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Some pinhead is disrespecting Islam and updating the Texas Revolution entry. Hilarious!
I moved the hyphens to the proper morphological boundaries: Lā ilāhā illāllāh; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-llāh. Wouldn't it be more correct to give the full i'rab, though, i.e. Lā ilāhā illā-llāhu; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-llāhi? dab 15:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
ٍSounds good to me. - Mustafaa 16:23, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Not exactly; just as some names require the definite article (eg Al-Amiin or al-`Aas), some require the indefinite article (eg Faatimah). It has no particular implication of indefiniteness, because it would be impossible to say *al-Muhammad to mean "the Muhammad" (that would rather be taken to mean "the praised".) Incidentally, good work on this unification business - how did you learn Arabic? - Mustafaa 22:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've attempted an NPOV discussion of what most Muslims believe, rather than stating those beliefs as if they were facts. I will rewrite the main Qur'an article too, but that's going to take me some time; I ordered WAY too many expensive books from Powell's and I'm going to have to read them once they arrive. Plus there are a fair number of books I'd like to read that are out of print and unavailable. Dunno what I'm going to do about those.
I've left a question mark where there should be the Unicode for Qur'an in Arabic. I would also appreciate it if someone could put A.H. dates in parentheses after the C.E. dates -- or, if you wish, put the A.H. dates in the place of honor and add the C.E. dates in parentheses. I should think that more Wikipedia readers are going to recognize C.E. dates, which would mean putting them first, but ... it doesn't really matter as long as both are available. Zora 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I reverted one anonymous edit that replaced the whole "Belief" section with "Islam is shit". Zora 02:33, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have given some thought as to how to present arabic terms in this (and related) articles. There are several stages of "latinization"/"anglicization":
They all have legitimate uses, but we should not mingle them randomly. For example, "Deen" next to "Usul" (or "Usool" next to "Din") is inconsequent. My suggestion is:
dab 08:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Many of the edits were OK and I'm not going to quibble over them. However, Mustafa quotes hadith as being the actual words of the historical figures, which no scholar would accept. Hadith are late and unreliable. An oral chain of transmission hundreds of years long cannot be taken as reliable for reproducing every single spoken word, though it might indeed be evidence for the gist of the matter transmitted. Also, Mustafa seems to paper over disagreements in the actual sources, and put together a synthetic version that stresses the reliability of the Qur'anic transmission. Again, this is putting piety over scholarly rigor. I'll be working on tweaking the para -- when I finish doing some mending for my daughter, and baking some cookies to send to her at college. Zora 00:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Many scholars accept sciences of hadith (isnad or different methods to see if a hadith is authentic or fabricated and such).
A few question some collections that Muslims consider authentic, but to make that into no scholar "accepts" hadith is silly. If you really believe that no scholar accepts hadith (what a joke) .. can you explain why do you believe Uthman compiled the Qur'an and not Muhammad himself (what source are you going to use to prove that?)
"Hadith" are just oral traditions .... all scholars have to use it. Without that, you don't know if there was a guy called Uthman who even existed. OneGuy 01:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How does she know that the there were at least seven different readings and variants, or that Uthman burned variant readings? What were some of these variant readings? If you reject all Islamic sources, then you don't know any of this ever happened OneGuy 02:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How do you know that a guy called Bukari existed? What's the oldest manuscript? How do you know Ibn Ishaq existed? At any rate, to answer your question, Ibn Ishaq sira survives only via the edition of Ib Hisham (died . 834 -- not that early than Bukari). But now you need to prove that Ibn Hisham existed OneGuy
To avoid clutter, I will put responses to different parts here:
If the oldest manuscript is hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of years latter, how do you know that everything is not a lie and fabricated? If you assume everything is fabricated, you cannot know anything about history. Archeology cannot give you a detail history of say Romans. That's not the answer. As for comparing different manuscripts, you can also compare different oral traditions in different cities and countries and see if they are consistent. That's a part of sciences of hadith (i.e. if a hadith was reported by different people at different places in such a way that it would make it impossible for all of them to conspire -- that would make it a stronger hadith). You can examine each tradition one by one and give a reason to reject each, but you cannot start with assumption that everything is fabricated and everyone is a liar (like Crone did in her book). That's clearly stupidity.
As for Satanic Verses, they do give reasons why they do not accept the story. Like Satanic Verses
And Karen Armstrong is not an Islamic scholar, but someone like Montgomery Watt is. I don't think he (like most other scholars) reject all Islamic sources. Only a very few loony "scholars" start with the assumption that everything is fabricated. OneGuy 02:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Zora wrote:
Something kinda like this might be worth putting in, but I question its NPOV status. The traditional study of isnad is textual criticism, refined to a rather high degree, and is exacting enough that its standards would exclude almost all of the Bible from consideration.
