Faith Freedom International

by **The Cat** » Thu Mar 20, 2014 5:17 am

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Leg ... roceedings

Testimony must be from at least two witnesses, and preferably free Muslim male witnesses, who are not related parties and who
are of sound mind and reliable character; testimony to establish the crime of adultery, or zina must be from four direct witnesses.

What's problematic for Moslems is that this rule of at least two corroborating witnesses for any Islamic legality
is absent in ALL the so-called 'sahih hadiths', which make about 95% of their laws within their legal Shariah !

We only find in Bukhari, Muslim, and other 'sahih' compilers, a one single line of narrators (called the ahaad type).
None of these are corroborated, at each level of the narration, by two sound witnesses (2.282; 5.106; 24.4; 65.2) !

http://www.scribd.com/doc/41077970/Summ ... -Criticism

The categories of mutawatur and ahad were similarly unsuitable for the hadith tradition, for essentially all hadiths were ahad.
As Ibn al-Salah (d.1245), the most famous scholar of hadith criticism in the later period, explained, at most one hadith (Whoever lies
about me intentionally, let him prepare for himself a seat in Hellfire) would meet the requirement for mutawatir. No hadiths could
actually be described as being narrated by a large number of narrators at every stage of their transmission. In fact, when Mutazilites
had insisted that hadiths be transmitted by a mere two people at every stage, the Sunni Ibn Hibban had accused them of trying to
destroy the Sunna of the Prophet in its entirety.....

Thus, even the said 'sahih' (authentic) hadiths can't be Islamically hold as legal. They are invalids by all Koranic standards!
There goes the very legality of the Shariah :thumbdown:

by **pr126** » Thu Mar 20, 2014 9:48 am

Indeed, the hadiths were collected by isnad from various people after the death of Muhammad.
And so was the Quran, exactly by the same process!

What happened to the verses memorized by those who died at the Battle of Yamama.?
Allah couldn't save those? Any guesses?

by **skynightblaze** » Thu Mar 20, 2014 4:05 pm

It seems that you are back to normal fter showing slight improvement by criticizing quran in some other threads. We have already discussed this many times. There are 2 perspectives to look at this : one is the muslim and the other is the non muslim perspective and neither of the perspective supports quran alone muslims. I am hoping you are not among them.

If we look from a muslim perspective where he/she takes quran as the reference point then he must discard not just the hadith but also the quran because neither does the quran have 2 witnesses at each stage of its narration. The communication from Allah to Gabriel and Gabriel to Muhammad do not have more than 1 witness. Neither do many verses from the quran have backing of 2 witnesses. Now if you claim that communication from Allah to Gabriel and Gabriel to Muhammad is a matter of faith then the same excuse can be presented by worshipers of ahadith. In short if one is a muslim then he/she has to discard both on the basis of this rule of 2 witnesses at each level in the chain.

If we look at this from the non muslim perspective then there is no reason to believe that all the hadith are unreliable just because they do not satisfy 2 witness test at each level . 2 witnesses can give false testimony too so this test is not full proof. It may also happen that only 1 witness tells something and it turns out to be correct while 100 of them claim opposite and yet be wrong. In short truth does not depend upon the number of witnesses and hence this criteria is invalid.

Secondly many of the ahadith documenting Muhammad as a criminal are true because it is not just muslim history that portrays him that way but also the non muslim historic sources. So as a non muslim one can get the picture of character of Muhammad and it turns out to be a hard core criminal.

by **yeezevee** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 4:56 pm

The Cat wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Legal_and_court_proceedings
......Legitimacy of the hadiths...........

we know they are baloney and we know they were collected some 100 years later so why worry about sill hadith?

Question is, is Quran legitimate word of Allah/God?? and where does Islam stand if it is just a word of ma of his times?

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 21, 2014 7:57 pm

yeezevee wrote:
The Cat wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Legal_and_court_proceedings
......Legitimacy of the hadiths...........

we know they are baloney and we know they were collected some 100 years later so why worry about sill hadith?

At least 200 hundreds years would be more accurate. And, mind you, hadiths constitute about 95 % of the Sharia.

Now this topic is all about the Islamic legitimacy of the Hadiths. For the Koran see Manfred's specific thread:
viewtopic.php?f=20&t=15837

I wonder how Garudaman and uncung could response to both, that is without eluding :sharia:

by **Garudaman** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 1:19 pm

the content of religion teaching is the truth, not the incident! :wot:

by **frankie** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 3:47 pm

Garudaman wrote:the content of religion teaching is the truth, not the incident!

