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Attention: Year 2009 is here
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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 Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:45 am Post subject: Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina |
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Dear Edip Yuksel
The invitation must have been sent to you by one of the members of FFI. But I am glad that you agreed to this exchange. This thread is restricted and friends are requested not to post here. If anyone wants to comment please go to this thread.
I will start with something that needs clarification and it has to do with your position as a “Quran only” Muslim.
You apparently deny all the Hadiths. Can you please tell us whether you also deny the books of history such as Srat, Tabari and Al Waqidi?
If so on what you base your knowledge of Muhammad as a historic person? How do you know about him, his life, his companions, etc?
Do you perform the rituals of obligatory prayers fasting, hajj etc? If you do how do you know that is the way Muhammad intended. There are no descriptions of these rituals in the Quran. All these details are in the hadith which constitute the bases of the sunna. But you deny the authenticity of the hadith. So where do you get the important information that is missing in the Quran?
Finally, do you recognize the importance of some of the hadiths at least for their historic value?
_________________
Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own.
Last edited by Ali Sina on Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:01 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Edip Yuksel
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:49 am Post subject: Re: Edip Yuksel vs. Ali Sina |
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| You apparently deny all the Hadiths. Can you please tell us whether you also deny the books of history such as Srat, Tabari and Al Waqidi? |
Dear Ali Sina:
A good question.
Syrat (history of prophet and his companions) were written after hadith and civil war intellectually and emotionally contaminated the so-called Islamic land. Though some are more critical than the other, still they all rely on hadith and hearsay. Besides, they are also not immune from the influence of political and religious powers of their time.
Historically, the Quran is the most authentic book reflecting the events. In fact, the Quran is like a journal of major events with lost chronology. Surely, you will claim that the narrative of the Quran is from the perspective of Muhammad and his interest. I think and hope that we will find a way to come into a reasonable agreement on major historical events.
I do not think that you are relying on every historical report of the syrah books, such as Tabari or Waqidi. I will treat each historical anecdote on ad-hoc basis and evaluate it critically with a healthy dose of suspicion.
I think we both will agree on many issues, as long as we both try our best to be consistent and objective on the purported stories.
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| If so on what you base your knowledge of Muhammad as a historic person? How do you know about him, his life, his companions, etc? |
I mostly rely on the narration of the Quran. If the Quran's account contradicts the account of a particular narration I chose the narrative of the Quran since it was written down when events were happening. However, if you chose the narrative of a book written five or ten centuries after the events, I expect you to provide a good reason for that choice.
| Quote: |
| Do you perform the rituals of obligatory prayers fasting, hajj etc? If you do how do you know that is the way Muhammad intended. There are no descriptions of these rituals in the Quran. All these details are in the hadith which constitute the bases of the Sunna. But you deny the authenticity of the hadith. So where do you get the important information that is missing in the Quran? |
Interesting. I hear similar questions from Sunnis and Shiites. I do not follow any ritual that is not in the Quran. I argue that all the details of Salaat (contact) prayer, zakat (purification of blessings), hajj (annual conference in Mecca), and fasting in Ramadan are given in the Quran. For instance, if you have time, please find my article "How to Pray According to the Quran" at my website, yuksel.org
| Quote: |
| Finally, do you recognize the importance of some of the hadiths at least for their historic value? |
Hadith, like every heresy, legend or story may contain some truth. They at least reflect the spoken language of their time, the culture, general events, mindset, economy, political and social tension among groups and nations.
However, I will not consider Hadith as authority besides the Quran even if I know hundred percent that it was uttered by Muhammad. I dedicate my religion to God alone, and I reject the religion of limited partnership that is based on Allah + Muhammad + Muhammad's companions + early imams + mujtahids + later imams, etc.
I will be posting my previous postings in other chain since they provide a background and introduction. I will also post one of my articles about Muhammad's struggle to change his community.
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.hereticmuslims.com |
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Edip Yuksel
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:54 am Post subject: Edip Yuksel (www.19.org) accepts Ali Sina's invitation |
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Edip Yuksel (www.19.org) accepts Ali Sina's invitation
12/20/2004
Dear Ali Sina:
Regardless of your intention or motivation, I believe that your site is serving a great mission: people are provoked to think and question the claims made in the name of God, gods, or about God, gods.
I was told by a participant of 19.org/forum that you are challenging Muslims for debate and you also have expressed your intention to debate with me.
Here is my situation:
I am currently working on The Reformist Translation of the Quran with two colleagues of mine. Besides the translation of the Quran, I am currently working on two film scenarios for an animation/film studio that I am affiliated with. With so much on my plate, I will not be able to engage in lengthy internet discussion with anyone. (I know how demanding this can be. For instance, years ago I engaged in a lengthy debate with Abdurrahman Lomax on Code 19, the mathematical structure of the Quran. Our debate was later published as Running Like Zebras and available on the net).
HOWEVER,
I would be willing to engage in a face to face debate that could be recorded. I invite you to Arizona for such a debate; we can hold it at an auditorium at the campus of the University of Arizona or Pima Community College. If you accept this invitation then I will organize the debate. But, if you wish, we might meet at a university campus of your choice. Then, you should take the responsibility to organize and publicize.
The debate must be public and must be one-to-one. We should agree on a moderator and also decide the topics or the outline of the debate. Later, the transcript of the debate could be posted on the internet and its video recording could be made available for public after we sign a contract.
I do not want you or others consider this as a CHALLENGE, but a friendly invitation to discuss the theological, philosophical, social, political and psychological aspects and ramification of faith in general and islam in particular.
