Science channel's "Biblical Mysteries Explained"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Its just a theory for you because you refuse to confirm it with addl research or asking scholars or imams. You inherently mistrust Muslims anyway so it would not matter even if you did speak with one. Fornication and adultery were common in Arabia pre Islam. Thus it should be obvious that there would be illegitimate children. Most historical accounts are from Arabs. If you don't trust the testimony of Arabs because you hate Islam, then refer to the testimony of the Greeks.

Khadija did OK in the jahiliya, didn't she?

Of course, there would be illegitimate children. There still are, everywhere. Nothing very much has changed about human nature. No one argued there were no illegitimate children around. You made a very specific claim - that women were rushing toward Mecca with 2-4 children in tow - and provided no evidence for it.

Not all Arabs are Muslim, don't you know.

Yes, I think the testimony of Muslims about how bad non-Muslims had it is ever so slightly biased.

Khadija was an Arab woman.
Khadija was a rich businesswoman.
Therefore, all Arab women are rich businesswomen.

This is a faulty logic example not even fit as an LSAT test question.

Surely, you can reason better than that.

[Anonymous]

I will try to return this thread to its rightful topic. I am not sure I followed the point about the shroud. The gospel of thomas doesn't make me doubt the entire Christian faith. Why is the shroud being talked about?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
What is the truth is that most Muslims do not speak or read Arabic. Give a copy of the Quran to an average Bengali, Bosnian, Indonesian, Malay, Chechen, Azeri etc. and see what happens. You have your Arab goggles on.

No, I don't have my Arab goggles on. I just know because I lived in some of these countries before or have family members from there. I do not get my information from tv shows or google.

Very good, then tell me what will happen when you ask an average person from the countries I listed to read a Quranic chapter to you, from the book.

Anyone who is financially able and has the ability will try to learn Quranic arabic. This is truth.
The truth is there's a ton of rich Bengalis, Bosnians, Indonesians, Malays, Chechens, Azeris etc. out there who have never tried to learn the Quranic Arabic and will be highly amused that someone on an anonymous parenting forum calls them bad Muslims on that account.

You have no idea what "anyone" does. Stop projecting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Khadija was an Arab woman.
Khadija was a rich businesswoman.
Therefore, all Arab women are rich businesswomen.

This is a faulty logic example not even fit as an LSAT test question.

Surely, you can reason better than that.

Nope, it's not faulty logic. Just because you've miscast it, it doesn't make it faulty. This is how it goes:

Khadija was a rich businesswoman who owned money and property, hired her own workers, and made her own decisions on whom to marry.

Where there is one, there sure were others.

Is there evidence that Khadija was an exception rather than a typical case?

Therefore, the claims that all women in jahiliya had no rights and were treated like objects are counteracted by at least one example. Some were. Some weren't. Perhaps it wasn't a bad bad place that Muslims say it was, and clearly not for ALL women.

It also negates the oft-repeated claim that "Islam granted women property rights" since women owned property long before Islam came on the scene.

In addition, we have Quranic testimony that women in jahiliya were given dowries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Khadija was an Arab woman.
Khadija was a rich businesswoman.
Therefore, all Arab women are rich businesswomen.

This is a faulty logic example not even fit as an LSAT test question.

Surely, you can reason better than that.

That indeed would have been faulty logic. But PP never said "all Arab businesswomen are rich." You made that part up. So no worries!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Khadija was an Arab woman.
Khadija was a rich businesswoman.
Therefore, all Arab women are rich businesswomen.

This is a faulty logic example not even fit as an LSAT test question.

Surely, you can reason better than that.

Nope, it's not faulty logic. Just because you've miscast it, it doesn't make it faulty. This is how it goes:

Khadija was a rich businesswoman who owned money and property, hired her own workers, and made her own decisions on whom to marry.

Where there is one, there sure were others.

Is there evidence that Khadija was an exception rather than a typical case?

Therefore, the claims that all women in jahiliya had no rights and were treated like objects are counteracted by at least one example. Some were. Some weren't. Perhaps it wasn't a bad bad place that Muslims say it was, and clearly not for ALL women.

It also negates the oft-repeated claim that "Islam granted women property rights" since women owned property long before Islam came on the scene.

In addition, we have Quranic testimony that women in jahiliya were given dowries.

The fact that female infanticide was common then should have told you enough- that females were not valued. Thus, if one woman achieved success, it should be assumed to be an anomaly, not the norm.

