Does it matter? Believers think it was derived from God no matter how it actually made it onto paper.
He clearly dictated his words while he was alive, therefore he wrote it. If you want to say that his words weren’t directly inscribed by his hand as part of an argument over whether he is the author then make a case for it. The Koran is a product of Mohammad and was created during his lifetime through his dictation.
My understanding is that what was written was edited or compiled after his death with more editing and deletions of the Hadiths on numerous occasions throughout the years. The Hadiths themselves have different levels of authority depending on which sect a person follows, too.
You’re back to interpreting things that other people are supposed to believe. The words of the book only talk about killing in an act of defense. If you want to make a case that the original Muslims were aggressive in their behavior, have at it, but then stop pretending that that is what the book says.
I’m not going to get into another round of your game-playing. The evidence that the violent suras were written in the context of defense was provided long ago in this thread by other posters and you are the one who is waving your hands while you change topics back and forth between what the book says and how you interpet Mohammed’s behavior.
I have made no argument regarding whether modern Muslims are or are not following their religion appropriately. I have pointed out, in the context of information that was provided earlier, that your claim regarding killing unbelievers does not match anyone else’s interpretation, (other than a few hate-Islam web sites).
I’m not pretending. It is quite clear that Muhammad attacked and slaughtered a tribe that was not attacking him. His interpretation of defense is to kill those who may attack him in the future. You are the one avoiding the correct interpretation that ‘defense’ is whatever suits the moment.
The only evidence provided was by me supporting my view. There has been none from anyone else to refute it. You claim the sites I’ve quoted are ‘hate’ sites, but I’ve seen little evidence of it. They are interpreting the words of the prophet, not warping them. If that is hateful then any criticism falls under that category. Are you saying that religions are above criticism? Maybe that is why you can’t see the forest for the trees. You’ve done the same thing in other threads, too. Religion isn’t a cause, it is just a coincidence.
Anyone else’s? I’m sure that many people wished that their were not such words in their holy book and want to explain them away in the nicest light rather in the reality of what they actually mean. It is understandable. Yet, I’ve asked before, why not remove them entirely and avoid the misunderstandings completely? Either it is the entire word of god, or it is just a bunch of made up stuff. If the latter, then no harm to remove it. If the former, then there is always someone willing to follow the letter of the law in god’s name.
Basically, you are suggesting that religious people regard their holy texts with the same indifference as an atheist, as something to be amended or discarded as convenience demands. Rational, but not reasonable.
That is what tomndebb is suggesting with his view that people do things for almost any reason other than for religion. I’m saying that if people actually believe in this crap it is likely that it will influence their actions good and bad. And if their prophet condones acts of violence then it is likely that, at least sometimes, those actions will occur for no other reason than that.
He may say that I’m misinterpreting the Quran, but both of us are saying this with the benefit of a western education where people are taught to be critical. What does the person with minimal education and few critical thinking skills think when his Imam tells him to stone some woman because his religion demands it? He relies on what others tell him and not much else. Where does the Imam get his information from? His holy book and the supporting documentation, his religious upbringing, and his culture. In many cases they are one and the same.
Most of these debates we tend to end up arguing absolutes when things are not always so black and white. To think otherwise is naive, but that is the nature of the board.
The naivete of the Board is primarily evidenced by our refusal to agree with your hard-headed realism. I ask you, have you ever met a cynic that didn’t think of himself as a hard-headed realist?
So, here you are noting that some hypothetical imam is basing his violent beliefs on outside readings and culture, yet you still want to claim that it is the book that is the root of the problem, (because you wish to claim that “in many [uncited and unsubstantiated] cases they are one and the same”).
(In this case, it should be noted that stoning is not specified anywhere in the Qur’an and an imam proposing it is not following the word of the Qur’an, at all.)
There is no point in arguing with you. You have little to no knowledge of Islam at all. From the Hadiths (which are used to interpret the Quran as has been pointed out many times to you). Note the “prophet said”. I don’t know why I bother as you’ll just ignore it anyways.
Muslim 623 The Prophet said: “It is not permissible to take the life of a Muslim except in one of the three cases: the married adulterer, a life for a life, and the deserter of Islam.”
Muslim 680 The Prophet said: "When an unmarried couple fornicate they should receive one hundred lashes and banishment for one year. In the cases of a married male committing adultery with a married female, they shall receive one hundred lashes and be stoned to death. If one of the pair is unmarried, one hundred lashes and exile for a year.
Muslim 682 The Prophet said: “Do not stone the adulteress who is pregnant until she has had her child.” After the birth she was put into a ditch up to her chest and the Prophet commanded them to stone her. Khalid came forward with a stone which he threw at her head, and there spurted blood on the face of Khalid and he cursed her. The gentle Prophet prayed over her and she was buried.
How do you explain those wars between Muslim countries, then, if Muslims are so hepped on following the Hadiths to the extreme?
Because they didn’t? Kind of like those Christians who kill each other in droves, too?
