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Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina
Round IV
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| Second,
if Omar supported Muhammad for 23 years of his messengership he must
have known that Muhammad prohibited his companions from writing his
hadith all his life. He must have known that the Quran was the only
source to be followed and associating man-made teachings to it was
another form of polytheism. If I were in Omar's sandals, I would too
reject Muhammad's request to prescribe another source for our
guidance, especially knowing that he was terminally sick and had
high fever. |
This is the fallacy of presupposition.
You presuppose that Muhammad prohibited his companions from writing hadith
all his life. There is no basis for that claim. People used to tell
stories from the Bible and
Muhammad did not like competition, he denigrated the scriptures of
previous messengers who he had already acknowledged as true and said they
are corrupted, then he said that the Quran is "the best story" (haidth)
(39:23)
meaning instead of paying attention to other traditions, listen to me
only. But he
never said do not write anything about me and my life. Muhammad was a
narcissist. He considered himself to be the center of the universe. He
told everyone to emulate him. Do you have a verse of the Quran to prove
your point? As I quoted from the Quran, he claimed to be
a “good example to follow” and have “an exalted standard of
character” 68.4
How can Muslims follow his examples if they are not recorded?
A member of the forum
made an inane statement that I am forcing you to accept the hadith so I
can attack you easier. This is what this person wrote:
“I
suspect that he does this only because it provides him with an easier
stick with which to beat Islam. I find the attempt to force Yuksel to
accept the ahaadeeth as a straw man approach.”
Of
course this is nonsense. I already stated that I am not going to need the
hadith to prove the Quran is wrong. It would be absurd to insist that
someone admit in something that he obviously does not believe and then
try to attack that belief. I am trying to prove that the Quran-only crowd
have based their creed on false premises. The question is not which hadith
is true and which one is not, the question is that without the hadith the
Quran is meaningless. The Islam that thus is being constructed is
fallacious and cannot stand the test of criticism.
| Third,
you are confusing the early believers with later Sunni and Shiite
Muhammad-worshipers. They were free minds. They did not follow
Muhammad as a cult leader, but they accepted his message by using
their God-given reason. As you are confusing me or wish to confuse
me with a blind follower of a particular sect or cult, you are also
confusing or wish to confuse those brave and progressive souls,
those freedom fighters with them. |
The discussion of whether Islam is a cult
or not or whether the early believers were free minded or not is long. I
am not going to discuss that here. But if anyone is interested I have
drawn the parallel between Islam and the cult of Jim Jones in an article
that is going to be part of my book From Mecca to 9/11. I leave a link
to that chapter for anyone interested. Many Muslims would be shocked
to see the similarity of Islam and the cult of Jim Jones. All cults are
alike. Once you read that, you’ll never call a Muslim free minded. Those
early believers were absolutely cultists.
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But
whatever it is it has nothing to do with rejecting the
hadith. Muhammad claimed to have sublime morals 68:4 and
ordered the Muslims to follow his “good example”. 33:21
How would you know about his examples if not through the
narrations left by his companions? The Quran is allegedly
the word of God and not a collection of the examples of
Muhammad.
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You
share a strikingly similar poor knowledge of the Quran with Sunnis
and Siites. You use the same lousy argument. If you were able to
read the Quran without smelling the garbage of hadith, you would
easily notice that 33:21 had preceding and succeeding verses and the
example of prophet was his bravery in defending Muslims against the
aggressor army of Meccan oligarchy. If your knowledge of the Quran
was a little bit beyond the surface, you would also notice that
verse 60:4 uses exactly the same description, "good
example", for Abraham and his supporters. Using your logic
Muslims should have had the hadith of Abraham and his supporters
too! Perhaps, you will find the story of another hungry holy goat
eating those hadith collections to be "not illogical"
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Dear
Editp. The sura 33 is not self explanatory. Without tafseer (relying on
hadith and sira) there is no way to know who are the "confederates"
mentioned in verse 20 and from where they are not withdrawn. There are
many unknowns in this sura. For example verse 11 says “In that
situation were the Believers tried: they were shaken as by a tremendous
shaking.” Without referring
to tafseer can you explain what situation is Muhammad talking about? That
sura does not contain a single reference to Muhammad’s examples. The
examples of Muhammad are not given or supposed to be given by Allah. They
were witnessed by his followers. There was no need for Muhammad making his
Allah describe him for his followers when they could witness that on their own.
On various occasions he made his Allah extol him and talk about him
superlatively, but apart from those adulatory pompous bragging there is no mention
about his life and his examples in the Quran.
In the same sura verse 33:37
there is a mention of a certain Zaid. It says "Then when Zaid had
dissolved (his marriage) with her, with the necessary (formality), We
joined her in marriage to thee: in order that (in future) there may be no
difficulty to the Believers in (the matter of) marriage with the wives of
their adopted sons," Can you please explain the story behind this
verse without any reference to the hadith? What was the example set by
Muhammad mentioned in this sura that need to be followed?
As for following the
example of Abraham, Abraham’s character was known to Arabs through the
fables that they used to tell each other about the prophets of the past.
Without Arab's knowledge of Abraham the Quran would not have made sense to
them. For example if I advise you to be like Job, and if you do not know
Job and what happened to him my words to you means nothing. For
Muslims to be able to follow the examples (sunna) of their prophet they
need to know about his life. The reason you are so adamant to reject all
the hadiths is because you already know this man was a criminal. Why you
so desperately want to lie to yourself and cling to this thug,
is beyond any reason. Suppose you save face in front of others
pretending that you think the hadiths are all false, what are you going to
say to your own conscience? Have you already thrown it out along with the
hadiths?
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Furthermore
isn't this story you are telling us a hadith? So you are
trying to discredit the hadiths on the authority of another
hadith? And you call that honesty?
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I
use that hadith to show a conspicuous internal contradiction in
hadith books. I say, "if you believe this hadith, you must
reject all other hadiths. If you accept other hadiths, then you must
reject this one. You cannot believe all to be authentic!" I am
surprised that you did not understand this common and simple
rhetorical device.
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We
already know some of the hadiths are false. This hadith is not only
apocryphal but it has nothing to do with rejecting the hadiths. Muhammad
asked a pen and paper not to write a hadith. This hadith is invented by
Shiites to give the suspicion that he wanted to write his will and appoint
Ali as his successor but the "wicked" Omar said “hasbuna
Kitab-ullah”. The intent is to vilify Omar. This has nothing to do with
Muhammad rejecting hadith.
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