You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The fact that female infanticide was common then should have told you enough- that females were not valued. Thus, if one woman achieved success, it should be assumed to be an anomaly, not the norm.

You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

What evidence do we have that female infanticide was common, beyond Muhammad's say-so?

Pre-Islamic society - just like Islamic society - was flawed like all humans were. Some women were valued. Some were not. The fact that women in society are valued less than men does not preclude some women from rising to the top. Certainly from Khadija's example we can infer that women COULD inherit property, and COULD run businesses independently.

Societies don't have to be monochrome in their treatment of women. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women could be buried alive and still cherished as goddesses or respected as independent businesswomen. In Islamic Arabia, women could be respected and still sold in the markets or distributed as booty.

Not sure why you bring up the bit about concubinage. Women could be undervalued in societies and still achieve success and wealth according to individual circumstances. Are you using the existence as concubinage as proof why Khadija's status was unusual? Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

I also don't remember arguing with Muslima, I think she recused herself from the discussion early on. I took pleasure in taking on the poster who claimed - against all readily available evidence - that concubines were freed if they became pregnant. That is false. They were freed after the owner died, and only if the owner recognized the child as theirs. Co-ownership of concubines occurred so it wasn't a done deal that the child belonged to the owner. The owner also had complete freedom in recognizing the child or not. In any case, manumission upon the death of owner - not pregnancy, as falsely claimed - is well documented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

I also don't remember arguing with Muslima, I think she recused herself from the discussion early on. I took pleasure in taking on the poster who claimed - against all readily available evidence - that concubines were freed if they became pregnant. That is false. They were freed after the owner died, and only if the owner recognized the child as theirs. Co-ownership of concubines occurred so it wasn't a done deal that the child belonged to the owner. The owner also had complete freedom in recognizing the child or not. In any case, manumission upon the death of owner - not pregnancy, as falsely claimed - is well documented.

I remember this discussion. Muslima blithely declared that "Islam treats women captives well" and then quickly left the discussion except to pop up once in a while to call everybody Islamophobes.

The key here is that we are talking about non-Muslim women were captured by Muslims and made into slaves/concubines. (As the ensuing discussion clarified, the captive women simply became slaves if they did not agree to sex. They became concubines if they agreed to sex, but they are not freed until or unless they (a) fall pregnant, and (b) the slave master dies.) Muslim PP is trying to compare this to the status of pre-Islamic and Muslim women. That doesn't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I remember this discussion. Muslima blithely declared that "Islam treats women captives well" and then quickly left the discussion except to pop up once in a while to call everybody Islamophobes.

The key here is that we are talking about non-Muslim women were captured by Muslims and made into slaves/concubines. (As the ensuing discussion clarified, the captive women simply became slaves if they did not agree to sex. They became concubines if they agreed to sex, but they are not freed until or unless they (a) fall pregnant, and (b) the slave master dies.) Muslim PP is trying to compare this to the status of pre-Islamic and Muslim women. That doesn't work.

I don't think it's historically established that captive women became slaves if they did not agree to sex. It would have been more accurate to say that their position did not afford them an opportunity to agree or disagree to sex. Sexual access to them was simply taken for granted.

To your list of conditions you should add a (c) if the slave master acknowledges the child as his. That was also not a given.

The third point is that conversion to Islam by these women did not automatically result in any improvement of their status. There were Muslim slaves as recently as last century.

The only distinction is that if women were ALREADY Muslim, they were prohibited to be enslaved. But conversion to Islam while in captivity was not a ticket to anything.

There's a memoir book called "A Heart from Bangalan" (I don't think it's available in English, though) written by a woman who was captured as a girl of 13 at her village in Iran by an al-Saud slave-hunting expedition. There's a scene in the book when she's yelling at her captors "I'm Muslim! I'm Muslim!", assuming, correctly, that Islam prohibits enslaving those who are Muslim. It didn't matter to al-Saud but as a point of law, she was correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The fact that female infanticide was common then should have told you enough- that females were not valued. Thus, if one woman achieved success, it should be assumed to be an anomaly, not the norm.

You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

What evidence do we have that female infanticide was common, beyond Muhammad's say-so?

Pre-Islamic society - just like Islamic society - was flawed like all humans were. Some women were valued. Some were not. The fact that women in society are valued less than men does not preclude some women from rising to the top. Certainly from Khadija's example we can infer that women COULD inherit property, and COULD run businesses independently.

