The significance of "Reliance of the traveler"

[yeezevee]

Islam is a deen and not a mazhab.

Word deen is from root daal, yaa and noon and is used in the quran in various ways. However, one use of it is, a way of life.

words like hasanaat, ihsaan, muhsineen ...... derivatives from root HAA, SEEN and NOON.........

Then look at words AAMILOOSSAALIHAAT. Doing works that are called SAALIHAAT. .........

Dear"Mughal" I am sorry to say this but juggling Arabic words around will not make words of Quran as allah/god words.. If you are a faith head, explore your faith and if something is wrong in it correct it and go spread it in Mosques as a preacher.

"But a faith is a faith is a faith' ... And people must have freedom to question it, to leave it or to join in it.. AND THEY MUST HAVE FULL FREEDOM.. so work for that Mughal..

with best wishes
yeezevee

[skynightblaze]

@Yeezevee

Did you see Mughal's post? It is exactly as I said. I will respond to the rest of your post later.

@Fernando

There was a debate between Spencer and Wood on the same issue. The same argument was brought forth by Spencer. Wood did not address the argument in the debate but someone pointed out to him on his blog that he failed to answer Robert Spencer's argument regarding depiction of muhammmad with a cross on coins. He responded in the blog section.

[yeezevee]

@Yeezevee

Did you see Mughal's post? It is exactly as I said. I will respond to the rest of your post later.

off course I see Mughal's post., but you seem not to realize the difference between Mughal's post and The Cats' posts dear SKB..

Exploring/investigating a Faith/religions and historical facts of a religions are two different subjects SKB.. and I am sure you know that..

[skynightblaze]

Yes I know that and I am not disputing that. I am laughing because irrespective of the topic, Mughal posts the same things again and again. It is like a speed breaker to stop you from enjoying the debate. Each and every post claims the same thing i.e. mullahs distorted the true meaning. No post goes without that claim. It seems it is compulsory.

[Fernando]

More fiddling with words - or fiddling with letters, even. Arabic - or at least the ridiculous extrapolation from vowel-less roots - seems to have been invented specially to provide an almost infinite amount of wriggle-room for apologists.

[skynightblaze]

Some updates on this thread. I just read through Spencer's book to find out that the coins that CAT speaks of belong to 647 Ad to 658 AD so I have to correct myself as I said the coins belonged to the end of 7th century. My argument regarding writings of Sebeos and the coins from 685 AD onwards as a refutation to the depiction of Muhammad with a cross become invalid in that case however I further found an interesting point. As it is David Wood has already shown holes in Spencer;s thinking and I would add more..

The following passage belongs to work of Sophronius which was written before 640 AD which is even before the coins that Spencer is arguing about.. The passage claims that Saracens mocked the cross..

Spoiler! :

(Holy Baptism, 166-167 [pp. 72-73])
But the present circumstances are forcing me to think differently about our way of life, for why are [so many] wars being fought among us? Why do barbarian raids abound? Why are the troops of the Saracens attacking us? Why has there been so much destruction and plunder? Why are there incessant outpourings of human blood? Why are the birds of the sky devouring human bodies? Why have churches been pulled down? Why is the cross mocked?Why is Christ, who is the dispenser of all good things and the provider of this joyousness of ours, blasphemed by pagan mouths (ethnikois tois stomasi) so that he justly cries out to us: "Because of you my name is blasphemed among the pagans," and this is the worst of all the terrible things that are happening to us. That is why the vengeful and God-hating Saracens, the abomination of desolation clearly foretold to us by the prophets, overrun the places which are not allowed to them, plunder cities, devastate fields, burn down villages, set on fire the holy churches, overturn the sacred monasteries, oppose the Byzantine armies arrayed against them, and in fighting raise up the trophies [of war] and add victory to victory. Moreover, they are raised up more and more against us and increase their blasphemy of Christ and the church, and utter wicked blasphemies against God. Those God-fighters boast of prevailing over all, assiduously and unrestrainably imitating their leader, who is the devil, and emulating his vanity because of which he has been expelled from heaven and been assigned to the gloomy shades. Yet these vile ones would not have accomplished this nor seized such a degree of power as to do and utter lawlessly all these things, unless we had first insulted the gift [of baptism] and first defiled the purification, and in this way grieved Christ, the giver of gifts, and prompted him to be angry with us, good though he is and though he takes no pleasure in evil, being the fount of kindness and not wishing to behold the ruin and destruction of men. We are ourselves, in truth, responsible for all these things and no word will be found for our defence. What word or place will be given us for our defence when we have taken all these gifts from him, befouled them and defiled everything with our vile actions?