Peace,
Edip Yuksel, J.D.
www.yuksel.org
www.19.org
---
I came here to debate with Ali Sina
12/20/2004
Dear Susan and Omen:
I understand Susan's frustration and anger and I understand Omen's taking verses out of their context to demonize muslims.
In a century where Christians have fought two world wars therby killin millions, where Christians committed history's biggestt terrorist acts against two Japanese cities, where Crusaders have been destroying cities and massacring tens of thousands, where Isareli occupying forces have been torturing, killing and terrorizing the Palestinian population, the Christian-Zionist propaganda machine is working hard to depict their victims as monsters and terrorists. I understand that.
But, I am not here to debate with everyone, especially with the ones who appear to be screaming while their ears closed. I wish I had time and energy to respond to every one of you individually, even to those who have no patience to hear the opposing point of view.
I think Ali Sina will represent many of your opinion and criticism against Quran. If Ali Sina uses the same arguments, then I will respond them, God willing.
I thought that I received an invitation from him for a debate. If I am mistaken, or mislead by one of his fans, then I will continue what I need to do: finish my projects and enjoy my vacation with my family.
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.yuksel.org
www.19.org
Then, let's do it in writing.
12/20/2004
Dear Ali:
Please read my second posting and let me know what is your answer. I will be leaving to California next Sunday and I will spend my time with extended family untill the beginning of the new year. So, I mihgt not be able to access internet...
If you wish, we may start our debate after the new year. Or, if you wish we may start now and continue after a one week holliday break.
As for reform: apparantly you misunderstood what I mean by this phrase. If you check my web site, you will find that your criticism is irrelevant.
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.yuksel.org
www.19.org
Ok. Let's Start after the New Year
12/21/2004
This is a challenging and colorful forum and without censorship like our forum at 19.org. There are many issues to be discussed and many deep emotions to be dealt. I hope, when Ali and I start our debate in a restricted forum we will deal with most of these issues. After we settle our debate, hopefully the readers will post their reaction and fill the gap in our arguments.
I urge you and myself to consider the possibility that there is an alternative way. That the truth may not be in either Christian, Muslim or Atheist side. For instance, when I criticized the wars and aggression of some Christians, the modern Zionist-Crusader alliance I did not intend to condone or support the violence conducted or dreamed of by some Muslims. Unfortunately, many were conditioned to assume that position for me with the "either-or" fallacy.
Personally, I suffered the most from the second violence: I had to leave my country, my family, my career, and everything behind to save my life from Sunni radical Muslims! My struggle is well known in Turkey and I have shared with English speakers some of my personal experience at my website, http://www.yuksel.org. So, I think I am justified to demand a fair criticism, since I am not coming here with a mask on my face, but a person who is known by millions of people and who is not shy to share his opinion and personal experience with others.
Unlike Ali Sina, my criticism and rejection of Sunni or Shiite version of Islam did not lead me to rejection of God or the Quran. Though there were times I contemplated such possibilities, but my faith in God and the Quran became much stronger after my rejection of the religion or sect of my parents falsely called Islam. Either I was not intellectually and emotionally as strong as Ali Sina, or I knew things that Ali did not know. Here, by God's will, we will debate these issues and we will find out which one of us is closer to the truth. I hope that you will not watch us like spectators in a football stadium or boxing ring, but with open mind and heart for what both people have to say. I want to remind people that on many issues I agree with Ali Sina, but on some crucial points I disagree and we will try to separate the hay from he grain.
Regardless of Ali's criticism and insults levied against what I consider dear and truth, I respect his courage to challenge Muslim scholars. I assume that he is honest too. His intelligence level is obvious from his writing. I consider honesty, courage, and critical approach to extraordinary claims as prerequisite qualities in the search of truth. And it seems that Ali Sina have all of them.
But, I am hurt by his remarks regarding my intentions. I did not rush to make such a judgment about his and I will try to control my primitive urge to judge his intentions. If Ali had taken a few minutes and asked people who know me, including my enemies, he would have found out that I gave up too many things for what I came to believe to be true. Most of my Sunni enemies, especially those who know me in Turkey, acknowledge the fact that I am honest and courageous. They shared this perception with public on TV debates and articles and books. I have changed my positions on many issues without thinking the social, political and economic consequences. It is evident even after my immigration to the United States. I left submitters organization when I found them to become a cult members who fell into trap of hero-worship.
So, before attacking my honesty, I expect Ali to check my background. I treat truth above everything. If today I am convinced by a rational argument or by empirical evidence that the Quran is a man-made book, I would not hesitate to reject my present conviction. I do not make money from my books published on religion; I donate them. I am not getting salary to be an imam. I do not expect people to respect me because I am a holy men or descendent of this or that dead holy men. To the contrary, I advice people who call me with titles such as "hodja", "dr." or "efendi" to stop calling me with titles, especially when we have discussion or dialogue on religious matters. I deliberately sabotage my perceived charisma in many ways just to allow impressionable people to be able to think for themselves, without being influenced by my title, reputation, etc.
Quote:
Whether Edip accepts the truth or not is not our concern. It would be naïve to expect those who have made a name for themselves and enjoy a position of respect within their community be so honest to give up all that just because they find out that they have been mistaken. In fact such people will never find out that they have been mistaken because they will not even consider the possibility.
Thus, I consider Ali's comment above to be an attack to my core value. I might have false ideas and opinions, but I am honest in perpetual pursuit of truth and appreciation of it. Ali does not need to apologize for his prejudice about me. During the upcoming debate with me I believe he will recognize how unfair assessment and prejudice it was. However, I think he is right in general. Those who have invested interest in a particular religion or political ideology have invisible walls erected between them and the truth.