A more accurate phrasing might be: "... attempts of non-Muslim scholars to find evidence that the Qur'anic text has evolved through time and changed between the time of Muhammad and the time of its standardization, using, among other arguments, textual criticism-based methods analogous to those applied by Western academics to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures."
and in practice we can observe that their own ideological biases very often play a crucial role both in their goals and in their conclusions. Witness the Atlantic article you linked to, which accurately observes that "Western Koranic scholarship has traditionally taken place in the context of an openly declared hostility between Christianity and Islam." - Mustafaa 11:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What does this somewhat idealized description of academics' psychology have to do with the article? I could maybe see it as a proviso attached to a section on these "textual critics"' views, but as it stands I would argue that it adds nothing of substance to an article on Islam. - Mustafaa 22:48, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Incidentally, it may be time to take these debates to the Qur'an article, which I've worked over a bit lately. - Mustafaa 22:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I started expanding Mustafaa's version of the section, taking things that he had stated as fact and showing that there were in fact various versions rather than just one. The section started getting so long and convoluted that I decided that all the minutiae should go into the main article. I then cut the Qur'an compilation section drastically, trying to be NPOV. Let's see if this version is satisfactory. Zora 22:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mostly looks fine. However:
Can you give any examples of Muslims who don't believe this, or historical accounts which contradict this?
This theory is debatable to say the least; oral transmission has always been a primary path of transmission for the Qur'an. At least two equally plausible explanat ions for the qira'at's differences exist:
These are two separate issues. The chronology of the former is not disputed; the latter, however, seems to be disproved by several early inscriptions, notably PERF 558 (22 AH), where dots are used sporadically to disambiguate some words, while not yet being obligatory as they are in modern Arabic.
This is all I notice for the moment, but I'm still looking into the whole issue. - Mustafaa 23:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK, made minor edits. See if that's better. Zora 00:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Cool; that addresses the last two issues very well, thanks. But for "Many Muslims believe that...", I'd still like to hear examples of Muslims who don't believe this, or historical accounts which contradict it. - Mustafaa 00:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just a side note. Surfing around, I found a review of Atlantic Monthly article by a Muslim here OneGuy 02:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
So the fact that it was written in 1916 proves it was nonsense? I was surprised, as I was proofing it, by how contemporary and clear-headed it seemed. As to Crone, Cook, and Wansbrough -- I've only read excerpts from their works. I've got a Wansbrough reprint on order and I'm not looking forward to reading it. His style is horrible. As for Hagarism, the book that cocked a snook at staid academia, it's out of print, the local libraries don't have it, and the used-book services list one copy at $400. Anyone have a pirate e-book copy? Zora
And, if it comes to that, has Crone never heard the Arabic word Muhajir? Or does she not realize how little that word has to do with Hagar? I've read that book, and, while it was useful for its quotes from non-Islamic sources, its thesis struck me as completely valueless; one could as easily doubt the historicity of Alexander the Great. Furthermore, she ignores some early attestations of the word Islam, such as a 71 AH tombstone. - Mustafaa 11:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OneGuy made a number of edits using the term "early Islamic sources" or "Islamic sources". This is not really clear, as there are many "sources" recognized by historians, and the historians' problem is mainly with the hadith, as being oral tradition. So I changed Islamic sources to hadith, and made a few other tweaks. I hope that the section is clearer now.
Oh, and Mustafaa -- I know now where the "several stories" came from. Several commentators, among them the dread Ibn Warraq, picked up on discrepancies between the several versions recorded by Bukhari. Bukhari collected several versions of the same event, and told them in different ways.
So we have several pieces of story, told in different ways. There's the final piece, that Mustafaa included and that comes from a different source, in which the committee does its work, compares the results to Hafsa's text, and lo and behold! they are exactly the same.
It seems clear that Bukhari's hadith can be assembled into two stories, one involving Abu Bakr and Hafsa, and another involving a committee charged by Uthman to assemble the Qur'an. If the Abu Bakr story is true, then there's no need for Uthman to order the committee to collect texts. He would already have known of his predecessor's work. Then the committee story would be false. If the committee story is true, then it is likely that the Abu Bakr story is false. This problem is neatly solved by the other source (I know I found it online, and didn't write it down -- darn it) which claims that Abu Bakr collected the Qur'an AND Uthman collected the Qur'an, and they miraculously agreed. Thus turning a discrepancy in the hadith into a marvelous proof of the inerrancy of the whole process.
