Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show

Not surprised to see that you interpret a side discussion about Islam as apolegetics for Islamist terror/violence given your well documented lack of comprehension skills and bigotry, though it'd be difficult to determine which of the two aforementioned factors was the driving force given your dependency upon unsubstantive one liners.

Then again, I'll give you a pass since one can only recount that anecdote you once shared as justification for your blanketed hatred for all things Arab/Muslim related without it losing its dramatic appeal.

 

You said that the Quran is as authentic as "any text we know today." Do you seriously believe that? If so, where are the "original" copies of the Quran?

What Islamic texts exist from Muhammed's time?

How do you know that today's Quran is the same as the original? What evidence do you have for this claim?

There are many disputes, they just aren't within Islamic dogma.

 

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It sure sounds like some Muslim leaders say "Believe our way, or we will resort to bullying and violence"......

If you are unwilling to even listen to other views, or beliefs, or rather....ACCEPT them as equals, then there is no hope for understanding.

I am sure it is just a misunderstanding and it is a religion of peace...what is that penalty for apostosy in Islam again?

You know renouncing the religion.....oh yeah....death.....peaceful religion, huh?

Cue the apoloigists ignoring the message or discussion in the videos and denouncing them without actually discussing what was said in them....in a reasonable fashion BTW.

DD

 

Interesting stuff, but really irrelevant to my point. Originally, I was responding to the back-and-forth on whether Islam was a violent religion. Well, it is to violent practitioners and it isn't to non-violent ones (put simply). Wahabbis are still Muslums, even if they don't buy into classical theology.

Again, I don't really care what assumptions the classical jurists are operating from. Obviously people who consider their interpretation of the texts to be correct will say there is a correct interpretation. For Wahabbis, their interpretation is the correct one, and the same for all other sects. But for Islam as a whole, there can be no correct interpretation without an objective framework to evaluate the divergent ones of the various sects.

 

Just to jump in on your discussion with him, there really isn't much of a claim against the authenticity of the Quran's compilation. The main Orientalist objection (Goldhizer, Joseph Schacht, Muir etc. among others) is focused towards the 'hadith' traditions.

 

Not sure what your point is? Everyone is in agreement that extremist Islam needs to be eradicated.

I thought this discussion was about the inherent nature of Islam? Relevance of opinion of extremist leaders in extremist hotbed Great Britain? You're basically preaching to the choir while trying to prove an opposite point.

 

You can't generalize the opinions of 2 practitioners to the whole religion, especially with one as big as Islam. The Bible says insubordinate children are to be stoned to death. Are Judaism and Christianity violent religions?

What matters is the actions of believers. Most Muslums are peaceful, therefore Islam is more of a peaceful religion than a violent one. It isn't an either/or propisition.

 

My belief is that most PEOPLE are peaceful, but that Islam itself and the contradictions in it's core are utilized to bend the minds of some towards violence - moreso than other religions you mentioned..

Those religions have had periods of violence in them as well, and they grew up and allowed for discussion about the context of their holy books, it seems for the most part, that Islamic dogma is unwilling to take a look at it's works in context of the time it was written etc.

The very nature of that may be that Mohammed claims the Quran came straight from God, and thus leaves little wiggle room for discussion.

In other words the question is......Does Islam and it's lack of flexibility (or acceptance of other religious views) promote violence?

As an example, the Bible has a ton of violence etc in the old testament, but most of Christianity has moved beyond that, and follows the message related in the new testament.

Islam does not have that flexibility, does it?

DD

 

I'm really just starting to study this stuff, so give me a little slack if I make an incorrect statement. My (limited) understanding is that there are no full extant Quranic manuscripts from within 100 years of Muhammed's death. Without original copies to compare with, what is the proof of the modern Quran's authenticity?

 

Why do you assume that this is the case? You could say the Thirty Years' War signaled the end of the Reformation - perhaps the argument of who gets to decide the future of the faith. Christianity's evolution from its inception to the doctrinal relativism of the Enlightenment took 15 vicious centuries.

