Who is a kufir?
DKleinecke
Kalam philosophy
The figures we have cited, from Ash'ari to Razi to Dhahabi to Ibn
Taymiya, were men who passionately believed that there was a truth to
be known, and that it represented the beliefs of Islam, and that it
was but one. They believed that those who disagreed with it were wrong
and should be engaged and rebutted. But they did not consider anyone
who called himself a Muslim to be a kafir as long as his positions did
not flatly deny the truthfulness of the Prophet. Imam Ghazali says in
Faysal al-tafriqa: "Unbelief" (kufr) consists in asserting that the
Prophet lied about anything he conveyed, while "faith" is believing
that he told the truth in everything he said (Faysal al-tafriqa, 78).
The difficulty I experience with this is that it fails, as it stands,
to actually tell us anything. That because we do not, if we are honest
about it, have any assurance that we know what the Prophet said.
Even the Qur'an is only weakly tied to the Prophet. We don't know the
Qur'an is an accurate account of the revelation to the Prophet. All of
our knowledge is that somebody - a human being, not Allah - said that
such and such.
Thus where faith is being placed is not in the Prophet but in some
later person such as al-Bukhari. And, as a matter of fact, without
good critical editions, we aren't even sure what al-Bukhari said so-
and-so said so-and-so said ... said, say, Abu Hurayra said the Prophet
said. From where I sit much more faith is required to believe that
isnad than to, say, believe in Allah from first philosophical
principles while taking no heed of the Quran or the hadith
literature.
So before one applies the test Keller (following Ghazali) proposed it
is necessary to somehow establish that we know what the Prophet said
(and never lied about). Not only are we unable to use the Quran alone
(according to almost everybody) but we can't even use the Quran
because we have no assurance that (most of) it was ever uttered by the
Prophet.
Not being a Muslim myself I believe that Muhammad was a man just like
any other man and sometimes he told lies while mostly he told the
truth. But there is no need for me to insist on that because I would
never "assert that the Prophet lied about anything he conveyed" or
that "he told the truth in everything he said" because I feel sure we
have no valid idea of what he said.
Yusuf B Gursey
> I picked this paragraph out of an article by Nuh Ha Mim Keller about
> Kalam philosophy
>
> The figures we have cited, from Ash'ari to Razi to Dhahabi to Ibn
> Taymiya, were men who passionately believed that there was a truth to
> be known, and that it represented the beliefs of Islam, and that it
> was but one. They believed that those who disagreed with it were wrong
> and should be engaged and rebutted. But they did not consider anyone
> who called himself a Muslim to be a kafir as long as his positions did
> not flatly deny the truthfulness of the Prophet. Imam Ghazali says in
some have a narrower definition of kufr, unbelief in God and its
oneness.
> Faysal al-tafriqa: "Unbelief" (kufr) consists in asserting that the
> Prophet lied about anything he conveyed, while "faith" is believing
> that he told the truth in everything he said (Faysal al-tafriqa, 78).
>
well, there is the example of the "Satanic Verses" (although some do
not accept the narartive).
> The difficulty I experience with this is that it fails, as it stands,
> to actually tell us anything. That because we do not, if we are honest
> about it, have any assurance that we know what the Prophet said.
>
> Even the Qur'an is only weakly tied to the Prophet. We don't know the
> Qur'an is an accurate account of the revelation to the Prophet. All of
> our knowledge is that somebody - a human being, not Allah - said that
> such and such.
>
most mdoern scholars agree that Muhammad was the author.
> Thus where faith is being placed is not in the Prophet but in some
> later person such as al-Bukhari. And, as a matter of fact, without
> good critical editions, we aren't even sure what al-Bukhari said so-
> and-so said so-and-so said ... said, say, Abu Hurayra said the Prophet
> said. From where I sit much more faith is required to believe that
> isnad than to, say, believe in Allah from first philosophical
> principles while taking no heed of the Quran or the hadith
> literature.
>
> So before one applies the test Keller (following Ghazali) proposed it
> is necessary to somehow establish that we know what the Prophet said
> (and never lied about). Not only are we unable to use the Quran alone
> (according to almost everybody) but we can't even use the Quran
> because we have no assurance that (most of) it was ever uttered by the
> Prophet.
most scholars agree that Muhammad was teh author of the Qur'an.
Yusuf B Gursey
> I picked this paragraph out of an article by Nuh Ha Mim Keller about
> Kalam philosophy
>
> The figures we have cited, from Ash'ari to Razi to Dhahabi to Ibn
> Taymiya, were men who passionately believed that there was a truth to
> be known, and that it represented the beliefs of Islam, and that it
> was but one. They believed that those who disagreed with it were wrong
> and should be engaged and rebutted. But they did not consider anyone
> who called himself a Muslim to be a kafir as long as his positions did
> not flatly deny the truthfulness of the Prophet. Imam Ghazali says in
some have a narrower definition of kufr, unbelief in God and its
oneness.
> Faysal al-tafriqa: "Unbelief" (kufr) consists in asserting that the
> Prophet lied about anything he conveyed, while "faith" is believing
> that he told the truth in everything he said (Faysal al-tafriqa, 78).
>
well, there is the example of the "Satanic Verses" (although some do
not accept the narartive).
> The difficulty I experience with this is that it fails, as it stands,
> to actually tell us anything. That because we do not, if we are honest
> about it, have any assurance that we know what the Prophet said.
>
> Even the Qur'an is only weakly tied to the Prophet. We don't know the
> Qur'an is an accurate account of the revelation to the Prophet. All of
> our knowledge is that somebody - a human being, not Allah - said that
> such and such.
>
most mdoern scholars agree that Muhammad was the author.
> Thus where faith is being placed is not in the Prophet but in some
> later person such as al-Bukhari. And, as a matter of fact, without
> good critical editions, we aren't even sure what al-Bukhari said so-
> and-so said so-and-so said ... said, say, Abu Hurayra said the Prophet
> said. From where I sit much more faith is required to believe that
> isnad than to, say, believe in Allah from first philosophical
> principles while taking no heed of the Quran or the hadith
> literature.
>
> So before one applies the test Keller (following Ghazali) proposed it
> is necessary to somehow establish that we know what the Prophet said
> (and never lied about). Not only are we unable to use the Quran alone
> (according to almost everybody) but we can't even use the Quran
> because we have no assurance that (most of) it was ever uttered by the
> Prophet.
most scholars agree that Muhammad was teh author of the Qur'an.
>
Yusuf B Gursey
Fariduddien Rice
Hi DKleinecke
Thank you for your very interesting commentary on the hadith. I think
I can comment on some aspects of what you wrote.
First is what you may say is the "Ayn Rand-ish" interpretation, which,
as you say, does not come from traditional Islam, but may be a way
some people in some conservative American circles - influenced by an
Ayn Rand-ian point of view - may read it.
The second point is the final three exceptions at the end of the
hadith, of which we can discuss begging, bankruptcy, and "blood-
wit" (or "blood money").
[To be continued...]
Fariduddien Rice
[I=92ve been trying to post this for several days, but it won=92t go
through the system... it seems breaking my post up may work...]
Regarding Ayn Rand, by chance I've been recently reading a bit about
her. I am certainly not in favor of her perspective.
[To be continued...]
Fariduddien Rice
I find it interesting that some evangelical Christians seem to follow
her point of view, whereas Ayn Rand herself was actually an atheist
and anti-religion. I'm certainly no expert in Ayn Rand, but that point
of view seems pretty scary to me.
[To be continued...]
Fariduddien Rice
Regarding charity, Ayn Rand seemed to be neutral on charity. She said
that she did not consider it to be a major virtue or a moral duty. You
can read more here...
http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=faq_index#obj_q7
In contrast, Islam is very clear regarding charity. For example, from
a translation of the Qur'an (Surah 107):
"In the name of God, the Lord of Mercy, the Giver of Mercy. [Prophet],
have you considered the person who denies the Judgement? It is he who
pushes aside the orphan and does not urge others to feed the needy. So
woe to those who pray but are heedless of their prayer; those who are
all show and forbid common kindnesses."
[Qur'an, Surah 107, as translated by Abdel Haleem]
[To be continued...]
DKleinecke
> [Part 5]
>
> Regarding charity, Ayn Rand seemed to be neutral on charity. She said
> that she did not consider it to be a major virtue or a moral duty. You
> can read more here...
>
>
> In contrast, Islam is very clear regarding charity. For example, from
> a translation of the Qur'an (Surah 107):
The emphasis on charity in both the Quran and traditional Islam is
striking. Ignoring any questions about how it was implemented, we can
say that Islam is a religion of social justice.
It is harder to find charity in traditional Christianity although the
Gospels do have several sayings attributed to Jesus that can be
interpreted that way. I think it would be pointless and counter-
productive to argue whether Islam or Christianity is more into social
justice and charity.
BUT there was a major difference between the first few centuries of
the religions. The Christians were poor people - slaves and servants.
The Muslims were rich people - masters of a great deal of the known
world. Hence there is a great deal more in early Islam about explicit
charity.
For example, zakat (which I doubt ever really functioned as described
- but is not be sneered at as a mere ideal) was rather carefully
expounded and explained in the earliest days. The Christian community
was, on the whole, too poor to need urging along this line.
Around 200 CE Clement of Alexandria wrote a little treatise about "Can
a Rich Man be Saved". Clement (the most humane of the Church Fathers)
agreed that, yes, a rich man could be saved - but it wasn't easy.
Most of treatise is about how a rich man delivers charity.
Ayn Rand was, of course, a hardcore atheist. It interests me that
"conservatives" here in the US find it so easy to read Rand into the
sacred books. A remarkable kind of eisegesis.
DKleinecke
> most scholars agree that Muhammad was teh author of the Qur'an.
You don't know that.
No one has polled the scholars and no one has determined who scholars
in that sentence includes.
And, of course, things like this are not settled by the vote of a
majority.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jun 11, 10:33=3DA0am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@theworld.com> wrote:
>
> > most scholars agree that Muhammad was teh author of the Qur'an.
>
> You don't know that.
I know that from the scholarly journals and articles I have read.
there is no consistent theory of multiple authorship of the Qur'an.
the burden of proof rests on those who advocate multiple authorship.
of course, this does not mean that Muhammad did not include elements
that he heard hither and thither.
hajj abujamal
On 7/4/2011 4:46 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> The emphasis on charity in both the Quran and traditional Islam is
> striking. Ignoring any questions about how it was implemented, we can
> say that Islam is a religion of social justice.
Here's a little charity ~ the (priceless) Muslim America "Bookstore"
at http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/
Yet to come: Clement of Alexandria ...
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
DKleinecke
> There is no consistent theory of multiple authorship of the Qur'an.
> the burden of proof rests on those who advocate multiple authorship.
> of course, this does not mean that Muhammad did not include elements
> that he heard hither =A0and thither.
Why is the burden of proof one way or the other? Surely you do not
place more value on theories just because they are old - flat earth,
etc.
Higher criticism of the Quran is just a baby today. In terms of
Christian higher criticism of the Bible we are at about 1800. That is
- critical opinions have been advanced, but are still largely ignored.
And, of course, I am taken by your last sentence. I believe the
correct Islamic theory is that the Quran is the in fallible word of
Allah - perfect is all respects and preserved on a "tablet" in heaven.
You make it sound like you believe Muhammad was the author the Quran
André Keshave
...
>
> most mdoern scholars agree that Muhammad was the author.
I'm not a Muslim, yet can one explain, if Muhammad was uneducated, let
alone illeterate, how he could have produced such a sophisticated work
as the Quran?
Yusuf B Gursey
> it's kufr not kufir (in pausal Classical arabic)
sorry, you say "Who", so you must mean ka:fir
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Jul 4, 7:02=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <ygur...@gmail.com> wrote:
:> There is no consistent theory of multiple authorship of the Qur'an.
:> the burden of proof rests on those who advocate multiple authorship.
:> of course, this does not mean that Muhammad did not include elements
:> that he heard hither =A0and thither.
: Why is the burden of proof one way or the other? Surely you do not
: place more value on theories just because they are old - flat earth,
: etc.
if one claims that theteh Qur'an was written by multiple hands, one must
show why one suspects it thus. saying what is true of the Old Testament
and the New Testament must also be a priori true of the Qur'an is not
scientific.
: Higher criticism of the Quran is just a baby today. In terms of
: Christian higher criticism of the Bible we are at about 1800. That is
: - critical opinions have been advanced, but are still largely ignored.
they are not ignored, it is just that theories that the tradiitonal
account is, on the whole wrong, just didn't pan out.
: And, of course, I am taken by your last sentence. I believe the
: correct Islamic theory is that the Quran is the in fallible word of
: Allah - perfect is all respects and preserved on a "tablet" in heaven.
: You make it sound like you believe Muhammad was the author the Quran
that Muhammad recieved instructions from God via the angel Gabriel is a
matter of faith. I am dealing with the scientific part.
Yusuf B Gursey
my understanding of the Qur'an is that Muhammad learned to write late in
life, which is probably true. at any rate, many uneducated bards have
composed lengthy quality poetry.
DKleinecke
> my understanding of the Qur'an is that Muhammad learned to write late in
> life, which is probably true. at any rate, many uneducated bards have
> composed lengthy quality poetry.
Definitive evidence seems to be lacking. Hints that he could read and
write abound. The idea that he couldn't seems to be based on a
misunderstanding of one word in Quran. If, more tradition, he was an
active merchant for many years the probability he could read is very
high. The most likely statement, not really well supported by the
evidence but the best we can do, is that he could read and write but
was not very skilled at it.
DKleinecke
> if one claims that theteh Qur'an was written by multiple hands, one must
> show why one suspects it.
The diversity of the contents of the Quran had been known to Muslims
since the beginning of our records. It is usually explained as an
example of the divine eloquence and rhetorical skill of Allah. Since
the winning theology of Islam says the Quran is uncreated and written
on that heavenly tablet Muslim scholars have not spent any time on the
question of possible multiple human authors.
But even then they recognized the difference between the so-called
Makkan and Madinan surats. That is, instead of a change in author
they postulated a change in time and place.
I should have called you on the statement that "most scholars believe
Muhammad is the author of the Quran". You can only make such a
statement by excluding all the pious Muslim scholars. Muhammad was,
according to them, not the author but rather the conduit for
revelation of a prior existing text.
> they are not ignored, it is just that theories that the tradiitonal
> account is, on the whole wrong, just didn't pan out.
But you yourself just denied the traditional account - the tablet in
heaven. It is true that Wellhousen was unable to identify threads of
multiple narrative interwoven. All that proves (more or less) is that
the Quran is not interwoven from separate documents. The Quran is like
Psalms - a collective of pieces from many places, times and hands.
The traditional idea that it had a single author - David - is not
taken seriously anymore except by fanatics.
> that Muhammad received instructions from God via the angel Gabriel is a
> matter of faith. I am dealing with the scientific part.
I observe that you are not even willing to admit the revelation of a
pre-existing Quran as what the faithful believe. As to the rest
science has little or nothing to do with it - we are using the tools
of history and literary criticism.
Yusuf B Gursey
this is the real world. first of all, everyone is not equal in this
matter. absent hard evidence like a time machine, when evidence is slim,
and there is no evidence to the contrary, the majority scholarly is a good
guide to "what happened". of course, one should take a tentative view,
allowing a change of opinion if new evidence comes to light. else one
could go into endless arguements in the "anything is possible" mode. a
person genuinely interested in history, in this case Islamic history, and
not jsut pet theories, should give great weight to what the experts in the
field have to say, and whether a particular point of view has enetered
standard references in a subject or not.
Yusuf B Gursey
I had in mind something more substantial:
al-`Ankabu:t
29:48 (47) not before this didst thou recite any Book, or inscribe it with
thy right hand ...
wa-ma: kunta talu: min qablihi min kita:bin wa-la: yuxaTTuhu biyami:nika
...
(Arberry's literal translation, taken from Kassis' Concordance)
so at some point in his adulthood he had at least limited literacy, but
later acquired it.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 6, 4:49=A0am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
> > if one claims that theteh Qur'an was written by multiple hands, one must
> > show why one suspects it.
>
> The diversity of the contents of the Quran had been known to Muslims
> since the beginning of our records. It is usually explained as an
> example of the divine eloquence and rhetorical skill of Allah. Since
> the winning theology of Islam says the Quran is uncreated and written
> on that heavenly tablet Muslim scholars have not spent any time on the
> question of possible multiple human authors.
>
> But even then they recognized the difference between the so-called
> Makkan and Madinan surats. That is, instead of a change in author
> they postulated a change in time and place.
>
well, that Muhammad was in Medina in the capacity of a ruler is stated by
independent sources, and that there was a watershed event at 622 CE is
without doubt and that there was a sanctuary at Mecca is established, and
all sources agree that he was originally at Mecca, not in the capacity of
a ruler. so the differences in Meccan and Medinan surahs can be explained
in the context of the changing role of Muhammad and his changing relations
with people of other faiths. in other words, politics. otherwise, the
secular scholarly consensus is that the Qur'an contains a simple and stark
theological message that is remarkabely consistent, cosnsidering the
fairly well established 10 years in Medina and the approximate 10 years in
Mecca. I also allow that Muhammad used other sources, like an occassional
verbatim translation from the OT, the OT, NT and non-canonical Jewish and
Christian sources etc., things that he acquired from conversations from
others and so on. but things point to the fact that it was by his approval
that those made it into the Qur'an.
of course, there is no evidence that couldn't absolutely have had other
hands, but there is not really much motivation or evidence to go in this
direction. the simplest theory is that Muhammad was the author, with the
stipulations I mentioned before.
> I should have called you on the statement that "most scholars believe
> Muhammad is the author of the Quran". You can only make such a
> statement by excluding all the pious Muslim scholars. Muhammad was,
> according to them, not the author but rather the conduit for
> revelation of a prior existing text.
well, that is a theological point that has little effect on the narrative.
>
> > they are not ignored, it is just that theories that the tradiitonal
> > account is, on the whole wrong, just didn't pan out.
>
> But you yourself just denied the traditional account - the tablet in
that's part of theology. what I am talking about is the traditional
account shorn of its supernatural aspects. Muhammad spoke certain things,
sometimes wrote them down, declared certain of them to be revelation, and
then after his death a best effort was made to compile them.
> heaven. It is true that Wellhousen was unable to identify threads of
> multiple narrative interwoven. All that proves (more or less) is that
> the Quran is not interwoven from separate documents. The Quran is like
> Psalms - a collective of pieces from many places, times and hands.
> The traditional idea that it had a single author - David - is not
> taken seriously anymore except by fanatics.
again, you are assuming that what is true for one scripture is
neccessarily true for another without giving proof. as it stands there is
no evidence that what you say and the view that the Qur'an was the product
of a single author, with the stipulations I mentioned before.
>
> > that Muhammad received instructions from God via the angel Gabriel is a
> > matter of faith. I am dealing with the scientific part.
