Posted on 02/24/2003 4:25:46 PM PST by xzins
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Islam by Mark Hines, M.A. Muhammad's Allah religion was a counterfeit reaction to Christianity. As Christianity was sweeping across distant lands and was becoming dominate, Satan took elements from the Torah and from Christianity, and he corrupted them. As a younger generation of Muslims, most likely being born into Islam and having little choice, earn college degrees, they see Islam as a violent and backward seventh-century religion. Many of their ancestors were forced into Islam at the point of a sword. Islam is both a culture and a religion, as it tries to deify seventh-century Arabia. Freedoms that U.S. citizens take for granted (speech, religion, press, etc.), are not tolerated by ruling Islamic governance.
Islam tolerates no other religions. Muslims are to regard only Islam as acceptable (Qur'an 3: 85). Reflecting Muhammad's murderous life, Islam is a violent religion. Muslims are to kill all who reject Muhammad and the Qur'an (Qur'an 2:191; 9:5, 12, 29, 123; 47: 4; 48:16; 66:9). Muslims are to fight until all other religions are destroyed (Qur'an 2: 193; 8:37-41; 8: 65). Islam teaches that all who reject the Qur'an will be regulated to hell (Qur'an 5:10).
As people become better educated, and as they long for a God of love, they become ashamed of the invented religion of a lust driven Arab highwayman who attacked camel caravans, murdered innocent merchants and thieved their property after getting revelations from Allah. Of the ninety-nine names Islam has for Allah, not even one of them is "love." The true nature of Islam is often reflected in the loveless eyes of Muslims.
"Allah" is a pre-Islamic name (Encyclopedia Britannica, I:643; Encyclopedia of Religion, I:117). The moon god Allah was already being worshipped even before Muhammad was born (Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, I:41, Anthony Mercatante, New York, The Facts on File, 1983). Muslim scholars admit that Muhammad's family tribe was devoted to the moon god. Islamic apologists admit that worship of the moon god was prevalent in Muhammad's seventh-century Arabia. Even the islam.org Website admits that worship of the moon god was dominant in Muhammad's day and locale. The symbol of this moon god was the crescent moon. Archaeologists have found this crescent moon symbol on ancient artifacts of Arabic worship. Islam adopted the crescent moon as its religious symbol. Allah, was represented by a black stone in the Kaaba and was already being worshipped before Muhammad was born. Allah is the moon god. That is why at mosques around the world, one will see a crescent moon on the top spire. That is why Shriners, who take an oath to Allah, have the crescent moon on their fez hats. That is why the crescent moon is on the flags of various Islamic nations (Tunisa, Algeria, East Turkestan, Turkey, Pakistan, etc). That is why the Muslim Ramadan fast is regulated by the appearance of the crescent moon. Some Muslims have pondered why the crescent moon symbol adorns the top of mosques, Islamic flags, etc., but because of Satanic blindness, they cannot see the obvious. They cannot see what is before their eyes. Even before Muhammad was born, the title of the moon god, the chief god of Muhammad's tribe, was "al-ilah," or "the deity." The term "al-ilah" was shortened to "Allah," and Arabs used "Allah" in the names of their children. Muhammad's own father and uncle had "Allah" as part of their names. For instance, Muhammad's father's name was Abdullah. The name "Abdullah" means "slave of Allah." Muhammad's father died before Muhammad was born.
"The Arabs, before the time of Mohammed, accepted and worshipped, after a fashion, a supreme god called Allah" (Encyclopedia of Islam, I:302, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1913, Houtsma). Even Muslims admit that Arabs before Muhammad were pagans, and that Muhammad's father was a pagan. "Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities" (Encyclopedia of Islam, I:406, ed. Gibb). Since all of these Meccan deities were pagan idols, Allah had to be as well. Of the 360 different pagan deities being worshipped at the Kaaba, Muhammad discarded all but his own family's tribal deity, the moon god Allah. Yusuf Ali's translation of the Qur'an is well known and is accepted around the world. In his comments, he traces the stories of the Qur'an back to the original Arab, Jewish, Persian or Christian legends. Because the word "Allah" was derived from "al-ilah," and because, as Yusuf Ali notes, al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat were called "the daughters of Allah," one can easily see the idolatrous, pagan roots of Muhammad's "Allah" moon-god religion.
