What do you think about Quranists?

[Link]

So the Quran is dependable and not Al-Furqan?

I can't read your mind.

 

[Dimi95]

I can't read your mind.

You are saying 'We need' as i see 2 times, so that makes the Quran dependable of something else , but in its narrative the Book claims to be Al-Furqan(Clear Book and evidence)

I belive it may be evidence , but not as you do.

 

[Link]

You are saying 'We need' as i see 2 times, so that makes the Quran dependable of something else , but in its narrative the Book claims to be Al-Furqan(Clear Book and evidence)

I belive it may be evidence , but not as you do.

It is of course dependent. For example, you can't learn all Arabic words from Quran teaching you Arabic. So you depend on language of Arabic being maintained. This is not easy, there are many dialects, but for some reason there is a standardized Arabic as well with all the dialects out there.

And of course, Quran is not going to bring humanity from darkness to light as it meant to, if people don't obey it including obeying Ahlulbayt (a), asking them, and counseling one another with respect to their advice.

 

[Augustus]

1. Hadiths didn't change the meaning of that verse. It gives more detail (probably, as you say, well after the fact to enhance Islam's claim on Jerusalem). As such, it's not original and therefore not part of Islam according to the Qur'an, which is the point of this thread.

The night journey is only part of Islam due to hadith, and that is certainly relevant to a thread on Quranism.

So what was (arguably) a verse making reference to God miraculously transporting the Israelites to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice, becoming Quranic confirmation about a story about Muhammad fulfilling part of his prophetic destiny and reaching Jerusalem "doesn't change the meaning"? You even accept it is about legitimating a claim, and changing the target from Israelites to Muhammad would indeed help do this.

Fixing the meaning of an ambiguous passage, especially in a manner that contains information that can in no way be deduced from the text itself is changing the meaning. You made a thread on the Banu Qurayza in which you said the Quran described this incident, which in no way is evident from the text itself, it is purely derived from hadiths.

Again, if the sunnah is not important in understanding the Quran, why do you think Sunnism emerged?

2. Now, what about the other 6,235, like the example I gave you and you ignored? Are you going to explain how hadiths could possibly change "Allah is the enemy of unbelievers", or are you just going to demand answers from me from your high horse?

From the board's preeminent and most persistent dodger of simple questions, I admire your chutzpah.

There are parts of the Quran you can probably pretty much understand without the hadith, and there are other parts where the traditional understanding is entirely dependent on hadith and can in no way be deduced from the text alone. Agreed?

Cool, Allah is the enemy of unbelievers. How does that negate the idea that other parts of the Quran are significantly altered in meaning by hadith?

What about answering these simple questions now? (no doubt you will find another reason to dodge as you have done endlessly for the past couple of years)

You say "what is an alternative narrative?" and when one is provided you studiously ignore it .

A correction though, there have been around 100 years of secular scholarly research, and really it's only in the last 50 years that it has been treated with the same rigour as other historical disciplines. The majority secular narrative is not what you claim either, so pretending it is just the 'odd person' is objectively wrong.

You don't seriously think early Muslims were conducting "scholarly research" to establish truth rather than writing theological narratives, do you? After orthodoxy had been established, you don't really think people were free to conduct critical independent scholarship to challenge the factual accuracy of Islamic doctrine either, do you? Not to mention the idea of aiming to write objective history was not much of a thing prior to the modern era,

So who was conducting these 1400 years of critical historical scholarship that you seem to think exists? It's 1300 years of theology, followed by the more recent emergence of a critical historical discipline.

Despite your wilful avoidance of any modern secular scholarship, the most common view is that the Islamic theological narrative is based around a kernel of truth but contains many legendary, theological, political and sectarian fabrications. A bit like the view of the Gospels - some truth, but also plenty of fabrication, and difficulty in establishing which is which.

The debate is not “is it accurate?”, it is “to what extent is it fabricated, and how many kernels of truth can we establish?”. Answers range from it's a bit fabricated, to it's almost entirely fabricated.

