Could Muhammad of been a prophet?

[daler]

By being tender when do not have many followers but being a conquerer when already have many followers?

Depends on how you read history, swariffin. Do you apply the same standards to King David?

From all accounts I’ve read, Muhammad was indeed known as gentile and truthful prior to and after his receiving Revelations from Gabriel. For thirteen years they did not lift a hand against their oppressors, who grew in hatred as the followers of Islam increased, putting more and more pressure on them, barring them from trade and the means of support, torturing and killing innocents.

It was not until Muhammad had a vision from the Angel Gabriel to “Take up the sword and defend the faithful”, and against great and overwhelming odds, by the way, that the first defense of Islam occurred. During Muhammad’s lifetime, all acts of war were defensive. If you imagine yourself a Jew in the 1930s, so you suppose at some point, well after Kristallnacht and so much more, that there would not be allowed a defense against the evils of Nazism?

The butchers of Mecca buried their own daughters alive, tortured people for sport, enslaved and exploited pilgrims to Abraham’s ancient site of worship. These were idolators of the worst sort, even as the priests of Ba’al, upon whom Elijah the Prophet called down fire from heaven and had them all slain. How can you possibly condemn the Prophet Muhammad and uphold Elijah the Prophet, other than by ignorance or prejudice.

Would you sacrifice your family to the Nazis without resistance? It was only after the death of the Prophet that His religion became divided into schism due to Umar and the Ummayyads, the very evil Meccan idolators who feigned a belief in Islam once it was apparent which way the winds of change were blowing. They are the ones who disobeyed the Prophet, denied His rightful Successor, Ali, and poisoned the well, conquering by the sword in all directions - something forbidden in the Quran: “Let there be no compulsion in religion!”

God bless us all with truthful eyes and pure intent.

.

 

[swariffin]

There is a difference between Muhammad and King David my friend. David dare to challenge the enemy giant named Goliath while he was still a young boy. David was not a coward. David never declared himself as a prophet, never even had a dream to become a king. When he was chosen to be a King, it was done in front of other people who would bear witness. Not alone in an empty cave without any witness.

 

[swariffin]

Uh I forgot something. Jesus never teach anything about vengeance. Jesus teach us that there is no greater love than the one who sacrifice his/her life for other people. I myself perhaps never face the situation you mentioned to me. But, from our church, we do have people who did the same thing as Jesus said.

 

[swariffin]

Don’t even compare Muhammad and Elijah too my friend. Elijah called the fire to come from Heaven, and indeed the fire came from Heaven. Muhammad never called the army from Heaven, and indeed declare himself and his followers as the army from heaven. There is a big difference between Come From Heaven and Declare Himself as Coming From Heaven.

 

[TheSufi]

I think, given the full context of Matthew’s account, and the many other accounts of sinners, that Jesus’ message is love in the fullness of charity/love the sinner, BUT hate the sin. That it is for God and not humanity to judge the sinner’s soul.

‘Forgive us our trespasses AS WE FORGIVE those who trespass against us.’

Jesus according to another Matthew account casts out devils in God’s name.

daler - I do not speak with the ‘eye’ of prejudice, only with an attempt to discern just what is going on - I seek the true way.

ps. I very unusually scored 50:50 in the ‘Sheep and Goats’ test at university. Means my judgment of issues and info is pretty balanced.

He [Jesus] said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid to waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself, how then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast him out? Therefore they shall be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you”.

You emphasize context, when I quote Jesus, yet you want me to take Quranic verses out of context.

 

[TheSufi]

Uh I forgot something. Jesus never teach anything about vengeance. Jesus teach us that there is no greater love than the one who sacrifice his/her life for other people. I myself perhaps never face the situation you mentioned to me. But, from our church, we do have people who did the same thing as Jesus said.

Prophet Muhammad never taught vengeance either.

 

[swariffin]

Prophet Muhammad never taught vengeance either.

Good, then where the Jihadist verse as well as the Medina verses came from?

 

[TheSufi]

Good, then where the Jihadist verse as well as the Medina verses came from?

SR, Trix are for kids.

 

[daler]

Don’t even compare Muhammad and Elijah too my friend. Elijah called the fire to come from Heaven, and indeed the fire came from Heaven. Muhammad never called the army from Heaven, and indeed declare himself and his followers as the army from heaven. There is a big difference between Come From Heaven and Declare Himself as Coming From Heaven.

swariffin,
. I’ll tell you plainly what I see in your responses, friend. First is that you are apparently quite ignorant of Islamic history and content to echo the bias of those around you, and Second that all of the Prophets have declared themselves to have been given a Message which does not come from themselves, but that they have been directed by God to deliver His Message.

. The question then returns to the topic: Could Muhammad have been a Prophet?

