Jews in the Qur'an.

[stevecanuck]

You don't know how to contextualize words.

You're jeopordizing your reputation for being a straight shooter with this nonsense. You know as well as anybody that there are hundreds of verses that define 'doing wrong' as rejecting Islam. Verse 29:68 sums it up - "And who does more wrong than he who invents a lie against Allah or rejects the Truth when it reaches him? Is there not a home in Hell for those who reject Faith?"

 

[stevecanuck]

Verse 98:6 has Allah issuing more threats and again resorting to ungodlike name-calling - "Indeed, those who disbelieved among the People of the Scripture [Jews and Christians] and the polytheists will be in the fire of Hell, abiding eternally therein. Those are the worst of creatures." If a person were to publicly call those of a given religion "the worst of creatures" solely for their beliefs in a country that has strict hate-speech laws, this would undoubtedly qualify as such.

 

[Augustus]

The vast majority of Islamic scholars agree that the Battle of the Trench happened

You’ve obviously never read any, so how would you know?

You don’t even know that the only sources for this information are hagiography written for theological reasons that also includes flying donkeys and the moon splitting in half.

Hmmm, who to believe, the Encylopedia Britannica or some internut rando????

Amazingly, internet encyclopaedia stubs do not reflect the state of the art in critical scholarship…

If you would like an elementary overview from an Oxford Professor on what actual scholars think regarding the theological source material you accept uncritically….

Go away. I will no longer respond to your attempts at diversion.

Nah, I’ll just keep pointing out your dishonesty whenever I feel like it in case anyone else is more intellectually curious and less bitterly agenda driven.

You have never addressed any points raised anyway so your silence is actually an improvement on your obfuscation and bluster.

 

[stevecanuck]

You have never addressed any points raised anyway so your silence is actually an improvement on your obfuscation and bluster.

LOL! Are you serious with that video? That was nothing more than two guys who like the sound of their own voices issuing one speculative statement after another. There was NOTHING verifiable in that whatsoever. It was 18 minutes of 'Maybe. Maybe not'.

 

[Augustus]

LOL! Are you serious with that video? That was nothing more than two guys who like the sound of their own voices issuing one speculative statement after another. There was NOTHING verifiable in that whatsoever. It was 18 minutes of 'Maybe. Maybe not'.

Either 2 eminent scholars from Oxford and Notre Dame Universities with dozens of publications between them understand elementary aspects of their own field less than Steve off the internet who has read zero texts of critical academic scholarship, or Steve off the internet has absolutely no clue about either this topic or how historical scholarship actually works.

I wonder what the probabilities say regarding who is more likely to be correct.

There was NOTHING verifiable in that whatsoever. It was 18 minutes of 'Maybe. Maybe not'.

Not the quickest on the uptake, are you?

That’s the very point, nothing is verifiable from this era as the only sources that document the life of Muhammad in any detail are works of theology from a couple of centuries after the fact that contain many obvious fictions such as angels, moon splitting and flying donkeys.

There is no way of telling which events are entirely fictitious, and which, if any, actually bear any loose resemblance to reality, let alone happened in the highly detailed manner described.

All we can say is many of them are obviously mythical, and any historical events will have been highly confected for theological reasons.

There is as much historical evidence in favour of the Battle of the Trench as there are for angels in caves, moon splitting and flying donkeys. The same people assert they all genuinely happened.

For some reason, you seem unable to understand the contradiction between knowing that the sirah is highly mythologised hagiography, and also considering it an amazingly precise and accurate record of factual history.

What you do is akin to uncritically accepting the Gospels as historical fact while also knowing they are highly confected theological narratives (actually it’s more like accepting the gnostic gospels as accurate historical records given the time scales).

But I fear this may be beyond your comprehension.

 

[stevecanuck]

Either 2 eminent scholars from Oxford and Notre Dame Universities with dozens of publications between them understand elementary aspects of their own field less than Steve off the internet who has read zero texts of critical academic scholarship, or Steve off the internet has absolutely no clue about either this topic or how historical scholarship actually works.

