Study the Qur’an?

[Mount_Carmel]

I think that’s unfair. Muhammad’s movement was under direct military threat. It wasn’t just about pride.

However, Muhammad certainly did belong to a culture with a strong emphasis on honor, and Middle Eastern society continues to care much more about such things than Westerners generally do these days.

Edwin

It is true that Muhammad did face military opposition his own very assertive ways - in both his raids on merchant caravans, and on townships and tribes. ‘Honour’ can be and all too often is, subjective, problematic and unduly biased.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

I would say it is almost entirely accurate to what Muhammad revealed, based on the findings of historic textural criticism and my own religious beliefs. I don’t hold scriptural literalism in high regard at all - for the Qur’an, New Testament, Torah, Tripitaka, Upanishads, Yasna, or any other religious tradition.

Muslims themselves vary on literal versus symbolic / esoteric interpretation of the Qur’an - from Salafism on the literalist side to Sufism from the mystical perspective.

Yes, I know quite a lot about the various schools of Islamic thought, and indeed the schools of thought within those schools of thought.

Regarding the accuracy of the Qur’an, be it spiritual, political, or historic, surely you need to test out the veracity of the ‘messenger’ first?

Since there is only a very brief mention of Muhammad in the Qur’an, you have to look to the Sira, Hadiths and Tabari and such, and attempt to sort out the wood from the trees.

 

[Matthew_Light]

It is true that Muhammad did face military opposition his own very assertive ways - in both his raids on merchant caravans, and on townships and tribes. ‘Honour’ can be and all too often is, subjective, problematic and unduly biased.

This statement requires context.

Muhammad and his followers were driven out of Mecca by oppression, murder and violence and their properties confiscated by the Meccan polytheist idolators who sold them.

Muhammad and his followers recovered some of the stolen wealth from Meccan caravans owned by the idolators who had driven them out of Mecca and killed Muslims because of their beliefs.

 

[Matthew_Light]

Regarding the accuracy of the Qur’an, be it spiritual, political, or historic, surely you need to test out the veracity of the ‘messenger’ first?

I thought by “accuracy” of the Qur’an you were implying that the text had changed substantially from what Muhammad had revealed. That is what I was referring to.

From that perspective, using the methodology of historical textual criticism, the Qur’an appears to be quite accurate to what Muhammad revealed, while the Hadiths et. al. are very problematic.

 

[Mount_Carmel]

I would say it is almost entirely accurate to what Muhammad revealed, based on the findings of historic textural criticism and my own religious beliefs. I don’t hold scriptural literalism in high regard at all - for the Qur’an, New Testament, Torah, Tripitaka, Upanishads, Yasna, or any other religious tradition.

Muslims themselves vary on literal versus symbolic / esoteric interpretation of the Qur’an - from Salafism on the literalist side to Sufism from the mystical perspective.

Yes, I know quite a lot about the various schools of Islamic thought, and indeed the schools of thought within those schools of thought.

Regarding the accuracy of the Qur’an, be it spiritual, political, or historic, surely you need to test out the veracity of the ‘messenger’ first?

Since there is only a very brief mention of Muhammad in the Qur’an, you have to look to the Sira, Hadiths and Tabari and such, and attempt to sort out the wood from the trees.

ps. I chose my forum name because I have studied the religious history and significance of Carmel, and I have also become a member of the Carmelite 3rd. order.

I hope that helps.

 

[Matthew_Light]

ps. I chose my forum name because I have studied the religious history and significance of Carmel, and I have also become a member of the Carmelite 3rd. order.

Thanks for the info!

Mt. Carmel is extremely important to Baha’is, that is why I asked.

 

[IdiNaPut]

I am currently in the process of reading the Quran for what must be the umpteenth time. It is my own view that even if I don’t consider Islam the truth, it is possible to appreciate the views of Muslims.

 

[IdiNaPut]

The truth or falsehood of an idea does not depend on how old or how new it is.

Of course, regarding what the verse originally said, we do not know, as the original Arabic script did not include vowels, nor do we have contemporaneous written documentation from Muhammad nor his companions.

As an aside, I greatly prefer including the (name removed by moderator)ut of modern methods of scientific and historical analysis in helping to understand all the sacred scriptures of the past.

The issue of vowel diacritics is really quite irrelevant- Islamic culture has since its birth placed great emphasis on rote memorisation of the Qur’an with absolute correct pronunciation. When it came to written forms of the Qur’an, reference was made to those scholars and those people who had memorised the Qur’an correctly to ensure that verses were correctly written, and the intention of the vowel diacritic marks was similarly referenced to oral memory. The actual intentions of such markers was actually to correct pronunciation in the first place.