However, I am not seeking your votes. In fact, I believe that majority of people will not accept and like what I will say here. So, I hope my arguments will be evaluated separate from presumed negative and positive speculations about my personality or intention.
Hopefully, Ali will compile a list of QUESTIONS expressing his reasons for rejecting Islam and we will start discussing them on a new forum.
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.hereticmuslims.com
Last edited by Edip Yuksel on Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:56 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:17 am Post subject: |
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I went to your site and read your views on hadith
http://www.yuksel.org/e/religion/trash.htm
So you prefer to use the books of history to learn about Muhammad. That is fine with me. I will rely on history when I talk to you. However let us talk about hadith for now.
Your position is that all hadiths should be scrapped because a lot of them are fabricated. Lomax, your opponent in that debate, made a valid observation. He said: “The bound collection of testimony from any court is certain to contain some lies and some errors. The reliability of any piece of evidence remains debatable….And if a collector collects a thousand hadith and makes a few errors neither is he to be condemned as unreliable.”
You rebutted his statement and said: “Not a single court will accept the testimony of Bukhari who collected contradictory hadiths about the Prophet Muhammad, narrated from generation to generation 200 years after his departure.”
On this issue I side with Lomax. Let us make this clear with an example. The police department of a city is trying to solve a case and asks for tips from the public. Thousands of tips pour in. Most of them are completely unrelated, but among those thousands a few corroborate a story and based on those related tips the detectives will be able to solve the case. It would be unconscionable to through away all the tips because most of them are incorrect.
In our case we want to know about Muhammad and how he lived his life. We have tens of thousands of tips in the form of narrations of his followers. Many of them are weak leads and many of them are fabricated. We know also that the believers tend to exaggerate and aggrandize the virtues and attribute miracles to their beloved prophet. So when it comes to these particular hadiths we should take them with a grain of salt. However when we put all these tips together the picture of a man emerges. We separate those tips that corroborate each other and based on them we sketch the profile of our suspect. Can we be 100% sure that this is how he looked? Maybe not! But because these tips come from a variety of sources and despite the differences in detail they tell us the same story we can be fairly sure that we have a good idea of how our suspect looked and what he did.
So if I were a responsible detective, I would not discard all the tips simply because some of them are fabricated, especially when there is no other source to depend on. However, what if the picture emerging of the suspect portrays my beloved father? What would be my natural reaction? I would probably want to scrap all the tips and discredit them. This is dishonesty. But hey, you are talking about my father. You are asking me to choose between filial piety and honesty. That is a tough choice. Not everyone can pass that test. I would do everything to cover up my father’s crime and protect him. That is how I see you and all other hadith deniers. You do not like what you see in the hadith. They embarrass you. You find Muhammad torturing his victims, beheading them, gauging their eyes, raping them and doing all sorts of despicable acts and all that hurts. So instead of being honest and admit that you were wrong and the man whom you worship is a psychopath criminal, you try to dismiss all the hadiths. You think if you put your head in the sand and pretend you do not see; the problem will go away. The despicable lawyers of O.J. Simpson did that and they won. But does that mean that Mr. Simpson is innocent? Even if you win this case based on discrediting the evidence and technicalities, can you still live with your conscience?
Can we use these hadiths in an actual court of law to incriminate Muhammad? I think we can. You may argue that they are circumstantial and try to discredit them. But they are so many that any sane jury will find it difficult to dismiss them. Muhammad is guilty as charged.
However, our goal is not to take legal action against Muhammad. He is dead. We want to find out the truth. We may never be able to find the truth one hundred percent. But we can get a fairly good idea of it. What you have now is absolute lie.
Nonetheless, we have enough evidence in the Quran, in the books of history and in the hadith to become certain that Muhammad was not a messenger of God but a cult leader like Jim Jones and David Koresh and this I will prove to you in our discussions.
Muslims have fallen in love with Muhammad because they have been shown a picture of him which portrays him as a holy man, a perfect human being, an example for all to follow, the mercy of God for all the creation, etc, etc. That image is false. According to our tips, and his own book, he was far from being a good man. How did the Muslims get that false picture in their minds? …Because they were fed with lies! It certainly does not match the picture we get from our tips and from our thorough investigation. So which picture is more accurate? The one that is based on the fantasies of his followers or the one that emerges from the tips?
This is just to show the weakness of the position of the Quran only Muslims. Apart from the fact that this is a fallacious way of thinking, it leaves Islam indecipherable.
P.S. I was about to post this that I found you have posted the above message. So I will read and respond to your message in another posting
_________________
Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own.
Last edited by Ali Sina on Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:32 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 7:51 am Post subject: |
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I see in this letter you say that you don’t even acknowledge the biography of Muhammad as recorded by Ibn Ishaq, Tabari and Waqidi. I understood this differently when I read your debate with Lomax but now it is clear.
If that is your position and you are adamant to deny all the historic evidences relating to Muhammad, I deny even the existence of Muhammad. I claim that he was the fabrication of Arab rulers who needed a religion to justify their imperialistic ambitions (See Crone and Cook). You are a lawyer. You know that the burden of proof is on the person who is making the positive assertion, i.e. you. It is you who must prove that Muhammad actually existed and was not just a fictitious personage, a figment of the unknown real author/s of the Quran. Anything you say must be documented. However you can't use the hadith or the Sira to make your case. If you deny these books you can’t use them.