If they "understand elementary aspects of their own field", then why didn't they actually say anything? Again - it was an 18-minute excercise in two guys saying "maybe, maybe not".

That’s the very point, nothing is verifiable from this era as the only sources that document the life of Muhammad in any detail are works of theology from a couple of centuries after the fact that contain many obvious fictions such as angels, moon splitting and flying donkeys.

No, the point is that they offered absolutely nothing in terms of an alternative narrative.

There is no way of telling which events are entirely fictitious, and which, if any, actually bear any loose resemblance to reality, let alone happened in the highly detailed manner described.

Sure there is. Hadiths abound. Hell, they even questioned whether or not there was even a place called Medina (although they should have used the correct word 'Yathrib'). We both know there was.

All we can say is many of them are obviously mythical

Ermmm, the entire concept of Mohamed receiving revelations from a make-believe god via a make-believe angel is a myth.

But, that's not the point. The point is that Muslims who kill people at the behest of said fairy-tale 'god' fully believe it's real. And that it wants the blood of unbelievers to be spilled. Go ahead - deny that. This should be fun.

There is as much historical evidence in favour of the Battle of the Trench as there are for angels in caves, moon splitting and flying donkeys. The same people assert they all genuinely happened.

Mixing earthly events with theological mythology is a cheap trick. Nice try.

....... the sirah is highly mythologised hagiography .......

Prove it. Again, two guys saying "maybe, maybe not".

"the sirah is highly mythologised hagiography" is a gratuitous assertion passing for fact. P.R.O.V.E. I.T.

 

[Augustus]

If they "understand elementary aspects of their own field", then why didn't they actually say anything? Again - it was an 18-minute excercise in two guys saying "maybe, maybe not".

Err, because that’s all you can say based on the evidence.

The question was can we trust the chronology of the Quran and the occasions of revelation that it is based on (and that you rely on extensively in your threads).

The answer was no we cannot as it is significantly legendary and much seems to have been invented by later generations to contextualise the Quran.

Do you disagree with this?

If not, what methodology do you use to differentiate between the made up stuff and the stuff that actually happened?

Why do you trust that the exact same people who claimed Muhammad split the moon and flew on a donkey, accurately recorded all these other events in meticulous detail, so much so that you can use them to psychoanalyse the historical Muhammad?

Prove it. Again, two guys saying "maybe, maybe not".

Are you seriously questioning whether or not the story of a man who flew on a donkey, split the moon, was the perfect human and the best of all prophets should be considered “highly mythologised hagiography?”

That’s a bold gambit…

Unless you are a Muslim that is an obvious fact.

The only question is to what extent can we work out any reliable historical events from source material that is highly mythologised hagiography that was written centuries after the purported events.

 

[Link]

You're jeopordizing your reputation for being a straight shooter with this nonsense. You know as well as anybody that there are hundreds of verses that define 'doing wrong' as rejecting Islam. Verse 29:68 sums it up - "And who does more wrong than he who invents a lie against Allah or rejects the Truth when it reaches him? Is there not a home in Hell for those who reject Faith?"

The context limits the oppression here to be about relations, because it's about dialogue. It means except those who oppress or go to war with believers for unjust reasons.

Otherwise, the first part would not make sense.

While denying God and his Messenger is an oppression, but per Quran, it's an oppression to oneself. Here it's about oppression in the outward, not what is unseen and towards one's soul.

 

[stevecanuck]

The context limits the oppression here to be about relations, because it's about dialogue. It means except those who oppress or go to war with believers for unjust reasons.

Otherwise, the first part would not make sense.

While denying God and his Messenger is an oppression, but per Quran, it's an oppression to oneself. Here it's about oppression in the outward, not what is unseen and towards one's soul.

More empty words.

Muslims are told explicitly to fight unbelievers. And it's happening more and more and more as we speak.

 

[stevecanuck]

Err, because that’s all you can say based on the evidence.

