Approaching Islam

sorry meant to say ali's son, not brother [his eldest had kept quiet in medina compromising with the syrian caliphate mu'awiya] 'thereafter shi'ism will oscillate between quietism and activism' [m.ruthven].

that is why translations into other languages are frowned upon, since the pronunciations are as important as the meanings; unlike the old testament, for the christians, which originally was in koine or the vernacular greek and therefore retranslated, the arabic was honed to perfection within a smaller timescale. but though the quran is considered the 'law', comparable to 'christ' [for eg] the precepts within it - practical doctrines/ethics had to be supplemented by the sunna and hadith.

much better for muslims to enlarge on this; needless to say there are different levels of acurateness in the hadith. sayings of the prophet. l think in turkey they want to re evaluate and get rid of the extraneous bits in it.
 
Tao_Equus said:
The Koran was compiled by Uthman a century after the death of Muhammad. He, like Muhammad, was a ruthless tribal warlord well aware of how Constantine had usurped Christian monotheism to political ends. The many, many glaring contradictions and worse, abrogations contained within the Koran show it to be about as credible in authorship as the bible. IE, not credible at all as an authentic script.
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Do you realise that nobody can compile anything quarter century after his death......... and that was your pure unadulterated fact.......you are really crazy man.
 
Tao_Equus said:
I do not have to, (and i am sure no one here really wants to see me start over on this again), since you intend buying a koran anyway. It is all in there.
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Well then sweetheart, leave me to my reading of the book as I am perfectly capable of forming my own opinions.

If you have provided solid evidence before of your claims, link me to it. But I highly doubt that you have read it yourself, have you??
 
nativeastral said:
sorry meant to say ali's son, not brother [his eldest had kept quiet in medina compromising with the syrian caliphate mu'awiya] 'thereafter shi'ism will oscillate between quietism and activism' [m.ruthven].

that is why translations into other languages are frowned upon, since the pronunciations are as important as the meanings; unlike the old testament, for the christians, which originally was in koine or the vernacular greek and therefore retranslated, the arabic was honed to perfection within a smaller timescale. but though the quran is considered the 'law', comparable to 'christ' [for eg] the precepts within it - practical doctrines/ethics had to be supplemented by the sunna and hadith.

much better for muslims to enlarge on this; needless to say there are different levels of acurateness in the hadith. sayings of the prophet. l think in turkey they want to re evaluate and get rid of the extraneous bits in it.
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Lol you're like a walking book of information :D I thought that the Bible was originally written in Sanskrit?
 
GlorytoGod said:
hey I am not doing that, I think you are mistaken :confused:

I have suggested that Snugglepuff investigates a couple of important topics regarding Islam, whats wrong with that ?
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Because you're intentions do not be to allow someone to discover more about the foundations of a religion themselves, as much as try and push them into areas you consider critically critical.

Someone asked about the Qur'an, not the politics - perhaps each step at a time. Reading the Quran does not turn one into a Muslim, but can raise a lot of very interesting questions. As with reading any sacred lit.


Snugglepuff said:
Lol you're like a walking book of information :D I thought that the Bible was originally written in Sanskrit?
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Torah (Old Testament) - Hebrew
New Testament - Greek
Mahabarata - Sanskrit
 
Snugglepuff said:
Well then sweetheart, leave me to my reading of the book as I am perfectly capable of forming my own opinions.

If you have provided solid evidence before of your claims, link me to it. But I highly doubt that you have read it yourself, have you??
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From back to front.... no other book has sickened me so much. And that was long b4 9/11.
 
