False. We can examine what they themselves say of their faith.
Of course we can. But when they say conflicting things, we have no basis to decide that some of them are “true Muslims” and others are “false Muslims.” That’s my point.
For you, only communists can learn about communism.
No, you have misunderstood me. Of course we can learn about Islam. But we can’t decide which of the many phenomena of Islam are “true” and which are “false” (“true” or “false” to some supposed essence of Islam, that is).
It does follow that I’m in no position to say (as I was taught to say in college) that the Trotskyites were “truer” communists than the Stalinists.
I’m not saying that you can’t say that as far as you see it one group is closer to the teaching of Muhammad (or Marx) than another group. But that doesn’t really mean much. To take your own analogy, the fact is that much of what passed for Communism in the Cold War era was Stalinist or Maoist, and these were not the same things as original Marxism. But they were the phenomena with which the rest of us had to deal. Whether they were faithful to Marx’s original teachings was a point only of relevance to Marxists (and to historians of the 19th century who needed to be careful not to read Stalin or Mao, or even Lenin, back into Marx).
I know they do. My point is that we shouldn’t, except when we are studying Muhammad as a historical figure. When studying Islam as a modern religion, we have to look at how
Muslims interpret the original teachings. Whether we think these are the most historically accurate ways to interpret those teachings is irrelevant.
How would you feel if non-Christians started telling you how to interpret the New Testament based on what they had concluded it actually meant?
What add-on to the Koran has been developed of late?
Your profile says that you are Orthodox, so you have no excuse for asking such a silly question. You know perfectly well that religions do not simply consist in a literal exegesis of their sacred scriptures. No religion does. That’s a fundamentalist Protestant delusion.
How do you know when you just argued that no one can know what’s true for Islam?
No, that is not what I said. I said no one can know what is “true Islam,” not what is “true for Islam.” I said that we can observe the phenomena of Islam–i.e., what Muslims actually teach and do. Exactly as you are suggesting. What we cannot do is formulate some “true” essence of Islam by which to decide that some of these phenomena are more authentically Muslim than others. *That *is a meaningful issue only for Muslims.
Edwin