The question was can we trust the chronology of the Quran and the occasions of revelation that it is based on (and that you rely on extensively in your threads).

The answer was no we cannot as it is significantly legendary and much seems to have been invented by later generations to contextualise the Quran.

Do you disagree with this?

If not, what methodology do you use to differentiate between the made up stuff and the stuff that actually happened?

Why do you trust that the exact same people who claimed Muhammad split the moon and flew on a donkey, accurately recorded all these other events in meticulous detail, so much so that you can use them to psychoanalyse the historical Muhammad?



Are you seriously questioning whether or not the story of a man who flew on a donkey, split the moon, was the perfect human and the best of all prophets should be considered “highly mythologised hagiography?”

That’s a bold gambit…

Unless you are a Muslim that is an obvious fact.

The only question is to what extent can we work out any reliable historical events from source material that is highly mythologised hagiography that was written centuries after the purported events.

You continue to ignore two things:

1. The vast majority of historians agree that Badr, Uhud, The Trench, etc. happened.
2. Whether or not they did is moot because Muslims believe it all happened.

 

[Augustus]

You continue to ignore two things:

1. The vast majority of historians agree that Badr, Uhud, The Trench, etc. happened.

On the contrary, I've addressed them ad nauseam.

You just watched a video of two mainstream scholars noting that lots, if not almost all, of these details are made up. Most scholars don't take explicit positions on every event anyway, they hold general attitudes towards the sources and what they can be used for. They don;t look ata timeline and go "happened, didn't happen, didn't happen, happened, happened, etc."

In general though, most modern Western scholars reject the Islamic sources as accurate records of history with positions ranging from 'they are probably broadly correct, although with numerous hagiographical and legendary embellishments" to "Beyond a few basic details, they are almost entirely fictional and cannot be relied on."

Your position is that texts that contain obviously fantastical elements, and very clearly serve obvious theological purposes are nonetheless highly accurate in every detail other than their flying donkeys, angels and moon-splitting.

No modern, non-Muslim scholar takes such a position.

You simply assume scholars agree with you as you haven't read any. Harvard Professor Patricia Crone:

The problem is the very mode of origin of the tradition, not some minor distortions subsequently introduced . . .The entire tradition is tendentious, its aim being the elaboration of an Arabian Heilsgeschichte [salvation history], and this tendentiousness has shaped the facts as we have them, not merely added some partisan statements that we can deduct.

2. Whether or not they did is moot because Muslims believe it all happened.

It really shouldn't be so hard for you to understand your fallacious logic here - you are not addressing what Muslims believe, but assuming the historical details about what Muslims believe are correct, but inserting an evil Muhammad into this narrative.

If you want to address Islamic theology and what Muslims believe (rather than factual history) then you need to do it accurately and in good faith, not by cherry picking what is convenient and rejecting that which is not.

Muslims believe Muhammad acted in self-defence against those who sought to oppress or kill the virtuous Muslims. You think everyone was just trying to live in harmony until megalomaniac charlatan Muhammad oppressed everyone who didn't accept his prophethood. You are not addressing what Muslims actually beleive, so can't use that as a defence for why you can uncritically dismiss secular historical scholarship out of hand.

Your view recasts theology in terms of secular history, in which case the events actually need to have happened before it has any value. Otherwise you are writing fan fiction in a mythical Islamic storyworld.

Trying to explain what an evil, historical Muhammad (not the Islamic Muhammad) did in Situation X makes zero sense if Situation X never actually happened outside of a confected Islamic theological narrative.

 

[stevecanuck]

On the contrary, I've addressed them ad nauseam.

You just watched a video of two mainstream scholars noting that lots, if not almost all, of these details are made up.

No, they were speculating. They produced no evidence. They provided no alternative. They provided no explanation for how a Muslim army capable of creating a vast empire came to exist if not by the means described in the Qur'an and hadiths. Their only goal was to say 'maybe' in the most self-servingly, scholarly manner possible. That was a nauseating exercise in look-at-me-ism.