Namaste and salaam,

Tao has the right of it in one aspect, at any rate, if you want to really read Al Qur'an you need to learn Arabic... specifically Qur'anic Arabic which is different than the vernacular spoken today... i didn't realize that when i lived in North Africa but then it wasn't really explained to me then anyways :)

there are transliterations, of course, but like with all transliterations you can lose the nuance and subleties which are found in the original language. if you have an academic interest i would suggest an author named Thomas Cleary, The Heart of Islam Amazon.com: The Essential Koran: Heart of Islam, The: Thomas Cleary: Books

metta,

~v
 
Snugglepuff said:
Can you give me an example from that book then that justifies your opinion of it??
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First thing you have to learn about the koran is that it has a narative order that is not apparent to casual reading. But as the book is compiled simply by order of section length you do not unless you are a scholar understand what is important and what is not. There are many peaceable passages that were written down when Muhammad was just a wannabe warlord and had to form alliances and pacts to further that aim. But when he gains complete control he becomes a bloodthirsty tyrant intollerant of any word but his. Muslims will quote you passages where Muhammad preaches tolerance of other faiths. They are all written early in his career when alliances were vital to him. But on gaining total power he introduces abrogations, the superceding of older verses by newer ones. It is here you get a flavour of Islams totalitarian ambition exemplified here:
"Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people...They desire nothing but your ruin....You believe in the entire Book...When they meet you they say: 'We, too, are believers.' But when alone, they bite their finger-tips with rage." (Surah 3:118, 119)
Islam demands that muslims lie through their teeth to convince you Islam is peaceable and tolerant of other faiths. But their holiest tome, the koran, when you understand how it is meant to be read is anything but.
 
Tao_Equus said:
It is here you get a flavour of Islams totalitarian ambition exemplified here:
"Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people...They desire nothing but your ruin....You believe in the entire Book...When they meet you they say: 'We, too, are believers.' But when alone, they bite their finger-tips with rage." (Surah 3:118, 119)
Islam demands that muslims lie through their teeth to convince you Islam is peaceable and tolerant of other faiths. But their holiest tome, the koran, when you understand how it is meant to be read is anything but.
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How can you understand it and make judgements when the book has been translated?? There are, as previously stated, no ways to fully understand it; so surely, due to the mistranslation you can't be sure of what any passage truly means without talking to someone involved with Islam, who is fluent in the language.

It's purely down to interpretation.

I strongly dislike the Bible for personal reasons. That book is just as bad... according to the OT, children should be put to death for disrespecting their parents, blood sacrifices should be made to God. But most Christians today want to live by the NT...
What Im trying to say is that, people can pick and choose from either book so for you to claim that the Qur'an is pure evil while ignoring the nicer parts - which I have read that there is, seems a little close-minded.

I dislike Christianity but if I saw a new person asking questions, I would give the most helpful answer I could, not try and convince them out of it. It's their choice...
 
Of course it is always your choice. There are plenty of apologists more than willing to paint Islam as all sweetness and light. I merely present the facts as I understand them. You are free to disregard my opinion as jaded.
 
Tao_Equus said:
Of course it is always your choice. There are plenty of apologists more than willing to paint Islam as all sweetness and light. I merely present the facts as I understand them. You are free to disregard my opinion as jaded.
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Lol... as free as you are to think my opinion naive. We will see what happens ;)
 
I said:
Because you're intentions do not be to allow someone to discover more about the foundations of a religion themselves, as much as try and push them into areas you consider critically critical.
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they absolutely do, i told them where to look not what conclusions to draw from it.
 
Snugglepuff said:
Lol... as free as you are to think my opinion naive. We will see what happens ;)
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Lol, well technically you are naive but I do not doubt for a moment you will remain so long. I have an emphatic style that if you hang around you will soon get used to. I am sort of the resident Victor Meldrew, do not go taking me seriouslly.... I do not think anyone else does ;)
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Snugglepuff said:
Which one? ;)
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Elvis by the looks of things ;)

by the way it's neither Quran or Koran ... both are just a transliteration of the Arabic sounds used to say the word, so either is fine.

Tao_Equus said:
The Koran was compiled by Uthman a century after the death of Muhammad.
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Tripe. He must have been bloody old when he died then, because he was a companion of the Prophet and was in at least two wars with him.

