The significance of "Reliance of the traveler"

[Hombre]

Mughal writes:

Dear darth, if you do not make sense of the text of the quran then you cannot understand it. That is all.

And if YOU don't make sense of the Hebrew Bible and New Testament, from which Islam had derived its principle tenets, then you can not understand the real Islam.

My point is, islam is a deen and not a mazhab. If you start from that angle then all things the quran talks about fall neatly in place.

And point also is, when you do sit down and read both HB & NT, which were written hundreds and thousand years before Quran, then you WILL understand that, indeed, Quran neat copy of these Books.

[The Cat]

1.OK, I have no problems with Mecca not being a major centre of trade or a "mother of cities", clearly later embellishments/exaggerations.

2. But Mecca is mentioned in the Qur'an. Are you saying this too is a later addition?

3. And as to this Petra idea, it does not agree with with the map you provided. Did we not go over the qibla argument before? It seems rather as big conclusion to draw from three buildings. And isn't that cocked hat rather a long way from Petra? In fact about 2/3 of the distance to Mecca. 4. And al-Ula? Well, at least is is a rather old city, but where is the Kaaba or equivalent? And we have a reference saying that Mohammed PASSED THROUGH al-Ula on the way to Tabuk, so it does not square up with some "original" Mecca. Also the Qur'an mentions the city as a separate place from Mecca, as the home of the Thamud people.

1. Mecca isn't ever mentioned by Greek geographers about the Incense road, yet they knew about Ta'if, Yathrib and Khaybar.

2. Is it written bi'wadi al-Makkah (in the valley of Mecca) or: bi'batni makkata? What's the Classical root MKK means? And Batni?

3. The three oldest qiblas were pointing to the area of al-Ula, as found by archeologists Creswell-Fehervavi.
http://www.debate.org.uk/debate-topics/ ... -evidence/

4. Not if he came from wadi al-Qura (6.92) or Mada'in Saleh (Hegra, al-Hijr (s.15)). Now read 37.137-138. No such ruins in actual Mecca.

--In both the first and second civil wars, notes accounts of people proceeding from Medina to Iraq via Mecca.
Yet Mecca is southwest of Medina, and Iraq is northeast. Thus the sanctuary for Islam, according to these
traditions was at one time north of Medina, which is the opposite direction from where Mecca is today!--
(van Ess 1971:p.16; Muhammad b. Ahmad al-Dhahabi 1369: p.343).

The hoax is the actual location of Mecca, exemplified by King Abraha expedition of 552, not 570 as per Buraq ibn Ishaq.
Thus we can't even ascertain his birth-year through his dating of 'the Year of the Elephant'. Rest crumbles down likewise.

[The Cat]

Regarding Qiblas, enough is said.

You quoted Jacob of Edessa from your Islamic source without noticing how a blunder it was.
The Arabs he wrote turned east to pray from Cairo, while Mecca is fully SOUTH from it. Get it?

You're eluding too that the context of s48 is about the negotiations made at Hudaibiyyah.
Now, it is Mecca? Negotiated in its center, its midst (the real meaning of batni makkata?

Even if I disregard the shahada on the coins as you suggest, it would still not cause a problem for islamic tradition however it does damage your argument that we should be reading into design on coins to know what kind of religion early islam was.

The Shahada isn't quranic. Tell me what was 'Islam' before the prophetic hadiths became legally binging, that is after 850AD?

Coming to Sebeos, yes he mentions jews being allied with Saracens but then there are other accounts (earlier than Sebeos) which describe otherwise. see below...

The Jerusalem taking by Umar, its rendering condition, is proving that to be collateral.

But then Thomas the Presbyter is really talking about the tayyayes-of-mhmt !
And I've shown you a map indicating they inhabited far from nowadays Mecca.
No mention of the Quraysh. In fact none from any external sources...

Ibn ishaq also mentions a person called muhammad before islam. You should have no problem in accepting what he says because you yourself are trusting him atleast on this issue.

The whole story about Abraha is counterfeit. His invasion happened in 552, not in 570.
His inscription mentions no Mecca, no Quraysh, no al-Muttalib and he WON the war.

Since Ibn Ishaq bubbles on this lie to state that Muhammad was born in 570, then when was he born?
Without any solid confirmation for his birthday, no traditions about him is reliable.
And we have NO archeological records about him before 685. Not a hint.

Quran mentions this event of Abraha attacking Mecca. So quran is also debunked.

Read again sura 105/106. No mentions of Abraha or of Mecca. Ibn Ishaq invented from these...
And how in the world could you think I would hold them to be 'godly'?

Who said arabs were infallible? Islamic tradition is a mix of false and true things.

All companions are hold to be infaillible in their remembering of Muhammad.

