Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you wish to engage in the self study of Islam (because you do not trust the word of any Muslim), then begin with learning to read the Quran in the language it was revealed in and its true meaning. Also learn Islamic history. Anybody can opine on Islam by reading the translation. Doesn't make their opinion valuable or credible. Its just their opinion. Sort of like my picking up a Bible and casting my own opinions on the scripture. I would be better off to study the language the Bible was revealed in and read original scriptures. If I can not do that, I turn next to priests or biblical scholars. I do not refuse assuming all Christians are liars. I find a priest or biblical scholar who seems trustworthy and ask him to help me understand Christianity.

Most Muslims don't read or speak the Quranic Arabic.

You are under the impression that unless someone agrees with your message completely, they must not have studied enough. How arrogant.

Anonymous wrote:
You can never learn the truth about Islam if you embark on a self study but refuse to learn the language the Quran was revealed in, simply because you can't even trust a Muslim. If you seek knowledge but begin your investigation with that level of hatred and mistrust, you will end up in the same place you began, still full of hate and mistrust and never learning anything new.

You do not seem to be on a truth seeking journey. You are plagued by personal experiences, perhaps negative experiences. But the mistake you make is confusing Islam with practice. The way Islam is practiced in some countries is not real Islam. It is not the Islam Prophet Muhammad preached. The condition and treatment of women deteriorated after the Prophet died and these countries have returned back to ignorant thinking with oppressive rules, similar to pre islamic times.

Most Muslims don't speak, read or understand the Quranic Arabic. Go pick on them.

Again, you seem to be under the impression that if someone doesn't agree with you, it's because they haven't studied enough. You are simply discounting the possibility that someone could have read, explored and studied all they wanted, and arrived at the conclusions that they did. You are assuming that every opinion different from yours is unlearned. Very arrogant.

I have said Muslims are fine with disagreement. The Quran states, "There is no compulsion in Islam." No one needs to like Islam, convert to Islam, agree with Islam. This was never merely about disagreement. It was about an hate driven campaign. You can not even get yourself to speak with an imam or scholar because you said you mistrust them all. How can they all be untrustworthy and liars, simply because they are Muslim?

And when you say inheritance laws give less to women, its to show the disparity = inequity. Thats a bit misleading considering you failed to mention men have greater financial burdens and women do not need to support themselves.

When you say Islam never established voting rights, you failed to discuss sura ash shurra which spoke to men as well as to women, and asked that all decisions requiring collective opinions be decided by consultation. You deny sura 60:12 which allowed women to take an oath to enter the tribe. You insisted its not a political oath, but instead a purity pledge simply because women were asked not to fornicate and commit adultery. I pointed out the last sentence of the oath, which asks the women to obey the Prophet in whatever he asks. This is not a purity pledge but a promise of political support to the prophet who was the new leader. Instead of admitting you may have misunderstood, you suddenly shifted and the complaint was no longer about voting rights but now about gender bias.

The goal posts keep moving....

On gender bias, you asked why only women were asked not to fornicate. Simple answer: if they came to the Prophet without a guardian and with children, some illegitimate, of course he was going to remind them that their past behavior may not continue. You asked why men were not asked the same. There was no way to ascertain paternity so why ask a man about illegitimate children if you have no evidence there are any?

From there were new complaints about Muslims not being able to read Quranic Arabic. Then you jumped to yet another complaint about the Quran- abrogation. These are easy to address but I'm not sure you are seeking knowledge, particularly from a Muslim since you don't trust anything we say.

Every time I give you an answer, you request evidence from historical context or the Quran. But then when evidence is provided, you reject it if it has an Arab or Muslim author. Who else will provide testimony about arab history except Arabs? When I provide evidence from the Quran, you reject the Quran's authenticity because its not in chronological order or because of perceived abrogation.

So you see, you are not embarking on a truth seeking mission here. Its a campaign driven by another agenda.

Why do you keep ignoring the fact that one of PP's actually can read the Qyran in Arabic? That PP (me) did say she mistrusts many NOT all (as you have twisted it) Muslim scholars because they think can do a better job deconstructing the Quran than any Muslim simply because they are Muslim.

