Approaching Islam

Tao_Equus said:
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.
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The dates are anything but immaterial if you're going to go around suggesting it was a century after the Prophet died.

Tao_Equus said:
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.
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You have got to be kidding me. I agree he was highly nepotistic but he was far from the political strategist, I think the proof of that is seen the fact that his own army assassinated him.

Tao_Equus said:
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.
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Would you like to back that up with any sort of proof?

Just off the top of my head (so probably not accurate) there were 21 dialects of Quran by his caliphate .... all are still known and 7 are still taught. They differ in very minor detail, usually an ah instead of an oo but they do not change the text.

Tao_Equus said:
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?
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You need stronger reading glasses :p
 
Another point about marriage in the period - there was no social security system, so aside from cementing alliances, it was also commonly done to ensure that the woman's family was marrying into one that could provide for not just her, but also her own extended family as required.

That's why we have it from the Torah that when a man dies, his brother should marry his wife - not for sexual reasons, but instead to ensure that the family of the dead man be provided for by the extended family.

That aside, I've got to agree with Tao's cynicism of Uthman - when someone burns writings to ensure only a "pure" original exists, it tends to be pretty naive to presume the intentions have no political element.
 
I said:
That aside, I've got to agree with Tao's cynicism of Uthman - when someone burns writings to ensure only a "pure" original exists, it tends to be pretty naive to presume the intentions have no political element.
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Well he certainly didn't do a very good job since my brother in law teaches 7 of the versions of Quran and I believe 21 are still in existence.

I suppose it would be like the burning of Bibles when they were translated into other languages so the common people could read them.
 
Sally, I found your thread with the chapter-by-chapter discussion of what the Qur'an meant to you very instructive, and Snuggle might also-- but it is a year or so back, and I can't figure out how to search by who started the thread (maybe that isn't even an option), do you remember what title you gave it?
 
Muslimwoman said:
Well he certainly didn't do a very good job since my brother in law teaches 7 of the versions of Quran and I believe 21 are still in existence.
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namaste Sally,

(C)ertain variant readings existed and, indeed, persisted and increased as the Companions who had memorised the text died, and because the inchoate (basic) Arabic script, lacking vowel signs and even necessary diacriticals to distinguish between certain consonants, was inadequate. ... In the 4th Islamic century, it was decided to have recourse (to return) to "readings" (qira'at) handed down from seven authoritative "readers" (qurra'); in order, moreover, to ensure accuracy of transmission, two "transmitters" (rawi, pl. ruwah) were accorded to each. There resulted from this seven basic texts (al-qira'at as-sab', "the seven readings"), each having two transmitted versions (riwayatan) with only minor variations in phrasing, but all containing meticulous vowel-points and other necessary diacritical marks. ... The authoritative "readers" are:
Nafi` (from Medina; d. 169/785)
Ibn Kathir (from Mecca; d. 119/737)
Abu `Amr al-`Ala' (from Damascus; d. 153/770)
Ibn `Amir (from Basra; d. 118/736)
Hamzah (from Kufah; d. 156/772)
al-Qisa'i (from Kufah; d. 189/804)
Abu Bakr `Asim (from Kufah; d. 158/778)​
(Cyril Glassé, The Concise Encyclopedia of Islam, San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989, p. 324, bold added)

would you agree with this?

metta,

~v
 
Vajradhara said:
namaste Sally,

(C)ertain variant readings existed and, indeed, persisted and increased as the Companions who had memorised the text died, and because the inchoate (basic) Arabic script, lacking vowel signs and even necessary diacriticals to distinguish between certain consonants, was inadequate. ...

would you agree with this?

metta,

~v
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Salam Vaj

I am not sure of the readers names but yes that is exactly my understanding.

I am going out with the family on Firday so I will try to remember to ask my brother in law the names he teaches and see if they are the same.

People always hear about variant versions and assume it means textual changes but it's like sheet music, intended to be read to create the appropriate notes, pauses, etc.

The Quran is not intended to be read like a book, it is there to be recited and we therefore need to know where the pauses are, where to elongate sounds, etc. This is where the variances come in but the text itself has remained the same.
 
Namaste Sally,

thank you for the post.

