Wisdom from the Koran

[old_tractor]

All you fine people railing against the Koran... What about the instances in the old testament which are pretty harsh? Like laws calling for the killing of Sabbath breakers... or the killing of the enemies women, children and old people (Islamic war laws strictly prohibit this, look it up)... there are lots more, but Im sure youre all familiar with your bibles and know what Im talking about.

Show me where Jesus said to do those things and I'll gladly concede the point.

 

[old_tractor]

Ok [/cracks knuckles] - first - let me apologize to OT for my sarcasm in the commie thread - I honestly do feel like that kind of attitude is all a joke, but maybe thats because I was raised in a post cold war enviroment by the marxist school system.

Second - I too encourager any and all christians to read the Quran, however, unless one is going to learn classical Arabic and lexicography in addition to hadeeth, Fiqh, and Seerah - I suggest they pick up whats called a "tafsir" of Quran - which is Quran with commentary by schoalrs who have masterd those fields - which is essential to understanding Quran. If you dont you will inevitably make the same mistakes OT has made when he tried to intrerpret a complex arabic text without the proper training.

Bravo! Brilliant tactical ploy! Either one must spend many years leanring Arabic and studying in a madras...or, one must accept your word on the "proper" interpretation rather than my Penguin Classics Koran.

Well done! Of course, if one were a cynic (and, certainly, I'm not ;) ) one may suspect you are pointing us all to a properly sanitized version of the Koran that won't...er, scare off other people.

 

[old_tractor]

I have no idea what OT is saying here - he cites surah an Nahl verse 73, but that verse says:
" And they worship others besides Allâh, such as do not and cannot own any provision for them from the heavens or the earth."

This has nothing to do with equal people.

Oh, I'm sorry, read the next paragraph. Of course, the cynic (again, I'm certainly not ;) ) might think you are just playing possum.

 

[old_tractor]

One deceptive trick of one who decives is to post a summary of a verse or just one part of a verse - Old tractor has cunningly done both here - he doesnt post the whole verse, but just a comment on a snippit.

Or, a "cunningly" deceptive trick can be to insert a word like "past".

So, yes, Islam has set forth provisions for slavery in the Law, but never is it encouraged or deemed as meritous - only permissable - and is not even practiced today - to criticize Muslims for past slave holding, while ignoring christians worse slavery crimes (slavery based on race) is a bit hypocritical.

"Past" slave trading? Not even practiced today? Hmmm...

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsmen "...change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion."

Source: IRIN Africa | CHAD: Children sold into slavery for the price of a calf | Chad | Children | Economy | Governance | Human Rights

A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes—own black slaves, the haratines. An estimated 90,000 Black Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners. The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. According to some estimates, up to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007. Malouma Messoud, a former Muslim slave has explained her enslavement to a religious leader:

"We didn't learn this history in school; we simply grew up within this social hierarchy and lived it. Slaves believe that if they do not obey their masters, they will not go to paradise. They are raised in a social and religious system that everyday reinforces this idea."

In Mauritania, despite slave ownership having been banned by law in 1981, hereditary slavery continues. Moreover, according to Amnesty International:

"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".

Imam El Hassan Ould Benyamin of Tayarat in 1997 expressed his views about earlier proclamations ending slavery in his country as follows:

"[it] is contrary to the teachings of the fundamental text of Islamic law, the Quran ... [and] amounts to the expropriation from muslims of their goods; goods that were acquired legally. The state, if it is Islamic, does not have the right to seize my house, my wife or my slave."

Gee, "A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes—own black slaves, the haratines. An estimated 90,000 Black Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners." sounds race-based to me...

Sources:
Islam and Slavery
IRIN Africa | MAURITANIA: Fair elections haunted by racial imbalance | Mauritania | Governance | Human Rights
BBC World Service | The Abolition season on BBC World Service
SMIR talk exposes modern slavery - News
BBC NEWS | Africa | Slavery: Mauritania's best kept secret

In Niger, where the practice of slavery was outlawed in 2003, a study found that almost 8% of the population are still slaves. Slavery dates back for centuries in Niger and was finally criminalised in 2003, after five years of lobbying by Anti-Slavery International and the Nigerian human-rights group Timidria. More than 870,000 people still live in conditions of forced labour, according to Timidria, a local human rights group.

Descent-based slavery, where generations of the same family are born into bondage, is traditionally practiced by at least four of Niger’s eight ethnic groups. The slave masters are mostly from the nomadic tribes — the Tuareg, Fulani, Toubou and Arabs. It is especially rife among the warlike Tuareg, in the wild deserts of north and west Niger, who roam near the borders with Mali and Algeria. In the region of Say on the right bank of the river Niger, it is estimated that three-quarters of the population around 1904-1905 was composed of slaves.

Historically, the Tuareg swelled the ranks of their slaves during war raids into other peoples’ lands. War was then the main source of supply of slaves, although many were bought at slave markets, run mostly by indigenous peoples.

Sources:
http://www.smithsonianmagazine.com/issues/2005/september/bondage.php?page=3
http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/resources/PDF/Full English Slavery in Niger.pdf
The Shackles of Slavery in Niger - ABC News

Sudan has seen a resurgence of slavery since 1983, associated with the Second Sudanese Civil War.

In the Sudan, Christian and animist captives in the civil war are often enslaved, and female prisoners are often used sexually, with their Muslim captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission. According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 a piece. In 2001 CNN reported the Bush administration was under pressure from Congress, including conservative Christians concerned about religious oppression and slavery, to address issues involved in the Sudanese conflict. CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs."

Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south by north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.

Sources:
Curse Of Slavery Haunts Sudan - CBS News
http://www.iabolish.org/slavery_today/in_depth/sudan-genocide.html
The Lost Children of Sudan | NYU Livewire

Oh No!!!!! ( These Muslim people are obviously reading the same badly translated version of the Koran I have!

 

[lamplady]

Ok, lamplady, you tell me what wadribouhounna means to you?

my point was that you need special training to understand and partake in your religion ... whereas with my faith all we need is to believe ...

 

[Sinthesis]

Thats all you need in Islam as well to partake - what you cant do is start looking for your own meanings in texts without getting a basic understandinbg of the history and language of the text - thus preventing reonious interpretataions which lead to cults and sectarianism.

But if you simply beleive there is One God and Muahmed(SAW) is the Last messenger of God, your garunteed heaven.

Thus the hypocrisy of Islam. One can't just surrender themselves to God, but must also submit to a belief in Machmad as a prophet.

 

[lamplady]

Thats all you need in Islam as well to partake - what you cant do is start looking for your own meanings in texts without getting a basic understandinbg of the history and language of the text - thus preventing reonious interpretataions which lead to cults and sectarianism.

But if you simply beleive there is One God and Muahmed(SAW) is the Last messenger of God, your garunteed heaven.

With my faith, despite 'cults' etc., the truth has always filtered through ...

With Islam how can you say you only need to believe, yet in another breath say you need, 'special training' - (oh the pressure for people with learning problems); + you can't deny there were and are extremism within your religion.

So the training can't account for much does it?

 

[Mike]

MA, I have an honest question for you. I was at a Bible study tonight, and someone mentioned that there are certain rules for the Koran. Among them were that the Koran needs to be placed higher than any other book in the house of a Muslim. Is this true?

I deeply cherish the Word of God, but i would not treat the Bible with this regard. This is idolatry. I worship the Lord, not the book. It is the Living Word that can't be bound on paper. The Word lives in me, not on the paper it's printed on.

If this is true, I would say this is another example of the legalistic works-based (earn your way to paradise) mentality of Islam. I'm not intending to get in another long discussion with you, as we've been down that road before. ;) I just wanted to clarify if this is a rule observed by Muslims. :nod

 

[theLords]

Mike, you don't need to search further then this thread.

We do not accept the "Holy Spirit" as evidence - eveidence must be of the worldly kind to be made into a law - and the law is basicly what we are talking about.

John 17:16
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world

2 Corinthians 4:4
The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.

James 4:4
Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

What you have to understand is that Islam is a legalistic religion - and an etire sytem of classification has been set up to describe the legalistic importance of various acts -

Matthew 12:37
For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.

 

[Strangelove]

MA, I have an honest question for you. I was at a Bible study tonight, and someone mentioned that there are certain rules for the Koran. Among them were that the Koran needs to be placed higher than any other book in the house of a Muslim. Is this true?

I deeply cherish the Word of God, but i would not treat the Bible with this regard. This is idolatry. I worship the Lord, not the book. It is the Living Word that can't be bound on paper. The Word lives in me, not on the paper it's printed on.

If this is true, I would say this is another example of the legalistic works-based (earn your way to paradise) mentality of Islam. I'm not intending to get in another long discussion with you, as we've been down that road before. ;) I just wanted to clarify if this is a rule observed by Muslims. :nod

When I was growing up as a Jew I remember if you drop the bible you have to pick it up and kiss it.

I agree Mike...stuff like that is supersticious idolatry.

 

[Ed the Ned]

We dont worship the book, we worship the Author.

Who is the author of the Koran, God or Mohamed? Where the Bible is the Word of God it has many authors, yet they were divinly inspired by God. God used many people to create the Bible which teaches His Word. As a Christian the physical book itself is mere paper and the words on it have little meaning and I gain little understanding from it if I do not have the Holy spirit within me and a realationship with Christ.
The Bible also has many prophets and the writing of these prophets. If the Koran was written by God through Mohamed, why only one person. where history has shown otherwise. If you worship the author and you believe the author to be Mohamed, surely you are then putting Mohamed before God. I am not saying this is the case, I am merely trying to understand where the wisdom of the Koran comes from. God or man.

 

[theLords]

Mugen, the message you sent me in reply was very nasty. Christians please mark the character of this person. Mugen is an antichrist with a very nasty spirit towards Christians. There is nothing pure or kind within him. His sole purpose here is to sabotage and to mock our precious Lord. He is the equivalent of a Christian forum terrorist or as the rules would call him someone who commits "hostile acts" against Christianity. Please take note. I understand the moderators fully support nonChristians like him on this forum, but I believe as a sister in Christ I should at least warn my bretheren about this person. This person is not good and only means ill will to all Christians. He spits in the face of our God. Please take note of him.

Sister, the Mods in NO WAY condone such vile actions. There are just thousands of posts and so few mods to moderate. They try their best, honestly.

Send a moderator the message your received. Send it to a "green" username mod, or a "red" username Admin.

I imagine something like that would be cause for having his account suspended or banned as he is harrassing you.

 

[Mike]

Mugen has been banned from this site.

 

[pjt]

Mugen has been banned from this site.

I cannot be glad over a person being banned, but I do think it was the right decision because his intentions were clearly not good at all towards Christians.

 

[Mike]

I cannot be glad over a person being banned, but I do think it was the right decision because his intentions were clearly not good at all towards Christians.

This is a case in point where a member from a different religion had only one purpose but to bash Christianity. Others on this board are much more amicable. She was not.