This means that we have evidence of muslims mocking the cross before those coins were invented. So can these coins be full proof of evidence of early muslims considering muhammad as a christian prophet? Ofcourse not! The quote tells us that Saracens mocked the cross , destroyed the churches and insulted Christ.


EDIT

I am adding early non muslims quotes that totally destroy the claim that Muhammad was a christian prophet.. The following writings abundantly clarify that Muhammad was not a christian prophet and was not fond of christians.

(Thomas the Presbyter, Chronicle, pp. 147-148 [p. 120])
In the year 945, indiction 7, on Friday 7 February (634) at the ninth hour, there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Muhammad (tayyaye d-Mhmt) in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician bryrdn, whom the Arabs killed. Some 4000 poor villagers of Palestine were killed there, Christians, Jews and Samaritans. The Arabs ravaged the whole region.

According to another source, Saracens or muslims are distinguished from christians


Homily on the Child Saints of Babylon, 36 [p. 121](dated around 640 Ad)
As for us, my loved ones, let us fast and pray without cease, and observe the commandments of the Lord so that the blessing of all our Fathers who have pleased Him may come down upon us. Let us not fast like the God-killing Jews, nor fast like the Saracens who are oppressors, who give themselves up to prostitution, massacre and lead into captivity the sons of men, saying: "We both fast and pray." Nor should we fast like those who deny the saving passion of our Lord who died for us, to free us from death and perdition. Rather let us fast like our Fathers the apostles who went out into all the world, suffering hunger and thirst, deprived of all. . . . Let us fast like Moses the arch-prophet, Elias and John, like the prophet Daniel and the three Saints in the furnace of fire.

(Isho'yahb III, Ep. 48B, 97 [p. 179]) around 659 AD
The heretics are deceiving you [when they say] there happens what happens by order of the Arabs, which is certainly not the case. For the Muslim Arabs (tayyaye mhaggre) do not aid those who say that God, Lord of all, suffered and died. And if by chance they do help them for whatever reason, you can inform the Muslims (mhaggre) and persuade them of this matter as it should be, if you care about it at all. So perform all things wisely, my brothers; give unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's.


I guess in the light of the above source, the coin evidence is not too great. David Wood's explanation makes sense in that case.

@CAT

I just want to add one more point. Theophanes puts the death of muhammad at 629 AD and not 632 AD. If he was referring to islamic Sira i.e. somwhere in 813 AD , he would certainly put the death at 632 AD. He would also get some details about muhammad's career right. This is yet another proof that Theophanes or even George Synkellos(Theophanes' source) was also not referring Islamic sira and yet he describes Muhammad belonging to Yathrib.

[yeezevee]

..................

I am adding early non muslims quotes that totally destroy the claim that Muhammad was a christian prophet.. .................

The claim that Muhammad was/is Christian Prophet comes out of present Quran/hadith stories skynightblaze. After Islam became powerful ruling religion Muslim rulers/preachers made it as 3rd Abrahamic religion and Muhammad was made as messenger and prophet in the line of Moses & Jesus . And on top of it, they added another clause that "he was the last(I say LOST) messenger and no one will come after him."

