Islam Can Islam be distinguished from Arabs

[dzheremi]

So it was not an actual copy of the Qur'an or parts of it. Some of it was most likely a student's work which explains the errors and the over writing. The manuscript and the research regarding it was welcomed by all Islamic scholars. Nor has any of them been the least apologetic after the results have been published to the whole world because above everything else the manuscript verifies the Qur'an has been preserved perfectly.

Maybe it would be easier to take your claims seriously if you didn't just make declarative statements that are blatantly at odds with the facts. The Sana'a manuscript does not show that the Qur'an "has been preserved perfectly". I don't know if you just haven't read the actual work, but Hilali's critical edition finds 17 variants in the upper text (the lower text has a lot of variations, too, but it's also a completely different part of the Surah than is represented by the upper text), only five of which correspond to known readings. Is that your definition of 'perfect'? 'Perfect except for all the variations'? Also it would be literally impossible for this document to show that the Qur'an has been preserved perfectly, as it is not complete. So even if there were no variations, it still couldn't show that.

Also, the idea that it was a student's exercise is one of Hilali's possible explanations, but Sadeghi and Goudarzi ("Sana'a 1 and the Origins of the Qur'an", in Der Islam 87(1-2), 1-129, De Gruyter, 2012) argue that it ought to be taken as evidence of an earlier, pre-Uthmanic "semi-oral tradition" from which the surahs as they would be arranged in the Uthmanic codices were inherited. This view supports the earlier stablization of the Quran'ic text (as opposed to the traditional view that the work of codifying the Qur'an was done by or at the behest of Uthman), which you would think Muslims would be in favor of, but please note that you can't believe both that and the idea that this text is somehow not a Qur'an just because it's not an "official piece", as you put it. So either way, probably somebody somewhere is going to be unhappy. I imagine a lot of Quran'ic Studies work must come with that caveat.

It's not that, but you have to take into account everything: the reliability, the context, interpretation, wording in Arabic and of course other hadiths. In the end there is no indication there that the Qur'an was missing a verse or that there had been a verse cancelled.

You were the one who affirmed that Sahih Bukhari is reliable, in post #30 of this thread. I produced evidence from Sahih Bukhari (as well as Sahih Muslim; I don't remember if you mentioned that collection, but I generally find that to be the other one that mainstream Sunni Muslims find reliable), and now that's not evidence. That's very convenient. It also seems very much like backpedaling.

The reason I brought up the recitation matter is that it ensures the preservation of the message from the very beginning. If the recitation began later after the prophet was dead, what guarantee would it have given it?

I don't know, because you haven't shown what 'guarantee' recitation itself as a thing gives anything. That's why I asked you how it does that. This is not an answer to that question. Please answer the question or stop trying to present Islamic recitation as though it has magical Qur'an-preserving properties that it does not have.

No, the Qur'an is the word of God from the first word to the last.

That may be what you believe as a Muslim, but since I'm not a Muslim and you're not on MuslimForums.com right now, that's not going to be accepted here in lieu of an actual argument. Everything you have claimed about the recitation of the Bible absolutely applies to the Qur'an, whether you want it to or not: it's just the recitation of a story, written by whoever wrote it, and not the word of God. The Qur'an is most emphatically not the word of God.

Where did you get that idea?

From Islam's extreme fastidiousness concerning the absolute preservation of its written text in comparison to Christianity's more fluid approach to its own (not officially fixing the NT canon until 367 AD at the earliest, different churches having differing canons depending on when and how they received the Gospel, etc.), which obviously places the priority on the use of the text in particular liturgical settings, rather than separated from them as in the case of Islamic hafiz.

The Qur'an being the word of God it is important to recite it exactly as it is, otherwise the message would not remain the same.

The two are not logically related. What would change of the message if no one ever recited it at all? I would agree if you said "It developed as an aid to memory at a time when not many people knew how to read or write, and still is to the extent that this may still be the case in some places", but you are instead treating recitation as though it preserves the message itself, which is why I asked before why that works for the Qur'an but not for the Bible or the Torah. You still haven't really answered that.

The Qur'an is also read from memory during each prayer. Not just certain parts of the Qur'an, but any surah in the Qur'an can be recited.

Again, the same is true with the Bible. I focused on the Psalms earlier because I feel that it is more common to find Christians in my Church who know them by heart since they make up such a large part of our daily prayer rule, but that is by no means to the exclusion of the Gospels. It takes very little effort to find them recited basically anywhere you look, since again that's the only way we read them in Eastern Christianity, and it is encouraged that everyone learn them. We even have your god's preferred language covered.

You said it's the Qur'an's responsibility to substantiate what it says. It does.

How and where? It makes a lot of statements and claims, but it does not substantiate anything it claims about Jesus or about Christianity.

And I didn't understand what the rest of it meant. I assume you were making a point regarding something in the Qur'an.

It seems you are confused about it, whatever it is, but that doesn't mean it is not true or is incomprehensible. It means you have to learn to understand it better.

It is not my responsibility to inhabit the mind of a 7th century Arab just so I can understand a book I don't believe in as those who do believe in it do. Everything I need to know about the Qur'an and the Islamic religion I learned in the Gospel of St. Matthew, chapter 24, received many centuries before the birth of Muhammad: "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, showing forth great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. Behold, I have told you beforehand."

Where have I been contradictory?

Not you personally -- the Islamic religion, in which apparently some may believe in the existence of the Injil as a text and others like yourself believe it never was. JosephZ has pointed out how it is that Muslims could believe in either, but since they're contradicting views from one another, there's no better thing to call them than contradictory. Either there was a text or there wasn't.

But the Qur'an doesn't mention the Gospels but the Gospel.