Yusuf Ali tells us (in fn. 5096, p. 1445) that Lat, Uzza and Manat were known as "the daughters of God [Allah]." We know from authoritative sources that the daughters of Allah--al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat--were daughters of the moon god. Modern encyclopedias, such as the on-line Columbia Encyclopedia corroborate this fact. At one time, the Qur'an did tell Muslims to worship al-Lat, al-Uzza and Manat (Surah 53:19-20). These verses have been expunged out of the present Qur'an, although one can find them in earlier editions. God's word, the Bible, is the only written word of God. Those who follow a false prophet, a false moon god, and a false Qur'an book, even though they know better in their hearts, will burn in hell forever. After his marriage to a wealthy, middle-aged woman, Muhammad began going to a cave about three miles from Mecca to pray and meditate. While he was in the cave, he had "revelations" in which he foamed at the mouth like a rabid dog and flopped on the ground like a fish. Both the Bukhari and Muslim Hadiths confirm that Muhammad foamed at the mouth and flopped on the ground (1:1-4; 3:17 p. 829; 4:95 p. 438, 458, 461; 5:170 p. 462, 618, 659). Not knowing any better, Arabs described his fits as "epileptic." However, a more reasonable explanation is in the Bible. Demon possessed people foamed at the mouth and flopped on the ground. According to even Muslim sources, Muhammad told his wife that he was visited by jinns (demons) in the cave. His wife assured him that they were not jinns. Muhammad's own original perception was accurate; he was visited by demons. Muhammad claimed to be visited by an "angel of light," yet the only angel of light mentioned in the Bible is Satan (II Cor. 11:14). In Medina, Muhammad told Jews that he was a "prophet," and he told Christians that he was an "apostle." As he was doing this, he had his followers pray towards Jerusalem. When both Christians and Jews rejected Muhammad, his false book and his false moon god, he had his followers pray towards Mecca, the home of his tribal deity. He then had his followers urinate towards Jerusalem as a sign of disrespect. According to the Muslim Hadith, Muhammad told lies while he was under magical spells and while he was bewitched (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 400, 490; VII, no. 658, 660; Muslim vol. III, no. 5428). Because he admitted telling lies under Satanic influence, should not common sense tell one that the entire Qur'an could be Satanic? Muslim authorities even removed verses from the Qur'an because the verses were Satanic (Surah 53:19,20). According to the Hadith, the seal of a prophet was on Muhammad. We are informed that this "seal" was a large hairy mole on his back (vol. I, no. 189; vol. IV, no. 741) and Muslim (vol. IV, no. 5790, 5793). According to Tabari and other later Muslim authorities, this mole proved that Muhammad was a true prophet. An educated and rational person cannot accept this kind of "proof."
Even the Qur'an acknowledges that Muhammad performed no miracles (Sura 29:50; 17:93). Miracles and other traditional signs of a true prophet are completely absent with Muhammad. Neither does the Old Testament foretell Muhammad. One can easily find over seventy fulfilled Old Testament prophecies about Jesus, yet one cannot find a single prophecy about Muhammad. Why is this? If Muhammad were more important than Jesus, as Muslims claim, would not he have the seventy plus prophecies? Muhammad gave examples of his prophetic "wisdom." He taught that black dogs were devils (Bukhari vol. IV, nos. 539, 540; Muslim vol. I, nos. 551, 552; vol. II, nos. 3803, 3829). After gaining power, Muhammad had his forces go house to house, not only killing the owners' pet dogs, but forcing the owners to watch as their pets were killed. The reason for Muhammad's intense dislike of dogs came about, most likely, because dogs, having some innate sense of evil presence, sensed Muhammad's being demon possessed, and they growled at both him and the demons in him. Muhammad also believed that Satan lives in peoples' noses at night. Muhammad claimed that Satan can be flushed out if one inhales water up one nostril and blows it out the other (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 516; Muslim vol. I, no. 462). This is why five times a day many Muslims snort water up their noses.
