Reply to Science channel's "Biblical Mysteries Explained"

Forum Index » Religion

Reply to "Science channel's "Biblical Mysteries Explained""

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To me, it makes total sense (if you believe in the whole story) that the angel would ask Muhammad to recite, and he would say - but I don't know what to recite!

The idea that the angel would tell him to read, knowing full well Muhammad was illiterate, is what makes no sense. What would he read? Did the angel brought a book with him?

The fact of the matter is that "iqra" can be translated as "read", or as "recite", or as "say out loud or from memory".  To understand what term is correct, you need to look at the context.  This particular context veers toward "recite" to me. It's much more sensible that the angel would tell an illiterate man to repeat and remember the story so that he could recite it to his equally illiterate brethren later.

And this is in fact what most Muslims do, as most Muslims don't speak or read Arabic, so they don't read the Quran, they recite aloud from memory. [/quote]

Your knowledge about what Muslims do seems to be based on what uneducated people do in Muslim countries. In any country, if a Muslim is able to learn to read the Quran, he does. Sunday school classes and Islamic schools across the country are filled with children learning how to read the Quran. No one I know in this country simply memorizes. How do you know "most Muslims" anyhow if you are not Muslim?

From my understanding, the Angel did bring a tablet. [/quote]
Your understanding? Based on what?  Show sources.

Did the Angel keep bringing the tablets for twenty years?

If so, how did they get all jumbled up in your non-chronologically ordered holy book? [/quote]

Yes, the angel kept bringing tablets or perhaps paper manuscripts--I am not sure exactly if tradition is exact on this point.  But Muhammed was shown something with the sura of the day written on it and asked to recite it by the angel.

Muhammed can't be blamed for how the Quran is organized.  According to tradition, Muhamme recited the verses he had just recited in front of the angel to his followers, and they wrote them down on palm leaves.  At some poitn, these were collected together and a lost to the mists of time editor decided on the longest to shortest sura presentation.

Islamic scholars in the centuries following did a lot of work to figure out which were the oldest and which were the newest.  I am not terribly familiar with this work, but I believe there were lots of disputes.  However, there is some general agreement about which suras were from the early Mekkan period and which were from the Medinan period.

I think PPs point is that the verse about abrogation is in one of these suras, but unless one knows with absolute certainty the order in which the suras were revealed in time, it is very difficult to determine which verse is being abrogated (or whatever you want to call it--perhaps improved) by a later sura.  As far as I know, people have theories about the correct chronological order but there isn't any one order that is generally agreed to.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics