Where does the "Moon God" myth of Islam come from?

[schaick]

I understand the “but” there to have the meaning of “unless.” Another translation is “Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it.”

I may be wrong, but this is certainly a possible meaning held by many Muslims. I’m happy to hear that other Muslims reject abrogation. So much, again, for the claim that abrogation makes the “peaceful verses” irrelevant!

Says who? What gives you the right to make such an assertion?

Again, how do you distinguish between “true” and “false” Muslims? You seem to be saying that Muslims who agree with your interpretation of the Qur’an are true, while others are false. That seems both weird and arrogant to me.

Do you think that there are parts of life unaffected by Christianity?

The fact that Christianity is no longer seen as an “ideology” in this sense is one of the huge problems with modern Christianity. I don’t think that the secularization and privatization of Western Christendom is something of which to be proud, on the whole.

Now granted, we don’t have a comprehensive system of law in the way that Islam and Judaism do, and I think that’s a good thing.

Please refrain from the rude and arrogant assumption that those who differ from you do so out of ignorance. Please answer my objections.

As interpreted by you. Clearly many Muslims disagree.

As interpreted by you. Many Christians have historically disagreed, including saints and Doctors of the Catholic Church such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Thomas More.

I don’t think you hate Muslims. I think you are not thinking clearly or fairly about Islam. I am in no position to judge your motives, but I can easily believe that they are excellent ones. That doesn’t make your arguments correct. Your claim to discern what is “true Islam” or what a “good Muslim” is simply makes no sense, as I have shown above. You simply keep repeating that claim without substantiating it.

In Christ,

Edwin

Basically all the questions you ask can be answered with - Muslims by their words and deeds.

Islam is a works based religion. Why muslims go around killing each other? They aren’t muslim enough.

In group discussions and one on one, observation of how muslims act in public and private, when they are out numbered and when there is a whole group.

lol!! Saying -Please do some more reading on the subject. is arogant and rude? You can’t see it because you need to learn more about it. period. Not saying you are ignorant, but uneducated in the ways of Islam.

Goodness muslims are uneducated in the truth about Islam. I can’t tell you how many times a muslim explains that when they discover the truth about Mohammad and Islam they leave-undercover of course

Christians can live every aspct of their lives as a Christian and yet are able to integrate. Christianity is about self and what we do, how we can correct ourselfs out in the world.

csmonitor.com/2005/1117/p09s02-coop.html
One school has separate toilets for “Muslims” and “Frenchmen”; another obeyed a Muslim leader’s call for separate locker rooms because “the circumcised should not have to undress alongside the impure.”

Muslims are ordered to conquer the world, change it to Islam and have all non-muslims subordinate.

articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/06/world/la-fg-1206-muslim-poll-20101206
According to the survey, majorities in Pakistan, Egypt, Jordan and Nigeria would favor changing current laws to allow stoning as a punishment for adultery, hand amputation for theft and death for those who convert from Islam to another religion. About 85% of Pakistani Muslims said they would support a law segregating men and women in the workplace.

 

[Contarini]

Basically all the questions you ask can be answered with - Muslims by their words and deeds.

But this is circular. You tacitly admit that not all Muslims are violent. So your answer makes no sense at all. You can’t say that observation of all Muslims (some of whom are violent and some aren’t, though the reality is not as dichotomous as that) teaches you which Muslims are real Muslims and which aren’t. Unless you are claiming that there is an inevitable correlation between piety and violence in Islam. You would need some pretty impressive statistical evidence to convince me of that. Anecdotal stories of people who became more violent when they became more devout don’t cut it, though they certainly show that militant Muslims have a disturbingly easy task when they seek to convince other Muslims that their version of Islam is true.

Islam is a works based religion. Why muslims go around killing each other? They aren’t muslim enough.

Yes, you keep saying this. But you haven’t presented an argument showing it. You just go round in circles.

In group discussions and one on one, observation of how muslims act in public and private, when they are out numbered and when there is a whole group.

So you have some vaguely defined anecdotal evidence that you think supports this. Well, sorry, but I’ll trust the people who spend their lives studying Islam before I trust you.

lol!! Saying -Please do some more reading on the subject. is arogant and rude? You can’t see it because you need to learn more about it. period. Not saying you are ignorant, but uneducated in the ways of Islam.

