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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.    

 

Quote:

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.


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" 

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? 

 

Quote:

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?

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. 

 

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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