to Taj

Submitted by Rashid (Canada), Apr 12, 2006 at 22:16

Taj,

I certainly don't want to open up a polemic with you here. I don't have the time nor the inclination (although it could be interesting).
The "question of veracity" is certainly the most important consideration for historians who deal with investigative history, archeology and other subjects of a secular nature. In the CONTEXT of our discussion, however, dealing with religious material, I am sorry to reiterate, veracity DOES NOT MATTER (or I should say, is somewhat irrelevant)

We have a behemoth corpus of writings in our Sunnah, and a LOT of that material is really idiotic, infantile and sometimes quite nefarious and hurtful to Islam. People like you (I used to be one of them) when confronted with this, always try to dodge the problem, rationalize and argue that this or that Hadith is invalid, the author is unreliable etc...But suppose someone came to you with a "proof" that many bad Hadiths were totally FABRICATED...You'd be happy, I guess. But so what ?? Do you think it would make any difference in this world?? I don't think so. Not one bit !! for the reality is all that stuff as is, is already written. IT'S HERE today and it's Islam's sacred scripture!

So WHAT MATTERS is hundreds and hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world believe in that stuff and are devoted heart and soul to it, some even give their life for it.

30 years ago I wrote a paper calling for a reform in Islam. That was pretttty naive. It caused me a lot of grief with fellow Muslims.

P.S. A while back I said in this forum that I loved the Koran, but only for its form and poetry NOT its content.

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