>
> I observe that you are not even willing to admit the revelation of a
> pre-existing Quran as what the faithful believe. As to the rest
> science has little or nothing to do with it - we are using the tools
> of history and literary criticism.
science has to do with it in that I am excluding in the argument any
phenomenon that science does not recognize.
I have never gone into faith-based arguments as I find it futile, either
you have a particular faith or not.
hajj abujamal
On 7/7/2011, Yusuf B Gursey wrote at soc.religion.islam:
> this is the real world.
That cannot be proven, it can only be commonly agreed to be commonly
perceived. There is an abundance of evidence that there is much that is
not commonly perceived, so any such agreement is subjectively
imaginative and not objectively real. All perception is entirely
subjective and cannot be otherwise.
> first of all, everyone is not equal in this matter.
All perception is equally subjective.
> absent hard evidence like a time machine, when evidence is
> slim, and there is no evidence to the contrary, the majority
> scholarly [speculation] is a good guide to "what happened."
That's a theory that has been disproven on countless occasions.
> of course, one should take a tentative view, allowing a
> change of opinion if new evidence comes to light.
In other words, speculation is sufficient "evidence" upon which to
form an opinion that some regard as perception.
> a person genuinely interested in history, in this case Islamic
> history, and not just pet theories, should give great weight
> to what the experts in the field have to say, and whether a
> particular point of view has entered standard references in
> a subject or not.
"Expert" credentials do not turn speculative theory into fact, and
such "credentials" are more unreliable than not when they attribute
credence in a field that is more theoretical or speculative than it is
evidentiary. With regard to "Islamic history," expertise in speculative
theories is not expertise in the actual subject matter, which is the
factual history about which such "experts" speculate.
The forensic fact regarding the Qur'an is that it is an oration that
has been transcribed repeatedly with overwhelming consistency unmatched
by the multiplicity of transcriptions of any other oration. That fact
alone places it outside the scope of "higher criticism" that seeks to
explain variances in the textus receptus of other transcriptions.
Do you want to know why "higher criticism" is not only a valid
approach to the Hebrew/Aramaic Scriptures but a necessary approach?
Read Jeremiah 8:8. There is not a scintilla of evidence or even a
tenable suggestion that the Qur'an has ever been "re-authored."
DKleinecke
> On Jul 6, 9:30 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> > But even then they recognized the difference between the so-called
> > they postulated a change in time and place.
>
> well, that Muhammad was in Medina in the capacity of a ruler is stated by
> independent sources,
I know of no sources other than Arabic tradition (including the Quran)
that places Muhammad in Madina - as a ruler or otherwise. Wansbrough,
who may not be your favorite authority but surely must be admitted as
a first-rank scholar, was convinced that Islam did not originate in
the Hijaz. He suspected Jerusalem. He read the sunna primarily as an
effort to convince people that of the counter-factual proposition that
it did originate in the Hijaz. Other people have agreed with him on
this matter.
> and that there was a watershed event at 622 CE is
> without doubt
The Islamic era started then but we have no early evidence that it was
based on the arrival of Muhammad in Yathrib (Madina not yet being in
existence).
> and that there was a sanctuary at Mecca is established,
No evidence for activity of any kind in Mecca or even its existence
before the second century. The events of the second fitna placed in
Mecca might just as well - and far more logically - happened in
Ta'if. The Saudi's seem to have destroyed any chance for archeology
on the site so we will probably never know for sure.
and
> all sources agree that he was originally at Mecca,
There is only one source - repeated in a multitude of places - the
Sirat as it was understood in Madina in the first half of the second
century.
> not in the capacity of a ruler. so the differences in Meccan and Medinan =
surahs can be explained
> in the context of the changing role of Muhammad and his changing relation=
s
> with people of other faiths. in other words, politics.
A speculation, of course. What matters is that there is a marked
difference,
> otherwise, the
> secular scholarly consensus is that the Qur'an contains a simple and star=
k
> theological message that is remarkabely consistent,
I deny there is any such secular scholarly consensus. Its existence
or non-existence is a factual matter and theoretically could be
scientifically decided. But I see no way to resolve the issue.
You say yea. I say Nay. All we can do is agree to disagree.
cosnsidering the
> fairly well established 10 years in Medina and the approximate 10 years i=
n
> Mecca.
I also allow that Muhammad used other sources, like an occassional
> verbatim translation from the OT, the OT, NT and non-canonical Jewish and
> Christian sources etc., things that he acquired from conversations from
> others and so on. but things point to the fact that it was by his approva=
l
> that those made it into the Qur'an.
>
> of course, there is no evidence that couldn't absolutely have had other
> hands, but there is not really much motivation or evidence to go in this
> direction. the simplest theory is that Muhammad was the author, with the
> stipulations I mentioned before.
Considering the heterogeneity of the material in the Quran it seems as
though a single author is the least likely hypothesis.
>From the standpoint of traditional Islam both of our ideas are
blasphemy. I suppose a Bin Ladin with kill us equally without asking
which of us is the worst blasphemer.
> > I should have called you on the statement that "most scholars believe
> > Muhammad is the author of the Quran". You can only make such a
> > statement by excluding all the pious Muslim scholars. =A0Muhammad was,
> > according to them, not the author but rather the conduit for
> > revelation of a prior existing text.
>
> well, that is a theological point that has little effect on the narrative=
.
It is a valid suggestion unless, of course, you exclude the idea of
Allah by ideological fiat.
>
> > > they are not ignored, it is just that theories that the tradiitonal
> > > account is, on the whole wrong, just didn't pan out.
>
> > But you yourself just denied the traditional account - the tablet in
>
> that's part of theology. what I am talking about is the traditional
> account shorn of its supernatural aspects. Muhammad spoke certain things,
> sometimes wrote them down, declared certain of them to be revelation, and
> then after his death a best effort was made to compile them.
>
> > heaven. =A0It is true that Wellhousen was unable to identify threads of
> > multiple narrative interwoven. =A0All that proves (more or less) is tha=
t
> > the Quran is not interwoven from separate documents. The Quran is like
> > Psalms - a collective of pieces from many places, times and hands.
> > The traditional idea that it had a single author - David - is not
> > taken seriously anymore except by fanatics.
>
> again, you are assuming that what is true for one scripture is
> neccessarily true for another without giving proof.
I was givig an existence proof that such a collection is a
possibility. You have offered no similar proof for a scripture
written by one man - hint try Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard
as it stands there is
> no evidence that what you say and the view that the Qur'an was the produc=
t
> of a single author, with the stipulations I mentioned before.
>
>
>
> > > that Muhammad received instructions from God via the angel Gabriel is=
a
> > > matter of faith. I am dealing with the scientific part.
>
> > I observe that you are not even willing to admit the revelation of a
> > pre-existing Quran as what the faithful believe. As to the rest
> > science has little or nothing to do with it - we are using the tools
> > of history and literary criticism.
>
> science has to do with it in that I am excluding in the argument any
> phenomenon that science does not recognize.
>
> I have never gone into faith-based arguments as I find it futile, either
> you have a particular faith or not.
But if you have no Islamic faith and pick and choose your evidence
from a tradition that does recognize faith as valid why do you find it
so hard to think outside the tradition you have rejected?
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 7, 4:06=A0am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
>
> > > But even then they recognized the difference between the so-called
> > > Makkan and Madinan surats. =A0That is, instead of a change in author
> > > they postulated a change in time and place.
>
> > well, that Muhammad was in Medina in the capacity of a ruler is stated by
> > independent sources,
>
> I know of no sources other than Arabic tradition (including the Quran)
> that places Muhammad in Madina - as a ruler or otherwise. Wansbrough,
Greek sources place Muhammad as a ruler in Yathrib (Hoyland, "Seeing Islam
as Other Saw It").
> who may not be your favorite authority but surely must be admitted as
> a first-rank scholar, was convinced that Islam did not originate in
"he asked the right questions" as one reviewer put it, but his alternative
suggestions have not panned out. see for example, F. de Blois "Islam in
its Arabian Context" (in "The Qur'an in Context", but published before and
available online). for a while, Wansbrough's suggestion led to a flurry of
speculation, but a crtical look at those later, has turned the tide again.
> the Hijaz. He suspected Jerusalem. He read the sunna primarily as an
> effort to convince people that of the counter-factual proposition that
> it did originate in the Hijaz. Other people have agreed with him on
> this matter.
>
> > and that there was a watershed event at 622 CE is
> > without doubt
>
> The Islamic era started then but we have no early evidence that it was
> based on the arrival of Muhammad in Yathrib (Madina not yet being in
> existence).
al-Madina seems to be an appellation given by the Jews who lived there,
prior to Muhamamd, that it is short for "City of the Prophet" may be a
pious fiction.
Enc. of Islam I "Madina":
<<
In the Meccan sections of the Kur'an it is found as an appellative with
the plural al-Mada'in, while in the Madina Sura al-Madina is used as a
proper name for the new residence of the Prophet (ix. 102, 121; xxxiii.60;
lxiii. 8). The old name Yathrib on the other hand is found only once
(xxxiii. 13). It is evident from these references that the usual
explanation of the name as "the town" (of the Prophet) is a later one. It
is rather to be supposed that it was a result of the existence of a strong
Jewish element in Yathrib that the Aramaic loan-word became the regular
name of the town. It is analogous to the originally South Arabian Hadjar
[q. v.] "town", which is applied to the capital in Bahrain
>>
(here, Bahrain refers to the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula, not the
island later so named).
Enc. of Islam II "Madina".
<<
In pre-Islamic times the common name was Yatrib, though this is said to
have been applied originally to only part of the oasis (al-Samhudi, i,
8-10). This name occurs once in the Kur'an (XXXIII, 13). Iathrippa is
found in Ptolemy and Stephanus Byzantinus, and Y*th*rb in Minaean
inscriptions. Al-Madina is properly the town or the place of jurisdiction,
corresponding to Aramaic medinta. The word madina as a common noun occurs
ten times in the Kur'an and the plural mada'in three times, all in stories
of former prophets. In four relatively late verses (IX, 101/2, 120/1;
XXXIII, 60; LXIII, 8) al-madina appears, referring to the oasis now
inhabited mainly by Muslims, but it is possible that it has not yet become
a proper name. The same holds of its occurrence in the last clause of the
Constitution of Medina (Ibn Hisham, ed. Wustenfeld, 341-4), since in the
preamble and other two clauses of this document the name Yathrib appears
by itself. It is often suggested that the name is a shortened form of
madinat al-nabi, the city of the Prophet, but this is unlikely in view of
its use in the Kur'an, especially in LXIII, 8, where it is spoken by
Hypocrites. Of the poets of the oasis, the pre-Islamic Kays b. al-Khatim
[q.v.] speaks only of Yathrib, whereas Muhammad's contemporaries Hassan b.
Thabit and Ka`b b. Malik [q.vv.] use both names.
>>
early East Syriac sources call the Islamic era "the year of the rule of
the Arabs" (Hoyland, "Seeing Islam as Others Saw It")
Other sources (see above) place Muhammad as the first ruler, and place him
in Yathrib.
>
> > and that there was a sanctuary at Mecca is established,
>
> No evidence for activity of any kind in Mecca or even its existence
> before the second century. The events of the second fitna placed in
well, there are the reports of buried idols found after the explosion in
the sanctuary in the 1970's.
> Mecca might just as well - and far more logically - happened in
> Ta'if. The Saudi's seem to have destroyed any chance for archeology
> on the site so we will probably never know for sure.
the idols were either reburied or kept in a vault. Moataz Enam claimed to
have known an archaeologist who examined them.
>
> and
>
> > all sources agree that he was originally at Mecca,
>
> There is only one source - repeated in a multitude of places - the
> Sirat as it was understood in Madina in the first half of the second
> century.
Ibn Ishaq is not the only tradition about Muhammad.
>
> > not in the capacity of a ruler. so the differences in Meccan and Medinan =
>
> surahs can be explained
>
> > in the context of the changing role of Muhammad and his changing relation=
> s
> > with people of other faiths. in other words, politics.
>
> A speculation, of course. What matters is that there is a marked
> difference,
>
yours is a speculation too, which is my point. yours doesn't happen to be
the majority opinion. and there is at least a consistent tradition to
support the majority opinion.
>
>
> > otherwise, the
> > secular scholarly consensus is that the Qur'an contains a simple and star=
> k
> > theological message that is remarkabely consistent,
>
> I deny there is any such secular scholarly consensus. Its existence
> or non-existence is a factual matter and theoretically could be
> scientifically decided. But I see no way to resolve the issue.
> You say yea. I say Nay. All we can do is agree to disagree.
just look at the encyclopedias, textbooks etc. your viewpoint is not what
is stated as the most likely explanation. theoretically, things could
change, although it does not seem to be the direction in the ways that are
going.
>
> cosnsidering the
>
> > fairly well established 10 years in Medina and the approximate 10 years i=
> n
> > Mecca.
>
> I also allow that Muhammad used other sources, like an occassional
>
> > verbatim translation from the OT, the OT, NT and non-canonical Jewish and
> > Christian sources etc., things that he acquired from conversations from
> > others and so on. but things point to the fact that it was by his approva=
> l
> > that those made it into the Qur'an.
>
> > of course, there is no evidence that couldn't absolutely have had other
> > hands, but there is not really much motivation or evidence to go in this
> > direction. the simplest theory is that Muhammad was the author, with the
> > stipulations I mentioned before.
>
> Considering the heterogeneity of the material in the Quran it seems as
> though a single author is the least likely hypothesis.
it seems to you so, and I cannot argue against that. but what you state is
not the standard fare in books about the Qur'an, encyclopedias, textbooks
and so on. it is not even popular among discussions aimed at the general
public. it is not a hypothesis on the par with the "documentary
hypothesis" of the Bible.
that the
>
> >From the standpoint of traditional Islam both of our ideas are
>
> blasphemy. I suppose a Bin Ladin with kill us equally without asking
> which of us is the worst blasphemer.
>
> > > I should have called you on the statement that "most scholars believe
> > > Muhammad is the author of the Quran". You can only make such a
> > > statement by excluding all the pious Muslim scholars. =A0Muhammad was,
> > > according to them, not the author but rather the conduit for
> > > revelation of a prior existing text.
>
> > well, that is a theological point that has little effect on the narrative=
>
> .
>
> It is a valid suggestion unless, of course, you exclude the idea of
> Allah by ideological fiat.
>
>
for purposes of argument, I am not going into faith-based elements. since
you are not a muslim, there is no point in it.
>
>
>
>
>
> > > > they are not ignored, it is just that theories that the tradiitonal
> > > > account is, on the whole wrong, just didn't pan out.
>
> > > But you yourself just denied the traditional account - the tablet in
>
> > that's part of theology. what I am talking about is the traditional
> > account shorn of its supernatural aspects. Muhammad spoke certain things,
> > sometimes wrote them down, declared certain of them to be revelation, and
> > then after his death a best effort was made to compile them.
>
> > > heaven. =A0It is true that Wellhousen was unable to identify threads of
> > > multiple narrative interwoven. =A0All that proves (more or less) is tha=
> t
> > > the Quran is not interwoven from separate documents. The Quran is like
> > > Psalms - a collective of pieces from many places, times and hands.
> > > The traditional idea that it had a single author - David - is not
> > > taken seriously anymore except by fanatics.
>
> > again, you are assuming that what is true for one scripture is
> > neccessarily true for another without giving proof.
>
> I was givig an existence proof that such a collection is a
> possibility. You have offered no similar proof for a scripture
> written by one man - hint try Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard
ultimately scripture is a book in which others place a particular value
on. so like any book it can be either written by multiple hands or not.
>
> as it stands there is
>
>
>
>
>
> > no evidence that what you say and the view that the Qur'an was the produc=
> t
> > of a single author, with the stipulations I mentioned before.
>
> > > > that Muhammad received instructions from God via the angel Gabriel is=
> a
> > > > matter of faith. I am dealing with the scientific part.
>
> > > I observe that you are not even willing to admit the revelation of a
> > > pre-existing Quran as what the faithful believe. As to the rest
> > > science has little or nothing to do with it - we are using the tools
> > > of history and literary criticism.
>
> > science has to do with it in that I am excluding in the argument any
> > phenomenon that science does not recognize.
>
> > I have never gone into faith-based arguments as I find it futile,
either
> > you have a particular faith or not.
>
> But if you have no Islamic faith and pick and choose your evidence
I did not say I have no Islamic faith. but I keep faith and science
seperate. my object is to show that it is possible to accept the broad
elements of Arab tradition, keeping the faith-based elements seperate, and
that most secular scholars do so. as for picking and choosing, yes,
picking and choosing is what a scientific approach is all about.
> from a tradition that does recognize faith as valid why do you find it
> so hard to think outside the tradition you have rejected?
I don't reject, as a scientist, all of the elements of the tradition out
of hand, I am just keeping, for the purposes of argument, the faith-based
elements seperate. and I do think outside the tradition, but I am merely
stating that the particular point being discussed is not to be rejected a
priori, and it is not done so by the majority of secular scholars.
I am perfectly willing to accept evidence to the contrary that is accepted
by the mainstream of secular scholars once it comes about.
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Jul 8, 1:02 am, DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
:>
:> > not in the capacity of a ruler. so the differences in Meccan and Medinan =
:>
:> surahs can be explained
:>
:> > in the context of the changing role of Muhammad and his changing relation=
:> s
:> > with people of other faiths. in other words, politics.
:>
:> A speculation, of course. What matters is that there is a marked
:> difference,
:>
: yours is a speculation too, which is my point. yours doesn't happen to be
: the majority opinion. and there is at least a consistent tradition to
: support the majority opinion.
:>
:>
:> > otherwise, the
:> > secular scholarly consensus is that the Qur'an contains a simple and star=
:> k
:> > theological message that is remarkabely consistent,
the essential *theological* message is indeed remarkabely consistent and
simple: oneness of God, Muhammad as Prophet and a human being, the
afterlife etc.
:>
:> I deny there is any such secular scholarly consensus. Its existence
DKleinecke
> On Jul 8, 1:02 am, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
This has gone on too long and has become too diffuse. I'll just
comment on one point
> > > all sources agree that he was originally at Mecca,
>
> > There is only one source - repeated in a multitude of places - the
> > Sirat as it was understood in Madina in the first half of the second
> > century.
>
> Ibn Ishaq is not the only tradition about Muhammad.
>
I very carefully did NOT say Ibn Ishaq.
As I see it the sirat was developed by a number of men most of them in
Madina. The contribution, such as it was, of Anas ibn Malik was
carried to Madina at an early date (perhaps by Anas himself who is
reported to have spoken with al-Zuhri) and publicized there by
relatives who lived in Madina. Al-Zuhri, the most important
traditionalist, was born and raised in Madina even though he appears
to have moved to Syria while still a young man. Al-Zuhri's followers,
of whom there seem to have been a large number carried his material
back to Madina.
