Muhammad The Greatest: A comparative study

[Imagist]

Response: I only pay attention to the discussion you're having with me. I don't watch your every word with someone else. As for your conversation with me, you did not provide an argument. It was a statement with a link attached. Therefore you are using the link as apart of your argument. There is no need to do this. If you know what you know than say it. I can't have a discussion with a link. It doesn't talk back.

But if you insist on a link than that's your business. But the important question is whether or not the link is saying the truth and why you acknowledge it as the truth or reliable which can only be answered by you yourself. Not the link. So once again, is the link's information true? If so, provide the evidence to back up your claim.

The link contains evidence which I believe to be true. If we go down this line of reasoning, I can provide evidence for my evidence, but then you could simply ask me for evidence of my evidence of my evidence.

I ask you: what evidence do you have to disbelieve that article? How exactly do you think that Muhammed came to rule over Mecca, a city that had thrown him out? Did they just one day decide that they really liked him after all, and welcome him in with open arms?

Links are a legitimate source that provides more information on a topic. It's worthless to pretend that Islam happens in a void and that there's no information necessary to understand it.

 

[Imagist]

Response: You haven't answered the question my friend. You quoted a hadith as an example of the character of Muhammad. Are you saying this hadith is true? If so, provide the evidence for your claim.

Fatihah, you are implicitly claiming that it is not true. Please provide evidence for your claim. You aren't immune from the need to provide evidence.

Furthermore, if we agree that the ancient texts about Muhammed are unreliable, then the entire topic is pointless. These ancient texts are the ONLY source of information we have about Muhammed's life. If we discard them, then we have no information about his life, and it is impossible for us to emulate his actions. It is pointless to discuss whether we should emulate his actions if we can't emulate his actions.

 

[Storm]

Under no reasonable standard of ethics is it not wrong for a man in his forties to have sex with a nine-year-old girl.

1) If she was pubescent, as someone said, she was a woman by the standards of the time, and I don't think we can condemn him for it.

2) Are we sure he had sex with her in the first place? Quannah Parker had many wives (off the top of my head, over 40), many of them quite young. It was his culture's way of providing for orphans of a devastated culture. I am far from educated on the question of Muhammad and Aisha, but I see no reason to simply assume he didn't have similar motivations. Alternatively, if the marriage was one of political alliance, there's also no reason to assume it was consumated before she "reached womanhood."

As I said, I am far from educated on this issue, and I admittedly haven't read every post in this thread. If you have contrary evidence to either point, I'm listening.

Maybe I'm being too generous with the benefit of the doubt, but I'm admittedly hypersensitive to false accusations of child abuse, especially pedophilia.

 

[Imagist]

Response: O.K. Now if you were to read the ingredients of these candies, one of the ingredients is gelatin. Gelatin is the glutinous fat that comes from the flesh of meat when it's boiled. If you had no problem in eating this, why would there be a problem with camel's urine?

Camel's urine contains toxins and waste products which were flushed from the camel's body.

Furthermore, Muhammed didn't just tell them to consume camel's urine, he claimed that it had medicinal properties. It would be bad to tell people that eating gelatin would cure an ailment that it doesn't have any effect on.

 

[Imagist]

we have already discussed this issue : http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/islam/49875-muhammad-pedophile.html?highlight=pedophile

And while you may have come to a conclusion which satisfied you, you did not come up with a conclusion that satisfied me.

 

[Imagist]

Response: So just because something is written it is reasonable to assume that it's true? Well in the qur'an, it is written that Allah is the creator of life and everything in the universe. So why are you still an atheist since it's been written that Allah exists?

Surely you can tell the difference between historical accounts and books of philosophy.

 

[Imagist]

No love is not a crime, sex (outside marriage) is.

Why? Who is harmed by it?

 

[Imagist]

Response: None of the verses you quoted from the qur'an say that Muhammad started any war. In each verse that you quoted, the context attached to it shows that Muhammad as well as all muslims are to defend themselves and the verses are talking about self defense. So why is it wrong for someone to defend themself?

