What are the facts that support Islam?
John Berg
about Islam from the myths--but it's about techniques and tools to
accomplish this.
"Historical criticism is the art of distinguishing the true from the false
concerning facts of the past. It has for its object both the documents which
have been handed down to us and the facts themselves. We may distinguish
three kinds of historical sources: written documents, unwritten evidence;
and tradition. As further means of reaching a knowledge of the facts there
are three processes of indirect research, viz.: negative argument,
conjecture, and a priori argument. "
To what extent do Isnaad fit these criteria? And how do they fit?
Take the historicity of Muhammed. If there is any one characteristic of
retro-history, it is that it makes a self-serving point. We all know now
that Joan of Arc was a saint and very good for Frenchmen if not for French
Kings. And George Washington never told a lie.
Note I'm not telling you what to think--just asking you to think.
John Berg
Zuiko Azumazi
"John Berg" <john...@mchsi.com> wrote in message
news:in5Aa.457893$Si4.3...@rwcrnsc51.ops.asp.att.net...
> This is a meta-Islamic message. We're discussing how to separate the
> truth about Islam from the myths--but it's about techniques and tools to
> accomplish this.
Question:-
Do you thing can separate the truth about 'politics', of whatever
persuasion, from the myths? Is there such a reliable method, secular or
religious? As, Khomeini in 1963 said, "All of Islam is politics"!
> "Historical criticism is the art of distinguishing the true from the false
> concerning facts of the past.
<snip>
Alternative Quote:-
"The nineteenth-century fetishism of facts was completed and justified by a
fetishism of documents. The documents were the Ark of the Covenant in the
temple of facts. The reverent historian approached them with bowed head and
spoke of them in awed tones. If you find it in the documents, it is so. But
what, when we get down to it, do these documents - the decrees, the
treaties, the rent-rolls, the blue-books, the official correspondence, the
private letters and diaries, tell us? No document can tell us more than what
the author of the document thought - what he thought had happened, what he
thought ought to have happen or would happen, or perhaps only what he wanted
others to think he thought, or even only what he himself thought he thought.
None of this means anything until the historian has got to work on it and
deciphered it. The facts, whether found in documents or not, have still to
be processed by the historian before he can make any use of them: the use he
makes of them is, if I may put it that way, the processing process." [E. H.
Carr "What is History" Pelican 1961 P16]
Are there two kinds of 'history' divine and secular? Should they be
separated as Karl Barth recommended? Which kind of "history" are you
referring to in your quote?
--
Peace
--
We should not be ashamed to acknowledge truth from whatever source
it comes to us, even if it is brought to us by former generations and
foreign peoples. For him who seeks the truth their is nothing of higher
value than truth itself [al-Kindi 801-66]
Zuiko Azumazi
azu...@hotmail.com