Societies don't have to be monochrome in their treatment of women. In pre-Islamic Arabia, women could be buried alive and still cherished as goddesses or respected as independent businesswomen. In Islamic Arabia, women could be respected and still sold in the markets or distributed as booty.

Not sure why you bring up the bit about concubinage. Women could be undervalued in societies and still achieve success and wealth according to individual circumstances. Are you using the existence as concubinage as proof why Khadija's status was unusual? Huh?

First, or maybe I should say again, please distinguish between real Islam and the practice of it. This is a mistake you make repeatedly.

You repeatedly ask for evidence for various points, but disregard evidence of Muslim authorship or Muslim testimony or even Arab testimony. In your eyes, arabs and Muslims are inherently liars and their testimony is not to be trusted. But who do you expect will provide accounts of Arab history, if not the Arabs? Its like saying the Boston Tea Party never took place because you mistrust the Americans who were the only people who left accounts of it.

Societies do not have to be monochrome in their treatment of women? You spent hundreds of pages in various Islam threads fighting to prove Islam opresses and mistreats women. Yet now you hold khadija as representative of how great Arab women had it. Which is it then? Islam oppressed women or despite Islam, many women grew to the ranks of successful businesswomen? This shows that you keep moving the goal posts. This is an agenda driven campaign, not a truth seeking campaign. You are looking for any angle to vilify Islam or disprove Muslims, but some of your viewpoints are in direct contradiction to other, previously expressed viewpoints.

And this is why media outlets were called, you exemplify the type of person anti Islam organizations tend to use to spread hate for political gain. No one else will study Islam so extensively to spew hate 24/7 using blogs with large audiences. No one will move the goal posts so often that they sometimes unwittingly end up even contradicting themselves at times, like you just did here.

Even if the investigative journalist can not find out the organization you work for, at minimum articles will be written about islamophobia using your posts. But I am hopeful they will determine the name of the group you work for, since a couple leaders of the Muslim communities will be assisting the writer in her assignment and they seem to have knowledge about this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
You spent a great deal of pages in another thread arguing with Muslima about how Islam encouraged concubinage. If that was true, it would mean women were not respected or valued in Arab society. In societies where women are undervalued, they generally do not achieve success and status. Again, it shows Khadijas status was unusual, not the norm.

I also don't remember arguing with Muslima, I think she recused herself from the discussion early on. I took pleasure in taking on the poster who claimed - against all readily available evidence - that concubines were freed if they became pregnant. That is false. They were freed after the owner died, and only if the owner recognized the child as theirs. Co-ownership of concubines occurred so it wasn't a done deal that the child belonged to the owner. The owner also had complete freedom in recognizing the child or not. In any case, manumission upon the death of owner - not pregnancy, as falsely claimed - is well documented.

Bring the documentation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I remember this discussion. Muslima blithely declared that "Islam treats women captives well" and then quickly left the discussion except to pop up once in a while to call everybody Islamophobes.

The key here is that we are talking about non-Muslim women were captured by Muslims and made into slaves/concubines. (As the ensuing discussion clarified, the captive women simply became slaves if they did not agree to sex. They became concubines if they agreed to sex, but they are not freed until or unless they (a) fall pregnant, and (b) the slave master dies.) Muslim PP is trying to compare this to the status of pre-Islamic and Muslim women. That doesn't work.

I don't think it's historically established that captive women became slaves if they did not agree to sex. It would have been more accurate to say that their position did not afford them an opportunity to agree or disagree to sex. Sexual access to them was simply taken for granted.

To your list of conditions you should add a (c) if the slave master acknowledges the child as his. That was also not a given.

The third point is that conversion to Islam by these women did not automatically result in any improvement of their status. There were Muslim slaves as recently as last century.

The only distinction is that if women were ALREADY Muslim, they were prohibited to be enslaved. But conversion to Islam while in captivity was not a ticket to anything.

There's a memoir book called "A Heart from Bangalan" (I don't think it's available in English, though) written by a woman who was captured as a girl of 13 at her village in Iran by an al-Saud slave-hunting expedition. There's a scene in the book when she's yelling at her captors "I'm Muslim! I'm Muslim!", assuming, correctly, that Islam prohibits enslaving those who are Muslim. It didn't matter to al-Saud but as a point of law, she was correct.