Muhammad taught that yawning is from Satan (Hadith 4:509), that Satan urinates into the ears of those who fall asleep while praying (Bukhari 2:245), and that hell is populated mostly by "ungrateful" women (Bukhari 1:28, 301; 2:161).
Muhammad taught that Muslims have one intestine, but non-Muslims have seven (Muslim vol. III, no. 5113-5115). This alone should cause educated people to reject his wives' tales.
Muhammad also taught that houseflies have poison on one wing and the antidote for the poison on the other wing (Bukhari vol. IV, no. 537). If a housefly landed in their soup or drink, Muhammad's followers were to dip the entire housefly into the food to get the benefit of the "antidote" wing. We know from science that Muhammad's instructions actually spread more germs.
In his wisdom, Muhammad believed that one should drink camel urine as a medicine (Bukhari vol. 1, no. 234). Ah, Muhammad, thou prophet with a foamy yellow mustache!
Muhammad's Qur'an also teaches us where the sun goes when it sets. This is a question that the ancients pondered. Here is the Qur'an's explanation: He [i.e. Zul-qarnain] followed, According to Muslim scholars, Zul-qarnain refers to Alexander the Great (see Yusuf Ali’s appendix on this subject in his translation of the Qur’an). This is not poetry, but ignorant, pagan, superstitious belief. The sun sets in a pond of water every night? Again, as people become better educated, they become ashamed of Islam, and they reject it as a patently false religion.
Should not the violent, ignorant, seventh-century religion of Islam have ended long ago? As people become better educated, they become more and more ashamed of such a transparently false religion, a religion that was produced by a demon possessed, lust filled thief who robbed caravans (Ali Dashti, 23 Years, p. 86-87; Encyclopedia Britannica, 15:648).
When Muhammad was asked to explain why a child resembles one parent rather than the other, he said that the angel Gabriel appeared to him and provided the answer from Allah. Because Muhammad said that Gabriel gave the answer, we are not dealing with only Muhammad's personal opinion. According to Muhammad, Gabriel's explanation was that a child resembles the parent who has a sexual orgasm first (see Bukhari vol. IV: no. 546). We know from the study of DNA and genetics that Muhammad's explanation from "Gabriel" is ignorant superstition and embarrassing nonsense. When people end up burning in hell forever for following a patently false prophet and an obviously false Islam religion, they will eternally regret their ignorance. Christianity is the only true religion.
Those deluded, hypocritical Muslims who reject the Hadith but accept the Qur'an would not go into a large mosque and call the Hadith trash. About 90% of Muslims accept the Hadith, and they hold it second only to the Qur'an.
Honest Muslims must admit that the Hadith is silly and is certainly not of any divine inspiration, with stories of Adam being 90 feet tall, of Jews turning into monkeys, of how Satan crawls into peoples' noses at night, and must be flushed out by snorting water up one nostril and by blowing it out the other. The crude individuals who made up Islam were given over to ignorant myth and superstition. They were not Bible scholars. They further embarrassed themselves by mixing up Haman (in Bible's book of Esther) with Pharaoh (28:6ff.; 40:37ff.), by confusing Saul with Gideon (2:249), and by other such blunders.
Because God will hold us to a high and fair standard, one's beliefs should be based on reality and logic, and one should be able to defend one's faith. One's beliefs should pass careful scrutiny.
If Muslims say, "I don't care what evidence you show me, I will always believe in Islam," then their faith is not rooted in reality, logic and sanity. Christianity is a religion of evidence. The supernatural death and resurrection of Messiah on a cross is rooted in reality, and by witnesses, and is corroborated even by secular history.
According to Muhammad, the angel Gabriel said that Jesus is not the Son of God. In the Bible, though, Gabriel tells Mary that Jesus is the Son of God (Luke 1:26-35). The holy angel Gabriel would not lie, contradicting what he told Mary. Islam contradicts itself, too. For instance, the Qur'an corroborates Jesus' virgin birth (3:47), yet Islam does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God (4:171, 9:30, 19:88-93). This is crazy. The 3:47 Qur'an verse clearly says that Jesus was born of God and without a human father. How can someone be born of only God and a virgin, something that had never been done in the history of the world, and not be God's Son? A lion sires a lion cub. A man fathers a human baby. A child whose Father is God is obviously also God.