I am relatively uninformed about the matter. I’ve read a few books on the subject, but relatively little compared to all there is to know. However, I have yet to see any reason to believe your claims of superior expertise. The people whom I know to be more informed about Islam than myself generally describe Islam more favorably than I do (and no, I’m not talking about Muslim but non-Muslim scholars of Islam such as Marshall Hodgson or John Esposito).

That’s why your claim is rude and arrogant. You have to earn the right to take that tone. When you convince me that you have insights into Islam I don’t have, then you can tell me how to gain the insights you have. So far, you haven’t convinced me of this, so taking a superior tone just “annoys the pig” (the pig being your humble servant).

Christianity is about self and what we do, how we can correct ourselfs out in the world.

That is your interpretation of Christianity. I think it’s a truncated one.

Edwin

 

[UnworthyApostle]

I, a man who has gone on a long spiritual journey from paganism/occultism, to pondering Judaism and Islam, and finally coverted to Catholicsm, feel that some words should be said about Islam.

First, it is a venerable religion that has some of the most devout followers of God this earth has. I wish at times Christians could be as devout as Muslims, especially in the west. To degrade all Muslims to the level of terrorist is quite unchartiable.

However, there are verses in the quaran that can be used to justify violent acts towards other human beings. We must not be blind, and simply ignore the turbulent times of our world. I will go out on a limb, and say that a great number of terrorists are Muslim,but a majority of Muslims ARE NOT terrorists. The terrorist Muslims simply buy into a sick and peverted version of Islam that is pandered by somebody with an agenda, usually a political one.

In a final word, most Muslims are wonderful, devout, and God fearing people. Only some have fallen victim to the sick ideology fo Militant Islam.

Salam! Peace to all!

 

[Reuben_J]

I am attempting to speak the truth. Why are you introducing irrelevant epithets like “fence sitting” instead of discussing truth?

If I understand correctly there is such thing as mainstream Muslims (I am merely quoting them) and there are sects that deviate from true Islam and yet call themselves Muslims. So basically you are saying Ahmadiah Muslims are as correct as the Sunnis and therefore we cannot know who are the good Muslims (the one who follow true Islamic teaching).

For which part? I have frequently encountered Muslims in person or in writing who either spiritualize jihad or consider it defensive. If you are questioning the fact that many Muslims take this view, I can find evidence.

By qualifying yourself now with ‘frequently’ and then ‘many’ Muslims is a non-starter as you are actually making a statement – “Many Muslims today regard jihad either in a purely spiritualized sense or as a struggle for righteousness which may involve defensive warfare. It seems pretty clear that traditional Islamic law does not take that position”, since you use this to argue we cannot judge (or know) what are the bad or good Muslims. The first part of the sentence is misleading and avoiding a commitment to state a position because many Muslims today also do not take that position. The reasonable position on Jihad – it is as an internal struggle against impurity which make up of about 80% while the rest can be a defensive Jihad but only when Islam is under attacked. So you are not quite right, huh? It is not either/or.

And what is the traditional Islamic Law? You said it is “jihad as a war against non-Muslim governments, with the purpose of establishing Islamic law over all the world and forcing non-Muslims to pay tribute”. Is that so? I have not heard Muslims saying this, thus where do you get this? If you are trying to be fair like you said, then that statement is hardly fair at all, I suppose. The understanding of Jihad has not changed, not the ‘traditional’ or ‘now’.

I am not trying to defend Islam but merely pointing out your own fallacy. I can understand the need to disagree but when it is for the sake of wanting to have disagreement when nothing much is to disagree with, you can make yourself look quite contradictory.

But schaick doesn’t seem to question that there are Muslims who interpret Islam this way–he just thinks that they are “bad Muslims.” That’s the point I’d like to focus on. If you seriously deny that such supposedly “bad Muslims” even exist, then I can try to find you that evidence when I have the leisure.

The colloquial impression that non-Muslims often say is that you have to be ‘bad’ if you want to be good Muslim because it means to follow Islamic commandment and some of that commands do allow for killing and violent.

Likewise if you want to be good Christian you have to be abnormally different because some of Christianity teachings are contradictory to the world’s.

I presume that you aren’t disputing my claims about traditional views of jihad as offensive warfare against non-Muslim governments.

I already did. And you have to use your own standard in doing that – ask the Muslims themselves rather you making an opinion.

 

[Contarini]

If I understand correctly there is such thing as mainstream Muslims (I am merely quoting them) and there are sects that deviate from true Islam and yet call themselves Muslims. So basically you are saying Ahmadiah Muslims are as correct as the Sunnis and therefore we cannot know who are the good Muslims (the one who follow true Islamic teaching).