Did "many" of the Muslim scholars tell you this? If not, where did you get the idea that many Muslim scholars believe they can do a better job of deconstructing the Quran than nonMuslims? There are many historians that are nonMuslim that have written about Islam, but I don't know of very many Islamic scholars that are nonMuslims. I wonder if there is inherently a conflict of interest in having a scholar be of a faith that doesn't embrace the belief system he is trusted with the responsibility of interpreting. Wouldn't it be worse if that scholar did not consider Islam sacred or felt many parts of it should be reformed, against the wishes of those who are Muslim? This may be one reason why Muslim scholars do not put too much credibility in what nonMuslim scholars have to say, at least when it comes to interpreting the Quran.


I actually posted a link to an Islamic scholar. He showed a good command for the Semitic linguisitc and religious context of Islam, but you wouldn't acknowledge a nonMuslim PP found a Muslim scholar credible, , probably because he set forth a really cogent case for why, when speaking English, Allah should be referred to as God. This is contrary to whatever your personal Muslim scholars have told you, having perhaps little expertise in correct English usage.

I use "Allah" to distinguish my God from the God of other faiths who may associate partners with their God or who may associate their God with Jesus. I see no problem in Muslims using "Allah" when speaking English so long as they identify what "Allah" means.


You are one the one who has moved the goal posts. First, you say one can't understand the Quran if one doesn't read Arabic, then it becomes one cannot understand the Quran if one is not Muslim.

Can you show me the post where I said one can not understand the Quran if they are Muslim. If I said that, i was wrong. Thousands of nonMuslims are learning and understanding the Quran before they convert to Islam. But I'd like to see that post where I said one can not understand the Quran if they are not Muslim. If one simply dislikes Muslim, I don't think it is an indication that they are misrepresenting Islam. But I might have said that if one is vilifying Islam, I would be suspicious that they are intentionally misrepresenting Islam for ulterior motives. In fact, I think thats what is clearly happening in these threads with these islamophobes.

Consultation is not voting rights. Consultation was the basis for running tribal affairs back then, as well as in the present.

How did primitive democracy begin? By consultation or councils, the same way it was mentioned in Sura Ash-Shurra in the Quran. Here's how democracy began in Athens and it is similar to the shurra described in the Quran. The only difference is that only males were permitted to attend the shurra in Athens whereas women were not restricted from shurra in early Islam (from http://www.academia.edu/184702/What_is_so_Primitive_about_Primitive_Democracy_Comparing_the_Ancient_Middle_East_and_Classical_Athens):

"The story of classical Greek democracy really begins when the aristocracy of Athens ‘issued’ Cleisthenes with a ‘mandate’, around 508 BC, to formulate a political system that would eschew the cen-tralisation of power. Cleisthenes, an adept and popular politician who had long advocated a system of ‘rule by the people’, devised a model of governance that became known as demokratia. One of the central criteria by which Cleisthenes’ model is measured is the Athenian assembly, an outdoor meeting which presided over issues as vast as ‘war and peace, treaties, ?nance, legislation, public works, in short, on the whole gamut of governmental activity’ (Finley, 1973: 18–19). All adult male citizens were encouraged to attend these assemblies, which convenedabout forty times a year and frequently attracted numbers of around 6,000."


The description of an assembly that met in Athens and generally considered to be where democracy was born is quite similar to the shurra described by the Quran:
From http://www.ahistoryofgreece.com/athens-democracy.htm:
"The Assembly or ecclesia was open to all male citizens and met four times a month which with ten months in the Athenian calendar came out to forty times a year. Important decisions on foreign policy and legislative issues were debated and the final decision or proclaimation was carved in stone and erected in prominent places in the city like the agora (marketplace). Since there were thousands of people involved, the assembly could get pretty noisy and unruly. Though anyone could address it, only the best speakers had the courage (or the vocal ability) to do so. "


The women's pledge of allegiance was a purity oath. The earlier all-men pledge of allegiance was a pledge to fight in defense of Islam. This was pointed out and you chose to ignore this fact and the obvious difference. But this was 1400 years ago--what else would one expect? Instead of saying that, you make up stuff like the men had to a purity pledge too, even though there is zilch evidence that is true.

