跟读练习: Did Prophet Muhammadﷺ Really Exist? What Historians Actually Say About the Evidence - 通过视频学习英语口语
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Did Muhammad really exist?
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Now you might think this was a silly question
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but in fact online now on YouTube an increasing number of videos have been made mainly I think by missionary
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Christians from a certain background questioning his existence.
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So I thought I'd just do a brief video just surveying
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the historical evidence from a reputable historian just to see what the truth of the matter is
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and I'll just turn again to the wonderful Jonathan AC Brown
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book Mohammed a very short introduction he's a recognized expert on
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this subject chosen by Oxford University Press to share with its
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readers the truth about Mohammed from an historian's point of view
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so I'll just share with you this very question did Mohammed really exist revisionist history
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that's how this section of the book is entitled.
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I'll just read to you what Jonathan Brown has to say.
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Now he gives a long survey at the beginning about the problems
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that some people see with establishing the existence of Muhammad as an historical person
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and then he concludes with what mainstream historians are saying about this subject.
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Modern historians have generally concluded that by reading the Sira in light of the various influences and agendas pursued within the text,
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we can sift out forged reports.
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Looking at the material that remains, we can retrieve an authentic kernel that represents the historical reality of Muhammad's career.
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According to this mainstream scholarly opinion, scepticism about the details of the Sira should not lead us to doubt its overall narrative.
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Some Western historians however have called for more extreme scepticism towards Muslim sources.
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Known as revisionist historians these scholars point out
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that we have no detailed history for Islam or biography of Muhammad for some 150 years after his death.
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Moreover, what we do have is all written by Muslims.
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These Muslims thus had over a century to manufacture whatever history they wanted about Muhammad and his faith.
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How then can we trust any
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Muslim version of his life or the origins of Islam?
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How do we know that Muhammad even existed?
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In a controversial 1977 book entitled Hagerism, the historians Patricia Crone and Michael Cook argued
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that we can circumvent these challenges by relying on non -Muslim sources to reconstruct the origins of Islam.
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Not only were such sources not biased towards glorifying Muhammad,
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they were also much older than our earliest Muslim histories.
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Using Christian sources such as the writings of an Armenian bishop named Sibius from the 1660s CE,
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Cook and Crone contended that
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Islam was really a form of late messianic Judaism.
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Awakened to the Abrahamic roots, Mohammed
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and the Arabs had joined with the Jews of the Hijaz in an apocalyptic movement to retake the Abrahamic homeland of Palestine.
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Crook and Crone conclude from Christian sources that Mohammed was in fact still alive during the Muslim conquest of Syria.
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The scholar John Walnsborough also argued that we can never locate the factual kernel of the historical Muhammad.
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All we can discover is the sacred history constructed by the Muslim community as it gelled in the late 700s
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and early 800s.
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In his books Quranic studies and the sectarian milieu
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Walnsborough argues that it was at this time
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that the Muslims constructed the Quran and the Sira to create a religious vision anchored in 7th century Arabia.
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The life of Mohammed and the Quran were merely cobbled together from elements drawn from the ancient
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Near Eastern religious heritage.
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Based on archaeological evidence, the Israeli historian Yehuda Nivo argued that
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Islam was originally a form of vague monotheism which only solidified into its Mohammedan form after 692 AD.
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He points to a papyrus tax receipt from Egypt dated
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22 hijri which begins with the formula in the name of god but makes no mention of muhammad.
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nevo states
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that we do not see the phrase mentioning muhammad until a
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coin minted in damascus in 72 hijri with the phrase muhammad is the messenger of god
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and then jonathan brown puts in brackets in fact
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there is an earlier coin mentioning his name issued in 66
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hijri after 692 however muhammad's name appears regularly in umayyad coins
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and monumental inscriptions the person of muhammad before
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that time nebo concludes must not have been a significant part of islam
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so nebo concludes that muhammad was not a significant part of islam at all.
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Most modern scholars however object to the revisionist recasting of Muhammad and the origins of Islam.
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In other words they reject these revisionist theories.
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First of all how were Muslims able to orchestrate a conspiracy as massive as rewriting the entire first century of their history?