Of course we have no ground for saying that the Sunnis are more “correct.” Correct in what sense? Correct in their interpretation of what the historical Muhammad originally intended as determined by secular scholarship? (Never mind that it’s so far not clear to me that you’re actually familiar with professional secular scholarship on Islam.) Why is that relevant? Do we Christians care (or should we care) about whether our interpretation of Christianity is faithful to what secular scholars think the historical Jesus intended? (Goodbye Trinity and Incarnation and most of the Christian Faith, if that’s the line we take.)

Now if you’re talking “mainstream,” that’s quite different. Of course we can note that the Sunnis are the majority and the Shi’a the minority; that Sufism was part of mainstream Islam for centuries but has been defined as heretical by the Wahhabis and similar movements in recent centuries; and that radical Shi’a offshoots such as the Ahmadis are generally not accepted as real Muslims by the Sunnis. None of that requires us to start talking about what is a “good” or a “real” Muslim. That language implies belief in the truth of Islam in the first place. Since neither you nor I hold such a belief, that language is meaningless to us.

By qualifying yourself now with ‘frequently’ and then ‘many’ Muslims is a non-starter as you are actually making a statement – “Many Muslims today regard jihad either in a purely spiritualized sense or as a struggle for righteousness which may involve defensive warfare. It seems pretty clear that traditional Islamic law does not take that position”, since you use this to argue we cannot judge (or know) what are the bad or good Muslims.

No. Sorry if I am not being clear. We can’t say anything meaningful about who are the “good” Muslims because we are not Muslims. A good Muslim is a Muslim who is faithful to the divine revelation given to the prophet Muhammad, surely. Since neither you nor I believe that there is such a thing as a divine revelation given to the prophet Muhammad, we have no business engaging in a conversation about what a good “Muslim” is. Do you want non-Christians judging who the good Christians are? I’ve heard them do so and it’s ridiculous. It always boils down to some non-Christians describing the “good Christians” as the ones who hold beliefs that the non-Christians find less threatening, and others, more hostile to Christianity, describing the “good Christians” as radical fundamentalists who think that God is an angry monster of a deity who kills people on a whim. Conversations among non-Muslims about “good Muslims” are equally pointless. Of course we can made some judgment as to which Muslims seem to be good people, or which versions of Islam are relatively closer to the absolute truth. But clearly you are not talking about either of these things.

My statements about what “many Muslims” believe vs. what traditional Islamic law teaches were not presented as proof for the proposition that we can’t say what a “good Muslim” is. You introduced a conversation about jihad, because you are arguing that a “good Muslim” has to obey the command to wage jihad. I pointed out that in fact there are different ways of interpreting the concept of “jihad.” That fact does not itself prove that Christians have no business saying which version of Islam is “better” or “truer” by Islamic standards. This latter is a logical principle deriving from an analysis of what we mean when we speak of “good Islam” or “true Islam” (an analysis that neither you nor schaick seem willing to make, so far). I’m using it to interpret the diversity of Islam. Of course if all self-proclaimed Muslims agreed on the point at issue, there would be no debate. But I didn’t think that was the point being argued.

The first part of the sentence is misleading and avoiding a commitment to state a position

I don’t see what is misleading. Of course by saying that “many” Muslims spiritualize I’m admitting that many others don’t. Nothing misleading whatsoever.

And I am stating a position. I’m not going to state a position more specific than I have evidence for. I don’t know how many Muslims take this approach. But it is an approach that I have encountered repeatedly in the writings of Muslims and in non-Muslim scholarship on Islam. If you have more precise information, with solid evidence to support it, please present that information.

because many Muslims today also do not take that position. The reasonable position on Jihad – it is as an internal struggle against impurity which make up of about 80% while the rest can be a defensive Jihad but only when Islam is under attacked.

I’m not sure what this sentence means–the syntax is a bit confusing. 80% of what? Of Muslims? How would you know this? 80% of the jihad that needs to take place?

But basically this is the position I was describing as held by “modern Muslims.”

So you are not quite right, huh? It is not either/or.

You’re right. I did not in fact mean to say that the two categories were exclusive–I should have said “and/or” in order to be clearer. The point is that both of these positions modify the view found in traditional fiqh.

 

[Contarini]

And what is the traditional Islamic Law?