 

[Reuben_J]

"Matthew Light:

The truth or falsehood of an idea does not depend on how old or how new it is.

Of course, regarding what the verse originally said, we do not know, as the original Arabic script did not include vowels, nor do we have contemporaneous written documentation from Muhammad nor his companions.

As an aside, I greatly prefer including the (name removed by moderator)ut of modern methods of scientific and historical analysis in helping to understand all the sacred scriptures of the past.

The issue of vowel diacritics is really quite irrelevant- Islamic culture has since its birth placed great emphasis on rote memorisation of the Qur’an with absolute correct pronunciation. When it came to written forms of the Qur’an, reference was made to those scholars and those people who had memorised the Qur’an correctly to ensure that verses were correctly written, and the intention of the vowel diacritic marks was similarly referenced to oral memory. The actual intentions of such markers was actually to correct pronunciation in the first place.

As an aside, this is an interesting point – that the original Quran did not have vowels. We do not know what it really sounded like and therefore totally dependent on vocalized memory. In other word, Muhammad did not leave a written Quran.

This is perfectly normal for religious scriptures except that Muslims claim the Quran as God’s word recorded verbatim. IOW, everything in the Quran was said as how Gabriel uttered it. If, as Mathew Light opined that we cannot really know the original as it was not written with vowels, then it implies a possibility that what was written might not what was vocalized. This poses big gulf in the claim that the Quran is God’s word recorded verbatim.

Reuben

 

[arthra]

As an aside, this is an interesting point – that the original Quran did not have vowels. We do not know what it really sounded like and therefore totally dependent on vocalized memory. In other word, Muhammad did not leave a written Quran.

This is perfectly normal for religious scriptures except that Muslims claim the Quran as God’s word recorded verbatim. IOW, everything in the Quran was said as how Gabriel uttered it. If, as Mathew Light opined that we cannot really know the original as it was not written with vowels, then it implies a possibility that what was written might not what was vocalized. This poses big gulf in the claim that the Quran is God’s word recorded verbatim.

Reuben

I think written Arabic was developing but the verbal Arabic of the Hijaz was fairly consistent… Vowel points were added later as non-Arabs became Muslims and needed the extra cues to pronounce correctly.

Also in a culture where writing was not common … people have good memory skills… If you notice a child while his writing skills are developing will have fairly good memories.

The companions of the Prophet regularly recited the revealed verses. There were also scribes who recorded the revelations of the Qur’an.

see:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayd_ibn_Thabit

Ali ibn abi Talib was a youth when the revelations began to be revealed through Prophet Muhammad… and Ali was the Caliph after Uthman had decreed the standardized Qur’an…if there had been any departure from revelations Ali would have corrected it…

 

[Reuben_J]

I think written Arabic was developing but the verbal Arabic of the Hijaz was fairly consistent… Vowel points were added later as non-Arabs became Muslims and needed the extra cues to pronounce correctly.

Also in a culture where writing was not common … people have good memory skills… If you notice a child while his writing skills are developing will have fairly good memories.

The companions of the Prophet regularly recited the revealed verses. There were also scribes who recorded the revelations of the Qur’an.

see:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zayd_ibn_Thabit

Ali ibn abi Talib was a youth when the revelations began to be revealed through Prophet Muhammad… and Ali was the Caliph after Uthman had decreed the standardized Qur’an…if there had been any departure from revelations Ali would have corrected it…

As I said I have no problem with oral memory. But it been said by another poster that we cannot know the original as it was written without vowels.

The problem is the claim of the Quran being God’s word recorded verbatim. The scribes or the sahabas or the caliphs were not the author of the Quran but only Muhammad who heard the word dictated to him. Thus when it was written, logically only Muhammad can check on it to be able to say whether it was written faithfully according to what was dictated to him or not.

One of the earliest Quran manuscript being discovered was the Yemen manuscript. There were some differences, though slight, being found from the Quran of today. If it was supposed to be God’s word recorded verbatim, then logically the differences should not be there. As it is, the truth died with Muhammad and any proof was being burned by Caliph Uthman. IOW, we can only believe that the present Quran is the unaltered God’s word because it says so.

 

[mamlukman]

No one has mentioned the 7 different dialects the Qur’an could be recited in yet.

See answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap5.html

or Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira’at

The deeper you go, the more you find; at least that’s my experience.