Newsflash: We're not Muslims! You wrote to me saying "Don't keep it a secret" in response to my post which said "We know what the Torah and the Gospel are, in terms of their existence as written texts." I even put "We know" in bold like that to emphasize that I am talking about Christians here. So the fact that the Qur'an has a different view really doesn't mean anything. I trust you already know what the Qur'an thinks, but that is by no means anything that any non-Muslim has to tailor their argument to fit.

And again the same issue occurs - were the four Gospels given to Jesus?

That's not an issue. Maybe it's an issue for your religion and its book, but it's not an issue in Christianity. No Christian has ever believed that the four Gospels were given to Jesus -- they were obviously written about Him, so no, they weren't given to Him. That's silly. And it doesn't become any less silly in the singular, since the Gospel -- which is written in the Gospels -- is the coming, teaching, revelation, crucifixion, death, resurrection, and ascension into heaven of our Lord, God, and Savior Jesus Christ

And if you believe that, then I have some news for you, my Muslim friend: it is time to change your religious affiliation.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Why does the Quran tell Christians to judge by the Gospel if we don't have it?

 

[mindlight]

Then from your point of view a false prophet in his false revelation said something but meant something else which he nor anyone around him knew what he really meant, but you know. So now you're the prophet.

Muhammad and his companions may have been ignorant of the bible but the canon had been established for some 300 years by that point so the reality was clear outside of his Arabian bubble.

Given this ignorance and illiteracy we have to understand Muhammads so called prophecies as interacting with a reality of which he had only second hand experience. This explains that when he quotes from scripture or from heretical Christian texts already in circulation (while claiming he is speaking the words of God) why he gets those quotes wrong and distorts the stories in them. It also explains how he can make such glaring mistakes about Christs Sonship, his death on the cross, the Trinity (including Mary). It is all ignorance in the end.

The tests regarding whether he was a false prophet or not would have to include things like
1) Continuity with previous revelation - NONE
2) Witnessed acts of power confirming God was speaking through him and that he was not just making stuff up - NONE
3) Making predictions that came true - NONE of any value
4) Basic level of honesty about truthes in circulation e.g. Christian understanding of Trinity was established by this point, but he still refers to it as father, Son and Mary!
5) A level of righteous behavior that did not include sleeping with 9 year olds, having sex slaves, having his enemies bumped off and waging war at the drop of a hat to establish his message.

You're not being logical. You claim that I don't know what revelation is because I say the words Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) received were revelation, but I'm quite sure you don't mean words can't be revelation by themselves. What you mean (correct me if I'm wrong) is the words he said he received were not revelation because you don't believe he was a prophet. So your problem doesn't appear to have anything to do with the words, but with the prophet. You're trying to make it seem logical by referring to 'just words not being revelation'.

Actually no, some of the words Muhammad spoke were quite inspiring and edifying but others were not. Where he makes errors I am not going to attribute his inspiration to God because that would be blasphemous and would dishonor God. Where he completely contradicts what God has said to previous generations then he does not reveal God in any way shape or form. Also the way he revealed stuff contradicted the normal way that prophets reveal Gods word in history. There were no miracles e.g. like those of Elijah or Elisha, no obvious fulfilments of events like John the Baptist talking about the coming Messiah and him turning up in his lifetime. The main problem with Muhammad is that he is a standalone prophet not anticipated by previous revelation and contradicting it in fact, he performs no acts of power to establish his credentials and he is called a prophet without making any actual prophecies of future events which again could be used to establish his credentials. Also his personal behavior was quite appalling on occasions

Why does the Qur'an keep saying Jesus was given the book if the book was the Bible? Actually if the entire revelation is not revelation to you, why would you insist it must be about the Bible?

What the Quran says about this is debated by Muslims. Some Muslims clearly think it was the bible being talked about despite the obvious problems that gives Islam. In practice Muhammad was trying to establish his credentials with Jewish tribesmen in Medina with many of his socalled revelations. They were familiar with the bible even if only orally and in a distorted form and to be recognized as a prophet he had to interact with their understandings. There is no other book of Moses and Jesus than the ones that were already established by that time. You claim it is not necessary to produce any evidence for your claims on this - no alternate text of this mythical Jesus book or Moses book but it would have been necessary in the time for the tribesman to understand what he was talking about. They would have assumed quite rightly he was talking about the bible as that was the only show in town

 

[Yytz6]

You were the one who affirmed that Sahih Bukhari is reliable, in post #30 of this thread. I produced evidence from Sahih Bukhari (as well as Sahih Muslim; I don't remember if you mentioned that collection, but I generally find that to be the other one that mainstream Sunni Muslims find reliable), and now that's not evidence. That's very convenient. It also seems very much like backpedaling.

I didn't affirm Sahih Bukhari is reliable. I said a Sahih hadith in it is unlikely to be rejected and I mentioned the problem of interpretation.

For instance a lot of non-Muslims and even some Muslims assume this hadith says that the word 'revealed' refers to something meant for the Qur'an when the word 'revealed' regarding Muhammad's (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) doesn't only refer to the Qur'an but all that comes from Allah.

And then there is the reliability of the narrators. That a hadith is Sahih doesn't mean all its narrators are reliable.

And then there are the contradicting hadiths (contradicting if the hadith is interpreted the way you would like to interpret it).

That may be what you believe as a Muslim, but since I'm not a Muslim and you're not on MuslimForums.com right now, that's not going to be accepted here in lieu of an actual argument. Everything you have claimed about the recitation of the Bible absolutely applies to the Qur'an, whether you want it to or not: it's just the recitation of a story, written by whoever wrote it, and not the word of God. The Qur'an is most emphatically not the word of God.

You can keep saying it, it doesn't make it true.