Muhammad's Qur'an denies the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus (4:157ff.). The Qur'an also denies the atonement or vicarious sacrifice of Christ for our sins (6:164; 35:18; 53:41; 22:37; 39:7). Several times the Qur'an says that no soul shall bear another's burden. When a Muslim says that he believes in Jesus, he is really saying that he believes in a different Jesus. He does not believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the Jesus who died on the cross and atoned for sins. When Muslims die, they do not hope for Salvation in Jesus. Islam is a crude, ignorant religion whose followers hope for sex and wine after death. In a "prayer" to "Allah," USA President Bill Clinton, just before leaving office, prayed to the false Allah deity. Clinton, who is a national embarrassment, did not pray to the God of the Bible. After September 11, 2001, a totally corrupt President Bush read the Qur'an to Muslim children, as though Allah were God.
Heaven for Muslims is described as a place of wine and beautiful women (44:50-54; 78:31-33). The Qur'an's heaven is Muhammad's idea of heaven, the ideal paradise of a vulgar highwayman who never had the Holy Spirit in him and somebody whom lust conquered. Islam, the religion of "submission," is submission to the flesh and to self deception. Its heaven promises marriage to many virgins (52:20; 78:33ff). Islam's heaven is hog heaven for somebody whose ideal is to wallow in the flesh, and to indulge in orgies of sex and wine. The Qur'an promises a heaven full of wine and free sex (Suras 2:25; 4:57; 11:23; 37:40-56; 44:54; 47:15; 52:17-24). Muhammad's idea of heaven was to have free flowing wine and drunken sensuality with women. This is not the Godly paradise of the Bible. It is the paradise of a crude, carnal seventh-century Arab. One should compare the fleshly heaven of Surat Al-Tur 52:17-24 with the heaven of II Peter 3:13, a heaven where righteousness dwells.
A slave to sexual lust, Muhammad had fourteen wives and many concubines. He married his own daughter-in-law (Sura 33:37; Wives of the Prophet pp. 127-140). He even had sex with a nine-year-old girl named Aisha (Bukhari 5:236).
Those Muslims who deceive themselves into anticipating Muhammad's "heaven" will find God's hell, eternal burn pain and blackness.
Islam claims that the Bible has been corrupted significantly (2:80, 3:79). Islam is, of course, is mistaken. God promised to preserve His word (Matt. 5:18, Luke 16:17, 1 Peter 1:24-25), but somehow Muslims don't believe that God is capable of keeping His word. They don't quite believe that God preserved His word as He promised. God has kept His word, and He has preserved His Bible. Dr. Hort, an editor of the Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament, observed that material differences affect only .001% of the New Testament (Introduction to The New Testament in the Original Greek, p.2). Another way of looking at it is that, on average, one would have to read 1,000 words before running into one word in dispute.
The Old Testament was translated accurately, too. We know from the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to about the time of Christ, that, say, the Isaiah one can buy in a modern Hebrew edition today is virtually identical to the Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is virtually no difference between the texts.
"The manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, generally dated from about 200 to 50 B.C., include portions of every Old Testament book except Esther; studies have revealed that these documents--older by a thousand years than previously discovered Old Testament manuscripts--are substantially identical to the text of the Old Testament which had been previously handed down. As far as New Testament manuscripts are concerned, the oldest of which go back to the second century A.D., the situation is substantially the same. The variations that are found in these manuscripts . . . are of a relatively minor nature. There is no indication whatever that any large sections of material found in the originals have been lost. Most of the manuscript variations concern matters of spelling, word order, tense, and the like; no single doctrine is affected by them in any way" (The Four Major Cults, Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 19631, pp. 30-31).
All reputable translators use the most respected and oldest sources, such as the Masoretic Hebrew text for Old Testament translations. If a translator uses the Masoretic Hebrew as a source, he simply can't go wrong.
