Science channel's "Biblical Mysteries Explained"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that we've gone off topic, I have a question for Muslim poster, who wrote:

She had no idea about sura Ash Shurra and the verse that addressed men AND women on how to resolve (political) matters that required collective opinions. She could not read Arabic so she had no idea the language used in that verse was plural, addressing women too.

I don't see how the plural used shows definitively that both men and women were being addressed. In Arabic, the same plural is used when it is men only being addressed or men and women being addressed. I don't know what grounds one would use to say one or other was meant. All that we know is that women only were not being addressed as that is a different plural.

So it's like French and Spanish, if only in the sense that you use the masculine plural for a group that could either consist of both men and women, or just more than one men.

But 42:38 does not refer only to men and we know that because 42:38 is not a standalone verse. It must be read with the verses above it and the verses below it. Allah is communicating with everyone because in the verses above it He begins by addressing all believers. All believers means all Muslims or all who submit their will to God, not just men who are believers.

Okay, so you dragged me back to the Arabic here. I skimmed the sura pretty quickly, but I did not see a reference to "believers" and would not have considered it definitive if I had as it would have to use the masculine plural unless it was directed just at women (not your contention).

I did, however, find a definite clue that this sura is directed at both men and women in verse 42:11. In this verse it says that God has made mates for you. The word for mates uses the masculine plural. If it was directed solely to men it would have used the feminine plural. Use of the masculine plural shows the verse, and by extension the sura, is directed at both men and women.

Going back to 42:38, this is one of several verses that enunciate good behavior like avoiding major sins. It does not set forth requirements--it is more like a list of best practices of the faithful. One of these is having "their affair(s) [determined by] consultation". Consultation among members of a tribe is an ancient practice pre-dating islam, that has continued on in tribes today. As practiced today it almost always excludes women, although they can have indirect influence. I am not sure what the practice was at the time as some women were clearly successful business women and some went into war. I also am not sure--without a lot more work--what "affair" connoted at the time.

I would not equate tribal consultation, or consultation among the early Islamic community, as an electoral process. Rather it is a consensus process. I would consider it a pretty democratic process--people get their say, but the most influential have the sway, perhaps inspired by views of others. Tribal leaders are determined by consensus views of who is best to lead (even today) and this process was followed for successors of Muhammed. The process, however, did lead some to feel quite bitter about the choices and eventually led to the Shia split.

[Anonymous]

One of the reasons I believe in Christ is that he is mocked and made fun of. Satan likes the false paths to be respected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Okay, so you dragged me back to the Arabic here. I skimmed the sura pretty quickly, but I did not see a reference to "believers" and would not have considered it definitive if I had as it would have to use the masculine plural unless it was directed just at women (not your contention).

I did, however, find a definite clue that this sura is directed at both men and women in verse 42:11. In this verse it says that God has made mates for you. The word for mates uses the masculine plural. If it was directed solely to men it would have used the feminine plural. Use of the masculine plural shows the verse, and by extension the sura, is directed at both men and women.

Going back to 42:38, this is one of several verses that enunciate good behavior like avoiding major sins. It does not set forth requirements--it is more like a list of best practices of the faithful. One of these is having "their affair(s) [determined by] consultation". Consultation among members of a tribe is an ancient practice pre-dating islam, that has continued on in tribes today. As practiced today it almost always excludes women, although they can have indirect influence. I am not sure what the practice was at the time as some women were clearly successful business women and some went into war. I also am not sure--without a lot more work--what "affair" connoted at the time.

I would not equate tribal consultation, or consultation among the early Islamic community, as an electoral process. Rather it is a consensus process. I would consider it a pretty democratic process--people get their say, but the most influential have the sway, perhaps inspired by views of others. Tribal leaders are determined by consensus views of who is best to lead (even today) and this process was followed for successors of Muhammed. The process, however, did lead some to feel quite bitter about the choices and eventually led to the Shia split.

Different PP here (the one with the son who speaks French, Spanish and Arabic). Thanks so much for this. I'm curious why the feminine plural would be used in this case?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Okay, so you dragged me back to the Arabic here. I skimmed the sura pretty quickly, but I did not see a reference to "believers" and would not have considered it definitive if I had as it would have to use the masculine plural unless it was directed just at women (not your contention).

I did, however, find a definite clue that this sura is directed at both men and women in verse 42:11. In this verse it says that God has made mates for you. The word for mates uses the masculine plural. If it was directed solely to men it would have used the feminine plural. Use of the masculine plural shows the verse, and by extension the sura, is directed at both men and women.