From Islam's extreme fastidiousness concerning the absolute preservation of its written text in comparison to Christianity's more fluid approach to its own (not officially fixing the NT canon until 367 AD at the earliest, different churches having differing canons depending on when and how they received the Gospel, etc.), which obviously places the priority on the use of the text in particular liturgical settings, rather than separated from them as in the case of Islamic hafiz.

That explains your view on Christianity but it doesn't explain what you said of Islam.

The two are not logically related. What would change of the message if no one ever recited it at all? I would agree if you said "It developed as an aid to memory at a time when not many people knew how to read or write, and still is to the extent that this may still be the case in some places", but you are instead treating recitation as though it preserves the message itself, which is why I asked before why that works for the Qur'an but not for the Bible or the Torah. You still haven't really answered that.

It would apply to the bible of course if the Bible was revelation in itself and of it had been recited since the revelation was sent.
Well, we return against to the Arabic language, largely. The verses of the Qur'an have multiple layers of meanings. Some of those meaning we are still waiting to discover as science evolves and time passes. If we had lost how the Qur'an was revealed we would not know all that we know today. (BTW, even if the Qur'an had been changed, let's say 1000 years, 500 years, even 200 years ago, it still contains information that couldn't have been known to any human being at the time.)

Again, the same is true with the Bible. I focused on the Psalms earlier because I feel that it is more common to find Christians in my Church who know them by heart since they make up such a large part of our daily prayer rule, but that is by no means to the exclusion of the Gospels. It takes very little effort to find them recited basically anywhere you look, since again that's the only way we read them in Eastern Christianity, and it is encouraged that everyone learn them. We even have your god's preferred language covered.

I've never met a Christian who knows anything of the bible by heart. The few Christians that I have met who actually pray occasionally don't recite the Bible while doing so - with the exception of the Lord's prayer which they never learned from the Bible. But it's good there are some who do i guess.

 

[Yytz6]

Why does the Quran tell Christians to judge by the Gospel if we don't have it?

Partly the Gospel is within the Bible. But it's not the Bible, nor is it the new testament.

 

[Yytz6]

The tests regarding whether he was a false prophet or not would have to include things like
1) Continuity with previous revelation - NONE

Don't lie. From your point of view you could at least say 'not sufficient' . But to say 'none' after not having bothered to study the Qur'an..... Well, that's just ignorant.

2) Witnessed acts of power confirming God was speaking through him and that he was not just making stuff up - NONE

I don't know what you're looking for, but if you study the Hadiths you can find many miracles similar to other prophets said regarding him. Still there is no escaping that the Qur'an is the greatest miracle of all times, as well as the greatest miracle of the prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) - what's more, the Qur'an doesn't have to be proven from the testimonies left by people over a thousand years ago. Its right here for anyone to read as it was for everyone willing to see for themselves.

3) Making predictions that came true - NONE of any value

Why did you add the 'of any value', are you already aware of some and have decided they aren't valuable enough for you? Again there are many, including in the Qur'an. For instance, the eventual victory of the Romans after their loss.

4) Basic level of honesty about truthes in circulation e.g. Christian understanding of Trinity was established by this point, but he still refers to it as father, Son and Mary!

That's just biased.

5) A level of righteous behavior that did not include sleeping with 9 year olds, having sex slaves, having his enemies bumped off and waging war at the drop of a hat to establish his message.

As far as I have learned he did none of those. 'bumping off' enemies is a bit vague though. There was war..

Actually no, some of the words Muhammad spoke were quite inspiring and edifying but others were not. Where he makes errors

When will you tell me about those errors? I asked before.

Also the way he revealed stuff contradicted the normal way that prophets reveal Gods word in history. There were no miracles e.g. like those of Elijah or Elisha, no obvious fulfilments of events like John the Baptist talking about the coming Messiah and him turning up in his lifetime. The main problem with Muhammad is that he is a standalone prophet not anticipated by previous revelation and contradicting it in fact, he performs no acts of power to establish his credentials and he is called a prophet without making any actual prophecies of future events which again could be used to establish his credentials.

2:118 "Those who have no knowledge say, “If only Allah would speak to us or a sign would come to us!” The same was said by those who came before. Their hearts are all alike. Indeed, We have made the signs clear for people of sure faith."

Also his personal behavior was quite appalling on occasions

Such as?

What the Quran says about this is debated by Muslims. Some Muslims clearly think it was the bible being talked about

Anyone significant? There are extremely ignorant Muslims who may say that, but no one with the least bit of knowledge about the topic would say that so it isn't 'debated by Muslims' unless you speak in an extremely vague way about any who call themselves Muslim on top of the earth.

There is no other book of Moses and Jesus than the ones that were already established by that time. You claim it is not necessary to produce any evidence for your claims on this - no alternate text of this mythical Jesus book or Moses book but it would have been necessary in the time for the tribesman to understand what he was talking about. They would have assumed quite rightly he was talking about the bible as that was the only show in town

So was Jesus given the new testament? Was Moses given the Torah when he met God? No. Still you're arguing that the Qur'an refers to the bible but the verses speaking about the Bible are incorrect. What's the point of the argument? Nothing in the Qur'an nor in the revelation received by Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) gives the slightest hint to that direction. It's wishful thinking that could be cured if you studied a little.

 

[dzheremi]

I didn't affirm Sahih Bukhari is reliable. I said a Sahih hadith in it is unlikely to be rejected and I mentioned the problem of interpretation.