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| I do not think that you are relying on every historical report of the syrah books, such as Tabari or Waqidi. I will treat each historical anecdote on ad-hoc basis and evaluate it critically with a healthy dose of suspicion. |
So what is your position exactly? Are you saying that part of the history is acceptable? I perfectly understand looking at the history and hadith with a healthy dose of suspicion. That is my position too. The reason I bring this up is to know which documents are admissible in our discussion and which ones are not and whether your rejection of haidth and Sira is categorical or you are open to accept them with a healthy dose of suspicion. Are you willing to use the same criteria also for the hadith or hadith is definitely out?
I asked on what you base your knowledge of Muhammad and you responded:
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| I mostly rely on the narration of the Quran. If the Quran's account contradicts the account of a particular narration I chose the narrative of the Quran. |
That is okay with me. If a hadith or a narration contradicts the Quran or the spirit of it we will reject it.
So let me recapitulate what I understood from your position. You would look at hadith and the biography of Muhammad, provided they do not contradict the Quran or the spirit of it. You are willing to consider them as sources of information for their historic value, although with some reservation.
If that is your position I am with you. That is how I look at those sources too. But if I have misunderstood you please correct me.
If that is the case, I will make my case against Muhammad using the hadith and Sira as well as the Qurn. You are of course free to dispute the accuracy of each document I present based on the above mentioned criteria. i.e. if they contradict the Quran, we will discard them but if they don't we keep them, not as absolute truth but as a probable.
In other words, we will not discard a hadith or a story just because it incriminates Muhammad. After all that is what I want to prove. If I am not even allowed to present my evidence against him then what is the point of the trial?
I agree not to present any evidence that is against the explicit or implicit teachings of the Quran. You are entitled to question the validity of my exhibits but if you can’t demonstrate that they are unauthentic we are not going to discard them. We leave them there as probable. It is my conviction that the weight of these probable documents and that of the Quran will be so overwhelming that I will win the case against Muhammad and will prove to you and the world that he was an impostor and not a prophet. Scott Peterson's lawyer argued that all the evidences against his client are circumstantial. He was right! But they were so many that the Jurry had no problem convicting him. We have a lot more evidence against Muhammad.
_________________
Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own.
Last edited by Ali Sina on Wed Jun 18, 2008 2:16 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 4:51 pm Post subject: I am not here to sift through a pile of garbage |
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| That is how I see you and all other hadith deniers. You do not like what you see in the hadith. They embarrass you. You find Muhammad torturing his victims, beheading them, gauging their eyes, raping them and doing all sorts of despicable acts and all that hurts. So instead of being honest and admit that you were wrong and the man whom you worship is a psychopath criminal, you try to dismiss all the hadiths. You think if you put your head in the sand and pretend you do not see; the problem will go away. The despicable lawyers of O.J. Simpson did that and they won. But does that mean that Mr. Simpson is innocent? Even if you win this case based on discrediting the evidence and technicalities, can you still live with your conscience? |
Dear Sina:
I was denied access to this forum as Edip Yuksel. So, I re-registered under the username www.19.org and was able to access again. I would prefer to use Edip Yuksel consistently here. I hope you will correct the technical problem.
This reminded, let's continue our discussion:
Once I was a believer and defender of hadith. However, when I studied the history of hadith, its collection, procedures of its collection, and problems with their authenticity and the profound difference between hadith and the Quran, yes I witnessed this, I gave up from following hadith and sunnah.
I understand why you want me to drag to a source that I have come to refute at the cost of my life. You want me to revert back to my old days and start believing those sources that are mere hearsay. Here is my answer:
I WILL NOT ACCEPT YOUR INVITATION TO DIG INTO A LITERARY GARBAGE AND CHOOSE AND PICK WHATEVER WE LIKE AMONG THE THOUSANDS Of CONTRADICTORY AND OCCASIONALLY RIDICULOUS NARRATION.
It appears that you are not able to criticize the Quran without the help of adding some garbage from collections of hearsay. Muslims and non-Muslims, all agree that the historical authenticity of the Quran is far beyond the authenticity of hadith. Thus, your insistence to rely on hadith, by a biased criterion of "if it says something good about prophet we will reject it but if it says bad things about him we jump over and accept it." is unacceptable. It is unfair; it is dishonest.
How can you rely on Bukhari who came from Bukhara to the scene 200 years after Muhammad and started collecting anything he heard and liked?
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? 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!
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.
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"
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 agressors.
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 sheperd! (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)? Will your suggested criterion to sift through the garbage help us to decide the authenticity of this hadith and reject all the rest? Which one do you believe? Was the Quran deemed sufficient by early muslims or they too needed hearsay reports to understand the Quran? What is the meaning of protecting the Quran from tempering while making it needy of volumes of dubious and fabricated stories?
How can you trust hadith books that report THE MOST WITNESSED HADITH, or THE MOST AUTHENTIC HADITH and manage to confuse the most crucial words, THE LAST WORDS in that hadith? The hadith about the last sermon, which was claimed to be witnessed by more than hundred thousand believers, has three different endings: (1). Follow the Quran. (2). Follow the Quran and my Sunnah. (3). Follow the Quran and my family. Should we pick and choose! Throw dice? How will your criterion help us to pick the accurate version?
How can you invite me to take Bukhari a serious source of history while in its LONGEST HADITH it narrates the story of Miraj in which poor Muhammad goes up and down between 6th and 7th heavens trying to reduce the number of daily prayers? In that hadith, Muhammad is like an innumerate and gullible union leader bargaining for some break time on behalf of his people against a merciless boss (hasha God!) who tries to require 50 prayers a day, that is, a prayer for every 28 minutes, day and night! In that narration Moses is the wise guy and he coaches Muhammad in this hard task of negotiation with God! According to your suggested criterion we should accept this hadith because Muhammad is depicted as an idiot who cannot even calculate, without the help of Moses who resides just one heaven below God, the impossibility of performing 50 prayers (not unit) a day? Even if one tried at that time they could not have divided the day to 50 periods of 28-minutes! Since, this hadith insults the intelligence of Prophet Muhammad according to your garbage-sifting criterion, should we believe this story?!
