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Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina

Round II

 

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How can you rely on Bukhari who in the beginning of his collection is not even ashamed of insulting MONKEYS by reporting that a companion of the prophet saw monkeys stoning an adulterous monkey to death?"  

If you want to discredit Bukhari and other biographers on the basis of the absurdity of their thinking then why you do not look at the absurdity of Muhammad's thinking?

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

But that is not all. There are numerous ridiculous statements made by Muhammad in the Quran. We will come to that when we come to the Quran. 

 

According to your suggested criterion of sifting the garbage, we should accept this report since it does not praise Muhammad! Or you have another criterion that you forgot to communicate to me? You may end up with hundreds of arbitrary criteria to be able to justify your picks and rejects!

No this hadith should not be accepted. It belongs to that category of hadiths that were invented by Muslims to make their religion look universal. We can see why a zealot Muslim would fabricate such ludicrous hadith. We can also easily see it is false because we know monkeys are not as savage as Muslims to stone their kind. Like all other hadith talking about miracles, this hadith is irrational and hence should be discarded. But when we read Muhammad took a bunch of Arabs and cut their extremities, gouged their eyes and left them to die in the desert for stealing his camels, we have no reason to doubt this is untrue because this heinous act is doable and it fits the character of Muhammad. From the Quran, from thousands of hadiths and from the siras we can see that Muhammad was a violent, unforgiving and ruthless man. There is nothing extraordinary in this hadith for us to doubt it. It is likely that this hadith is true.

  1. It is repeated in several sources

  2. It is not contrary to the explicit or implicit teachings of the Quran, in fact it is in unison with it.

  3. It is not contrary to logic. It is possible to cut the hands and feet of people, gouge their eyes and leave them die in the desert sun.

  4. It is consistent with the character of Muhammad

  5. There is no reason to believe why so many believers would fabricate such story

  6. It is detailed.

Based on all the above this hadith is very likely to be true. And since we have thousands of hadiths like this, it really does not matter even if some of them are not true. We get the picture of Muhammad when we read all of them.  

 

How can you invite me to speculate on Bukhari who confesses of collecting 700,000 hadith and accepting only about 7000; rejecting 99 percent of them? Don't you see the exaggeration? Had Muhammad talked every minute of his life after claiming messengership, his words could have hardly added up to 700,000 hadiths.

This is not a valid argument at all. Suppose Bukhari was exaggerating, this does not invalidate his work. Talking hyperbolically is part of the Persian psyche. If only you could see the kind of hyperbole they they use in their poetry! The number 7 and its multiples of ten were the favorite number of the ancient people and we see Muhammad also using it often. As in the example of police and tips brought earlier, sometimes tens of thousands of tips could be reported.  The sheer enormity of the false tips should not invalidate the good ones.

 

How can you take Bukhari serious who justifies the abrogation of a Quranic verse after Muhammad's departure by none other than a holy goat that ate the skin where the alleged verses issuing the stoning-to-death for adulterers written? Should we accept that report? In order to add another insult to Islam you would like to have it. But you cannot have it both ways. You have to also believe the "holy goat" 

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. 

 

Bukhari had a very different idea of islam than Muhammad. Bukhari was an ignorant idol worshiper and had no respect to the Quran. Besides, he sided with the oppressive rulers. For instance, he found Marwan, the drunk and murderer governor. to be a credible person by narrating "sahih" hadiths from him, while he declined accepting any hadith from a brave student of the Quran, Abu Hanifah who suffered in the jails of Umayyad and Abbasid dynasties for rejecting to sell his soul! Bukhari was not an objective hadith collector, he was on the side of murderers and aggressors.

We can write volumes of books listing the contradiction between the teaching of Bukhari and the Quran, the only book delivered by Muhammad. Then, how can a sound person claim Bukhari to be a friend of Muhammad? To me, he was a real enemy of Muhammad (6:112-116), like St. Paul was the real enemy of Jesus, since he distorted his message beyond recognition.

Let me little side track here. For instance, Jesus never silenced women and put them down with xenophobic teachings but St. Paul asked women to submit to men and hush: (1Ti 2:7-15; 1 Corinthians 14:34-35; 1 Peter 3:7). Jesus never asked for money for preaching but St. Paul asked for money shamelessly and likened his audience to flock of sheep to be milked by the holy shepherd! (Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? 1Co 9:7). He was a successful Machiavellian (before Machiavelli was born!) as opposed to Jesus who did not twist the truth to gain people: "To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some." (1 Corinthians 9:22).

How can you trust Bukhari who narrates the LAST HADITH while prophet Muhammad in his death bed, rejecting the recording of any hadith through a decleration from the mouth of Omar Bin Khattap and the acquiescence of all prominent muslims that "Hasbuna kitabullah" (God's word is enough for us)? 

 

I think you are confusing the facts. This hadith that BTW might be apocryphal reports that Muhammad asked for pen and paper to write something and Omar said Hasbuna Kitabullah. Muhammad did not say that. It was Omar who said it in defiance of Muhammad’s order and Muhammad was upset and motioned everyone to leave the room. I say it might be apocryphal because a) Muhammad could not write b) it is highly unlikely that Omar would be so disrespectful to him at the moment of his death and c) even if Omar said such thing others who were present would have obeyed Muhammad and not Omar. This hadith could have been invented by a follower of Ali to stain Omar. 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.  

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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