Now I never said that early Islamic sayings make that guy as messenger or a Prophet. What I was saying is this

"Early Quran verses/stories appears to have come from a Christian heretic preacher of some Christian sect of Arabian peninsula " and he seem to question the concept of Christianity that "Christ is son of God"

that is what I am saying and I could be wrong., but that is one of the angle I am exploring early Islamic history.. NOT ISLAM AS RELIGION.

Muhammad as messenger or prophet of allah comes at a later stage of Islam and that is " the Islamic story of the last 10-11 years of some guy ( or multiple guys ) and the stpries written in hadith and even in that so-called Madinan Quran ..

[Fernando]

As an aside, it's quite remarkable in view of the fuss all around the world about the doings of Muslims that so much of the origins of their religious delusion remains so ill-defined. Is it really not even known whether the terms Saracen and Hagarene referred to all Arabs or just Muslims, for instance? Are Holland, Spencer and ibn Warraq the only accessible non-technical sources for this stuff? Is there really as little concensus among scholars as we see on the forum? Have Wansborough, Cook and Crone been abandoned in a gadarene rush to Saudi-funded "research"? Surely it's in the interests of all governments perceiving an Islamist problem to show that the idol of Islam has feet of clay. And for it to be shown to the public, not just used to gee-up the security spooks.

[Fernando]

Now I never said that early Islamic sayings make that guy as messenger or a Prophet. What I was saying is this

"Early Quran verses/stories appears to have come from a Christian heretic preacher of some Christian sect of Arabian peninsula " and he seem to question the concept of Christianity that "Christ is son of God"

that is what am I saying and I could be wrong., but that is one of the angle I am exploring early Islamic history.. NOT ISLAM AS RELIGION.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that early Christians didn't claim that Jesus was a god: that only came later. Since the Middle East was awash with schismatic creeds in those days, couldn't that original idea have been kept alive in parts of Arabia until it was taken up by the Muslims along with other aoects of Judaism and Christianity?

[yeezevee]

..... Have Wansborough, Cook and Crone been abandoned in a gadarene rush to Saudi-funded "research"? ..........

Hmm good point there Fernando ., we got to find out which western writers wrote this early Islamic history and who funded those departments/writers specially Middle Eastern history written from 1980s to to this time.

[manfred]

About the coins showing Mohammed with a cross, this reminds me of the this German author Erich von Daniken who made the claim that aliens visited earth on the basis that in his view there carvings of of men with "space helmets" found in Aztec and Maya artefacts. It is a case of we with a modern mind see things that are not really there.

How can we be sure that the figure on the coins is in fact Mohammed? And what about the "cross"? How can we be sure that this is what really is depicted?

Or are we, like Daniken, imagining something with our modern heads that are not really there? May be the early Muslims simply copied a coin design from somewhere?

If this Mohammed really was a Christian preacher, I would be curious to learn how is Christian message was so soon corrupted after his death, to such an extent that Islam has next to nothing of substance in common with Christianity.

We are told many details about this man, and nowhere do we read anything about Mohammed coming from a Christian family or about his having converted to Christianity. On the contrary, we are told that he emphatically rejected the central teaching of Christianity, a message which is also contained within the Qur'an.

So, before I would consider the idea that the historical Mohammed was a Christian preacher, I would need a lot better evidence than a couple of coins which show a man who MAY be Mohammed together with a cross (or possibly other object...)

It could just a easily show Mohammed holding a spear or a sword and some bound manuscript, perhaps representing the Qur'an. Have close look at that middle coin:

It looks very much like a rectangular object of some thickness, bound together, and not a religious marking at all...

It looks like something like this:



Can you see the "cross" on the picture?

[yeezevee]

........I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that early Christians didn't claim that Jesus was a god: that only came later. Since the Middle East was awash with schismatic creeds in those days, couldn't that original idea have been kept alive in parts of Arabia until it was taken up by the Muslims along with other aoects of Judaism and Christianity?

well I think in the middle east of that time., there were many different Christian sects., Some may have considered Jesus as "Son of God" because I see such words in early Quran..