Going back to 42:38, this is one of several verses that enunciate good behavior like avoiding major sins. It does not set forth requirements--it is more like a list of best practices of the faithful. One of these is having "their affair(s) [determined by] consultation". Consultation among members of a tribe is an ancient practice pre-dating islam, that has continued on in tribes today. As practiced today it almost always excludes women, although they can have indirect influence. I am not sure what the practice was at the time as some women were clearly successful business women and some went into war. I also am not sure--without a lot more work--what "affair" connoted at the time.

I would not equate tribal consultation, or consultation among the early Islamic community, as an electoral process. Rather it is a consensus process. I would consider it a pretty democratic process--people get their say, but the most influential have the sway, perhaps inspired by views of others. Tribal leaders are determined by consensus views of who is best to lead (even today) and this process was followed for successors of Muhammed. The process, however, did lead some to feel quite bitter about the choices and eventually led to the Shia split.

I thought about an aside on this one, but didn't do it. If God were just addressing men in this verse, he would have used the feminine plural for mates. This of course supposes one views only women as suitable mates for men! It is actually clear that this it about mates in the sense of people with whom one can have progeny as there are references a few verses later to having male and female children. Thus, we can safely rule out that the verse contemplates males mating with males on linguistic grounds without having to go down the garden path of the role of homosexuality in early Islam.

So God says I made mates (masculine plural) for you (masculine plural). If the "you" were meant just for men, mates would have to be feminine plural because men can produce children only with female mates. Arabic does not have any sense of a neuter and when speaking of people gender is always distinguished except when men and women collectively are involved in which case the masculine plural is used. Accordingly, there can be only one reason "mates" is masculine plural. It is because the masculine plural of you is used to refer to both men and women. Accordingly the masculine plural of mates is used to refer to male and female mates.

Hope I haven't made it more confusing!

Different PP here (the one with the son who speaks French, Spanish and Arabic). Thanks so much for this. I'm curious why the feminine plural would be used in this case?

[Anonymous]

Sorry--messed up the quoting on previous post--hope you can read.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For me, it just affirms my faith in Islam because Jesus' importance is undeniable but the Quran explicitly denounces his divinity.

Fair enough.

FWIW, the Trinity is a big meh to me and I suspect to many Christians. But, I look at the Quran's rules on women, non-Muslims, apostates, diet, and it reaffirms that I couldn't possibly be a Muslim.

I know you've tried to argue that it's a different sort of equality for women, but your arguments don't work for me when I think of women who need to work or live independently for so many different reasons, and who need equal legal rights and protections to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry--messed up the quoting on previous post--hope you can read.

Yes, thanks! Got it - the intended mates are both men and women.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, it just affirms my faith in Islam because Jesus' importance is undeniable but the Quran explicitly denounces his divinity.

Fair enough.

FWIW, the Trinity is a big meh to me and I suspect to many Christians. But, I look at the Quran's rules on women, non-Muslims, apostates, diet, and it reaffirms that I couldn't possibly be a Muslim.

I know you've tried to argue that it's a different sort of equality for women, but your arguments don't work for me when I think of women who need to work or live independently for so many different reasons, and who need equal legal rights and protections to do so.

+1. I would never choose a faith based on something like the Trinity. I would choose a faith based on whether it's relevant and makes sense to me today.

If God's word is supposed to be eternal, then the faith needs to make sense to me as a single working woman (whose father had died) and later as a married working mom.

[Anonymous]

This probably doesn't help, but I once heard a comparison of the trinity to the superego (Father), ego (Jesus), and id (Holy Spirit). Three persons in one God or three persons in one man.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here is the very first post I wrote about Islam on this thread:

10/24 10:45

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, it just affirms my faith in Islam because Jesus' importance is undeniable but the Quran explicitly denounces his divinity.

And here is the very first reply I received:
For me, the importance of Jesus has nothing to do with his divinity or non-divinity. It has to do with his message of non-violence and loving your enemies. I know Muslims are always trying to convert people by saying "Muslims believe in Jesus too, just not that he's divine." For me, however, it's all about the message. I've read the Koran and the Koranic message of retribution and eye-for-eye (which Jesus got rid of) is not a Jesus I could follow.

So it's pretty clear here that I wrote a benign, honest post about affirmation of my faith and the very first response I got was an accusation that Muslims are always trying to convert people by saying what I just did.

Nice.

Honest to God. Literally.

You've been told, it's been pointed out MULTIPLE times, that you got ONE comment in response to your Jesus post. It was your post at 00:16 that drove people nuts, with YET ANOTHER of your dishonest recaps about the women's equality issue.

Grow up. Stop pretending you don't know that you caused the problems.