And, of course, there were still uncollected stories circulating in
Madina especially among the Ansar whom the traditionalists tended to
ignore. Extrapolating backward from Ibn ishaq the same amount of
elaboration that al-Waqidi shows in respect to Ibn Ishaq indicates a
date around the end of the first century when elaboration of what
comparative religion would call "The Legend of Muhammad" began to be
collected.
After about forty years of repetition and fussing over details Ibn
Ishaq made his synthesis of the Legend from oral and written material
available to him. There was at least one more synthesis, that of Musa
ibn Uqba which at least one writer thought was better than Ibn Ishaq.
The only other source that has come down to us is the synthesis of al-
Waqidi (assuming Ibn Sad reflects al-Waqidi). al-Waqidi does not
openly give any credit to Ibn Ishaq but he is clearly telling the same
story. Probably al-Waqidi did not learn anything from Ibn Ishaq
directly. Rather the two of them represent snapshots about fifty
years apart of the oral Legend as it was told in Madina.
When al-Waqidi is compared with Ibn Ishaq we see a host of added
details. The general conclusion is that nothing al-Waqidi adds to the
story should be considered authentic. The story just grew and grew.
al-Tabari took most of his information about the life of Muhammad from
the legend as reported by Ibn Ishaq. I haven't made or seen a
detailed study of al-Baladhuri's account. In any case is is very
brief and some, perhaps all, of it is found elsewhere.
To the best of my knowledge there are no other significant historical
sources. There is, however, the hadith literature. A lot of the
Legend is also in hadiths. The closest I have seen to a biography of
Muhammad based on the sunna rather that the sirat is a book by Mahdi
Rizqullah Ahmad entitled (in its English translation) "A Biography of
the Prophet of Islam in the Light of the Original Sources".
As an example of the way the hadith scholars viewed the sirat I would
point to the section in al-Bukhari where he gives a list of names of
men who fought at Badr. Since al-Bukhari frequently quotes Ibn Ishaq
about chronological matters it would seem that he must have been aware
that Ibn Ishaq gave a list of what he presented as ALL the Muslims who
were at Badr. Ibn Ishaq's list has 314 names complete with
genealogical information. Al-Bukharis has around fifty - presumably
all those credited with being at Badr in hadiths he trusted.
Summarizing - the Legend of Muhammad was developed by the community of
believers in Madina during the first two-thirds of the first century.
The community worked hard to achieve consensus on the details of the
Legend although a few issues were never resolved. Two versions of the
Legend have come down to us and it is obvious, from first principles,
that we should prefer the earlier version - that of Ibn Ishaq
Yusuf B Gursey
New documentary texts and the early Islamic state
ROBERT HOYLAND
Bulletin of SOAS, 69, 3 (2006), 395416.
<<
Some scholars would argue that the religion of Islam was indeed very
different in its formative years. Of course most, including many Muslim
thinkers past and present, would accept that the early Muslim conception
of their Prophet and their faith evolved over time, and that they
therefore held a different conception from that of later Muslims, but a
number of revisionist scholars would go much further and posit a
discontinuity between nascent Islam and classical Islam. For example, they
have postulated that Mecca was not Muhammads birthplace or the Hijaz
Islams home, that the Quran was not compiled in the seventh century or
written in Arabic, and even that Muhammad and the Arab conquests were a
later invention. Most of the impetus for such radical theories stems from
the sense that a major world religion could not have been born in such a
remote corner of the Middle East and from a desire to root Islams origins
and early development more fully within
the world of late antiquity, and so to argue against the traditional
Muslim perspective that Islams birth was ontogenetic, untainted by alien
wisdom and foreign creeds. While one sympathizes with these aims, one
might be wary of such a wholesale rewriting of the later Muslim historical
accounts about this period. But if we are not to trust these accounts, as
revisionists urge, then we have to fall back on non-Muslim sources and
documentary evidence, which are particularly unforthcoming regarding
religious matters. They do at least record a new era (starting in 622 CE)
and new name for the Arabs (Arabic muhajirun/ Syriac mhaggraye /Greek
magaritai or moagaritai), an emphasis on the One God, a sacred place in
Arabia, a head of state entitled 'commander of the believers, and a
'guide' and 'instructor' called Muhammad, which allows us to infer that
the newcomers did possess a distinctive cult.Furthermore, there have been
new discoveries and many known texts could fruitfully be milked much
harder for insights ...
>>
DKleinecke
> New documentary texts and the early Islamic state
> ROBERT HOYLAND
> Bulletin of SOAS, 69, 3 (2006), 395416.
> Most of the impetus for such radical theories stems from
> the sense that a major world religion could not have been born in such a
> remote corner of the Middle East and from a desire to root Islams origins
> and early development more fully within
> the world of late antiquity, and so to argue against the traditional
> Muslim perspective that Islams birth was ontogenetic, untainted by alien
> wisdom and foreign creeds.
I believe this statement about the impetus behind skeptical theories
is almost completely incorrect. Hoyland has said things like this
before and never offered any substantial evidence that the skeptics
had any such motivation. Furthermore I think he mis-states the
traditional Muslim perspective seriously. I have no idea what he means
by ontogenetic but I do know that the Quran is full of explicit
derivations from both Judaism and Christianity. I guess I also do not
know what he means by "untainted" or "alien wisdom" or even by
"foreign creeds".
> While one sympathizes with these aims, one
> might be wary of such a wholesale rewriting of the later Muslim historica=
l
> accounts about this period. But if we are not to trust these accounts, as
> revisionists urge, then we have to fall back on non-Muslim sources and
> documentary evidence, which are particularly unforthcoming regarding
> religious matters.
Which is, of course, exactly what most of the skeptics have done.
Wansbrough, one should know,
felt that the non-Muslim documentary evidence was no better than the
Muslim documentary evidence and remained skeptical that anything
authentic could be learned from the written records. I do not know
that anyone else has ever been that completely skeptical.
> They do at least record a new era (starting in 622 CE)
> and new name for the Arabs (Arabic muhajirun/ Syriac mhaggraye /Greek
> magaritai or moagaritai), an emphasis on the One God, a sacred place in
> Arabia, a head of state entitled 'commander of the believers, and a
> 'guide' and 'instructor' called Muhammad, which allows us to infer that
> the newcomers did possess a distinctive cult.
This is the body of knowledge that I have repeatedly summarized as -
"The only thing we know for sure about Muhammad is that he was a
Arabic religious reformer active in the Hijaz in the first part of the
seventh Christian century".
As to the "distinctive cult" we still know very little. Fred Donner in
this recent book "Muhammad and the Believers" (although I do not agree
with many of his conclusion) offers a good summary of what little we
know. The religion Mu'awiya practiced remains a mystery but we do know
that the Jews and Christians accepted it as part of their world and
did not treat it as a radical novelty.
> Furthermore, there have been
> new discoveries and many known texts could fruitfully be milked much
> harder for insights ...
We are working on that. But we get nowhere if all insights, other
than the old ones, are routinely dismissed as speculation.
hajj abujamal
On 7/11/2011 6:15 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> I do know that the Quran is full of explicit
> derivations from both Judaism and Christianity.
Any author is likely to reiterate material previously articulated.
You do accept, do you not, that the Qur'an is an articulation?
Then if God articulated the original Torah, Psalms, and Gospel,
seeking a less tenable authorship of the Qur'an, on the basis that it
reiterates what we read in the older books, is more than vain
speculation. It is resistance to accepting the obvious simple
explanation: that the Qur'an is also God's utterance.
What an incredible waste of time.
Yusuf B Gursey
the title of the article is "New documentary texts and the early Islamic
state" and the idea is that wecould gleen a lot more from the graffito and
texts in Arabic that have come to light in recent decades. also there is
de Blois' point that there are radical differences betrween the body of
knowledge about early Islam and the body of knowledge about early
Christianity. in the case of Islam, one is confronted with a very
believable (from the secular point of view) narartivve in a place where
historical historical knowledge is scarce, but in the case of
Christianity, one is confronted with a very incredilous story in a place
where historical knowledge is abundant. so different methods of critcism
must be used.
> that the Jews and Christians accepted it as part of their world and
> did not treat it as a radical novelty.
Islam does claim considerable continuity with Christianity and Judaism.
>
> > Furthermore, there have been
> > new discoveries and many known texts could fruitfully be milked much
> > harder for insights ...
>
> We are working on that. But we get nowhere if all insights, other
> than the old ones, are routinely dismissed as speculation.
they are not dismissed, there are new insights, for example about the date
of the birth of Muhammad (which Arab sources admit there is disagreement).
but new insights don't neccesarily have to be the radical thing thing you
seem to be searching for.
hajj abujamal
On 7/18/2011 12:59 AM, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> Islam does claim considerable continuity with Christianity and Judaism.
Not "considerable" ~ utter and complete continuity. The Author of
all of it is the same One, the aim of all of it is one, and it is all
one seamless tapestry without imperfection, incongruity, or inconsistency.
> ... where historical knowledge is abundant ...
The victors write the histories and keep their secrets. The
detritus tells the story.
DKleinecke
> the title of the article is "New documentary texts and the early Islamic
> state" and the idea is that wecould gleen a lot more from the graffito an=
d
> texts in Arabic that have come to light in recent decades. also there is
> de Blois' point that there are radical differences betrween the body of
> knowledge about early Islam and the body of knowledge about early
> Christianity. in the case of Islam, one is confronted with a very
> believable (from the secular point of view) narartivve in a place where
> historical historical knowledge is scarce, but in the case of
> Christianity, one is confronted with a very incredilous story in a place
> where historical knowledge is abundant. so different methods of critcism
> must be used.
Of course there are differences and of course we must use some what
different critical approaches.
Now we must differentiate among the Quran, the Sirat and the Sunna
(the hadith literature). These three are quite distinct and must be
treated in different ways. This discussion didn't start there but at
this point it is aimed directly at the Sirat.
And by the Sirat I mean Ibn Ishaq (as I mentioned almost no one takes
anything not stemming from Ibn Ishaq as authentic). The problem is
that the story Ibn Ishaq presents is not very believable if looked at
with a critical eye. The largest flaw, from my point of view, is that
it views all the Arabic speakers as coming together voluntarily to
pledge allegiance to Muhammad during the last few years of his life.
This is completely implausible from a psychological point-of-view.
Even in the Sirat he has accomplished nothing by that time that would
gain him any respect from the Arabic leaders.
I think that Ibn Ishaq and his friends would say, though they do not
do so explicitly, is that Muhammad took exclusive possession of the
Ka'ba for the Muslims and that the other Arabs, deprived of their
sacred center, submitted to Islam in order to regain access to the
House. This is superficially rational but ridiculous when it is
examined closely.
If you examine the military record presented by the Sirat you will see
that Muhammad is presented as winning a victory at Badr bur barely
surviving the counter-attack at Uhud. A couple of years later there is
the battle of the ditch which, on examination, is not a battle at all
but only an excuse for attacking the Jews and finally getting control
of the entire oasis of Yathrib. Such non-Islamic evidence as we have
indicates that there were no attacks on the Jews in his lifetime and
both jews and Muslims were working together in the early days of the
attack on Syria.
That would make the attack on Khaybar a non-event (because it was an
attack on Jews). I suspect there was an attack bit it came later and
was retroverted back to Muhammad's day. The attack on Taif was
unsuccessful, even in the Sirat, and the battle of Hunayn was,
according to the Quran, a defeat. I think the entire story of Muhammad
as a military leader was put together after his death by men who had
seen the great victories (after Muhammad's death) and wanted to
glorify him. But if you remove the raids there is next to nothing
historical or plausible left.
I admit that Muhammad is better documented than Jesus. He is
mentioned in at least one non-Muslim document that comes almost from
his lifetime - two or three years later - and Jesus is not mentioned
in a non-Christian source until about sixty years after his death.
But otherwise there isn't much to choose. Zero equals zero.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 18, 2:00=A0am, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > the title of the article is "New documentary texts and the early Islamic
> > state" and the idea is that wecould gleen a lot more from the graffito an=
> d
> > texts in Arabic that have come to light in recent decades. also there is
> > de Blois' point that there are radical differences betrween the body of
> > knowledge about early Islam and the body of knowledge about early
> > Christianity. in the case of Islam, one is confronted with a very
> > believable (from the secular point of view) narartivve in a place where
> > historical historical knowledge is scarce, but in the case of
> > Christianity, one is confronted with a very incredilous story in a place
> > where historical knowledge is abundant. so different methods of critcism
> > must be used.
>
> Of course there are differences and of course we must use some what
> different critical approaches.
de Blois in "Islam in its Arabian Context":
<<
Let me reiterate just a few actually well-known points about Jesus and the
New Testament. The books of the New Testament were composed at different
times and contain glaring discrepancies both in their narrative content
and in their theological content. ...
In the narrative parts of the four canonic Gospels, Jesus is depicted
almost exclusively as a doer of miracles and consequently they cannot be
regarded as historical or biographical documents in any meaningful sense
of these words, while the teachings that these Gospels put into the mouth
of Jesus are, at least in part, theologically dependant on Pauline
doctrine. They cannot therefore be seen as records of the actual teachings
of Jesus, but reflect certain defined positions in the history of
Christian doctrine.
...
Now let us take a look at Muhammad and the Quran. In contrast to the New
Testament, the Qur'an is, on the whole, a book of consistent style and
consistent theological content. Although the surviving Muslim sects (the
Shi'ites, Kharijites, and those who eventually came to be known as
Sunnites) separated from each other within a decade of the death of
Muhammad, they all agree on the content of the Quranic canon. By contrast,
the surviving Christian sects, all of which split off from Roman imperial
Christianity at a very late date, not earlier than the fourth century,
have different versions of the
biblical canon;
I have already suggested elsewhere that the virtual absence of real
textual variants in the Qur'an is the result of a biographically
intangible figure located in a very well documented historical milieu,
whereas Muhammad is a biographically at least plausible figure located in
a historical vacuum.
>>
Peters in "Quest for the Historical Muhammad"
<<
Muhammad would appear, at least in theory, to be a far more apposite
subject for historical inquiry than the founder of Christianity. The most
abiding and forbidding obstacle to approaching the historical Jesus is
undoubtedly the fact that our principal sources, the documents included in
the New Testament, were all written on the hither side of Easter; that
is, their authors viewed their subject across the absolute conviction
that Jesus was the Christ and the Son of God, a conviction later rendered
explicit in Christian dogma. There is, however, no Resurrection in the
career of Muhammad, no Paschal sunrise to cast its divinizing light on
the Prophet of Islam. Muhammad is thus a perfectly appropriate subject of
history: a man born of woman (and a man), who lived in a known place in a
roughly calculable time, who in the end died the death that is the lot of
all mortals, and whose career was reported by authorities who share the
contemporary historian's own conviction that the Prophet was nothing more
than a man.
>>
>
> Now we must differentiate among the Quran, the Sirat and the Sunna
> (the hadith literature). These three are quite distinct and must be
> treated in different ways. This discussion didn't start there but at
> this point it is aimed directly at the Sirat.
why do you insist on calling it "Sirat" (articulating the [t] pf the ta
Marbuta) rather than Sirah?
>
> And by the Sirat I mean Ibn Ishaq (as I mentioned almost no one takes
> anything not stemming from Ibn Ishaq as authentic). The problem is
> that the story Ibn Ishaq presents is not very believable if looked at
> with a critical eye. The largest flaw, from my point of view, is that
> it views all the Arabic speakers as coming together voluntarily to
> pledge allegiance to Muhammad during the last few years of his life.
detail.
> This is completely implausible from a psychological point-of-view.
> Even in the Sirat he has accomplished nothing by that time that would
> gain him any respect from the Arabic leaders.
>
> I think that Ibn Ishaq and his friends would say, though they do not
> do so explicitly, is that Muhammad took exclusive possession of the
> Ka'ba for the Muslims and that the other Arabs, deprived of their
> sacred center, submitted to Islam in order to regain access to the
> House. This is superficially rational but ridiculous when it is
> examined closely.
hardly on a par with the supernatural account of the Gospels and which
contains so much allusions to Old Testament passages like the Messiah
being born in Bethlehem, for starters.
>
> If you examine the military record presented by the Sirat you will see
> that Muhammad is presented as winning a victory at Badr bur barely
> surviving the counter-attack at Uhud. A couple of years later there is
> the battle of the ditch which, on examination, is not a battle at all
> but only an excuse for attacking the Jews and finally getting control
> of the entire oasis of Yathrib. Such non-Islamic evidence as we have
> indicates that there were no attacks on the Jews in his lifetime and
> both jews and Muslims were working together in the early days of the
> attack on Syria.
>
politics change with circumstances, and don't forget there was no
monolithic body called "the Jews".
> That would make the attack on Khaybar a non-event (because it was an
> attack on Jews). I suspect there was an attack bit it came later and
> was retroverted back to Muhammad's day. The attack on Taif was
> unsuccessful, even in the Sirat, and the battle of Hunayn was,
> according to the Quran, a defeat. I think the entire story of Muhammad
> as a military leader was put together after his death by men who had
look, he was succesful. he must have won battles.
> seen the great victories (after Muhammad's death) and wanted to
> glorify him. But if you remove the raids there is next to nothing
> historical or plausible left.
try comparing it with the Gospels.
Yusuf B Gursey
On Jul 4, 8:48 pm, DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jun 13, 7:53=A0am, Fariduddien Rice <faridudd...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > [Part 5]
>
> > Regarding charity, Ayn Rand seemed to be neutral on charity. She said
> > that she did not consider it to be a major virtue or a moral duty. You
> > can read more here...
>
> >http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=3Dfaq_index#obj_q7
>
> > In contrast, Islam is very clear regarding charity. For example, from
> > a translation of the Qur'an (Surah 107):
>
> The emphasis on charity in both the Quran and traditional Islam is
> striking. Ignoring any questions about how it was implemented, we can
> say that Islam is a religion of social justice.
agree. especially "Islamic socialists" would agree with you. it is
interesting to note thta Qadhdhafi recieved arguments against his brand of
socialism from the Ulema based on Hadith quotations, whereupon, he
declared them invalid and resorted to a Qur'an only based religious law.
>
> It is harder to find charity in traditional Christianity although the
> Gospels do have several sayings attributed to Jesus that can be
> interpreted that way. I think it would be pointless and counter-
> productive to argue whether Islam or Christianity is more into social
> justice and charity.
Christianity is hard to define, as there are many sects and
interpretations.I would say the Qur'an has more to say on the betterment
of the Earthly position of Mankind in this world, while Christianity, as
defined by the NT, leaves it up to the Hereafter.
Islam had its social policy defined by the Qur'an, so it came about very
early.
>
> BUT there was a major difference between the first few centuries of
> the religions. The Christians were poor people - slaves and servants.
> The Muslims were rich people - masters of a great deal of the known
> world. Hence there is a great deal more in early Islam about explicit
> charity.
if Islam were just a religion of rich people, then they would have just
grabbed everything for themselves.
Charity is enshrined in the Qur'an, so it came about during Muhammad's
lifetime. my (and others) sociological take on Islam is that the
disenfranchised branch of the aristocracy mobilized the poorer people on a
"populist" basis. but the former eilte joined in, and the conflict
resurfaced between Ali anad Mu`awiya.
it is too difficult to discern the sociological context of Jesus.