As to what better fits the Quran, the realities on the ground, and what we know about the study of history as a discipline, are there any of these that you disagree with:

• The sirah is a hagiography, and hagiographies are written for theological reasons, not to be factually accurate even if they do contains kernels of truth.
• It significantly relies on oral traditions being accurately preserved over a couple of centuries thousands of KM away from where the purported events happened in a rapidly changing political situation. As such, it would be near miraculous for it to have been preserved highly accurately.
• When we compare hadith to non-Islamic history, we find the latter isn't consistent with the former.
• The sirah contains many fantastical and miraculous events (moon splitting, flying donkeys, etc) that cannot possibly be true unless Muhammad really is a genuine prophet - as such you agree there are significant fabrications.
• You might argue that perhaps they invented miracles, but we should trust the mundane stuff - so is the mundane stuff reliable? No. For example, the Mecca of the traditions - a major trading hub, preeminent pilgrimage site and isolated pagan backwater free of Abrahamic influence - does not match the evidence and the fact it was completely to the historical record. There are many more examples like this.
• Did they remember the most important things though? No. We know the sirah contains all kinds of events and issues recorded in the minutest detail. We also know the earliest Muslim exegetes had no idea how to interpret many veses in the Quran. So, your position relies on the proto-Muslims accurately recording unimportant minutiae, yet forgeting to note down how Muhammad told them to interpret the Quran. Maybe you find that plausible, but I'm a little bit more sceptical
• Does the Quranic text match the purported environment it emerged from in tradition? No, the text obviously assumes familiarity with Abrahamic traditions, and we know montheism had been spreading throughout the peninsula for hundreds of years.
• The later the biographies are written, the more detailed they become, and the more fantastical. Like people started writing infancy gospels for Jesus centuries after the fact to fill in gaps, this suggests significant fabrication.
• Muslims grade the hadith for authenticity though, so perhaps we can trust the strongest grades of hadith? Unfortunately, moon splitting and flying donkeys are recorded in the highest grade of hadith - mutawatir, accepted by Orthodox Muslims as incontrovertible fact impossible to fabricate.

I could continue, but you generally find an excuse to avoid addressing modern secular scholarship so I doubt there is much point. Overall, you can see there is very good reason to be sceptical of the theological narrative you are suggesting we trust.

Back to the OP, the very reason Quranists exist is because they find the hadiths to be of dubious historicity, you would do well to apply a similar level of critical thinking about the accuracy of the theological narratives you put so much faith in.

Finally, whenever it suits you, you paint early Muslims as deviously trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes, as you noted earlier in the thread:

 

[Link]

Disbeliever in Quran is in context of what? Today, people think non-Muslim = disbeliever. That's crazy.

The Quran was revealed while Mohammad (s) did miracles. Then Ali (a) did miracles. Then Hassan (a)... so on till Imam Hassan Al-Askari (a) died, and Imam Mahdi (A) went into Ghayba. Do you know what Imams (a) say ghayba, they quote the verse that for God is the hiding (of proof being asked for by disbelievers)....and so God has the right to hide as much as the proof of his religion and his self as he wants and manifest it as much he wants.

Quran is a miracle, a greater miracle then all miracles, but it's also in a way not like other miracles. That is not everyone can see Quran as a miracle.

No way can we compare the disbelievers that would call Mohammad's (s) truth - sorcery, with people now, who don't witness miracles.

You can't tell an atheist who claims he will believe if he sees miracles, that he is a liar, and God tests mankind with real time tests, to see what they will do.

The hiding of the Mahdi (a) was in a way to give rest - from the proof - because when truth is bright, and haters hate it, they try to squash it, which might lead to destruction if God needs to deliver the believers and indeed it's an obligation per Quran for God to do so.

Poor people go to paradise over all per Quran. The Quran says people of hell are mostly people who lived in luxury. This doesn't mean if you live in luxury you go to hell. It means God obligates things according to reasonable standards. I think in this sense it agrees with Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and won't put responsibility on people in unreasonable fashion.

Many poor people are Jews, Christians, Hindus, Buddhist, etc. They will enter paradise and are not disbelievers.

And if you live in luxury and you have no hate towards the truth and it's people, you enter paradise too.

It's really the haters. As disbelievers witnessed miracles during Mohammad (S) time, and couldn't keep their hate inside, and went all out to squash Mohammad (s) and his followers, yes, such people God is the enemy of.

 

[stevecanuck]

The night journey is only part of Islam due to hadith, and that is certainly relevant to a thread on Quranism.

So what was (arguably) a verse making reference to God miraculously transporting the Israelites to Jerusalem to make a sacrifice, becoming Quranic confirmation about a story about Muhammad fulfilling part of his prophetic destiny and reaching Jerusalem "doesn't change the meaning"? You even accept it is about legitimating a claim, and changing the target from Israelites to Muhammad would indeed help do this.

What did it change?

 

[stevecanuck]

Disbeliever in Quran is in context of what? Today, people think non-Muslim = disbeliever. That's crazy.

