' in the quran, hadith etc.

Either dishonesty and hiding or incompetence in which case we cannot trust what is written down
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H2FVKNXL Appreciate any support, where I catalogue this stuff.

Thanks.

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