My own view -- which I have tried to avoid writing into the article -- is that the revisionist historians have been TOO determined to stand Muslim scholarship on its head, and that it's reasonable to assume that there was a Muhammad and that his followers did memorize his revelations/speeches/sermons/poems. However, I doubt that his followers were thinking in terms of a complete scripture; they were only saving things that they thought should be saved, and hence from the very beginning the personal or congregational collections began to diverge. The divergence only increased in the decades after Muhammad's death, when the Muslim empire expanded enormously, early converts were killed, new converts flooded in, etc. At the same time, the early unity of the ummah unravelled. Hence the necessity for a common version of the text, to unify a disintegrating community. I really do think Uthman created a committee, which tried to collect all versions and bring them into some kind of harmony. However, they couldn't be too cavalier about excising repetitions, or contradictions (presumed abrogations), or modifying the texts such that the groups then using them wouldn't recognize them. Hence also the arrangement of the suras by size -- much the same kind of thing as listing actors in alphabetic order, so as not to imply anything about rank or precedence. IMHO, the Qur'an's untidy, repetitious form is politically motivated. And it could be said that as a political ploy it failed, considering the sad death of Uthman and the community splitting into Sunni, Shi'a, and Kharjite factions.
Zora
In other words, I believe the committee story and think that the Abu Bakr-Hafsa story is a fiction, devised to give an earlier pedigree to the Qur'an.
But that's just me, trying to make sense out of a welter of sources. I certainly wouldn't write that into an article. I should note that while the believers in the uncreated Qur'an would probably be offended by this version, I can see a liberal Muslim appreciating the presumed attempt of the committee to include everything, to please everyone, and to reconcile all the factions. That's a laudable aim. Zora 09:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm now more or less satisfied with the current state of the article - a good NPOV effort, as far as I can see. As for the multiple hadith, the most interesting thing I've found relating to that is the report of Khalid ibn Iyas ibn Sakhr ibn Abi al-Jahm, who (according to Ibn Abi Dawud's al-Masahif) later compared the Madinah mashaf (which I assume refers to Hafsah's text) to the Uthmanic text, and found 12 differences, 11 of which are single-letter differences, and none of which affect the meaning of a verse. To my mind, that suggests that, perhaps for political reasons, Uthman wanted an independent edition, and having prepared it, found that the 12 differences were insignificant enough to ignore. - Mustafaa 10:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and one important point - what date is your reference for "However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which the account is based and will say only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750 CE, the date of the earliest known complete Qur'an manuscript -- or at least the earliest known and accepted as such by all researchers."? Because I've seen several of the Sanaa manuscripts listed as first half of the first century AH (though I suppose they may not be complete.) - Mustafaa 10:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The important thing is the word "complete". You can't point to just one page or one inscription and say, "Look, the Qur'an existed then". That's proof only of the one page, or the one aya, or whatever. Since even the sternest of the skeptics believe that there were proto-texts from which the Qur'an was assembled, the issue is the date at which the complete version was created. Zora 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As for differences over the Qur'an being the reason for the splitting of the community, no, that's not what I meant. Having reread my words, I can see why they can be interpreted that way, but perhaps I was not precise enough. IMHO, squabbling about the text of the Qur'an was one symptom of the general malaise and disunity. Uthman tried to fix the symptom, but the underlying problems ended in his ugly death and all the wars and factionalism that followed. As to the underlying problems ... well, that's another flamewar. Zora 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OneGuy, I just noticed that you changed my "versions" to "copies". Mustafaa has slowly and painfully educated me as the importance of oral traditions of recitation, and that's why I used "versions" -- it can refer to oral or written versions. "Copies" can only refer to written versions. Since it is very clear that there were different oral traditions, I think the article needs to be changed back to "versions". I'll wait a bit to make the changes, however. I've got REAL LIFE stuff to do. Zora 19:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No! Nahin! You're assuming that the seven ahruf mentioned in various hadith are the same thing as the qira'at (seven authorized oral recitations -- I think that's a better transliteration -- dab or Mustafaa might know better). In fact, Muslim commentators have argued over the exact meaning of ahruf. Some say that the ahruf were levels of meaning, some that they were rhetorical devices, etc. The most common view seems to be that the ahruf were different dialects, and that Uthman decided to standardize on the Quraysh dialect and suppress the others. Dialectical differences apparently involved differences in the rasm. Qira'at, on the other hand, are different readings from the same rasm. Hence saying that ahruf and qira'at both refer to the same thing is extremely misleading.
Now that's just the Muslim commentary. You'd get even more divergent formulations if you included ALL scholarly opinions. The non-Muslim scholars are less focused on harmonizing hadith and more on accurately dating and describing Qur'an manuscripts. Which is why the (probably) pre-Uthmanic fragments from Sana'a are so important.