I sincerely believe that if Muslims did honest research and realized that Islam has lied about the Bible's being corrupted during the course of translations, and if they were to actually read the Bible, they would reject Islam and would accept Christ and God's word, the Bible. I urge Muslims to take my challenge and read the Bible with an honest heart.
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Yes indeed - for its plainly apparent that articles critical of the entire islam faith (read cult) are tolerated while any reasoned and documented discussion (including Congressional testimony) regarding other cults are quickly wiped from the boards.
This is totally incongruent to the same argument used to cover someones backside here
snippet from the site
C. The First Amendment As An Element of Fair Use: To Find Other Than Defendants' Use is a "Fair Use" Would Cloud the First Amendment Rights of Both Defendants and Users of the Free Republic web site.
A fundamental purpose for the existence of the freerepublic.com website is the exercise of the First Amendment rights of users of the site. This further weighs in favor of a finding of "fair use" in light of the purpose of the copying for the expression of First Amendment rights of free speech. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. v. Nation Enterprises, 471 U.S. 539 (1985) (the "Nation" case); Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority, Inc., 796 F.2d 1148, 1151 (9th Cir. 1986). See, Exhibits 1006 and 1007 hereto.
go figure
So is it "free speech" or BYU moderated speech ?
Thanks for the ping and nice comment. I posted some material to that thread I hope some will find useful.
Hank
Well, it certainly is "critical", but I don't see much "history" here. Saying that Islam is simply Christianity corrupted by Satan ignores the real historical roots of Islam.
There were both Christians (of various groups) and Jews in 7th century Arabia. But the greater influence on Mohammad seems to have been Sabaeanism/Mandaeanism, which in turn was influenced, and perhaps evolved from, the Ebionites, which in turn emerged from Essene Judaism. There was no single organized movement, but rather a lot of closely related groups. Some traced their spiritual ancestry to John the Baptist. Others believed that Jesus was a prophet or the messiah, but did not believe in his divinity, and rejected trinitarianism.
Even before the bar Kochba rebellion was quashed in 135 C.E., these groups had been moving east. Ebionite Christianity became increasingly marginalized and was finally declared heretical by the hellenic Christian churches.
Some of the elements of these groups included:
• emphasis on purity (practicing frequent, even daily, "baptism")
• eating kosher food or vegetarianism
• belief in a "Righteous Teacher" or Teachers, who will return
• strict unitarian monotheism
• messianic and apocalyptic worldview
• in later times, they believed that the scriptures had been corrupted, and thus had their own "corrected" version
• believed Jesus was a prophet or the messiah
• theocratic, and often willing to use violence to impose God's Law
It doesn't take too much imagination to see how many of these elements were absorbed into Islam. This is particularly true of Shi'ism, which to this day teaches a doctrine of the "hidden Imam" with clear connections to Essene teachings about the first or primal Adam (remember the 90' tall Adam?) and Tzaddikim or Righteous Teachers.
Allah was known to the pre-Islamic . . . Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities
"Allah" is simply the Arabic word for "God". Arabic Christians use that name to refer to the trinitarian God of Christianity, with no suggestion that this refers to some pagan moon god. You could just as easily make the case that trinitarian Christianity coopted some of the language of hellenistic paganism and mystery religion. The fact that some of the same language is used does not mean that, for example, you equate Jesus with Adonis or Mithra. Whatever polytheistic elements there were in early Islam were quickly purged.
There is plenty to disagree with about Islam -- the superstition and immorality the article discusses, for example -- without bringing in the whole "moon god" thing.
The supernatural death and resurrection of Messiah on a cross is rooted in reality, and by witnesses, and is corroborated even by secular history.
Huh? I don't really think secular history corroborates the resurrection of Jesus.
This may be true for many rank and file Muslims, but there is no question that Islam has been at times aggressively expansionistic.
Unbelievable. It is an odd position to find myself in, a Jew defending Islam. There is much about Islam I disagree with myself. But your post is emotional ranting, with little basis in reality. Islam has not always been what it is now. For a time it was the most advanced civilization on the planet. To deny this is to be blind to history.
It is worth noting as well, that both Judaism and Christianity have not always been what they now are. If anything, this should be an object lesson as to what happens when a civilization takes a wrong turn.