This cannot be the case as Allah nominated Mohammed as a Muslim role model, for all time. If Mohammed did not follow Allah’s commands correctly enough for Muslims to copy correctly, his actions would invalidate all what Allah revealed in the Quran.

You cannot have this both ways, either Mohammed followed Allah’s commands correctly ,ensuring Muslims do the same, or Mohammed did not follow Allah’s commands correctly, which in turn leads Muslims astray from how Allah wants his instructions to be followed correctly.

Muslims only know how to put Allah’s will into action by referring to the ways and example of their prophet, found in the now alleged authenticated ahadiths,which forms an integral part of Sharia, encompassing amongst other Muslim practices the five pillars, which cannot be found by just reading the Quran.

This answer can apply to Garudamans argument found in:

"It May Non-Muslim or Muslim of Group that May Not True"

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=14704

by **skynightblaze** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 6:59 pm

yeezevee wrote:
The Cat wrote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Legal_and_court_proceedings
......Legitimacy of the hadiths...........

we know they are baloney and we know they were collected some 100 years later so why worry about sill hadith?

Ahadith are stupid and criminal and there is no doubt about it however stupid or illogical does not mean they are complete lies. It isn't that before bukhari there was nothing and suddenly he came onto the scene to produce a work out of his arse. He had access lots of books. Following is what Bukhari writes..

Bukhari wrote:"There was once a time during one of our sessions when my teacher Ishaaq Ibn Rahway remarked it would be appreciated if someone could collect ahadith which held strong and reliable testimonials and write them in the form of a book.

So you see there was lot of stuff floating around and Bukhari's teacher said that someone should do the job of sifting the authentic ones from the fake ones. Now ofcourse I am not saying that hadiths are true because Bukhari says so

My point is before we draw a conclusion we need to see the case presented by islamic scripture writers just as judge listens to the arguments on both sides before taking a decision. Now please read the following link for details. It is written by muslims so obviously we need to take their arguments with a grain of salt. Many of the arguments found in the link below are rubbish like for e.g their exaggeration about accuracy of Bukhari's work or memory. I will present some quotes from that link which are from islamic scriptures.... They tell us that there was lots of work done by muslims during muhammad;s time and later.

http://www.call-to-monotheism.com/refut ... nreliable_

Here are they..

[Tabaqât Ibn Sa'd]
Kuraib left with us a camel load of Ibn 'Abbâs's books. When 'Ali ibn 'Abdullâh ibn 'Abbâs would need any book from them, he wrote to Kuraib, 'Send to me such and such books.' He would then transcribe the book and send to him one of the two copies.

Now here are some scripts recorded during Muhammad’s time..

The Book of Sadaqah
[Jâmi' Tirmidhi]
The Holy Prophet dictated the Book of Sadaqah and was yet to send it to his governors when he passed away. He had attached it to his sword. When he passed away, Abu Bakr acted according to it till he passed away, then 'Umar acted according to it till he passed away. It was mentioned in his book that one goat is leviable on five camels.

The Script of 'Amr ibn Hazm

In 10 A.H., when Najran was conquered by the Muslims, the Holy Prophet appointed his companion, 'Amr ibn Hazm as governer of the province of Yemen. At this time the Holy Prophet dictated a detailed book to Ubayy ibn Ka'b and handed it over to 'Amr ibn Hazm.
This book, besides some general advices, contained the rules of Sharî'ah about purification, salâh, zakâh, 'ushr, hajj, 'umrah, jihâd (battle), spoils, taxes, diyah (blood money), administration, education, etc.
Sayyiduna 'Amr ibn Hazm performed his functions as governor of Yemen in the light of this book. After his demise this document remained with his grandson, Abu Bakr. Imâm Zuhri learnt and copied it from him. He used to teach it to his pupils. [Certain extracts of this book are found in the works of hadîth. For the full text see, al-Wathâ'iq as-Sayâsiyyah fil-Islâm by Dr. Hamîdullâh.]

[Tabaqât Ibn Sa'd]
Similarly, when the Holy Prophet appointed some of his companions as governors of different provinces he used to dictate to them similar documents as his directives which they could follow in performing their duties as rulers or as judges. When he appointed Abu Hurairah and Ala ibn al-Hazrami as his envoy to the Zoroastrians of Hajar, he dictated to them a directive containing certain rules of Sharî'ah about Zakâh and 'Ushr.

[Jâmi' Bayân-ul-'Ilm; Fath-ul-Bâri]
Abu Hurairah took him to his home and showed him "many books" containing the ahâdîth of the Holy Prophet.