The discipline of fiqh, which was developed over centuries and consists of four major schools: Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi’i, and Hanbali. Modern Islamic fundamentalists tend to rely on a particularly hardline interpretation of the Hanbali school, which is itself on the whole the harshest and most militant of the four schools. (Some fundamentalists don’t seem to put any stock in traditional law at all, attempting to return to what they see as the original teachings of Islam.) However, the differences among them are often fairly minor from an outsider’s perspective.

Wikipedia is not a bad place to start for the basic concepts (see their articles on “fiqh,” “jihad,” and on “Islamic military jurisprudence”. However, obviously it can’t be relied on for complex matters of interpretation.

You said it is “jihad as a war against non-Muslim governments, with the purpose of establishing Islamic law over all the world and forcing non-Muslims to pay tribute”. Is that so? I have not heard Muslims saying this, thus where do you get this?

It’s a summary of what scholarly sources pretty uniformly say. See for instance F. E. Peters, Islam: A Guide for Jews and Christians (Princeton University Press, 2003), pp. 206-9.

If you are trying to be fair like you said, then that statement is hardly fair at all, I suppose.

Why do you suppose this? Are you confusing “fair” with “nice”?

I’m describing the traditional position. I know that most Muslims today do not talk this way, which is my point about “many Muslims” taking a different position. You accuse me of being “contradictory,” but you have not presented evidence showing this. My position is coherent: there is a fairly clear medieval consensus in favor of jihad as war against non-Muslim nations to force them either to accept Islam or pay a tax (though with considerable variation on the details), but many Muslims today take a different view. I am in no position to say that these Muslims are “bad” Muslims just because they depart from the views dominant among the medieval jurists, since I would not appreciate a non-Christian saying that a Christian was a “bad Christian” for rejecting views dominant among medieval scholastics. Furthermore, some Muslims have unfortunately taken a particularly hardline interpretation of the Hanbali school (identified with the late medieval jurist Ibn Taymiyya) as the one most in accord with their understanding of original Islam. (Ibn Taymiyya’s main innovation, unfortunately followed by modern fundamentalists, was to insist that individual Muslims had the duty both to wage warfare on the infidel if governments weren’t doing it and even to rise up in revolt against Islamic governments that were too soft on infidels.) So departure from the medieval consensus is not entirely a good thing from our perspective!

The wikipedia article “Opnion of Islamic scholars on Jihad” has a bunch of passages from different sources which should be treated with caution, but note the section on “Permission for warfare according to Islamic jurists,” especially the first four quotes.

Andrew Bostom has edited a vast collection of primary sources, though again this must be used with caution–Bostom is not a professional scholar of Islam and clearly has a strong anti-Islamic bias.

If you’re seriously interested, I can get you more references. There’s a limit to the number of reliable sources you can find on the Internet on a polarizing topic like this. I did find what appears to be a fair and accurate (as far as I can determine) study of the topic produced for the U.S. military.

The understanding of Jihad has not changed, not the ‘tditional’ or ‘now’.

I’m not sure where you get this. This would be truly astounding if true, and there’s plenty of evidence to the contrary. Ibn Taymiyya introduced some tweaks into the medieval consensus which have been followed by modern fundamentalists (when they don’t simply disregard traditional authorities in favor of their own reading of the Qur’an and hadith.) On the other hand, a great many modern Islamic scholars have proposed a more moderate understanding of jihad–you can find references to them in some of the Wikipedia articles to which I referred you above.

The colloquial impression that non-Muslims often say is that you have to be ‘bad’ if you want to be good Muslim because it means to follow Islamic commandment and some of that commands do allow for killing and violent.

Sure, but as with any sacred text the interpretive questions are very complicated.

Likewise if you want to be good Christian you have to be abnormally different because some of Christianity teachings are contradictory to the world’s.

Yes, but there are all sorts of disagreements among Christians as to what this means. Would you really want non-Christians dogmatically declaring that some Christians are “good Christians” while others are “bad”? That pacifists, for instance, are the only true Christians because they literally follow certain things Jesus said? Or, conversely, that ruthless warfare is mandatory for Christians because there are commands enjoining it in the OT and some similar passages in the Book of Revelation? (And yes, of course I know that we have all sorts of hermeneutical arguments to show that these passages don’t mean that we should kill unbelievers. That’s my point–the issues are always more complicated than prooftexting would imply.)

Edwin

 

[schaick]

Great video on insidecatholic:

insidecatholic.com/feature/is-the-only-good-muslim-a-bad-muslim.html

The video is long but very interesting.

Is the Only Good Muslim a Bad Muslim?

