What is Islaam?

[Rooibos]

Originally Posted by Mamabelle
Hey Guyguy, how are you? I was wondering, where in the quran or any other place you saw that "subscribe to the prophet's exhortation to murder anyone who isn't a Muslim too.."?

Qur'an:9:5

"Fight and kill the disbelievers wherever you find them, take them captive, harass them, lie in wait and ambush them using every stratagem of war."

Secondly, as I mentioned that the verses in chapter 9 are taken into context when the idolators in Makkah broke the treaty with the Muslims. And hence because they broke the treaty and transgressed upon the Muslims the Muslims were allowed to fight their combattants.

Musa can you help me a bit with this verse as I can read into it what you try to explain? The actual verse says:
9:5 Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free.

Notice the bold. Muhammad says when the when the sacred months have passed then go and find the idolaters, prepare an ambush for them and besiege them.

This does not at all sound like the Muslims were defending themselves from combatants. It merely seems like a warrant to go and kill those who worshipped idols in whatever way possible once the the fasting month was done.

The previous verse does limit this sanction by saying if there is a treaty then do not attack and kill them until the term is over. But no where in any of the preceding or following verses to this one does it say anything about the idolators coming to kill the Muslims and this verse being necessary for self defence.

[Rooibos]

Thirdly, if we look into some of the Hindu scriptures we would see that the God Indra is praised for killing thousands of Dassas during the war of Muhabarrat. Can you explain why occupying Dravidian territory and murdering them was such a praiseworthy act?

That's strange as far as I've read the Mahabharat war was Krishna talking to Arjuna and the battlefield as the two sides, opposing cousins, prepared to fight for a kingdom. I don't know of any Indra bing involved. I don't know what Dassas are. I Googled it but got no relevant info back. And This took place in India and it was Indian fatricidal war. So I'm not sure what you mean by Indra "occupying Dravidian territory and murdering them".


Hope you can clarify. By the way Indra is the Hindu rain god.

[Rooibos]

...according to our post-modern code the Prophet's marriage to a nine year old girl is something reprehensible yet homosexuality, lesbianism, adultery and fornication are something commonplace.

I can't believe that you are relating homosexuality, adultery or fornication to child marriage which in essence is child abuse. So because two consenting men/women decide to sleep togther, in your eyes that makes sex with a 9 year old girl justifiable.


And by the way homosexuality is not simply something you choose just to be different. Individuals are born with traits that determine their sexuality. This is scientifically proven.


To equate them with a 50 year old man marrying a 6 year old girl and consumating the marriage when she was only 9 is the height of blind faith trying to justify the unjustifiable.


No 6 year old girl could ever consent to a marriage, as she would not have a clue as to what it involves. Her father Abu Bakr at first did not want to agree but just like within any sect the followers have little choice but to submit to the leader's persuasion.


To this day poor innocent girls are subjugated to this abuse because in Islamic nations, Muhammad is considered the best example of a human being. And the Qur'an commands Muslims to follow him, hence following his sunnah is considered honourable. And note also, the Qur'an does give permission for men to marry pre-pubescent girls.

[Rooibos]

As for the Qur'an it was written fully during the Prophet's time. However, it was compiled into one during the time of Abu Bakr the first Caliph. So this shows that it is fully attributed to the Prophet from two angles:
1. It was written during the Prophet's time.
2. The companions of the Prophet agreed on what is within the Qur'an that is between our hands in this time.

This is not true.

The qur'an was not 'written' fully during the prophet's lifetime. Some ayat (verses) were written, some were only memorised. There were many different scribes during the 20 year prophethood of Muhammad. The verses that were recorded were done on various materials such as palm leaves, bones and stone tablets and were located in many different places. But many verses were simply memomised.

About a year after Muhammad's death, many reciters of the qur’an were slain in the Battle of Yamama. Umar therefore suggested to Abu Bakr, the then Caliph, that all the suras of the qur’an should be brought together into one book.

Zayed, the chief scribe of Muhammad at the time of his death, was assigned the task of compiling the various sources that were either written or memorised, into one source. This first edition of the qur’an was completed twenty years after Muhammad's death. The fact that it took so long only goes to show that it was a lengthy and complex process during which any number of human errors and interpolations could have seeped in.

However during the rule of Uthman the 3rd caliph, Zayed was again commissioned, this time to create a revised version of the Qur’an. All copies of the first edition were called in from around the Islamic empire and burnt. No one knows why Uthman had a second edition of the qur'an compiled and why it was necessary to burn the first edition.

In 1972, what is now considered the oldest known qur'anic text (dated about 650 CE) was found in the attic of a mosque in Sana'a, Yemen. There is evidednce of changes to the text with previous words erased and overwitten with others. There are also slight variations in this version to the ones in use today.

There are also sahih hadiths that claim that there were verses recited by Muhammad as part of the qur'an that did not make it into the compiled qur'an. Such as the verses on rajam, stoning for adultery.

