Be Wary of Racism and Islamophobes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I worked with Afghan refugees and this may be true. But why did you choose to use the Muslim country with one of the worst literacy rates to illustrate what the rest of the 1.6 billion does?

Use Tatarstan or Turkey, Muslim-majority nations with near 100% literacy, and see their children make out any better in 7th century Arabic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

That was already happening with men. Prophet Muhammad use the oath all the time for men. This was discussed about two pages ago.

Cite a verse where men were asked not to lie, steal, fornicate or father illegitimate children as a condition for taking a pledge of allegiance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

PP here--didn't mean to imply anything wrong with polytheism. Just that jahaliyya is used to refer to the days in which most practiced polytheism. (Not all of course; there were communities of Jews and Nestorian Christians.) In its original usage it meant just that and did not connote that it was an age of cruel, barbaric, and licentious ways of living.

Of course not, but that's the Muslim narrative - much like the makers of the latest, greatest toothpaste try to say anything that came before them was crap.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I worked with Afghan refugees and this may be true. But why did you choose to use the Muslim country with one of the worst literacy rates to illustrate what the rest of the 1.6 billion does?

Use Tatarstan or Turkey, Muslim-majority nations with near 100% literacy, and see their children make out any better in 7th century Arabic.

PP who used Afghanistan as an example--on purpose. It is the Muslim country with the highest illiteracy rate. Used it to show how absurd it was to claim that all Muslim children can read the Quran. Obviously if you are illiterate you can't read at all, even if you are Muslim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

PP here--didn't mean to imply anything wrong with polytheism. Just that jahaliyya is used to refer to the days in which most practiced polytheism. (Not all of course; there were communities of Jews and Nestorian Christians.) In its original usage it meant just that and did not connote that it was an age of cruel, barbaric, and licentious ways of living.

Of course not, but that's the Muslim narrative - much like the makers of the latest, greatest toothpaste try to say anything that came before them was crap.

It does seem very odd to defend one's religion by saying that it represented an advancement in civilization over what existed before in the seventh century. Even if it is true (and some here have debated that) it does raise immediate suspicion that one is hearkening back 1400 years because one doesn't have anything more recent to point to. I'd be looking for a more effective line of apologetics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even in Arab countries, thee are sizable numbers who couldn't possibly the read the Quran or anything else. One third of Yemen's population is illiterate. Many of those with some degree of literacy would not be able to understand the Arabic of the Quran, just as many of us have a very hard time really understanding the Canterbury Tales in its original version (or even Shakespeare for that matter).

And many Arabic speakers, to add insult to statistics, are not Muslim.

This is true, but some them like my DH actually excelled in recitation of the Koran in school. Christians in government schools are excused from religion, but my DH chose to stay with his friends. One of his Muslim friends told us about how he and his friends harassed the religion teacher by asking all kinds of irreverent questions he couldn't answer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

Different poster here. Yes, I had heard this myself. Islam prides itself on NOT needing a cadre of priests and theologians to interpret the religion, precisely because the Quran is supposed to be so simple and self-evident. The Shiites with their ayatollahs obviously take a different view, but the Sunni view is that the Quran is accessible to everybody, or at least to those who read Arabic.

So when one of the posters here keeps saying that you need to call up scholars and study up on history to understand the Quran, this doesn't gel with the idea of immediate accessibility.

To both PPs, +1.

I too find it very puzzling that the PP keeps insisting we cannot grasp the nuances of a particular verse without consulting a scholar even though I have a Koran with English on one side and Arabic on the other (which I can, with effort, read) and have a DH who knows seventh century Arabic.

Consulting one of these so called scholars would be a form of masochism--the whole Islamic scholar thing is a scam as PP has said. Everyone in the Arab world knows that those who go into Islamic studies didn't have the grades to get into any of the other schools at university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

Different poster here. Yes, I had heard this myself. Islam prides itself on NOT needing a cadre of priests and theologians to interpret the religion, precisely because the Quran is supposed to be so simple and self-evident. The Shiites with their ayatollahs obviously take a different view, but the Sunni view is that the Quran is accessible to everybody, or at least to those who read Arabic.

So when one of the posters here keeps saying that you need to call up scholars and study up on history to understand the Quran, this doesn't gel with the idea of immediate accessibility.

Not necessarily true. Hamza Yusuf comes from an affluent Californian family. Old money. Dr. Jamal Badawi was a university professor for many years before he became known as a scholar. Which scholars are you referring to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

Different poster here. Yes, I had heard this myself. Islam prides itself on NOT needing a cadre of priests and theologians to interpret the religion, precisely because the Quran is supposed to be so simple and self-evident. The Shiites with their ayatollahs obviously take a different view, but the Sunni view is that the Quran is accessible to everybody, or at least to those who read Arabic.

So when one of the posters here keeps saying that you need to call up scholars and study up on history to understand the Quran, this doesn't gel with the idea of immediate accessibility.

To both PPs, +1.

I too find it very puzzling that the PP keeps insisting we cannot grasp the nuances of a particular verse without consulting a scholar even though I have a Koran with English on one side and Arabic on the other (which I can, with effort, read) and have a DH who knows seventh century Arabic.