I would suggest you sit down with a pencil and paper and jot down what precipitated the hate in this thread. My first honest, benign post prompted a reply with an insult. It was this insult that opened the door to a discussion of why I was insulted. Another poster chimed in to help the insulter by saying the anger stemmed from not acknowledging the islamophobe's advanced knowledge. I then posted WHY the islamophobe's knowledge was faulty using an example. I'm sorry if the example of "equality" infuriates you. For a Muslim woman to say there is inequality in Islam toward women also implies that there is inequity in Islam. She can not and would not say that because it is simply not true. Practicing Muslim women feel that Islam is an extremely just and equitable system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me, it just affirms my faith in Islam because Jesus' importance is undeniable but the Quran explicitly denounces his divinity.

Fair enough.

FWIW, the Trinity is a big meh to me and I suspect to many Christians. But, I look at the Quran's rules on women, non-Muslims, apostates, diet, and it reaffirms that I couldn't possibly be a Muslim.

I know you've tried to argue that it's a different sort of equality for women, but your arguments don't work for me when I think of women who need to work or live independently for so many different reasons, and who need equal legal rights and protections to do so.

One thing I think we should make clear is that I am not out to try to convert you and I am sure you are not out to try to convert me. As I have said before in this and other threads, Islam believes the gates of Heaven are open to all people of the Abrahamic faiths so there is no need for anyone to try to convert to Islam.

In Islam, trinity and the divinity of Jesus is rejected. As important as Jesus is to Muslims, he is not God to us and that is a huge difference between your faith and mine.

Islam's idea of equality has more to do with equity than linear equality. Islam thinks women and men are too different to treat identically. Thus, in Islam, men are made the protectors of women and women are not compelled to support themselves. Death is also NOT the punishment for apostasy. It's the punishment of apostates who commit treason. I wanted to clarify that. Still, I do not expect for people to consider conversion to Islam. I simply wrote a lot about Islam on these threads only when I saw some inaccurate information being posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Now that we've gone off topic, I have a question for Muslim poster, who wrote:

She had no idea about sura Ash Shurra and the verse that addressed men AND women on how to resolve (political) matters that required collective opinions. She could not read Arabic so she had no idea the language used in that verse was plural, addressing women too.

I don't see how the plural used shows definitively that both men and women were being addressed. In Arabic, the same plural is used when it is men only being addressed or men and women being addressed. I don't know what grounds one would use to say one or other was meant. All that we know is that women only were not being addressed as that is a different plural.

So it's like French and Spanish, if only in the sense that you use the masculine plural for a group that could either consist of both men and women, or just more than one men.

But 42:38 does not refer only to men and we know that because 42:38 is not a standalone verse. It must be read with the verses above it and the verses below it. Allah is communicating with everyone because in the verses above it He begins by addressing all believers. All believers means all Muslims or all who submit their will to God, not just men who are believers.

Okay, so you dragged me back to the Arabic here. I skimmed the sura pretty quickly, but I did not see a reference to "believers" and would not have considered it definitive if I had as it would have to use the masculine plural unless it was directed just at women (not your contention).

I did, however, find a definite clue that this sura is directed at both men and women in verse 42:11. In this verse it says that God has made mates for you. The word for mates uses the masculine plural. If it was directed solely to men it would have used the feminine plural. Use of the masculine plural shows the verse, and by extension the sura, is directed at both men and women.

Going back to 42:38, this is one of several verses that enunciate good behavior like avoiding major sins. It does not set forth requirements--it is more like a list of best practices of the faithful. One of these is having "their affair(s) [determined by] consultation". Consultation among members of a tribe is an ancient practice pre-dating islam, that has continued on in tribes today. As practiced today it almost always excludes women, although they can have indirect influence. I am not sure what the practice was at the time as some women were clearly successful business women and some went into war. I also am not sure--without a lot more work--what "affair" connoted at the time.

I would not equate tribal consultation, or consultation among the early Islamic community, as an electoral process. Rather it is a consensus process. I would consider it a pretty democratic process--people get their say, but the most influential have the sway, perhaps inspired by views of others. Tribal leaders are determined by consensus views of who is best to lead (even today) and this process was followed for successors of Muhammed. The process, however, did lead some to feel quite bitter about the choices and eventually led to the Shia split.

Many Muslim countries today do not follow Prophet Muhammad's teachings because after the prophet died, the condition and treatment of Muslim women deteriorated and returned almost to pre-islamic times. For example, in some countries fornication/ adultery is punishable by death but yet the Quran does not state fornicators/adulterers should be put to death. This is just one example of how Muslim countries deviate from the Quran and teachings of Muhammad so it's not a good idea to use the practice of Muslim countries today as a reflection of Islamic principles.

