A Koran is found...which may be older than Muhammad!!!

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and give two differnt interpretations of the quran - which is in itself a paradox if you claim it cannot be altered; the language used is actually vital

not really, the Hindu vedic scriptures are far older than the quran, as is the chinese I Ching. the bible is claimed to be 3000 years old - torah older. the babylonian epic of gilgamesh has survived unchanged from its tablet days over 5000 years ago. the quran is a flash in the pan in comparison.

Muslim is a sahih hadith, probably the most trusted narrator in islam. you cant simply claim any narrations you dont like are all of a sudden 'untrustworthy '

it can if the order is affected ( which it sometimes is dependant on dialect etc)

There are a lot of flaws / contradictaory statements in the old & new testaments by the way. So too in the hindu scriptures.

Muslim & Bukhari are the most authentic compilation of Hadith when compared to several others. Yet not 100% authentic, could be 97%, even 99%, I don't really know. The person responsible for collecting, scrutinizing, filtering, compiling these hadith said that I am human, fallible to error, so if any of its readers find a hadith that contradicts the koran or prophets approved way of life, that hadith in question can be binned / discarded / thrown out the window. In compiling Hadith, the touchstone is & always was the Koran, Prophets way of life & obviously the character, trust, reliability of the chain of narrators.

It is widely known that Bukhari once discarded a Hadith only because he had personally seen one of the narrators deceive a group of sheep inorder to capture /steal one of them

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 221

mariachi

Original post by maxim_jesus

Every text will have its history, & I agree the same applies to the Koran, but people mis-represent the koran & define alteration in a way that makes it look corrupted from its original version, which is untrue. Any tampering that changes the message or meaning of the koran is an alteration from a moslem's perspective.

while I agree that the text of the Quran is overall well preserved, it is wrong to claim, as you did, that it is "intact word by word, not even a single punctuation mark is displaced or replaced"

in reality - as I posted - the various recitations include different words (singular/plural, active/passive, masculine/feminine etc etc) and, with regard to punctuation marks, not only are they later additions, but the systems used differ among them

so, what I object to is the exaggeration of this "word for word" claim, while the message of course is still there

why is this important ? because Muslims make a big deal out of a "special protection" that the Quran is supposed to have been enjoying

in reality, what deeply differentiates the Quran from e.g. the Gospels, is that the Quran, right from the beginning, was the "official holy text" of a centralised Empire whose authorities could impose their "canonical" version : and we know that Uthman did just that (burning all variants he could lay his hands on, and circulating copies of the "canonical text" to the various parts of the Empire)

on the other hand, the Gospels, for the first three centuries of their existence, were the "holy texts" of a persecuted religion, whose followers were scattered in a variety of different States; so no central authority could ever manage to impose a single "canonical" text (even if quite a few have tried)

however, in my view, the "preservation" of the Quran is not different in quality from the one of many other, even much more ancient texts (say, Virgil's Aeneid)

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 222

Reformed

Original post by maxim_jesus

There are a lot of flaws / contradictaory statements in the old & new testaments by the way. So too in the hindu scriptures

Original post by maxim_jesus

Muslim & Bukhari are the most authentic compilation of Hadith when compared to several others. Yet not 100% authentic, could be 97%, even 99%, I don't really know. The person responsible for collecting, scrutinizing, filtering, compiling these hadith said that I am human, fallible to error, so if any of its readers find a hadith that contradicts the koran or prophets approved way of life, that hadith in question can be binned / discarded / thrown out the window. In compiling Hadith, the touchstone is & always was the Koran, Prophets way of life & obviously the character, trust, reliability of the chain of narrators.

It is widely known that Bukhari once discarded a Hadith only because he had personally seen one of the narrators deceive a group of sheep inorder to capture /steal one of them

yes but it can be seen that the users of hadith only want to do so when they agree with its analysis - when it conjures something up potentially contraversial, they quickly try to dissapply it (tsr is a great example)- note this has only started being done in the late 20th century while for centuries before these passages remained unchallenged by muslims

Reply 223

mariachi

Original post by Reformed

most scriptures are spiritual prowse, so its impossible to claim theyre contradictatory, though the quran is riddled with inconsistensies, especially when its promoters try and venture into the realms of science. so the quran does nothing special that stands out form the crowd of earlier texts
.

yes but it can be seen that the users of hadith only want to do so when they agree with its analysis - when it conjures something up potentially contraversial, they quickly try to dissapply it (tsr is a great example)- note this has only started being done in the late 20th century while for centuries before these passages remained unchallenged by muslims

The Sahih Bukhari and Muslim have been, so to say, "canonised" in the 10th-11th century, i.e. their status has been elevated above that of the other collections of ahadith and, for most Sunni Muslims, they constitute the main reference after the Quran

This process of "canonisation" of Bukhari and Muslim is described in detail e.g. by Jonathan Brown (a convert to Islam, by the way) in works such as http://www.brill.com/canonization-al-bukhari-and-muslim

Brown's work is available online here https://islaambooks.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/the-canonization-of-al-bukhari-and-muslim-by-jonathan-brown.pdf

An interesting contribution by him on the Birmingham Quran pages (including his view on the chapters/verses issue which seems to interest you in particular) is here http://www.drjonathanbrown.com/2015/how-should-rationalists-deal-with-dogmatism-the-case-of-the-birmingham-quran-pages

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 224

Errm13

Original post by mariachi

An interesting contribution by him on the Birmingham Quran pages (including his view on the chapters/verses issue which seems to interest you in particular) is here http://www.drjonathanbrown.com/2015/how-should-rationalists-deal-with-dogmatism-the-case-of-the-birmingham-quran-pages

Thanks for sharing the article.

What do you think of Tom Holland and his claims?

Reply 225

maxim_jesus

Original post by mariachi

Thanks for this.

I have seen & heard many claims of contradictions in the Koran & like always am happy to clarify them for you as they are not any contradictions in the koran, its usually down to misinterpretation of the verse and/or quoting it out of context

Any piece of text, even in routine life if quoted out of context or misinterpreted can give false meanings.

So please offer me your concerns & I will try my best to address them for you

Reply 226

mariachi

Original post by maxim_jesus

concerns ? I have no concerns at all

as to "contradictions in the Quran", what does it even mean ? the Quran is not a scientific text. In fact, it is rather literary in style, it contains quite a lot of rhetoric, of traditional narrations which were circulating in the Semitic cultural area. Any "problematic" verse of the Quran could always be interpreted as a poetic metaphor, or contextualised, so that any apparent "contradiction" can be easily resolved

However, who would seriously discuss if there are contradictions in say, "Paradise lost" by Milton ? or in Dante's "Commedia" ? we are not talking here of scientific manuals or treaties ...

no, my issue with Islam is simply that I disagree with its rules and with its political and moral content, with its ideas for the organisation of society, of relationship between believers/unbelievers, men/women, government/population etc etc

also that, for the life of me, I cannot see why the Quran should be considered as being any different from many other ancient texts (both religious and non-religious), rather than a "specially protected" , unique "word of God"

best

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 227

i<3milkshake

Just saying in this thread; people seem to have the idea that I feel I have put an end to all religious debate for all time. No. I don't. I think it raises an interesting question; however, they may well still be a god. Without going in to a long essay, I don't dislike people who are religious and no I don't have some belief I have, on TSR, by posting a link, put an end to religion forever.