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Islam and the Ten Commandments ("Islam and the Decalogue")
The Catholic Thing ^
| July 3, 2016
| Howard Kainz
Posted on 07/17/2017 7:03:43 AM PDT by AnalogReigns
I first noticed something unusual about Islam during the 1980s when I was doing research for my book, Ethics in Context. I devoted one section of the book to the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule, in its negative or positive formulations, is incorporated not only in Christianity (Matt. 7:12), where Jesus declares it is a summary of the law and the prophets, but also in other major religions. For example, in Judaism, What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor; in Hinduism, Let no man do to another that which would be repugnant to himself; in Buddhism, Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful; in Confucianism, What you do not want done to yourself, do not do unto others.
I took this as evidence of the relative universality of rational ethical principles in the world. But in Islam, I could find nothing of the sort, rather just the opposite a reverse Golden Rule, so to speak: Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. Be merciful to one another, but ruthless to the unbelievers (Quran 48:29); Never take unbelievers for friends (3:28). Furthermore, the commands in the Quran to slay the unbelievers wherever they find them (2:191), not befriend them (3:28), fight them and show them harshness (9:123), and smite their heads (47:4) accentuate distance from the Golden Rule.
So I decided at that time just to omit any reference to Islam in that chapter. As I have discovered in further researches, however, the ethical/religious problems within Islam are even more serious. Just as Islam teaches the reverse of the Golden Rule, it teaches the reverse of the last seven of the Ten Commandments, which have to do with morality:
- 4 th Commandment, Honoring Father and Mother: Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam states that retaliation is generally required for murder, but not subject to retaliation is a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offsprings offspring. Honor killings can go in the other direction, too. Boys captured by ISIS report that they were ordered to kill their parents, according to injunctions in the Quran Suras 9:23, 58:22, 60:4, which mandate complete hatred of, and disassociation from unbelievers, even if they are kindred or parents.
- 5th Commandment, no killing: Muhammad is considered by Muslims to be the perfect man, and offered numerous examples of murder for devout Muslims to follow beginning with the murder of poets who ridiculed him in Medina and Mecca, and ending with beheading of hundreds of unbelievers in his various raids and battles. Osama bin Laden, in his 1996 Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places, justified his Fatwa to kill Americans by quoting Quranic verses 3:145, 47:4-6, 2:154, 9:14, 8:72, and 9:5 (the verse of the sword). Terrorism is specifically supported in verses 8:12, and 3:151, and a hadith of Bukhari 52:256. And conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by execution, according to Bukhari 9.84.57, [Muhammad ordered] Whoever changed his Islamic religion, then kill him.
Persian painting of Muhammads vision (artist unknown), c. 1320
- 6th Commandment, no adultery: Adultery in common parlance signifies infidelity to ones spouse. But for married Muslim males, allowed up to four wives, easy divorce, and slave girls (4:3), it would require extreme carelessness to commit adultery. The Prophet himself offers the example of avoiding adultery with thirteen wives, concubines, and slave girls, permitted by Allah (Sura 33:50). For women and unmarried males, however, adultery is possible and severely punishable.
- 7th Commandment, no stealing: Ali Dashti, in his biography of Muhammad, Twenty-Three Years, shows how, by combining in a single massive force, Muslims were able to capitalize on the already existing customs of Arab tribes to indulge their greed by rustling two or three hundred camels in a raid on a weaker tribe, and became able to seize far more booty, and to conquer rich and fertile lands. Sura 8 of the Quran provides comprehensive instructions on obtaining booty in war, including a special revelation (8:41) that God and his apostle should receive 1/5 of the spoils.
- 8th Commandment, no lying: Unlike Christian martyrs, who were willing to die rather than deny their religion, Muslims are allowed by taqiyya to lie about their religious beliefs when this will support the advancement of Islam. Nonie Darwish, in The Devil We Dont Know, describes how Islamic Sharia law incorporates taqiyya: Sharia itself allows lies not only with infidels, but also to solve disputes among Muslims and in the wife/husband relationship, thereby covering practically all relationships. . . .The individual Muslim is taught that protection of Islam is a sacred communal obligation that is more important than family, life, or happiness.