Roman Imperial Christianity developed as the patricians found it too
costly to maintain the slave system, and reverted to a more self
sustaining feudal sysytem under Constantnine, and Christianity was the
ideological vehical.
>
> For example, zakat (which I doubt ever really functioned as described
> - but is not be sneered at as a mere ideal) was rather carefully
> expounded and explained in the earliest days. The Christian community
> was, on the whole, too poor to need urging along this line.
>
> Around 200 CE Clement of Alexandria wrote a little treatise about "Can
> a Rich Man be Saved". Clement (the most humane of the Church Fathers)
> agreed that, yes, a rich man could be saved - but it wasn't easy.
> Most of treatise is about how a rich man delivers charity.
>
> Ayn Rand was, of course, a hardcore atheist. It interests me that
> "conservatives" here in the US find it so easy to read Rand into the
> sacred books. A remarkable kind of eisegesis.
DKleinecke
> On Jul 4, 8:48 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > The emphasis on charity in both the Quran and traditional Islam is
> > striking. Ignoring any questions about how it was implemented, we can
> > say that Islam is a religion of social justice.
>
> agree. especially "Islamic socialists" would agree with you. it is
f
> socialism from the Ulema based on Hadith quotations, whereupon, he
> declared them invalid and resorted to a Qur'an only based religious law.
Did Gaddafi's (my choice of how to spell his name) Quran-only
religion ever produce any significant literature? Like how the Quran
related to the law code?
> > It is harder to find charity in traditional Christianity although the
> > Gospels do have several sayings attributed to Jesus that can be
> > interpreted that way. I think it would be pointless and counter-
> > productive to argue whether Islam or Christianity is more into social
> > justice and charity.
> Christianity is hard to define, as there are many sects and
> interpretations.I would say the Qur'an has more to say on the betterment
> of the Earthly position of Mankind in this world, while Christianity, as
> defined by the NT, leaves it up to the Hereafter.
It is hard to say. The most convincing picture of Jesus is a
wandering Cynic philosopher (as expounded by the Jesus Seminar and
their friends). As such he would be have been contemptuous of the
every-day concerns of most people. There is a bit of circularity
involved but almost all his saying seem to be best read as koans
designed to make people think rather than overt teachings. Oddly
enough the Quran has relatively little to say about the existential
position of mankind other than to lay down prohibitions and give
orders. If you prefer obeying orders as opposed to thinking for
yourself you will surely prefer Islam.
> Islam had its social policy defined by the Qur'an, so it came about very =
early.
As a matter of fact that doesn't seem to be true. The earliest fiqh
we have - I am thinking of the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas - makes very
little use of the Quran and what use it does make seems to be an
afterthought. It would be easy to maintain that the shariah developed
independently of the Quran and later added a little Quran to make
things look better (or perhaps some of the Quran was written to
justify the Shariah).
> if Islam were just a religion of rich people, then they would have just
> grabbed everything for themselves.
Which is exactly what they did. Except that I doubt that the religion
came first. In my model the rich people grabbing everything came
first and the religion was imposed by the Caliph (Abd al-Malik to be
precise, although Ibn al-Zubayr may have introduced the idea) to
control his unruly empire.
> Charity is enshrined in the Qur'an, so it came about during Muhammad's
> lifetime. my (and others) sociological take on Islam is that the
> disenfranchised branch of the aristocracy mobilized the poorer people on =
a
> "populist" basis. but the former eilte joined in,
This is essentially Montgomery Watt's theory which seems to me (and
others) far too gone into Marxism to be plausible.
> it is too difficult to discern the sociological context of Jesus.
Depends on what question you ask. Josephus would have us believe he
was just another of a long series of Jewish "prophets" who led
resistance movements - uniformly quixotic - against the Romans. That
place him squarely is a known sociological slot. On the other hand a
wandering Jewish teacher in Cynic mode would fit into a much more
controversial slot.
> > For example, zakat (which I doubt ever really functioned as described
> > - but is not be sneered at as a mere ideal) was rather carefully
> > expounded and explained in the earliest days. The Christian community
> > was, on the whole, too poor to need urging along this line.
>
> > Around 200 CE Clement of Alexandria wrote a little treatise about "Can
> > a Rich Man be Saved". Clement (the most humane of the Church Fathers)
> > agreed that, yes, a rich man could be saved - but it wasn't easy.
> > Most of treatise is about how a rich man delivers charity.
>
> > Ayn Rand was, of course, a hardcore atheist. It interests me that
> > "conservatives" here in the US find it so easy to read Rand into the
> > sacred books. =A0A remarkable kind of eisegesis.
hajj abujamal
On 7/19/2011 6:38 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> The most convincing picture of Jesus is a wandering Cynic
> philosopher (as expounded by the Jesus Seminar and their
> friends).
Ignoring the obvious and not-so-obvious interpolated forgery, I find
the most convincing picture of Jesus here:
http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/#barnabas
DKleinecke
> de Blois in "Islam in its Arabian Context":
I know nothing of de Blois' bona fides but, by the evidence of what he
wrote, he is not a reliable source on Christian origins.
> In the narrative parts of the four canonic Gospels, Jesus is depicted
No serious New Testament scholar except the fundamentalists takes the
Gospel of John as even pretending to be serious biographic narrative
(although it does include a handful of minor details not otherwise
known). Further almost no one takes any of the supposed historic
passages in either Mathew or Luke but not in Mark seriously (people
find it very hard to dismiss the nativity stories as what they are -
pious confabulation). That leaves Mark.
> almost exclusively as a doer of miracles
Primarily he was a healer. This, in the sociology of those days was
not miraculous.
> the teachings that these Gospels put into the mouth of Jesus are,
> at least in part, theologically dependent on Pauline
> doctrine.
This is main piece of evidence that de Blois is an unreliable source.
So far as I know no Christian does now or ever has made the argument
that Paul influenced the gospels. I suggest that this is an anti-
Christian canard.
> They cannot therefore be seen as records of the actual teachings
> of Jesus, but reflect certain defined positions in the history of
> Christian doctrine.
The Jesus Seminar studied this question intensively and concluded that
some of these teaching surely went back to Jesus himself. I recommend
you look at their publications
> Now let us take a look at Muhammad and the Quran. In contrast to the New
> Testament, the Qur'an is, on the whole, a book of consistent style and
> consistent theological content.
That, of course, is the conventional idea of the Quran. But it seems
to be a pipe dream. At the very least there are two styles - Madinan
and Meccan. And each of these styles advances a significantly
different theological content. When I say that I mean within the
umbrellas of Ebionite Christianity. The main difference lies in the
attitude toward warfare.
> Although the surviving Muslim sects (the
> Shi'ites, Kharijites, and those who eventually came to be known as
> Sunnites) separated from each other within a decade of the death of
> Muhammad, they all agree on the content of the Quranic canon. By contrast=
,
> the surviving Christian sects, all of which split off from Roman imperial
> Christianity at a very late date, not earlier than the fourth century,
> have different versions of the
> biblical canon;
I would say that we have in Islam a Christian sect (the Ebionites) who
were separated (thrown out) around 175 CE (Justin Martyr accepts them,
Irenaios doesn't). Before that there was indeed a sect (the
Marcionites) who did have a different canon - but they are long gone.
The other Christian sects all use the same canon except that the
Catholics and Orthodox accept a few more Old Testament books that are
in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew.
> I have already suggested elsewhere that the virtual absence of real
> textual variants in the Qur'an is the result of a biographically
> intangible figure located in a very well documented historical milieu,
> whereas Muhammad is a biographically at least plausible figure located in
> a historical vacuum.
> Peters in "Quest for the Historical Muhammad"
As presented this doesn't make sense. Muhammad is either
"biographically intangible" or "biographically plausible". He can't be
both. And his world cannot be both "a very well documented historical
milieu" and "a historical vacuum". I can't think of any likely
emendations.
> why do you insist on calling it "Sirat" (articulating the [t] pf the ta
> Marbuta) rather than Sirah?
Because of my attitude towards using classical Arabic in English.
There is no question that ta marbuta reflects an older ta. English
speakers cannot pronounce the final aspiration (without adding another
vowel) but they can pronounce 't'. So why not use it? The reason for
leaving it
out is that my readers are familiar with other forms. I finch every
time I write Mecca instead of Makkat but I write Mecca
> politics change with circumstances, and don't forget there was no
> monolithic body called "the Jews".
We know that but the Christian witnesses to the Arabic explosions all
seem to think the Jews are a monolithic body.
> look, he was succesful. he must have won battles.
I am arguing that he wasn't successful in war and that he won no
battles (except possibly Badr which is too overgrown with myth to be
understood). The victories the Arabs won were, according to the
Sirat, all after his death.
hajj abujamal
On 7/19/2011 7:23 PM, DKleinecke wrote at soc.religion.islam:
>> the teachings that these Gospels put into the mouth of Jesus are,
>> at least in part, theologically dependent on Pauline
>> doctrine.
> So far as I know no Christian does now or ever has made the argument
> that Paul influenced the gospels. I suggest that this is an anti-
> Christian canard.
Paul, a pharisee, preached that Jesus was the mashiach of the
Talmud, which is what he was taught and believed. It was not "Pauline"
doctrine, but the doctrine of the pharisees of Jesus' time.
The canonical gospels reflect this, making them distinguishable from
the Ebionite gospels and the writings of Clement of Alexandria and the
doctrine of James and (at first) Peter, who is said to have later
followed Paul.
hajj abujamal
On 7/20/2011 5:45 AM, Johannes Patruus wrote (first quoting abujamal):
>> Ignoring the obvious and not-so-obvious interpolated forgery, I find
>> the most convincing picture of Jesus here:
>> http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/#barnabas
> One might hesitate, though, to set too much store by a text of such
> uncertain provenance.
> cf. e.g. http://adultera.awardspace.com/FATHERS/GospelofBarnabas.html
Thank you for that link, which expands with considerable detail what
I criticize about the "Gospel of Barnabas" at The Priceless Muslim
America Bookstore (at the above muslimamerica.net link):
"Horribly mutilated with false attributions and other falsification,
this purported non-canonical gospel nevertheless also contains sermons,
parables, and conversation immediately recognizable as Jesus' words, and
a literary portrait of Jesus only dimly seen in the canonical New
Testament. Often denounced in critical reviews but rarely quoted, the
original of this gospel account ~ like the Gospel of Thomas ~ was
anathematized in the early centuries, declared heretical, and added to
the list of forbidden books by papal decree. This mutilated version
appears to have reached the private library of Pope Sixtus originally
from Muslim Spain, which was hospitable to Jewish and Christian devotees
including "heretical" Christians."
I had concluded from my own studies that this writing had come
through Granada, it was interesting to see that more skeptical
researchers have surmised the same provenance of the extant edition, and
certainly valuable to have a serial list of the internal evidences of
provenance and falsifications.
I do note again, however, that some of its "sermons, parables, and
conversation" attributed to Jesus give us "a literary portrait of Jesus
only dimly seen in the canonical New Testament." That those who
denounce the writing as a complete forgery never quote any of these
purported words of Jesus remains, in my mind, the best evidence that
their primary aim is to discourage the curious from reading it for
themselves, and that their purported "search for truth" is merely a
pretense.
I think that a new edition, redacting all the material in the book
that is obvious forgery or partisan interpolation, and presenting only
the words attributed to Jesus that accord with reason, sort of a
"Jefferson Bible" version, would be worthwhile for introducing people to
the Jesus they have never seen ~ who remembers God continuously, reminds
us of the prophets whose stories are related in the Bible, and uses
God's Word to illuminate the realities faced by the first Jewish
faithful who recognized Jesus as the Messiah and followed him into the
everlasting Kingdom of God.
It is unfortunate that ignorant muslims are so gullible as to
imagine the Gospel of Barnabas to be "evidence" of anything "against"
Roman Christianity and "for" Islam. The best evidence against Roman
Christianity is Roman Christianity, and the best evidence for Islam is
Islam. As "evidence," the Gospel of Barnabas is not much more than
another proof of partisan tampering with the writings of the faithful
called Scripture ~ that the Bible denounces at Jeremiah 8:8 and elsewhere.
It is, in other words, not useful for anything other than
presenting, to the reader, the Jesus who has been hidden from the
faithful by history ~ a man created in the very image of God, a perfect
reflection that none, not even the blind, could fail to see with the
eyes of their hearts.
In Barnabas, he is quite recognizable.
hajj abujamal
On 7/20/2011 12:42 PM, Johannes Patruus wrote:
> Thanks for your reply which has persuaded me that the Gospel of Barnabas
> is worth reading, and I think your idea for a redacted edition is a good
> one.
http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/barnabas.pdf is the received (English)
text without the apologia usually prepended to the usual published
editions. As for redaction, I don't think it would take a lot of time
should I ever be able to find some.
> I think this gospel's credibility would be improved if could be shown to
> be related in substance, and not just by name, to the "the Gospel in the
> name of Barnabas" listed as apocryphal in the Decretum Gelasianum:
> http://www.tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htm
> but since the latter appears to have disappeared without trace, this
> might not be possible.
I think a "red-letter" edition would stand by itself.
> BTW, the link to Jan Slomp's article given in footnote 2 of the article
> I cited before does not work, but it can be found here:
> http://www.chrislages.de/barnarom.htm
> Although committed to the "forgery" thesis, it contains a wealth of
> research detail.
I downloaded that page onto my hard drive before I replied to your
post. I don't know what link I used, but it worked for me.
> Of tangential interest in this connection is what Tarif Khalidi has
> recently dubbed the "Muslim Gospel", namely the corpus of sayings and
> stories of Jesus in Arabic Islamic literature. These may be read in
> English in his book "The Muslim Jesus", and in Latin and Arabic at the
> following two locations:
>
http://www.archive.org/stream/patrologiaorient13pariuoft#page/n338/mode/1up
>
http://www.archive.org/stream/patrologiaorient19pariuoft#page/529/mode/1up
We have had a copy of "The Muslim Jesus" on our bookshelves for some
time. al-Ghazali's Ihya 'Ulum-id-Deen has an abundance of material from
and about Jesus, but I haven't seen an English translation of most of
it. The difficulty is that Christians are generally unable to hear
anything about Jesus that comes from or through a muslim source, so such
writings are counterproductive in proselytizing ~ which muslims
shouldn't be doing among Christians anyway. Calling Christians to Islam
means calling them to Jesus ~ the real Jesus, not the Talmudic
falsification of the mashiach. And it has to be done from what the
Christians already have in their hands as "reliable."
What I have been doing at the Christian Sojourners' forums is
writing about Jesus as he can be seen in the canonical New Testament,
and rarely using any other source material. Early on, one writer said
"You're talking about a different Jesus" ~ and got an immediate response
from another Christian saying "He's talking about the Jesus I know."
It helps to know what God gave to the Children of Israel, and what
their Covenant ~ at the hand of Moses ~ involved. That is very
difficult to discern from only the Old and New Testament, because the
apostasy of Temple Israel is so complete. But it is there to be found,
once one sees the whole of God's Plan including what He established in
Abraham. That requires a knowledge of Islam and the history of the
muslims until the eventual collapse of the millennial muslim world, a
knowledge of Judaism and the history of Israel from Moses to Jesus, and
a knowledge of the history of Christianity in the first few centuries,
and it helps greatly to see that in the context of all history since
Adam and particularly Noah. With that, it's a lot easier to see all of
it in the Old Testament, and the real Jesus in the New. Without it,
it's like walking in a cave full of cobwebs carrying a very small candle.
Thank you for your reply.
> Patruus
DKleinecke
> Salaam!
>
> On 7/20/2011 5:45 AM, Johannes Patruus wrote (first quoting abujamal):
>
> >> Ignoring the obvious and not-so-obvious interpolated forgery, I find
> >> the most convincing picture of Jesus here:
> >>http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/#barnabas
> > One might hesitate, though, to set too much store by a text of such
> > uncertain provenance.
> > cf. e.g.http://adultera.awardspace.com/FATHERS/GospelofBarnabas.html
>
hat
> I criticize about the "Gospel of Barnabas" at The Priceless Muslim
> America Bookstore (at the above muslimamerica.net link):
>
> "Horribly mutilated with false attributions and other falsification,
> this purported non-canonical gospel nevertheless also contains sermons,
> parables, and conversation immediately recognizable as Jesus' words, and
> a literary portrait of Jesus only dimly seen in the canonical New
> original of this gospel account ~ like the Gospel of Thomas ~ was
> anathematized in the early centuries, declared heretical, and added to
> appears to have reached the private library of Pope Sixtus originally
> from Muslim Spain, which was hospitable to Jewish and Christian devotees
> including "heretical" Christians."
>
> through Granada, it was interesting to see that more skeptical
> researchers have surmised the same provenance of the extant edition, and
> certainly valuable to have a serial list of the internal evidences of
> provenance and falsifications.
>
d
> conversation" attributed to Jesus give us "a literary portrait of Jesus
> denounce the writing as a complete forgery never quote any of these
> purported words of Jesus remains, in my mind, the best evidence that
> their primary aim is to discourage the curious from reading it for
> themselves, and that their purported "search for truth" is merely a
> pretense.
>
k
> that is obvious forgery or partisan interpolation, and presenting only
> the words attributed to Jesus that accord with reason, sort of a
> "Jefferson Bible" version, would be worthwhile for introducing people to
> the Jesus they have never seen ~ who remembers God continuously, reminds
> us of the prophets whose stories are related in the Bible, and uses
> God's Word to illuminate the realities faced by the first Jewish
> faithful who recognized Jesus as the Messiah and followed him into the
> everlasting Kingdom of God.
>
> imagine the Gospel of Barnabas to be "evidence" of anything "against"
> Christianity is Roman Christianity, and the best evidence for Islam is
> another proof of partisan tampering with the writings of the faithful
.
>
> =A0 =A0 It is, in other words, not useful for anything other than
> presenting, to the reader, the Jesus who has been hidden from the
> faithful by history ~ a man created in the very image of God, a perfect
> reflection that none, not even the blind, could fail to see with the
> eyes of their hearts.
>
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
> --
> astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
> howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
>
> Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
There are two treatises called the Gospel of Barnabas and I can't be
sure which you are talking about. Mention of the Pope suggests the
newer.
The old Gospel of Barnabas seems to me to offer little or nothing
significant to a discussion of Islam - it is important for Christian
origins.
The newer Gospel seems to me to be exactly what it was described as
the first time I ever I heard of it. It was probably written by a
Spanish Muslim exiled from Spain around 1500 CE and writing in North
Africa. It is a serious and thoughtful attempt to construct a
synthesis of Islam and Christianity but I don't remember learning
anything new. I will have to reread it.