The Script of 'Abdullâhi ibn 'Amr
[Jâmi' Bayân-ul-'Ilm]
This is the Sâdiqah (the Script of Truth). It is what I heard from the Holy Prophet. No other narrator intervenes between him and myself. If this script, the Book of Allâh, and wahaz (hisagricultural land) are secured for me, I would never care about the rest of the world

The Script of Anas
[Mustadrik Hâkim]
Sa'îd ibn Hilal, one of his pupils, says,
When we insisted upon Anas, may Allâh be pleased with him, he would bring to us some notebooks and say, "These are what I have heard and written from the Holy Prophet, after which I have presented them to the Holy Prophet for confirmation.

Script of Ali
[Sahîh Bukhâri- Book of Jihad]
I have not written anything from the Holy Prophet except the Holy Qur'ân and what is contained in this script.

[Tabaqât Ibn Sa'd]

It is reported that Hârith al-A'war bought some paper and came to him:
So, ('Ali) wrote for him a lot of knowledge.

Scripts of Jâbir
[Sahîh Muslim- Book of Hajj. Dhahabi says that this is a replica of Jâbir's script.]
Jâbir ibn 'Abdullâh is one of the famous companions of the Holy Prophet who has narrated a large number of ahâdîth. It is established that he had compiled the ahâdîth in two scripts. One of them contained a detailed account of the last Hajj performed by the Holy Prophet. The full text of this script is found in the Sahîh of Muslim wherein he has described even the minute details of the last Hajj.

In total there were lots of books floating around regarding Muhammad and islam in the muslim world..

Spoiler! :

Out of the above books , following are still available but they are in printed form..

Spoiler! :

The question that many people raise is where are the manuscripts for the above? Well existence or non existence of manuscripts does neither guarantee correctness of the information nor does it disprove something as totally false. Something can be correct and it is manuscript could be missing and similarly some work may have a manuscript but the content written could be false. So this criteria is not a valid criteria in determining truth.

Now we do have some manuscripts for important works like ibn Hisham or quran but they too are not complete. Remember 14 centuries have passed since Muhammad died and that much amount of time is sufficient for manuscripts to get lost or even decompose. The other works might have lost their importance after Bukhari compiled his script so really people would not bother much about preserving scripts of works that bukhari referenced. That might explain why no manuscripts are available but yet some of the books are available in printed form. If I am not wrong then first printing press was set in Baghdad in 793 AD. People may have printed some of those manuscripts on paper after that.

Now as I said as judge, we heard what islamic side has to say regarding sources of Bukhari and other ahadith compilers. Now the next question is what is the way to verify if these ahadith compilers had all these books and they could with fair degree of accuracy narrate to us about islam? Read below..

One argument here is that it is not uncommon for people to write in details about the person whom they literally worship. That happens with every charismatic leader. Brain dead followers would always try to write something about him.

Now coming to Bukhari's work, you see there was lot of literature to sift genuine ahadith from the fake ones for Bukhari. Personally I can with surety say that it is impossible to compile ahadith which are 100% authentic . If I am to take a guess, I think it would be somewhere close to 60% to 70% even if we assume that Bukhari was extra ordinarily careful but guess work is not an accepted proof. However I can present some logical arguments as well as some evidence for ahadith or Islamic history to be a genuine attempt by muslim writers to present history related to islam and muhammad. It will surely prove that there is indeed a degree of truth in what they have written and hence it is not complete invention as many people seem to think. In my next post I will post some questions for those who claim that Islamic history be it ahadith or sira are A to Z fabrications (you are included in them). I am not presenting anything new as I have already said these things many times on FFI itself.

by **Fernando** » Sun Mar 23, 2014 8:45 pm

Garudaman wrote:the content of religion teaching is the truth, not the incident!

That's quite an admission, Garudaman. You're saying "never mind the facts, hear the preaching." That it doesn't matter whether the stories the preacher tells are true or not, it's the moral tale he's preaching that matters. It doesn't matter whether Mo actually said it's ok to beat your wife, rape slave girls or kill apostates, if that's what the preacher is saying then that's what counts and it's the Mullah, Ayatollah or whatever who make it good Islamic behaviour. Congratulations, you've taken the first step out of Islam.
As for the hadiths, as I mention in another post, I've just been rereading Ibn Warraq's The Origins of the Koran. A section in that work explains that there are so many hadiths known and accepted by Muslim scholars to be fakes, along with the isnads supposed to ratify them, that no historian could accept a single one of them - so called "authentic" hadiths and isnads included. Accepting this, of course, strengthens the apologetic position of "Koran only" Muslims and rebuts some of the worst tales of Mo's doings - but it delegitimises some Muslim practices too. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

by **skynightblaze** » Wed Mar 26, 2014 5:43 pm

As I said in my previous post, all that is left for me is to show that muslim writers made a genuine attempt to write the history regards to Muhammad and islam. Islamic history is obviously subject to errors, biases, distortions, genuine mistakes etc just as any history but still the muslim writers have managed to keep the spirit of islam alive. I think Bukhari and company filtered a lot from Ishaq or Hisham thereby diluting or softening down islam a lot which is still a violent version.