Muslimwoman said:
People always hear about variant versions and assume it means textual changes but it's like sheet music, intended to be read to create the appropriate notes, pauses, etc.
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whilst i appreciate the analogy i think that its a rather poor one given the way in which sheet music has determined structure and form whereas the inital iterations of Al Qur'an lacked the necessary diacritical marks to allow someone to read the text and understand the particular meaning of a term and thus lacked that same sort of structure and form.

until printing was widespread *all* religious paradigms were oral traditions so i am not being critical of the idea of oral traditions and transmissions, indeed my own tradition was/is this way.

The Quran is not intended to be read like a book, it is there to be recited and we therefore need to know where the pauses are, where to elongate sounds, etc. This is where the variances come in but the text itself has remained the same.
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the Reciters arose as a practice because Al Qur'an lacked the necessary linguistic formality to allow it to be read and understood without having the appropriate cultural knowledge, thus tribespeople in the Arabian area didn't require the same formality of language as they all spoke it or variations thereof and, moreover, had a shared cultural history.

when Islam encountered other cultures that didn't speak the particular flavor of Arabic that Al Qur'an was written in, Al Qur'an was transliterated and, like all other texts which are transliterated into another language, something of the original was lost.

the burning of the other copies of Al Qur'an by Uthman is an historical fact. we have no idea what most of those copies said, how they may have differed or even why they were chosen to be burned. given the the Prophet (pbuh) declared that Al Qur'an was able to be recited in seven different variants it would make little sense for Uthman to destroy the other codices unless the difference were textual.

eh.. i'm just not a fan of book burning in the least.

metta,

~v
 
The main selling point of Islam is its claim to have a book that is the direct and unadulterated word of Allah. Via an 'angel', via an illiterate man, via a collection of scribes, via the political editing of several caliphates. It is thus no wonder that the Koran is such a self-contradictory assemblage of self agrandisement. There are not even any extant Korans from Uthmans time so who knows the changes that were made in 2 centuries between the visions that Muhammads wife commented "strangely always suit your purposes" and the oldest copy now in existence.

The people who assisted Muhammad to power were not all naive nomads with no schooling on the extant paradigms of the day. Far from it. They were well informed politicians who were absolutely aware of how Rome had taken Christianity as its own and used it to unite religious worship and alleigence under a single, easy to control umbrella. The power of this idea, its advantages to anyone seeking to control the hearts, minds and wallets of empire was an irresistable intellectual ingenuity of the day. And so Muhammad and his cronies set about creating their own rigid monotheism. And showed no caution in stealing wholesale from Christianity and Judaism to do so.

What is really incredible is that so many centuries later few dare speak up and state such self-evident truths. Only with religion do we have this willfull blindness to common sense and logic. Islam, like Christianity, is as i have stated a deliberately manufactured religion. They are mono-theistic because they serve the monocratic state of empire. One God. One Emperor. One law. One paradigm. And so help you god if you dare speak to the contrary. No centuries of progress. Just a putrid stagnation in what are really nothing more than naive and ignorant homages to political tyrany.
 
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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Janz, I am just catching up on this thread, but I think you are on the right track here. I have been reading about Manji for a while now and I think she is great. I am going to try to find other reformers to read more about. Do you know of others ?
 
I said:
That aside, I've got to agree with Tao's cynicism of Uthman - when someone burns writings to ensure only a "pure" original exists, it tends to be pretty naive to presume the intentions have no political element.
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Muslimwoman said:
Well he certainly didn't do a very good job since my brother in law teaches 7 of the versions of Quran and I believe 21 are still in existence.
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Actually it did have a political element. Arabs had conquered Persians & Azeri in those days, & since different tribes of Arabs were teaching different tribes of Persians/Azeris, they all taught them in their own tribal dialects. For Arabs it was no big deal, but when different Persian/Azeri tribes heard eachother's recitation, they started "mine is right, yours is wrong" bickering. Then fights broke out. So the governors of these regions wrote to Usman to come up with an official dialect Quran, otherwise the regions might have gone into a civilwar. Usman officialised the Quraish-ite dialect, had copies made, & send it to the ends of his empire. He told is governors to have more copies made from these & the rest be burnt.