Al-Ghazali liked to quote Jesus. But I think nothing al-Ghazali quotes
is found in our standard sources. Not even the Jesus Seminar
acknowledged them. They have been extracted from al-Ghazali and
collected together. The collection used to be available online. The
collector took the position that al-Ghazali found a lost Aramaic book
of Jesus' teaching. But this idea is made implausible because Malik
ibn Anas, in the Muwatta, quotes Jesus three times and one of those
quotes is the same as one of al-Ghazali's.
The evidence is scant but it looks like a number of hadiths about
Jesus circulated in early Islam and lasted as long as al-Ghazali's
day. Of course, they did not get into any of the collections because
nothing resembling an isnad could be provided.
hajj abujamal
On 7/20/2011 4:26 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> The old Gospel of Barnabas seems to me to offer little or nothing
> significant to a discussion of Islam - it is important for Christian
> origins.
You forget that according to our understanding, "Judaism" is what
the corrupt of Israel made out of Islam as it was given to them with
Moses, and "Christianity" is what the pharisees and scribes used to
cover up Islam as the apostles and disciples knew it from Jesus, and
that all of that was "Islam" as it was promised to Abraham for Isaac, to
Noah after the Flood, and to Adam after the Fall.
Jewish filmmaker Marc Levin's "Protocols of Zion" from Netflix at
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Protocols_of_Zion/70038939 is worth
five minutes of your time. You don't need the DVD, Netflix streams it.
At 4:38 into the movie, you'll see a Jewish orthodox storekeeper,
complete with locks, in his open-front store, performing his prayer ~
exactly as muslims perform the same prayer, on a prayer rug just as
muslims use, beneath the clear Hebrew-language marquee of his store. In
eight seconds of the movie you see him standing, bowing, and prostrating.
So when we're talking about Judaism we're talking about a hidden
Islam corrupted into an exclusive global dominion of zion; when we talk
about Christianity we're talking about Islam hidden from the goyim; and
when we talk about the muslims of the millennial kingdom after the rise
of the Abbasid Tyranny, we're talking about Islam covered over with
twelve centuries of partisan ambition and sectarian distortion.
Personally, I prefer writing about Islam as it was given to the
Saba'een, the Order of the True King, the priests of The Most High God,
and about Islam as ALLAH is sending it down in America without any new
"prophet" or other apocalyptic figure, the black and the red of it,
mixed light and shadow, and a stranger even to the muslims ~ just as we
were told to expect fourteen centuries ago, two thousand years ago,
three thousand years ago, and six thousand years ago.
Eight videotaped seconds of an orthodox Jew performing what we know
is the muslim prayer is better evidence than entire libraries of
self-serving "historical" writings.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 18, 11:45=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
> > de Blois in "Islam in its Arabian Context":
>
> I know nothing of de Blois' bona fides but, by the evidence of what he
> wrote, he is not a reliable source on Christian origins.
>
> > In the narrative parts of the four canonic Gospels, Jesus is depicted
>
> No serious New Testament scholar except the fundamentalists takes the
> Gospel of John as even pretending to be serious biographic narrative
> (although it does include a handful of minor details not otherwise
> known). Further almost no one takes any of the supposed historic
> passages in either Mathew or Luke but not in Mark seriously (people
> find it very hard to dismiss the nativity stories as what they are -
> pious confabulation). That leaves Mark.
>
> > almost exclusively as a doer of miracles
>
> Primarily he was a healer. This, in the sociology of those days was
> not miraculous.
>
> > the teachings that these Gospels put into the mouth of Jesus are,
> > at least in part, theologically dependent on Pauline
> > doctrine.
>
> This is main piece of evidence that de Blois is an unreliable source.
> So far as I know no Christian does now or ever has made the argument
> that Paul influenced the gospels. I suggest that this is an anti-
> Christian canard.
he says "Pauline Christianty" not Paul himself.
>
> > They cannot therefore be seen as records of the actual teachings
> > of Jesus, but reflect certain defined positions in the history of
> > Christian doctrine.
>
> The Jesus Seminar studied this question intensively and concluded that
> some of these teaching surely went back to Jesus himself. I recommend
> you look at their publications
>
> > Now let us take a look at Muhammad and the Quran. In contrast to the New
> > Testament, the Qur'an is, on the whole, a book of consistent style and
> > consistent theological content.
>
> That, of course, is the conventional idea of the Quran. But it seems
> to be a pipe dream. At the very least there are two styles - Madinan
> and Meccan. And each of these styles advances a significantly
> different theological content. When I say that I mean within the
no, they don't advance different theological content, they advance
different content in regard to law, that resulted in different political
circumsatnces.
> umbrellas of Ebionite Christianity. The main difference lies in the
> attitude toward warfare.
>
>
>
> > Although the surviving Muslim sects (the
> > Shi'ites, Kharijites, and those who eventually came to be known as
> > Sunnites) separated from each other within a decade of the death of
> > Muhammad, they all agree on the content of the Quranic canon. By contrast=
> ,
> > the surviving Christian sects, all of which split off from Roman imperial
> > Christianity at a very late date, not earlier than the fourth century,
> > have different versions of the
> > biblical canon;
>
> I would say that we have in Islam a Christian sect (the Ebionites)
whothe Ebionites did not believe in the Virgin Birth, but the Qur'an does.
furthermore, the Christians described in the Qur'an, are at least in part
Elchasites, not Ebionites as de Blois has shown.
> were separated (thrown out) around 175 CE (Justin Martyr accepts them,
> Irenaios doesn't). Before that there was indeed a sect (the
> Marcionites) who did have a different canon - but they are long gone.
> The other Christian sects all use the same canon except that the
> Catholics and Orthodox accept a few more Old Testament books that are
> in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew.
>
> > I have already suggested elsewhere that the virtual absence of real
> > textual variants in the Qur'an is the result of a biographically
> > intangible figure located in a very well documented historical milieu,
> > whereas Muhammad is a biographically at least plausible figure located in
> > a historical vacuum.
> > Peters in "Quest for the Historical Muhammad"
>
> As presented this doesn't make sense. Muhammad is either
> "biographically intangible" or "biographically plausible". He can't be
> both. And his world cannot be both "a very well documented historical
> milieu" and "a historical vacuum". I can't think of any likely
> emendations.
should be:
<<
In contrast to the miracle stories that make up virtually the whole of the
narrative strand of the Christian gospels, the sirah, the traditional
biography of Muhammad, is realistic in the sense that it contains
virtually no public miracles, that is, miracles supposedly witnessed by
large groups of people. The sirah does, of course, record the private
miracle of Muhammad receiving the Quran from an angel. But from a
positivist, sceptical point of view it is possible to accept that highly
imaginative people in pre-modern times sincerely believed that they
received their knowledge through divine inspiration.
...
My conclusion is thus that Jesus is a biographically intangible figure
located in a very well documented historical milieu, whereas Muhammad is a
biographically at least plausible figure located in a historical vacuum.
>>
>
> > why do you insist on calling it "Sirat" (articulating the [t] pf the ta
> > Marbuta) rather than Sirah?
>
> Because of my attitude towards using classical Arabic in English.
> There is no question that ta marbuta reflects an older ta. English
yes, it does, but not in pause in the time of the Qur'an or pre-Islamic
poetry.
> speakers cannot pronounce the final aspiration (without adding another
> vowel) but they can pronounce 't'. So why not use it? The reason for
English spelling is full of etters that are not pronounced. the
alternative is to leave it out entirely.
> leaving it
> out is that my readers are familiar with other forms. I finch every
> time I write Mecca instead of Makkat but I write Mecca
>
> > politics change with circumstances, and don't forget there was no
> > monolithic body called "the Jews".
>
> We know that but the Christian witnesses to the Arabic explosions all
> seem to think the Jews are a monolithic body.
they were talking about the Jews in their realms.
>
> > look, he was succesful. he must have won battles.
>
> I am arguing that he wasn't successful in war and that he won no
> battles (except possibly Badr which is too overgrown with myth to be
> understood). The victories the Arabs won were, according to the
> Sirat, all after his death.
you argue that wothout proof and against the general concensus. as a said
Muhammad was succesful, he must have won battles
Yusuf B Gursey
>
> > de Blois in "Islam in its Arabian Context":
>
> I know nothing of de Blois' bona fides but, by the evidence of what he
> wrote, he is not a reliable source on Christian origins.
>
> > In the narrative parts of the four canonic Gospels, Jesus is depicted
>
> No serious New Testament scholar except the fundamentalists takes the
> Gospel of John as even pretending to be serious biographic narrative
> (although it does include a handful of minor details not otherwise
> known). Further almost no one takes any of the supposed historic
> passages in either Mathew or Luke but not in Mark seriously (people
> find it very hard to dismiss the nativity stories as what they are -
> pious confabulation). That leaves Mark.
>
> > almost exclusively as a doer of miracles
>
> Primarily he was a healer. This, in the sociology of those days was
> not miraculous.
>
according ot the Gospel accounts he had a virgin as a mother, God as his
father, walked on water, turned water into wine, resurrected the dead and
was resurrected himself. how more against teh laws of physics can you get.
>
>
> > Although the surviving Muslim sects (the
> > Shi'ites, Kharijites, and those who eventually came to be known as
> > Sunnites) separated from each other within a decade of the death of
> > Muhammad, they all agree on the content of the Quranic canon. By contrast=
> ,
> > the surviving Christian sects, all of which split off from Roman imperial
> > Christianity at a very late date, not earlier than the fourth century,
> > have different versions of the
> > biblical canon;
>
> I would say that we have in Islam a Christian sect (the Ebionites) who
> were separated (thrown out) around 175 CE (Justin Martyr accepts them,
> Irenaios doesn't). Before that there was indeed a sect (the
> Marcionites) who did have a different canon - but they are long gone.
> The other Christian sects all use the same canon except that the
> Catholics and Orthodox accept a few more Old Testament books that are
> in the Septuagint and not in the Hebrew.
<<
By contrast, the surviving Christian sects, all of which split off from
Roman imperial Christianity at a very late date, not earlier than the 4th
century, have different versions of the Biblical canon; for example the
Ethiopic church has a whole series of books not contained in other
versions of the Bible.
>>
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 19, 12:48=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
> > On Jul 4, 8:48 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > The emphasis on charity in both the Quran and traditional Islam is
> > > striking. Ignoring any questions about how it was implemented, we can
> > > say that Islam is a religion of social justice.
>
> > agree. especially "Islamic socialists" would agree with you. it is
> > interesting to note thta Qadhdhafi recieved arguments against his brand o=
> f
> > socialism from the Ulema based on Hadith quotations, whereupon, he
> > declared them invalid and resorted to a Qur'an only based religious law.
>
> Did Gaddafi's (my choice of how to spell his name) Quran-only
Gaddafi reflects the colloquial pronounciation. he himself reputedly
romanzied his name as Qadhafi
> religion ever produce any significant literature? Like how the Quran
> related to the law code?
I presume it is in his "green Book" which I have not read.
>
> > > It is harder to find charity in traditional Christianity although the
> > > Gospels do have several sayings attributed to Jesus that can be
> > > interpreted that way. I think it would be pointless and counter-
> > > productive to argue whether Islam or Christianity is more into social
> > > justice and charity.
> > Christianity is hard to define, as there are many sects and
> > interpretations.I would say the Qur'an has more to say on the betterment
> > of the Earthly position of Mankind in this world, while Christianity, as
> > defined by the NT, leaves it up to the Hereafter.
>
> It is hard to say. The most convincing picture of Jesus is a
> wandering Cynic philosopher (as expounded by the Jesus Seminar and
> their friends). As such he would be have been contemptuous of the
> every-day concerns of most people. There is a bit of circularity
> involved but almost all his saying seem to be best read as koans
> designed to make people think rather than overt teachings. Oddly
> enough the Quran has relatively little to say about the existential
> position of mankind other than to lay down prohibitions and give
> orders. If you prefer obeying orders as opposed to thinking for
> yourself you will surely prefer Islam.
oh, come on!
>
> > Islam had its social policy defined by the Qur'an, so it came about very =
>
> early.
>
> As a matter of fact that doesn't seem to be true. The earliest fiqh
> we have - I am thinking of the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas - makes very
> little use of the Quran and what use it does make seems to be an
> afterthought. It would be easy to maintain that the shariah developed
> independently of the Quran and later added a little Quran to make
> things look better (or perhaps some of the Quran was written to
> justify the Shariah).
that is not generally accpeted. the Qur'an contains no known
inteprolations, whereas the Hadith literature contains much.
>
> > if Islam were just a religion of rich people, then they would have
just
> > grabbed everything for themselves.
>
> Which is exactly what they did. Except that I doubt that the religion
> came first. In my model the rich people grabbing everything came
> first and the religion was imposed by the Caliph (Abd al-Malik to be
> precise, although Ibn al-Zubayr may have introduced the idea) to
> control his unruly empire.
the Qur'an is generally accpeted to pre-date them.
>
>
>
> > Charity is enshrined in the Qur'an, so it came about during Muhammad's
> > lifetime. my (and others) sociological take on Islam is that the
> > disenfranchised branch of the aristocracy mobilized the poorer people on =
> a
> > "populist" basis. but the former eilte joined in,
>
> This is essentially Montgomery Watt's theory which seems to me (and
> others) far too gone into Marxism to be plausible.
that's a dogmatic statement and Watt was not a Marxist.
>
> > it is too difficult to discern the sociological context of Jesus.
>
> Depends on what question you ask. Josephus would have us believe he
> was just another of a long series of Jewish "prophets" who led
> resistance movements - uniformly quixotic - against the Romans. That
we don't know what his atitude towards the Romans was, as some of the
Gospels were written to appeal to the Romans.
DKleinecke
> =A0 =A0 Paul, a pharisee, preached that Jesus was the mashiach of the
> Talmud, which is what he was taught and believed. =A0It was not "Pauline"
> doctrine, but the doctrine of the pharisees of Jesus' time.
>
> =A0 =A0 The canonical gospels reflect this, making them distinguishable f=
rom
> the Ebionite gospels and the writings of Clement of Alexandria and the
> doctrine of James and (at first) Peter, who is said to have later
> followed Paul.
Paul certainly started out as a Pharisee. But we have only the
vaguest idea about what Pharisee doctrine was in Paul's day. The
Talmud comes much later. Even Mishna - upon which the Talmuds (there
are two) comments was not collected until around 200 AD. Jacob Neusner
and his students have studied the Talmud, and the related sources, and
concluded, but with mire nuances than I can repeat, that it is not
reliable theological history. That is, the doctrine presented in the
Talmuds is the doctrine of the time when the Talmud was written which
continued on so long that it might still have been growing in
Muhammad's day. The teachings ascribed to older sages are ascribed,
sometimes even arbitrarily, to them to give the doctrines authority.
Josephos was also trained as Pharisee but he tells us next to nothing
about Pharisee doctrine or practice. In his eyes they seem to be just
another political party
Most students of Paul's work - for example Gerd Luedemann, who cannot
be accused of neglecting the Jewish side of Paul's thought - seem to
be struck by how little Paul knew about Jesus. The word Messiah does
not occur in Paul's writings (not even in pseudo-Paul). It is used in
Daniel which no one believes to have any direct connection to Paul
and, more significantly, in the Gospel of John. Hence any notion that
Jesus was the Messiah seems to be Johannine rather than Pauline. It
was the Johannine community that created the idea that Jesus was
divine - an idea that eventually evolved into the idea of the trinity
- as proven in the first words of the Gospel. But the synoptic gospels
could have been written by Ebionites. So far as I know the Ebionite
position on the Resurrection was approximately the same as the Islamic
position.
Theologians have almost always considered First Peter to a product of
the Pauline community given Peter's name perhaps by accident or as an
intentional forgery. James really is different and I assume it should
b considered Ebionite. But it spends no time on these issues.
DKleinecke
> On 7/20/2011 4:26 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > The old Gospel of Barnabas seems to me to offer little or nothing
> > significant to a discussion of Islam - it is important for Christian
> > origins.
>
> the corrupt of Israel made out of Islam as it was given to them with
> Moses, and "Christianity" is what the pharisees and scribes used to
> cover up Islam as the apostles and disciples knew it from Jesus, and
> that all of that was "Islam" as it was promised to Abraham for Isaac, to
> Noah after the Flood, and to Adam after the Fall.
Ah but I was not writing from that perspective. I am disinclined to go
along with your precise formulation because I consider all those old
stories from Genesis as pious but futile attempts to explain things
the authors did not understand.
However I see no difficulty with the idea that each human being is
born with an innate religious position that is modified and changes as
they grow up by the culture around them. I don't think anything is
gained by calling this innate religion Islam. It has as little to do
with the mature Islam we know as it does with Christianity or Judaism
or, for that matter, Buddhism or Scientology or etc.
> =A0 =A0 Personally, I prefer writing about Islam as it was given to the
> Saba'een, the Order of the True King, the priests of The Most High God,
Is this perhaps a reference to the Sabians of the 17th ayat of the
22nd surat (al-Hajj)? As I will explain in another place I think the
Sabians (in the Quran) are Manichees. But the Arabic empire did not
accept that reading and killed all the Manichees they could get their
hands on.
DKleinecke
>
> On 7/20/2011 4:26 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > The old Gospel of Barnabas seems to me to offer little or nothing
> > significant to a discussion of Islam - it is important for Christian
> > origins.
>
> the corrupt of Israel made out of Islam as it was given to them with
> Moses, and "Christianity" is what the pharisees and scribes used to
> cover up Islam as the apostles and disciples knew it from Jesus, and
> that all of that was "Islam" as it was promised to Abraham for Isaac, to
> Noah after the Flood, and to Adam after the Fall.
>
http://movies.netflix.com/WiMovie/Protocols_of_Zion/70038939is worth
> five minutes of your time. =A0You don't need the DVD, Netflix streams it.
> =A0 At 4:38 into the movie, you'll see a Jewish orthodox storekeeper,
> complete with locks, in his open-front store, performing his prayer ~
> exactly as muslims perform the same prayer, on a prayer rug just as
n
> eight seconds of the movie you see him standing, bowing, and prostrating.
>
> Islam corrupted into an exclusive global dominion of zion; when we talk
> about Christianity we're talking about Islam hidden from the goyim; and
> when we talk about the muslims of the millennial kingdom after the rise
> of the Abbasid Tyranny, we're talking about Islam covered over with
> twelve centuries of partisan ambition and sectarian distortion.
>
> Saba'een, the Order of the True King, the priests of The Most High God,
> and about Islam as ALLAH is sending it down in America without any new
> "prophet" or other apocalyptic figure, the black and the red of it,
> mixed light and shadow, and a stranger even to the muslims ~ just as we
> were told to expect fourteen centuries ago, two thousand years ago,
> three thousand years ago, and six thousand years ago.
>
ow
> is the muslim prayer is better evidence than entire libraries of
> self-serving "historical" writings.
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
> --
> astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
> howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
>
> Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
DKleinecke
> whothe Ebionites did not believe in the Virgin Birth, but the Qur'an does=
.
> furthermore, the Christians described in the Qur'an, are at least in part
> Elchasites, not Ebionites as de Blois has shown.