The oath of allegiance was common. Prophet Muhammad used it all the time for various reasons, for various purposes. Not every pledge was described and it's wording quoted in the Quran. Why would it be if they were commonplace? The oath of allegiance for women with it's specific wording was described because it was in reference to a new and quite startling event -- the flood of unaccompanied women (they had no guardians because they left their pagan husbands) migrating from Mecca to Medina in Saudi Arabia to seek admission into the Prophets tribe. Before the Treaty, these women were sent back. When the Treaty was broken, Allah/God then provided specific instructions for how to handle this new situation. The Prophet was asked by Allah/God to question these women to ensure they were Muslim first. He was then asked to administer the oath to ensure they follow islamic principles and to ensure they obeyed the Prophet in whatever was asked of them (this is the last line of the oath, and note that this is a catch all phrase that has nothing to do with purity but has to do with a promise of allegiance and loyalty to the Prophet).

The purity aspect is a given, but it applies to men and women. Men and women are not permitted to engage in fornication or adultery. This is mentioned throughout the Quran. The punishment for fornication and adultery is mentioned clearly in the Quran for both men and women. So purity is necessary in Islam and a requirement for both men and women. If it wasn't mentioned in a quote in the Quran it does not mean fornication and adultery was permitted for men. This is complete absurdity as even today, men are flogged in Muslim countries for engaging in fornication. If this is what you are implying, you are wrong and misinterpreting Islam to advance the idea that Islam discriminates women.

So why was the purity statement in the oath for these specific women coming to the Prophet from Mecca? Because these women sometimes were traveling with their children, some of them were illegitimate. Moreover, a woman who was without a guardian, and especially one who was engaging in fornication and adultery in those days was engaging in behavior that was quite unsafe for her. The Prophet had to let these women know that such behavior, fornication and adultery, which were common in pagan communities, would not be permitted in Islam. This is also why every effort was made to marry these women off to Muslim husbands as quickly as possible. It was safer for them to be under the guardianship of a Muslim husband if they now had no guardian. Why wasn't this purity aspect mentioned to the men? Because men did not travel to see the Prophet with their children (illegitimate or not) and paternity was impossible to establish if fornication and adultery were so commonplace in pagan communities. Besides, fornication and adultery, while still prohibited and punishable in islam for men also, was much more dangerous and risky behavior for a woman when she engaged in it.

I don't know why this is so difficult to accept and understand.

Anonymous wrote:
I have said Muslims are fine with disagreement. The Quran states, "There is no compulsion in Islam." No one needs to like Islam, convert to Islam, agree with Islam. This was never merely about disagreement. It was about an hate driven campaign. You can not even get yourself to speak with an imam or scholar because you said you mistrust them all. How can they all be untrustworthy and liars, simply because they are Muslim?

Anonymous wrote:
And when you say inheritance laws give less to women, its to show the disparity = inequity. Thats a bit misleading considering you failed to mention men have greater financial burdens and women do not need to support themselves.

Anonymous wrote:
When you say Islam never established voting rights, you failed to discuss sura ash shurra which spoke to men as well as to women, and asked that all decisions requiring collective opinions be decided by consultation. You deny sura 60:12 which allowed women to take an oath to enter the tribe. You insisted its not a political oath, but instead a purity pledge simply because women were asked not to fornicate and commit adultery. I pointed out the last sentence of the oath, which asks the women to obey the Prophet in whatever he asks. This is not a purity pledge but a promise of political support to the prophet who was the new leader. Instead of admitting you may have misunderstood, you suddenly shifted and the complaint was no longer about voting rights but now about gender bias.

Anonymous wrote:
On gender bias, you asked why only women were asked not to fornicate. Simple answer: if they came to the Prophet without a guardian and with children, some illegitimate, of course he was going to remind them that their past behavior may not continue. You asked why men were not asked the same. There was no way to ascertain paternity so why ask a man about illegitimate children if you have no evidence there are any?

Anonymous wrote:
From there were new complaints about Muslims not being able to read Quranic Arabic.

Anonymous wrote:
Then you jumped to yet another complaint about the Quran- abrogation. These are easy to address but I'm not sure you are seeking knowledge, particularly from a Muslim since you don't trust anything we say.

Anonymous wrote:
Every time I give you an answer, you request evidence from historical context or the Quran. But then when evidence is provided, you reject it if it has an Arab or Muslim author. Who else will provide testimony about arab history except Arabs? When I provide evidence from the Quran, you reject the Quran's authenticity because its not in chronological order or because of perceived abrogation.

Anonymous wrote:
So you see, you are not embarking on a truth seeking mission here. Its a campaign driven by another agenda.