 

[Contarini]

Great video on insidecatholic:

insidecatholic.com/feature/is-the-only-good-muslim-a-bad-muslim.html

The video is long but very interesting.

Is the Only Good Muslim a Bad Muslim?

Would you be willing to articulate a response to my arguments yourself?

I prefer not to be answered with videos.

Of course, if you choose not to answer, that’s fine!

Edwin

 

[hira101]

sorry i can,t say any of my comments on it because i have no experience about it

 

[schaick]

Would you be willing to articulate a response to my arguments yourself?

I prefer not to be answered with videos.

Of course, if you choose not to answer, that’s fine!

Edwin

I have answered. My references = my comments are based on my experience of speaking with and observing Muslims one on one and in groups, reading the Quran and hadith, reading many different histories of how Islam grew in it’s ealy days, reading fatwas, preachings of many imam, reading multiple tafsir, etc.

You do not want to increase your knowledge on the subject? OK. Your choice.

 

[benidict]

I have answered. My references = my comments are based on my experience of speaking with and observing Muslims one on one and in groups, reading the Quran and hadith, reading many different histories of how Islam grew in it’s ealy days, reading fatwas, preachings of many imam, reading multiple tafsir, etc.

You do not want to increase your knowledge on the subject? OK. Your choice.

And this is the big difference. While he is to my knowledge a scholar, and possibly a professor, theory and book knowledge only goes so far. Take you for example, actually having contact, studying with, and learning directly from these people, and myself a soldier, we are going to have different views than those in the academic field. This is not to short change them though. We need scholars as well. I got a feeling you are pretty well educated yourself though…LOL! Peace

 

[Contarini]

I have answered. My references = my comments are based on my experience of speaking with and observing Muslims one on one and in groups, reading the Quran and hadith, reading many different histories of how Islam grew in it’s ealy days, reading fatwas, preachings of many imam, reading multiple tafsir, etc.

You do not want to increase your knowledge on the subject? OK. Your choice.

I do want to increase my knowledge–from reliable sources.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

And this is the big difference. While he is to my knowledge a scholar, and possibly a professor, theory and book knowledge only goes so far. Take you for example, actually having contact, studying with, and learning directly from these people, and myself a soldier, we are going to have different views than those in the academic field. This is not to short change them though. We need scholars as well. I got a feeling you are pretty well educated yourself though…LOL! Peace

Benidict,

I am happy to learn from you and others who have practical experience. But what I’m going to learn from you, for instance, is what people in Iraq in the 21st century are thinking and doing. That’s extremely important, but it isn’t going to answer the question schaick and I are debating. For one thing, it’s a theoretical question and my argument is primarily based on the nature of truth (you can’t meaningfully say that someone is a “true Muslim” if you don’t believe Islam is true in the first place–so that’s not language any of the three of us should be using). But even granting that what schaick means is something like “historic, mainstream Islam,” you aren’t going to get a good sense for what historic, mainstream Islam is by talking to a lot of contemporary Muslims, any more than talking to a bunch of contemporary Christians gives non-Christians a good idea of contemporary Christianity.

Richard Dawkins and other atheists see themselves as justified in ignoring and dismissing the great, mainstream, orthodox Christian theologians and judging Christianity based on contemporary forms that they see having great popular appeal. I don’t think this is just, and the Golden Rule requires me to treat Islam the way I wish non-Christians would treat Christianity.

Edwin

 

[schaick]

Benidict,

I am happy to learn from you and others who have practical experience. But what I’m going to learn from you, for instance, is what people in Iraq in the 21st century are thinking and doing. That’s extremely important, but it isn’t going to answer the question schaick and I are debating. For one thing, it’s a theoretical question and my argument is primarily based on the nature of truth (you can’t meaningfully say that someone is a “true Muslim” if you don’t believe Islam is true in the first place–so that’s not language any of the three of us should be using). But even granting that what schaick means is something like “historic, mainstream Islam,” you aren’t going to get a good sense for what historic, mainstream Islam is by talking to a lot of contemporary Muslims, any more than talking to a bunch of contemporary Christians gives non-Christians a good idea of contemporary Christianity.

Richard Dawkins and other atheists see themselves as justified in ignoring and dismissing the great, mainstream, orthodox Christian theologians and judging Christianity based on contemporary forms that they see having great popular appeal. I don’t think this is just, and the Golden Rule requires me to treat Islam the way I wish non-Christians would treat Christianity.

Edwin

Watch the video!!