Now here are some points that indicate that this compilation was a genuine attempt and most of them are repeat.

1) The writers like John Bar Penkaye, Sebeos,John of Damascus,Sophronius , Thomas the Presbyter,Doctroni jacobi etc depict Muhammad in the same way as it is depicted later in sahih ahadith and sira. These writers were writing before any Sahih hadith or Sira were written down. Are we to believe that they too were involved in fabricating and supporting islam and they were later copied by muslim writers?

For details of non muslim writings( Starting from 634 AD to 750 AD) please refer the link below and read the non muslim writings. The almost echo what muslim writers wrote a century or two later about muhammad , islam and muslims.

http://www.christianorigins.com/islamrefs.html

2) If entire islamic literature was fabricated then one has to admit that this was taking place on an international level as islam was spreading to other countries. Muslims had to market their books even to the other countries. In such a case the fabrication or invention of new religion should be a very well known event and not a secret. Why doesn't a single non muslim author talk about fabrication of islamic scriptures in entirety? Instead we see them confirming what these scriptures write on many counts.

3) If muslims could fabricate islamic scriptures without any resistance from peers to the extent that they invented a totally new character- Muhammad ,then they could have easily attributed each hadith directly to Muhammad. There was no need to invent longs chains of transmissions for each hadith. Why not simply say Muhammad said so and so when that could have given them more credibility? Also it would take less effort to do that.

4) Findings of Sanaa manuscripts indicate that there were differing copies of quran in existence at a certain time. Ahadith (bukhari, sunan abu dawud and muslim) also document the same. This confirms that islamic history is not produced out of the blue. It is in line with some historic findings if not all. This is possible only if a genuine attempt was made.

5) If we look at the quran and the ahadith, we see that Muhammad made special privileges for himself. Why would a fabricator write things that benefited Muhammad alone? A fabricator gains nothing from this..Consider the verse from the quran where Muhammad tells the guests at his home to leave the place early and not gossip at his place. Can someone whose aim was to consolidate their empire and justify their evil acts bother fabricating such verses ?

6) Why do we have watered down versions in the islamic history ?? Just imagine, someone fabricates evil things about Muhammad then we have the following generation or contemporaries trying to water down the versions to acquit muhammad of the crimes or even the errors he made.

7) The writers of ahadith and sira and other hadith were centuries apart. How could they collaborate with each other ? Also are we to believe that from 632 AD onwards till the 14th century in which Ibn kathir was writing, all the muslims joined in the fabrication process. This is a very serious accusation. For around 700 years every single writer was busy lying about muhammad and yet every single muslim living on the planet was buying their stories. Just imagine if this possible to do today. Suppose I attribute some gibberish/lies to Muhammad in a book. How many muslims will promote my book for next 1000 odd years?

I guess this is enough to make my case..

by **The Cat** » Fri Mar 28, 2014 11:29 pm

Fernando wrote:As for the hadiths, as I mention in another post, I've just been rereading Ibn Warraq's The Origins of the Koran. A section
in that work explains that there are so many hadiths known and accepted by Muslim scholars to be fakes, along with the
isnads supposed to ratify them, that no historian could accept a single one of them - so called "authentic" hadiths and isnads
included. Accepting this, of course, strengthens the apologetic position of "Koran only" Muslims and rebuts some of the worst
tales of Mo's doings - but it delegitimises some Muslim practices too. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose.

Indeed. Hadiths aren't legitimate both from the Koran (which they oft contradicts) and many historical perspectives.

First there are many discrepancies between the Islamic tradition about Muhammad and those of the Non-Moslems:
their chronology places the prophet far latter and there's no mention of this Arabic potentate ruling all over Arabia
between 630-632. No archeological records either. No mention of a brand new religion called 'Islam' led by 'Moslems',
but that of Ishmaelites and Saracens. That until at least John of Damascus.