The Prophet (pbuh) died in 632

Abu Bakr was caliph 632-634

Umar was caliph 634-644

Uthman was caliph 644-656

Zaid bin Thabit was one of the the scribes who wrote the ayats of the Quran during the life of the Prophet, these were written on tablets, wood and animal skin and bones.

While Abu Bakr was caliph Zaid took on the task of collecting all the written ayats together and these were written on to parchment.

This compilation of the Quran was kept with Abu Bakr, then with Umar and on his death by Umar's daughter Hafsah.

By now the Quran was being recited in numerous dialects so Uthman obtained the original from Hafsah and had it copied then sent to every Muslim capital, with the order that any other written Quranic material be burnt.
 
Janz said:
Hi Hannah and welcome to IO. I am not a Muslim but have spent much time studying Islam. One of my heroes is Irshad Manji, a Muslim feminist and scholar. Here is a link to her web site and you can also download a copy of a Reformist Translation of the Quran in English.

Irshad Manji blog and official website reformist-quran
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she looks interesting, I dont think she would last long in Tehran :eek:

The lipstick lesbian daring to confront radical imams - Times Online

No wonder Irshad Manji has received death threats since appearing on British television: she is a lipstick lesbian, a Muslim and scourge of Islamic leaders, whom she accuses of making excuses about the terror attacks on London. Oh, and she tells ordinary Muslims to “crawl out of their narcissistic shell”. Ouch.
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Sally,

Forgive me for stating dates off the top of my head. The dates though are immaterial outside of the fact the Koran was worked into its present form after the death of Muhammad and under the Caliphate of Uthman.

Uthman, who came from a wealthy family had indeed been a 'valued' member of Muhammads select little group, and one of its primary financiers. You can liken it to JP Morgan financing the rise to power of the Bush dynasty. A scholar he was well aware of Constantine the Greats effort to unify religion and its eventual realisation in his own lifetime under Theodosius the 1st, which gave us the birth of the Catholic Church.

Uthman was famously nepotic. Indeed it can be claimed that his appointment to power was as the result of nepotism too, since the committee that selected him was made up mostly of his own family. Uthman, and his family, were the real political strategists, they understood the value and importance of controlling religion and it is for this reason that Uthman ordered the destruction of everything the Muhammad said that he did not see as benefiting his own dynastic ambition.

Now you can claim, as Islam teaches you to do, that he was a man of impeccable character that compiled only the truth and rejected the lies. But the fact remains that by the destruction of vast amounts of text that took place on his command, and on pain of death, we have little chance to evalute that one way or another. What we can be certain of was that he was an extremely savvy strategist that loved and was extremely successful at the game of Empire.

If you believe that what Muhammad said was so important to these people then why 40 years after Muhammads death were his writings still on sticks, stones, leaves and velum produced from the stretched skin from the testicles of his enemies? These men were rich leaders of an already vast empire who venerated Muhammad so much it took them all that time to honour his narration of Allah's will? Get real Sally. Use some common sense. The story of Muhammad, the Koran and the rise of Islam has nothing to do with religion. It was political through and through. The compilation of the Koran was ordered by Uthman in full cognisance of what Theodisious had just done. Indeed what happened with the Koran is EXACTLY what he did.

I am afraid that in your effort to glorify your own infallibility through the proxy of something that sells itself as infallible you sacrifice common sense. I do not like Islam and I do not like Catholicism for precisely the same reason. Neither are religions... both are by purpose designed tools of political power.
 
GlorytoGod said:
again look into the battle of the trench and aisha. And dont believe everything the liberals tell you ;)
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Oh goody, I'm anything but a liberal.

Battle of the Trench - 627 - an army of 10,000 Pagans and Jews from many tribes beseiged the town of Medina (modern name), with a fighting number of 3,000.

The battle takes it's name from the fact that the Prophet ordered the men to dig a trench around the town (suggested by a Persian) to protect them from the enemy cavalry ... something unheard of in wartime then.

The seige lasted two weeks.

During the seige a Jewish tribe, Banu Qurayzah, inside Medina received a request from the enemy to either overthrow the Muslims from within or at least let the army into the town. The leader of the Banu Qurayzah was at first reluctant but eventually agreed.

