Indo-Chinese Food (Offline)

we are on a debate forum right now - surely its perfectly logic to put forward your point on the forum??

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.

It exceeds the character limit. Im not willing to begin a thread as im trying to limit my activity on here. May i email you an attachment? It just a continuation of this conversation in .doc format.

LOl thanks buddy, but generally i dont jsut download random files of the internet

Apologies for the delay and for the length. I hope that this will finally clarify many of my positions.

http://www.mediafire.com/?05w2cijym4i011b

All in due course - I'm very busy for the next 5 days or so and I may or may not be able to reply within that time. My apologies

Thanks for re-iterating what i said - your 'scholars are doing nothing of value- a critique, scientific analysis, or in depth discussion of scripture would be something at least of some value. repeating what was already written , but with an added spin on its meaning is a pointless excercise. Of course i realised that, which is why i said form the beginning the existence of scholars was facile- it is one man reading text derived from hebrew religious belief and custom hundreds of years before and telling you what he thinks it means. SChool kids do this every day in english classes around the world. There is no empircal process involved, it becomes simple conjecture- you as a mathematican should be able to have spotted that fact.
again i ask why on earth then are they regarded above proper historians? Becuase they are charged to view islam in entirely a one-eyed basis? Then it valuable to a muslim that doesnt want to hold an open mind- but no-one else.

As regards images- the dieference between photos and painting are in the mechanics of such - the purpose of creating an image for posterity is the same - as is the result. Equally digital images desgined by grpahic desiners are even more so the same as ancient art - the paint brush replaces by the mosue and cpu and the canvas the hard drive ans computer screen. And yet how many muslims accross the world play viedo games with the blessin of these scholars. The whole system seems tenouous to me. Why do muslims even need the quran when your 'scholars' make it up as they go along - without the need to be scientific about anyhting along the way.

I don't think you understand the point. The scholars are not doing a 'critique' of Islam. That is what outsiders do. They aren't weighing up the pros and cons as in the example of tobacco; that is not the objective. Rather, they want to resurrect and preserve the beliefs and way of life of Muhammad (pbuh) in writing. In that respect, Islamic scholarship is of the highest quality. They are not trying to prove the validity of Islam - this is where you expose your ignorance once more. They are working within the frame that assumes Islam is correct and trying to find out what Muhammad (pbuh) really preached. Comparative religion and missionary efforts do not constitute scholarship . The fact that you don't realise this has just delegitimised this debate. Nice theory though.

Regarding image-making, you are pretty much correct up until you mention 'new forms of making images'. The Deoband tradition maintains this strict ruling, but when it comes to new forms of making images, your knowledge seems to be patchy. There is a fundamental difference between a photo and a drawing/painting, which has led to differing opinion. Scholars have held different views but the ruling which permits photo-taking has prevailed. This is not to say that we take family photos and stash them at home. This is also maintained as a sin in the Deoband tradition, and indeed I will expand if you wish for us to have a separate discussion on it. Your theory is evidently biased, because you make no attempt to explain using Quran, Sunnah, 'Ijma, 'Ijtihad or Qiyas, rather just throw out your preconception.

See my wall - i accidentally put it on my own instead of yours. there's two of them, read the lower one first.

i dont agree at all with the principle that so called islamic scholars have any better understanding of what hadith or quran says than anyone else.

Even though their whole purpose in life is to understand the texts?

Historians have been able to decipher what ancient greek scientists meant on the highly technical subjects of physics, chemistry, engineering etc. Why should they not be able to understand the translations of islamic scripture talking about basic day to day life and rituals in arabia?

Because very few of them have gone to the lengths that some of the more famous Islamic scholars went to, to understand its depths. I wonder whether you treat literary experts with the same derision.

in my opinon various 'scholarly opinion' only serves the purpose to change the obvious meanings of scripture to suit contemporary thinking. Plus making themselves seem more important and valuable than they actually are - bit like politicians

You clearly haven't met many of them. Ironically, they have done the exact opposite throughout history.

I don't think this conversation is going anywhere. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. You really should take up some of your issues at sunniforum.com. Some of those people put most of TSR's secular graduates to shame.