- 9th Commandment, not coveting a neighbors wife: Muhammad himself, the model of Islamic virtue, offers the best example of nullifying this command. Smitten with infatuation for Zeinab, the wife of his adopted son, Zeid, he received approval from Allah (33:37) to take her for a wife. Similar incidents include his infatuation for Aisha, when she was six, who later became his favorite wife; and for a newly created Jewish widow, Reihana, taking her to bed the same night he executed her husband.
- 10th Commandment, not coveting a neighbors goods: Wafa Sultan in A God Who Hates discusses the cultural and historical conditions which accentuated and still fuel the importance of envy in Islam: Bedouins feared raiding on the one hand, and relied on it as a means of livelihood on the other. Then Islam came along and canonized it. Muslims in the twenty-first century still fear they may be raided by others and live every second of their lives preparing to raid someone else.
As I suggested in a previous column, Islam may be best understood as a worldwide cult. It enforces honesty and loyalty and fairness among believers, but entails no obligation to respect the ethical canons of unbelievers, which include the Golden Rule and the Decalogue.
TOPICS: Current Events; History; Islam; Religion & Politics
KEYWORDS: islam; islamism; mohammed; terrorism
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To: AnalogReigns
21
posted on
07/19/2017 9:02:10 AM PDT
by
Sergio
(An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
To: Paal Gulli
Saint Jerome reputedly was the foremost biblical scholar of his day, and he used Non occides, in his 4th-Century Vulgate Latin transliteration. Apparently rabbis, even in Jesus day were moving from murder to just "kill." (I read this somewhere in a scholarly paper, forgotten where). They may of been influenced by the translation of the bible they were reading--namely the Jewish Septuagint.
We need to remember also, that Jerome also used the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the older Hebrew text of the Old Testament, done in the ca. 200s BC. So he was translating a translation...not something any translator would do today.
This Greek OT was the common version of the Bible used by Jews and Christians alike in the early centuries of the Church. Jerome translated it into Latin as by his day (ca. 400) people in the western Roman had ceased speaking and reading Greek.
Even certain quotations of the Old Testament in the New Testament in various places have wording that is taken straight from the Greek of the Septuagint--as Greek in the 1st Century would of been more familiar to average Jews, than Hebrew (which of course Gentiles didn't know at all). Hebrew had become a religious language for the Jews at that time--almost like Latin (used to be) in the Roman Catholic Church. Jesus, Paul, and the disciples--scholars are quite sure--used Aramaic (similar to, but not the same as, Hebrew) as their conversational language. Greek was the Roman Empire's common language in the 1st C. though--and anyone slightly educated or involved in commerce, would know it.
There were actually debates among the rabbis in Jesus day, on the proper interpretation of the Hebrew text (not all that different as with Bible scholars today)...as it really was not their first language--and besides, having been written from 400 to 1,400 years before--to their ears must of been archaic (like Middle English is to our ears).
Also, keep in mind that good translators--in trying to understand the best meaning of the old Hebrew, will compare their translation to the Septuagint--since it was older Jewish scholar's understanding of the Hebrew 200+ years before Christ. All I'm saying is the the "thou shalt not kill" issue is not as simple as a mistranslation into English of the Hebrew...
The best scholars today--with many more manuscripts and study aids available though, than even Jerome, AND translating directly from the older Hebrew text, not the Greek translation of the Hebrew, do all agree--the word is closest to the English "murder."
22
posted on
07/20/2017 1:58:39 PM PDT
by
AnalogReigns
(Real life is ANALOG...)
To: AnalogReigns
I have read much the same about other words in the Bible NOT being what WE think of. For instance ‘lust’. We pass a beautiful woman on the street and think “Good Lord, she’s gorgeous!” and may even turn to see her walking away. That is appreciation of God’s work. If you turned and whacked her on the head and raped her, THAT is lust. Sound familiar, muzzies?
23
posted on
07/20/2017 2:33:58 PM PDT
by
Safetgiver
(Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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