I asked who is reliable, and you said that it is "unlikely to be rejected if it is Sahih". I don't think it's too much of a stretch to assume that Bukhari is mostly if not totally sahih, given that this is how it is commonly known (it's not known as Hasan Bukhari or Daif Bukhari). Tell me: if you had asked me "What are some reliable sources on early Christianity outside of the Bible?" and I answered "the majority of Christian traditions would not reject the seven epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch", would you infer from that that these are reliable, even if I didn't say "the epistles of St. Ignatius are reliable" in exactly those words? After all, you asked about Christianity in general, not exceptions to the majority view. The fact that they could still be rejected doesn't really mean anything if most people wouldn't do so. Anyone could reject anything.

I know you didn't actually ask anyone that, but hopefully the parallel is clear enough.

For instance a lot of non-Muslims and even some Muslims assume this hadith says that the word 'revealed' refers to something meant for the Qur'an when the word 'revealed' regarding Muhammad's (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) doesn't only refer to the Qur'an but all that comes from Allah.

What about the rest of the hadith beyond that one verb? I don't see how your explanation makes sense unless it was the custom of the early Muslim community to recite these "other things" that come from Allah that aren't the Qur'an, and record their evolution and so on in the hadith.

And then there is the reliability of the narrators. That a hadith is Sahih doesn't mean all its narrators are reliable.

Isn't it supposed to mean that, at least? As I wrote before, I don't understand the point of having any of these sources if they can just disclaimed as is convenient.

And then there are the contradicting hadiths (contradicting if the hadith is interpreted the way you would like to interpret it).

Excuse me, the way that I want to interpret it? I don't want to interpret it at all. You deal with the contradictions of your own religion. Even if every hadith was found without contradiction relative to another, I still wouldn't accept any of them because I don't accept Islam. "Not contradicting" does not mean "true".

You can keep saying it, it doesn't make it true.

Yes, that was the point I was making to you.

That explains your view on Christianity but it doesn't explain what you said of Islam.

I'm not sure how to put it any more clearly than I already have. Islam places a priority on the supposed miraculous preservation of its text, while Christianity places a priority on the actual usage (liturgically, and paraliturgically as in vigils, morning and evening prayer, etc.) and understanding of its text within particular local communities (hence the Pauline epistles are usually addressed "To the Church at ____" [location]). It wasn't until much, much later with the rise of certain forms of Protestantism which were necessarily disconnected from the idea of the liturgical life of a community (because they were against liturgy itself, preferring instead "four bare walls as a sermon", as the saying goes) that some Christians began to exhibit a quasi-Islamic fixation on the Biblical text as a thing in itself.

It would apply to the bible of course if the Bible was revelation in itself and of it had been recited since the revelation was sent.

This is simply trying to force your Islamic epistemology on another's religion and then declaring victory when it doesn't work, instead of recognizing it as the utter failure that it really is. For one thing, whether or not anyone takes the Bible or any part of it to be revelation doesn't require that it be a dictation, as in the case of the Islamic view of the Qur'an. So for the Christian, there is no problem in saying that it is both a revelation and written according to the traditional authorship.

Also, earlier you did not make this qualification that it would need to be seen by any particular people (Muslims, Christians, Jews, etc.) as a revelation in itself, but merely stated that the recitation of the Qur'an ensured that it couldn't be changed without people noticing. Would this not then also apply to any book, regardless of its status in any particular religion? There are, after all, manners of reciting the religious texts of people who are not "People of the Book" like Hindus and Buddhists. What good does it do them? It's not as though if the Bhagavad Gita was preserved since whatever century thanks to the care of its chanters you would automatically leave Islam and become a Hindu.

So it seems as though you are shifting the goalposts here in a fairly obvious way. This is incredibly poor arguing for someone whose religion is apparently so self-evidently from God.

Well, we return against to the Arabic language, largely. The verses of the Qur'an have multiple layers of meanings. Some of those meaning we are still waiting to discover as science evolves and time passes. If we had lost how the Qur'an was revealed we would not know all that we know today. (BTW, even if the Qur'an had been changed, let's say 1000 years, 500 years, even 200 years ago, it still contains information that couldn't have been known to any human being at the time.)

You're arguing like a Mormon. This is just ridiculous. If the Qur'an were changed 1,000 or 500 or however many years ago, its central claim for itself and hence the entire religion that is built around it would be entirely null and void. Are we supposed to forget that because you claim that it has "information that couldn't have been known to any human being at the time"? (A claim which is highly debatable, to put it extremely politely.)

I've never met a Christian who knows anything of the bible by heart. The few Christians that I have met who actually pray occasionally don't recite the Bible while doing so - with the exception of the Lord's prayer which they never learned from the Bible. But it's good there are some who do i guess.

I'm sorry, is this thread now about the Christians you've met, as though that says anything about the millions of other Christians around the world? When I used to live in the U.S. state of Oregon, the second-largest foreign born population in my city was, at that time, Saudi Arabians (the town had a university in it, and they would come there for school). Most of them who I met were living very un-Islamic lifestyles, like going out and getting drunk at the local bars to the point where the bouncers would have to throw them out (I had a friend who was a cab driver who told me about that; he said he got multiple calls every weekend from the bartenders to pick these guys up), hitting on women and having pre-marital sex with them, swearing including swears that disparaged the names of people who in Islam are supposed to be prophets (my friend Meedo tried to teach me a cursing phrase in Arabic that involved Jesus; no thank you, Meedo), and generally being very obnoxious people.

I guess all their bad examples means Islam does not have any standards, right? That's essentially how you are arguing, and if you feel it unfair when applied to your religion (as you should, because it's a ridiculous insinuation), then maybe you shouldn't be attempting to substitute your personal experience in France (not exactly the most religiously observant country on the planet) or wherever for the actual standards of Christianity, as variable as those may be depending on which particular tradition you're looking at.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

Partly the Gospel is within the Bible. But it's not the Bible, nor is it the new testament.