What part of attacking Mecca and destroying the idols there was self defense?

 

[Imagist]

It just proves that, yes, urine has have medicinal uses.

It proves that a small portion of a completely different kind of urine treats a completely different condition if you filter out all the toxins and waste products.

Unfortunately for you, we were not talking about a small portion of a completely different kind of urine with the toxins and waste products filtered out. We were talking about camel urine, with all its toxins and waste products intact.

Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a prophet. He wasn't a doctor or a scientist. If you're trying to make the point that Muhammad was not a doctor or scientist, then congratulations, you have- but that has nothing to do with his status of Prophet. You aren't going to ask a linguist to do organic chemistry so I don't know why you want Muhammad to be a savant on every single topic.

Agreed, I wouldn't ask a linguist to do organic chemistry. But most linguists without any training in organic chemistry don't go around claiming to have knowledge about organic chemistry. Muhammed told people that camel urine would cure their condition. If he was just a prophet and not a doctor or a scientist, he should have kept his mouth shut and not pretended he knew what he was talking about.

There's many examples in Islamic literature where Muhammad says that what he says about Islam is from G-d and what he says on other nonreligious topics are just his opinion and therefore not part of Islam. He gave medical advice as known in his time, but that doesn't make it part of Islam.

True, but I never claimed that it did. The issue in question is not whether it's a part of Islam, but whether we should emulate Muhammed as a person.

Are you going to rant next about doctors and medicine throughout history? Rail against well-known historical doctors who did outdated and baseless procedures? My goodness, how should we trust medicine at all knowing bloodletting used to be practiced by doctors and they used to think the heart was the brain. :cover:

Yes, those things are ridiculous. But I don't rant about those things because nobody is claiming we should emulate those doctors. On the other hand, people are claiming that we should emulate the actions of Muhammed. I don't think it's wise to emulate the actions of someone who used camel urine to treat his ailments.

 

[Imagist]

well first of all can you please tell me what made him leave mecca. i mean why would he want to go there anyway for no reason if he left from there.

He was kicked out of Mecca. That doesn't give him justification for going back and killing people.

 

[Imagist]

you do know that when one army conquers the land of another, traditions, culture.......etc. are all destroyed. didn't the english destroy the culture of the native americans,they destroyed everything even almost made the race extinct. so thats just natural if a non muslim does it but when a muslim does it, heck hes a muslim who gave him the right.

The English did destroy Native American cultures, and that was wrong too. Just because the English did something bad doesn't mean it's okay for Muslims to do bad things too.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

It is highly misleading to start a thread which includes 'The Greatest' and 'Muhammad' in it, without it being about Muhammad Ali.

 

[Imagist]

lets talk about modernisation for a bit.

the US is considered as the most advanced non muslim nation in the world right?\

so how modern do these words sound to you;
leethal injection, electrocution, crucifixtion, flaying, shooting (I don't soppose muslims came up with this) or these images


A condemned prisoner being dismembered by an elephant in Ceylon. Drawing from An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon by Robert Knox (1681)



Execution with a Garrote



these are the links for you;

Capital punishment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Capital punishment in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Capital punishment in the People's Republic of China - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nobody is claiming that the western world is perfect. But that doesn't mean that it's okay to do bad things just because others are doing it.

 

[Imagist]

do you even understand those verses or you just had a quick look to dissprove us muslims.

those verses talk about war times, no one has given me a right to kill a non muslim, and no one has given you a right to kill a muslim, but when your country and mine are at war, well will you great me if you see me or will you be feeding me bullets in my head. think about it.

One verse specifically says to kill non-muslims wherever you find them. That doesn't sound like it's defensive or only for times of war, it sounds like it's encouraging muslims to start wars.

 

[Imagist]

1) If she was pubescent, as someone said, she was a woman by the standards of the time, and I don't think we can condemn him for it.

It may have been okay by the standards of the time, but we're discussing whether we should emulate the actions of Muhammed in modern times, so the standards of the time are irrelevant.