Islam has finally begun its fifteenth century.

This is a rather unwarranted assumption when it is apparent that interpretation was not a problematic issue throughout Islam's history, until this modern period. Instead of simply assuming there is some inherent fallacy within Islam, isn't it much more reasonable to conclude that there is a natural intellectual evolution which will be determinant of the future of the faith?

 

But what you're coming back to is the authority vacuum within Sunni Islam. Could you say this is problematic? Sure. But aren't you casting upon it undue burden? That is a totally separate discussion from an assessment of the 'inherent nature of Islam.'

 

Exactly. Religion, like everything else, adapts to its environment.

 

This is just getting silly now. If this were the case, there would be nothing but dead bodies spanning across Europe to North America.

You just said it yourself. They've moved past that. There are considerations that have given rise to this violent strand of extremism within Islam, and it is my opinion that it will die off with time.

But you are assuming that a recent development is a probitive indictment upon the inherent nature of a doctrine. That's not logical.

 

Precisely. And the backdrop of the conception of the Wahabbi ideology was (not so) coincidentally post-colonialist Saudi Arabia and Nasser's Egypt, with Abdul Wahhab and Sayyed Qutb respectively.

After the fall of the Ottomans, after it became apparent that Nasser's socialist project was an utter failure, this break from classical tradition was a 'revivalist' movement of sorts.

It's not too difficult to understand how it has gained steam with the pathetic plight of the Arab nations.

As economic and political reform turns the wheels of advancement in the Arab world, this extremist rigidity will lose its popular appeal. How long will that take? Who knows, it doesn't look good right now. But the central point is that this is a natural progression occurring within the context of environmental factors, isolated from the inherent nature of doctrine.

 

I agree that Islam is in it's teenage years, the question is, will it be able to grow up into an adult?

The difference though Cabbage is that in modern times, we have cultures melding into one another, the reason it was not a problem was that it was fairly isolated, and now is coming into a more mainstream global arena and is struggling to find its' way due to it's lack of flexibility.

I would say it is natural to conclude that there may be a natural evolution, the sooner the better.

I just can't help but wonder if the dogma itself is as flexible as other religions, or will it's inflexibility be it's own "Bridge too far".

DD

 

Yes of course, but they have been marginalized by the mainstream of their particular religion.

Nutjobs are in all religions - Islam seems to have a higher percentage....why is that?

Of course there is, but there seems to be a lack of said diversity debating the context of the text itself.

Fair enough, I think the text and lack of flexibility has given rise to it, and am not convinced it will die off because of the contradictions in the text itself.

Recent development? They have been killing each other over this for centuries...the Sh!tes, the Sunnis...etc....it is NOT a recent development the only thing RECENT about it is it has spilled over into the modern world.

And now the world is forced to deal with it, and is finding the dogma is a major part of the problem.

DD

 

Mutawatir means genuine? Where did you get this from, this is not a Hadith from Bukari, for someone with limited information I'd stick to material from there. Even then you have to do more research on certain hadiths....

There are other qualifiers for authenticity for hadiths (especially required for mutawatir hadiths), some include (not my list by the way):

1) The soundness and consistency of message with respect to other established utterings
2) The character of the narrators
3) The source narrators being of close proximity to the prophet
4) The full context is also available other than the narration chain names
5) Unbroken chain of narration

As I said before, I wouldn't try to claim the religion bogus based on a hadith such as this..... also there is nothing in the koran about this, as you had implied earlier.

 

Ok fine, how about this then....it is a Hadith, allegedly given to Mohammed from God or his messengers, just like the Quran.

And if the Hadith is inaccurate then perhaps so is the Quran.......

From Wiki - definition of Hadith: "The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book."

DD

 

Undo burden on whom? No single person speaks for all of Islam, nor does any single body. In an institution as diverse as Islam, there can't be a definable inherent nature apart from its history. It's not singularly violent or peaceful. It is what its practitioners have made it since its inception.