 

[IdiNaPut]

No one has mentioned the 7 different dialects the Qur’an could be recited in yet.

See answering-islam.org/Gilchrist/Jam/chap5.html

or Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qira’at

The deeper you go, the more you find; at least that’s my experience.

I wouldn’t use Answering Islam as a source- aside from the fact it is massively biased, several of the writers are very disreputable and have been known to fabricate and outright lie.

 

[Contarini]

I wouldn’t use Answering Islam as a source- aside from the fact it is massively biased, several of the writers are very disreputable and have been known to fabricate and outright lie.

I treat that website with grave suspicion myself, but the charge of lying is very serious and either needs to be supported with solid evidence or withdrawn.

Generally I find that Answering Islam has some good answers to the very bad arguments commonly made by Islamic apologetics. (Christian apologetics is typically awful–but most Islamic apologetics is worse by several orders of magnitude.) But they have an extremely hostile, biased attitude to Islam and are not good sources for understanding Islam itself (as opposed to refuting certain bad arguments made on its behalf).

But I have no reason to believe that anyone connected with that website deliberately lies. I find that most people who sling such accusations around have insufficient appreciation for the vast human capacity for inadvertent error, particularly when deep prejudices are involved.

Edwin

 

[IdiNaPut]

I treat that website with grave suspicion myself, but the charge of lying is very serious and either needs to be supported with solid evidence or withdrawn.

Generally I find that Answering Islam has some good answers to the very bad arguments commonly made by Islamic apologetics. (Christian apologetics is typically awful–but most Islamic apologetics is worse by several orders of magnitude.) But they have an extremely hostile, biased attitude to Islam and are not good sources for understanding Islam itself (as opposed to refuting certain bad arguments made on its behalf).

But I have no reason to believe that anyone connected with that website deliberately lies. I find that most people who sling such accusations around have insufficient appreciation for the vast human capacity for inadvertent error, particularly when deep prejudices are involved.

Edwin

Dobar dan!

You’ve obviously not seen anything by Sam Shamoun, whose works make up a good portion of the AI website. In numerous online debates with Islamic Da’ees such as Sami Zatari he has quite openly denied saying things he quite clearly did say, fabricating evidence for his claims, making personal attacks on his opponents and generally being foul-mouthed and ill-mannered.

There is a difference the size of Zagreb too between a genuine error, which is understandable, and deliberate deception. The likes of Sam Shamoun know fine and well a significant proportion of their audience isn’t particularly knowledgable regarding genuine Islamic knowledge, and they use this to their advantage, including misquoting Quran verses and misstating Islamic theology and beliefs, making massive logical fallacies and basically making poor arguments all round.

 

[mamlukman]

Every day I run across more stuff, so I’ll disgorge some of it here.

As you all probably know, the issue of 'Aisha being 6 years old when she married Muhammad and being 9 years old when they consummated the marriage has been a point of attack for Christians, and a sore spot for Muslims. Emilie/Myriam Francois-Cerrah was speaking somewhere (UCLA?) and of course this came up in the Q&A. Myriam dismissed it with a haughty wave of her hand and went into a speech about how we don’t know how old 'Aisha was, she might have been 18, etc. etc. I was skeptical.

So here’s a nice Muslim web site, nogodbutallah.org/aishas-marriage-9-or-19/
that addresses the issue. I’m quoting from the article on the web site:

“So far as I am aware, the first person to raise his voice in objecting to the tradition that Lady ‘A’ishah (ra) was married at six years of age was Maulana Muhammad Ali of Lahore, when he wrote in his English publication Muhammad the Prophet (1924) an account of Lady ‘A’ishah’s marriage.”

So lo and behold, it seems that Muslims accepted the 6 and 9 business until it was questioned in 1924 by an Indian who was probably pushing back against Christian accusations of paedophila. This is yet another example of beliefs that have been held by Muslims for 1300+ years, and then, in reaction to Christian attacks, they are miraculously altered. And yet we are told over and over that the Qur’an is unchanging (yes, yes, this isn’t in the Qur’an) and that the “gate of ijtihad” is closed.

As I’ve stated elsewhere, this is not just an academic exercise. Religious courts in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and several other Arab countries have used the tradition of 'Aisha being 6 when she married and 9 when she consummated the marriage to fix the age of marriage for girls at 9, on the theory that Muhammad cannot possible have done anything wrong, and that all good Muslims should follow his example. So it has very practical effects. Ask the girls.

 

[Contarini]

Dobar dan!