It is certainly odd in light of what Islam has done to the Jews in both the distant and recent past, is doing today, and what they have every intention of doing to them.
For a time it was the most advanced civilization on the planet. To deny this is to be blind to history.
To believe that is to have been taken in by liberal and Muslim distortion of history. The fact have been presented before, but probably never better than by Serge Trifkovic, in his book, The Sword of theProphet, whichyou can get the flavor of from this article, The Golden Age of Islam is a Myth
Since I think it is valuable, and you may be tempted to skip the link, here it is in full:
Second in a series of excerpts adapted by Robert Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s
new book The Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to Islam
The hatred of Western Civilization, and the corresponding urge to glorify anything outside it, especially if it can be depicted as a victim of the West, is a well-known phenomenon of the contemporary liberal mind. One of the forms it has taken in recent years is the attempt to artificially inflate the historic achievements of other civilizations beyond what the facts support. The noble savage myth is a commonplace; what is more complex is the myth that has been bandied about concerning the supposed "golden age" of Islamic civilization during what we know as the Middle Ages.
The myth of an Islamic Golden Age is needed by Islam’s apologists to save it from being damned by its present squalid condition; to prove, as it were, that there is more to Islam than the terrorism of Bin Laden and the decadence of the oil sheiks. It is, frankly, a confession that if the world judges it by what it is today, it comes up rather short, being a religion that has yet to produce a democratic or prosperous society, or social and cultural forms admired by neutral foreign observers the way anyone can admire American freedom, Japanese order, Israeli courage, or Italian style.
Some liberal academics openly admit that they twist the Moslem past to serve their present-day intellectual agendas. For example, some who propound the myth of an Islamic golden age of tolerance admit that their goal is,
"to recover for postmodernity that lost medieval Judeo-Islamic trading, social and cultural world, its high point pre-1492 Moorish Spain, which permitted and relished a plurality, a convivencia, of religions and cultures, Christian, Jewish and Moslem; which prized an historic internationality of space along with the valuing of particular cities; which was inclusive and cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan here meaning an ease with different cultures: still so rare and threatened a value in the new millennium as in centuries past."
In other words, a fairy tale designed to create the illusion that multiculturalism has valid historical precedents that prove it can work.
To be fair, the myth of the golden age of Islam does have a partially valid starting point: there were times in the past when Moslem societies attained higher levels of civilization and culture than they did at other times. There have been times, that is, when some Moslem lands were fit for a cultivated man to live in. Baghdad under Harun ar-Rashid (his well-documented Christian-slaying and Jew-hating proclivities notwithstanding), or Cordova very briefly under Abd ar-Rahman in the tenth century, come to mind. These isolated episodes, neither long nor typical, are endlessly invoked by Islam’s Western apologists and admirers.
This "golden" period in question largely coincides with the second dynasty of the Caliphate or Islamic Empire, that of the Abbasids, named after Muhammad’s uncle Abbas, who succeeded the Umayyads and ascended to the Caliphate in 750 AD. They moved the capital city to Baghdad, absorbed much of the Syrian and Persian culture as well as Persian methods of government, and ushered in the "golden age."
This age was marked by, among other things, intellectual achievement. A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule, by no means all of them "Moslems" either nominally or substantially, played a useful role of transmitting Greek, Hindu, and other pre-Islamic fruits of knowledge to Westerners. They contributed to making Aristotle known in Christian Europe. But in doing this, they were but transmitting what they themselves had received from non-Moslem sources.
Three speculative thinkers, notably the three Persians al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam. Greatly influenced by Baghdad’s Greek heritage in philosophy that survived the Arab invasion, and especially the writings of Aristotle, Farabi adopted the view — utterly heretical from a Moslem viewpoint — that reason is superior to revelation. He saw religion as a symbolic rendering of truth, and, like Plato, saw it as the duty of the philosopher to provide guidance to the state. He engaged in rationalistic questioning of the authority of the Koran and rejected predestination. He wrote more than 100 works, notably The Ideas of the Citizens of the Virtuous City. But these unorthodox works no more belong to Islam than Voltaire belongs to Christianity. He was in Moslem culture but not of it, indeed opposed to its orthodox core. He examples the pattern we see again and again: the best Moslems, whether judged by intellectual or political achievement, are usually the least Moslem.
