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The Satanic Verses (Read 15913 times)
Emily the Muslim
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #45 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 9:29am
 
tallowood wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 9:01am:
What is the name of that narrator, not Shaitan by a chance? Also who decided what was truth and what was lie? Which rules did they use to determine that? Your own disclaimer at the end of the post suggests human fallibility, which in turn suggests fallibility of human decides and even Mohammed himself unless He was not human.


Thank you for your response, but I'm kinda new here, and I'm trying to be polite and respectful, so I would appreciate it if you would show me the same courtesy. Maybe I'm reading too much into your response, but it seemed very aggressive and accusative.

As for your question, while the term shaitan can be applied to any rebellious entity, be it human, jinn, or <i>The Shaitan</i> formerly named Iblis, the name of the specific narrator of this Hadith was al-Waqidi. For your questions about who determined what was true and what was not, specifically in the case of the reliability of al-Waqidi as a transmitter and his transmissions as believable or not, please see this website: http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/sverses.html They go into much more detail than I could manage in these 5500 character posts.

As for your last question, of course Muhammad (pbuh) was 100% human, just as Jesus Christ (pbuh) was 100% human, but as a theist, and specifically, as an Islamic theist, I believe that God protects His prophets (peace be upon all of them) from bringing false messages to their people. As for me, I am not a prophet, so I can't trust that what I say is free from error.

Again, this is just my view coming from a theist background. You're welcome to disagree, but please try to limit the passive-aggressiveness.

Whatever I say correctly comes from God, whatever mistakes I make are my own, and please forgive me for that.

Peace!

Hmm... I think I used the phrase "as for" way too many times...
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tallowood
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #46 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 10:12am
 
Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 9:29am:
...

As for your last question, of course Muhammad (pbuh) was 100% human, just as Jesus Christ (pbuh) was 100% human, but as a theist, and specifically, as an Islamic theist, I believe that God protects His prophets (peace be upon all of them) from bringing false messages to their people. As for me, I am not a prophet, so I can't trust that what I say is free from error. ...



Sorry but i did not understand the bit about aggressiveness.
Thanks for the link.
As for protection of prophets by God ..... there are two things about it:

1 According to the Gharaniq incident God sent Gabriel to inform Mohamed about Satan's interference and later comforted him:
Quote:
Thus God removed the sorrow from his Messenger, reassured him about that which he had feared and cancelled the words which Satan had cast on his tongue, that their gods were the high-flying cranes whose intercession was accepted with approval. He now revealed, following the mention of "al-Lat, al-'Uzza and Manat, the third, the other," the words:
Are yours the males and his the females? That indeed were an unfair division! They are but names which you have named, you and your fathers ...
to the words:
to whom he wills and accepts.

The above does not contradict the notion of protection of prophets by God


2 The people who were making decisions about truthfulness or otherwise of a hadith were not prophets therefore they were not entitle to the divine protection therefore as mere humans potentially they were as fallible as al-Waqidi.








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Emily the Muslim
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #47 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:03am
 
tallowood wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 10:12am:
Sorry but i did not understand the bit about aggressiveness.


"What is the name of that narrator, not Shaitan by a chance?"

That was what seemed a little aggressive to me. But again, like I said, I might have just been reading more into it than was there.

You're right that the hadith would not violate the notion of God protecting His revelation from errors, since according to the hadith, He sent Gabriel to correct it.

However, what would violate the Prophet's (pbuh) mission is that he himself would ever accept other deities as okay intercessors after saying la ilaha (no gods) illa (except) Allah (The God). So, the hadith's relation that he accepted worship of other deities contradicts his Shahadah or testimony of faith that there is no other god worthy of worship except God.


tallowood wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 10:12am:
2 The people who were making decisions about truthfulness or otherwise of a hadith were not prophets therefore they were not entitle to the divine protection therefore as mere humans potentially they were as fallible as al-Waqidi.


Yes, the people were making decisions about the veracity of the ahadith (plural of hadith) were not prophets and were prone to error. However, they used a scientific method of hadith authentication and reasoning. How Al-Waqidi was determined to be unreliable is discussed in the site link I gave in the previous post, along with arguments for why the story itself is unacceptable given considerations in details of its telling and supposed time of occurence.
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freediver
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #48 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:14am
 
What is this 'scientific method'?
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Emily the Muslim
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #49 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:53am
 
freediver wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:14am:
What is this 'scientific method'?


Now there's a whole PhD of a subject right there.

Well, here is something you might find interesting to read...

http://www.quran.org/library/articles/ahmad0.htm

I'm sorry I can't give you a more concise explanation of the method of hadith authentication and its application in Islam.  I hope that this article gives you some idea of the complexity of this subject, though.

