Islamic Basics, part 1: Is the Quran perfect, timeless, and clear?

[Firemorphic]

Ok, let's take baby steps (until you will pick up the pace)

The book is EXTREMELY repetitive as anyone who has read the book will tell you.

Start with the revelation of the Qur'an itself, is it's immediate nature that of a book (kitab) in and of itself?
Were all 114 Surahs revealed to be read as one, non-stop text?

If you answered "no" then you are starting to get somewhere.

When you say E X T R E M E L Y repetitive, you are therefore meaning that these Surahs have themes and parallels running through them? no?

Such repetition WILL aid in transferring the messages into the reader's long term memory.

So will someone shouting "Islam is ISIS, Islam is ISIS, Islam is ISIS" every week at you. If someone is intelligent, they may ask skeptically "what is the truth to this? if there is any". Then they will likely try to historically track down the roots of ISIS and find out what the roots of their ideology is, were it emerged and why....instead of just immediately assuming they came from the Qur'an.

There's your homework.

 

[icehorse]

They believe its advice will always be true. That doesn't necessarily mean interpretations of its advice must remain fixed and unchanging, which seems to be how you want to interpret the claim.

Let's say this is true. That provides a total "get out of jail free" card. That means that on the one hand any criticism of Islam is "Islamophobic" and on the other hand, Muslims can make up any interpretation they want to and label it "Islam".

Timeless relates to the text, but not necessarily interpretations of the text.
Perfect relates to the text, but not necessarily human understanding of the text.
Unalterable relates to the text, but not necessarily interpretations of the text.

That's more of the same. If true, then Muslims can make any claim they want to and none of it is falsifiable. Nice work if you can get it. jeez.

 

[Augustus]

Let's say this is true. That provides a total "get out of jail free" card. That means that on the one hand any criticism of Islam is "Islamophobic" and on the other hand, Muslims can make up any interpretation they want to and label it "Islam".



That's more of the same. If true, then Muslims can make any claim they want to and none of it is falsifiable. Nice work if you can get it. jeez.

Don't really see how that follows.

But if something you admittedly don't want to make much effort to understand doesn't at all times conform to you expectations of what you want it to be, that's probably on you.

 

[icehorse]

Don't really see how that follows.

But if something you admittedly don't want to make much effort to understand doesn't at all times conform to you expectations of what you want it to be, that's probably on you.

Isn't one implication of your argument that any given Muslim can make any interpretation they want to, and brand it "Islam"?

As for as "what I want it to be", I wouldn't care about this stuff except that the religious frequently ask for special considerations. This isn't about "what I want", it's about secularism (which, btw, is the best system yet to protect EVERYONE's religious freedoms).

 

[spirit_of_dawn]

Islamic scripture's definition of "defense" is not a common definition. For example, if Islamic conquerors take land by force, and their defeated enemies do not submit to Islam, then those defeated enemies are said to be "attacking" Islam, and so Muslims are allowed to "defend" themselves. This is bad faith word play.

Did you just create this definition?! Because I have never heard of such a definition in my all years as a Shia Muslim.

As for how Shia interpret calls for a caliphate, it's good to know that Shia interpretations are different than Sunni interpretations. But from an outsider's perspective, we have to worry about what Sunnis believe and how they act. As I understand it, ISIS declares themselves to be Sunnis. So clearly it's important in the world to understand the correlation between what they believe and how they behave.

We've been victims of Sunni terrorism ever since the death of the Prophet. However, I'd appreciate if people don't generalize the beliefs and actions of one sect of Islam to the other sects or Islam as a whole.

 

[icehorse]

Did you just create this definition?! Because I have never heard of such a definition in my all years as a Shia Muslim.

Maybe you can help me with some early Islamic history. Was it mostly Sunnis who conquered north Africa and Spain and the eastern Mediterranean in the early days of Islam?

We've been victims of Sunni terrorism ever since the death of the Prophet. However, I'd appreciate if people don't generalize the beliefs and actions of one sect of Islam to the other sects or Islam as a whole.

I think this is a fair point. I think it would help everyone if conversations concerning Islam were always prefaced with the name of the sect.

 

[spirit_of_dawn]

Maybe you can help me with some early Islamic history. Was it mostly Sunnis who conquered north Africa and Spain and the eastern Mediterranean in the early days of Islam?

Not, "Mostly". All those conquests were planned and executed by Sunnis.

For the first few hundred years of Islam, there was never a Shia government and Shias were extremely oppressed and killed in many places by the Sunnis and were forced to dissimulate their beliefs. Even when there were Shia governments, they were not caliphates, because we believe the only people that can be caliphs (or successors to the prophet) are the 12 infallible Imams. A Shia government can not function in the name of an Islamic caliphate because they do not have that authority. Their actions are their's alone even if they claim they are in accordance with Islam.

 

[icehorse]

@spirit_of_dawn thanks for that info!

 

[Augustus]

Isn't one implication of your argument that any given Muslim can make any interpretation they want to, and brand it "Islam"?

Not really an issue.

Was it mostly Sunnis who conquered north Africa and Spain and the eastern Mediterranean in the early days of Islam?

It's anachronistic to think in those terms. Sunnis didn't really exist until the 9th C.

 

[icehorse]

Not really an issue.

As we've discussed in this thread, it IS an issue. Groups like ISIS and Boko Haram are examples of why.