The Moslem mainstream of this time, on the other hand, emphasized rigid Koranic orthodoxy and deployed Greek philosophy and science solely to buttress its authority. "They were rationalists in so far as they fell back on Greek philosophy for their metaphysical and physical explanations of phenomena; still, it was their aim to keep within the limits of orthodox belief." But when the thinkers went too far in their free inquiry into the secrets of nature, paying little attention to the authority of the Koran, they aroused suspicion of the rulers both in North Africa and Spain, as well as in the East. Persecution, exile, and death were frequent punishments suffered by the philosophers of Islam whose writings did not conform to the canon.
On the other side of the Empire, in Spain, Averroës exercised much influence on both Jewish and Christian thinkers with his interpretations of Aristotle. While mostly faithful to Aristotle’s method, he found the Aristotelian "prime mover" in Allah, the universal First Cause. His writings brought him into political disfavor and he was banished until shortly before his death, while many of his works in logic and metaphysics had been consigned to the flames. He left no school.
From Spain the Arabic philosophic literature was translated into Hebrew and Latin, which contributed to the development of modern European philosophy. In Egypt around the same time, Moses Maimonides (a Jew) and Ibn Khaldun made their contribution. A Christian, Constantine "the African," a native of Carthage, translated medical works from Arabic into Latin, thus introducing Greek medicine to the West. His translations of Hippocrates and Galen first gave the West a view of Greek medicine as a whole.
The "golden age" of Islamic art lasted from AD 750 to the mid-11th century, when ceramics, glass, metalwork, textiles, illuminated manuscripts, and woodwork flourished. Lustered glass became the greatest Islamic contribution to ceramics. Manuscript illumination became an important and greatly respected art, and miniature painting flourished in Iran. Calligraphy, an essential aspect of written Arabic, developed in manuscripts and architectural decoration.
In the exact sciences the contribution of Al-Khwarzimi, mathematician and astronomer, was considerable. Like Euclid, he wrote mathematical books that collected and arranged the discoveries of earlier mathematicians. His "Book of Integration and Equation" is a compilation of rules for solving linear and quadratic equations, as well as problems of geometry and proportion. Its translation into Latin in the 12th century provided the link between the great Hindu mathematicians and European scholars. A corruption of the book’s title resulted in the word algebra; a corruption of the author’s own name resulted in the term algorithm.
The problem with turning this list of intellectual achievements into a convincing "Islamic" golden age is that whatever flourished, did so not by reason of Islam but in spite of Islam. Moslems overran societies (Persian, Greek, Egyptian, Byzantine, Syrian, Jewish) that possessed intellectual sophistication in their own right and failed to completely destroy their cultures. To give it the credit for what the remnants of these cultures achieved is like crediting the Red Army for the survival of Chopin in Warsaw in 1970! Islam per se never encouraged science, in the sense of disinterested enquiry, because the only knowledge it accepts is religious knowledge.
As Bernard Lewis explains in his book What Went Wrong? the Moslem Empire inherited "the knowledge and skills of the ancient Middle east, of Greece and of Persia, it added to them new and important innovations from outside, such as the manufacture of paper from China and decimal positional numbering from India." The decimal numbers were thus transmitted to the West, where they are still mistakenly known as "Arabic" numbers, honoring not their inventors but their transmitters.
Furthermore, the intellectual achievements of Islam’s "golden age" were of limited value. There was a lot of speculation and very little application, be it in technology or politics. At the present day, for almost a thousand years even speculation has stopped, and the bounds of what is considered orthodox Islam have frozen, except when they have even contracted, as in the case of Wahabism. Those who try to push the fundamentals of Moslem thought any further into the light of modernity frequently pay for it with their lives. The fundamentalists who ruled Afghanistan until recently and still rule in Iran hold up their supposed golden age as a model for their people and as a justification for their tyranny. Westerners should know better.
