Ask Me Anything: Muslim Edition

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Kei said:
How would you feel if someone came up and said that the Qur’an was actually corrupted and the true Qur’an is lost to history; the true Qur’an is as told by x?
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I think anyone who comes aboard a forum where there are people with different viewpoints can’t be too offended. Our muslim friends wouldn’t have their own religion if they didn’t disagree with Catholics, Hindus , Jews and everyone else.
 
I meant it more as in to consider the claim of the thing as it strains credibility.
 
I think that cuts both ways, really, and that’s okay. The Christian claims about the Bible and the Koran strike me as oddly as the Islamic claims about the Bible and Koran strike you guys.
 
Does it? I think if you take it from as much an unbiased perspective as we can muster, its like,
“The Hebrew Bible is correct and prophecies for Jesus Christ. The New Testament affirms this… but the Qur’an, written by Mohammed, comes much later and is not genuine revelation”
Strikes one as different than
“Not only is the Hebrew Bible corrupted along with the New Testament, but the real Bible actually says what the Qur’an says, which is what is written by Mohammed”
And then if you consider the early records, the fact that early Christians quoted much of the New Testament anyway, etc., then it just sounds conspiracy theory-level of the likes of the Baptists who believe that the Baptist Church was actually not founded after the Reformation but had been there, hidden, since the days of early Christianity.

Once again, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, I am just explaining the way it would seem.
 
Since according to Christians Jesus is the son of God and the only way to salvation, and according to Islam this is not true don’t you think we should discuss this? It is important to find out. So far this thread is about building bridges but don’t you agree his thread should be to discuss how and where to find salvation so to go to heaven? I really want everybody to be saved also moslims.
 
This thread isn’t for apologetics, rather to ask questions and learn about another faith. I’m very grateful to Shazirah for doing it.
 
I think some of that can be accounted to a general tendency to form a posteriori perspectives of historical documents in order to validate a conclusion that the exegesist has already decided to adopt, which honestly every religious scholarship tradition is guilty of. The textual history of the Bible and the Torah and its relation to objective history is complicated. The textual history of the Koran is a little less complicated, although the hadith bear a lot of historical scrutiny depending on their provenience.

I have a very little bit of training in historical textual analysis, but not enough to really debate the subject and I’m certain you would be able to get a better answer about the historicity of the Biblical account from an actual Islamic historian. For both Christians and Muslims, we can form all kinds of arguments, but it really boils down to faith for most people.
 
I think that would be better served in the apologetics section, but really I don’t have the chops to be a proper apologist, I’m just answering some questions for people who have questions. It’s my experience that those types of discussions get contentious and unproductive really quickly, especially on the internet, and I’d rather not have that kind of dynamic here. If anyone is going to be convinced of anything, I think God has got that covered, so I’m happy to leave that part to Him.
 
As people were becoming more and more educated, were measures being taken to influence States where there were penalties by stoning the people? the marriage of children at the behest of their parents? circumcision of girls? the honor killings of young girls? the beating of women by men? buying and selling women?
After all, it’s crazy and inhumane, do you agree?
 
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Earlier in the thread you described yourself as a modernist, I am curious as to what your interpretation of the splitting of the moon is.
 
Circumcision of girls isn’t an Islamic practice anyway, it’s a pre-existing cultural practice that has been sanctioned by some imams but which is not sanctioned by the majority of Islam as an appropriate religious practice. Slavery as allowed in Islam was a very curtailed version compared to what was in practice in the area at the time. Given the number of conditions upon which someone must free their slaves as an act of piety, the intent of the teachings is to cause people to gradually abandon the practice, which has happened except in the case of groups like ISIS with overly literal interpretations of the Koran. The practice of forced marriage is considered invalid under most interpretations of sharia law and, as previously addressed, children cannot be validly married until after they are physically and mentally mature. Arranged marriage is allowed, but that’s very different from forced marriage. Honor killings are pretty soundly condemned by most of the Islamic world outside of the most backwards tribal regions and they typically don’t conform to the sharia laws under which one may lawfully execute a Muslim person anyway. In the cultures that practice them, they were typically a factor of the culture pre-Islam. We’ve already covered beating women earlier in the thread, but the gist is that there are differences in how that is translated and understood in classical Arabic and that Islamic jurisprudence has ruled over time that violence is not permitted towards women. A more accurate translation is that men have the right to leave their wife after reasoning with her and removing themselves from her company for a time if she remains obstinate to a reasonable request.