2) Are we sure he had sex with her in the first place? Quannah Parker had many wives (off the top of my head, over 40), many of them quite young. It was his culture's way of providing for orphans of a devastated culture. I am far from educated on the question of Muhammad and Aisha, but I see no reason to simply assume he didn't have similar motivations. Alternatively, if the marriage was one of political alliance, there's also no reason to assume it was consumated before she "reached womanhood."

As I said, I am far from educated on this issue, and I admittedly haven't read every post in this thread. If you have contrary evidence to either point, I'm listening.

I had my doubts on this issue myself, until Kodanshi made this post. Here is the relevant link for your convenience. So the exact words are that he consummated the relationship when she was nine.

Maybe I'm being too generous with the benefit of the doubt, but I'm admittedly hypersensitive to false accusations of child abuse, especially pedophilia.

This is a big issue to me as well. I have on a few occasions written news stations requesting that they stop reporting the names of people accused of crimes, particularly pedophilia-related crimes, until those people have been convicted. No luck yet.

 

[Storm]

It may have been okay by the standards of the time, but we're discussing whether we should emulate the actions of Muhammed in modern times, so the standards of the time are irrelevant.

Many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. We still emulate them. That doesn't mean blindly aping everything they did.

I had my doubts on this issue myself, until Kodanshi made this post. Here is the relevant link for your convenience. So the exact words are that he consummated the relationship when she was nine.

Fair enough.

 

[Imagist]

Many of the Founding Fathers owned slaves. We still emulate them. That doesn't mean blindly aping everything they did.

There's a difference between our de-facto partial emulation of the founding fathers and the way the Muslims on this thread are holding Muhammed up as an infallible role model. Americans don't devote their lives to being like George Washington, whereas Muslims do devote their lives to being like Muhammed. Americans might follow the constitution, but that is more akin to Muslims following the Koran than it is to Muslims emulating Muhammed.

 

[Storm]

There's a difference between our de-facto partial emulation of the founding fathers and the way the Muslims on this thread are holding Muhammed up as an infallible role model.

Granted.

Americans don't devote their lives to being like George Washington, whereas Muslims do devote their lives to being like Muhammed. Americans might follow the constitution, but that is more akin to Muslims following the Koran than it is to Muslims emulating Muhammed.

I don't see any Muslims encouraging pedophilia as a valid form of emulation, though.

 

[Imagist]

I don't see any Muslims encouraging pedophilia as a valid form of emulation, though.

True, but there are three notable reasons why this is still a problem:

1. While nobody has directly suggested that it is a valid form of emulation a few of the muslims on this thread have defended the Muhammed's behavior. To Fatihah's credit, (s)he is not one of those people. But it is evident in recent news that at least a few Muslims still consider this kind of behavior acceptable.

2. Pedophilia isn't Muhammed's only crime. Just on this thread it has been mentioned that he started religious wars and recommended camel urine as an ingestible medicine. Where do we draw the line in emulation? What is a valid form of emulation and what is not?

3. If we're going to pick and choose what to emulate, then we already have some principles for picking and choosing those things: why not just live our life by those principles rather than imitating a clearly imperfect man?

 

[Storm]

True, but there are three notable reasons why this is still a problem:

1. While nobody has directly suggested that it is a valid form of emulation a few of the muslims on this thread have defended the Muhammed's behavior. To Fatihah's credit, (s)he is not one of those people. But it is evident in recent news that at least a few Muslims still consider this kind of behavior acceptable.

I don't follow the news as well as I should. What happened?

2. Pedophilia isn't Muhammed's only crime. Just on this thread it has been mentioned that he started religious wars and recommended camel urine as an ingestible medicine. Where do we draw the line in emulation? What is a valid form of emulation and what is not?

You're reading more into my argument than I intend. I don't approve of the idolization of Muhammad, myself, I'm just REALLY sensitive about the pedophilia issue.

3

. If we're going to pick and choose what to emulate, then we already have some principles for picking and choosing those things: why not just live our life by those principles rather than imitating a clearly imperfect man?

Touche.