The very isnads of the collectors are proof enough that there was no common sources available and the beginning
of hadiths' collection first came through political factions acting during the second fitnah. The first coin mentioning
Muhammad wasn't even Arabic but Sassanian, minted in Fars (southwest of Persia) by 688. Then, and only then,
did the name (unknown in the 6th c. Arabia) started to spread like wildfire.

Finally, Bukhari himself wasn't Arab but from far Khorasan, same part of Persia than the Abbasids. He makes numerous
anachronisms, like that of B.1.3.98 as Huraira was dead before came Umar II. He makes more anachronisms in 6.60.359;
4.747-748; 7.787; 2.24.501; 5.58.230, etc ! We don't even hear confirmations of Bukhari's publications before al-Firabri !

http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-78131769.html

Actually, the Sahih of Bukhari seems not to have been widely published until well into the tenth century, for virtually
all known transmissions were through a single man, Muhammad ibn Yusuf ibn Matar al-Firabri (d.932). Somehow,
no one else of the many illustrious traditionists who related hadith of Bukhari (al-Mizzi lists over eighty) recognized
the value of his collection of sound hadith and transmitted it. Its organization, in particular its chapter headings,
seem not to have stabilized until the mid-tenth century. It first attracted commentaries in the later tenth century.

So the very tradition over Bukhari himself is unauthentic ! How's that ?

A load of further informations in: The Hadiths' Perfidy (in Resource Center)
viewtopic.php?f=30&t=8185
Snb hadiths' foundness debunked (even removed from Resource Center).
viewtopic.php?p=164086#p164086

An interesting forum (replete with videos) between Shiites, Quranists and Sunnites over the hadiths.
http://www.nairaland.com/960432/origin- ... s-deviated

A closing illustration note: if Moslems are to truly emulate Mo then they all should be illiterates !
And, in many of their taqlid (imitation) hadiths' tradition, they become as Garudaman & uncung.
Repetitive (ie. illiterate) machines known as Moslems !

by **skynightblaze** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:32 am

The Cat wrote:First there are many discrepancies between the Islamic tradition about Muhammad and those of the Non-Moslems:
their chronology places the prophet far latter and there's no mention of this Arabic potentate ruling all over Arabia
between 630-632. No archeological records either. No mention of a brand new religion called 'Islam' led by 'Moslems',
but that of Ishmaelites and Saracens.

I will deal with this first because it is an exhaustive topic by itself. The non muslim scriptures do not differ with islamic scriptures on every single count. There are some common things. You can make a case for fabrication of islamic scriptures in entirety only non islamic scriptures were completely telling us a different story like for e.g non muslim writers tell us that no creature called muhammad existed or he was a man of peace while islamic scriptures show him to be a thug. That would be like a round hole and a square peg. The truth is in between because many things in islamic scriptures match with non muslim sources while many contradict them. First let us focus on things that are in common.The basic skeleton or framework upon which islamic scriptures are written is based on criminal activities of muhammad. I am asking people to see non muslim writings if they fit in that framework. Let us see what non muslim sources have to write about muhammad in brief..

1) Parchment of 636 AD mentions arabs of muhammad on a raid and plundering villages and taking captives. The same acts are found in islamic scriptures. Names change but the acts are same.

2) Doctrina Jacobi claims that saracens were shedding meaningless blood. There are plenty of such examples in islamic history which affirm this.

3) John Bar penkaye (687 AD) states that arabs of muhammad followed him and killed people who did not follow Muhammad;s laws. Again we have plenty of such examples in islamic history to affirm this.

4) Some of the authors like Sophronius talk about destruction of churches, killing people, raiding of villages and their barbarism etc. The islamic scriptures document all these acts..

5) John of Damascus writing somewhere around 730 AD details Muhammad of stealing Zaynab from Zayd. John of Damascus thinks Zayd was a friend rather than assumed son. John of Damascus also talks about Kaba which muslim kiss. This is also in line with teachings of islam..

6)Ad Annum 705 (October 705) talks about caliphs after Muhammad namely Abu bakhr, Umar, Uthman etc. This is also in line with what islamic history says..

These are just a sample of non muslim writings.. Please read the link that I gave and you will find a lot of non muslim writings written before any hadith or sira was written down. They match with islamic scriptures which were written after 750 Ad. If sira, hadith by bukhari, dawud etc were spurious then should we believe that non muslim writers too were a part of this so scheme of fabrication?

Again I would request people to focus on the framework of islamic history. It is perfectly in line with the writings of non muslims. Details vary, name of people change however the framework remains the same i.e crime, crime and crime..

