Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina
Round IV
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Quote:
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Muhammad's
ignorance is obvious from what he wrote in the Quran. He
thought that Jews were transformed into apes and swine. Is
that logical? Who is more ridiculous? Bukhari who thought
monkeys practice Sharia or Muhammad who thought Jews were
transformed into monkeys? 2:65 5:60 7:166
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Holy cow! Is this your level of reading a
literary test that contains metaphors? Your hatred against Muhammad
and islam has reduced your literary skills to elementary level. When
your friends tells you "Ali don't have a cow" do you
chastise them "When did I want to have a cow? Are you
hallucinating?" When someone labels another person
"pig!" does he really mean that the other was transformed
to a pig or acted like a pig. The verses you refer are metaphors
that use the Arabic language and culture. It likens the acts of a
particular group of Jews to the behavior of monkeys and pigs. Please
check Arab language for the implication of such metaphors.
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The
verses that you say are metaphor are as follow
2.65
And well ye knew those amongst you who transgressed in the matter of the
Sabbath: We said to them: "Be
ye apes, despised and rejected."
So We made it an example to their own time and to their posterity, and a
lesson to those who fear Allah
5.60
Say: "Shall I point out to you something much worse than this, (as
judged) by the treatment it received from Allah? those who incurred the
curse of Allah and His wrath, those of whom some He
transformed into apes and swine, those
who worshipped evil;- these are (many times) worse in rank, and far more
astray from the even path!"
7.166
When in their insolence they transgressed (all) prohibitions, We said to
them: "Be
ye apes, despised and rejected."
These texts do not give
any impression of being metaphors. The words used are “Be
ye apes” and “He transformed
[them] into apes and swine”. If Allah really wanted to say you are
worthless creatures like apes and swine then he used a wrong syntax. He
should have said “ye are like unto apes and swine”.
So there are two
possibilities. a) you are wrong b)
Allah's Arabic is very poor.
Could this be possibly a
mistake in translation? Absolutely not! The word used in verse 5.60 is
Ja’ala which means transformed.
وَجَعَلَ
مِنْهُمُ
الْقِرَدَةَ
وَالْخَنَازِيرَ
None of the Muslims
understood these verses as metaphor including the greatest Muslim of all
times Mevlala Jalaladdin Rumi who echoed the same absurdity in his
Mathnavi stating clearly that Jews were transformed into apes. Now Rumi
was a Sufi and he was the one who taught Quran should not be read
literally but rather it has a baten
inner and a zaher apparent meaning. He understood Arabic perfectly and yet did
not thing these verses are metaphors.
Rumi
is not the only person who thinks the verse is literal. Ibn Ishaq (Sirat
Rasulullah) says
... 'And stand in awe of Me,' i.e. lest I bring down on you what I
brought down on your fathers before you - the vengeance that you know of, BESTIAL
TRANSFORMATION and the like ... (Alfred Guillaume, The
Life of Muhammad [Oxford University Press, Karachi, thenth impression
1995], p. 250; bold capital emphasis ours)
Also Bukhari makes the
same "mistake" and writes:
"The Prophet said, "A group of Israelites were lost. Nobody
knows what they did. But I do not see them except that they were cursed
and changed into rats, for if you put the milk of a she-camel in front of
a rat, it will not drink it, but if the milk of a sheep is put in front of
it, it will drink it." I told this to Ka'b who asked me, "Did
you hear it from the Prophet?" I said, "Yes." Ka'b asked me
the same question several times.; I said to Ka'b. "Do I read the
Torah? (i.e. I tell you this from the Prophet.)" 4.54.524
The translator has footnotes at this point in which he says:
[1] It was illegal for the Israelites to eat the meat or drink the milk of
camels while they were allowed to eat the meat and drink the milk of
sheep. The Prophet inferred from the rats' habit that some Israelites
had been transformed into rats.
[2] Later on the Prophet ... was informed THROUGH INSPIRATION
about the fate of those Israelites: They were transformed into pigs and
monkeys.
Also Muslim makes the same mistake and says:
"Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said: A group of Bani
Isra'il was lost. I do not know what happened to it, but I think (that
it underwent a process of metamorphosis) and assumed the shape of rats.
