Wa-‘alaykum ‘as-salaam
My neurotic tendency to need to know as much as I can about everything is certainly not something I recommend.
In my opinion too much of this clouds seing or rather feeling the other side of you..
Apart from lesser known and perhaps more arguable examples, what about the Sunni/Shia divide?
Shia have by choice removed Muhammed and put his cousin Ali in his place in simple.. The Quran which has not been manipulated and which they accept as well has Muhammad in it and has direct orders to follow that messenger or prophet.
1) To the extent this describes Muhammad, it also describes Jesus (with some arguable minor differences that, I think, are less important than the problems with the above assertion)
Of course he is a prophet too and one of the 5 mightiest prophets besides Moses Ibraham and Noah.
2) If the area consisted of only illiterate people, and granting that Jibreel not only dictated the Quran to Muhammed (PBUH) but was also able to enable an illiterate to write,
There were writter for the prophet like Moaweya ebn aby Sofian and they recorded it in his life time on sheep skin and camel back bones and was collected and agreed one year after he died and concented on by his desciples. Do not forget that many of them memorized it by heart and many many still do that till today. If all copies were destroyed it can all be written down again exactly the same. As i mentioned to you, in the Quran God promises to keep it from loss or manipulation.
how was the Quran transmitted and how were ahadith recorded?
Collected by scholars many years later and checked by narator line and successors. There is a science in Islam called narator science on how they checked and classified the ahadeeth to make sure they are authentic. Not sure if you know about it and how it works.
Modern Standard Arabic, although spoken nowhere as a native language, is basically classical Arabic with additional vocabulary. This is because the classical Arabic of the Quran dominated literary Arabic almost from the earliest Arabic literature (though not quite). Also, the Arabic alphabet is (like Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc.) a derivative of the Phoenician alphabet (hence the Hebrew and Arabic aleph and the Greek alpha). So the alphabet that the Quran was transmitted by originated long before even Christianity. So too did the writing methods used in literary Arabic (although works such as Fi al-Shi'r al-Jahili have been extensively criticized at least as much as have pre-Islamic literature, the idea that the corpus of pre-Islamic poetry entirely post-dates the Quran is untenable).
I am not sure I get you. Quran is not like poems in any way and we do speak slang arabic but also the original Quran language "arabia alfosha".
So there was a literature community that existed before the Quran (albeit a small one) and there had to be one for the Quran as well as other early Islamic literature to survive.
Not sure I get you but there was a chalenge that someone would come along and make a similar writting since 1400 years but no one has done it till today because of how sophisticated it is. I know you learned Arabic but I am a native speaker and do see something different in it with it linguistic eloquence.
3) The Sira and Sunna, even in Islamic scholarship, have been subject to extensive critique. Applying modern historical methods, there is little reason to think that much of what was deemed authoritative actually is. Put differently, why should I accept as true the sources we have on the Prophet's life?
"Modern historical methods".. I totally understand where you come from but again only science taking into consideration that 50 years from now these might be obsolete again.
You are free to chose from what is offered what you wish of course. For me I used both gifts given to me. Some science and logic which is quite clear for me in Quran and sunna and prophets life and teachings as a native speaking Arabic person who understands very well what he reads and part ecstacy as you might call it. Our world that welive in today is pushing us towards a materialistic tech. world devoid of any spiritual part which for me is not correct and is missing.
It seems like a lot of what you say runs into immediate problems if one questions the accuracy of the events and characteristics ascribed to the historical "Muhammed".
I need a reference please because I have never looked into any, just to see what is being assumed from the other view point.
In other words, I have to accept quite a bit just to evaluate the extent to which the sayings and deeds of the Prophet are evidence for God, Islam, etc.
Who defines the historical Muhammad? Why are these historians credible but not the Muslim ones?
I believe that any evidence will be limited in supporting finding the Ultimate truth in general which for me in the direction of that God because you are using evidence to confirm the creator who put these evidence there. If I told you I saw a car without a driver passing by would you believe me.. the same, for me is this sophisticaed universe with all creatures in it.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
I am not. I am sincerely looking for truth and answers, but I do not think these are to be found in Islam (or numerous other places, including many fields in the sciences). To make the leap of faith required to pray to Allah is more than I can do honestly.
Ok lets refrase it. It is not Islam.. it is the one and only creator and submitting to him. He has the answers to what you seek (I believe it is in "fekh" in Islam). I know the concept is too far as you said for now. The strange thing is that I too was thinking today of the exact phrase "leap of faith"!
For your information Islamic fikh has everything in it starting from relationships between people, between government, in war, in politics, in friendship, with wive, trading, agriculture.....etc. and it is extensive. I am not missing anything in it and I studied part of it. Nothing is neglected there. Everything about life and the answers i was seeking are there.
My field is neuroscience. While that doesn't mean I can tell you exactly how the mind emerges from the brain (or doesn't, for that matter), I know how the brain works, and the physical descriptions you refer to involve the brain. And to the extent you are correct about the nature of the brain's response to stresses, how is it not possible or more probable that religious ecstasy, revelation, or epiphany (in the classical sense; literally) isn't due to hallucinations and other responses to stress?
Wise argument.. can't say anything to the argument other than that some times you need to back up a little to grasp something you are not getting. A more full picture. You are toooo much into it. I told you I have been there somewhat and it took me many years to reach this ecstasy as you might call it.
Arguing that someone who relies on logic, rationality, etc., should not is as effective as arguing that someone who believes logic & rationality are inherently limited are wrong. In both cases, the initial perspective precludes the acceptance of the opposing perspective.
I am saying that you can not use it alone to reach your destination which is the ultimate truth you seek (because it is lacking) . This can not be found only using this. We have a verse in Quran that says that: "it is not the eye sight that is blinded but rather the hearts that reside within the chests". You are evaluating everything with reason and facts alone when I believe that this life is about both mind and a bit of spirituality or whatever you would call it. This is the right mix. You can not find what you seek with pure science and logic alone.
Iron is at the core of this planet. I think you are referring to the fact that meteorites contain iron, not that this is the source of the Earth's iron.
Have a look about the origin of Iron.. yes core is formed of Iron but how did Iron get there?
How well do you read and understand Arabic? I want to send you something in Arabic about Jeziah confirming what I said earlier?
And Arabic nouns have gender. Also, male spiders do build webs, although you are right that "species-typical" webs are constructed by females.
Spider in Arabic is musculin only but the verb "builds" when it gets a "T" becomes feminine and this was considered a mistake because he says The spider (musculin) builds with a t letter which is feminine. This must be at least interesting for anyone to notice.
This isn't a statement about a scientific truth hidden in the Quran but an explanation as to why the Quran isn't inaccurate by explaining the blatantly obvious (i.e., that a pregnant woman's body contains 2 hearts). Even if the verse is meant to be interpreted this way, it is an obvious truth known long before the Quran.
You misunderstood this. It just shows the accuracy from my point of view.
Humans have known how mountains look since they first saw mountains. This wasn't a 20th century discovery (and mountains don't hold the crust of the Earth).