. The same way we accept or reject the validity of any of the Prophets of God, whether from the Old or New Testaments, must be applied to Muhammad. In fact, we have no reason to accept the validity of any of the Prophets of God other than the stories we have been handed down in traditions. For most part, these traditions have simply been inherited.
. All we really have to go on with Muhammad is the verses of the Quran. No one can possibly make an unbiased judgement without having studied the Quran in depth. Therefore, my friend, I would urge you to overcome whatever inertia may be in the way in this process and pick up a Quran and read it thoroughly, without any inherited bias, as though you were in a Court of Law and obligated under oath to offer a just decision, where the lives of certain defendants are at stake. Only with such a serious approach can one hope to discover the truth, including unveiling prejudices held within one’s own self.

.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

daler - The problem with treating the Qur’an and reading it as in a court of law is obvious. Firstly it tells us little to nothing about the background of its ‘messenger’, not Gabriel, but the one and only human who it is claimed took the ‘message’ from the ‘angelic messenger’. For that your need to go the other books, you also of course need to look at the Qur’an with historic, linguistic and contextual analysis, and you can find a trail that often twists and turns towards being edits of Jewish, Christian and other texts. Many of ‘us’ are also wary of the way Uthman first compiled the Qur’an and his orders for the destruction of the original scraps of parchment and the like that the ‘information’ was first recorded on.

The surviving 15,000 Sana’a Parchment fragments highlight differences to the current Qur’an, and also seem to point to early mistranslations of even earlier ‘other sourced’ meaning and context. Much still needs to be openly debated, if only the holders of the evidence would allow the light of open academic perusal. Instead what we have are those fragments now held in the ‘House of Manuscripts’ with only a ‘selected’ very few able cast an eye over them, thus fuelling curiosity, speculation and conjecture etc… I think I would need to have that cleared up before I even considered using it seriously as a platform upon which to address the likes of oaths.

 

[Reuben_J]

SR, Trix are for kids.

Not necessary. Unfortunately, a so called prophet engaged in it. But the less said is better about this; it is so irksome.

 

[daler]

daler - The problem with treating the Qur’an and reading it as in a court of law is obvious. Firstly it tells us little to nothing about the background of its ‘messenger’, not Gabriel, but the one and only human who it is claimed took the ‘message’ from the ‘angelic messenger’. For that your need to go the other books, you also of course need to look at the Qur’an with historic, linguistic and contextual analysis, and you can find a trail that often twists and turns towards being edits of Jewish, Christian and other texts. Many of ‘us’ are also wary of the way Uthman first compiled the Qur’an and his orders for the destruction of the original scraps of parchment and the like that the ‘information’ was first recorded on.

The surviving 15,000 Sana’a Parchment fragments highlight differences to the current Qur’an, and also seem to point to early mistranslations of even earlier ‘other sourced’ meaning and context. Much still needs to be openly debated, if only the holders of the evidence would allow the light of open academic perusal. Instead what we have are those fragments now held in the ‘House of Manuscripts’ with only a ‘selected’ very few able cast an eye over them, thus fuelling curiosity, speculation and conjecture etc… I think I would need to have that cleared up before I even considered using it seriously as a platform upon which to address the likes of oaths.

Mt Carmel,
. Thank you very much for your concise reply. You make some very good points. First of all I would whole-heartedly agree that there were some very “self-motivated” characters who appeared on the scene. I would likewise question the motivations of Uthman, but would suggest that if there were some inconsistencies, what remains is the “essence” which is contained within the Quran and that that essence indeed carries what was intended, in my opinion.
.
. Where the problem is for me, then, is not within the text of the Quran, but the interpretations, or misinterpretations, of certain of its meanings, such as the “Seal of the Prophets”, which is paramount to the recognition of its other central themes, such as the coming of the Day of Judgement, and the Trumpet Blast, being further Revelation current to our times, etc.

. From your reference to the emergence of the themes from the past, this does not trouble me, in that my own view is that of an underground spring, which wells up from age to age, reviving the land and its people with the same water from its original Unseen Source. The freshness of this spring (in the context of its time and place in Arabia) was appropriate and timely, and the effect it had upon the region and the world indicates it was indeed a Mighty Torrent.

. For my own eyes, first having picked up the Quran forty years ago, and actually reading it several times in the past fifteen years, with as much objectivity as I could muster, I now am able to see it as “Revelation” from God through the medium of Gabriel to Muhammad to mankind. Still, it is in a sense “dated” as to the needs of its age, insufficient for the needs of this day to refresh and vivify all mankind. Rather, I see it as a step, following the many steps up the ladder, from Adam through Ahmad, preparing each successively for climbing the next rung.

. As to “the Seal” of the Prophets, Baha’u’llah states that “The Prophetic Cycle hath verily ended.” That is, the Cycle initiated with Adam and continuing through the Dispensation of the Quran, which lasted 1260 years, and is confirmed in Daniel and Revelation, has properly closed.