Therefore Muhammad was not around when the final version of the qur'an was drafted and hence you have no evidence that even if he was hearing things from Allah that what you have now is what he recited.

If Muhammad was clever enough he would have made sure that from the very first verse he received to the very last, he had well documented, chronologically in a single document. After all the Jews and Christians had books, he called them People of the Book, so he should have been savvy enough to know the importance of confirming Allah's words were written exactly as he heard them into a book.

But when the qur'an was being put together the compilers did not even remember the exact chronology of the text and simply placed the chapters from the longest to the shortest. Well except for the first.

[Falcon]

And by the way homosexuality is not simply something you choose just to be different. Individuals are born with traits that determine their sexuality. This is scientifically proven

.
You probably thought that putting in the last sentence would lend some sort of credibility to that preposterous claim.

[Rooibos]

.
You probably thought that putting in the last sentence would lend some sort of credibility to that preposterous claim.[/COLOR]

I wouldn't go so far as saying it is preposterous.
There has been many studies conducted in this field and much of the evidence do point to the fact that sexuality though mutable throughout one's life is affected by many traits developed from the time of conception.

Have a glance at the following pages when you get some time:
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...al-orientation
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/25/op...-at-birth.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology...al_orientation
http://www.councilforresponsiblegene...aspx?pageId=66

As noted in the first article:


The comparison with handedness is illuminating. The majority of people are naturally right-handed but for a significant minority (around 10%) it is equally natural to be left-handed. Throughout history left-handers have been derided as 'sinister' and 'cack-handed' and in the 1950s Anglo-American schools tried to eliminate the 'problem' by brutal punishment applied when the 'wrong' hand was used. This was doomed to failure because the brains of left-handers are hard-wired that way by genetics and prenatal hormones. Similarly, all attempts at 'therapy' for homosexuality are a waste of time because sexual orientation is natural for a minority of individuals. Psychiatry no longer classifies homosexuality as a disease and it is mark of civilisation that many countries are now enacting equal rights legislation. Vive le difference!

[Sly1]

ROOIBOS: You have some very good answers there!

[guyguy]

You probably thought that putting in the last sentence would lend some sort of credibility to that preposterous claim.

Falcon,
Did you actually post this? I cannot believe that you did not know this scientific fact and that you can easily locate scientific papers and studies that support this.

[Falcon]

Let's not just say there is 'scientific' evidence. Let's put it on the table and dissect it.

Mind you, that the same genetic genesis of the tendency would have to extend to an affinity to children and animals too.

[guyguy]

But you do know that there is a host of peer reviewed scientific papers and studies that support this, don't you?

[Falcon]

put them on the table.
Support what? A tenuous 'association'? A causal 'link'?

[guyguy]

put them on the table.
Support what? A tenuous 'association'? A causal 'link'?

Man, go do yuh own research. You have easy access to all the published medical studies and papers at your fingertips that the general public doesn't have. Ah tired doing research for you.

[Rooibos]

ROOIBOS: You have some very good answers there!

Thanks Sly.

[Rooibos]

Let's not just say there is 'scientific' evidence. Let's put it on the table and dissect it.

Mind you, that the same genetic genesis of the tendency would have to extend to an affinity to children and animals too.

Yes, homosexuality is observed in the animal kingdom. Would you like me to Google it for you?
And yes teens from an early age, when discovering their sexuality are confronted with mixed signals because of their differences from the norm.

[Falcon]

Yes, homosexuality is observed in the animal kingdom. Would you like me to Google it for you?
And yes teens from an early age, when discovering their sexuality are confronted with mixed signals because of their differences from the norm.

I hope those kinds of articles arent the ones that will be brought (in a new thread because we dont want to derail this one).
By the same token, incest, infanticide and cannibalism are observed in the animal kingdom. Not to mention the non-use of utensils and the ability to go to the toilet without the need of a toilet. All genetically predetermined I guess.

[Sirius]

This sidetrack is getting silly. People do not choose to have traits that will make them outsiders. While some will refuse to acknowledge it, we are all animals and have the same genetic predispositions to abnormal behaviour as the rest of the animal kingdom does. Given the appropriate set of circumstances, those predispositions will be acted upon.

Some of these behaviours are harmless; what a homosexual or fetishist does in their own home is of no consequence to the wider society. Someone having sexual relations with a child however is going to upset that child's entire development into adulthood. The issues are frankly too different to be compared! Only religion can be so bold as to attempt equating personal preferences with practices that affect others.

If religion is supposed to define for society what is right and wrong, and the actions of the religion's prophet are supposed to be an example, then what sort of religion sets the example of sexual relations between an adult and a prepubescent child?

I have said before and I will say again, religious teachings, if they are all they are claimed to be, ought to be timeless. It should not matter what the culture, region or time period was when the religion emerged; the religion's teachings should be applicable forever and everywhere. This does not however seem to be the case.

[Rooibos]

Well said Sirius. Better than I could have put it.