Anonymous wrote:I have said Muslims are fine with disagreement. The Quran states, "There is no compulsion in Islam." No one needs to like Islam, convert to Islam, agree with Islam. This was never merely about disagreement. It was about an hate driven campaign. You can not even get yourself to speak with an imam or scholar because you said you mistrust them all. How can they all be untrustworthy and liars, simply because they are Muslim?

Anonymous wrote:And when you say inheritance laws give less to women, its to show the disparity = inequity. Thats a bit misleading considering you failed to mention men have greater financial burdens and women do not need to support themselves.

Anonymous wrote:So you see, you are not embarking on a truth seeking mission here. Its a campaign driven by another agenda.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you wish to engage in the self study of Islam (because you do not trust the word of any Muslim), then begin with learning to read the Quran in the language it was revealed in and its true meaning. Also learn Islamic history. Anybody can opine on Islam by reading the translation. Doesn't make their opinion valuable or credible. Its just their opinion. Sort of like my picking up a Bible and casting my own opinions on the scripture. I would be better off to study the language the Bible was revealed in and read original scriptures. If I can not do that, I turn next to priests or biblical scholars. I do not refuse assuming all Christians are liars. I find a priest or biblical scholar who seems trustworthy and ask him to help me understand Christianity.

Most Muslims don't read or speak the Quranic Arabic.

You are under the impression that unless someone agrees with your message completely, they must not have studied enough. How arrogant.

Anonymous wrote:
You can never learn the truth about Islam if you embark on a self study but refuse to learn the language the Quran was revealed in, simply because you can't even trust a Muslim. If you seek knowledge but begin your investigation with that level of hatred and mistrust, you will end up in the same place you began, still full of hate and mistrust and never learning anything new.

You do not seem to be on a truth seeking journey. You are plagued by personal experiences, perhaps negative experiences. But the mistake you make is confusing Islam with practice. The way Islam is practiced in some countries is not real Islam. It is not the Islam Prophet Muhammad preached. The condition and treatment of women deteriorated after the Prophet died and these countries have returned back to ignorant thinking with oppressive rules, similar to pre islamic times.

Most Muslims don't speak, read or understand the Quranic Arabic. Go pick on them.

Again, you seem to be under the impression that if someone doesn't agree with you, it's because they haven't studied enough. You are simply discounting the possibility that someone could have read, explored and studied all they wanted, and arrived at the conclusions that they did. You are assuming that every opinion different from yours is unlearned. Very arrogant.

I have said Muslims are fine with disagreement. The Quran states, "There is no compulsion in Islam." No one needs to like Islam, convert to Islam, agree with Islam. This was never merely about disagreement. It was about an hate driven campaign. You can not even get yourself to speak with an imam or scholar because you said you mistrust them all. How can they all be untrustworthy and liars, simply because they are Muslim?

And when you say inheritance laws give less to women, its to show the disparity = inequity. Thats a bit misleading considering you failed to mention men have greater financial burdens and women do not need to support themselves.

When you say Islam never established voting rights, you failed to discuss sura ash shurra which spoke to men as well as to women, and asked that all decisions requiring collective opinions be decided by consultation. You deny sura 60:12 which allowed women to take an oath to enter the tribe. You insisted its not a political oath, but instead a purity pledge simply because women were asked not to fornicate and commit adultery. I pointed out the last sentence of the oath, which asks the women to obey the Prophet in whatever he asks. This is not a purity pledge but a promise of political support to the prophet who was the new leader. Instead of admitting you may have misunderstood, you suddenly shifted and the complaint was no longer about voting rights but now about gender bias.

The goal posts keep moving....

On gender bias, you asked why only women were asked not to fornicate. Simple answer: if they came to the Prophet without a guardian and with children, some illegitimate, of course he was going to remind them that their past behavior may not continue. You asked why men were not asked the same. There was no way to ascertain paternity so why ask a man about illegitimate children if you have no evidence there are any?

From there were new complaints about Muslims not being able to read Quranic Arabic. Then you jumped to yet another complaint about the Quran- abrogation. These are easy to address but I'm not sure you are seeking knowledge, particularly from a Muslim since you don't trust anything we say.