[yeezevee]

About the coins showing Mohammed with a cross, this reminds me of the this German author Erich von Daniken who made the claim that aliens visited earth on the basis that in his view there carvings of of men with "space helmets" found in Aztec and Maya artefacts. It is a case of we with a modern mind see things that are not really there.

How can we be sure that the figure on the coins is in fact Mohammed? And what about the "cross"? How can we be sure that this is what really is depicted?

Well manfred coins could be dated, history could be investigated and no one claimed that they are from aliens . Where as these "space helmets" could easily be proven that they are hoax like those circles in the farmer's fields of England.

If this Mohammed really was a Christian preacher, I would be curious to learn how is Christian message was so soon corrupted after his death, to such an extent that Islam has next to nothing of substance in common with Christianity.

No..No., Nooo., I am not saying that the present person you see/read in Quran and in hadith was a Christian Preachers. What I am saying is "Early Quran verses whoever said appears to be a Christian preacher. ".. Again "Early Quran verses"..

We are told many details about this man, and nowhere do we read anything about Mohammed coming from a Christian family or about his having converted to Christianity. On the contrary, we are told that he emphatically rejected the central teaching of Christianity, a message which is also contained within the Qur'an.

Well once the guy is dead people write all sorts of stories around him., Those could be real stories or imaginary but it is very much possible that someone else did some stupid things and blame goes to Muhammad( because Muhammad mean a leader., Righteous one, Praised one whatever)

So, before I would consider the idea that the historical Mohammed was a Christian preacher, I would need a lot better evidence than a couple of coins which show a man who MAY be Mohammed together with a cross (or possibly other object...)

It could just a easily show Mohammed holding a spear or a sword and some bound manuscript, perhaps representing the Qur'an. Have close look at that middle coin:

It looks very much like a rectangular object of some thickness, bound together, and not a religious marking at all...

It looks like something like this:

http://www.layers-of-learning.com/wp-co ... 24x768.jpg
Can you see the "cross" on the picture?

No nope I disagree with that....

dated coins are different from some knife or some hair in tomb..or some bound book, or some space helmets etc..etc.. unless a thorough research is done on them...

[manfred]

I do not argue about the DATE of the coins. I disagree that it shows Mohammed with a "Cross". We see a picture and we decide in the 21st century what it shows. Mohammed with a cross?

I think if it shows Mohammed at all it shows him not with a cross, but with a Qur'an, a manuscript tied together in a similar way to the one I showed you in my picture.This has in fact been a common way to depict Mohammed even in later days, so it seem to be a sort of "convention".

Well once the guys dead people write all sorts of stories around him., Those could be real stories but some one else did and blame goes to Muhammad( A leader., Righteous one, Praised one whatever)

So which "stories" are more likely to be closer to the facts, those from near the life time of Mohammed or those written 2000 years later?

[Fernando]

Calling Ibn Rushd! What form would a written whole Koran have taken in those days? Something like that spell book or a collection - possibly of scrolls?
ETA: Of course we think now of sending official versions of books around the world as easy. In those days, getting authorised versions of the Koran to those warriors who were in danger of forgetting its contents would have been a major undertaking, Especially if they couldn't read it when they got it! Shome mishtake?

[skynightblaze]

Now I never said that early Islamic sayings make that guy as messenger or a Prophet. What I was saying is this

"Early Quran verses/stories appears to have come from a Christian heretic preacher of some Christian sect of Arabian peninsula " and he seem to question the concept of Christianity that "Christ is son of God"

that is what I am saying and I could be wrong., but that is one of the angle I am exploring early Islamic history.. NOT ISLAM AS RELIGION.