They offered absolutely nothing in the way of verifiable alternatives. Nothing.

 

[stevecanuck]

In his tafsir of surah 9, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (https://www.englishtafsir.com/Quran/9/index.html), summarizes "the problems that were confronting the [Islamic] Community at that time" thus:

- to make the whole of Arabia a perfect Dar-ul-Islam [abode of Islam],
- to extend the influence of Islam to the adjoining countries,
- to crush the mischief of the hypocrites, and
- to prepare the Muslims for Jihad against the non- Muslim world.

In order to enable the Muslims to extend the influence of Islam outside Arabia, they were enjoined to crush with sword the non- Muslim powers and to force them to accept the sovereignty of the Islamic State. As the great Roman and Iranian Empires were the biggest hindrances in the way, a conflict with them was inevitable. The object of Jihad was not to coerce them to accept Islam they were free to accept or not to accept it-but to prevent them from thrusting forcibly their deviations [non-Islamic religions] upon others and the coming generations. The Muslims were enjoined to tolerate their misguidance only to the extent that they might have the freedom to remain misguided, if they chose to be so, provided that they paid Jizyah (v. 29) as a sign of their subjugation to the Islamic State.

In order to prepare the Muslims for Jihad against the whole non-Muslim world, it was necessary to cure them even of that slight weakness of faith from which they were still suffering. For there could be no greater internal danger to the Islamic Community than the weakness of faith, especially where it was going to engage itself single-handed in a conflict with the whole non-Muslim world. That is why those people who had lagged behind in the Campaign to Tabuk or had shown the least negligence were severely taken to task, and were considered hypocrites if they had no plausible excuse for not fulfilling that obligation. Moreover, a clear declaration was made that in future the sole criterion of a Muslim's faith shall be the exertions he makes for the uplift of the Word of Allah and the role he plays in the conflict between Islam and kufr. Therefore, if anyone will show any hesitation in sacrificing his life, money, time and energies, his faith shall not be regarded as genuine. This is a reference to verses 9:81-96.

 

[Augustus]

No, they were speculating. They produced no evidence. They provided no alternative. They provided no explanation for how a Muslim army capable of creating a vast empire came to exist if not by the means described in the Qur'an and hadiths. Their only goal was to say 'maybe' in the most self-servingly, scholarly manner possible. That was a nauseating exercise in look-at-me-ism.

They offered absolutely nothing in the way of verifiable alternatives. Nothing.

Why do you think the best approach to history is to simply assume it happened just as 9th-13th C Islamic theologians, mostly Persian and living thousands of miles from Arabia, said it did and codified as orthodox theology. We know this account is full of myths and errors and we know that it was written to serve a 9-13th C theological agenda? What probability would you give to it being a highly accurate representation of historical events?

You continually dodge this question by pretending you are simply addressing what Muslims actually believe rather than what you are actually doing which is trying to reconstruct a historical Muhammad.

Why trust theology and hagiography that contains angels, flying donkeys, moon splitting and countless other obviously legendary features simply because it is too difficult for you to treat it critically?

That you think there is a nice simple way to reconstruct the life of Muhammad, shows you don't remotely understand the sources you rely on or how they came to be accepted. But there are countless ways to explain what happened without assuming it happened in the miraculous manner later Muslims claimed it did.

The major problem is you don't understand what you are basing your arguments on, and why these are not held in high regard by Western scholars, once you understand this point, you can start correcting your misconceptions.