The world isn’t black and white, kind of like I had posted only two posts ago. It is funny how people are misinterpreting things I write, yet I am the one who is misinterpreting the Quran…
So, I note that stoning does not appear in the Qur’an. You point to some hadiths, (many of which are challenged by various differing Mulsim groups), to find references to stoning. Then you want to claim that I am going to “ignore” you.
I think the verb you wanted to use was “dismiss,” not “ignore.” You are jumping around from your argument that the Qur’an says that unbelievers may be killed, (when the explicit text is in the context of one particular battle), to claims that an imam who follows particular hadiths, (and not others), is following the Qur’an. You make up whatever you want, on the fly. * ::: shrug ::: *
I don’t understand your argument. Stoning is one method of punishment. All Islamic law is derived from Sharia law which leads back to one person, Mohammad. How it is carried out is secondary to the origins of the laws.
Uzi, who has made a big deal about Muslims following the Qur’an, made a claim about an imam stating that a person needed to be stoned. Nowhere in the Qur’an is there a passage that prescribes stoning for a punishment. There are a small number of passages in the hadith where stoning is prescribed, but, (despite the externally tagged “The Prophet said:” that was affixed to a number of passages by some later person), anyone who proposes that a person be stoned is not following the Qur’an and we have no idea whether they are really following Mohammed.
When it is convenient for Uzi to point to the Qur’an, (even if he has to truncate some passages), he points to the Qur’an and when it is convenient, he points to later traditions and insists that they orginated with Mohammed.
= = =
And, of course, you are repeating the false claim about Sharia that is popular among various Islam bashing groups. Sharia simply means a philosophy of law. There is no (one) Sharia. There are numerous examples of Sharia that often conflict on specific points. The versions of Sharia that get trotted out as examples of “bad” Islamic law tend to be the culturally derived versions that are most barbaric while the versions of Sharia that were promulgated under more sophisticated cultures are generally dismissed by the bashers as “not really Sharia.” Anyone who talks about Sharia as though it was one monolithic system of codified law is simply displaying ignorance of the topic.
Man, there is really no point. The Hadiths are what are used to determine how to interpret the Quran and as a way to flesh out what Muhammad really wanted. They go hand in hand with the Quran. You ignore the evidence even when the Hadiths in question are considered reliable by Islamic scholars themselves.
And how many passages do you want to refer to a specific practice for it to be valid in your world? Should there be an entire volume dedicated to stoning for it to be worth even bringing up? That people follow the practice because of their religion should be proof enough that someone somewhere is taking their religion at its word. But, nooo, they must be interpreting it wrong because it isn’t practiced that way in New York, or London, or another civilized place where they know how to interpret the religion ‘properly’.
Are you really suggesting sharia law is not based on the writings of Mohammad?
I have made no claim that any particular imam or Muslim is interpreting anything in the wrong way.
You have repeatedly asserted that Muslims follow various ideas directly from the Qur’an. When it is pointed out that the ideas you claim they are following are not actually in the Qur’an, then you change the topic or the “evidence.”
Clearly, there are Muslims who engage in stoning and there are Muslims who are quite happy to murder unbelievers. I have never denied those situations.
You are the one who insists that they engage in those behaviors because they are following the book and then jump and shuck and jive when it is pointed out that they are not actually following the book but some later interpretation by someone other than Mohammed. Their actions might very well be well within one tradition or another of Muslim belief, but your claim that they are following the Qur’an fails.
I am pointing out the straight dope that Sharia is a concept of applying Islamic belief to law that has multiple traditions and any claim that there is simply one set of codified Sharia that anyone and everyone can point to as “Sharia” is made up nonsense by people who don’t know what they are talking about.
“Based on the” (nonexistent) “writings of Mohammed” has no meaning. Different flavors of Sharia are based on separate readings of the Qur’an plus the hadiths plus other writings in the context of the cultures in which the texts were being written. All Muslims hope that the flavor of Sharia to which they adhere (or on which they philosophize) are based on the teachings of Mohammed, just as Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin hope that their writings are based on the teachings of Jesus. In each case, however, it is up to the readers of those authors to determine how well they achieved their goals. Pretending that Sharia is a single set of laws that can be traced without interruption or diversion directly to Mohammed fails on the two points that Sharia is not a single set of codified laws and that there are multiple and conflicting versions of it extant.
Let me get this straight. We should be worried about Muslims because they adhere strictly to commands of violence against non-Muslims. And the reason they do that is because their religious books command that. But at the same time, their religious books command them to not conduct violence against other Muslims and since they’re so strict about obeying the religious books they should be following this too. Well, that sure sets me straight.
But I still don’t understand how they can be doing all that violence against non-Muslims, in obedience to their religious tomes, when they’re too busy conducting wars, violence you know, against other Muslims. Can you clear that up for me?
Oh, yes, and where is all this violence against non-Muslims happening and how often does it happen? Given the approximate one billion Muslims on the planet at the moment, one would think that there’d be non-Muslims dropping like flies everywhere and every day, especially since Muslims happen to be everywhere.