All the quran says is obey the messenger. It does not expand on how muhammad is to be followed.

All messengers are to be obeyed equally as and when delivering the message and its rulings. The Shahada contradicts this.
No one, as per the Koran, is to be personally followed...

It does not expand on how the messenger is to be obeyed because the Koran, its messages over 23 years, is what's to be followed.

24:54 If ye obey him, ye will go aright. But the messenger hath no other charge than to convey (the message) plainly.

Don't ever follow a human in whatever religious matter...
2.166-67: --(On the day) when those who were followed disown those who followed (them), and they behold the doom,
and all their aims collapse with them. --And those who were but followers will say: If a return were possible for us,
we would disown them even as they have disowned us. Thus will Allah show them their own deeds as anguish for them.....

Just because quran contradicts ahadith, it does not mean ahadith are unreliable.

It means they can't be Islamically binding, part of the Shariah as you yourself acknowledged.

viewtopic.php?p=123938#p123938
--We have to accept that hadiths cant be take as a source of guidance so I decided to give up on the part that explains quran--
viewtopic.php?p=128212#p128212
--my stance is the same i.e hadiths cant be taken as source of guidance but as a source on information

At least, please be consequent with yourself !

[darth]

All messengers are to be obeyed equally as and when delivering the message and its rulings. The Shahada contradicts this.

Can you tell us who are these messengers that are to be equally obeyed? How do you identify them as the "messenger" and not a charlatan? How do you distinguish this "message" from crap?

Just because quran contradicts ahadith, it does not mean ahadith are unreliable.

It means they can't be Islamically binding, part of the Shariah as you yourself acknowledged.

viewtopic.php?p=123938#p123938
--We have to accept that hadiths cant be take as a source of guidance so I decided to give up on the part that explains quran--
viewtopic.php?p=128212#p128212
--my stance is the same i.e hadiths cant be taken as source of guidance but as a source on information

At least, please be consequent with yourself !

Where is the contradiction in what he said?
The truth is pieced together from the information that is available in both the hadiths and the quran. What is islamically binding or shariah is irrelevant to us.
If the quran contradicts the hadiths there is no reason whatsoever to consider the quran as being more reliable than the hadith without any evidence. On the other hand if evidence agrees with the hadith, then that would give credibility to the hadith rather than the quran. Your problem is you seem to think belief is evidence. It is not. Quran is as unreliable or reliable as the hadiths.

[skynightblaze]

Regarding Qiblas, enough is said.

You quoted Jacob of Edessa from your Islamic source without noticing how a blunder it was.
The Arabs he wrote turned east to pray from Cairo, while Mecca is fully SOUTH from it. Get it?

At the max it just disproves one of my points. I raised 5 points to refute your Qibla argument out of which 1 is gone. Rest 4 need to be addressed. I heard nothing about them from you, so you still lose.

Secondly, if Edessa is to be taken as a reliable source then can you prove to me from the diagram below that these qiblas are pointing somewhere between Ur in Chaldea and Mesopotamia as your other non muslim source claims ?



The very sources that you bring are not in agreement with each other with respect direction of prayer for muslims. Also in the above diagram the qiblas do not meet at a point. Rather they form a cock shaped hat as Manfred previously described. If the qibla science was accurate during that time and if people really prayed to a particular place different from nowadays mecca, then these qiblas would specifically meet a point. It clearly means that these qiblas are not a sure shot test to draw any conclusions.

You're eluding too that the context of s48 is about the negotiations made at Hudaibiyyah.
Now, it is Mecca? Negotiated in its center, its midst (the real meaning of batni makkata?

Quran does not mention this context. Show me a single word in the quran making a mention of Hudaibiyyah.The context that you talk about is derived from the very Islamic history you dismiss as false. You cannot use Islamic history to force a meaning to the quranic word if you are discarding it completely. This is common sense.

Even if I disregard the shahada on the coins as you suggest, it would still not cause a problem for islamic tradition however it does damage your argument that we should be reading into design on coins to know what kind of religion early islam was.

The Shahada isn't quranic. Tell me what was 'Islam' before the prophetic hadiths became legally binging, that is after 850AD?

Shahada is quranic. It is just that the quran does not mention the exact words in a single verse. What is shahada? It has following 2 components:
1) Allah is the only God
2) Muhammad is his messenger

Both these things have been mentioned in the quran plenty of times separately if not in a single verse. SO shahada is actually found in the quran.

Secondly you ask me what early islam was before 850 AD. I would still say it was quran + sunnah (in oral form). People were witness to Muhammad’s sunnah during his time so it isn’t that people could be muslims without sunnah. People who observed the sunnah live would not need a book. For e.g how to pray is not documented specifically in any single source in the muslim literature. I read one article that tries to use a lot of Islamic sources to back the practice of prayers. However no single islamic source contains the practice of praying and all the Islamic sources that make a mention of practices to be followed while praying were not written simultaneously. There was a time gap but yet that did not stop muslims from practicing prayers. It was because of oral sunna. Similarly a lot of practices from sunna would be known to people.