Is it not rather counter intuitive for Allah to reccomend Christian's follow their Gospel instead of abandon it entirely? Few come to Islam through reading the bible after all.

 

[Yytz6]

Is it not rather counter intuitive for Allah to reccomend Christian's follow their Gospel instead of abandon it entirely? Few come to Islam through reading the bible after all.

That's because the Bible is not revelation and the little of the original Gospel it has has been corrupted. So no, because He says Gospel, not the Bible. Anyone who followed/follows the Gospel would have/will recognize Islam as the true religion.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

That's because the Bible is not revelation and the little of the original Gospel it has has been corrupted. So no, because He says Gospel, not the Bible. Anyone who followed/follows the Gospel would have/will recognize Islam as the true religion.

The problem is that the Quran doesn't make the sorts of qualifications you do. Any Christian hearing that has something entirely different in mind and I'm left with the conclusion the author of the Quran was unaware of what Christian's thought the Gospel to be either on the four books or the Idea of the Gospel itself.

The Quran would have been better of saying to abandon the corrupted Gospel, but instead it tell Christian's to judge by it.

 

[dzheremi]

That'd be editing the word of 'Allah'. Who are you to do that -- the Caliph Uthman?

 

[Hazelelponi]

The problem is that the Quran doesn't make the sorts of qualifications you do. Any Christian hearing that has something entirely different in mind and I'm left with the conclusion the author of the Quran was unaware of what Christian's thought the Gospel to be either on the four books or the Idea of the Gospel itself.

The Quran would have been better of saying to abandon the corrupted Gospel, but instead it tell Christian's to judge by it.

Gospel is derived from the Anglo- Saxon godspell which means good story. We get that from the greek word euangelion which means "Good News".

Good News translates to Arabic as al-bishara and the Aramaic Bible correctly has it as ha-Bishara.

The Good news is the Messiah has come which spells the change from the old covenant to the new, which was prophesied in the old testament books of the prophets - so, good news indeed.

Injeel is not an Arabic word, it is not a translation of the meaning of the Greek, but rather a transliteration.

This means the Quran is telling you, very overtly, that the Greek Gospel accounts we have, are in fact the injeel.. because if a "book" or revelation from God was given specifically to Jesus for Jews it would have been in the language of the Jews in Jesus's time, which was Aramaic. But that isn't the case according to the Qur'an, which is telling you that the Greek Gospel accounts are in fact the "injeel" Mohammed spoke of - or he would have understood the meaning of good news and not just transliterated a word as if it were a book and not an event.

If "Gospel" is a book and not an event as the Qur'an says, then it is a book describing the event and since the event was the life, death, and ressurection of Christ, it doesn't need written by Christ, quite the opposite it would need confirmed by witnesses or it wouldn't hold as truth.

 

[Yytz6]

Tell me: if you had asked me "What are some reliable sources on early Christianity outside of the Bible?" and I answered "the majority of Christian traditions would not reject the seven epistles of

An issue in comparison. You are right. It was a mistake of me to form it as I did saying if they are Sahih. It was mistake, but.. Yes, if a hadith is Sahih by general concensus then it is unlikely to be rejected. But that doesn't mean it can't be rejected. Statistically if you were to show one hadith from there to a Sunni Muslim they are unlikely to reject it. That is all.

What about the rest of the hadith beyond that one verb? I don't see how your explanation makes sense unless it was the custom of the early Muslim community to recite these "other things" that come from Allah that aren't the Qur'an, and record their evolution and so on in the hadith.

They did recite and memorize hadith. It was even asked from the prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) if they could write down that regarding stoning
but Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) 'disliked' it.

Isn't it supposed to mean that, at least?

It only means it fills some requirements regarding the narration chain. It doesn't mean all the people in the chain are correct and haven't forgotten a single detail or misunderstood anything.

Excuse me, the way that I want to interpret it?

If you read an interpretation that supports your agenda and spread it around as if it was the only correct one without bothering to verify, then yes, your interpretation.

Islam places a priority on the supposed miraculous preservation of its text,

Instead of? It sounds like you think Islam puts this before something else. Why? Does that something is important mean everything else is automatically less important? Doesn't make sense.

, but merely stated that the recitation of the Qur'an ensured that it couldn't be changed without people noticing. Would this not then also apply to any book, regardless of its status in any particular religion? There are, after all, manners of reciting the religious texts of people who are not "People of the Book" like Hindus and Buddhists. What good does it do them? It's not as though if the Bhagavad Gita was preserved since whatever century thanks to the care of its chanters you would automatically leave Islam and become a Hindu.

Because its not revelation. For the record I never said it is the only way the Qur'an is or can be known to be preserved. It was one thing.

If the Qur'an were changed 1,000 or 500 or however many years ago, its central claim for itself and hence the entire religion that is built around it would be entirely null and void.

Makes no sense.

Are we supposed to forget that because you claim that it has "information that couldn't have been known to any human being at the time"? (A claim which is highly debatable, to put it extremely politely.)

Forget what, Idk, but go ahead debate it.

I'm sorry, is this thread now about the Christians you've met,

You've spent significant time with your church in this topic, why not? And yeah I think it's significant, but it wasnt an argument, just wonder how prevalent it is.

 

[Yytz6]

The problem is that the Quran doesn't make the sorts of qualifications you do.

What qualifications exactly are you referring to? Just about everything I have so far tried to reason with you is from the Quran. But these people seem to think that not only is the Qur'an corrupted it 'means' something other than it says.
You would think its enough to be corrupted once but you have to have the Quran make multiple rounds to twist it into your logic.

