It wasn't Mohammed who founded Islam.

[Brian37]

Why was jesus labeled the offspring of "Mary?"

What about Jupiter's "children?"

Are you saying the Battle of Karbala was a myth?

The only thing religion proves as far as history is concerned is that there was a history of making those claims. Peppering a holy book, any holy book of any religion with a real person here or a real city their still would not make magic men or prophets real.

No one took down a wall with trumpets. No one cured blindness with spit or mud. No one rose the dead from the dead. No different than saying George Washington was real, but the cherry tree was a myth.

You can rent a Superman movie and see him flying around real cities, but that does not make Superman real.

[Lucanus]

[watchamadoodle]

I watched the video last night. The documentary claimed that when Jerusalem was conquered by the Arabs, there was no mention of Islam by the Jewish and Christians who recorded their impressions of the experience. They recorded that the Arabs prayed on the temple mount and had a guide, but their religion was a mystery.

I guess that isn't conclusive either way, but it was interesting to me.

The best 71 minutes you can spend on the subject.

[Minimalist]

Or not. That is the issue at hand.

Yes it is, but I put my money on him simply hating the Jews and Christians, they still do, their just quit about it.

Misleading. In general jews and muslims got along quite well in the islamic empire. The jews paid their tax - it was, on a pro rata basis, a lot less than when xtians periodically slaughtered them and stole everything. There was a large and flourishing jewish community in Baghdad right up until 1947 when the partition of Palestine provoked anti-jewish riots. This enmity is a modern invention. And why not? As has been pointed out in many ways the nuttier muslims and jews are pretty much the same shit.

[JesusHChrist]

Are you saying the Battle of Karbala was a myth?

I'm finding scant evidence supporting the details around this battle. The earliest documentation was written by a person who died almost 100 years after the event.

Battle of Karbala = 680AD.
Abu Miknahf = died 774AD, so probably born around 700AD at best. If he started his writing career at 20, that would put the collecting of eye witness testimony at around 720AD. It's certainly possible eye witnesses existed as late as 720AD, but they would be getting on in age.

But, the problems mount when you find out "Abi Mikhnaf's original seems to have been lost and that which has reached today has been transmitted through his student Hisham Ibn Al-Kalbi (died in 204 AH)" - another 50 years later.

The battle could have happened. Maybe Mo's progeny were involved; maybe they didn't exist. Stories get told and embellished by old men sitting around a fire.

The point being, no one wrote anything down until 40+ years after the event, at best. Hardly compelling and ripe for myth-making.

[Rayaan]

The best 71 minutes you can spend on the subject.

The whole documentary is just sensationalism and based on the single fact that some historians were not able to find 'concrete' proof. It was a shamefully inaccurate and shoddy attempt to combine disjointed facts together, merely capitalizing on the Umayyad caliphate and its history when it came in touch with the the Roman empire and minted its own coins, and thus ignoring the masses of evidence and events recorded which support Islam coming into existence at the time of Muhammad as compared to this baseless theory. I'm just really laughing at all of this garbage that you're touting as genuine history.

And it ignores the earliest references to Muhammad which are recorded even in non-Muslim sources, as I mentioned here with a link.

Not even close to being somewhat historically accurate.

[Brian37]

The best 71 minutes you can spend on the subject.

The whole documentary is just sensationalism and based on the single fact that some historians were not able to find 'concrete' proof. It was a shamefully inaccurate and shoddy attempt to combine disjointed facts together, merely capitalizing on the Umayyad caliphate and its history when it came in touch with the the Roman empire and minted its own coins, and thus ignoring the masses of evidence and events recorded which support Islam coming into existence at the time of Muhammad as compared to this baseless theory. I'm just really laughing at all of this garbage that you're touting as genuine history.

And it ignores the earliest references to Muhammad which are recorded even in non-Muslim sources, as I mentioned here with a link.

Not even close to being somewhat historically accurate.

I am going to tell you the same thing I tell Christians, which I already said in another post in this thread.

A history of making claims only proves that there is a history of making claims. All holy books make claims, and so what.

It still does not make any of the fantastic claims in the Koran or Bible true. It does not make man gods or prophets real.

"Prophet" "Oracle" "Soothsayer" are all the same superstitious garbage where humans claim to have a magic bat phone to a cosmic security guard.

Some of the places mentioned and some of the people mentioned in any holy book may have evidence for them. But those books are not history books or science textbooks. They are merely books of myth that represent the desires of the people that wrote them at that time.

The bible, Koran, Talmud, OT, Reg Vedas, Bhagavad Gita are all books of legends and myths reflecting the societies that wrote them at that time.

If you go by an apologist theologian you are going by a bias source. And many of them will claim the others books have truths in them too. But they are not doing that because they believe in those other god claims, they are doing that in order to distract you from questioning them.