Patricia Crone:

The problem is the very mode of origin of the tradition, not some minor distortions subsequently introduced . . .The entire tradition is tendentious, its aim being the elaboration of an Arabian Heilsgeschichte [salvation history], and this tendentiousness has shaped the facts as we have them, not merely added some partisan statements that we can deduct.

or

This brief sketch of the events of Muhammad's life, although in many ways plausible (and probably in some respects accurate), is nevertheless vexing to the historian. The problem is that this detailed picture of Muhammad's career is drawn not from documents or even stories dating from Muhammad's time, but from literary sources that were compiled many years--sometimes centuries- later... and shaped with very specific objectives in mind... There is also reason to suspect that some--perhaps many--of the incidents related in these sources are not reliable accounts of things that actually happened but rather are legends created by later generations of Muslims to affirm Muhammad's status as prophet, to help establish precedents shaping the later Muslim community's ritual, social, or legal practices, or simply to fill out poorly known chapters in the life of their founder, about whom, understandably, later Muslims increasingly wished to know everything.

Further, some episodes that are crucial to the traditional biography of Muhammad look suspiciously like efforts to create a historicizing gloss to particular verses of the Qur'an; some have suggested, for example, that the reports of the raid on Nakhla were generated as exegels of Q. 2.217... Other elements of his life story may have been generated to make his biography conform to contemporary expectations of what a true prophet would do (for instance, his orphanhood, paralleling that of Moses, or his rejection by and struggle against his own people, the tribe of Quraysh)...

Fred Donner - Muhammad and the believers

In his tafsir of surah 9, Sayyid Abul Ala Maududi (https://www.englishtafsir.com/Quran/9/index.html), summarizes "the problems that were confronting the [Islamic] Community at that time" thus:

Why trust 20th C Islamic fundamentalist clerics over critical academic historians on questions of historicity?

Do you trust Protestant fundamentalists on questions of geology and physics?

 

[stevecanuck]

Why trust 20th C Islamic fundamentalist clerics over critical academic historians on questions of historicity?

Strawman - I'm trusting 1400 years of combined scholarship - as does the vast majority of Muslims.

Do you trust Protestant fundamentalists on questions of geology and physics?

False equivalence - I trust the greater scientific community.


Your deflections are based on one falsehood after another.

 

[Augustus]

Strawman - I'm trusting 1400 years of combined scholarship - as does the vast majority of Muslims.

That's simply not true though, as I've consistently demonstrated.

I understand why Muslims side with theology over secular scholarship, but it makes little sense that you do. You surely agree that hagiography is not generally historically accurate, and fantastical myths containing angels, moon splitting and flying donkeys are generally full of other errors too?

As I’ve pointed out with numerous peer reviewed scholarly sources, basically no modern secular scholars trust the theological narratives you claim are the highly accurate results of "1400 years of combined scholarship".

What do you think this article from the journal Der Islam, which explicitly refutes your claim and recounts completely uncontroversial and very elementary details about the field, is wrong about (note many other sources I've provided support these claims)?

It is well known that the extant Muslim narrative sources relating to the life of Muhammad date from at least 150 to 200 years after Muhammad’s death in the year 11/632 and that these sources are highly problematic when used as sources for the life of Muhammad: since no archaeological surveys have been conducted in Mecca or Medina, there is no external evidence that could be adduced to support the accounts presented in the Muslim sources. The non-Muslim sources – several of which predate the Muslim sources – often are at variance with the Muslim accounts, if they mention Muhammad at all. Several of the Muslim accounts about the life of Muhammad appear to be interpretations of the Qur#anic text and do not constitute independent sources, but rather seem to have grown from exegetic speculations. Other accounts clearly reflect later theological, legal or political debates, while yet others constitute what can be termed salvation history. Moreover, the accounts often contradict each other regarding chronology, the persons involved or the course of events.

First Century Sources for the Life of Muhammad? A Debate


So which of the above claims are wrong, and if none of them are wrong, why do you trust these narratives so much and why are you so invested in defending them as factually accurate?

 

[stevecanuck]

@Augustus, tell you what - I'll engage with you on every point you're making IF you admit that the VAST VAST VAST majority of Muslims accept the events I've referred to as historic fact.

 

[Augustus]

@Augustus, tell you what - I'll engage with you on every point you're making IF you admit that the VAST VAST VAST majority of Muslims accept the events I've referred to as historic fact.