That is possibly the single most incorrect statement I've ever heard about Islam.

 

[stevecanuck]

You made a thread on the Banu Qurayza in which you said the Quran described this incident, which in no way is evident from the text itself, it is purely derived from hadiths.

Again, what did it change? The message that Mohamed was a murdering terrorist at the behest of his god comes through loud and clear.

 

[Augustus]

What did it change?

It changed a verse about the miraculous deliverance of the Jews into the miraculous fulfilment of Muhammad’s prophetic destiny thus negating the problem that the “seal of the prophets” died before he reached the holy city of Jerusalem.

All kinds of interpretation, including the entire concept of abrogation which relies on chronology, are dependent on hadith and thus change how people interpret the Quran. It is inane to pretend otherwise.

What a surprise though, you also dodged a simple question while asking one of your own

Simple question, which of this do you actually disagree with?

there have been around 100 years of secular scholarly research, and really it's only in the last 50 years that it has been treated with the same rigour as other historical disciplines. The majority secular narrative is not what you claim either, so pretending it is just the 'odd person' is objectively wrong.

You don't seriously think early Muslims were conducting "scholarly research" to establish truth rather than writing theological narratives, do you? After orthodoxy had been established, you don't really think people were free to conduct critical independent scholarship to challenge the factual accuracy of Islamic doctrine either, do you? Not to mention the idea of aiming to write objective history was not much of a thing prior to the modern era,

So who was conducting these 1400 years of critical historical scholarship that you seem to think exists? It's 1300 years of theology, followed by the more recent emergence of a critical historical discipline.

Despite your wilful avoidance of any modern secular scholarship, the most common view is that the Islamic theological narrative is based around a kernel of truth but contains many legendary, theological, political and sectarian fabrications. A bit like the view of the Gospels - some truth, but also plenty of fabrication, and difficulty in establishing which is which.

The debate is not “is it accurate?”, it is “to what extent is it fabricated, and how many kernels of truth can we establish?”. Answers range from it's a bit fabricated, to it's almost entirely fabricated.

As to what better fits the Quran, the realities on the ground, and what we know about the study of history as a discipline, are there any of these that you disagree with:

• The sirah is a hagiography, and hagiographies are written for theological reasons, not to be factually accurate even if they do contains kernels of truth.
• It significantly relies on oral traditions being accurately preserved over a couple of centuries thousands of KM away from where the purported events happened in a rapidly changing political situation. As such, it would be near miraculous for it to have been preserved highly accurately.
• When we compare hadith to non-Islamic history, we find the latter isn't consistent with the former.
• The sirah contains many fantastical and miraculous events (moon splitting, flying donkeys, etc) that cannot possibly be true unless Muhammad really is a genuine prophet - as such you agree there are significant fabrications.
• You might argue that perhaps they invented miracles, but we should trust the mundane stuff - so is the mundane stuff reliable? No. For example, the Mecca of the traditions - a major trading hub, preeminent pilgrimage site and isolated pagan backwater free of Abrahamic influence - does not match the evidence and the fact it was completely to the historical record. There are many more examples like this.
• Did they remember the most important things though? No. We know the sirah contains all kinds of events and issues recorded in the minutest detail. We also know the earliest Muslim exegetes had no idea how to interpret many veses in the Quran. So, your position relies on the proto-Muslims accurately recording unimportant minutiae, yet forgeting to note down how Muhammad told them to interpret the Quran. Maybe you find that plausible, but I'm a little bit more sceptical
• Does the Quranic text match the purported environment it emerged from in tradition? No, the text obviously assumes familiarity with Abrahamic traditions, and we know montheism had been spreading throughout the peninsula for hundreds of years.
• The later the biographies are written, the more detailed they become, and the more fantastical. Like people started writing infancy gospels for Jesus centuries after the fact to fill in gaps, this suggests significant fabrication.
• Muslims grade the hadith for authenticity though, so perhaps we can trust the strongest grades of hadith? Unfortunately, moon splitting and flying donkeys are recorded in the highest grade of hadith - mutawatir, accepted by Orthodox Muslims as incontrovertible fact impossible to fabricate.

 

[Link]

That is possibly the single most incorrect statement I've ever heard about Islam.

What do you mean?

 

[stevecanuck]

It changed a verse about the miraculous deliverance of the Jews into the miraculous fulfilment of Muhammad’s prophetic destiny thus negating the problem that the “seal of the prophets” died before he reached the holy city of Jerusalem.

Where is stated that's a problem?