How can you trust the account of hadith books, which unanimously claim that Muhammad was an illiterate man? Based on your criterion, we should swallow this lie because it does not praise Muhammad, since it depicts him an illiterate man who was not capable of learning 26 letters while dictating a book for 23 years! Or should we reject it because while insulting Muhammad it praises the literary excellence of the Quran?
Idiot friends can harm a person more than wise enemies. Hadith and siyar books are products of ignorant friends who insulted and defamed the men they were trying to worship. Besides, we should not ignore the possibility of some converts with agenda to distort the message. For instance, many Jewish stories and practices were imported to "islam" via "convert" Jewish and Christian scholars, such as belief Mahdi and practice of circumcision, etc. Kab bin al Ahbar is one of those influential converts. The story of Muhammad massacring Bani Qurayza Jews is another fabricated story by Jewish converts; unfortunately they were able to insert such lies into hadith and siyar books, which provided every fabricator access to a holy mass propaganda.
Hadith books contain almost anything you want. You may find an extremely kind and nice Muhammad besides a cruel torturer one. You may find Muhammad to be a person with great morals and on the other page you will see him a pedophile. You will find Muhammad pointing at the moon and splitting it into two pieces letting one piece falling into Ali's backyard, and on the other page you will find Muhammad incapable of reading a simple letter. Now, you want us to enter this Muhammad-in-the-wonderland and separate truth from falsehood. And without looking in my eyes you are suggesting me to pick the bad and reject the good ones. You cannot be serious!
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| Can we use these hadiths in an actual court of law to incriminate Muhammad? I think we can. You may argue that they are circumstantial and try to discredit them. But they are so many of them that any sane jury will find it difficult to dismiss them. Muhammad is guilty as charged. |
It is evident that you have no knowledge of modern rules of evidence in justice system. I challenge you to find a single judge in America that would find those hearsay reports credible for character assassination. If you find one, I promise that I will petition to the bar to take away his license by using similar hearsay to depict him as a drunk child molester! Yes, go find a single judge in a secular country accepting the garbage you are inviting me to.
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| However, our goal is not to take legal action against Muhammad. He is dead. We want to find out the truth. We may never be able to find the truth one hundred percent. But we can get a fairly good idea of it. What you have now is absolute lie. |
As I gave a few examples out of many, it is not possible to get a fair and objective idea by using hadith and siyra books. But, your insistence on this issue gives away your weakness. You are not able to discuss Islam based on the most reliable historic document, the Quran. You had perhaps had very good time in constructing arguments against Sunni or Shiite Muslims who are mislead by those sources. As you know, I follow the Quran alone, like Muhammad himself did. There are now, thank God, tens of thousands of Muslims all around the world reaching the same conclusion.
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| This is just to show the weakness of the position of the Quran only Muslims. Apart from the fact that this is a fallacious way of thinking, it leaves Islam indecipherable. |
Interesting. How in the world you can construe our rejection of hearsay and silly reports as weakness? The real weakness is in your argument, since you mix garbage in your arguments. I did not come here to speculate on books that NEITHER OF US TRUST. Bukhari could not survive five minutes in the witness stand and he would be rejected by every decent court of justice. But, your hatred against Muhammad or Islam, as it seems, has made you care less about truth and justice.
Peace,
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Guest
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 6:45 pm Post subject: Muhammad did not exist?! |
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| If that is your position and you are adamant to deny all the historic evidences relating to Muhammad, I deny even the existence of Muhammad. I claim that he was the fabrication of Arab rulers who needed a religion to justify their imperialistic ambitions (See Crone and Cook). You are a lawyer. You know that the burden of proof is on the person who is making the positive assertion, i.e. you. It is you who must prove that Muhammad actually existed and was not just a fictitious personage, a figment of the unknown real author/s of the Quran. Anything you say must be documented. However you can't use the hadith or the Sira to make your case. If you deny these books you can’t use them. |
Why do you think that the books collected centuries after Muhammad are more reliable sources regarding the words and deeds of Muhammad? Why rejecting those books should undermine the HISTORIC value of the Quran? I find no connection. Let's say I reject the claims of a biography of Jefferson written by a contemporary author and you tell me: "Well, if you reject this book then how can you prove that Jefferson was indeed a real person who drafted the constitution of the United States?"
I am not sure how serious you are in your denying the historic reality of Muhammad. You are right that I cannot PROVE his existence to you, neither you can prove to me that there was Jesus or Socrates. But, you are missing the entire point.
I follow the Quran and whether Muhammad existed or not is really a side issue in the context of the message of the Quran. I am not following Muhammad; I am following the message of the messenger. I am here to defend the principals and teachings of the Quran. Did Muhammad really exist or not, was Muhammad a good guy or not, is not relevant right now.
I again invite you to tell me which verses of the Quran you have problems with and why. Please be specific and concise as possible. Let's discuss the real issues. I hope we will not be distracted by secondary issues.
PS: I believe and argue that the Quran is word of God and the information contain there is authentic. Inshallah, when we get over this procedural issues I will share you my REASONS why I believe in the divine nature of the Quran.
