Understanding the Kuffar — Hossam and Divine Revelation

[Aquitaine]

And which was the best than the Islamic empire in this region during the whole history.

Sorry, I don't understand the question, could you rephrase it please?

 

[FearGod]

Sorry, I don't understand the question, could you rephrase it please?

In the timeline of history of the middle east, can we find a better civilization than the Islamic empire.

 

[LuisDantas]

In the timeline of history of the middle east, can we find a better civilization than the Islamic empire.

We could spend some time and effort delimiting what is being asked about here and why choose those specific criteria - for instance, what constitutes the Middle East, and why exactly should we not also consider other places that have heard of Islam - but I think it is more productive to ask what we both understand a better civilization to be.

That in and of itself is neither a trivial matter nor the unsolvable challenge that it is sometimes assumed to be. While there is much to be said for respect for variety and diversity, not all societies are equally laudable and equally valid, far from it really.

I am not entirely sure which Islamic empire you are talking about. Perhaps the Ottoman Empire, perhaps the Ayyubid Dynasty, perhaps something more ancient, or perhaps even ISIS?

And that is part of my objection to your statement. One of the qualities that I think we should expect in a good civilization is the ability to sustain and maintain itself, to deal in peaceful and lasting ways with the various sorts of challenges that it might come to find.

Yet even now, some fourteen centuries after the revelation of the Quran and at a time when Muslims are counted by the billion, Islam's history is if anything indicative of a strong tendency towards divisiveness, infighting and instability. Mohammed's succession as Islamic leader was remarkably troubled, and so were the last few decades of the Ottoman Empire. All around the world Islamic regimes seem to almost make a point of falling under their own weight, often with very destructive results such as the onslaught that the Ottomans inflicted on the Armenians during their last few years of existence.

Then again, is it even a worthy goal to have a Islamic Empire in the first place? Muslim communities sure seem to thrive better, or at least more peacefully, when they are not part of an Empire - as a matter of fact, best of all when they are not actually in power.

For all that Muslims seem to long for political control of the lands they live in - and if I am not mistaken, the Quran does in fact demand Muslims to pursue such control - the available evidence all but says outright that it just does not work and is not a good idea in the first place.

It is scary, really, how consistently Muslim regimes end up being so very troubled despite the idea having been tried so often and by so many people.

Maybe you have a different opinion, but then I have to ask you for more specific data.

 

[Muffled]

I believe Mohammed did not preach a radically different religion. However if someone were to have an experience contrary to existing revelations one would expect the experience was with a demon. Scientists generally are materialistic and would discount any spiritual experience as mental illness whether good or evil.

 

[Augustus]

I am not entirely sure which Islamic empire you are talking about.

Presume he is meaning the Abbasids as they managed to go a few years without civil war (after they had usurped the throne in a civil war that is).

This short animated history of the "Caliphate(s)" shows the tremendous unity of the Muslims throughout their history, always peaceful towards their co-religionists...

 

[Muffled]

FACTUALLY False you cannot be a muslim and accept the bible where it differs from the book that plagiarized the bible.

I believe this is a common belief but I don't believe there is any injunction in the Qu'ran forbidding a Muslim from believing in the Bible.

 

[Augustus]

If you reject Hossam as a liar or a mentally ill or unstable man, then you probably understand where the Pagan Arabs of the 7th century were coming from. The only difference between you and the 7th century kuffar, then, is that you live in an age where there is so much information and scientific knowledge that such claims of prophecy can easily be dismissed as nothing more than hoaxes or products of mental illness.

I don't think that it the 7th C can really be compared to the present in any way. The late antique mindset was just too different to make a meaningful comparison.