You’ve obviously not seen anything by Sam Shamoun, whose works make up a good portion of the AI website. In numerous online debates with Islamic Da’ees such as Sami Zatari he has quite openly denied saying things he quite clearly did say, fabricating evidence for his claims, making personal attacks on his opponents and generally being foul-mouthed and ill-mannered.

There is a difference the size of Zagreb too between a genuine error, which is understandable, and deliberate deception. The likes of Sam Shamoun know fine and well a significant proportion of their audience isn’t particularly knowledgable regarding genuine Islamic knowledge, and they use this to their advantage, including misquoting Quran verses and misstating Islamic theology and beliefs, making massive logical fallacies and basically making poor arguments all round.

That they make a lot of poor arguments I don’t doubt. If you want me to believe a charge of deliberate lying I’d need more specific examples with documentation. Of course you are under no obligation to provide this–it’s not of huge importance to me. A person can deny saying something they said without deliberately lying. I’ve done this myself on occasion–genuinely forgotten that I said something I said, or carelessly expressed myself in one context in a way that I wanted to repudiate in another, and been embarrassed when someone pointed out my inconsistency, which I genuinely hadn’t noticed.

When people’s words and writings are driven by an overwhelming polemical or apologetic agenda, they tend to fall into this more often. And at some point a line is crossed into dishonesty when people choose not to be self-critical and choose to justify themselves and try to deny the embarrassing facts instead of admitting them.

I do note with regard to Mr. Shamoun that Catholics find his arguments with regard to Catholicism to be hugely flawed and unworthy of (what some of them take to be) his good reputation as an apologist against Islam. I always find that sort of statement suspicious. If someone is clearly unreliable and unfair when dealing with your religion, it’s likely that he’s equally unreliable when dealing with the religion you both disagree with, and you just don’t see it. So I’m not surprised by your negative appraisal of Mr. Shamoun’s work, having heard the same appraisal from Catholics about his statements concerning Catholicism.

Edwin

 

[Thorolfr]

The deeper you go, the more you find; at least that’s my experience.

That’s true of any religious tradition, including Catholicism as I’ve discovered here in CAF.

 

[SyroMalankara]

That they make a lot of poor arguments I don’t doubt. If you want me to believe a charge of deliberate lying I’d need more specific examples with documentation. Of course you are under no obligation to provide this–it’s not of huge importance to me. A person can deny saying something they said without deliberately lying. I’ve done this myself on occasion–genuinely forgotten that I said something I said, or carelessly expressed myself in one context in a way that I wanted to repudiate in another, and been embarrassed when someone pointed out my inconsistency, which I genuinely hadn’t noticed.

When people’s words and writings are driven by an overwhelming polemical or apologetic agenda, they tend to fall into this more often. And at some point a line is crossed into dishonesty when people choose not to be self-critical and choose to justify themselves and try to deny the embarrassing facts instead of admitting them.

I do note with regard to Mr. Shamoun that Catholics find his arguments with regard to Catholicism to be hugely flawed and unworthy of (what some of them take to be) his good reputation as an apologist against Islam. I always find that sort of statement suspicious. If someone is clearly unreliable and unfair when dealing with your religion, it’s likely that he’s equally unreliable when dealing with the religion you both disagree with, and you just don’t see it. So I’m not surprised by your negative appraisal of Mr. Shamoun’s work, having heard the same appraisal from Catholics about his statements concerning Catholicism.

Edwin

A pretty good example, although seemingly uneventful is the ‘concealment’ of the beliefs and rituals of the Alawis of Syria (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alawites)… their practices, structures, systems and faith are shrouded in mystery because they tend keep it hidden and blend in to avoid persecution.

Other unsubstantiated claims I’ve seen often repeated are 'prominent convert’ism. There was a story about some UK ex-RC priest turned Muslim, however the man obscures his pre-Islamic name to avoid having anyone actually verify the authenticity of the claim. There is also the story of some priest/bishop who did the same some centuries ago, again unverifiable - until one checks out the repeated “facts” and they don’t line up. There was even a post here on CAF that some claimed showed Christians celebrating and processing into a Shia festival … turns out that was just some locals in ‘Christian costume’ because the dress was too odd and mismatched to be authentic.

Here are the so-called ‘christians’ during Ashura or Muharram:
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)


Doesn’t look like any Eastern, Oriental, Roman, Assyrian sect I’ve ever seen.

 

[Brandon_Cal]

SyroMalankara,

I’m confused. Those are examples of Mr. Shamoun’s dishonesty or something else?