The issue that was debated was whether Islam granted women voting rights over 1400 years ago. Another Muslim women said it did. I said it made Muslim women politically relevant because it allowed women to take the oath of allegiance, which was used for deciding many things, but also used for political decisions. I don't think we were debating whether Islam established an electoral process.

So in reading 42:38 and also the verses on the oath of allegiance, most Muslims believe Islam did grant women a political voice.

Here is what the scholar Dr. Jamal Badawi has to say on this topic (I spoke to him last week and got his permission to republish this) http://jamalbadawi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:717-social-system-of-islam-position-of-women-in-islam-political-aspect-i&catid=19:volume-7-social-system-of-islam&Itemid=13:

Host: What is Islam’s position regarding voting rights for women?

Jamal Badawi:

Again we can go back to the early model which followed closely Islam’s presets. We find that they did not follow the exact format of voting that we have today (which is not to say that Islam is against this format as it is not the only format). Fourteen hundred years ago they used a method called bia’a which means an oath of allegiance. People would give their oath of allegiance so long as the ruler followed the rule of God. This makes bia’a a political activity.

We find that there is evidence in both the Quran and behavior of Prophet Muhammad which make it clear that women did actually engage in bia’a. This evidence is found in the Quran in (60:12) “O Prophet! When believing women come to thee to take the oath of fealty to thee, that they will not associate in worship any other thing whatever with Allah, that they will not steal, that they will not commit adultery (or fornication), that they will not kill their children, that they will not utter slander, intentionally forging falsehood, and that they will not disobey thee in any just matter,- then do thou receive their fealty, and pray to Allah for the forgiveness (of their sins): for Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.” If bia’a is a political activity what could be more clear than the Quran mentioning it in respect to women. Second, it does not say that the Prophet has the choice to accept it from them but it is a command to the Prophet to accept their allegiance. In this sense we find that bia’a is the closest thing to our modern day elections.

In the Sunnah of the Prophet (PBUH) we find incidence where bia’a was taken from a joint group of men and women as in the bia’a of Aqaba. The bia’a that is found in the Quran in (60:12) was called the Oath of Allegiance of Women and at later times the Prophet accepted allegiance from men in the same way as the Oath of Allegiance of Women. If we compare this with the Suffrage of women to vote which was obtained in the West almost 1200 years after Islam established the right of women to participate. In Switzerland it was not till the 50s or 60s that women were given the right to vote.



Host: Some argue that this oath of allegiance was not related to a matter of politics but had more to do with the question of belief and moral behavior and that it was given by these women to the Prophet in his capacity as a prophet. How would this be addressed?

Jamal Badawi:

The allegiance was not only given to the Prophet as a prophet but it was also given to the head of the Muslim community who later became the head of an Islamic State. It is true that the verse in chapter 60 addresses issues of behavior and moral teachings. We have indicated that in the Muslim view moral, spiritual, social, political and economical are all inter related issues because Islam is not divided into compartments. When Islam deals with moral aspects with respect to property and sex it is related to a legal aspect which is related to criminal law in Islam. To make this separation is different from the overall approach of Islam towards life. An interesting point is that in the verse (60:1) in addition to it mentioning all the moral acts it says “and that they will not disobey thee in any just matter.” This is a catch all statement which means that any other command that you give as a leader of men and women they will accept you. This includes decisions of of political or military aspects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Lots of the Quran is very unscientific. Science Channel hasn't yet done a show on this. But how do you feel about the Creation story, Adam and Eve, being presented in the Quran as the literal and irrefutable word of God?

I'd be interested in hearing a Muslim's perspective on this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Lots of the Quran is very unscientific. Science Channel hasn't yet done a show on this. But how do you feel about the Creation story, Adam and Eve, being presented in the Quran as the literal and irrefutable word of God?

I'd be interested in hearing a Muslim's perspective on this.

not a muslim, but really, any book written that long ago is going to be "very unscientific" - there wasn't very much science known back then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Lots of the Quran is very unscientific. Science Channel hasn't yet done a show on this. But how do you feel about the Creation story, Adam and Eve, being presented in the Quran as the literal and irrefutable word of God?

I'd be interested in hearing a Muslim's perspective on this.

not a muslim, but really, any book written that long ago is going to be "very unscientific" - there wasn't very much science known back then.

That's true, but many faiths are able to interpret this story as something other than the literal truth. Muslims believe the Quran is God's own words as transmitted to Mohammed. That makes it more difficult to believe in evolution at the same time.