Mustafaa and I wrote that para the way we did because there are so many different views. If we explained all the different views thoroughly, the Qur'an SECTION of the Islam article would be longer than the Qur'an article per se. We've got to be NPOV, we've got to be accurate, and we've got to be succinct. It's like walking through a minefield. That's why it was so wonderful that Mustafaa and I seemed to have negotiated the minefield successfully. Please, appreciate all the constraints involved and don't drag in disputes that it would take too much space to unpack. Zora 07:53, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just spent an hour fussing over one para in the Qur'an section. I left the discussion of dialects and ahruf to the Qur'an main article and condensed the whole question of copies, versions, variants, whatever, to "provenance". I hope this will do. Using "copies" gives entirely the wrong impression, as we're in fact talking about "copying" as creating manuscript lineages (there's probably some technical term for this, which I don't know), which can branch and then mingle again, and surviving manuscripts as being located in a particular lineage. Scholars can map these lineages in great detail for some old texts, but not -- alas -- for the Qur'an. Yet. Perhaps further investigation of Qur'an graveyards and scientific dating of old manuscripts will give us a much better picture of developments between the death of Muhammad and the compilation of the currently-known Qur'an. Then we can rewrite the article <g>. Zora 23:09, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is no criticism of Islam in this argument at all, no criticism of Jihad, no criticism of Fundementalism, no criticism of the Hadith. There is plenty of criticism in the articles of other religions e.t.c Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism. I'd like to see some criticisms being brought into this article or at least another article being created for the very same subject. It is simply not fair that other articles contain very veciferous criticisms and this holds none. Too much POV from one side.
the article states "Since Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, claims descent from the monotheist tradition of the biblical patriarch Abraham, it sees itself as an Abrahamic religion."
is this true? Or does Islam believe/state that Abraham was a Muslim...there is quite a difference. Lance6Wins 20:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is true that Islam sees itself as an Abrahamic religion - in fact, as the Abrahamic religion, of which the other two are deviations. - Mustafaa 20:58, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
the other two are deviations from the religion that Abraham/Ibrahim practiced. That would make Abraham/Ibrahim a Muslim. Do you disagree? Lance6Wins 17:00, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Of course - like Moses, Jesus, Adam, and every other prophet. What I disagree with is that this is different from it "seeing itself as an Abrahamic religion". - Mustafaa 21:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That's not a bad way to put it - it sees itself as "Abraham's religion", and Judaism or Christianity as "Abraham-based religions". The term "Abrahamic" in English seems to encompass both those meanings. - Mustafaa 14:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
article editted to be the following: Islam sees itself as being the religion of biblical patriarch Abraham and his son Ishmael. It holds that Judaism and Christianity are derivations and therefore also Abrahamic religions. Lance6Wins 15:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Can someone start a section on where Islam stands on issues such as capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc. This would be a great addition to this article. Thanks Monkeyman 05:32, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The position of a number or Christian organization is quite clear on some of these issues. The Catholic Church, Anglican Church, and a number of other demoninations issue statements/encyclicals. These could/should? be quoted directly.
Al-Azhar University is considered the/a preeminent source of Sharia (Islamic Law) decisions for Sunni Muslims. Statements issued from Al-Azhar could/should be quoted for this article. Alcohol and drugs would appear to be trivial. Does anything state that Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol?
Google: Islam alcohol --> http://islam.about.com/od/health/f/alcohol.htm and http://2muslims.com/directory/Detailed/226100.shtml#INTOXICANTS for instance
Lance6Wins 17:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc.": capital punishment is specifically permitted by the Qur'an (being merciful is said to be better, but is left to the discretion of the murdered person's family); alcohol is forbidden, though this prohibition is in practice ignored in some countries; the others, there is no single Islamic position on, but a reasonably typical Islamic position would be against illegal drugs and abortion. - Mustafaa 21:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Permitted" ? never required? no offenses that are punishable only by death?
Will you be adding this information to the article? You might be better versed in the matters at hand. I dont mind doing so, if you decline. Lance6Wins 15:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC
I would strongly oppose venturing into these hot-button U.S. political issues in the article, which is already TOO DARN LONG. Monkeyman to the contrary, these are U.S. political issues for the most part. They have their own pages, I presume, and information on the stands of various religious organizations could be added there, if necessary. Or in the Islam in the U.S. article. Or someone could start a new article on "Major religions' stand on abortion" or whatever. But given that the Islam page is already controversial, and a target for vandalism, it would be just asking for trouble to mix other controversies into it. (by User:Zora signature omitted [3]
Would you support removal of the same matter/issues from the other pages mentioned, among which are Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc ? Lance6Wins 18:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please see Roman_Catholic_Church#Criticisms The question was "Would you support removal of the same matter/issues..." Lance6Wins 20:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Some pinhead is disrespecting Islam and updating the Texas Revolution entry. Hilarious!