I am going to have to punt on this one because my initial impulse is
to dismiss de Blois as a crackpot but I must not jump to that
conclusion until I read more of what he says. This is a sample of
what I feel is a crackpot idea. There is too little in Quran about
Christians for us to characterize their theology. (Unless, like me,
you take mushirkun to mean Christian). Moreover if we could no one
has ever been able to disentangles Elachasites from Ebionites and by
Muhammad's time it is most likely that both groups had been
incorporated into the Manichees.
hajj abujamal
On 7/21/2011 8:01 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> Hence any notion that Jesus was the Messiah seems
> to be Johannine rather than Pauline.
Jesus was the Messiah. Now go see what the Talmud says about the
Messiah. And then go see what the Old Testament actually says.
The Talmud is of Babylonian origin. It is still called "the oral
Torah" centuries after it was transcribed into written form.
hajj abujamal
On 7/21/2011 8:17 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> I don't think anything is gained by
> calling this innate religion Islam.
It isn't. It's called "Fitrah." Islam is the way of restoring
oneself to one's original "fitrah" condition. That's the meaning of the
word "salama" ~ to restore something to its original condition.
>> Personally, I prefer writing about Islam as it was given to the
>> Saba'een, the Order of the True King, the priests of The Most High God
> Is this perhaps a reference to the Sabians of the 17th ayat of the
> 22nd surat (al-Hajj)? As I will explain in another place I think the
> Sabians (in the Quran) are Manichees. But the Arabic empire did not
> accept that reading and killed all the Manichees they could get their
> hands on.
They are named in the Qur'an, but there is no other information
about them in the Qur'an or hadith. They are not named in the Bible,
but are mentioned at least three times ~ again with very little
information, but enough to identify them as NOT the Manicheans.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 20, 8:40=A0pm, hajj abujamal <musl...@muslimamerica.net> wrote:
>
> > =A0 =A0 Personally, I prefer writing about Islam as it was given to the
> > Saba'een, the Order of the True King, the priests of The Most High God,
>
> Is this perhaps a reference to the Sabians of the 17th ayat of the
it's probably a reference to the Sabians of Harran. they were pagan, and
when an Arab general passed through their territory he gave them a choice
of adopting a Qur'anic prophet or death. they chose John the Baptist, and
styled themselves as Sabi'un. they were then deported to Iraq, where they
were rivals of the Madaeans, who had also styled themselves as Sabi'un.
against well deserved charges of paganism, they pointed to certain Semitic
cultic practices and declared themselves as representing the religion of
Abraham, who is also associated with Harran. some Muslim writers took this
seriously.
> 22nd surat (al-Hajj)? As I will explain in another place I think the
> Sabians (in the Quran) are Manichees. But the Arabic empire did not
de Blois agrees with you. "The Sabians [sabi'un] in Pre-Islamic Arabia",
Acta orientalia (Denmark) LVI, 1995, pp. 39-61
on the grounds for that a certain Arab from the Hijaz who later became a
Muslim was reportedly a Sabi' and had a blue idol, which de Blois
identifies as a statue of Mani.
> accept that reading and killed all the Manichees they could get their
> hands on.
not quite:
Enc. of Islam II "Zindik":
<<
Despite harassment by the Sasanids, a Manichaean community survived in
Babylonia (Iraq), which remained the seat of the archegos (Ar. imam ),
though his authority was contested by the Manichaeans in Transoxania (in
Arabic called the Dinawariyya, from the Sogdian word for elect). After the
Muslim conquest, Manichaeans benefited from the tolerance (or
indifference) of the Umayyads. The archegos Mihr, who flourished at the
time when Khalid b. Abd Allah al-Qasri [q.v.] was governor of Iraq (ca.
105-20/ca. 723-38), and who (according to his enemies) accepted luxurious
gifts from the Muslim governor, ...
...
The only systematic Muslim persecution of Manichaeans that we know about
began in 163/779 by order of the ?Abbasid caliph Mahdi and continued at
least until the end of the reign of al-Hadi in 170/786. The sources do not
give a clear indication of the reason for the persecution, but it is
surely no coincidence that it occurred shortly after the conversion of the
Uyghur rulers to Manichaeism in 762; Manichaeism became the state religion
of an important neighbouring kingdom and was evidently henceforth
perceived as a threat to the security of the caliphate.
>>
DKleinecke
> On 7/21/2011 8:17 PM, DKleinecke wrote:> I don't think anything is gained=
by
>
> =A0> calling this innate religion Islam.
>
> =A0 =A0 It isn't. =A0It's called "Fitrah." =A0Islam is the way of restori=
ng
> oneself to one's original "fitrah" condition. =A0That's the meaning of th=
e
Good point. If I ever find myself writing about the innate religion I
will call it fitra (or depending on my volatile mood - fitrat). It
needs a name and doesn't seem to have one in English
> word "salama" ~ to restore something to its original condition.
The root SLM in Arabic has a wide variety of uses and there doesn't
seem to be any agreement on its "meaning". Of course, there is no
necessity that it have a unique "meaning" as opposed to a cluster of
related ideas. My take on the evidence is that the fundamental idea is
"peace". From there you apply it to warfare and it takes on the
meaning "make peace after making war" and even "make peace by
surrendering" and that is one common reading for the word Islam. The
notion of returning to the original condition would arise from "making
peace on the basis of status quo ante bellum".
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 20, 9:02=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > whothe Ebionites did not believe in the Virgin Birth, but the Qur'an does=
> .
> > furthermore, the Christians described in the Qur'an, are at least in part
> > Elchasites, not Ebionites as de Blois has shown.
>
> I am going to have to punt on this one because my initial impulse is
> to dismiss de Blois as a crackpot but I must not jump to that
Francois De Blois is a professor at the School of Oriental and African
Studies and visiting Princeton, he is also a memeber of the Royal Asiatic
Society. he is no crackpot.
> conclusion until I read more of what he says. This is a sample of
> what I feel is a crackpot idea. There is too little in Quran about
> Christians for us to characterize their theology. (Unless, like me,
> you take mushirkun to mean Christian). Moreover if we could no one
no, the mushrikun worshiped Allat, Uzza and Manat in addition to Allah.
this is attested from epigraphy from Arabia. they were called the
"daughters of Allah", as attested from Sabaic inscriptions. th eother
deities mentioned in Muslim tradition are also attested by Arabian
epigraphy.
> has ever been able to disentangles Elachasites from Ebionites and by
http://www.scribd.com/doc/51920767/Nasarani-and-Hanif-by-F-de-Blois
"Nasrani [Nazoraios] and hanif [ethnikos]: Studies on the religious
vocabulary of Christianity and of Islam", BSOAS 65, 2002, pp. 1-30
the Ebionites didn't recognize the Virgin Birth and regarded Jesus like
another Old Testament Prophet.
the Elchasites recognized the Virgin Birth.
they had a Trinity consisting God, accompanied by two archangels, the Son
and teh Holy Spirit as female, the Mother, as described in the Qur'an.
they recognized Jewish Law.
they did not eat pork, as the Qur'an says that all the food of the People
of Book is permissable for Muslims, not mentioning that the fact that most
Christians eat pork.
they had a single Gospel. the Qur'an uses Injil in the singular.
they did not recognize the Prophetic books of the Old Testament, they did
nto recognize prophets between Moses and Jesus. in the QUr'an, the names
of prophets from the Pentateuch are Arabized Aramaic names. the rest of
the prophets, such as Ilyas (Elijah) and Yunus (Jonah) are derived from
Greek, as the -s ending indicates.
moreover, Arabic uses the term Nasara to describe Christians, a term
cognate with Nazoreans, which described the Elchasites.
but there were Catholic / Orthodox Christians as well in the picture, as
there are quotations from Luke, and the Qur'an says there were differences
amongst the Christians. there is quotation from Luke. there are the Greek
derived names of the later prophets.
> Muhammad's time it is most likely that both groups had been
> incorporated into the Manichees.
no, the differences are mentioned by the Church Fathers describing
heresies. they were not absorbed by the Manichaeans, although Mani himslef
was once and Elchasite.
during the time Abdulmalik, there was a revolt by a sect known as the
Isawiyya, described as Jews who recognized Jesus as the Messiah and a
Prophet, and even recognized Muhammad as Prophet of the Arabs.
F. de Blois "Islam in its Arabian Context"
http://www.orientalistics.com/news.php?item.26.1
The picture that I propose for the religious landscape in Mecca at the
dawn of the Islamic era includes thus the existence of a 'Jewish
Christian' (Nazoraean) community, which used Arabic as its cultic
language[17], which practised circumcision, shunned the consumption of
pork and of wine, prayed towards Jerusalem and adored a 'trinity'
consisting of God the father, his son Jesus, and a female holy spirit (the
mother of Jesus), and which had a canon consisting of the Torah and some
form of the Gospel, but excluding the prophetic books of the Old Testament
(the Nazoraeans do not seem to have recognised any prophets between Moses
and Jesus) [18]. Muhammad was brought up as a pagan (as indeed the sirah
informs us). As a young man he had close contacts with the Nazoraeans at
Mecca and adopted many of their teachings. But he also got to know about
catholic (presumably Melchite) Christians and his criticism of Nazoraeism,
with its implied tritheism, is essentially from a catholic position.
>>
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Jul 20, 3:05=A0am, hajj abujamal <musl...@muslimamerica.net> wrote:
>
>
>
> > =A0 =A0 Paul, a pharisee, preached that Jesus was the mashiach of the
> > Talmud, which is what he was taught and believed. =A0It was not "Pauline"
> > doctrine, but the doctrine of the pharisees of Jesus' time.
>
> > =A0 =A0 The canonical gospels reflect this, making them distinguishable f=
> rom
> > the Ebionite gospels and the writings of Clement of Alexandria and the
> > doctrine of James and (at first) Peter, who is said to have later
> > followed Paul.
>
> Most students of Paul's work - for example Gerd Luedemann, who cannot
> be accused of neglecting the Jewish side of Paul's thought - seem to
> be struck by how little Paul knew about Jesus. The word Messiah does
> not occur in Paul's writings (not even in pseudo-Paul). It is used in
> Daniel which no one believes to have any direct connection to Paul
> and, more significantly, in the Gospel of John. Hence any notion that
> Jesus was the Messiah seems to be Johannine rather than Pauline. It
> was the Johannine community that created the idea that Jesus was
> divine - an idea that eventually evolved into the idea of the trinity
> - as proven in the first words of the Gospel. But the synoptic gospels
> could have been written by Ebionites. So far as I know the Ebionite
the Ebionites did not recognize the Virgin Birth. they had only one
Gospel, that resembled Matthew, shorn of the Virgin Birth.
> position on the Resurrection was approximately the same as the Islamic
> position.
reference!
>
> Theologians have almost always considered First Peter to a product of
> the Pauline community given Peter's name perhaps by accident or as an
> intentional forgery. James really is different and I assume it should
> b considered Ebionite. But it spends no time on these issues.
well, being Jesus' brother, he probably did not believe in the Virgin
Birth!
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Jul 22, 12:42 am, DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote:
:> On Jul 20, 9:02=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
:>
:>
:> what I feel is a crackpot idea. There is too little in Quran about
:> Christians for us to characterize their theology. (Unless, like me,
:> you take mushirkun to mean Christian). Moreover if we could no one
: no, the mushrikun worshiped Allat, Uzza and Manat in addition to Allah.
: this is attested from epigraphy from Arabia. they were called the
: "daughters of Allah", as attested from Sabaic inscriptions. th eother
: deities mentioned in Muslim tradition are also attested by Arabian
: epigraphy.
moreover, certain cultic practices ascribed to the mushrikun, such as
having sacred stones, having sacred months, having months forbiden
to fighting, having pilgrimages, and others like burying girls alive, ere
attested by epigrpahy.
Johannes Patruus
Thanks for your reply which has persuaded me that the Gospel of Barnabas
is worth reading, and I think your idea for a redacted edition is a good one.
I think this gospel's credibility would be improved if could be shown to
be related in substance, and not just by name, to the "the Gospel in the
name of Barnabas" listed as apocryphal in the Decretum Gelasianum:
http://www.tertullian.org/decretum_eng.htm
but since the latter appears to have disappeared without trace, this might
not be possible.
BTW, the link to Jan Slomp's article given in footnote 2 of the article I
cited before does not work, but it can be found here:
http://www.chrislages.de/barnarom.htm
Although committed to the "forgery" thesis, it contains a wealth of
research detail.
Of tangential interest in this connection is what Tarif Khalidi has
recently dubbed the "Muslim Gospel", namely the corpus of sayings and
stories of Jesus in Arabic Islamic literature. These may be read in
English in his book "The Muslim Jesus", and in Latin and Arabic at the
following two locations:
http://www.archive.org/stream/patrologiaorient13pariuoft#page/n338/mode/1up
http://www.archive.org/stream/patrologiaorient19pariuoft#page/529/mode/1up
Patruus
Johannes Patruus
> Salaam!
>
> On 7/19/2011 6:38 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
>> The most convincing picture of Jesus is a wandering Cynic
> > philosopher (as expounded by the Jesus Seminar and their
> > friends).
>
> Ignoring the obvious and not-so-obvious interpolated forgery, I find
> the most convincing picture of Jesus here:
>
> http://www.muslimamerica.net/mabs/#barnabas
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
One might hesitate, though, to set too much store by a text of such
uncertain provenance.
cf. e.g. http://adultera.awardspace.com/FATHERS/GospelofBarnabas.html
Patruus
DKleinecke
> On Jul 22, 12:01 am, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Jul 20, 3:05=3DA0am, hajj abujamal <musl...@muslimamerica.net> wrote=
:
>
> > > =3DA0 =3DA0 Paul, a pharisee, preached that Jesus was the mashiach of=
the
> > > Talmud, which is what he was taught and believed. =3DA0It was not "Pa=
uline"
> > > doctrine, but the doctrine of the pharisees of Jesus' time.
>
shable f=3D
> > rom
> > > the Ebionite gospels and the writings of Clement of Alexandria and th=
e
> > > doctrine of James and (at first) Peter, who is said to have later
> > > followed Paul.
>
> > Most students of Paul's work - for example Gerd Luedemann, who cannot
> > be accused of neglecting the Jewish side of Paul's thought - seem to
> > be struck by how little Paul knew about Jesus. The word Messiah does
> > not occur in Paul's writings (not even in pseudo-Paul). It is used in
> > Daniel which no one believes to have any direct connection to Paul
> > and, more significantly, in the Gospel of John. Hence any notion that
> > Jesus was the Messiah seems to be Johannine rather than Pauline. It
> > was the Johannine community that created the idea that Jesus was
> > divine - an idea that eventually evolved into the idea of the trinity
> > - as proven in the first words of the Gospel. But the synoptic gospels
> > could have been written by Ebionites. So far as I know the Ebionite
>
> the Ebionites did not recognize the Virgin Birth. they had only one
> Gospel, that resembled Matthew, shorn of the Virgin Birth.
>
> > position on the Resurrection was approximately the same as the Islamic
> > position.
>
> reference!
>
>
>
> > Theologians have almost always considered First Peter to a product of
> > the Pauline community given Peter's name perhaps by accident or as an
> > intentional forgery. James really is different and I assume it should
>
> well, being Jesus' brother, he probably did not believe in the Virgin
> Birth!
There are a number of people who think "Brother of Jesus" was a title
and not a statement of blood brotherhood. I have no opinion on the
issue even though I reject the myth of the Virgin Birth. It is worth
emphasizing that the two gospels which show some actual independent
knowledge about the life of Jesus do not mention it (nor does Paul).
Matthew and Luke independently of one another (because their stories
about the birth are incompatible) added versions of the Virgin Birth.
All either of them knew about the life of Jesus was what they read in
Mark.
Yusuf B Gursey
if you accept the doctrine of Mary's perputual virginity, acc. to Enc.
Islam II, Islam does, then you would belive so. but James is said to be a
brother of Jesus in Josephus, and there is no hint that it is a title.
DKleinecke
> On Aug 12, 11:26 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > There are a number of people who think "Brother of Jesus" was a title
> > and not a statement of blood brotherhood. I have no opinion on the
>
> if you accept the doctrine of Mary's perputual virginity, acc. to Enc.
> Islam II, Islam does, then you would belive so. but James is said to be a
=A0
As I said - I have no dog in this fight. I mean I cannot see how it
makes a difference one way or the other. I am disinclined to the idea
that Islam accepts the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. The
Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully - that Jesus had no earthly
father. I don't know why a title is suspected - perhaps from the way
Paul refers to him. Josephus had a very limited amount of information
about Jesus and could have been misled.
James' importance to Islam is, of course, that the Christian component
in Islam goes back to the church (the Ebionites) he led in Jerusalem
rather than to the Pauline / Johannine church in the Hellenistic
world. I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
interest in James.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Aug 13, 5:32=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
> > On Aug 12, 11:26 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> > > wrote:
>
> > > There are a number of people who think "Brother of Jesus" was a title
> > > and not a statement of blood brotherhood. I have no opinion on the
>
> > if you accept the doctrine of Mary's perputual virginity, acc. to Enc.
> > Islam II, Islam does, then you would belive so. but James is said to be a
> > brother of Jesus in Josephus, and there is no hint that it is a title.
=
>
> =A0
>
> As I said - I have no dog in this fight. I mean I cannot see how it
> makes a difference one way or the other. I am disinclined to the idea
> that Islam accepts the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity. The
> Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully - that Jesus had no earthly
> father. I don't know why a title is suspected - perhaps from the way
> Paul refers to him. Josephus had a very limited amount of information
> about Jesus and could have been misled.
he is the principle independent source of Jesus, with no doctrinal bias in
favor of Jesus. I don't see why you suspect him.
>
> James' importance to Islam is, of course, that the Christian component
> in Islam goes back to the church (the Ebionites) he led in Jerusalem
the Ebionites are a specific sect that evolved later. as de Blois has
shown the Christians in Mecca seem to have been principally Elchasites
that accepted the Virgin Birth and had the strange Trinity described in
the Qur'an. the Ebionites did not accept the Virgin Birth, which the
Qur'an does. you constantly lump all Judaizing Christians together.
> rather than to the Pauline / Johannine church in the Hellenistic
> world. I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
> interest in James.
not much is said about him. besides, modern Muslims are wary of discussing
Jewish Christainity, as it is used by Islam's detractors to alledge that
Islam is original.
hajj abujamal
On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> I am disinclined to the idea that Islam accepts
> the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrine of Mary's
perpetual virginity" in Islam.
> The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
> that Jesus had no earthly father.
I think not.
When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians at
Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
the manner in which all children are conceived?" They said "Yes." "And
do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
answered the call of nature like all men do?" They said "Yes." "Then
how can what you say of him be true?" And they were confounded.
But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful declaration"
that he had no earthly father. I'm quite certain that he did, and quite
certain that Islam does not say otherwise. Priests and politicians
might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not.
hajj abujamal
On 8/14/2011 4:38 AM, Johannes Patruus quoted:
> Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human father,
> consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
> consistently maintained that Mary was a virgin (bat=C5=ABl) when she
> conceived her child from God's spirit.