Fair enough Yeezevee. Infact I would encourage people to explore new ideas especially when we are dealing with the topic at hand. There has been no concrete research on this topic as of yet so there is a lot of scope. As I said previously not everything is documented. There must have been lots of activities happening in the background and they are not documented. Suddenly when we see a problem as of today , we shout FRAUD! There may be explanations for certain problems. We have got to look at the complete picture. The coin example is a live case of what I am saying. When we look at the whole picture , we see concrete evidence of muslims hating the christians even before that coin was released and hence when we are faced with contradictory evidence, we need to re evaluate our conclusions. Anyway Manfred's explanation also seems plausible and David Wood has just mentioned a couple of possibilities for those coins. He said that he could imagine n number of possibilities.

Anyway , coming to the topic I would welcome you to explore your idea but I think it has an explanation. I will just give my take on this.

Sure muhammad preached christianity in the beginning as we see quran copy pasted stuff from christianity. However I don't think Muhammad's idea was to preach christianity. Christianity was just one of the baits to get followers and I guess muhammad wanted to fit in the line of prophets. If he claimed to be in continuation of previous prophets , he was bound to attract attention of christians. That is why you find christian stuff in quran. This however did not work for him.Now one might ask me as to how am I sure that this was indeed his motive and not preaching Christianity sincerely? The answer lies below..

Muhammad did it for other religions too. You will also see muhammad trying to attract jews to his religion for e.g Qibla was facing Jerusalem first but when jews paid no attention to his religion, he changed the Qibla again. Muhammad also tried to attract pagans to his religion. The famous satanic verses are a proof of it. Muhammad acknowledged the pagan Gods with a quranic verse and there is an instance where muslims and pagans prayed together. However appeasing pagans did not work for him because they did not leave worshiping their Gods and join muhammad. So you see, islam is not just christian stuff. It has ingredients of other religions too.

Now If muhammad wanted to preach christianity, he would not appease jews or pagans. Even current day islam is full of pagan practices. This makes me believe that christianity was just ONE OF THE BAITS to attract followers.

Finally in the end when appeasing christians, jews and pagans by including their customs or stuff from scripture did not work, he resorted to violence. 9:29 is a live example. It is talking about wiping out jews and christians. If muhammad's intention was to preach christianity, he would continue with it and not leave in between. This is a typical flow that charlatans follow. They start well and manage to fool people but however since their original intentions are different, they cannot continue the track on which they start. They finally end up exposing their true motives. We see the same with quran. Initially it talks good about other faiths but as time passes muhammad realizes things are not working as he expected and hence he changes the strategy. Now what we have got to consider is that fool took 23 years for laying out his claims. It was not in one go. So he must have changed his mind thousands of times. Now this is not to say that quran was complete after 23 years. It stopped when muhammad was dead and we know how quran was compiled finally.

Now having said all that let us suppose that islam started with someone trying to preach christianity. Let us assume that after him someone hijacked and wrote pagan and jewish stuff inside it. The question is why would they keep christian stuff written by previous person? The reason they hijacked the previous work was obviously because they were not happy with it so it makes least sense to keep christian stuff as it is in the quran. More ever why would they include jewish and pagan stuff at the same time? I mean If it were some jews, they would just add jewish stuff and delete the christian and pagan stuff. If it was a pagan, he would delete the stuff related to other religions.

[Mughal]

I think you guys are confusing yourselves more and more by not addressing the very basic points. If God exists he will do things the way he wants and for his own reasons. If messages are from God then God is only one and all his message have to be from him and so will be his messengers. So they all have to be hindus or parsees or jews or christians or muslims etc etc. It is not possible that some will be hindus and some parsees and some this and some that.

Likewise the possible ways we can look at things are only a few ie do we want a world that is consistent or inconsistent or are we indifferent to all this?

If we are indifferent or want an inconsistent world then it matters not at all what we think or do, so there is no point in arguing for or against anything because world will remain as it is or get worse all by itself as things in there interact for their own interests. The result will be a huge majority of us human beings will have very bad life experiences at hands of each other.

So things only matter if we want a world that is consistent within itself so there is no point in putting so much effort into nonsense, is there?