.

 

[daler]

Many of ‘us’ are also wary of the way Uthman first compiled the Qur’an and his orders for the destruction of the original scraps of parchment and the like that the ‘information’ was first recorded on.

The surviving 15,000 Sana’a Parchment fragments highlight differences to the current Qur’an, and also seem to point to early mistranslations of even earlier ‘other sourced’ meaning and context. Much still needs to be openly debated, if only the holders of the evidence would allow the light of open academic perusal. Instead what we have are those fragments now held in the ‘House of Manuscripts’ with only a ‘selected’ very few able cast an eye over them, thus fuelling curiosity, speculation and conjecture etc… I think I would need to have that cleared up before I even considered using it seriously as a platform upon which to address the likes of oaths.

PS

. People would very much like to see not only the remainder of the fragments of the original Islamic historical data, Verses, etc, but that which was concealed or simply not made available from Christian sources as well. That is, many would prefer to make their own judgements as to the authenticity of other artifacts from which the current “Bible” has been selectively constructed.

. I have no issue with this, myself, as for my eyes, that which has been given in each case has sufficient “blood” to carry the life of the Spirit as was needed to keep the animal alive from one Dispensation to the next, and that those who are “onto the trail”, will be able to follow it.

. So in neither example, from the Gospels to the Quran, or indeed the Torah, is their insufficient data to carry the boat across the river, if you catch my drift…

.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

daler - There are many many fragments of biblical text openly available for academic scrutiny, there are also two substantial compilations ‘Bibles’ - Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus that include completely surviving New Testaments hand written in the 4th. century AD. It is shown that unlike the claims of ‘Biblical corruption’ made by Islamic sources, that the New Testament of hundreds of years before Muhammad appears much the same in its modern versions. It is a great pity that we can’t with any confidence claim the same for the less accessible earliest surviving Qur’ans and fragments.

Secrecy is always going to throw up questions of ‘why’.

 

[daler]

Mt Carmel,
. Thank you for your genuine and cordial reply. I enjoy dialogue with you. All of this is helpful to serious discussion.

. My understanding of “corruption of the texts” referred to in the Quran is not that the actual texts were corrupted, but rather, in a few instances, the leaders of religion took liberties as to their meaning, applying interpretation and the sway of their authority to their advantage.

. I think that what is important in objectivity is that people not fall into old habits of taking sides, where the analysis of information is, towards a foregone conclusion. There is no “us vs them” where the religion of God is concerned, and any assumption from the start that “we” are right, or “I”, or “my position”, etc, merely locks us into an identity situation which hinders the impartial examination of evidence, kind of like having a bug on the glass under the microscope, or a spec on the lens.

. I don’t mean to say that you are doing this. Its just that it is so common, that people naturally assume the position from which they are starting, usually inherited, is the correct one. In the efforts of succeeding at “The Truth shall set us free”, it is important to abandon all pre-conceived notions, and see with our own eyes. God has handed out a lot of eyes to people for a reason, and brains, too!

. For me, personally, the anti-Muslim bias was quite a mountain in the way, something like racism, and its really hard to erase this natural human tendency to discriminate against “them” and “their ideas”, religion, etc. Especially when there has been so much violence involved, which reinforces the protective reflex to defend oneself and family.

. So I mention this only because I have observed it in myself as well as others. Its like in every war where the bad guys are dehumanized, labeled as Red Coats, commies, gooks, Japs, krouts, Injuns, or “insurgents”, etc. Its a means to solidify a group mentality in order to achieve security and rationalize some really bad behavior which runs counter to our normal Christian values, such as love thine enemies or love thy neighbor as thyself (then nuke them!)

. Just needed to get that stuff out of the way, buddy…

. You know that there was very little paper in the Arabic society where Muhammad appeared, and when verses of the Quran were written down, it was initially on palm leaves, the dried shoulder blades of camels, and that sort of thing. People relied upon oral history and “memorizers”. At some point, most of these guys were being killed off, and at that point there was a decided effort to write down the Verses of the Quran, before it was lost. There were some variations, but primarily they had to do with “accent” marks for those beyond the immediate regions, even as when you go from the Bronx to New Orleans there is a big difference, though all speak English…

.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

daler - Thanks for your polite and reasonable reply, I do always try to cast to one side any ‘human’ temptations towards being prejudiced, I seek only the truth. I am aware that paper would not have been available in the earliest days of Muhammad’s following, but primary source material in whatever form could even then be understood by the likes of Caliph Uthman as being of religious and historic importance. I believe Uthman’s scribes used parchment [thinned animal skin], much as is the case in early Christian tracts.

I do not look in any hostile way to a ‘them and us’ confrontational position, but I am mindful of the reality of ‘difference’, and in viewing ‘difference’ I seek in as balanced a way as possible to rationalise ‘why’.