He only officialised Quran not Arabic. Aryans from Kurdistan to Assam, Turks from Bulgaria to Siberia, SEAsian, Chinese, Slavs still recite Quran in the same dialect (Although interested people do learn other exotic ones). But North Africans were Arabianised, & as far as I have seen its only in North Africa where Quran is still commonly recited in many different dialects.
 
Tao_Equus said:
Islam, like Christianity, is as i have stated a deliberately manufactured religion. They are mono-theistic because they serve the monocratic state of empire. One God. One Emperor. One law. One paradigm. And so help you god if you dare speak to the contrary. No centuries of progress. Just a putrid stagnation in what are really nothing more than naive and ignorant homages to political tyrany.
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So far as I understand it, early Islam was not too concerned with conversion - instead, being a Muslim was an honour not easily shared. With the collapse the Byzantine and Persian empires leaving a huge power vacuum, and early Muslims being organised enough to fill this, conversion into Islam was sought from those without it because it became politically useful to become the same religion as your ruling classes.

In other words, I don't recall Islam being specifically crafted as a method of state control when Islam expanded across Asia.
 
Avi said:
Janz, I am just catching up on this thread, but I think you are on the right track here. I have been reading about Manji for a while now and I think she is great. I am going to try to find other reformers to read more about. Do you know of others ?
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Thanks Avi.. Dr Reza Aslan is another Islamic Reformer: Reza Aslan
His book No god But God, The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam is a must read IMHO. He is of Iranian descent and is a brilliant thinker. He also has a new book called How to Win a Cosmic War and writes for The Daily Beast. Reza Aslan - The Daily Beast

Enjoy.
 
Vajradhara said:
whilst i appreciate the analogy i think that its a rather poor one given the way in which sheet music has determined structure and form whereas the inital iterations of Al Qur'an lacked the necessary diacritical marks to allow someone to read the text and understand the particular meaning of a term and thus lacked that same sort of structure and form.
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Salam Vaj

Sorry that is what I was speaking of in my comparison to sheet music. The diacritical marks were entered into the Quran to provide structure and form in recitation which is where we get the 7 variations from. They don't change the meaning of the Quran but one version may have a more elongated sound than other in a word.

Vajradhara said:
eh.. i'm just not a fan of book burning in the least.
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Have to agree with you there, I hate it and rather wish he hadn't done it as it's left some with room for doubt.

It would be very interesting to see what changes were made in the other copies and compare them to the political goings on in the area at the time.
 
Janz said:
Thanks Avi.. Dr Reza Aslan is another Islamic Reformer: Reza Aslan
His book No god But God, The Origins, Evolution and Future of Islam is a must read IMHO. He is of Iranian descent and is a brilliant thinker. He also has a new book called How to Win a Cosmic War and writes for The Daily Beast. Reza Aslan - The Daily Beast

Enjoy.
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l read that book and thoroughly enjoyed it, ta for link
 
Tao_Equus said:
And showed no caution in stealing wholesale from Christianity and Judaism to do so.
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Is it 'stealing' when an attribution is made?

As I understand it, Islam is presented as an extension of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That's why it's included under the rubric of "Abrahamic religions."
 
Netti-Netti said:
Is it 'stealing' when an attribution is made?

As I understand it, Islam is presented as an extension of the Judeo-Christian tradition. That's why it's included under the rubric of "Abrahamic religions."
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"

If you are as looking as a 'green' apologist yes. If you are looking it impersonally as a critical historian it is plagiarism by any other name. I gave my statement context and I stand by it.
 
Tao_Equus said:
If you are looking it impersonally as a critical historian it is plagiarism by any other name. I gave my statement context and I stand by it.
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Thank you. I had no hopes of impacting your views with my post.
 
Tao_Equus said:
"

If you are as looking as a 'green' apologist yes. If you are looking it impersonally as a critical historian it is plagiarism by any other name. I gave my statement context and I stand by it.
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Jews took it from Zoroastrians. Zoroaster took it from Aryan beliefs. They must have taken it from some prehistoric form of shamanism. So ?

The truth is only one.....sages speak of it as many ......

Just to let you know, you stole zero from Indians ;)
 
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