Peace, |
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Guest
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 7:34 pm Post subject: 9:29 |
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Edip,
I don't believe there was a muhammad, he was invented 50-100 years after his supposed death. Initially arabs used to say muhammad rasoul alla, which also means praised be the messenger of alla, they might have been talking about abraham or ishmael. My question to you is about koran, which i think is the source of hate and fascism:
go , pick up a Quran and read the following verses: 2:191,3:28,3:85,5:10,5:34,9:5,9:28,9:29,9:123,14:17,22:9,25: 52,47:4, and 66:9, you will get your answer. They all promote hatred and violence against non-muslims. A person who believes the Quran to be God's words, and has read and believes in, these verses, is thus a terrorist , atleast in mind, if not in practice. It is another matter that most muslims are totally ignorant of what is really in their scriptures and their history books. They continue to believe that Islam is a peaceful religion ; and the knowledgable religious leadership wants it that way because exposing them to the reality will result in losses in mosque attendance and fund collection from gullible muslims. Most effective way to fight this islamic terrorism , instead of spending billions in wars and weapons, is exposing the truth to the world and stop being politically correct. Please support courageous people like Taslima Nasrin, Ali Sina (faithfreedom.org) and Ibn Warraq (secularislam.org). |
Dear Kufr0929:
I answered Ali Sina regarding his conspiracy theory of the fictional Muhammad. You can even claim that Muhammad was an E.T. So what? One can speculate in infinite ways, as long as he does not think that he needs evidence for his wild assertions.
I would like to keep this discussion between me and Ali Sina, since it will be impossible for me to answer every criticism directed to me regarding my faith. I was hoping that I would discuss this and similar verses with Ali Sina, and we agreed to keep this debate restricted. So, I might be going against our agreement, perhaps justified by your access to this so-called restricted forum.
I am a student of the Quran and I have translated the Quran to Turkish and currently working on its English translation together with native speakers. I understand and relate to you why you could reject those verses. If I (mis)understood them like you and majority of muslims do, then I would too have problems with them.
Here is why I think you do not understand the verses the way I understand:
1. You are taking them out of their Quranic context.
Following your method, I could easily depict Jesus, one of the messengers of peace (islam), as a divider and a trouble maker, rather than uniter and peacemaker: "Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law." (Lu 12:51-53). But reasonable people will consider this an injustice to Jesus and his message.
2. You rely on distorted translations by sectarian clergymen:
You are relying on the translation of scholars who follow the diabolic teachings of hadith and sunnah. They try hard to distort the meaning or implication of verses to make them compatible with those teachings.
3. You are ignoring many other verses that compliment this verses and clarify the rules of engagement.
4. You falsely assume that the practices of Sunni or Shiite khalifs and kings were in accordance with the Quran.
God willing, I will later deal with each verse you listed here. But, I expect this debate to be done between me and one person, presently Ali Sina.
Here, I just want to briefly express my opinion on the verse number that you have attached to your user name, 9:29:
The verse is mistranslated by almost every translator. The correct translation of it should be:
"You shall fight (back) against those who do not believe in God, nor in the last day, and they do not prohibit what God and His messenger have prohibited, and do not abide by the system of truth amogn those who received the scripture, until they pay the COMPANSATION, in humility."
You have noticed that I inserted a paranthesis since the context of the verse is about the War of Hunain, and fighting is allowed for only self defense. See: 2:190-193, 256; 4:91; and 60:8-9.
Furthermore, note that I suggest COMPENSATION instead of Arabic word Jizya. The meaning of Jizya has been distorted as tax on non-Muslims, which was invented long after Muhammad to further the imperialistic agenda of Kings. The origin of the word that I translated as Compensation is JaZaYa, which simply means compensation, not tax. Since the enemies of muslims attacked and agressed, after the war they are required to compensate for the damage they inflicted on the peaceful community. Various derivatives of this word are used in the Quran frequently, and they are translated as COMPANSATION.
I hope you will forgive my lack of opportunity and time to engage in lengthy discussion with you.
Peace,
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 9:01 pm Post subject: |
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| I was denied access to this forum as Edip Yuksel. So, I re-registered under the username www.19.org and was able to access again. I would prefer to use Edip Yuksel consistently here. I hope you will correct the technical problem.\ |
Yes I noticed that your account was showing as inactive. I reactivated it. I do not know much about technical stuff and I really do not know why sometimes some members can’t access their account. Maybe its time to upgrade our forum! Anyway, my apologies for that! Your account should be okay now.
_________________
Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own.
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Edip Yuksel
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 2:56 am Post subject: |
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Thank you Ali Sina for your sensitivity. I wish you could turn the "Guest" to "Edip Yuksel" in preceding two posts. I wanted to make a few grammatical corrections and and stylistic changes but I could not access them. I will not correct any of my writings if you have already quoted them.
I hope you will not be personally offended from my bold language I use in my arguments. It has nothing to do with your person or character. I am not here to hurt your feelings or give you hard time. I am here to exchange some ideas and inform you that there is another way of understanding Islam. I hope that you will not try too hard to place and lock me in one of your preconceived boxes 
I really do not expect that you will change your opinion as you do not expect me to change mine. Not because I beleive you have bad intention, but because it takes almost a miracle to change hard core beliefs, especially after certain age. (I assume that you are older than 19 years:) As you might know that I changed my religious belief after witnessing the mathematical miracle of the Quran.
In case you start treating the Quran independent than the distortion of hadith and sunnah, and you witness the miraculous mathematical structure of the Quran, yes if this miraculous event happens, then I expect you not to close this website, nor delete any of the writings. I am strong proponent of freedom of expression and I beleive that the truth is light and falsehod is darkness. Light is not scared of darkness.
Please take it easy, and again do not take my style as a personal attack. As I said, I respect your courage and honesty, even if you remain as my ardent enemy.