The Prophet had learnt his lesson after he had exiled the Banu Nadir tribe of Jews from Medina for forming an alliance with the Meccan's and plotting to assaninate him. After their exile they had joined forces with the Meccans and proved to be a constant threat to the Muslims ... he was not going to make the same mistake again.

The Banu Aus tribe pleaded with the Prophet for leniency and the Prophet proposed that a chief from the Banu Aus tribe, Sa'd ibn Mua'dh, should decide the fate of the Banu Qurayzah.

The Banu Quarayzah obviously thought Sa'd would be lenient with them but as he had been wounded in the earlier battle he probably felt a little bitter at the betrayal ... in fact he died a few days later of his wounds.

Sa'd ordered that all the men (between 400 and 900) men be killed and the women and children sold into slavery.

If you judge it by todays standards it seems brutal but what would they have done to the Muslims had the enemy got into the town, handed out smarties perhaps?

Also in WWI we used to regularly drag one in five of our own soldiers out of trenches and shoot them in the head, just to keep the fighting spirit up ... sounds a bit brutal to me.

but that's war for you.


As for Aisha, the Mother of Believers, she was the daughter of Abu Bakr, probably the best friend of the Prophet (I say probably because as old as I am I wasn't around then so can't say with certainty but they were very close friends from the same tribe).

She was engaged to be married to Jubair ibn al Mut'am but his parents broke the engagement because they feared he would convert to Islam.

As the Prophets only wife of 25 years had died 3 years before (she herself being 15 years his senior) he then became engaged to her.

Different accounts put her age between 6 years and 16 years when they married but I tend to go with the 6 years based on evidence I have read.

She remained with her family after the wedding until she reached puberty, probably around 9 years according to some sources.

So why would a 53 year old man marry a 6 year old child?

Here's my take on it.

You have to look at other marriages around him.

Aisha was Abu Bakr's daughter, he became the first caliph.

He also married Hafsah, the daughter of Umar ibn al Khattab, he became the second caliph.

The Prophet married two of his daughters to Uthman ibn Affan (the third caliph) and Ali ibn Abi Talib (the fourth caliph).

Starting to paint a picture?

Islam was in it's infancy, Muslims were being persecuted and strong bonds had to be forged in order to keep the Muslims united, so this was not a marriage of passion but of unity.

Things to consider:

1. The marriage of Aisha to the Prophet was proposed by a woman called Kawla ... why would she suggest it if it was not normal at that time for a girl to marry so young.

2. Aisha had already been engaged, suggesting again it was normal for such marriages of bondsmanship and that her family were in favour of it.

3. The Quraysh tribe, who hated the Muslims, would have been waiting for just such an occasion to say "look see what he is doing" and yet they said nothing, even congratulating them on the marriage.

4. Despite people saying this wasn't normal in those days you don't have to look far to see that it was ... Omar bin al-Khattab married the daughter of Ali Bin Abi Taleb and he was the age of her grandfather. Abu Bakr married Omar's daughter Hafsa and their age difference was similar to the Prophet and Aisha.

So the inference now that these marriages were for the pleasure of dirty old men is just ludicrous and shows a lack of historical knowledge.

Aisha grew into a politically active, well educated young woman. Scholars would visit her from far and wide because of her knowledge of Islam and approximately a quarter of the sharia is attributed to her.

Arwa Bin Zubair said, “I did not find anyone more proficient than Aisha in the knowledge of the Qur’an, the Commandments of Halal (lawful) and Haram (prohibited). That is why even senior companions of the Prophet used to consult Aisha in resolving intricate issues.”

Now would you like to discuss his other marriages, the ones where he married widows or divorcees, who in Arabian society would have usually remained the property (read that as slaves) of the husbands family.

If he was the sex crazed man some people paint him as why would he marry these women and have no children with them?

So I would agree, don't listen to what the liberals tell you but also don't listen to what the Christians tell you about Islam either. ;)
 
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