thedoc wrote:Immanuel Can wrote:
But the very suggestion that the god of Islam is the same God as that of Judaism or Christianity is absurd anyway, so don't worry too much about it. Islam's it's own crazy thing...it has nothing to do with other monotheisms really.
That is their claim and the claim of the Koran.
Indeed it is. And it would greatly boost their public imagine if they could claim that they are true inheritors of such esteemed traditions as Judaism and Christianity, so Mohammed was certainly keen to get on that bandwagon. But just how credible is such a claim? That's what we have to ask.
My claim would be, "Not very."
Islam is not as divided as Christianity
Not true. That is what they say, but again, the facts don't bear that out.
Again, you have to separate between public image and actual reality. In theory, they claim that all Muslims belong to one "
ummah," or religious community. However,
in practice the Shiites hate the Sunnis, and they both hate all the various subsects of Islam. They are just as divided as any religious group, and more violently so than most.
I remember talking to a Shiite girl who would not even admit that there was a "mosque" in our home town, although there's a big Sunni place on the main street. For them, it's not a "mosque" at all. Likewise, the Sunnis in my town accuse the Shiites of "drinking their own urine." Such intra-
ummah hatreds help explain why the most numerous homicide victims of Islam are...Muslims.
Why do you suppose there are so many "refugees" who are Muslims? It sure ain't the Christians killing them or driving them out of their homes.
...The Muslim that I was working with was learning to read Arabic so that he could read the original and the translation. It seems that it was an effort to keep the translation true to the original.
There
is no "original," though, and thus nothing to "be true" to. That's the problem with that claim.
Go and look at the historical account of how the Koran was assembled...don't look at Christian or Jewish sources, just look at the secular ones, if you want. What you'll find is this: as Muslims will happily tell you, Mohammed was completely illiterate, and he never wrote a word. He wrote no part of the Koran. They think this is good, because they insist that the Koran is a perfect book, and so this allegedly makes the appearance of the Koran a "miracle": the only one, they say, Mohammed ever did.
But when you look at it, you'll find that the Koran is a compilation of snippets gleaned from the remembrances of certain of the followers after Mohammed's death (called "
suras," which were then assembled not in order of coherence, but simply in order of length). A great many of these snippets were contradictory; so many were burned so as not to "taint" the whole. However, they missed what they call "the Satanic Verses," the status of which remains so controversial even today in Islam. Mohammed was long dead by then anyway, so who could say what he said?
The whole book, then, has no more coherence or flow than a phone book. And it flatly contradicts both the Jewish-Christian manuscript tradition and itself. It's a mess, really. But don't take my word for it: you can read it yourself, if you want to be sure. But be forewarned: reading it is as much fun as reading a disorganized collection of fortune-cookie stubs, and less coherent. You won't thank me for the exercise.
I would guess that a lot of 'Abrogation' is more political than religious in nature. It gets back to crowd control.
Actually, abrogation is a core exegetical principle in Islam. They couldn't get by without it. Without it, as I say, they'd instantly find that the Koran contradicts itself flatly. And they would have to take seriously your concern about things like "people of the book," which, if believed, would then prevent them from the sort of homicidal and genocidal actions you read of every day in the newspapers.
But as you can see, it does not. Abrogation is the key. Look it up, if you doubt me.
The other word you should look up is "
taqiyya." You'll always need to know that one when you're talking to a Muslim apologist.