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.hereticmuslims.com |
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:44 am Post subject: |
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Hi Edip
I really do not know what happened with your 19.org username. Methinks some mysterious hands are at work here. (I am not the moderator) I also do not understand why your present account was deactivated. I have received such complaints before but very rarely.
I am afraid I can’t change the Guest to anything else because the username Guest does not exist. However I am going to publish everything in the main site because it presents better. The forum has been subjected to attacks but the main site is safe. Even if it is hacked, I can reload the entire site back. If you have to make any changes, please send me the revised version and I will do it.
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| I hope you will not be personally offended from my bold language I use in my arguments. |
Of course your language did not offend me. All the people here can tell you I am very sharp in my language too. Tit for tat! Don’t worry, my feelings can’t be hurt by discussions. Only a woman can hurt them. No I will not try to put you in any box. You seem to do a good job yourself LOL.
Yes I am older that the magical 19. But I changed my religion when I was older than that. I am not quite sure how you changed your religion when all you did is looking at it in a different way. Well, there are hundreds of sects in Islam and each is trying to look at it in a different way. So what is your feat?
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| In case you start treating the Quran independent than the distortion of hadith and sunnah, and you witness the miraculous mathematical structure of the Quran, |
We will get to that my friend. Just be patient. You can be sure I am not going to close this website or remove our discussion. I hope you will publish it in your site too or at least provide a link to it.
Of course I am not your enemy Edip. That is nonsense. We are just discussing our views and at least you and I should be able to show the rest of the Muslims that two people can disagree and remain friends.
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Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own. |
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 3:59 am Post subject: |
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Please find my response here
Round II
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Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own. |
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Edip Yuksel
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 8:15 pm Post subject: Yes, take your shaky stool away, Ali |
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Dear Ali:
A participant of the forum, Mirror of Truth, in another threat answered your argument. You were urging me to join you in using hadith as a reliable evidence to incriminate Muhammad. I am quoting his answer, since I agree with all of it and it will save me time. I will answer some of other arguments of yours after this excerpt from Mirror of Truth, whose answer is distinguished with five asterisks:
*****
I'm writing my first post regarding the actual debate and I note that some classic AS double talk is beginning to creep into the flow of debate.
On the one hand - AS bluffs his hand by stating:
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| "On the contrary! I will show that the Quran is full of errors and absurdities and it can’t be a book of revelation unless the revealer was Satan. The reason I want to clarify the question of hadith is to demonstrate the fallacy of the position of those who totally deny them. Once that is established I will have no need for hadith." |
Well he launches into an awful lot of pre-amble if he has no need for hadith. Edip has made it explicit that he does not need nor has any desire to discuss the hadith.
During this pre-amble AS lists two possibilities as the motives for the fabrications which I accept. These are namely:
1. Glorification of an idolized leader. This would explain hadiths for example that report that Muhammad's manliness was equivalent to 30 men or whatever number it was. In trying to make their hero macho they do not realize the absurdity they create - and the inadvertent slander they commit.
2. The fabrications of enemies whether they be hypocrite 'believers'/converts or or open enemies. This explains a great many hadiths that are covert digs at Muhammad. An example is the cherished hadith of the 'miraj' where Moses acts as the wiser guide to Muhammad's alleged negotiations with God. Obviously this is the fabrication of a Jewish convert who asserts the superiority of Moses' bargaining/knowledgeability.
What Ali Sina discounts and does not mention at all is that there is another group of hadiths that were introduced (or supported) in the folklore in order to support the actions of corrupt leaders. If corrupt leaders/mullahs could justify their pedophilia or desires to rape and pillage by introducing or supporting such hadiths then having the absolute power there would be little reason for them to reject such hadith. Thus the hadith that obviously makes Muhammad look evil/wicked/stupid etc. become canonized because it meets the secondary need of the corrupt leaders.
Thus there are motives for these hadith that AS has completely ignored.
The sum of it is that whatever the motive for ahadith - none are required for the purposes of following God's system - not one.
AS has stated he has no requirement for them. None of us are shocked and the position to go on sans ahadith is very tenable. They are fabrications. The absurdity they contain is enough to convince the free-thinker of that. I would advise that AS lets go of his love for the hadith that I'm sure rivals the mullahs in order to make a real contribution to the debate. Let's move on from the nonsense of ahadith and see what arguments he has left now.
*****
I want to elaborate little bit more about motivation in fabrication of hadiths. Ali Sina is treating hadith sources in a simplistic way. I recommend him to read Mahmud Abu Rayya's book Adwa' 'ala al-Sunna al-Muhammadiya (Cairo: 1377/1958). It is one of the best criticism of history of hadith collection and procedures. The book allocates 60 pages to motives for fabricating hadith and documents many of them. People fabricated hadith to even advertise the dates of a particular town, such as, Ajwa. They fabricated hadiths to promote submission to the rule Kings. They fabricated hadith to justify the massacres and tortures of Umayyad or Abbasid kings…. Ali Sina ignores all these motives and wants us to believe that any hadith depicting Muhammad as a violent person must be accepted without question! One of his suggested criteria for accepting hadith is if "It is consistent with the character of Muhammad" found in his hostile imagination or in other dubious hadith books! Accepting this offer is more difficult than to swallow the prophecies of his favorite psychics.
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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 5 50 7:166 |
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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| 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. |
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.
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| 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. |
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
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.
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.
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| 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"
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| 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.