Pax

 

[daler]

Mt Carmel,
. Very kind and generous reply. Thank you, sir.

. The historical importance is of course very great, much like the historical importance following the period of and after Jesus, or Moses. My understanding of Moses is that it was in His time, finally, that the ancient stories going back to and about Adam and Abraham were finally written down. Chiseling cuneiform explains the “Why?” of Moses’ time, but one would have hoped more would have been written down during Jesus’ actual lifetime and not several decades later.

. So the puzzle surrounding Muhammad is not that much of a stretch. We know they didn’t have reams of paper and email, and when the Hadiths started to fly, some of them were credible and some incredible, depending upon the motives and purity of those telling the stories. There was both embellishment by such as deemed it praiseworthy to add their three cents, and hate-mongering against perceived threats to personal agendas and egos.

. The fact that Ayisha opposed Ali as the Successor to Muhammad by His appointment is used by Shi’ahs to question the validity of certain hadiths attributed to her, for example. Certainly Uthman and Omar had their personal ambitions, and if they picked and chose to strengthen their position this would be in keeping with the norms of the day. Pretty cut-throat crew, you know.

. That the whole “Caliphate” arose was out of opposition to Ali, whom they killed, along with the next ten Imams until the year 260 AH, which doesn’t do a lot for the fairness or the legitimacy of their case. Some connect the mention of a “Day of a thousand years” to both Muslim and Christian prophecy, in that 260 and 1000 total 1260, a recurring number in Daniel and Revelation, and is also referenced in Islamic traditions regarding the appearance of the Qa’im.

. What I think is troubling to the search for the real gems of truth hidden beneath the sands of time and the deserts of Arabia is all the dust blown up immediately upon the death of the Prophet, which right from the offset created the schism which resulted in the Sunni/Shi’ah division which persists until this day. So much dirt was thrown up in the eyes of the faithful by the evil-doers hungry for power, namely the Ummayyads and the previous vendors of the Idols of Mecca, that temporal gain blinded their own eyes and distorted the image of Islam even to themselves.

. What can ya say? This is human behavior at its worst. Same old, same old as the idolators of Abraham’s day, eh? Abraham smashed His father’s idols, Jesus kicked over the tables, Muhammad smashed some more idols… and the dust of hell enshrouds the beauty they all sought to bring. Part of the mystery, isn’t it!

.

 

[swariffin]

All we really have to go on with Muhammad is the verses of the Quran. No one can possibly make an unbiased judgement without having studied the Quran in depth. Therefore, my friend, I would urge you to overcome whatever inertia may be in the way in this process and pick up a Quran and read it thoroughly, without any inherited bias, as though you were in a Court of Law and obligated under oath to offer a just decision, where the lives of certain defendants are at stake. Only with such a serious approach can one hope to discover the truth, including unveiling prejudices held within one’s own self.

.

Daler, my friend. Not because I am ignorant of islamic history. The way I receive the answer is no different whether I began to engage in this forum 5 years ago and now. You mentioned that all you really have to go on with Muhammad is the verses of Quran. How do we know that the verses of Quran is credible, the answer is because of Muhammad said so. We called it as circular reasoning, my friend. Surely, arguing in this forum does not mean that I hate Islam nor the muslims. I do have many muslim friends, whom I trust very much.

I did read Quran, definitely in a translated one since I do not read Arabic. I do find the Meccan Verse are beautiful and I have no question about it. But, the Medina verses to me is a different story. To me, it is just like an “enemy of God or enemy of Muhammad” (I apologize for my definition) had put them along with the beautiful Meccan verses in order to destroy the credibility.

 

[swariffin]

SR, Trix are for kids.

Somebody told me that Muhammad never teach vengeance. And I am willing to believe that, if somebody can convince me. But, the way I read the Jihadist verse as well as the Medina verses is the other way around. So, I am confused? Was it really Muhammad conveyed those Jihadist verses or an enemy of him successfully made fool of him, making Muhammad believe that those verses came from God? Surely I am looking for an adult way of answering question.

 

[swariffin]

PS

. People would very much like to see not only the remainder of the fragments of the original Islamic historical data, Verses, etc, but that which was concealed or simply not made available from Christian sources as well. That is, many would prefer to make their own judgements as to the authenticity of other artifacts from which the current “Bible” has been selectively constructed.

. I have no issue with this, myself, as for my eyes, that which has been given in each case has sufficient “blood” to carry the life of the Spirit as was needed to keep the animal alive from one Dispensation to the next, and that those who are “onto the trail”, will be able to follow it.

. So in neither example, from the Gospels to the Quran, or indeed the Torah, is their insufficient data to carry the boat across the river, if you catch my drift…

.

I understand that the Bible has its own history my friend. But, the topic of this thread is about the prophethood of Muhammad. We can discuss the bible in another thread my be. But, I got your point anyway.