Here's what one person (http://looklex.com/contact/p_tore.htm) had to say about the method of the collection and authentication of the ahadith:

"When early Muslim scholars collected the siras, they used two methods. The first method weighed authenticity by testing the chain of the story's transmitters, isnad. Scholars would analyze how far back in time it was possible to trace the transmission, and whether the transmitters were reported to be honest people, etc. The other method compared stories, and the more a group of stories related to one another, the more reliable they were considered to be.

This scholarship resulted in 6 collections, or hadiths. Of these, the one assembled by the scholar Bukhari is considered to be the most scientifically accurate. Muslim's hadith is considered to be almost as good as Bukhari's. The other 4 also have high value, but most people reading the hadiths seldom venture beyond Bukhari and al-Muslim. The 4 are the following; Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, Abu Dawud and an-Nisai.

According to the tradition, Bukhari had 7275 traditions validated out of a material of 600,000. Muslim collected 9,200 out of a total 300,000. Among of the high number of omitted traditions many were left out for being duplicates.

The value and accuracy of the hadiths should be regarded as fairly high, when judged by modern scholarship. The techniques used by these historians, resembles to a large extent that employed by cotemporary historians. Their achievement is so much the greater, however, because they had few historical models on which to rely. While several irregularities can be traced, little can be ascribed to lack of scientific honesty."

http://i-cias.com/e.o/hadith.htm
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tallowood
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #50 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:21pm
 
Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 11:03am:
...
"What is the name of that narrator, not Shaitan by a chance?"

That was what seemed a little aggressive to me. But again, like I said, I might have just been reading more into it than was there.

You're right that the hadith would not violate the notion of God protecting His revelation from errors, since according to the hadith, He sent Gabriel to correct it.

However, what would violate the Prophet's (pbuh) mission is that he himself would ever accept other deities as okay intercessors after saying la ilaha (no gods) illa (except) Allah (The God). So, the hadith's relation that he accepted worship of other deities contradicts his Shahadah or testimony of faith that there is no other god worthy of worship except God.


tallowood wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 10:12am:
2 The people who were making decisions about truthfulness or otherwise of a hadith were not prophets therefore they were not entitle to the divine protection therefore as mere humans potentially they were as fallible as al-Waqidi.


Yes, the people were making decisions about the veracity of the ahadith (plural of hadith) were not prophets and were prone to error. However, they used a scientific method of hadith authentication and reasoning. How Al-Waqidi was determined to be unreliable is discussed in the site link I gave in the previous post, along with arguments for why the story itself is unacceptable given considerations in details of its telling and supposed time of occurence.


Please see my post about SV and usage of Shaitan name as nickname for Gibreel by his mother on previous page.

I had a look at your link and did not see any scientific method there. To say "And Allah knows best!" as a proof of their hypothesis is NOT a scientific method but a Credo of their religious believes.

BTW, did you find them to be extremely aggressive using such words as "gross ignorance and sheer tomfoolery" about their opponents or is it acceptable to you?


Quote:
However, what would violate the Prophet's (pbuh) mission is that he himself would ever accept other deities as okay intercessors after saying la ilaha (no gods) illa (except) Allah (The God). So, the hadith's relation that he accepted worship of other deities contradicts his Shahadah or testimony of faith that there is no other god worthy of worship except God.


No it does not contradict his Shahadah. As he was a "100% human" it means that he was fallible while his divine protection as prophet we already discussed and yourself agreed that there is no contradiction there either.



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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #51 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:34pm
 
Go tallow...  on fire  Smiley
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Emily the Muslim
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #52 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:55pm
 
Please see my post about SV and usage of Shaitan name as nickname for Gibreel by his mother on previous page.

>> A link would be helpful, because I'm not sure where to find that, and I wasn't aware that Gibreel had a mother.

I had a look at your link and did not see any scientific method there. To say "And Allah knows best!" as a proof of their hypothesis is NOT a scientific method but a Credo of their religious believes.

>> I only said you might find the link interesting to read, I didn't say I agreed with it 100%. Then again, I didn't say that I disagreed with it either, so it's my own fault for being silent on that. I was wondering if you saw anything scientific about the method for authenticating ahadith as described in the excerpt I posted from http://i-cias.com/e.o/hadith.htm .

>> Also, the reason why they would have said Allah knows best is to cover themselves for any mistakes they make, it's a basic disclaimer that they might have made mistakes in what they've written or hypothesized.

BTW, did you find them to be extremely aggressive using such words as "gross ignorance and sheer tomfoolery" about their opponents or is it acceptable to you?

>> Yes, I do find those to be aggressive, but I didn't write that article, and I never said I agree with it 100%, I only found it to be an interesting read.
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #53 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:58pm
 
Quote:
I was wondering if you saw anything scientific about the method for authenticating ahadith as described in the excerpt I posted


I don't see anything scientific in it, but then I tend to use science in the modern context, as distinct from the methods used to study history.
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Emily the Muslim
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #54 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:02pm
 
freediver wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:58pm:
I don't see anything scientific in it, but then I tend to use science in the modern context, as distinct from the methods used to study history.