Any Christian hearing that has something entirely different in mind

The Qur'an is a book of Muslims (so to speak). Not only does it not matter what Christians think, I'm sure when God sends revelations on earth He doesn't stop to wonder, 'but what do the people think - what do those people over there think?', before he actually makes the revelation.

The Quran would have been better of saying to abandon the corrupted Gospel, but instead it tell Christian's to judge by it.

If He had the Christians would certainly have done more according to His word...

 

[dzheremi]

An issue in comparison. You are right. It was a mistake of me to form it as I did saying if they are Sahih. It was mistake, but.. Yes, if a hadith is Sahih by general concensus then it is unlikely to be rejected. But that doesn't mean it can't be rejected. Statistically if you were to show one hadith from there to a Sunni Muslim they are unlikely to reject it. That is all.

My point is that you cannot say "This is a standard reference text for 80% (or whatever percent of the Muslim world is Sunni; I think it something like that) of the religion, but since some may reject it, we can't say that it is reliable." That makes no sense. If it is reliable for the majority, then it ought to be stated as so outright, unless you are somehow ashamed of these sources and want to dispute them as you see fit. Again, what is the point of even having these sources if you cannot stand behind them even though some people may reject them? To continue the analogy, I would stand behind the epistles of our father HH St. Ignatius of Antioch before anyone who had any criticism of them, as a part of my defense of my religion. And they're not a part of the the Holy Bible, of course, but they are held in such high regard as a witness to the apostolic nature of Christian doctrine (e.g., St. Ignatius refers to Jesus as our God in one of them), so it is in a sense my duty to defend them just as I would the Gospel(s).

They did recite and memorize hadith. It was even asked from the prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) if they could write down that regarding stoning
but Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) 'disliked' it.

Yes, but they are clearly not treated the same as the Qur'an is, right? You gave an example right here of Muhammad nixing something because he 'disliked' it, to which one has to wonder why Muhammad has any right to edit what is received from God, as the verse of stoning is argued to be in those sources themselves -- such as when 'Umar says that the people were afraid that they would not find the verse of stoning in the Holy Book (see here for the narration in Bukhari, from Ibn 'Abbas). You can even see at the link before that in ibn 'Abbas statement where he affirms that the verse of stoning was among what Allah revealed to Muhammad. So now Muhammad has the right to say "Okay, Allah revealed this to me, but I don't like it, so we're not going to preserve it"? (Even though the same hadith says he carried it out himself.)

If Muhammad can cavalierly disregard what Allah has revealed to him and the excuse is "Well, that's not meant for the Qur'an; it's among Allah's other revelations to Muhammad", then what does that say about the correctness of the message of the Qur'an, especially since it was not compiled into what you have now until after Muhammad? Did Allah also ensure that 'Uthman would preserve the correct verses? How does anyone know that 'Uthman or some other early ruler didn't 'pull a Muhammad' and discreetly only include those things they personally agreed with? It seems like this admission makes Muhammad less of a messenger, and more of an editor. Muhammad is Allah's Standards and Practices man. How impressive. Very reverent and so monotheistic. There is no god but God and Muhammad is his copy-editor?

It only means it fills some requirements regarding the narration chain. It doesn't mean all the people in the chain are correct and haven't forgotten a single detail or misunderstood anything.

If it fulfills the requirements then why would it matter if the people haven't remembered every single detail? That's not anything I suggested, and anyway, isn't that the point of having those requirements in the first place?

If you read an interpretation that supports your agenda and spread it around as if it was the only correct one without bothering to verify, then yes, your interpretation.

Where have a "spread it around" outside of this conversation? It's not like I quote hadiths in my everyday life for fun or something.

Instead of? It sounds like you think Islam puts this before something else. Why? Does that something is important mean everything else is automatically less important? Doesn't make sense.

Okay, to clarify what I mean let's a try a thought experiment: Could your religion exist without the Qur'an? If there was never any Qur'an, would there be the religion of Islam? I think the answer is very obviously no, as Islam's very life revolves around the Qur'an, hence it is obviously very important to preserve it, and standardize it and all this.

This is again in contrast to Christianity, where since there is this distinction between the Gospel as a message and the Gospels as written accounts by those who spread that message, we can say that Christianity would definitely still exist without the New Testament. It would be very different, but given that the apostles and disciples were all around and active for decades before the writing of the first Gospel, when they were actually living with Christ Himself, there's nothing that says it could not have continued in this way with only the various accounts circulating in a non-canonized environment, as it was before the fourth century when our father HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic set the earliest known example of the standard 27-book NT canon in his 39th festal letter of 367 AD.

Please don't get me wrong: Christianity loves and adores and reveres the Holy Scriptures, Old and New...we in Eastern/'Oriental' Christianity kiss it and venerate it publicly, and hold it in the highest regard in which a written text can be held, as is right to do. But we recognize it is also a product of the Church, written in time by the Church and for the Church and those who would come in to it.

Because in our religion, the Word became flesh, not text. The Biblical text testifies to this reality (the Incarnation), and to many other mysteries, wonders, and miracles of God, but if the text were not there for some reason, we would still preach the same mysteries, wonders, and miracles, just as we did before the canonization of the Bible as we know it. The Gospel (singular) is only written to the extent that it could be and actually was (cf. John 21:25). This is why it was never traditionally a problem that different churches had different canons (it became one later on in Western Christianity in particular, with the rise of Protestantism which messed with the established Western canon, but it is still not a problem to this day outside of the Western world).

We simply do not look at the relation of the religion and the scriptures as Islam does. A rough analogue to the Islamic view would only come much later with certain very radical Protestants, due to their disregard of the traditional liturgical (and monastic, I should say) use of the scriptures in favor of an individualized approach to the scriptures (which is not even a mindset or goal shared by all Protestants; you can't really generalize across such a large group, just as with Muslims or any other worldwide religion's adherents).