...." (Sahih Muslim, Book 042, Number 7135)
Also Ibn Kathir's commits the same mistake and says since the jews went
fishing during the Sabath "Allah cursed them for it and
transformed them into real despised apes
....They were doomed TO STAY AS APES FOR THREE DAYS without food, drink
or reproduction, TILL THEY DIED" (Tafsir
Ibn Kathir, Part 1, Surah Al-Fatiah Surah Al-Baqarah, ayat 1 to 141,
abridged by Sheikh Muhammad Nasib Ar-Rafa'i [Al-Firdous Ltd., London,
second edition 1998], pp. 146-147; bold and capital emphasis ours)
Don't you think the reason all these great
luminaries of Islam are mistaken is because the Quran is either not clear
or is wrong?
Do not get excited for seeing these narrations.
We both know they are wrong. The question is why so many people
misunderstood the Quran that is supposed to be clear and without any
doubts? The question is about the Quran not about the hadith.
Quote:
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I
haven’t seen this hadith. It could be false but it is not
illogical. Goats are known to eat papers and books. The only
reason you are so shocked is that you think those writings
were revelations from God and if so they could not have been
destroyed. Since your premise is wrong your conclusion is
wrong too,
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I
do not have such ideas about revelation. You are making up ideas in
my name. I do not blame you for this since you have encountered so
many Sunni Muslims or Shiite Muslims you may be excused to confuse a
"muslim muslim" with them.
You
are accepting one of the biggest lies about Muhammad. Muhammad was
literate. He wrote the Quran with his own hands. The Arabic word
UMMY does not mean illiterate, it means gentile. For my logical and
scriptural reasons for literacy of Muhammad please visit my website
at: http://www.yuksel.org/e/books/rtq.htm
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How
do you know Muhammad wrote the Quran with his own hands? Are you
speculating or have you read it somewhere? How do you know that your
sources are not corrupted? Why you allow yourself to pick and choose what
you like and reject what you don’t? I never read such story. How do we
know that this story is more accurate than the sources that you disparage?
Mind you, I actually think Muhammad knew how to read and write and he
simply lied to impress others. I often receive many protest emails from Muslims who
at the and say, "by the way I am only 10 years old". They think with these
silly misrepresentations I will
be impressed thinking they are prodigies. Our discussion does not interest
children even older than that. The question I have is how you allow
yourself to pick and choose narrations about Muhammad that you like and
discard those that you don't?
You claim that ummi does not mean illiterate but it
means gentile. The verse 2:78 is an alleged speech of Allah with
the Jews. It says:
"And there are among them illiterates,
who know not the Book, but (see therein their own) desires, and they do
nothing but conjecture."
وَمِنْهُمْ
أُمِّيُّونَ
لاَ
يَعْلَمُونَ
الْكِتَابَ
If ummi means gentile, in this verse Jews are called
ummayoon (plural of ummi). Does this mean that Allah thought Jews are
gentiles?
I think 2:78 makes the meaning of this word clear.
Ummi is one who "know not the book" in other words one who can't
read.
I
went to the link you provided to your article and there I found the
following:
“The very first revelation from
the Angel Gabriel was, Muslims believe, "Read!" And the
first five verses of that revelation encourage reading and writing
(96:1-5). The second revelation was "The pen and writing"
(68:1). These facts compel some questions that orthodox scholarship
would rather avoid. Does God command an illiterate man to
"read"? If so, could Muhammad read after Gabriel's
instruction to do so? The story told in Hadith books about the first
revelation asserting that Muhammad could read only after three
trials ending by an angelic "squeeze" contradicts the
other stories claiming that Muhammad died as an illiterate!” |
How
do you know that the first five verses supposedly "revealed" was
surah 96:1-5 and that sura 68:1 was the second? Where does the Quran say
this? Aren’t you getting this information from the very hadiths you have
berate? And didn't you say that we either accept all the hadiths or none
of them, but we can't simply pick and choose?
For a more detailed explanation of the word ummi
please see this
article
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