The only unbias sources anyone should listen to are Historians who simply report events and what people believed without claiming their gods are real. The other ones who are unbias are archaeologists and anthropologists.

Of course the sources you have bought are going to sell you what you believe because they have an interest in gaining members. It gives them power over your mind.

[pocaracas]

And it ignores the earliest references to Muhammad which are recorded even in non-Muslim sources, as I mentioned here with a link.

You know those references, only mention some sort of army general, right?
Here are snippets of the quotes therein:

and in January, they took the word for their lives (did) [the sons of] Emesa [i.e., Ḥimṣ)], and many villages were ruined with killing by [the Arabs of] Muḥammad and a great number of people were killed and captives [were taken] from Galilee as far as Bēth

there was a battle between the Romans and the Arabs of Muḥammad [Syr. tayyāyē d-Mḥmt] in Palestine twelve miles east of Gaza. The Romans fled, leaving behind the patrician YRDN

Then God raised up against them the sons of Ishmael, [numerous] as the sand on the sea shore, whose leader (mdabbrānā) was Muḥammad (mḥmd). Neither walls nor gates, armour or shield, withstood them, and they gained control over the entire land of the Persians.

But not all is bad, there's something slightly reminiscent of a christian gospel. Written by a bishop who maintains that the account of Arab conquests derives from the fugitives who had been eyewitnesses thereof:

At that time a certain man from along those same sons of Ismael, whose name was Mahmet [i.e., Muḥammad], a merchant, as if by God's command appeared to them as a preacher [and] the path of truth. He taught them to recognize the God of Abraham, especially because he was learnt and informed in the history of Moses. Now because the command was from on high, at a single order they all came together in unity of religion. Abandoning their vain cults, they turned to the living God who had appeared to their father Abraham. So, Mahmet legislated for them:[...]

And then you get to Abd al-Malik, the official founder of Islam, right?


So, apart from Sebeos, who's giving us a second hand account (at best) of a leader implementing rules and regulations, you have a military leader.

So... yeah... it is possible there was a military leader behind, at least, some of the arab conquests.... and it is possible such a person's name was Muhamad, or Mehmet, or something similar...
It is also likely that such conquests were done, not by a single army, but by several... well, several battalions, as we'd call them nowadays, huh?
This would give us several military leaders... if you get my drift?...

[Rayaan]

And then you get to Abd al-Malik, the official founder of Islam, right?

So all those references of an army general named Muhammad and start from the year 634 CE is actually Abd al-Malik, even though he was born in 646 CE?

Why don't you please enlighten me on this guy a little more, if you know anything else.

So, apart from Sebeos, who's giving us a second hand account (at best) of a leader implementing rules and regulations, you have a military leader.

So... yeah... it is possible there was a military leader behind, at least, some of the arab conquests.... and it is possible such a person's name was Muhamad, or Mehmet, or something similar...
It is also likely that such conquests were done, not by a single army, but by several... well, several battalions, as we'd call them nowadays, huh?
This would give us several military leaders... if you get my drift?...

And exactly how did you go from "a military leader" to "several military leaders"? And where is the historical evidence for those several military leaders who lived around 634 CE, like the ones we have for Muhammad?

"It is just very likely" is not a decisive answer, by the way.

[Minimalist]

And it ignores the earliest references to Muhammad which are recorded even in non-Muslim sources, as I mentioned here with a link.

Not even close to being somewhat historically accurate.

I had started to answer the other thread and then, when going to get another link, lost the whole damn thing. I may get back to it.

But seriously, Rayaan. You aren't going to trot out the Doctrina Jocobi, are you?

See what you can do with an article which does not mention Spencer...since you seem to have decided that he is your personal enemy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/02/arts/s...koran.html

Scholars Are Quietly Offering New Theories of the Koran

Christoph Luxenberg, however, is a pseudonym, and his scholarly tome ''''The Syro-Aramaic Reading of the Koran'' had trouble finding a publisher, although it is considered a major new work by several leading scholars in the field. Verlag Das Arabische Buch in Berlin ultimately published the book.

The caution is not surprising. Salman Rushdie's ''Satanic Verses'' received a fatwa because it appeared to mock Muhammad. The Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz was stabbed because one of his books was thought to be irreligious. And when the Arab scholar Suliman Bashear argued that Islam developed as a religion gradually rather than emerging fully formed from the mouth of the Prophet, he was injured after being thrown from a second-story window by his students at the University of Nablus in the West Bank. Even many broad-minded liberal Muslims become upset when the historical veracity and authenticity of the Koran is questioned.

BTW, Rayaan, can you show me the part of the koran which allows you to critically examine your faith? I have no doubt you can show me plenty which forbid it. So, the very idea of an islamic 'scholar' being capable of historical criticsm seems not only quite impossible but given the fanaticism of believers, highly dangerous.