Consulting one of these so called scholars would be a form of masochism--the whole Islamic scholar thing is a scam as PP has said. Everyone in the Arab world knows that those who go into Islamic studies didn't have the grades to get into any of the other schools at university.

But we don't live in the Arab states so why call a scholar from there anyway? Did you know there are scholars in the US, Canada, and the UK who are well educated? Most Muslims I know will not spell Quran as Koran. Subtle but important difference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

Different poster here. Yes, I had heard this myself. Islam prides itself on NOT needing a cadre of priests and theologians to interpret the religion, precisely because the Quran is supposed to be so simple and self-evident. The Shiites with their ayatollahs obviously take a different view, but the Sunni view is that the Quran is accessible to everybody, or at least to those who read Arabic.

So when one of the posters here keeps saying that you need to call up scholars and study up on history to understand the Quran, this doesn't gel with the idea of immediate accessibility.

To both PPs, +1.

I too find it very puzzling that the PP keeps insisting we cannot grasp the nuances of a particular verse without consulting a scholar even though I have a Koran with English on one side and Arabic on the other (which I can, with effort, read) and have a DH who knows seventh century Arabic.

Consulting one of these so called scholars would be a form of masochism--the whole Islamic scholar thing is a scam as PP has said. Everyone in the Arab world knows that those who go into Islamic studies didn't have the grades to get into any of the other schools at university.

But we don't live in the Arab states so why call a scholar from there anyway? Did you know there are scholars in the US, Canada, and the UK who are well educated? Most Muslims I know will not spell Quran as Koran. Subtle but important difference.

We don't have to, but why discount scholars based in the Arab states en masse?

[Anonymous]

And why call a scholar anyway if things ought to be obvious, and sometimes actually are obvious, if unpalatable?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I worked with Afghan refugees and this may be true. But why did you choose to use the Muslim country with one of the worst literacy rates to illustrate what the rest of the 1.6 billion does?

Use Tatarstan or Turkey, Muslim-majority nations with near 100% literacy, and see their children make out any better in 7th century Arabic.

I said most children who learn to read the Quran do so in Quranic Arabic. This morphed into a discussion of how many people can read in Islamic countries and how many people can understand Quranic Arabic. This is why a three page thread on DCUM turns into a fifty page thread. People just go off on tangents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I also need to address one more thing - not for you, but for the benefit of others reading this. The institution of scholars in contemporary Muslim world, to the degree it has developed, is a complete scam born out of nothing but the desire for job security. Islam was revealed to a largely illiterate population. It was meant to be a code of simple rules that can be understood by anyone, not exclusively King Abdulaziz University graduates. If a rule in the Quran sounds simple, then no matter how awful it sounds to a non-Muslim, guess what, it really says what it means to say, and no amount of scholarly commentary can change that. It can tell you why Muslims think it has to be that way, but if it doesn't make sense to you, then then reason is that it really doesn't make any sense. Scholars are unnecessary to understand most of the Quran, and it's a great credit to the skill and sophistication of the scholar marketing machine that some scholars out there have jobs and TV shows because women aren't capable of deciding whether they are allowed to change clothes in the room where they think a male jinn lives.

Different poster here. Yes, I had heard this myself. Islam prides itself on NOT needing a cadre of priests and theologians to interpret the religion, precisely because the Quran is supposed to be so simple and self-evident. The Shiites with their ayatollahs obviously take a different view, but the Sunni view is that the Quran is accessible to everybody, or at least to those who read Arabic.

So when one of the posters here keeps saying that you need to call up scholars and study up on history to understand the Quran, this doesn't gel with the idea of immediate accessibility.

To both PPs, +1.

I too find it very puzzling that the PP keeps insisting we cannot grasp the nuances of a particular verse without consulting a scholar even though I have a Koran with English on one side and Arabic on the other (which I can, with effort, read) and have a DH who knows seventh century Arabic.

Consulting one of these so called scholars would be a form of masochism--the whole Islamic scholar thing is a scam as PP has said. Everyone in the Arab world knows that those who go into Islamic studies didn't have the grades to get into any of the other schools at university.

But we don't live in the Arab states so why call a scholar from there anyway? Did you know there are scholars in the US, Canada, and the UK who are well educated? Most Muslims I know will not spell Quran as Koran. Subtle but important difference.

We don't have to, but why discount scholars based in the Arab states en masse?

Do you think there is a possibility that culture clouds their interpretation? For example, the Quran does not prescribe stoning for adultery, but some Arab states do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And why call a scholar anyway if things ought to be obvious, and sometimes actually are obvious, if unpalatable?

Did someone here tell you to call a scholar for obvious points? A 48 page thread shows there may be some points that are not so obvious. Besides, scholars studied Islamic history and its more than just a college class,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
But we don't live in the Arab states so why call a scholar from there anyway? Did you know there are scholars in the US, Canada, and the UK who are well educated? Most Muslims I know will not spell Quran as Koran. Subtle but important difference.

Hamza Yusuf learned his Islam from Arabs, not from Californians.