Hi Nick,

Yes, it's possible that very early Islam sprang from s Jewish or Judeo-Christian sect - and one based far closer to settled parts of Syria and Paleatine: the first Muslim coins, minted in the late seventh century, had a picture of Muhammad (or whoever the leader was at the time) with a cross above his head, and were in Syriac.

So it's possible that the first 'Islamic' texts were written in Syriac, which gave rise to mistranslations from one language without the diacritica (the marks above and below consonants signifying vowel sounds) to another without diacritica, or different (unwritten) vowel sounds. Of course, this raises the theoretical possibility that, if Allah was supposed to pass on sacred texts to Muhammad copied unchanged from the Book up in paradise, then they were in Syriac: that Allah spoke Syriac.

Hence the confusion in translating from Syriac/Aramaic to Arabic, for instance, between the words for 'white (or white-breasted) raisins', and 'white-breasted virgins'.

After all, who lived and worked across that part of the world before Muhammad's time ? Syriac (or Aramaic)-speaking townspeople, usually either Christian or Jewish traders and artisans, while the Arabic-speaking tribal people lived out in the deserts. There WAS life in that part of the world before Muhammad, or whoever the mythical figure was (or figures were). And their common language would have been Syriac or Aramaic, as it still is in many parts of what is now Syria.

Cheers,

Joe