 

[stevecanuck]

It changed a verse about the miraculous deliverance of the Jews into the miraculous fulfilment of Muhammad’s prophetic destiny thus negating the problem that the “seal of the prophets” died before he reached the holy city of Jerusalem.

All kinds of interpretation, including the entire concept of abrogation which relies on chronology, are dependent on hadith and thus change how people interpret the Quran. It is inane to pretend otherwise.

What a surprise though, you also dodged a simple question while asking one of your own

Simple question, which of this do you actually disagree with?

What you fail to realize is that the non-OT regurgitation surahs are presented almost entirely free of context. For example, verse 9:111 in which Allah promises heaven for those who "fight in the cause of Allah. Kill and are killed" was created in the context of the Mohamed's attempt to start a war with the Byzantines (according to that 1400 years of scholarship you like to toss off with a flick of the wrist). But, so what? Context isn't needed to understand a statement that explicit.

Your premise that the message of the Qur'an must be viewed through the lens of unreliable hadiths is simply wrong.

 

[stevecanuck]

It changed a verse about the miraculous deliverance of the Jews into the miraculous fulfilment of Muhammad’s prophetic destiny thus negating the problem that the “seal of the prophets” died before he reached the holy city of Jerusalem.

All kinds of interpretation, including the entire concept of abrogation which relies on chronology, are dependent on hadith and thus change how people interpret the Quran. It is inane to pretend otherwise.

What a surprise though, you also dodged a simple question while asking one of your own

Simple question, which of this do you actually disagree with?

Sorry, but I'm not going to waste my time arguing a moot point. There is a narrative adhered to by the vast majority of Muslims, and it is used to guide their hateful and murdurous actions. Whether I believe that narrative or not simply doesn't matter, and I'm not going to spend time defending something that doesn't matter.

You raise interersting and potentially legitilmate concerns about hadiths, but at best you're only going to prove that the vast majority of Muslims have been deluded into believing something they shouldn't. That would make a great, but separate, thread. However, wilnning that argument will mean absolutely nothing in terms of what is happening on the ground today.

If it helps, just assume that everything I say regarding historical context comes with an understood 'According to Islamic belief'.

 

[stevecanuck]

What do you mean?

Which of the many hundreds of verses that call non-Muslims unbelievers shall I start with?????

How about 5:72- "They have certainly disbelieved who say, "Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary" while the Messiah has said, "O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Indeed, he who associates others with Allah – Allah has forbidden him Paradise, and his refuge is the Fire."

I'm very curious as to how you're going to deny this.

 

[Link]

Which of the many hundreds of verses that call non-Muslims unbelievers shall I start with?????

How about 5:72- "They have certainly disbelieved who say, "Allah is the Messiah, the son of Mary" while the Messiah has said, "O Children of Israel, worship Allah, my Lord and your Lord." Indeed, he who associates others with Allah – Allah has forbidden him Paradise, and his refuge is the Fire."

I'm very curious as to how you're going to deny this.

We should make a thread about this or have a one on one debate (about the issue in general and not just this verse).

I notice "has said" but inconsistency, with "who say".

Who say should be yaqaloon. This can about the people who originally said the idea. It's saying the source of this statement where certainly from people who disbelieved.

The next verses shows something important:

لَقَدْ كَفَرَ الَّذِينَ قَالُوا إِنَّ اللَّهَ ثَالِثُ ثَلَاثَةٍ ۘ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ إِلَّا إِلَٰهٌ وَاحِدٌ ۚ وَإِنْ لَمْ يَنْتَهُوا عَمَّا يَقُولُونَ لَيَمَسَّنَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا مِنْهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ | They certainly disbelieved who said, ‘Allah is the third [person] of a trinity,’ while there is no god except the One God. If they do not relinquish what they say *yaquloon so it's right over here*, there shall befall the disbelievers among them a painful punishment. | Al-Maaida : 73

Notice it shows disbelievers from them, meaning, they are a sub category.

This means not all those people who followed saying these statements are disbelievers. However, in the place and time of Mohammad (s), the people hearing Mohamad (s) and witnessing him doing miracles are disbelievers if they don't accept.

However, not all people repeating trinity are disbelievers per the next verse. We can assume the same is true of saying Isa (a) is God. They original people who said were disbelievers, yet not everyone saying it are, or else, the "minhum" "from them" would not make sense.

 

[Augustus]

according to that 1400 years of scholarship you like to toss off with a flick of the wrist).

You still haven’t mentioned who you think was doing critical historical analysis in those years and why we should consider hagiography highly reliable.

