Dr. Christoph Heger Eingangsseite / Homepage

Wenn in frühen Inschriften und auf frühen Münzen muḥammad zu lesen ist, meint das in aller Wahrscheinlichkeit nicht einen Propheten im abgelegenen Mekka/ When in early inscriptions or on early coins muḥammad is to be read, it most probably doesn't mean any prophet in peripherical Mecca.

o yā muḥammad – kein „o Mohammed“, und wer ist ‛alī?

Textkritische Koranstudien / Qur'an Criticism

Die üblichen Methoden der historisch-kritischen Textanalyse sind auf den Koran bei weitem noch nicht in dem Maße angewandt worden, wie das zu erwarten wäre. Hier einiges zum Stand der Wissenschaft. / The usual methods of historical-critical textual analysis are by far not yet applied to the Koran as it might be expected. Here somewhat with regard to the state of the art:

o Textkritik am Koran / Textual Criticism applied to the Koran

Terrorismus / terrorism

One might be interested in the article by Prof. Hans G. Kippenberg, University of Erfurt, Germany, "'CONSIDER THAT IT IS A RAID ON THE
PATH OF GOD': THE SPIRITUAL MANUAL OF THE ATTACKERS OF 9/11" in Numen, 2005, vol. 52, no. 1, pp. 29-58(30), published by Brill
Academic Publishers, Leiden, The Netherlands. It can be donwloaded as pdf-file from this site.

Abstract:

The document found with three of the four cells responsible for the crimes of 9/11 is unique in providing specific information about how the Muslim suicide terrorists conceived of their action. The document shows that they found justification for violence by emulating the moment in early Islamic history when Muhammad cancelled contracts with non-Muslims and organized raids (ghazwa) against the Meccans in order to establish Islam as a political order. No statement in the Manual explicitly identifies the United States as the financial, military, and political center of today's paganism; rather, such identification is tacitly assumed, as was shown by the action itself. Instead, the Manual prescribes recitations, prayers and rituals by which each member of the four cells should prepare for the ghazwa, purify his intention and anticipate in his mind the successive stages of the struggle to come. Not the objective aim but the subjective intention is at the center of the Manual. The article places this type of justification of violence in the history of Islamic activism since the 1980s.

More about Prof. Kippengberg's related speech under the title "Terror as Worship: The Spiritual Manual of the Perpetrators of September 11" to the "International Conference on Religious Militancy and Security in South Asia", jointly organized by BIISS, the German and the French Embassies in Dhaka, Bangla Desh, 10-13 October 2004 and some hostile reactions to it are to be found here.

Islamische "Häretiker" / Islamic "Heretics"

Die Drusen / The Druze (arabisch/Arabic: درزي, derzī oder/or durzī, plural دروز, durūz) sind eine im 11. Jahrhundert aus dem schiitischen Islam der Ismailiten hervorgegangene Religionsgemeinschaft / are a religious community which originated as an offshoot of the Ismaili sect of Islam. Sie sind einzigartig in ihrer Verschmelzung von gnostischem, neuplatonischem und anderem Gedankengut / They are unique in their incorporation of Gnostic, neo-Platonic and other philosophies. Die Drusen verstehen sich selbst als / The Druze consider themselves as ahl al-tawhîd ("Volk des Monotheismus" / "People of Monotheism"). Nicht der Koran, sondern eine eine Sammlung von "Weisheitsbriefen" / Not the Koran, but a collection of "Epistles of Wisdom" (arabisch/Arabic: رسائل ألحكمة risâ'il al-hikmah) ist ihre Heilige Schrift / is their Holy Book; die Drusen betrachten es als streng geheim / the Druze consider it as top secret, es ist jedoch in der Wissenschaft seit dem 19. Jahrhundert bekannt / it is however known in scholarship since the 19th century.

Bücher / Books