In the 7th C though 'prophets' were 10 a penny, there are several attested to in the Islamic tradition as contemporaries to Mohammed (false prophets of course). There's a lecture about them here:

Were there prophets in the Jahiliyya?A lecture by Gerald Hawting, Dept. of History, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
http://www.international.ucla.edu/cnes/article/135579

It was also a time with a great eschatological fervour, where many people were expecting that the end of days were imminent. There is plenty of evidence of this in Christian and Jewish texts of the period, and a pretty decent case can be made that Muhammed himself was an eschatological prophet who expected the 'hour' to come in his lifetime.

Some examples:

“My coming and that of the Hour are concomitant; indeed, the latter almost arrived before me.”53 This ḥadīṯ is often coupled with a similar state- ment by Muḥammad that he had been “sent on the breath of the Hour”.54 A passage from Ibn Saʿd’s Ṭabaqāt similarly notes of Muḥammad that “he has been sent with the Hour, in order to avert you from a severe punishment.”55 In other traditions Muḥammad proclaims that he “was sent in the presence of the Hour”.56 Perhaps the most well-known of these eschatological ḥadīṯs is the widely-circulated ḥadīṯ of the “two fingers”. According to this tradition, as cited by Ibn Ḥanbal for instance, Muḥammad said to the faithful: “‘The hour has come upon you; I have been sent with the Hour like this’, and he showed them his two fingers, the index finger and the middle finger”, joining them together to illustrate their coincidence.

Also, interestingly, Muhammed's 'miraculous prophecy' about Rum's impending victory, closely reflects a Byzantine eschatological source:

According to Theophylact, Khosrau II prophesied that “the Babylonian race will hold the Roman state in its power for a threefold cyclic hebdomad of years [591-612]. Thereafter the Romans will enslave the Persians in the fifth hebdo- mad of years [619-26]. When these very things have been accomplished, the day without evening will dwell among men and the expected fate will achieve power, when the transient things will be handed over to dissolution and the things of the better life hold sway.”66 The similarities of this prophecy to Kor 30, 2-5 are striking (at least according to the most widely accepted vocaliza- tion), particularly when one recalls that “the Command” (or “dominion, reign”: al-amr) is a Qurʾānic term for the eschaton: “The Greeks have been vanquished in the nearer part of the land; and, after their vanquishing, they shall be the victors in a few years. To God belongs the Command before and after, and on that day the believers shall rejoice in God’s help.”6

https://www.academia.edu/7800509/_T..._and_Empire_in_Late_Antiquity_and_Early_Islam


It was a different world then, making comparisons with how a modern person must be 'mentally ill' to make such claims and applying the same standards to the 7th C is a false analogy imo.

 

[Aquitaine]

In the timeline of history of the middle east, can we find a better civilization than the Islamic empire.

I'm not sure as I we probably don't uave the same criteria for what constitues a "good" civilization, not to mention the fact that I'm not well-versed in the ancient history of that region.

What I know however, is that the "Islamic revolution" hardly abolished slavery, ignorance and oppression because the Ottomans engaged in both slavery and genocide. I guess they weren't so divinely inspired.

 

[outhouse]

I believe this is a common belief but I don't believe there is any injunction in the Qu'ran forbidding a Muslim from believing in the Bible.

They have a different literalism interpretation problem then you do. Their book is more vague in many areas.

 

[Muffled]

They have a different literalism interpretation problem then you do. Their book is more vague in many areas.

I believe it is actually misinterpretation.

 

[Augustus]

What I know however, is that the "Islamic revolution" hardly abolished slavery, ignorance and oppression because the Ottomans engaged in both slavery and genocide. I guess they weren't so divinely inspired.

The Arab conquests pretty much maintained the status quo with different overlords. It was basically a change in leadership, the Islamic aspect really started to appear a century or two later.

The Ottomans were another 600 years on and, as you mentioned, loved a bit of slavery. It was the cornerstone of their empire as it formed much of the army, civil service and provided for the harem from which the potential successors were drawn from (who then killed their rivals in a survival of the fittest contest - no legitimate sons and primogeniture there - which arguably aided the Empire's longevity).