People who are determined to do evil are going to find a way to justify doing it. There are plenty of “Christian” abuser who use the Bible and Christian teachings to justify violence and sexual abuse towards spouses and children, but they’re clearly wrong. Muslims largely feel the same about the people who use Islam to condone violence or barbaric cultural practices that would exist whether those people were Muslims or not. That’s just not in the spirit of the religion. Poor translations of the text don’t help either and Arabic-English translation is tricky, especially when translating classical literary style from either language.
 
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I’m inclined to Zamakshari’s explanation, which is basically that there was a celestial phenomenon that was witnessed at the time, not necessary a literal splitting in two of the moon but something that might have looked similar like a lunar eclipse or a visible body passing across the moon, and that this is a foreshadowing of an event that will occur at the time of the last judgement when the world is destroyed that also contains a literary metaphor. The people who witnessed it were largely pagans, for whom the moon was a particularly important symbol. The splitting of the moon would be a highly significant event signifying the end of the pagan era.
 
That’s a book’s worth of info, but the short story is that Shia believe that only the lineage of Mohammed (peace be upon him) has the divine right to guide Islam, but Sunni believe that people can be elected to serve as teachers and imams regardless of lineage. After the death of Mohammed (peace be upon him), some people support Ali, his son-in-law and the husband of Fatimah, as the Caliph and some people supported Abu Bakr. Shia have always considered Abu Bakr to have usurped the right of Ali as the first Caliph and reject many of the hadith recorded by the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) wives Aiesha and Hafsa as they supported Abu Bakr and opposed Ali at the Battle of the Camel. So, differences in the theology developed and widened over time and there has been a long, long history of both groups antagonizing each other since, particularly since Shia and Sunni consider each other heretics on the whole. Which is unfortunate and many hope that the rift will eventually be healed.
 
Anti-religious skeptics believe that Persia was one of the main centers of world culture, which influenced the development of chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, medicine around the world…until Islam arrived there.
According to this view Iran is an example of what degradation and stagnation can religion bring to the people, if science and freedom of thought are neglected.
What is your opinion about this theory?
 
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Athanasiy said:
which influenced the development of chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, medicine around the world…until Islam arrived there.
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I don’t know where this idea comes from.
During the Islamic Golden Age there was a flourish of science. The library of House of Wisdom at Baghdad attracted all the top polymaths in the known world to study there.
One the most famous is al-Khwarizmi (where we get the word algorithm) who gave us the first systematic solutions of linear and quadratic algebra. He was made the head of House of Wisdom.
There are so many other examples like the three course meal, fountain pen were all from this Islamic period where Islamic culture was the height of European/middle eastern civilisation at the time. Pope Sylvester ii studied Arabic and brought the Arabic numerals and abacus to Europe.
 
That strikes me as being kind of hilariously false for basically the reasons ratio outlined. Islamic society developed an empirical scientific tradition that was very advanced for the time period in addition to rich literary and philosophical traditions and engineering feats in the Golden age which lasted from the 9th century to the 15th century. Astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, and medicine in particular flourished during that time period.

There is a distinct trend in traditional Western historical interpretations of Islamic societies to down play the role of anything to do with Islam, but that’s a rather ethnocentric viewpoint in my opinion. An exhortation to rational discourse and scientific inquiry is very clearly in the Koran. Western science piggybacked on many of the innovations from the Golden Age and to assert that the Islamic world only acted as a conduit for ancient knowledge instead of being a scientific culture in its own right shows a very naked bias, imo.
 
Who created the sharia law. Since there are many interpretations of the koran, who decides which one to follow ?
 
Is not arranged marriage the same as a forced marriage? The same holds true of a husband beating his wife. One interpretation allows it and another does not ???
 
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