I moved the hyphens to the proper morphological boundaries: Lā ilāhā illāllāh; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-llāh. Wouldn't it be more correct to give the full i'rab, though, i.e. Lā ilāhā illā-llāhu; Muhammadu-r-rasulu-llāhi? dab 15:37, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
ٍSounds good to me. - Mustafaa 16:23, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Not exactly; just as some names require the definite article (eg Al-Amiin or al-`Aas), some require the indefinite article (eg Faatimah). It has no particular implication of indefiniteness, because it would be impossible to say *al-Muhammad to mean "the Muhammad" (that would rather be taken to mean "the praised".) Incidentally, good work on this unification business - how did you learn Arabic? - Mustafaa 22:20, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've attempted an NPOV discussion of what most Muslims believe, rather than stating those beliefs as if they were facts. I will rewrite the main Qur'an article too, but that's going to take me some time; I ordered WAY too many expensive books from Powell's and I'm going to have to read them once they arrive. Plus there are a fair number of books I'd like to read that are out of print and unavailable. Dunno what I'm going to do about those.
I've left a question mark where there should be the Unicode for Qur'an in Arabic. I would also appreciate it if someone could put A.H. dates in parentheses after the C.E. dates -- or, if you wish, put the A.H. dates in the place of honor and add the C.E. dates in parentheses. I should think that more Wikipedia readers are going to recognize C.E. dates, which would mean putting them first, but ... it doesn't really matter as long as both are available. Zora 00:42, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I reverted one anonymous edit that replaced the whole "Belief" section with "Islam is shit". Zora 02:33, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I have given some thought as to how to present arabic terms in this (and related) articles. There are several stages of "latinization"/"anglicization":
They all have legitimate uses, but we should not mingle them randomly. For example, "Deen" next to "Usul" (or "Usool" next to "Din") is inconsequent. My suggestion is:
dab 08:58, 26 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Many of the edits were OK and I'm not going to quibble over them. However, Mustafa quotes hadith as being the actual words of the historical figures, which no scholar would accept. Hadith are late and unreliable. An oral chain of transmission hundreds of years long cannot be taken as reliable for reproducing every single spoken word, though it might indeed be evidence for the gist of the matter transmitted. Also, Mustafa seems to paper over disagreements in the actual sources, and put together a synthetic version that stresses the reliability of the Qur'anic transmission. Again, this is putting piety over scholarly rigor. I'll be working on tweaking the para -- when I finish doing some mending for my daughter, and baking some cookies to send to her at college. Zora 00:12, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Many scholars accept sciences of hadith (isnad or different methods to see if a hadith is authentic or fabricated and such).
A few question some collections that Muslims consider authentic, but to make that into no scholar "accepts" hadith is silly. If you really believe that no scholar accepts hadith (what a joke) .. can you explain why do you believe Uthman compiled the Qur'an and not Muhammad himself (what source are you going to use to prove that?)
"Hadith" are just oral traditions .... all scholars have to use it. Without that, you don't know if there was a guy called Uthman who even existed. OneGuy 01:13, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How does she know that the there were at least seven different readings and variants, or that Uthman burned variant readings? What were some of these variant readings? If you reject all Islamic sources, then you don't know any of this ever happened OneGuy 02:00, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
How do you know that a guy called Bukari existed? What's the oldest manuscript? How do you know Ibn Ishaq existed? At any rate, to answer your question, Ibn Ishaq sira survives only via the edition of Ib Hisham (died . 834 -- not that early than Bukari). But now you need to prove that Ibn Hisham existed OneGuy
To avoid clutter, I will put responses to different parts here:
If the oldest manuscript is hundreds (or in some cases thousands) of years latter, how do you know that everything is not a lie and fabricated? If you assume everything is fabricated, you cannot know anything about history. Archeology cannot give you a detail history of say Romans. That's not the answer. As for comparing different manuscripts, you can also compare different oral traditions in different cities and countries and see if they are consistent. That's a part of sciences of hadith (i.e. if a hadith was reported by different people at different places in such a way that it would make it impossible for all of them to conspire -- that would make it a stronger hadith). You can examine each tradition one by one and give a reason to reject each, but you cannot start with assumption that everything is fabricated and everyone is a liar (like Crone did in her book). That's clearly stupidity.
As for Satanic Verses, they do give reasons why they do not accept the story. Like Satanic Verses
And Karen Armstrong is not an Islamic scholar, but someone like Montgomery Watt is. I don't think he (like most other scholars) reject all Islamic sources. Only a very few loony "scholars" start with the assumption that everything is fabricated. OneGuy 02:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Zora wrote:
Something kinda like this might be worth putting in, but I question its NPOV status. The traditional study of isnad is textual criticism, refined to a rather high degree, and is exacting enough that its standards would exclude almost all of the Bible from consideration.