I've already acknowledged this multiple times. Yes most Muslims believe the majority of the traditional sirah actually happened in historical fact, including the miraculous events.

My point was that if you want to address what Muslims actually believe, you have to be consistent in this and also accept that the Muhammad in their narrative was virtuous and his enemies were mendacious.

Reimagining these narratives where Muhammad was not a prophet, was not virtuous, etc. is when you move in to the field of the historical Muhammad - i.e. secular history.

Now we have cleared that up, you can address my points.

 

[stevecanuck]

You don’t even know that the only sources for this information are hagiography written for theological reasons that also includes flying donkeys and the moon splitting in half.

Let's start here. I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Who are you talking about? Hadith authors? Hadith compilers of decades later? Both? Neither?

 

[Augustus]

Let's start here. I'm not sure what you mean by this.

Who are you talking about? Hadith authors? Hadith compilers of decades later? Both? Neither?

The entire sirah-maghazi tradition including, but not limited to hadiths, Quranic exegesis, etc.

There is no history of this period that is distinct from theology.

The Persian hadith compilers were working centuries later, and the degree to which any hadith can be legitimately traced back to early generations is contested (the article I linked covers this - it's authors beleive some hadith can be considered genuinely early, although that is different from claiming them as factually accurate).

These traditions, in general, are not accurate or reliable. For example, the moon splitting incident is mutawatir (the highest grade of hadith, so well attested to that it is basically considered almost on par with the Quran)

If you look at the early sources, they disagree on all kinds of things, and are often clearly just speculating over things they don't understand. What is now orthodoxy emerged over many centuries around 9-13th C when sects like Sunnism began to develop (or become reified).

Always a good example on something as simple as the year of Muhammad's birth:

According to various Muslim sources Muhammad "was born in the Year of the Elephant, or fifty days after the attack of the troops of the Elephant, or thirty years after the Year of the Elephant, or forty years after the Year of the Elephant Many traditions are recorded in Ibn N~ al-Din's Jami' al-iithiu, fols. 179b-180b:the Prophet was born in the Year of the Elephant, he received the Revelation forty years after the Elephant (The fight at - K.) 'Ukaz took place fifteen years after the Elephant and the Ka'ba was built twenty-five years after the Elephant; the Prophet was born thirty days after the Elephant, or fifty days, or fifty-five days, or two months and six days, or ten years; some say twenty years, some say twenty-three years, some say thirty years, some say that God sent the Prophet with his mission fifteen years after the Ka'ba was built, and thus there were seventy years between the Elephant and the mission (mab'aJh) of the Prophet; some say that he was born fifteen years before the Elephant, some say forty days or fifty days, some say thirty years before the Elephant, and finally, some say that there were ten years between the expedition of the Elephant and the mission"


(and the Year of the Elephant is a legendary event that likely emerged from the Christian Axumite and Jewish Himyarite wars that actually happened, but probably not near Mecca and decades before Muhammad was born. The sectarian conflicts and Roman-Persian conflicts in the Hijaz are certainly relevant for the historical study of Islam, but seem strangely absent from the Islamic traditions - well mostly absent there are hints and potential remnants)


Is there any of the following you consider not to be an accurate reflection of the fact:

It is well known that the extant Muslim narrative sources relating to the life of Muhammad date from at least 150 to 200 years after Muhammad’s death in the year 11/632 and that these sources are highly problematic when used as sources for the life of Muhammad: since no archaeological surveys have been conducted in Mecca or Medina, there is no external evidence that could be adduced to support the accounts presented in the Muslim sources. The non-Muslim sources – several of which predate the Muslim sources – often are at variance with the Muslim accounts, if they mention Muhammad at all. Several of the Muslim accounts about the life of Muhammad appear to be interpretations of the Qur#anic text and do not constitute independent sources, but rather seem to have grown from exegetic speculations. Other accounts clearly reflect later theological, legal or political debates, while yet others constitute what can be termed salvation history. Moreover, the accounts often contradict each other regarding chronology, the persons involved or the course of events.