Lastly I would still agree that oral sunna cannot substitute for written work. Some things would be missed but then same argument applies to quran as well. Tell me how could people be muslims before Uthman finalized the current day quran? There was a gap of 20 odd years after Muhammad died in 632 Ad before the current day quran was finalized. If we are to follow your logic then you should also discard quran and accept that one can be a muslim without the quran.

I can extend this point even further and ask why we would need quran if mankind could live for millions of years before the quran came into being?

Coming to Sebeos, yes he mentions jews being allied with Saracens but then there are other accounts (earlier than Sebeos) which describe otherwise. see below...

The Jerusalem taking by Umar, its rendering condition, is proving that to be collateral.
But then Thomas the Presbyter is really talking about the tayyayes-of-mhmt !
And I've shown you a map indicating they inhabited far from nowadays Mecca.
No mention of the Quraysh. In fact none from any external sources...

Please construct a coherent case using all the non muslims sources and tell me where Muhammad exactly lived , where Mecca was located ( Continuatio Byzantia Arabica of the Chronicle of Isidor says it was somewhere between Ur in Chaldea and some place in Mesopotamia) and where the direction of muslim prayer was. Also try to fit in the fact that Tayy was a region which had something to do with Islam as Thomas Presbyter suggests. Also try to account for qiblas pointing to Petra that you mentioned previously.You will end up in a mess and would not be able to figure out anything. Non muslim accounts contradict each and other and give totally different accounts of some occasions. This should tell you that non muslim sources themselves are not 100% reliable so while drawing any conclusion from them, we need to be extra careful. If one says something we need to check other non muslim accounts which attest to the same fact. In many cases, I found that they contradict each other so I am not drawing any conclusions until they all attest to the same fact. One fact each of them gets right is about the criminal deeds of muhammad. Coincidentally muslims scriptures also hint the same and therefore I believe in that part. Rest of the islamic history is gibberish and I aint interested if its correct or not.

Ibn ishaq also mentions a person called muhammad before islam. You should have no problem in accepting what he says because you yourself are trusting him atleast on this issue.

The whole story about Abraha is counterfeit. His invasion happened in 552, not in 570.
His inscription mentions no Mecca, no Quraysh, no al-Muttalib and he WON the war.

It should tell you that story invented by Ishaq is false. Quran makes a mention of the same story because it specifically talks about companions of elephant and birds dropping stones. Same story with more details is found in Ishaq. It is clear after reading the quran that ishaq is talking about the same incident. Ishaq probably tried to cover up for quran’s stupidity and ended up lying.

Since Ibn Ishaq bubbles on this lie to state that Muhammad was born in 570, then when was he born?Without any solid confirmation for his birthday, no traditions about him is reliable.And we have NO archeological records about him before 685. Not a hint.

We can approximate when Muhammad lived by using non muslim historians. For e.g Theophanes puts muhammad’s death at 629 AD. John of Damascus claims that Muhammad appeared as a false prophet from the times of Heraclius . Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641. So again the exact birth date of Muhammad may not be known however we can approximate the time when he was born and when was dead with a specific range. In that case, the islamic history does not become unreliable. It is unreliable upto some extent but not because of this reason.

Lastly , why would something be true only if there are archaeological records? Writings of non muslims are also a good proof for existence of Muhammad. You don’t need archaeological proofs every single time.

Btw this problem of dates is not unique to islam. When was Christ born? Is there a consensus among Christians that he was born on 25th December?

Quran mentions this event of Abraha attacking Mecca. So quran is also debunked.

Read again sura 105/106. No mentions of Abraha or of Mecca. Ibn Ishaq invented from these...
And how in the world could you think I would hold them to be 'godly'?

It does not mention Mecca or abraha attacking it but it surely indicates that Ishaq is talking about the same event for e.g it talks about birds dropping stones and also makes a mention of army of elephants.

Finally , there are plenty of reasons as to why I think you treat quran as Godly. You do not answer a simple question asked to you directly about quran’s divinity. You have also made a lot of statements which would indicate that you are a muslim. I guess everyone who has read you knows about those statements by now.

Who said arabs were infallible? Islamic tradition is a mix of false and true things.

All companions are hold to be infaillible in their remembering of Muhammad.

Muslims even hold quran to be infallible however that’s not the case. The companions were not infallible and they made mistakes and that’s why current day quran is not reliable or it is just as reliable as the ahadith.

I have ignored the rest as Darth has already dealed with it.