Therefore choice is very simple, either we accept God and his message and work out things the way we are explained things as a human community and get on with making the world what it should be or do as we like as individuals and see the outcome of our own actions or inactions or wrong actions.

So it is simply a question of what we have and what we want out of it for ourselves as individuals or as a proper human community.

[yeezevee]

I think you guys are confusing yourselves more and more by not addressing the very basic points. If God exists he will do things the way he wants and for his own reasons. If messages are from God then God is only one and all his message have to be from him and so will be his messengers.

Spoiler! :

Likewise the possible ways we can look at things are only a few ie do want a world that is consistent or inconsistent or are we indifferent to all this?

If we are indifferent or want an inconsistent world then it matters not at all what we think or do, so there is no point in arguing for or against something because world will remain as it is or get worse all by itself. The result will be a huge majority of us human beings will have very bad life experience.

Things only matter if we want a world that is consistent within itself. By throwing baby with the bath tub we are not doing that so where is sense in putting so much effort into nonsense?

So the choice is very simple, either we accept God and his message and work out things the way we are explained things as a human community6 and get on with making the world what it should be or do as we like as individuals and see the outcome of our own actions or inactions or wrong actions.

So it is simply a question of what we have and what we want out of it for ourselves as individuals or as a proper human community

.

Yes you are RIOT "Mughal".. So let us prove your point first..

If God exists he will do things the way he wants and for his own reasons. If messages are from God then God is only one and all his message have to be from him and so will be his messengers.

Mughal, it would be nice if you prove and solve the "IF GOD EXISTS" problem instead of playing with Quran, putting your own words in it and trying your best to make that book as economic/political/religious ritual rule manual. So work on that problem Mughal.

with best wishes
yeezevee

[Fernando]

I'm afraid you miss a fundamental point Mughal. Even if god does exist, he hasn't appeared and told us that Mohammed was indeed his messenger. We only have Mohammed's word for that. Why should we believe Mohammed?

[Mughal]

Mughal, it would be nice if you prove and solve the "IF GOD EXISTS" problem instead of playing with Quran, putting your own words in it and trying your best to make that book as economic/political/religious ritual rule manual. So work on that problem Mughal.

with best wishes
yeezevee

Dear yeezevee, it is because I am trying to solve the problem you have pointed out that I am working on the quran because without making proper sense of the quranic text it is not possible to solve this puzzle.

The solution is very simple that if it could be shown that the quran is a sensible book in actual fact then people will have no reason to not to accept it as such. If a 1500 years old book is telling us things the way they should be which even today we fail to realise then this book has to be something out of the ordinary.

Statements in this book are based on various philosophies eg science, history, society, politics, economics and cultures etc etc. A book that offers a program for well being of mankind along with goals and guidelines for organising and regulating a human community properly.

What more do we need to show that this book is not a product of human beings who cannot see beyond their own noses.

So it is a good idea that people study this book in detail rather than ignoring it and keep on suffering painfully for no reason at all.

What we are not paying attention to is the fact that just as we come up with various ideas to fulfil various purpose so we need to look at ways that can prove existence of God and his messengers and scriptures. Since We cannot see God saying or doing anything ourselves that does not mean there is no God but if there are ways that lend strength to the idea than that is proof enough because that is how far we can go. The very same is true about any kind of proof that at the end of the day it is only a matter of probabilities and of more likeliness than unlikeliness.

All our ideas or reasons are based on ideas or reasons and we can only explain whatever evidences are available to us as much as we can to the best of our abilities.

If things were bad then we could argue against then but not if they are good for us. This is why we can oppose ideas and practices that are harmful and destructive for mankind but not those that are good for our well being.

If rulers, mullahs and money lenders etc have hijacked God, scriptures and messengers it is up to us to put them in place. We cannot afford to give up on idea of God, scriptures and messengers just because some people have taken control over some ideas and things.

If we really start challenging harmful and destructive people or anti social elements in human society, we can take back control of things in a very short period of time.

Well that is how I look at things and I am very hopeful about things.

regards and all the best.