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We must remember that during this time the Muslim community was wracked by civil wars and sectarian strife.
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Warring Umayyad, Kharijite, Shiite and Abbasid Muslims could not agree on anything let alone join forces to rewrite their collective history.
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As for the absence of archaeological evidence naming Muhammad before 691, it is not conclusive.
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Just because no earlier coins or evidence have survived does not mean they did not exist.
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Perhaps the Arabs continued their tradition of oral commemoration and did not record such things in written form.
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Finally, the Quran itself is the most conclusive evidence that the Muslim narrative of Muhammad's mission is reliable in its overall structure.
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Unlike the Sira, the Quran bears no traces of civil war or sectarian propaganda.
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It never mentions Ali, Abu Bakr or the Umayyads.
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Furthermore, there are no conflicting versions of the Quran.
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If the Quran was not affected by these forces,
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it must have taken permanent form before them this means
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that the Quran consists of material dating back to the time of the prophet
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or soon after his death one person the Quran does mention by name is Muhammad urging his followers over
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and over again to obey God and his messenger Muhammad thus seems to have been very important to Islam indeed.
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We must also be cautious of uncritically accepting Christian descriptions of Muhammad's teachings.
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Christian writers may not have been biased towards Muhammad but they were certainly not objective observers.
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They were describing the faith of the armies that had just steamrolled over them so it is not surprising that they saw
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Islam and Mohammed in an inexact light.
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To rely solely on these Christian sources in writing the history
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of Mohammed would be like writing a history of the Soviet Union during the Cold War using only American newspapers.
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I think that's a rather clever analogy.
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More importantly viewed together these early non -Muslim sources paint a picture of Islam
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that does not actually differ markedly from the major themes of the Muslim version.
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The Greek historian of the first century before the common era
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Diodorus mentions a temple in the Hejaz honoured by the peoples of Arabia
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and the second century AD Alexandrian geographer Ptolemy mentions the Arabian towns of Yathripa and Mecoraba.
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Sound familiar?
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We thus know that Mecca and Yathrib and most likely the Kaaba existed long before Islam.
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Moreover, the Jewish historian Josephus, who died in the first century AD,
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tells us that it had long been held that the Arabs were the descendants of Abraham through Ishmael.
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Non -Muslim sources certainly leave leave no doubt
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that a prophetic figure named Muhammad existed and they provide an unsurprising description of what he meant to his followers.
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An anti -Jewish Christian text written in 634 just two years
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after Muhammad's death notes how the armies of an Arabian prophet had conquered Palestine.
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Writing in the year 687, the Mesopotamian Christian monk John of Fanak wrote
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that the Muslims considered Muhammad to be their guide
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and instructor who taught the Arabs to worship the one god in accordance with ancient law.
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He remarks how strictly they kept to the tradition of Muhammad.
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Another mid -8th century Syriac Christian writer tells us that Muhammad went on caravan journeys to Syria as a youth.
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An anonymous chronicle written in the mid 700s in the Zoukine
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Monastery in northern Mesopotamia calls Muhammad the first king of Arabs who considered him a prophet
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because he turned them in from polytheism to worship of the one God.
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Muhammad gave them laws and they called him the messenger of God."
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So clearly there is an abundance of very early reliable evidence from non -Muslim sources and Muslim sources.
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The Qur 'an itself names Muhammad.
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The Qur 'an is now securely dated in the form even
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that we have it today back to the even the lifetime of the prophet
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or very shortly after his death according to the majority view of western scholars
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and obviously muslim scholars too so
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if you were to come across any youtube videos
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or any other missionary propaganda casting doubt on muhammad's existence
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i do recommend you get a good reliable scholarly analysis of the facts
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from a world -class academic publisher to get the reliable factual information and not rely on missionary propaganda.
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Till next time.
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本课的词汇与口语要点
这节口语课以视频“Did Prophet Muhammadﷺ Really Exist? What Historians Actually Say About the Evidence”为素材。 视频中反复出现的词有：muhammad, muslim, islam, sources, historian。 这段视频共有 116 个句子、1489 个单词可供跟读。 讲话部分时长为 11:49。 说话人语速平稳，每分钟约 126 个词，很适合跟读。 只有 73% 的单词属于英语最常用的 3,000 词，词汇难度较高。
视频中的重点词汇
视频中 15 个值得学习的单词，附发音和释义：
| 单词 | 发音 | 释义 |
|---|---|---|
| historian 名词 | /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/ | 歷史學家 /历史学家, 歷史家 /历史家 |
| scholar 名词 | /ˈskɑlɚ/ | 學生 /学生 |
| argue 动词 | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | 辯論 /辩论, 爭辯 /争辩 |
| reliable 形容词 | /ɹɪˈlaɪəbl̩/ | 可靠, 穩妥 /稳妥 |
| coin 名词 | /ˈkoɪ̯n/ | 硬幣 /硬币, 銅錢 /铜钱 |
| prophet 名词 | /ˈpɹɑ.fɪt/ | 先知, 預言家 /预言家 |
| rely 动词 | /ɹɪˈlaɪ/ | 依賴 /依赖, 依靠 |
| messenger 名词 | /ˈmɛs.ən.d͡ʒɚ/ | 信使, 使者 |
| narrative 名词 | /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/ | 記敘文 /记叙文 |
| phrase 名词 | /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/ | 短語 /短语, 片語 /片语 |
| worship 名词 | /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/ | 崇拜, 禮拜 /礼拜 |
| mainstream 形容词 | /ˈmeɪn.stɹiːm/ | 主流的 |
| bias 名词 | /ˈbaɪ.əs/ | 偏見 /偏见 |
| moreover 副词 | /mɔːˈɹəʊ.və/ | 並且 /并且, 而且 |
| construct 动词 | /ˈkɑn.stɹʌkt/ | 建造, 建設 /建设 |
视频中出现的短语动词
| 单词 | 释义 |
|---|---|
| point out 动词 | 指, 指出 |
视频中的语法
说话人最常用的结构，并附上视频中的原话：
| 结构 | 视频中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 被动语态 be + 过去分词 — 强调发生了什么，而不是谁做的 | have been made · is entitled · were merely cobbled |
| 现在完成时 have/has + 过去分词 — 过去发生但与现在仍有关联的事 | have been made · have generally concluded · have called |
需要注意的发音
说话人用了 4 次缩略和弱读形式，例如 I'll, I'd。请按听到的简短形式来说。
- “th” 音: furthermore /ˈfɜː(ɹ).ðə(ɹ)ˌmɔː(ɹ)/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, monotheism /ˌmɑnoʊ̯ˈθiɪzm̩/, polytheism /pɒl.ɪˈθiː.ɪz.əm/
- “sh” 和 “zh” 音: worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, bishop /ˈbɪʃəp/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/
- 长单词——注意重音位置: historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, conspiracy /kənˈspɪɹəsi/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/, anonymous /əˈnɒn.ə.məs/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/
中文母语者容易读错的音：
- /v/ — 不要读成 /w/，上齿轻触下唇: narrative /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/, moreover /mɔːˈɹəʊ.və/, discover /dɪˈskʌvə/, objective /ɒbˈd͡ʒɛk.tɪv/, collective /kəˈlɛktɪv/
- 词尾辅音 — 要读清楚，后面不要加元音: conclude /kənˈkluːd/, prophet /ˈpɹɑ.fɪt/, narrative /ˈnæɹ.ə.tɪv/, phrase /ˈfɹeɪ̯z/, worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/
- /r/ 和 /l/ 的区别: reliable /ɹɪˈlaɪəbl̩/, rely /ɹɪˈlaɪ/, follower /ˈfɒləʊə(ɹ)/, shortly /ˈʃɔɹtli/, oral /ˈɔː.ɹəl/
如何用这段视频练习
- 先完整听一遍视频，不要开口，记下不认识的单词。
- 用正常速度逐句跟读，每句重复到你的节奏与说话人一致为止。
- 录下自己的声音并与原声对比，特别注意 historian, scholar, argue 这类单词。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。