A more accurate phrasing might be: "... attempts of non-Muslim scholars to find evidence that the Qur'anic text has evolved through time and changed between the time of Muhammad and the time of its standardization, using, among other arguments, textual criticism-based methods analogous to those applied by Western academics to the Hebrew and Christian scriptures."
and in practice we can observe that their own ideological biases very often play a crucial role both in their goals and in their conclusions. Witness the Atlantic article you linked to, which accurately observes that "Western Koranic scholarship has traditionally taken place in the context of an openly declared hostility between Christianity and Islam." - Mustafaa 11:03, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
What does this somewhat idealized description of academics' psychology have to do with the article? I could maybe see it as a proviso attached to a section on these "textual critics"' views, but as it stands I would argue that it adds nothing of substance to an article on Islam. - Mustafaa 22:48, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Incidentally, it may be time to take these debates to the Qur'an article, which I've worked over a bit lately. - Mustafaa 22:49, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I started expanding Mustafaa's version of the section, taking things that he had stated as fact and showing that there were in fact various versions rather than just one. The section started getting so long and convoluted that I decided that all the minutiae should go into the main article. I then cut the Qur'an compilation section drastically, trying to be NPOV. Let's see if this version is satisfactory. Zora 22:51, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Mostly looks fine. However:
Can you give any examples of Muslims who don't believe this, or historical accounts which contradict this?
This theory is debatable to say the least; oral transmission has always been a primary path of transmission for the Qur'an. At least two equally plausible explanat ions for the qira'at's differences exist:
These are two separate issues. The chronology of the former is not disputed; the latter, however, seems to be disproved by several early inscriptions, notably PERF 558 (22 AH), where dots are used sporadically to disambiguate some words, while not yet being obligatory as they are in modern Arabic.
This is all I notice for the moment, but I'm still looking into the whole issue. - Mustafaa 23:31, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OK, made minor edits. See if that's better. Zora 00:21, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Cool; that addresses the last two issues very well, thanks. But for "Many Muslims believe that...", I'd still like to hear examples of Muslims who don't believe this, or historical accounts which contradict it. - Mustafaa 00:27, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just a side note. Surfing around, I found a review of Atlantic Monthly article by a Muslim here OneGuy 02:47, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
So the fact that it was written in 1916 proves it was nonsense? I was surprised, as I was proofing it, by how contemporary and clear-headed it seemed. As to Crone, Cook, and Wansbrough -- I've only read excerpts from their works. I've got a Wansbrough reprint on order and I'm not looking forward to reading it. His style is horrible. As for Hagarism, the book that cocked a snook at staid academia, it's out of print, the local libraries don't have it, and the used-book services list one copy at $400. Anyone have a pirate e-book copy? Zora
And, if it comes to that, has Crone never heard the Arabic word Muhajir? Or does she not realize how little that word has to do with Hagar? I've read that book, and, while it was useful for its quotes from non-Islamic sources, its thesis struck me as completely valueless; one could as easily doubt the historicity of Alexander the Great. Furthermore, she ignores some early attestations of the word Islam, such as a 71 AH tombstone. - Mustafaa 11:24, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OneGuy made a number of edits using the term "early Islamic sources" or "Islamic sources". This is not really clear, as there are many "sources" recognized by historians, and the historians' problem is mainly with the hadith, as being oral tradition. So I changed Islamic sources to hadith, and made a few other tweaks. I hope that the section is clearer now.
Oh, and Mustafaa -- I know now where the "several stories" came from. Several commentators, among them the dread Ibn Warraq, picked up on discrepancies between the several versions recorded by Bukhari. Bukhari collected several versions of the same event, and told them in different ways.
So we have several pieces of story, told in different ways. There's the final piece, that Mustafaa included and that comes from a different source, in which the committee does its work, compares the results to Hafsa's text, and lo and behold! they are exactly the same.
It seems clear that Bukhari's hadith can be assembled into two stories, one involving Abu Bakr and Hafsa, and another involving a committee charged by Uthman to assemble the Qur'an. If the Abu Bakr story is true, then there's no need for Uthman to order the committee to collect texts. He would already have known of his predecessor's work. Then the committee story would be false. If the committee story is true, then it is likely that the Abu Bakr story is false. This problem is neatly solved by the other source (I know I found it online, and didn't write it down -- darn it) which claims that Abu Bakr collected the Qur'an AND Uthman collected the Qur'an, and they miraculously agreed. Thus turning a discrepancy in the hadith into a marvelous proof of the inerrancy of the whole process.