Modern scripturalist scholars perpetuate a number of myths. It's=20
really a toss-up as to whether western orientalists or muslim=20
academicians tend more to confuse speculation and doubt with knowledge.=20
It's usually a question of not digging deeply enough to reach an=20
understanding of the confusions of history.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--=20
DKleinecke
> =A0> The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
> =A0> that Jesus had no earthly father.
>
> =A0 =A0 I think not.
>
> =A0 =A0 When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians at
> Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
> the manner in which all children are conceived?" =A0They said "Yes." =A0"=
And
> do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
> answered the call of nature like all men do?" =A0They said "Yes." =A0"The=
n
> how can what you say of him be true?" =A0And they were confounded.
>
> =A0 =A0 But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful declaratio=
n"
> that he had no earthly father. =A0I'm quite certain that he did, and quit=
e
> certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =A0Priests and politicians
> might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not.
I was thinking of the 19th surat, ayats 16-34, especially 19.20. The
Qur'an has been described, correctly I believe has been allusive.
This seems to me to be very clear.
The Arabic word BaShaRun is used to describe who has never touched
her. Everybody translates that as "human being". I suppose that might
allow for a jinn but nobody seems attracted to that idea.
As to the hadith you quoted - I don't find it in any of the usual
hadith collections. There is a version of what must be the same hadith
in Ibn Ishaq on pages 270-277 of Guillaume's translation. Ibn Ishaq
appears to have gotten it from Muhammad ibn Ja'far ibn al-Zubayr who
is one of his regular informants. In Ibn Ishaq the Christians argue
that Jesus must be the son of God because he had no father and
Muhammad replies by reciting, according to the text, more than 80
ayats from the beginning of the 3rd surat (but actually the part
quoted stops after ayat 63. Here the story of the birth of Jesus is
found in ayats 34 - 47 with much the same content as in ayat 19.
The similarity between these two passages about Jesus has been noticed
for a long time and at least one commentator has suggested that surat
19 is copied from surat 3 (I consider that unlikely).
DKleinecke
> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
> > interest in James.
>
> not much is said about him. besides, modern Muslims are wary of discussin=
g
> Jewish Christainity, as it is used by Islam's detractors to alledge that
> Islam is original.
I think you mean "allege that Islam is not original".
With the Qur'an full of references to previous prophets and their
messages it is hard for me to imagine why a Muslim would insist on
"originality" to the extent of denying that previous prophets left any
records. How do they imagine the early Muslims learned of
Christianity? The Injil is clearly not the entire Christian New
Testamant - is there Muslim speculation as to exactly what it was?
DKleinecke
> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Josephus had a very limited amount of information
> > about Jesus and could have been misled.
>
n
> favor of Jesus. I don't see why you suspect him.
His authentic material about Jesus is scant. I assume it is accurate
enough so far as it goes but it hardly does more than verify Jesus'
existence and mission.
>
> > James' importance to Islam is, of course, that the Christian component
> > in Islam goes back to the church (the Ebionites) he led in Jerusalem
>
> the Ebionites are a specific sect that evolved later. as de Blois has
> shown the Christians in Mecca seem to have been principally Elchasites
> that accepted the Virgin Birth and had the strange Trinity described in
> the Qur'an. the Ebionites did not accept the Virgin Birth, which the
> Qur'an does. you constantly lump all Judaizing Christians together.
I use Ebionites in the sense it was originally used at the end of the
second century. All of the Jewish Christians were Ebionites. Irenaios
quoting the source I call the Old Hersiologist seems to be oldest use
of the actual name. Justin Martyr describes them but does not name
them.
Later on we see various flavors of Ebionites. I doubt that any of the
various Ebionite sects were actually called Ebionites. It is not clear
to me that anybody except Hippolytos has passed on any useful
information about the Elchasites. Al-Nadim was clearly quoting
Manichee sources and it seems naive to believe we can trust the
Manichees to give a fair account of the Elchasites.
As I noted everybody sees Jewish-Christian influence on the Qur'an.
But de Blois fails to convince me that there is anything particularly
Elchasite about it. Or even that the Elchasites should be described
as Jewish-Christian.
> > rather than to the Pauline / Johannine church in the Hellenistic
> > world. I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
> > interest in James.
>
> not much is said about him. besides, modern Muslims are wary of discussin=
g
hajj abujamal
On 8/14/2011 5:23 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> As to the hadith you quoted - I don't find it in
> any of the usual hadith collections.
I found it in the Fifth Edition of the Muhammad 'Ali translation, in
a footnote, with a citation to the hadith compilation from which he had
taken it. But that Fifth Edition wasn't mine, the jama'at at the time
was using the Yusuf 'Ali, and the Muhammad 'Ali was close to a secret
among the majlis ~ I was given the "privilege" of reading it. Years
later, elsewhere, I acquired a Sixth Edition, and that footnote had been
removed. Somewhere, I found a Fifth Edition on-line, and copied the
footnote and the source, but that file is somewhere among some three
hundred gigabytes on another of my machines. I don't recall which
hadith collection it was from, but its provenance is sound.
> There is a version of what must be the same hadith
> in Ibn Ishaq on pages 270-277 of Guillaume's translation.
No, Ibn Ishaq related a partial account of the deputation, not
including that hadith. I haven't read Guillaume since I acquired an
Arabic edition of Ibn Ishaq ~ which I haven't read. I enjoyed reading
your citation, but it's a different account, from another source, than
the hadith I quoted.
hajj abujamal
On 8/14/2011 5:46 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> With the Qur'an full of references to previous prophets and their
> messages it is hard for me to imagine why a Muslim would insist on
> "originality" to the extent of denying that previous prophets left any
> records.
We make no claim of "originality," quite the opposite. All of the
Messengers came with "The Book." The Qur'an completes it, and preserves
the previous revelations. The Messenger brought "forty new things" and
those are preserved as well, but not as part of The Book.
> How do they imagine the early Muslims learned of Christianity?
"They" who? Many of the early muslims were Christians and Jews.
> The Injil is clearly not the entire Christian New Testament
> - is there Muslim speculation as to exactly what it was?
No need to speculate ~ the "Good News" was that the prophecies of
the Old Testament, of a Kingdom that would come at the hand of the
Messenger of the Covenant, would be the next that would be fulfilled.
The entire "Good News" is in the Old Testament ~ Jesus was given the
Injil, to announce it, whereas before him it was all "secret" and not to
be disclosed outside Israel, or (perhaps) even outside the Levitical
priesthood. Reciting any of those Old Testament prophecies in public
was a capital crime ~ that's what the scribes were trying to trick Jesus
into committing when they asked him for a Sign of the Son of Man, and he
gave them a Sign they'd never heard before: three days and three nights
in the belly of the earth.
Which was fulfilled when Muhammad and Abu Bakr spent three full days
and three full nights in the cave south of Mecca.
Christianity was no stranger to the early Arab muslims.
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Aug 13, 8:20=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
:> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
:> > I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
:> > interest in James.
:>
:> not much is said about him. besides, modern Muslims are wary of discussin=
: g
:> Jewish Christainity, as it is used by Islam's detractors to alledge that
:> Islam is original.
: I think you mean "allege that Islam is not original".
yes.
: With the Qur'an full of references to previous prophets and their
: messages it is hard for me to imagine why a Muslim would insist on
: "originality" to the extent of denying that previous prophets left any
: records. How do they imagine the early Muslims learned of
: Christianity? The Injil is clearly not the entire Christian New
: Testamant - is there Muslim speculation as to exactly what it was?
the polemic against Islam is that it is merely Judeo-Christianity or that
Muhammad was originally a Judeo-Christian. that's why some Muslims are
hesistamt to discuss it.
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Aug 13, 8:20=A0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
:> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
:> > Josephus had a very limited amount of information
:> > about Jesus and could have been misled.
:>
:> he is the principle independent source of Jesus, with no doctrinal bias i=
: n
:> favor of Jesus. I don't see why you suspect him.
: His authentic material about Jesus is scant. I assume it is accurate
: enough so far as it goes but it hardly does more than verify Jesus'
: existence and mission.
but as not regarding Jesus as divine, "brother" probably means jsut that.
:>
:> > James' importance to Islam is, of course, that the Christian component
Yusuf B Gursey
: On Aug 13, 11:00=A0pm, hajj abujamal <musl...@muslimamerica.net> wrote:
:> =A0> The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
:> =A0> that Jesus had no earthly father.
:>
:> =A0 =A0 I think not.
:>
:> =A0 =A0 When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians at
:> Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
:> the manner in which all children are conceived?" =A0They said "Yes." =A0"=
: And
:> do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
:> answered the call of nature like all men do?" =A0They said "Yes." =A0"The=
: n
:> how can what you say of him be true?" =A0And they were confounded.
:>
:> =A0 =A0 But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful declaratio=
: n"
:> that he had no earthly father. =A0I'm quite certain that he did, and quit=
: e
:> certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =A0Priests and politicians
:> might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not.
: I was thinking of the 19th surat, ayats 16-34, especially 19.20. The
: Qur'an has been described, correctly I believe has been allusive.
: This seems to me to be very clear.
: The Arabic word BaShaRun is used to describe who has never touched
: her. Everybody translates that as "human being". I suppose that might
yes, it does mean that, in fact it is my middle name.
: allow for a jinn but nobody seems attracted to that idea.
DKleinecke
don't find it in
>
>
> =A0 =A0 I found it in the Fifth Edition of the Muhammad 'Ali translation,=
in
> a footnote, with a citation to the hadith compilation from which he had
> was using the Yusuf 'Ali, and the Muhammad 'Ali was close to a secret
> later, elsewhere, I acquired a Sixth Edition, and that footnote had been
> footnote and the source, but that file is somewhere among some three
> hadith collection it was from, but its provenance is sound.
>
>
> > in Ibn Ishaq on pages 270-277 of Guillaume's translation.
>
> including that hadith. =A0I haven't read Guillaume since I acquired an
> Arabic edition of Ibn Ishaq ~ which I haven't read. =A0I enjoyed reading
> your citation, but it's a different account, from another source, than
> the hadith I quoted.
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
> --
> astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
> howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
>
> Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
Some of this is a matter of technical nomenclature. I would have
written
> > There is a version of what must be the same pericope
except pericope is used only in very technical circles. What it means
is that a narrative starts in a particular form and as it is passed
from narrator to narrator it changes shape. In the end there will be
many different matns but all of them are versions of the same
pericope. In the same field of nomenclature a hadith is a matn plus an
isnad. Even if two different narrators recited exactly the same matn
(something that, so far as I know, has not happened) it is a different
hadith because the isnads differ.
I agree with those hardcore Muslim scholars who says that a hadith
should never be recited without its complete isnad. (Perhaps I am only
imagining that such scholars exist).
I regret that you cannot tell me the source of your story. In my
mind, at least, it makes it considerably less than a real hadith.
DKleinecke
> In soc.religion.islam DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote in <49f9308=
8-b8ed-4c09-b6a1-a8aeeb4a6...@w22g2000prj.googlegroups.com>:
> : On Aug 13, 8:20=3DA0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
> :> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> :> > I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
> :> > interest in James.
> :>
sin=3D
> : g
> :> Jewish Christainity, as it is used by Islam's detractors to alledge th=
at
> :> Islam is original.
>
> : I think you mean "allege that Islam is not original".
>
> yes.
>
> : With the Qur'an full of references to previous prophets and their
> : messages it is hard for me to imagine why a Muslim would insist on
> : "originality" to the extent of denying that previous prophets left any
> : records. How do they imagine the early Muslims learned of
> : Testamant - is there Muslim speculation as to exactly what it was?
>
> the polemic against Islam is that it is merely Judeo-Christianity or that
> Muhammad was originally a Judeo-Christian. that's why some Muslims are
> hesistamt to discuss it.
Is the problem that they don't like the allegation that Muhammad was
originally a Judeo-Christian? If so they will need to explain what he
was. I doubt that they will accept him as an idol worshipper. I
imagine they might answer "hanif" but they might answer "muslim" (on
the basis of the idea that Islam is the religion of a human who has
not been brainwashed by his family and community). But I would say we
do not know enough to say what Muhammad's youthful religious was -
what matters is that he knew about and was influenced by Judeo-
Christianity.
As to Islam being mere Judeo-Christianity - that is a ridiculous idea
that does not need to be agrued against.
hajj abujamal
On 8/24/2011 4:53 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> I regret that you cannot tell me the source of your story. In my
> mind, at least, it makes it considerably less than a real hadith.
It took me two hours, but I found my file:
=====
[Jesus] was only what the Prophet described him to be in his controversy
with the Najr�n deputation when he said to them: "Do you not know that
Jesus was conceived by a woman in the manner in which all women
conceive? Then she was delivered of him as women are delivered of their
children? Then he was fed as children are fed. Then he ate food and
drank water and answered the call of nature (as all mortals do)? The
deputation replied to all these questions in the affirmative, on which
the Prophet said: Then how can your claim (that he was God or Son of
God) be true?" (IJ)
Muhammad 'Ali, Fifth Edition (1951), p. 148, footnote 44a; Sixth Edition
(1973), p. 141-2, footnote 422. "IJ" is J�mi al-Bay�n fi Tafsir
al-Qur'�n (Commentary), by al-Im�m Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari
=====
As you can see, I was mistaken in thinking that the footnote had
been removed in the Sixth Edition (1973) and only appeared in the Fifth
Edition (1963). I also found a copy of the Fifth Edition, I'm waiting
for verification that it is the edition we want, before we buy it.
I believe Tabari is one of the sources you cite on occasion? That's
the source of this report.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
DKleinecke
> In soc.religion.islam DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote in <7f58a84=
e-2989-499d-adcf-18e3bfa20...@l9g2000prd.googlegroups.com>:
> : On Aug 13, 11:00=3DA0pm, hajj abujamal <musl...@muslimamerica.net> wrot=
e:
>
> :> =3DA0> The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
> :> =3DA0> that Jesus had no earthly father.
> :>
> :> =3DA0 =3DA0 I think not.
> :>
> :> =3DA0 =3DA0 When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians=
at
> :> Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived i=
n
> :> the manner in which all children are conceived?" =3DA0They said "Yes."=
=3DA0"=3D
> : And
> :> do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
=3DA0"The=3D
> : n
> :> how can what you say of him be true?" =3DA0And they were confounded.
> :>
> :> =3DA0 =3DA0 But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful dec=
laratio=3D
> : n"
> :> that he had no earthly father. =3DA0I'm quite certain that he did, and=
quit=3D
> : e
> :> certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =3DA0Priests and politician=
s
> :> might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does no=
t.
>
> : I was thinking of the 19th surat, ayats 16-34, especially 19.20. =A0The
> : Qur'an has been =A0described, correctly I believe has been allusive.
> : This seems to me to be very clear.
>
> : The Arabic word BaShaRun is used to describe who has never touched
t
>
> yes, it does mean that, in fact it is my middle name.
>
> : allow for a jinn but nobody seems attracted to that idea.
>
I think we all assumed you were a human being.
Does BaShaRun have any sexual or other (like age) connotations in
Turkish or Arabic? Is it, perhaps, absolutely generic for Homo
Sapiens?
Yusuf B Gursey
: Salaam!
: On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
:> I am disinclined to the idea that Islam accepts
: > the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
: The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrine of Mary's
: perpetual virginity" in Islam.
: > The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
: > that Jesus had no earthly father.
: I think not.
: When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians at
: Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
: the manner in which all children are conceived?" They said "Yes." "And
: do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
: answered the call of nature like all men do?" They said "Yes." "Then
: how can what you say of him be true?" And they were confounded.
: But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful declaration"
: that he had no earthly father. I'm quite certain that he did, and quite
: certain that Islam does not say otherwise. Priests and politicians
: might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not.
here is an excerpt from an article:
THE VIRGIN MARY IN ISLAMIC TRADITION AND COMMENTARY
1. Jane I. Smith,
2. Yvonne Y. Haddad
The Muslim World
Volume 79, Issue 3-4, pages 161187, October 1989
<<
2. Marys virginity. In the contemporary period question has been raised in
some quarters-generally not by Arab writers-about Marys virginity. We
recall Marys protestation (S. 3:47) that she cannot conceive a child when
she has not been touched by a man.67 Clearly the vast majority of
commentators feel that this means that Jesus was born without a human
father, and the consensus is that Mary retained her virginity thoughout
her life. "He who denies the birth of Jesus from Mary while a virgin is on
the same level as an apostate; his faith is of no use to him, nor will his
religion or Islam vouchsafe for him. . . . whoever [questions Marys honor]
deserves the suffering of hell."68
A few modern writers, however, have chosen to see it differently. The
Indian exegete Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for example, flatly denies Marys
virginity, saying that the Qur'an does not mean that she never had
relations with any man but that she only had intercourse with her It is
important to note that this material comes out of the context of intensive
and aggressive Christian missionary activity in India which depicted Jesus
as superior to Muhammad, even citing the Qur'an as proof. Thus the denial
of the virginity, although not in the tradition of Islam, may well be seen
as part of the apologetic to defend the faith against its Christian
detractors.
Ghulam Ahmad Parwez, the influential Pakistani commentator, is less
definitive, but does argue that the Quran does not say explicitly that
Jesus was born without a human father, citing the fact that the Qur'an
does not normally mention the name of the fathers of the prophets. It was
perfectly normal for Mary to have protested the news of her pregnancy, he
says, because she was leading a reclusive life in the temple. The Qur'an,
by affirming Gods power to create simply by saying Be!, was attesting to
the fact of creation through Gods initiation, a normal occurrence. It was
not necessary, he argues, for the Qur'an to detail how Mary got pregnant,
as everyone is familiar with that process.
>>
Yusuf B Gursey
: On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
:> I am disinclined to the idea that Islam accepts
: > the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
: The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrine of Mary's
: perpetual virginity" in Islam.
Here is what Wikipedia "Pepetual virginity of Mary" says:
<<
While, in Sura 19,[72] the Qur'an declares that Jesus was the result of a
virgin conception (verses 20-22), it does not say that Mary would remain a
virgin perpetually: in speaking of her suffering "the pains of childbirth"
(verse 23) it seems to deny her virginity in partu (in giving birth). The
Quran also depicts the dialogue Mary had with the Archangel Gabriel, in
which she is amazed on how she can be pregnant when no man has ever
touched her. Gabriel however tells her that this matter has already been
decided by God. The virginity of Mary is also authenticated in several
hadiths of Muhammad[citation needed].