The strange thing is that Islam is simply begging the question by defining corruption essentially as not sharing the Islamic view on how scripture is to relate to the practice of religion. For example, I cannot tell you how many times I have had to correct Muslims online who went on rants about "the original language of the Bible", as though Christianity has ever had or would ever have a preoccupation for keeping everything in one language (which it already was, thanks to the LXX); as early as c. AD 150-200, we begin to see the first translations of the scriptures into Coptic, for instance, and the famous Syriac translation of the scriptures known as the Pešitta was done in the second century AD as well.

Because its not revelation. For the record I never said it is the only way the Qur'an is or can be known to be preserved. It was one thing.

And I never said you said it was the only way, but you did say that it was the way.

You've spent significant time with your church in this topic, why not? And yeah I think it's significant, but it wasnt an argument, just wonder how prevalent it is.

Well, there are the 8-12 million Copts in my particular Church, the ~45 million in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church, 3 million in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church, the 9 million Armenian Apostolic Christians, and about 3 million Orthodox Syriacs, and 2.5 million Malankara Orthodox Syrians in India. That's about 70 million people in my communion alone (and that's using the low numbers: 8 for the Copts, 45 for the Ethiopians, etc.) which is dwarfed by the much larger Chalcedonian Churches (the Eastern Orthodox communion of 260 million people, and the Roman Catholic communion of 1.3 billion). These are the three top traditional communions, not to exclude the also traditional/High Church Protestants but by their inability to be as cohesive as these in their standards of belief and practice (there are some very conservative Anglicans out there, and then there are...many who are not).

Basically we are looking at a reality where if the largest of the world's communions, that of the Roman Catholics, got their act together with regard to going back to what it used to do but no longer does (and got rid of what it does instead), no one of any religion could ever make the argument "I don't know any Christians who take their religion seriously, therefore examples of Christians taking their religion seriously don't have to acknowledged as anything more than strange anomalies", which is essentially the argument that you and many other Muslims (and other non-Christians) make.

And since I am of course not a Roman Catholic, it is not my place to tell them what to do, but instead to pray that they find it themselves, for their own good, out of their own love of the Orthodox faith. I will not hold my breath and wait, but I hope it happens.

But this denial of anything about Christianity because you personally don't know any serious Christians is just hogwash. Pure nonsense. Tell that to the 70 million people of my Church who remain of the countless more who were murdered specifically for being Christians and being non-compliant with inherently terrible and godless Islamic rule, who were murdered at the hands of the Arabs, the Turks, and so on. (The Iranians, it should be said, deserve special mention for doing things like accepting the Armenians from what is now Azerbaijan when they were fleeing violence from the local Turkic Muslims, and even helping to build the church in New Julfa, where they were set up. This was the first and only time that I know of where a Muslim ruler, in contravention of the laws concerning the building of churches that had long been established in lands ruled by Islam, actively helped construct a Christian church. It is still quite hard to be a Christian in Iran, from what I understand, because a lot of the new churches there are made up of converts from Islam, but the traditionally Christian ethnic minorities -- the Armenians and the Assyrians of various kinds -- are at least represented in Iran's parliamentary system, and the celebration of major Christian holidays for those families is not impeded. I would love to visit Iran one day if it ever got a proper government that would not require a minder to monitor me, as an outside visitor.)

Anyway, short version: You don't seem to have any real objections, but instead dismissing everything because Christianity is not like Islam. And we thank the One God -- الاب والابن والروح القدوس -- for that, because as your book rightly says, truth stands clear from error.

Islam is grievous, soul-destroying, God-denying error. It is practically atheism, but this was not possible in Muhammad's time, so he wrapped it up in the name of Allah to sell it to his pagan society, also hoping that he would ensnare the Christian and Jewish tribes in the process. And it worked because people were ignorant, but sadly Islam itself has kept people ignorant ever since. Lord have mercy.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

What qualifications exactly are you referring to? Just about everything I have so far tried to reason with you is from the Quran. But these people seem to think that not only is the Qur'an corrupted it 'means' something other than it says.
You would think its enough to be corrupted once but you have to have the Quran make multiple rounds to twist it into your logic.
The Qur'an is a book of Muslims (so to speak). Not only does it not matter what Christians think, I'm sure when God sends revelations on earth He doesn't stop to wonder, 'but what do the people think - what do those people over there think?', before he actually makes the revelation.
If He had the Christians would certainly have done more according to His word...

Just so we're clear, here's the part of the Quran I am referring to.

And We sent, following in their footsteps, Jesus, the son of Mary, confirming that which came before him in the Torah; and We gave him the Gospel, in which was guidance and light and confirming that which preceded it of the Torah as guidance and instruction for the righteous.
And let the People of the Gospel judge by what Allah has revealed therein. And whoever does not judge by what Allah has revealed – then it is those who are the defiantly disobedient.
Quran 5:46-47

Context seems pretty clear. There is thing called the Gospel. The people of the book have access to this Gospel and are to judge by it. Every solution to this text has a problem in my opinion. If the intent of Allah was to make clear the corrupted nature of our Gospel, he should have stated this plainly. Instead he tells us to judge by a corrupted text or a corrupted message?

I have heard Muslims argue that the Quran is referring itself when it says judge therein. In principle this is true and the quran obviously wants people to judge by it. The immediate context about the revelation of Jesus, the Gospel and the people of the Gospel makes it clear that the Quranic author thinks the Gospel is something worthy to be judged by. Problem for the Islamic author is that any Gospel existing at the time of his writing this was so far removed from Islam as to be a totally different religion.