My own view -- which I have tried to avoid writing into the article -- is that the revisionist historians have been TOO determined to stand Muslim scholarship on its head, and that it's reasonable to assume that there was a Muhammad and that his followers did memorize his revelations/speeches/sermons/poems. However, I doubt that his followers were thinking in terms of a complete scripture; they were only saving things that they thought should be saved, and hence from the very beginning the personal or congregational collections began to diverge. The divergence only increased in the decades after Muhammad's death, when the Muslim empire expanded enormously, early converts were killed, new converts flooded in, etc. At the same time, the early unity of the ummah unravelled. Hence the necessity for a common version of the text, to unify a disintegrating community. I really do think Uthman created a committee, which tried to collect all versions and bring them into some kind of harmony. However, they couldn't be too cavalier about excising repetitions, or contradictions (presumed abrogations), or modifying the texts such that the groups then using them wouldn't recognize them. Hence also the arrangement of the suras by size -- much the same kind of thing as listing actors in alphabetic order, so as not to imply anything about rank or precedence. IMHO, the Qur'an's untidy, repetitious form is politically motivated. And it could be said that as a political ploy it failed, considering the sad death of Uthman and the community splitting into Sunni, Shi'a, and Kharjite factions.
Zora
In other words, I believe the committee story and think that the Abu Bakr-Hafsa story is a fiction, devised to give an earlier pedigree to the Qur'an.
But that's just me, trying to make sense out of a welter of sources. I certainly wouldn't write that into an article. I should note that while the believers in the uncreated Qur'an would probably be offended by this version, I can see a liberal Muslim appreciating the presumed attempt of the committee to include everything, to please everyone, and to reconcile all the factions. That's a laudable aim. Zora 09:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, I'm now more or less satisfied with the current state of the article - a good NPOV effort, as far as I can see. As for the multiple hadith, the most interesting thing I've found relating to that is the report of Khalid ibn Iyas ibn Sakhr ibn Abi al-Jahm, who (according to Ibn Abi Dawud's al-Masahif) later compared the Madinah mashaf (which I assume refers to Hafsah's text) to the Uthmanic text, and found 12 differences, 11 of which are single-letter differences, and none of which affect the meaning of a verse. To my mind, that suggests that, perhaps for political reasons, Uthman wanted an independent edition, and having prepared it, found that the 12 differences were insignificant enough to ignore. - Mustafaa 10:23, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Oh, and one important point - what date is your reference for "However, some skeptics doubt the recorded oral traditions (hadith) on which the account is based and will say only that the Qur'an must have been compiled before 750 CE, the date of the earliest known complete Qur'an manuscript -- or at least the earliest known and accepted as such by all researchers."? Because I've seen several of the Sanaa manuscripts listed as first half of the first century AH (though I suppose they may not be complete.) - Mustafaa 10:26, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The important thing is the word "complete". You can't point to just one page or one inscription and say, "Look, the Qur'an existed then". That's proof only of the one page, or the one aya, or whatever. Since even the sternest of the skeptics believe that there were proto-texts from which the Qur'an was assembled, the issue is the date at which the complete version was created. Zora 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
As for differences over the Qur'an being the reason for the splitting of the community, no, that's not what I meant. Having reread my words, I can see why they can be interpreted that way, but perhaps I was not precise enough. IMHO, squabbling about the text of the Qur'an was one symptom of the general malaise and disunity. Uthman tried to fix the symptom, but the underlying problems ended in his ugly death and all the wars and factionalism that followed. As to the underlying problems ... well, that's another flamewar. Zora 19:08, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
OneGuy, I just noticed that you changed my "versions" to "copies". Mustafaa has slowly and painfully educated me as the importance of oral traditions of recitation, and that's why I used "versions" -- it can refer to oral or written versions. "Copies" can only refer to written versions. Since it is very clear that there were different oral traditions, I think the article needs to be changed back to "versions". I'll wait a bit to make the changes, however. I've got REAL LIFE stuff to do. Zora 19:25, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)
No! Nahin! You're assuming that the seven ahruf mentioned in various hadith are the same thing as the qira'at (seven authorized oral recitations -- I think that's a better transliteration -- dab or Mustafaa might know better). In fact, Muslim commentators have argued over the exact meaning of ahruf. Some say that the ahruf were levels of meaning, some that they were rhetorical devices, etc. The most common view seems to be that the ahruf were different dialects, and that Uthman decided to standardize on the Quraysh dialect and suppress the others. Dialectical differences apparently involved differences in the rasm. Qira'at, on the other hand, are different readings from the same rasm. Hence saying that ahruf and qira'at both refer to the same thing is extremely misleading.
Now that's just the Muslim commentary. You'd get even more divergent formulations if you included ALL scholarly opinions. The non-Muslim scholars are less focused on harmonizing hadith and more on accurately dating and describing Qur'an manuscripts. Which is why the (probably) pre-Uthmanic fragments from Sana'a are so important.
