Conversation Between rupertj and Indo-Chinese Food

I apologise that my tired eyes misread what you'd written. I thought you had said something else. Honest mistake, but of course those don't exist - rather, I either have the memory of a goldfish (apparently the goldfish is known for its poor memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfish#Intelligence) or I am being malicious.

The reason I choose not to respond to each and every point you make is that they are not all relevant to the discussion. We could spend a thread on each one of them, and to try to handle them all in one thread would be pretty thick, especially since I do not have an office of staff ready to deal with them all.

I 'reach out' to those who show some sign of amicability and openness. Sometimes, they rather 'reach out' to me, and I'm glad to engage with them. In your case I messaged you because for a period of a couple of days, every thread I went on, whether or not it was directly about Islam, you seemed ready to pull out the infantile arguments and manipulated facts, misdirect and so forth when I didn't have the time to chase them all up. I thought, ''I'm sure this is a reasonable guy and once I've demonstrated to him that he isn't an expert on all things Islamic he would at least look at the other side of the picture.'' How wrong I was.

I see nothing 'creepy' about exchanges on one another's wall, seeing as 200 billion other people do this on TSR. It's a way of discussing something with one person as opposed to everyone. It's not a PM anyway. These messages are public, whereas PM's don't go on a wall.

Mostly I don't engage in specific threads - as I've already told you - because of time restrictions. I do engage in proper debates in person with people I know or I meet, via PM, and occasionally on TSR when I have the time. Although I wouldn't call them debates, because every controversial thread on TSR is just chaos. I'd much rather write for a university magazine or something.

Anyways, it's 1.30am.

"There is another world of Islamic discourse which you've no reason to know, and which 99% of Muslims have little engagement with." Those were my exact words, not that they're dumb. They might even be the world's greatest mathematicians but simply not be motivated to study Islam so deeply. I'm certainly not the one who said they have an ''average IQ of 2 points'' and I find it insulting.

As I stated before I've taken part in those threads only to discover that for various reasons, those long-drawn debates accomplish little. If you're comment isn't on the first page, you're exposure is so minute that you're much better off using different methods to reach out. For me, that is to pick off people whom I've interacted with who seem willing to acknowledge that as humans, we can learn something by being committed and genuinely interested in what the other person has to say. When two people are like that, they get get something out of it. I'm not available on TSR 24 hours a day like I have been in the past. This evening is a rare time for me to be on TSR in what is usually now a 72 hour working week (that's not even including the non-academic stuff).

We were having a worthwhile debate last time before you started showing signs of not taking me seriously because of course, like all Muslims, you can size me up in 5 minutes. There's nothing deep in anything I say, voluntary or involuntary, to examine, since all Muslims just don't 'get it'.

I don't claim to be smart, rather I've done my best to study Islam deeply. It is more important to realise what high order thinking requires and constitutes, than it is to be born with it, which very few of us are. Otherwise there's no use in being smart anyway. With all due respect I only point out that in the case of Islam, you have rarely presented an argument that I've read on any thread or personal exchange that isn't a typically crude and easily refuted one. The reason is obvious: you haven't studied it deeply!

I have had tremendous success in certain domains, but people on TSR usually think they must surely be smarter than the person on the other side. Personal criticism is not a common thing that I indulge in. However, with you I've found that there is no honest willingness to learn. You think you know everything because you've read a few books. I even asked you months ago about the books you've read: you were forced to admit that your Islamic reading was painfully thin. This leads you to assume that all of the Islamic arguments are the ones you get on TSR from teenagers.

''Strange online attachments''. I have a Mac. the Mac, to date, only has 2 viruses, neither of which have infected my computer (I checked). I uploaded that file to one of the safest and highest-trafficking websites on the Internet. Given various international laws and setups, there is no way in hell that that website could give you viruses. So the reason you're unwilling to download a Microsoft Word document bemuses me, but it seems like laziness. Whatever, the link is broken now because you took so long to ignore it.

3. While Islam emphasised an interdisciplinary approach, it is quite obvious that not every single discipline has to be involved in every single other discipline. I was referencing legal theory, philosophy, formal logic, linguistics, politics and theology. In addition we may add Arabic literature, since many poetic techniques in the Qur'an were new or far less developed.

1. He may not reduce your knowledge, but if you think that knowledge of the social sciences is as black and white as mathematics, then you are deluded. Knowledge can be refined, improved, opinions can be altered whether drastically or not so-. I don't know what these 'dimwits' have to do with it, because this man is a scholar of both Western and Eastern tradition and you might learn something, even if it simply 'how to make a professor look dumb'. Every time we discuss scholars you have this derisory attitude to them: why not email this guy? He is quite open to receiving and replying to emails, as long as they are polite. I challenge you to list 7 Islamic scholars without looking up names. And give a three line description of the major contributions of 4 of them. That way I can be sure that your grand claims are based on experience and learning.