Serge Trifkovic received his PhD from the University of Southampton in England and pursued postdoctoral research at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. His past journalistic outlets have included the BBC World Service, the Voice of America, CNN International, MSNBC, U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, The Times of London, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He is foreign affairs editor of Chronicles.. Robert Locke is Associate Editor of Front Page Magazine.
I agree, someone needs to brush up on their history.
Hank
In the recent past and present, yes. During much of the middle ages, Jews were better off living in Muslim lands than in Christian lands.
To believe that is to have been taken in by liberal and Muslim distortion of history.
Nonsense. You don't need to listen to modern historians from either side. You can simply look to the primary sources of the time. But don't take my word for it. From your article:
To be fair, the myth of the golden age of Islam does have a partially valid starting point: there were times in the past when Moslem societies attained higher levels of civilization and culture than they did at other times.
I asserted nothing more than Mr. Trifkovic does here. Continuing on, he says
This age was marked by, among other things, intellectual achievement. A number of medieval thinkers and scientists living under Islamic rule, by no means all of them "Moslems" either nominally or substantially, played a useful role of transmitting Greek, Hindu, and other pre-Islamic fruits of knowledge to Westerners...
Three speculative thinkers, notably the three Persians al-Kindi, al-Farabi, and Avicenna, combined Aristotelianism and Neoplatonism with other ideas introduced through Islam.
Mr. Trifkovic's polemic is advanced by his own particular notion of what constitutes Islam. He identifies "true" Islam with the most extremist, fundamentalist manifestations. Anything that is not of this ilk is not "truly" Islamic, and therefore can be discounted. This is intellectually dishonest. It is akin to identifying "true" Christianity with Boniface VIII, or the Inquisition, or the Fourth Lateran Council. His is a straw man argument. His claim of a "rigid Koranic orthodoxy" could as easily be made about a "rigid Papal orthodoxy".
I agree, someone needs to brush up on their history.
Someone needs to actually read the articles he posts, before he posts them.
One of the points made in this article is the difference between Christian and Muslim attitudes to the science of medicine. One starts to understand why the medical sciences in Europe didn't advance until the time of the Enlightenment.
Muslim Hadiths confirm that Muhammad foamed at the mouth and flopped on the ground ... Not knowing any better, Arabs described his fits as "epileptic." However, a more reasonable explanation is in the Bible. Demon possessed people foamed at the mouth and flopped on the ground.
Astonishing that people still believe that epileptic seizures are caused by the devil, rather than disturbances in the physical functioning of the brain - of no more moral significance than a limp in the leg. 7th century camel drivers knew it, but contemporary Christians don't. In Australia, in recent decades, with the growth of evangelical cults, attempts have been made to treat followers with illnesses such as epilepsy and asthma - by taking them off their medication, and performing exorcisms. This has led to a number of deaths.
"Interpretations changing" is a rather large loophole, don't you think? It took centuries to even formulate the basic orthodox doctrines, and even then there were those who didn't agree with them. Christianity has never been monolithic.
If you haven't read the Dead Sea Scrolls, I highly recommend them. There are a number of good books on the Essenes, Jewish Christianity and the various related sects. (A lot of nonsense written about them too, of course! ;o)
Similar reasoning in this article, that if Jesus has no father, he must necessarily be God.
For instance, the Qur'an corroborates Jesus' virgin birth (3:47), yet Islam does not believe that Jesus is the Son of God (4:171, 9:30, 19:88-93). This is crazy. The 3:47 Qur'an verse clearly says that Jesus was born of God and without a human father. How can someone be born of only God and a virgin, something that had never been done in the history of the world, and not be God's Son? A lion sires a lion cub. A man fathers a human baby. A child whose Father is God is obviously also God.
The Koran explains this by saying that God can do anything he pleases - he can cause a child to be born without a father, all he has to do is to say "be" and it is. The explanation given in this article is obviously false, and there are better Christian arguments than that. For, by this writers views, the Incarnation happened twice, not once. The New Testament refers to TWO, not one, characters born without a father, but only one is adored as divine.
Heb 7: Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High... First, his name means "king of righteousness"; then also, "king of Salem" means "king of peace." Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, like the Son of God he remains a priest forever. Just think how great he was
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