Oh okay, sorry, now I see what happened. We crossed terms.

I was using scientific method in the form used to study history and verify historic events, and you were using it in the terms of modern science, and I misunderstood your question. Sorry.
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #55 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:22pm
 
Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:55pm:
Please see my post about SV and usage of Shaitan name as nickname for Gibreel by his mother on previous page.

>> A link would be helpful, because I'm not sure where to find that, and I wasn't aware that Gibreel had a mother....


Sorry I've mislead you the Full Moon made me do that Embarrassed , it was in another thread. So now here it is where it rightfully belongs.

Quote:
Gibreel when he submits to the inevitable, when he slides heavy-lidded towards visions of his angeling, passes his loving mother who has a different name for him, Shaitan, she calls him, just like Shaitan, same to same, because he has been fooling around with the tiffins to be carried into the city for the office workers' lunch, mischeevious imp, she slices the air with her hand, rascal has been putting Muslim meat compartments into Hindu nonveg tiffin-carriers, customers are up in arms.
(c) SV by S. Rushdie (chapter 2, page 64)


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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #56 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:35pm
 
tallowood wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:22pm:
Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:55pm:
Please see my post about SV and usage of Shaitan name as nickname for Gibreel by his mother on previous page.

>> A link would be helpful, because I'm not sure where to find that, and I wasn't aware that Gibreel had a mother....


Sorry I've mislead you the Full Moon made me do that, it was in another thread. So here it is now.

Quote:
Gibreel when he submits to the inevitable, when he slides heavy-lidded towards visions of his angeling, passes his loving mother who has a different name for him, Shaitan, she calls him, just like Shaitan, same to same, because he has been fooling around with the tiffins to be carried into the city for the office workers' lunch, mischeevious imp, she slices the air with her hand, rascal has been putting Muslim meat compartments into Hindu nonveg tiffin-carriers, customers are up in arms.
(c) SV by S. Rushdie (chapter 2, page 64)


Okay... so Salman Rushdie used Shaitan as a nickname for Gibreel in his book The Satanic Verses... that's interesting, but I don't really understand why you brought it up. I'm not sure where Rushdie got the idea that Gibreel had a mother or that she liked to call him Shaitan. His book is classified by himself as fiction, so I'm just wondering if there is some Islamic source he's taking that idea from, or if that's something he has created himself to weave into his novel.
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #57 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 3:19pm
 
Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:35pm:
...
Okay... so Salman Rushdie used Shaitan as a nickname for Gibreel in his book The Satanic Verses... that's interesting, but I don't really understand why you brought it up.


"a narrator who was known to be a liar and fabricator" -> The Deceiver -> Shaitan



Emily the Muslim wrote on Nov 14th, 2008 at 1:35pm:
.
I'm not sure where Rushdie got the idea that Gibreel had a mother or that she liked to call him Shaitan. His book is classified by himself as fiction, so I'm just wondering if there is some Islamic source he's taking that idea from, or if that's something he has created himself to weave into his novel.


Of course Rushdie's SV is a fiction as books of literature are.

Rushdie's sources for the verse are Tabarī's Tafsīr, Muqātil, Abdu r-Razzāq, Ibn Kathir, Abu Ja‘far an-Nahhās, Wāhidī and Suyūtī.

His inspiration for character of Gibreel comes from Michail Bulgakov's great masterpiece "Master and Margarita".  "Woland (Satan in disguise) a 'foreign professor' who is in Moscow to present a performance of 'black magic' and then to expose its machinations. The exposure (as one could guess) never occurs, instead Woland exposes the greed and bourgeois behaviour of the spectators themselves". "He who is eternally Evil but is fated to do Good for ever."
In its own turn the character of "Woland" was inspired by "Mephistopheles" from medieval legends about Doctor Faust.

When I read SV first time few years ago I found it boring but since than the controversy of the book made me to do some research and now I really enjoying it. It is great example of intercultural transmission: from medieval Christian Europe to atheistic USSR of 1920s to modern Islamic culture of Indian subcontinent and back to modern Europe. Fantastic journey with a little help on the way from Evil Imam who was fated to do Good Work of popularising the Rushdie's book.







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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #58 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 3:56pm
 
I think if we're going to be talking about the koran and scientific method etc- it might be helpful not to bring fictional works into play (unless they're referring to something believed to be factual)- otherwise, there are total cross purposes here.
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Re: The Satanic Verses
Reply #59 - Nov 14th, 2008 at 4:08pm
 
But a work of fiction "The Satanic Verses" and how it was recieved by Muslims is the topic. What non-fiction inspired some of the story and what was made up is just where the discussion has most recently arrived.

We may get somewhere with this. Like FD and Emily have both agreed, Scientific method can't really apply except possibly in analysing physical evidence such as origin and age but not the validity of the message.
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