2. Dismissing the Muslim community has being stupid is not exactly a sign of great objectivity or anything else but prejudice. Your experience seems to be limited to TSR 15-year-olds. I have contributed to many threads and engaged in debates with people. Sadly, however, I grew up and realised how poor quality these debates are, how there is absolutely no structure, how each time you set out an explanation, in order to be convincing you'd have to begin by addressing each and every underlying assumption of the other person's argument and then proceeding to explain a lot of deeply complicated relationships and structures before beginning on the topic itself. I am not a professional internet missionary. So nowadays when I have time I just try to pinpoint the other person's generalisations, implicit assumptions, misconceptions and provide a few pointers in the right direction, whether on TSR or YouTube or Facebook (real life friends only there).

regardless, i could study the life and times of the Power Rangers for 12 years, it would nt afford me any respect in worthwhile circles. Except that certain worthwhile circles have discovered the Islamic sciences to be very important - your ignorance on the topic can be easily rectified. I can give you some suggested reading if you want.

now you are tryin to brach off into a different subject - you started trying to justify the status of quranic scholars. Tell me what theologists or philosophers are regarded as great that have 'legendary' original ideas ( ie not copied from the greeks persians and indians like islamic scientiests tried) and secondly what did any of that owe to islam? the great Qur'anic scholars usually were also theologians and philosophers. The Islamic world emphasised the interdisciplinary approach in academia, as did the non-Islamic world at that time, to some extent, because each discipline informs Qur'anic interpretation and helps to develop the faculties and techniques required to do it well. Formal logic, for example, has obvious applications to linguistics, as every linguistics student can tell you.

Identifying their ignorance isnt picking on them, its doing them a favour in most cases. So if only 1 % of muslims only engage at this level, then it is a fringe of islam rather than the norm
Are you telling me that 100% of non-Muslims can hold a very high level argument? I'm sure you're perfectly capable of intellectual discussion when it pertains to History or something, but I am only being brutally honest when I say that you've yet to give me a particularly nuanced point that is not easily dismissible. That may be something to do with the rambling element of our discussions thus far, admittedly. Perhaps in person these conversations wouldn't suck so much. So yeah, would you really expect the other 99% of under-25 Muslims to have such deep knowledge of Islam, when they are studying Engineering or whatever?

Let's respond to the thing from that forum first:
1. The fact that you take TSR or any other chat forum as some serious intellectual battleground for Muslims is itself an issue. TSR stands for thestudentroom. It doesnt attract geniuses with expert knowledge. If you want that, I can put you in touch with a convert Cambridge professor who does know his stuff, and by all accounts knows Islamic history better than you do.

2. I would naturally expect an intelligent Muslim to know more about Islam than an intelligent non-Muslim. In certain cases, you may argue otherwise, but in terms of Islamic scholarship, there is really no way that the intelligent non-Muslim can be expected, on average, to know more about it that the intelligent Muslim. This is common sense. Taking into account the fact that i more-or-less know my stuff and am not ''just another tsr pubescent'', perhaps a more open debate in which you considered that you do not know as much as you think you do about Islam would allow you to learn something, and at the same time allow me to learn something. You enter every islam-related argument with a preconception of the mental capacity and the prejudices of the other person. you do your best to win the argument and never your best to refine your views through life experience. So much for intellectual enquiry.

you convienently ignorned the fact i stated that various non muslims englishmen were the first people responsible for translating the quran into english.
That's because you failed to explain what your point is. In fact, you said that it's the reason I can understand the Qur'an. This is totally false since I don't use those translations, and will be even more false in a couple of months time, by which I'll have reached Arabic fluency.

You may or may not want to see my response to ''Elipsis'' in that thread. I think point 3. is particularly relevant to you, though point 1. would not do harm either.

On the other hand, since I am a prepubescent air-headed Muslim with no thoughts worth considering, perhaps you'd prefer to return to your place in the ''intellectual community'', in which I have surely no place and surely wouldn't be able to bother you.

...jsut that their achivements had nothing to do with islam or an islamic 7 undergraduate 'Ilm-ud-Din' course involvng growing a long beard in order to have the authority to rant on youtube about gays and apostates and israel and Mcdonalds. This only impresses pre-pubescent muslims on islamic chat forums, not members of the intellectual community.

as far as im concerned, someone that has read the quran has as much authority to speak about it as anyone else, regardless of the curliness of their beard. It isnt a complicated book, nor written with any intellectual content - it is simply a book of stories, rituals and political doctrine form 8th century AD arabia. Seeing that neither of us are 8th century AD arabians, we both have an equal authority on the subject- though i would lok at the subject from a clear unindoctrinated independant view.

Nice attempt to make me seem stupid. Clearly, however, 7 years is long for a mere undergrad degree. To be of ''PhD'' level as a researcher in the Islamic sciences, it takes about 11-12 years in total, in large parts of the world. Evidently, bearded brown men seem unintelligent to you.

I've little to say about 'YouTube scholars' - 99% of them aren't of scholarly level, although tragically a lot of people think they are. Your ignorance of the great Islamic legal theorists, philosophers, theologians etc. is now quite obvious.

You enjoy picking on teenagers who copy and paste out of their relative ignorance, but I'm not one of them. There is another world of Islamic discourse which you've no reason to know, and which 99% of Muslims have little engagement with. You are so far removed from it; it's shocking that you can't admit that you don't know and agree to learn more before challenging more knowledgeable persons than yourself to arguments about it.

Re Your last para, I dealt with it months ago, but apparently you were unwilling to reply because any reply would've required to show some humility.

No because I've written my response specifically to address your message. I am not concerned with anybody else. at this rate I'm not going to continue this discussion. There are better things for each of us to do.

Equally I don't see why you think I'm trying to put a virus on your computer. mediafire is a very safe website. It would be a shame to have to end the discussion on such lame grounds.