Now what about the writings of non muslims that differ from muslim writings? I have already detailed the explanation for that in the following thread.

//viewtopic.php?p=201041#p200560

Finally here goes in the drain your argument that no word such as muslim existed until John of Damascus (730 Ad)

Here is a non muslim writing from 659 Ad..
Isho'yahb III of Adiabene ( 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.

Btw why people did not frequently use the word muslims is explained by me in the link above where I discussed this topic with Ibn Rushd.

I will deal with your rest of the arguments later and also do come into the ring ... I am waiting..

by **Fernando** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 6:04 pm

I can't get too involved in this interesting discussion because I haven't extensive knowledge on the topic or time to make a proper job of studying it. My personal take is that Islam starts off with a lie: that there is an Allah who had an angel dictate a book. This I cannot accept as true because I don't believe in gods or angels. So, since the very premise of Islam is a lie then the edifice built on that premise is highly suspect.
For that reason, I tend to favour arguments by others who claim that this or that is a fabrication - it seems at least as likely as not. Clearly though, the Arabs appeared out of the desert and overran the civilisations around them and ended up as the Muslims we know today. The truth obviously lies somewhere between tales of angels reciting books and some Illuminati conjuring the whole thing up in one go, a couple of centuries later. Rather, it must have been something like a dinosaur fossil being slowly excavated out of a cliff - at first a bone or two, then their seeming to be related to each other, finally the bones all fall into place as a complete skeleton. The difference being that the fossil hunters are seeking to uncover the true animal, whereas the Muslims are altering the bones and juggling them as they go, to make the dinosaur into the shape of an angel.
I look forward to following the discussion, chipping in where I can and maybe occasionally stirring it up a bit!

by **skynightblaze** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 7:26 pm

Hello Fernando,
To be honest, debates of these kind are learn while you debate for me. You can never know how to swim unless you dive into the water so if you can just give it a try, you can surely debate. I use google search for finding references, quotes or any articles put on the web on the subject that might give me more insights. After that I formulate my own arguments. You won't find everything on web but sometimes you get something that supports your point of view. Sometimes even use of simple logic will help you answer a lot of questions raised. So there is no fixed strategy here. Just keep thinking and use google . That's the trick I guess.

Secondly, atleast I am not contesting that quran is from any God or angel and one also does not need to assume that Quran comes from God to go with my line of reasoning. We all know quran does not come from any God. My claim is some of the ramblings of muhammad have made their way into quran and some of the ramblings have made their way into ahadith. I believe that islamic history has managed to somehow to give insight into the life of muhammad and they made an genuine attempt at describing whatever they could about what muhammad did and said. Ofcourse we know there were no angels or Allah involved. It was Muhammad all the way making up everything.

Thirdly please do not feel awkward to express your opinion even if it goes against me. I get the feeling that you are feeling slightly awkward to go against me. Don't worry we can still be good friends.

by **Fernando** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 10:30 pm

Thanks Skynightblaze! I'm quite comfortable here and with what most members say. The Muslims, of course, I tend to disagree with but I don't suppose they'd expect anything else anyway,
It's just that many people here are much more knowledgeable and have been dissecting Islam far longer than I have, so I don't want to appear a pushy young kid - my time for that is long gone!

by **The Cat** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 5:10 am

Fernando wrote:I tend to favour arguments by others who claim that this or that is a fabrication - it seems at least as likely as not.

Indeed. For examples... If the Islamic tradition was so right then, does it accord with Muhammad's birthday ?
http://www.answering-islam.org/Response ... man_av.htm

--Muhammad ibn al-Sa'ib (died 726 A.D.) said that Muhammad was born 15 years before the "Year of the Elephant".
--Ja'far ibn Abi 'l-Mughira (died early 8th century A.D.) dates Muhammad's birth 10 years after the "Year of the Elephant",
--while Al-Kalbi tells us that Shu'ayb ibn Ishaq (died 805 A.D.) said that Muhammad was born 23 years after this event.
--Al-Zuhri (died 742 A.D.) believed that Muhammad was born 30 years after the "Year of the Elephant",
--while Musa ibn 'Uqba (died 758) believed that Muhammad was born 70 years later!

If we assume that the "Year of the Elephant" was 570 A.D., then Muhammad could have been born anytime between
555 A.D. and 640 A.D. and could have died anytime between 615 A.D. and 700 A.D.! How can we trust any of the hadiths?
The "transmitters" cited by the hadith may not have been alive during Muhammad's lifetime, to witness the events
which they are believed to have "transmitted". The problem of dating Muhammad's birth date is an issue that not only
affects the hadith traditions; but also affects the reliability of the history of the Quran's collection and compilation.