Every time I give you an answer, you request evidence from historical context or the Quran. But then when evidence is provided, you reject it if it has an Arab or Muslim author. Who else will provide testimony about arab history except Arabs? When I provide evidence from the Quran, you reject the Quran's authenticity because its not in chronological order or because of perceived abrogation.

So you see, you are not embarking on a truth seeking mission here. Its a campaign driven by another agenda.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
If you wish to engage in the self study of Islam (because you do not trust the word of any Muslim), then begin with learning to read the Quran in the language it was revealed in and its true meaning. Also learn Islamic history. Anybody can opine on Islam by reading the translation. Doesn't make their opinion valuable or credible. Its just their opinion. Sort of like my picking up a Bible and casting my own opinions on the scripture. I would be better off to study the language the Bible was revealed in and read original scriptures. If I can not do that, I turn next to priests or biblical scholars. I do not refuse assuming all Christians are liars. I find a priest or biblical scholar who seems trustworthy and ask him to help me understand Christianity.

Most Muslims don't read or speak the Quranic Arabic.

You are under the impression that unless someone agrees with your message completely, they must not have studied enough. How arrogant.

Anonymous wrote:
You can never learn the truth about Islam if you embark on a self study but refuse to learn the language the Quran was revealed in, simply because you can't even trust a Muslim. If you seek knowledge but begin your investigation with that level of hatred and mistrust, you will end up in the same place you began, still full of hate and mistrust and never learning anything new.

You do not seem to be on a truth seeking journey. You are plagued by personal experiences, perhaps negative experiences. But the mistake you make is confusing Islam with practice. The way Islam is practiced in some countries is not real Islam. It is not the Islam Prophet Muhammad preached. The condition and treatment of women deteriorated after the Prophet died and these countries have returned back to ignorant thinking with oppressive rules, similar to pre islamic times.

Most Muslims don't speak, read or understand the Quranic Arabic. Go pick on them.

Again, you seem to be under the impression that if someone doesn't agree with you, it's because they haven't studied enough. You are simply discounting the possibility that someone could have read, explored and studied all they wanted, and arrived at the conclusions that they did. You are assuming that every opinion different from yours is unlearned. Very arrogant.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So islamophobia would probably never have started if Islam wasn't such a bully. Bully Beards!!

Bill Maher: Islam’s “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f**king kill you if you say the wrong thing”

he got it right on. It is not a religion, it is a political system designed to perpetuate its elite.

Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri working on behalf of the mafia. The murder widened and polarized the debate in the Netherlands about the social position of its more than one million Muslim residents. In an apparent reaction against controversial statements about the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish religions—such as those Van Gogh was renowned for—the Dutch Minister of Justice, Christian Democrat Piet Hein Donner, suggested Dutch blasphemy laws should either be applied more stringently or made more strict

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie - "SI inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death."

Nobody Remembers the Spanish Inquisition!

Anonymous wrote:So islamophobia would probably never have started if Islam wasn't such a bully. Bully Beards!!

Bill Maher: Islam’s “the only religion that acts like the mafia, that will f**king kill you if you say the wrong thing”

he got it right on. It is not a religion, it is a political system designed to perpetuate its elite.

Van Gogh was murdered by Mohammed Bouyeri working on behalf of the mafia. The murder widened and polarized the debate in the Netherlands about the social position of its more than one million Muslim residents. In an apparent reaction against controversial statements about the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish religions—such as those Van Gogh was renowned for—the Dutch Minister of Justice, Christian Democrat Piet Hein Donner, suggested Dutch blasphemy laws should either be applied more stringently or made more strict

Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie - "SI inform the proud Muslim people of the world that the author of the Satanic Verses book which is against Islam, the Prophet and the Koran, and all involved in its publication who were aware of its content, are sentenced to death."

Anonymous wrote:
If you wish to engage in the self study of Islam (because you do not trust the word of any Muslim), then begin with learning to read the Quran in the language it was revealed in and its true meaning. Also learn Islamic history. Anybody can opine on Islam by reading the translation. Doesn't make their opinion valuable or credible. Its just their opinion. Sort of like my picking up a Bible and casting my own opinions on the scripture. I would be better off to study the language the Bible was revealed in and read original scriptures. If I can not do that, I turn next to priests or biblical scholars. I do not refuse assuming all Christians are liars. I find a priest or biblical scholar who seems trustworthy and ask him to help me understand Christianity.