>>
: > The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
Yusuf B Gursey
: On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
:> I am disinclined to the idea that Islam accepts
: > the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
: The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrine of Mary's
: perpetual virginity" in Islam.
here is what "Encyclopaedia of the Qur'an" also from Brill says:
<<
Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human father,
consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
consistently maintained that Mary was a virgin ( batul) when she conceived
her child from God's spirit. While the term 'virgin' ( batul) does not
appear in the Qur'an, the devout often use it in reference to Mary. In
Sunni and especially Shi`i popular piety, the title is also applied to
Fatima (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 179-80). Exegetical literature
lagely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed after
Jesus' birth. While Mary's purification "from the touch of men" implied
perpetual virginity to some religious scholars (cf. Razi, Tafsir, viii,
46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some modern interpreters
appear to deny that Mary retained her virginity beyond Jesus' birth (cf.
Bahi, Surat Maryam, 14). Even though, however, some nineteenth and
twentieth century modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian subcontinent
have rejected the notion of Mary's motherhood while a virgin (Baljon,
Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith and Haddad,
Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the tenet of
the virgin birth of Jesus.
>>
: > The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
Yusuf B Gursey
it's masculine, but I have not seen it used in the feminine. it is used
when homo sapiens in general is meant.
actually in Turkey we do not seperate middle and first names. in the
paperwork, there is an entry for "name" and "family name". the family name
is an inovation of the Republic in 1934 and only in the past couple of
decades in Cyprus. the name one is known by does not always come first in
the "name" entry, some people are called by two names, cf. Mustafa Kemal
(Kemal was acquired later in life). if a surname was Turkish (as opposed
to an Arabic or Persian nisba or laqab) it came first in Ottoman times,
it was generally associated with notables. my full name is Suat Yusuf
Bes,er Gu"rsey. aside from my surname, my names are of Arabic origin,
su`a:d yu:suf ba*sh*ar . su`a:d can be a man's name in Arabic, but in
Arabic it is more commonly a girl's name (it was the name of a
pre-Islamic Arab poet's muse (a woman). in Turkey it can be either a man's
name or a girl's name. in my case it was the name of my maternal
grandfather. I had difficulty at first in parsing my name in the US. then
I decided that it is as if I have a double name Suat Yusuf (sometimes S.
Yusuf), and my middle name is Bes,er
Johannes Patruus
> Salaam!
>
> On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
>> I am disinclined to the idea that Islam accepts
> > the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
>
> The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrine of Mary's
> perpetual virginity" in Islam.
>
> > The Qur'an does indeed declare - forcefully -
> > that Jesus had no earthly father.
>
> I think not.
>
> When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Christians at
> Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
> the manner in which all children are conceived?" They said "Yes." "And
> do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
> answered the call of nature like all men do?" They said "Yes." "Then
> how can what you say of him be true?" And they were confounded.
>
> But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "forceful declaration"
> that he had no earthly father. I'm quite certain that he did, and quite
> certain that Islam does not say otherwise. Priests and politicians
> might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not.
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
FWIW, Brill's Encycloplaedia of the Qur'an offers the following summary
(s.v. Mary) -
[Quote:) Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human
father, consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
consistently maintained that Mary was a virgin (batūl) when she conceived
her child from God's spirit. While the term ‘virgin’ (batūl) does not
appear in the Qurʾān, the devout often use it in reference to Mary. In
Sunnī and especially Shīʿī popular piety, the title is also applied to
Fāṭima (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 179-80). Exegetical literature
largely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed
after Jesus' birth. While Mary's purification “from the touch of men”
implied perpetual virginity to some religious scholars (cf. Rāzī, Tafsīr,
viii, 46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some modern
interpreters appear to deny that Mary retained her virginity beyond Jesus'
birth (cf. Bahī, Sūrat Maryam, 14). Even though, however, some nineteenth
and twentieth century modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian
subcontinent have rejected the notion of Mary's motherhood while a virgin
(Baljon, Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith and
Haddad, Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the
tenet of the virgin birth of Jesus. [:Unquote]
I note, incidentally, that Brill's EQ has a would-be rival, albeit one
that has yet to gallop forth from the starting gates:
http://www.iequran.com/
Patruus
Yusuf B Gursey
> On 14/08/2011 07:00, hajj abujamal wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Salaam!
>
> > On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> > =C2=A0 > =C2=A0the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
>
> > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The encyclopedia is incorrect, there is no "doctrin=
e of Mary's
> > perpetual virginity" in Islam.
>
> > =C2=A0 > =C2=A0that Jesus had no earthly father.
>
> > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0I think not.
>
> > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0When speaking with the deputation of the Najran Chr=
istians at
> > Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived in
=C2=A0"And
> > do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
=C2=A0"Then
> > how can what you say of him be true?" =C2=A0And they were confounded.
>
> > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0But I'll certainly look at what you say is a "force=
ful declaration"
> > that he had no earthly father. =C2=A0I'm quite certain that he did, and=
quite
> > certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =C2=A0Priests and politician=
s
> > might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does not=
.
>
> > was-salaam,
> > abujamal
>
> FWIW, Brill's Encycloplaedia of the Qur'an offers the following summary
> (s.v. Mary) -
>
> [Quote:) Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human
> father, consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
eived
> her child from God's spirit. While the term =E2=80=98virgin=E2=80=99 (bat=
=C5=ABl) does not
> appear in the Qur=CA=BE=C4=81n, the devout often use it in reference to M=
ary. In
> Sunn=C4=AB and especially Sh=C4=AB=CA=BF=C4=AB popular piety, the title i=
s also applied to
> F=C4=81=E1=B9=ADima (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 179-80). Exegetical l=
iterature
> largely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed
men=E2=80=9D
> implied perpetual virginity to some religious scholars (cf. R=C4=81z=C4=
=AB, Tafs=C4=ABr,
> viii, 46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some modern
'
> birth (cf. Bah=C4=AB, S=C5=ABrat Maryam, 14). Even though, however, some =
nineteenth
> and twentieth century modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian
> subcontinent have rejected the notion of Mary's motherhood while a virgin
> (Baljon, Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith and
> Haddad, Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the
> tenet of the virgin birth of Jesus. [:Unquote]
>
> I note, incidentally, that Brill's EQ has a would-be rival, albeit one
> that has yet to gallop forth from the starting gates:
>
> Patruus
you inadvertently repeated my post, but yours is with the original
diacritcs. let's see if Arabic characters show up. I will sign my
given names:
=D8=B3=D8=B9=D8=A7=D8=AF =D9=8A=D9=88=D8=B3=D9=81 =D8=A8=D8=B4=D8=B1
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Aug 26, 12:07=3DC2=3DA0am, Johannes Patruus <inva...@invalid.invalid> =
wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 14/08/2011 07:00, hajj abujamal wrote:
>
> > > Salaam!
>
> > > On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 > =3DC2=3DA0the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0The encyclopedia is incorrect, there =
is no "doctrin=3D
> e of Mary's
> > > perpetual virginity" in Islam.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 > =3DC2=3DA0that Jesus had no earthly father.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0I think not.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0When speaking with the deputation of =
the Najran Chr=3D
> istians at
> > > Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived =
in
> > > the manner in which all children are conceived?" =3DC2=3DA0They said =
"Yes."=3D
> =A0=3DC2=3DA0"And
> > > do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
s." =3D
> =3DC2=3DA0"Then
> > > how can what you say of him be true?" =3DC2=3DA0And they were confoun=
ded.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0But I'll certainly look at what you s=
ay is a "force=3D
> ful declaration"
> > > that he had no earthly father. =3DC2=3DA0I'm quite certain that he di=
d, and=3D
> =A0quite
> > > certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =3DC2=3DA0Priests and poli=
tician=3D
> s
> > > might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does n=
ot=3D
> =A0.
>
> > > was-salaam,
> > > abujamal
>
> > FWIW, Brill's Encycloplaedia of the Qur'an offers the following summary
> > (s.v. Mary) -
>
> > [Quote:) Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human
> > father, consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
e conc=3D
> eived
> > her child from God's spirit. While the term =3DE2=3D80=3D98virgin=3DE2=
=3D80=3D99 (bat=3D
> =3DC5=3DABl) does not
> > appear in the Qur=3DCA=3DBE=3DC4=3D81n, the devout often use it in refe=
rence to M=3D
> ary. In
> > Sunn=3DC4=3DAB and especially Sh=3DC4=3DAB=3DCA=3DBF=3DC4=3DAB popular =
piety, the title i=3D
> s also applied to
> > F=3DC4=3D81=3DE1=3DB9=3DADima (Smith and Haddad, Virgin Mary, 179-80). =
Exegetical l=3D
> iterature
> > largely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed
ouch of =3D
> men=3DE2=3D80=3D9D
> > implied perpetual virginity to some religious scholars (cf. R=3DC4=3D81=
z=3DC4=3D
> =3DAB, Tafs=3DC4=3DABr,
> > viii, 46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some modern
us=3D
> '
> > birth (cf. Bah=3DC4=3DAB, S=3DC5=3DABrat Maryam, 14). Even though, howe=
ver, some =3D
> nineteenth
> > and twentieth century modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian
in
> > (Baljon, Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith a=
nd
> > Haddad, Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the
> > tenet of the virgin birth of Jesus. [:Unquote]
>
> > I note, incidentally, that Brill's EQ has a would-be rival, albeit one
> > that has yet to gallop forth from the starting gates:
>
> > Patruus
>
> you inadvertently repeated my post, but yours is with the original
> diacritcs. let's see if Arabic characters show up. I will sign my
> given names:
>
=3DD9=3D81 =3DD8=3DA8=3DD8=3DB4=3DD8=3DB1
didn't come out, but evidently it now accpets macrons.
Yusuf B Gursey
> Salaam!
>
> On 8/24/2011 4:53 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
>
> > mind, at least, it makes it considerably less than a real hadith.
>
>
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
> [Jesus] was only what the Prophet described him to be in his controversy
> with the Najr n deputation when he said to them: "Do you not know that
> Jesus was conceived by a woman in the manner in which all women
r
> children? =A0Then he was fed as children are fed. =A0Then he ate food and
> drank water and answered the call of nature (as all mortals do)? =A0The
> deputation replied to all these questions in the affirmative, on which
> the Prophet said: Then how can your claim (that he was God or Son of
>
> Muhammad 'Ali, Fifth Edition (1951), p. 148, footnote 44a; Sixth Edition
> al-Qur' n (Commentary), by al-Im m Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabar=
i
> =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D
>
> =A0 =A0 As you can see, I was mistaken in thinking that the footnote had
> been removed in the Sixth Edition (1973) and only appeared in the Fifth
> for verification that it is the edition we want, before we buy it.
the name of the book?
>
> =A0 =A0 I believe Tabari is one of the sources you cite on occasion? =A0T=
hat's
> the source of this report.
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
> --
> astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
> howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
>
> Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
> a Mercy for us. =A0Be like the better son of Adam.
hajj abujamal
On 8/26/2011 3:54 AM, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
> the name of the book?
al-Qur'an.
Quoted in a footnote to Q3:43 is a hadith from the Jami' al-Bayan fi
Tafsir al-Qur'an of al-Imam Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari.
David required a reference.
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
a Mercy for us. Be like the better son of Adam.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Aug 14, 9:08=3DA0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
> In soc.religion.islam DKleinecke <dklei...@gmail.com> wrote in <49f9308=
=3D
>
> 8-b8ed-4c09-b6a1-a8aeeb4a6...@w22g2000prj.googlegroups.com>:
>
>
>
>
>
> > : On Aug 13, 8:20=3D3DA0pm, Yusuf B Gursey <y...@TheWorld.com> wrote:
> > :> On Aug 13, 10:20 pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > :> > I am mildly surprised that Muslims seem to have never shown any
> > :> > interest in James.
> > :>
us=3D
> sin=3D3D
> > : g
> > :> Jewish Christainity, as it is used by Islam's detractors to alledge =
th=3D
> at
> > :> Islam is original.
>
> > : I think you mean "allege that Islam is not original".
>
> > yes.
>
> > : With the Qur'an full of references to previous prophets and their
> > : messages it is hard for me to imagine why a Muslim would insist on
y
> > : records. How do they imagine the early Muslims learned of
> > : Testamant - is there Muslim speculation as to exactly what it was?
>
at
> > Muhammad was originally a Judeo-Christian. that's why some Muslims are
> > hesistamt to discuss it.
>
> Is the problem that they don't like the allegation that Muhammad was
> originally a Judeo-Christian? If so they will need to explain what he
yes. because of a series of books. "The Priest and the
Prophet" (originally in Arabic) by a Syrian priest and Gunter Luling
(a fringe theorist). they argued that the Qur'an was originally an
Ebionite work.
> was. I doubt that they will accept him as an idol worshipper. I
> imagine they might answer "hanif" but they might answer "muslim" (on
> the basis of the idea that Islam is the religion of a human who has
> not been brainwashed by his family and community). But I would say we
> do not know enough to say what Muhammad's youthful religious was -
> what matters is that he knew about and was influenced by Judeo-
> Christianity.
there is a credible case that Waraqa b. Nawfal was a Judeo-Christian.
Muhammad's grandfather was definitley a pagan, judging from the names
of his sons. the QUr'an says Muhammad was "erring" or astray (Da:ll,
(93:7). I and Enc. of Islam II find this to mean he was origianlly a
pagan. a variant of a Hadith identifies Muhammad as eating meat
scrificed to idols. see 'A Bag of Meat': A Study of an Early "Had=C4=ABth"
Author(s): M. J. Kister Source: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies, University of London, Vol. 33,No. 2 (1970), pp.
267-275. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/613003.
the accpeted Islamic view is that he did not sacrifice to idols and
did not eat their meat, but do not go into specifics.
Yusuf B Gursey
> On Aug 26, 12:07=3DC2=3DA0am, Johannes Patruus <inva...@invalid.invalid> =
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 14/08/2011 07:00, hajj abujamal wrote:
>
> > > Salaam!
>
> > > On 8/13/2011 6:20 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 > =3DC2=3DA0the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0The encyclopedia is incorrect, there =
is no "doctrin=3D
> > > perpetual virginity" in Islam.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 > =3DC2=3DA0that Jesus had no earthly father.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0I think not.
>
the Najran Chr=3D
> istians at
> > > Medina, the Messenger said "Do you not know that Jesus was conceived =
in
> > > the manner in which all children are conceived?" =3DC2=3DA0They said =
"Yes."=3D
> > > do you not know that he ate and slept and walked in the markets and
s." =3D
> =3DC2=3DA0"Then
> > > how can what you say of him be true?" =3DC2=3DA0And they were confoun=
ded.
>
> > > =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0 =3DC2=3DA0But I'll certainly look at what you s=
ay is a "force=3D
> > > that he had no earthly father. =3DC2=3DA0I'm quite certain that he di=
d, and=3D
> =A0quite
> > > certain that Islam does not say otherwise. =3DC2=3DA0Priests and poli=
tician=3D
> s
> > > might, in order to pacify or recruit Christians, but the faith does n=
ot=3D
> =A0.
>
> > > was-salaam,
> > > abujamal
>
> > FWIW, Brill's Encycloplaedia of the Qur'an offers the following summary
> > (s.v. Mary) -
>
> > [Quote:) Concerning the matter of Jesus' conception without a human
> > father, consensus among classical and modern scripturalist scholars has
e conc=3D
> > her child from God's spirit. While the term =3DE2=3D80=3D98virgin=3DE2=
=3D80=3D99 (bat=3D
> =3DC5=3DABl) does not
> > appear in the Qur=3DCA=3DBE=3DC4=3D81n, the devout often use it in refe=
rence to M=3D
> ary. In
> > Sunn=3DC4=3DAB and especially Sh=3DC4=3DAB=3DCA=3DBF=3DC4=3DAB popular =
piety, the title i=3D
> s also applied to
Exegetical l=3D
> iterature
> > largely disregards the question of whether Mary's virginity prevailed
ouch of =3D
> men=3DE2=3D80=3D9D
z=3DC4=3D
> =3DAB, Tafs=3DC4=3DABr,
> > viii, 46), the matter was not fully discussed, and some modern
us=3D
> '
> > birth (cf. Bah=3DC4=3DAB, S=3DC5=3DABrat Maryam, 14). Even though, howe=
ver, some =3D
> > and twentieth century modernist Islamic scholars on the Indian
in
> > (Baljon, Koran interpretations, 69-70; Parrinder, Jesus, 69 f.; Smith a=
nd
> > Haddad, Virgin Mary, 175), mainstream Islamic consensus has upheld the
> > tenet of the virgin birth of Jesus. [:Unquote]
>
> > I note, incidentally, that Brill's EQ has a would-be rival, albeit one
> > that has yet to gallop forth from the starting gates:
>
> > Patruus
>
> you inadvertently repeated my post, but yours is with the original
> diacritcs. let's see if Arabic characters show up. I will sign my
> given names:
>
=3DD9=3D81 =3DD8=3DA8=3DD8=3DB4=3DD8=3DB1
hmm. my version garbled up the macrons. my browser desn't when sending
to other groups.
DKleinecke
> Salaam!
>
> On 8/26/2011 3:54 AM, Yusuf B Gursey wrote:
>
> > the name of the book?
>
>
> =A0 =A0 Quoted in a footnote to Q3:43 is a hadith from the Jami' al-Bayan=
> Tafsir al-Qur'an of al-Imam Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari.
>
> was-salaam,
> abujamal
> --
> astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
> howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
>
> Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,
I read the reference that Abu Jamal supplied as saying that the
passage is from the Tafsir of al-Tabari. I don't have access to a copy
of that. In his History al-Tabari was very good about giving isnads
but it looks like I would have to find a copy of the Tafsir and look
to find the isnad.
Al-Tabari's Tafsir is a respectable source but it is NOT one of the
books that are assumed to define authentic hadiths. As usual with such
cases it is therefore sort of left in limbo. Al-Ghazali would not
hesitate to use it if he thought it edifying - but al-Albani would
probably reject it.
hajj abujamal
On 9/7/2011 7:43 PM, DKleinecke wrote:
> Al-Tabari's Tafsir is a respectable source but it is NOT one of the
> books that are assumed to define authentic hadiths. As usual with such
> cases it is therefore sort of left in limbo.
tradition as "suspect" make such judgmental distinctions between one
written account of oral tradition and another.
> Al-Ghazali would not hesitate to use it if he thought it edifying
> - but al-Albani would probably reject it.
thinking, recited in the preamble to "The Great Books of the Western
World" as "Everything must be challenged, and nothing left unquestioned."
The premise appears to be "A thousand people ignorant of everything,
arguing for a thousand years, will come to know something." Oddly, I've
seen only one suggestion of any truth to that: the ancient Chinese came
to know it as a false premise and abandoned it.
'Ali radi ALLAHU anhu is reported to have said "Ibadatul-Awwal
ma'rifat billahi" ~ "The first worship is knowledge by God." We collect
the writings of the millennial muslim world to have one more catalog of
mistakes we don't want to make ~ knowledge comes from God, not from
books and "respectable sources" like (ha ha) "al-Albani."
was-salaam,
abujamal
--
astaghfirullahal-ladhee laa ilaha illa
howal-hayyul-qayyoom wa 'atoobu 'ilaihi
Rejoice, muslims, in martyrdom without fighting,