Obviously the Islamic tradition is totally incoherent, unreliable.

When quoting Isho'yahb III of Adiabene with 'Muslims' translating 'Tayyaye Mhaggre', snb parrots Hoyland's wishful mistakes.
Mhaggre is the Syriac word for Hagarenes, never Muslims (which Semitic equivalent is: Mushlam, ie. perfected, completed).

Tayy means a specific Arabic region, nothing to do with practicing religion. It could be confuse with Arab, not with 'Muslim'.
The author (Hoyland) made a twisted wishful transliteration... repeated blindly by snb much like uncung does!

As an interesting side, parts of Fred Donner's book: At the Origins of Islam
http://books.google.ca/books?id=qBzRj7O ... &q&f=false

The hadiths CAN'T be a sacred part of Islam and of the Shariah as laws from 'God'.
They aren't revelations, and never were, but Mushriks fabrications from the inception.
Shirk & Idolatry in Islam: viewtopic.php?f=30&t=1062

by **Centaur** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:33 am

Qur'an hadith, both make no sense.

by **skynightblaze** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 4:59 pm

First of all I have never claimed that islamic scriptures are reliable in entirety. Even muslims don’t claim that. All the writers with the exception of one that CAT brought to show discrepancy between birth dates of muhammad belonged to an era when there was no hadith ( bukhari, dawud and muslim) and sira. I have already stated before that there was lots of material (authentic and fake) floating around when Bukhari or Ishaq started compiling their work. They had to sift from it. Only Ishaq mentions the date of birth of Muhammad as 570 AD while Bukhari, Sahih muslim, Abu Dawud and others are silent about it . So the next question is did Ishaq select the right source out of so many contradictory sources to get his date right? The names of writers that CAT brought died even before Ibn Ishaq started compiling his work. So he must have had access to their writings. Let us make use of sources outside islam to know if Ishaq selected the right date.

When we select the non muslim sources there are 2 possibilities here : Either non muslims are reliable or they are unreliable with respect to dates.

Let us first assume non muslim sources are reliable and see what happens in that case.

Here we go..

Stephen Shoemaker in his book mentions 11 different sources of non muslim writers placing the death of Muhammad somewhere between 635 AD to 640 AD. If non muslim sources are to be taken authentic, then we see muhammad must be born somewhere between 572 Ad (635 Ad- 63 years – age of muhammad when he died) and 577 AD (640 Ad- 63). Ishaq mentions year of muhammad’s birth as 570 Ad which is close to our estimates. A difference of 5-10 years would not make much of a difference. Therefore islamic tradition does not crumble as the narrators in the hadith would still be alive by that time. This means we can safely eliminate traditions that say he died in 700 AD as false. This would not even create a problem for muslims because they too do not believe that every single piece of islamic literature is genuine.

Now let us consider the other case i.e. If non muslims sources are unreliable or even partially reliable in this regard. This raises a question- Are the non muslim sources too fabrications? Going by “Cat’s logic” (the term indicates implicit stupidity. No need to mention separately), do we go about saying every single non islamic writer fabricated things just because we see them contradicting each other?

Now this problem seems to be a common problem and a common pattern across many early writings. If one reads my exchanges with Ibn Rushd on the thread mentioned below, one would see that the problem of date mismatch seems to be common even across non muslim writings too. I have put some logical reasons behind why I see the mismatch. CAT can go through them and address them if he can..

viewtopic.php?f=20&t=15524

To give a few parallel examples, can someone tell me with precision as to when Jesus was born or when gospels were written with a precise date? I have seen discrepancy among christians in these matters. They give a range regarding gospels and not an exact date while some debate about the birth date of Jesus. So does this mean that every single thing written in the gospel was a lie? Ofcourse not! Same is the case here.

Here is another example from the book History and Hagiography from the Late Antique Sinai

http://www.amazon.com/History-Hagiograp ... historians

Here is the book description on Amazon..

The Sinai peninsula emerged in late antiquity as a distinct region of the Christian holy land, identified from the fourth century onward as the Old Testament place where the Hebrews had wandered, Moses received the Law, and 'God's Majesty descended'. At the same time it was part of the late Roman province of Third Palestine and located deep in the heart of 'Saracen Country'. The historical essay and accompanying texts in this book enable readers to explore the particular ideals and dangers associated with this remote political and religious frontier. At its core are three Greek narratives previously unavailable in English: Pseudo-Nilus' Narrations, Ammonius' Report Concerning the Slaughter of the Monks of Sinai and Rhaithou, and Anastasius' Tales of the Sinai Fathers. Long known to historians, these narratives, all written c. 400-650, have long been used to reconstruct pilgrimage, monasticism, and Roman-Saracen relations in this area. However, each poses challenging questions of date, origin, and in

The problem that CAT raised can be raised about almost any early historic document. WE can show n number of internal contradictions but does that mean every single thing it writes is a lie? Ofcourse not otherwise we would have to discard a lot of history that provides us valuable information.