I'm not sure what your last sentence means. We would have done more according to Allah's word if Allah told us to abandon our Gospel instead of judge therein? Can you elaborate for me?

 

[mindlight]

Don't lie. From your point of view you could at least say 'not sufficient' . But to say 'none' after not having bothered to study the Qur'an..... Well, that's just ignorant.

It does not have a continuity with previous revelation. It distorts the stories it quotes or even uses heretical sources like Gospel of Thomas for its examples. The basic things it does get right are hardly unique to Islam like God is Creator, Judge and Almighty Sovereign Lord. I have probably read the Quran more times than you have read the bible.

I don't know what you're looking for, but if you study the Hadiths you can find many miracles similar to other prophets said regarding him. Still there is no escaping that the Qur'an is the greatest miracle of all times, as well as the greatest miracle of the prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu alaihi wa sallam) - what's more, the Qur'an doesn't have to be proven from the testimonies left by people over a thousand years ago. Its right here for anyone to read as it was for everyone willing to see for themselves.

The bible is more beautiful, truer, wiser, more real to actual history, more helpful for salvation and for actually getting to know God, has a greater cross cultural appeal, demonstrates and explains itself better.....

But no Muhammad was not a miracle worker. By contrast with Jesus even his enemies were accusing him of magic, no-one would accuse Muhammad of that, there was an absence of supernatural power in his life.

Why did you add the 'of any value', are you already aware of some and have decided they aren't valuable enough for you? Again there are many, including in the Qur'an. For instance, the eventual victory of the Romans after their loss.

The Roman one was interesting but we have no way of dating it. The Romans won some important victories in the early 620s and if that sura dates from then then Muhammad was just responding to events. If I had been around at the time and had heard news of Heraclius defeating the Persians I might have drawn the same conclusion but I would not have called myself a prophet on that basis

That's just biased. As far as I have learned he did none of those. 'bumping off' enemies is a bit vague though. There was war..

So Aisha was not 6 when she married and 9 when she consummated her marriage with Muhammad.

The murder of Ka`b bin al-Ashraf would be an example in Medina or bumping off his enemies
Ka`b bin al-Ashraf

The slaughter and enslavement of the Banu Qurayza apparently celebrated in the Quran would be another example (Sura 33:25-27)

When will you tell me about those errors? I asked before.

I have already mentioned the view that the Quran says Jesus did not die on the cross, its misunderstanding of the Trinity and the Sonship of Christ. But here is a list for you to work through:

1) "Now let man but think from what he is created! He is created from a drop emitted - Proceeding from between the backbone and the ribs: Surely (Allah) is able to bring him back (to life)!" Qur'an 86:5-8:

But sperm does not come from between the backbone and the ribs.

2) Flat Earth: "And Allah has made the earth for you as a carpet (spread out)," Sura 71:19

3) Solid Sky: See they not what is before them and behind them, of the sky and the earth? If We wished, We could cause the earth to swallow them up, or cause a piece of the sky to fall upon them. Verily in this is a Sign for every devotee that turns to Allah (in repentance). Sura 34:6-12 Sky must be solid if pieces of it can fall like that.

4) View that Alexander the Great was a righteous man - in fact he was a licentious idolator

 

[Yytz6]

We would have done more according to Allah's word if Allah told us to abandon our Gospel instead of judge therein? Can you elaborate for me?

You did abandon the Gospel.

 

[Yytz6]

My point is that you cannot say "This is a standard reference text for 80% (or whatever percent of the Muslim world is Sunni; I think it something like that) of the religion, but since some may reject it, we can't say that it is reliable." That makes no sense. If it is reliable for the majority, then it ought to be stated as so outright, unless you are somehow ashamed of these sources and want to dispute them as you see fit. Again, what is the point of even having these sources if you cannot stand behind them even though some people may reject them?

I may reject them. It is insensible to defend something you don't know. There's a whole ocean of hadiths. For every single one you have to see the grading, who gave it, the narrators and their reliability and according to whom, the related hadith, the context in history, related verses in the Qur'an, interpretation of the hadith, different versions of the same hadith....

To continue the analogy, I would stand behind the epistles of our father HH St. Ignatius of Antioch before anyone who had any criticism of them, as a part of my defense of my religion. And they're not a part of the the Holy Bible, of course, but they are held in such high regard as a witness to the apostolic nature of Christian doctrine (e.g., St. Ignatius refers to Jesus as our God in one of them), so it is in a sense my duty to defend them just as I would the Gospel(s).

That's your problem. I'm not a fool.

Yes, but they are clearly not treated the same as the Qur'an is, right?

No, they are not.

You gave an example right here of Muhammad nixing something because he 'disliked' it,

Exclude from the Qur'an.

to which one has to wonder why Muhammad has any right to edit what is received from God

You're being hypocritical. In this hypothesis (what you're saying right now about him receiving revelation and not having the right to say whether it belongs in the Qur'an or not) you're recognizig him as a prophet and yet pretending he doesn't know what he's doing. What do you think, he was a half prophet here? Receiving revelation and not knowing what to do with it? Whatever he said regarding the Qur'an and the law was from Allah. So this also was from Allah.

 

[Ignatius the Kiwi]

You did abandon the Gospel.

Given that the Quran tells us to judge by the Gospel I would dare say your opinion about the Church abandoning the Gospel is mistaken.

I would also note that the Quran promised the followers of Jesus that they would be victorious over those who disbelieved him till the day of resurrection. The only candidate that fits this verse (3:55) is the historic Church.

So what you seem to be saying, about the Church abandoning the Gospel, appears to be against not only 5:46-47 but also 3:55.

This further leads me to conclude that the Quranic author had no accurate knowledge of the Christian world. Only a surface level understanding.