Mustafaa and I wrote that para the way we did because there are so many different views. If we explained all the different views thoroughly, the Qur'an SECTION of the Islam article would be longer than the Qur'an article per se. We've got to be NPOV, we've got to be accurate, and we've got to be succinct. It's like walking through a minefield. That's why it was so wonderful that Mustafaa and I seemed to have negotiated the minefield successfully. Please, appreciate all the constraints involved and don't drag in disputes that it would take too much space to unpack. Zora 07:53, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I just spent an hour fussing over one para in the Qur'an section. I left the discussion of dialects and ahruf to the Qur'an main article and condensed the whole question of copies, versions, variants, whatever, to "provenance". I hope this will do. Using "copies" gives entirely the wrong impression, as we're in fact talking about "copying" as creating manuscript lineages (there's probably some technical term for this, which I don't know), which can branch and then mingle again, and surviving manuscripts as being located in a particular lineage. Scholars can map these lineages in great detail for some old texts, but not -- alas -- for the Qur'an. Yet. Perhaps further investigation of Qur'an graveyards and scientific dating of old manuscripts will give us a much better picture of developments between the death of Muhammad and the compilation of the currently-known Qur'an. Then we can rewrite the article <g>. Zora 23:09, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There is no criticism of Islam in this argument at all, no criticism of Jihad, no criticism of Fundementalism, no criticism of the Hadith. There is plenty of criticism in the articles of other religions e.t.c Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Hinduism. I'd like to see some criticisms being brought into this article or at least another article being created for the very same subject. It is simply not fair that other articles contain very veciferous criticisms and this holds none. Too much POV from one side.
the article states "Since Islam, like Judaism and Christianity, claims descent from the monotheist tradition of the biblical patriarch Abraham, it sees itself as an Abrahamic religion."
is this true? Or does Islam believe/state that Abraham was a Muslim...there is quite a difference. Lance6Wins 20:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Yes, it is true that Islam sees itself as an Abrahamic religion - in fact, as the Abrahamic religion, of which the other two are deviations. - Mustafaa 20:58, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
the other two are deviations from the religion that Abraham/Ibrahim practiced. That would make Abraham/Ibrahim a Muslim. Do you disagree? Lance6Wins 17:00, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Of course - like Moses, Jesus, Adam, and every other prophet. What I disagree with is that this is different from it "seeing itself as an Abrahamic religion". - Mustafaa 21:43, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
That's not a bad way to put it - it sees itself as "Abraham's religion", and Judaism or Christianity as "Abraham-based religions". The term "Abrahamic" in English seems to encompass both those meanings. - Mustafaa 14:59, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
article editted to be the following: Islam sees itself as being the religion of biblical patriarch Abraham and his son Ishmael. It holds that Judaism and Christianity are derivations and therefore also Abrahamic religions. Lance6Wins 15:23, 24 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Can someone start a section on where Islam stands on issues such as capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc. This would be a great addition to this article. Thanks Monkeyman 05:32, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The position of a number or Christian organization is quite clear on some of these issues. The Catholic Church, Anglican Church, and a number of other demoninations issue statements/encyclicals. These could/should? be quoted directly.
Al-Azhar University is considered the/a preeminent source of Sharia (Islamic Law) decisions for Sunni Muslims. Statements issued from Al-Azhar could/should be quoted for this article. Alcohol and drugs would appear to be trivial. Does anything state that Muslims are allowed to drink alcohol?
Google: Islam alcohol --> http://islam.about.com/od/health/f/alcohol.htm and http://2muslims.com/directory/Detailed/226100.shtml#INTOXICANTS for instance
Lance6Wins 17:10, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"capital punishment, illegal drugs, alcohol, stem cell research, abortion, etc.": capital punishment is specifically permitted by the Qur'an (being merciful is said to be better, but is left to the discretion of the murdered person's family); alcohol is forbidden, though this prohibition is in practice ignored in some countries; the others, there is no single Islamic position on, but a reasonably typical Islamic position would be against illegal drugs and abortion. - Mustafaa 21:48, 22 Nov 2004 (UTC)
"Permitted" ? never required? no offenses that are punishable only by death?
Will you be adding this information to the article? You might be better versed in the matters at hand. I dont mind doing so, if you decline. Lance6Wins 15:36, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC
I would strongly oppose venturing into these hot-button U.S. political issues in the article, which is already TOO DARN LONG. Monkeyman to the contrary, these are U.S. political issues for the most part. They have their own pages, I presume, and information on the stands of various religious organizations could be added there, if necessary. Or in the Islam in the U.S. article. Or someone could start a new article on "Major religions' stand on abortion" or whatever. But given that the Islam page is already controversial, and a target for vandalism, it would be just asking for trouble to mix other controversies into it. (by User:Zora signature omitted [3]
Would you support removal of the same matter/issues from the other pages mentioned, among which are Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, etc ? Lance6Wins 18:27, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Please see Roman_Catholic_Church#Criticisms The question was "Would you support removal of the same matter/issues..." Lance6Wins 20:12, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)