For ramsesy9 and more diatribes and no substance part trois!

Submitted by dhimmi no more (United States), Jan 18, 2007 at 07:45

My dear ramesesy9 , for once I would agree with you that Rashad Khalifa's number 19 in the Qur'an does not make sense. But such claim is as old as man/woman/kind and it is just plain bogus. For a great examination of this number 19 claim see "Islamic Mysticism" by Ibn al-Rawandi pages 201-221.

Followers of other religions have claimed similar secret codes in their holy books and I include here Jews and Christians. But what debunks these claims is the fact that for example literary criticism of let us say the first 5 books of the Bible by Wellhausen reveals that these books were written over a very long period of time and by clearly different hands (the most famous is the so called P tradition) and for sure they did not drop from the sky. Which makes you wonder that if there was indeed a secret code it might have been introduced in the text during the process of editing.

You see my dear ramsesy, no books drop from the sky, not the Bible and for sure not the Qur'an!

And we are also familiar with the topos of Quranic "Tahreef" in holy books. But this is also an old topos as was pointed out by Wansbrough that was used by members of various sects of Judaism and Christianity to accuse the others of "corrupting" their holy books. And notice that those who are accusing others of tahreef do not porvide evidence of where is that tahreef in their holy books.

Another famous topos was that of abrogation (eg: laikrah fi al-deen and ayat al-sayf) What was the Quanic solution? It was the doctrine of: al-nasikh wa al-mansukh (and in this example Q9:4 will aborgate the la-ikrah fi al-deen) , and the response in rabbinical literature was very similar through the concept of: Atq or in Judeo-Arabic naql. you see my dear ramsesy nothing ever changes.

So do I believe that Rashad Khalifa advanced our understanding of the Qu'ran? No I do not. I think that he was sincere but misguided. I like his translation of the Qur'an. It is very good. I like his command of Quranic Arabic garmmar. And if you do not believe that he was a rasul there is no reason for you to believe that Muhammad was a rasul and or a nabi.

As for your diatribes against him: this is very symptomatic of Muslims like you. How would you like me if I say that Muhammad was a caravan raider (which he was) and an Arabian warlord (which he was) and when he was 53 years old he married a 6 year old girl which he did. So grow up!

As for the Qur'an: The Qur'an is nothing but poor literature and i study the Arabic language. It is no match to the likes of the Gita, Dhammpada, Homer, Virgil, the Shahnemah, or even the Bible. It is a confused and confusing book that claims to be kitab mubeen when this is very far from the truth. It is full of strange and non-Arabic words (eg: Ilaf in Surat Quraysh and kalala) it is also full of foreign and non-Arabic words (eg: tur from Syriac) when it claims to be written in Arabic and for Arabs. The Qur'an has its share of grammatical errors (the most celebrated is: Ina hadhan lasahiran). It is a badly edited book and without tafseer one cannot understand the Qur'an. Even one cannot reconstruct the life of Muhammad by reading the Qur'an only. So much for being a kitab mubeen.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".