Muslim Jesus: Great Prophet?

[Confused Ape]

The guy down there is wondering why they were called dark ?
The fall of rome itself, was consisted of too many factors (the same page you gave me), which indicates a very very hard age, unlike any other, full with disease, death & wars.

Europe was crumbling since that time, that's why history doesn't record any battle between them & muslims. And still, those years weren't dark for europe ?

The article explains why it was originaly called the Dark Ages and is now called Early Medieval. The 19th Century scholars had a biased world view so this period of history was presented as Europe being overrun by uncouth, unwashed savages. Disease has always been a part of human history because there were other periods with devastating diseases - the Black Death was in the 14th Century. Bubonic Plague turned up every so often. Then there was the 1918 flu pandemic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920)[1] was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic which infected 500 million[2] people across the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and killed 50-100 million people of them—1 to 3 percent of the world's population[3] at the time—making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history

If Dark Age is defined by disease, death and wars you could say that the whole of human history has been one long Dark Age.

The concept of a person being a saint, capable of curing disease and sickness by mere touch, this theme is always there in the bible.

This itself is a change in the message, because as I told you : the main message is worshiping god, pray for god, nobody else.
But christianity allowed that for saints.

The Roman faction of Christianity chose to interpret things that way. As they were the dominant faction, other Christian groups with different interpretations were eradicated. The Cathars are, perhaps, the most well known example of Christians with a different interpretation being wiped out. Millions of Christians these days don't pray to saints or the Virgin Mary.

Christianity is a term covering many thousands of different viewpoints. This is why I wish Christians would say things like "I'm a Southern Baptist" or "I'm a Roman Catholic" rather than just presenting themselves as Christians.

Islam isn't just one viewpoint either.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Muslims_by_sect

I was surprised to find there are so many. The way you refered to Sunni Muslims in Post 42 of this topic leads me to suspect that you're a Shi'a Muslim but it would be helpful if you could confirm this. I could then google Shi'a Muslims.

Millions of Muslims believe that Islam is a religion of peace while others interpret things to mean that suicide bombing is OK. There are arguments about the real status of women in Islam. (I read a fascinating discussion on separate areas for women in mosques in the Beliefnet forum. Some women were insisting they liked it that way and didn't want men and women together. A man insisted that this custom wasn't true Islam.)

Ancient versions of the quran were found ; no contradiction with that we have today.

When I get time I'll google that and see if I can find an unbiased article on the subject.

BTW, do you know that the arabic grammar is like a lie detector ? if something is made up, the grammar experts would fetch it up.

The quran is flawless, grammatically , nothing is like it (studied it for years,from a grammatical pov). It's almost impossible to forge that.
And still, evidence proves that ancient qurans are the same as the one we have.

Almost impossible isn't the same thing as completely impossible, though. Not that a possibility is concrete proof, of course, which is why I'd like to find an unbiased opinion. Even though I'm an atheist I'm still interested in things like the quran and Nag Hammadi texts as historical documents.