Focus on the subject here, are you talking about Islam or are you talking about how Islam was practiced after the Prophet's death? Two very different things, not to be confused for the same. But you make this mistake often.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I remember this discussion. Muslima blithely declared that "Islam treats women captives well" and then quickly left the discussion except to pop up once in a while to call everybody Islamophobes.

The key here is that we are talking about non-Muslim women were captured by Muslims and made into slaves/concubines. (As the ensuing discussion clarified, the captive women simply became slaves if they did not agree to sex. They became concubines if they agreed to sex, but they are not freed until or unless they (a) fall pregnant, and (b) the slave master dies.) Muslim PP is trying to compare this to the status of pre-Islamic and Muslim women. That doesn't work.

I don't think it's historically established that captive women became slaves if they did not agree to sex. It would have been more accurate to say that their position did not afford them an opportunity to agree or disagree to sex. Sexual access to them was simply taken for granted.

To your list of conditions you should add a (c) if the slave master acknowledges the child as his. That was also not a given.

The third point is that conversion to Islam by these women did not automatically result in any improvement of their status. There were Muslim slaves as recently as last century.

The only distinction is that if women were ALREADY Muslim, they were prohibited to be enslaved. But conversion to Islam while in captivity was not a ticket to anything.

There's a memoir book called "A Heart from Bangalan" (I don't think it's available in English, though) written by a woman who was captured as a girl of 13 at her village in Iran by an al-Saud slave-hunting expedition. There's a scene in the book when she's yelling at her captors "I'm Muslim! I'm Muslim!", assuming, correctly, that Islam prohibits enslaving those who are Muslim. It didn't matter to al-Saud but as a point of law, she was correct.

We are getting off track. The point you make about the captives being NON muslim is to lend credence to your assertion that Muslim women did have ample opportunities to achieve success (as evidenced by Khadija). This is to show Arabs lied about there ever being a Jahiliyah period (age of ignorance and darkness). Am I correct?

However, Khadija achieved success pre islam, before the Prophet achieved his prophethood. She was not Muslim when she achieved success.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I remember this discussion. Muslima blithely declared that "Islam treats women captives well" and then quickly left the discussion except to pop up once in a while to call everybody Islamophobes.

The key here is that we are talking about non-Muslim women were captured by Muslims and made into slaves/concubines. (As the ensuing discussion clarified, the captive women simply became slaves if they did not agree to sex. They became concubines if they agreed to sex, but they are not freed until or unless they (a) fall pregnant, and (b) the slave master dies.) Muslim PP is trying to compare this to the status of pre-Islamic and Muslim women. That doesn't work.

I don't think it's historically established that captive women became slaves if they did not agree to sex. It would have been more accurate to say that their position did not afford them an opportunity to agree or disagree to sex. Sexual access to them was simply taken for granted.

To your list of conditions you should add a (c) if the slave master acknowledges the child as his. That was also not a given.

The third point is that conversion to Islam by these women did not automatically result in any improvement of their status. There were Muslim slaves as recently as last century.

The only distinction is that if women were ALREADY Muslim, they were prohibited to be enslaved. But conversion to Islam while in captivity was not a ticket to anything.

There's a memoir book called "A Heart from Bangalan" (I don't think it's available in English, though) written by a woman who was captured as a girl of 13 at her village in Iran by an al-Saud slave-hunting expedition. There's a scene in the book when she's yelling at her captors "I'm Muslim! I'm Muslim!", assuming, correctly, that Islam prohibits enslaving those who are Muslim. It didn't matter to al-Saud but as a point of law, she was correct.

We are getting off track. The point you make about the captives being NON muslim is to lend credence to your assertion that Muslim women did have ample opportunities to achieve success (as evidenced by Khadija). This is to show Arabs lied about there ever being a Jahiliyah period (age of ignorance and darkness). Am I correct?

However, Khadija achieved success pre islam, before the Prophet achieved his prophethood. She was not Muslim when she achieved success.

I'm the top PP. This is getting confusing, but I think Muslim PP was arguing that we're hypocrites for saying that (a) Musliim conquerors made captive women into concubines and (b) women like Khadijah had rights before Islam. I answered (maybe not clearly), sure we can argue this, because we're talking about Khadija before Islam and women captives after Islam. Apples and oranges.

Also, there are Quranuc verses about this ("the women of your left hand").