But you never will as it will force you to acknowledge that you’ve been suckered into taking theology as secular history for what you claim is decades of study, hence your dislike of secular western scholarship on the issue.

Its funny how people who hate Christianity want to do their best to pretend the history is all made up and Jesus maybe didn’t even exist , but those who hate Islam want to insist that the Muslim theologians got it right and these stupid secular scholars using the same methods they apply to all other areas of historical enquiry are the ones who get everything wrong

There is a narrative adhered to by the vast majority of Muslims, and it is used to guide their hateful and murdurous actions. Whether I believe that narrative or not simply doesn't matter, and I'm not going to spend time defending something that doesn't matter

Again, you make no attempt to accurately present what Muslims believe, you present what internet chap thinks Muslims should believe based on his own person theology and cod history.

You first replied to me in this thread to argue that anything other than “a shallow, literalist reading of verses in isolation” "negates the entire point of the Quran”.

Saying Muslims believe event X happened without also accepting the larger context that they also believe it happened in negates its value though.

So as you admit, your arguments are worthless.

But, so what? Context isn't needed to understand a statement that explicit.

Case in point.

Of course it matter what context violence occurred in, and Muslims, like people of other ideologies, have beliefs on when violence is or is not justified.

But you don’t care what Muslims think, just how you personally would interpret the Quran.

If it helps, just assume that everything I say regarding historical context comes with an understood 'According to Islamic belief'.

It isn’t though.

For it to reflect that, you would have to present it in an accurate context. In the Islamic narratives, the enemies of Muhammad were the aggressors and most people agree self-defence is fine.

This is why context and interpretation matter, and taking quotes in isolation is not “according to Islamic belief”.

Your Muhammad is a venal, selfish and megalomaniacal tyrant which means you are trying to reconstruct a historical Muhammad. You assume the events are real, but reconstruct the motives behind them. The problem is if the events are often fictions, there are no historical motivations to reconstruct.

But you seem unable to grasp this point.

There are plenty of ways you could criticise Islamic history or theology that are intellectually honest and attempt to address actual beliefs and events in a balanced and accurate manner rather than spouting bitter rants.

Anyway, seeing as you are uninterested in discussion, I’ll see you in the next thread where your views require correction

 

[paarsurrey]

What do you think about Quranists?

What is wrong with them, please, right?

Regards
__________________
My cherry-pick from the first page:

The Quran is perfect and fully detaljed:

[Quran 6:114] Shall I seek other than God as a source of law, when He has revealed to you this book fully detailed? Those who received the scripture recognize that it has been revealed from your Lord, truthfully. You shall not harbor any doubt.

We did not leave anything out of the Book. Quran 6:38

[Quran 7:52] We have given them a scripture that is fully detailed, with knowledge, guidance, and mercy for the people who believe.

[Quran 10:37] This Quran could not possibly be authored by other than God. It confirms all previous messages, and provides a fully detailed scripture. It is infallible, for it comes from the Lord of the universe.

Here it explain the salah prayer from only the Quran

You do not need hadiths to know how to pray the salah prayer

 

[LuisDantas]

What do you think about Quranists?

What is wrong with them, please, right?

Regards

That is the question that is being offered for us to answer, @paarsurrey

I take it that you don't see anything wrong in Quranism, then?

I suppose that if one has to be a Muslim, then Quranism is about as valid a stance as any can be (and better than some).

But there are some reasonable objections that can be made to it. From here where I stand... well, frankly, the main objection is that it is indeed a form of Islam, meaning that it has entirely unreasonable and inacceptable premises about the role and meaning of god, religion and scripture.

But were I a Muslim, apparently I could point out in good faith that there are specifics that just are not clarified in the Qur'an alone.

 

[IndigoChild5559]

What do you think about Quranists?

What is wrong with them, please, right?

Regards
__________________
My cherry-pick from the first page:

Same thing that is mistaken for any other fundamentalist group: the unwillingness to see that a text is simply composed by men. These men did their very best to record what they believed God would want. But ultimately they could not but help that their culture and own ideas got included.

 

[Ebionite]

The message that Mohamed was a murdering terrorist at the behest of his god comes through loud and clear.

Only for the religiously insane.

O ye who believe! stand out firmly for Allah, as witnesses to fair dealing, and let not the hatred of others to you make you swerve to wrong and depart from justice. Be just: that is next to piety: and fear Allah. For Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.
Quran 5:8

Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, that ye may receive admonition.
Quran 16:90