Next comes the argument of syriac meaning of words. I admit to begin with that I am clueless about syriac however atleast I don’t pretend unlike CAT. A point to be noted is that an Syriac illiterate like me can prove him wrong... Following are a few quotes from non muslim writers that use the term
“Tayyaye”.

(Thomas the Presbyter, Chronicle, pp. 147-148 [p. 120]) (640 AD)
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.

So if Tayayye means region as CAT says then the text would mean there was a battle between romans and REGION of Muhammad instead of arabs. Does that make sense? Can region of muhammad have battle with Romans? May yes in CAT’s world of logic.

Next comes the usage of word Mhaggre. I have read a few links on that.. Let us see what they have to say..

Hagarenes (Greek Ἀγαρηνοί), also mhaggre (with a pun on the word "muhajir", from Hagar's expulsion), is a term that describes "the followers or descendants of Hagar". The name was used in Judeo-Christian literature and Byzantine chronicles for Hanif Arabs, then for Islamic forces known collectively as Saracens, and during the height of the Ottoman Empire, for Turks. The name, used interchangeably with Ishmaelites, came also to mean any Muslim. An example of its current usage is "Ahryani" (Aхряни), a name used for Bulgarian Muslims in colloquial Bulgarian -although this term has also been explained as paralleling the spread of Balkan Islam with anti-trinitarian Arianism.

http://en.academic.ru/dic.nsf/enwiki/2456159

So it seems that Hoyland is not alone who thinks that way. Here is another link that states tayyaye was used to refer to muslims.

http://books.google.co.in/books?id=pUep ... ye&f=false

Anyway this point is not so relevant. Let us for the sake of argument assume that no one used the word "muslim" early.So what? In my discussion with Ibn Rushd , she showed me that first reference to some person 500 years after his death. So does that mean he never existed? Also I have already made a detailed case as to why some keywords like Mecca, islam or muslims may have been missing in the early days of islam.

Finally I will put a million dollar question for CAT. Was Muhammad a good person or a bad person? I claim he was a nasty criminal as we see him in the ahadith. You want to deny islamic history . So does this mean you want people to believe he was a morally good person? I am sure this question is a problem for you...

by **Fernando** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 7:09 pm

I'm just having another look at Robert Spencer's Did Mohammed Exist? He translates tayyaye as "nomads" so they could have been either just plain Arabs or Muslim Arabs. I think he's also making out that Hagarene fits with their being an offshoot of Judeo-Christianity well before they became fully-fledged Muslims.
I don't think even if Muslims worship an imaginary or vastly over-exaggerated Mohammed that means he wasn't a seriously nasty person or legend.
Edit for double negative!

by **The Cat** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 2:42 am

skynightblaze wrote:All the writers with the exception of one that CAT brought to show discrepancy between birth dates of muhammad belonged to an era when there was no hadith ( bukhari, dawud and muslim) and sira.

Look again about al-Kalbi quoting Ibn Ishaq. And then al-Zuhri was Ishaq's mentor too, with Isnad hadiths.

skynightblaze wrote:So if Tayayye means region as CAT says then the text would mean there was a battle between romans and REGION of Muhammad instead of arabs. Does that make sense?

What doesn't make sense is your inability to understand that Bedouins (from Tayy or elsewhere) were traveling nomads.

skynightblaze wrote:The name (Hagarenes), used interchangeably with Ishmaelites, came also to mean any Muslim.

They CAME (centuries later) to mean Muslim. Just like Ishmaelites, Saracens, Tayyayes did, etc.

To John of Damascus they were still ''the heresy of the Ishmaelites''. He would have known 'Muslims' & 'Islam'.

skynightblaze wrote:Let us for the sake of argument assume that no one used the word "muslim" early.So what? In my discussion with Ibn Rushd , she showed me that first reference to some person 500 years after his death. So does that mean he never existed?

If so he was some bedouin leader, plundering in Syria by 640, like... Muhammad ibn Maslama.
And most of his so-called 'infallible' companions nothing more than historical shadowy blunders.

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