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| If we had a different version completely opposite to what we have, you would have a point. But what we have is all there is. There is no other version of the history of Islam and Muhammad. |
Do you really hear what you are saying? What about the Quran? The book that preceded the hadith books by centuries! The Quran refers to all major wars and conflicts and even generously quotes the allegations and accusations of opponents. But, you are addicted with the stinky smell of hadith narrations and you try hard to engage me in a wrestling match in that location. No, my dear friend. I had been there and I am grateful to God for saving me from that. You might, however, continue enjoying your mud-slings with Sunni and Shiite opponents there. If I have time, I will be watching you with a smile on my face.
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How do you know that the Quran has not been tampered, especially when the same Muslims who were so dishonest as to fabricate thousands of hadiths on Muhammad and were left unchecked were the very ones who transmitted the Quran? In fact, even your mentor Rashed Khalifa admitted that the Quran has been tampered. http://www.submission.org/tampering.html
If the Quran has been tampered it throws out the claim that God has promised to preserve it. 15:9 The myth of inviolability of the Quran has been shattered. What guarantees we have that it has not been tampered more than once? |
Finally, a good question, a fair criticism I would like to reserve a separate discussion on protection of the Quran via its numerical structure.
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| Is the entire history of Islam a fabrication? In that case what proof we have that Muhammad himself was not a fabrication? If the entire history of Islam is false, then what makes you believe that Muhammad ever existed? The whole thing could have been made up. Your first duty is to prove the very existence of Muhammad. |
Again, you are confusing me with your Sunni friends! If I were in an island and found the Quran there among other books, and if I were able to understand its message and blessed to witness its scientific accuracy, prophecies and mathematical structure, I would not need anything else to believe in its accuracy. Do you hear me? Do you understand me? Besides, I am not a Muhammadan. Islam, as the system of peace and submission to God alone, existed long before Muhammad and will continue exists as a path for the truth-seekers long after him.
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| Yes also the holocaust is a lie fabricated by the Jews. In fact everyone knows that Osama Bin Laden is a Jew working for CIA who is trying to give a bad name to Islam. |
No, I do not consider holocaust a lie fabricated by the Jews. To the contrary, I consider it one of the most diabolic disasters caused by racism and religious bigotry. Even if the number of massacred Jews has been exaggerated it does not change this fact a bit. To me, the life of a single human being, be a Jew or Arab, is infinitely important. Killing a single human being unjustly, without self-defense is equivalent of killing all humanity, since if one loses his respect to the life of one human being will lose his respect to the basic principle of brotherhood of humanity (See Quran 5:27-32).
As for Ben Laden being a CIA agent... No, I do not believe that either. CIA might have in the past supported and collaborated with bin Laden, but they parted their ways after Russia left Afghanistan. CIA supported Saddam for long time, when he was killing Iranians and gassing Kurds, my people, to death. But, they parted their way too after Saddam invaded Kuwait, reading the USA's reaction before the invasion as a "yes". The USA tricked her former puppet-dictator to concoct a new scenario in the region...
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| It is good that you see these contradictions. However these stories originate from the Quran. The claim that Muhammad was illiterate is in the Quran and the claim that he split the moon asunder is also in the Quran. |
The Quran does not claim that Muhammad was illiterate, but only illiterates of the Quran claim such. Quran claims that Muhammad was not reading any scripture, in other words, he was a gentile. Muhammad was a literate gentile, like many of his contemporary prominent Meccanians. The Quran does not claim that Muhammad split the Moon, but only the splitters of holy lies claim such. The Quran refers to the end of the world and gives the splitting of the Moon as a sign for its coming close. I understand it as reference to the splitting the Moon surface by Apollo astronauts in 1969 when they took rocks from the Moon. I have a detailed argument on this in my Turkish books and inshallah you will find it in my upcoming Reformist Translation of the Quran.
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| That won’t be a bad idea. I don't know whether we can prosecute a dead man. But this surely would make a sensational trial. If it can be done and if a lawyer is willing to joins me, it would be a great idea to take Muhammad to court. Or at least try to ban Islam under the anti hate law. |
Only an Inquisition or Taliban court would accept your evidence as credible. But, in case you find such a court in Texas or Saudi Arabia, please let the judge appoint me as Muhammad's attorney! I would be glad to represent him against Bukhari, Tirmizi, Ibni Majeh, Ibni Hanbal, Taberi, Waqidi and Ali Sina, combined.
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| Don’t be impatient my friend. One thing at a time! First I'll pull the stool from beneath your feet. Once that is done I will move to discredit the Quran and use nothing but the Quran. In fact I left Islam only after reading the Quran. I only became familiar with the hadith afterwards. |
Now this is really funny. I never stood on that stool or wanted in the first place. You are the one trying to push it under my feet and each time I kick it you have being trying harder. Now, you are taking credit for your failure to insert that stinky stool under my feet? What logic are you using? In my first letter to you I invited you to discuss the Quran and you managed to extend the introduction with silly arguments from silly books.
So, it should be the last round that we discuss hadith. We should now move to the real argument. Are you ready for that, or you want to dwell more on hadith? You will not receive any response from me if you continue your bizarre insistence to force me to accept hadith. Then, you may claim your victory and continue your debates based on hearsay and ignorance.
I hope you will kick that stinky stool under your feet. Hope that it is not the only stool keeping you standing
A PERSONAL NOTE
(Ali, take a deep breath, sit down, take prozac or medication of your choice, and then read it. I do not want to be the cause of your heart attack—Muslims needs to hear your voice and your baby followers need nourishment--but I want to share with you my honest thoughts about you. If my thoughts about you are wrong, please correct me. I assume that I will deserve a personal retaliation. So feel free to express your thoughts about me!).
When I accepted your challenge to debate on Islam, I had no knowledge about your philosophy or political position. All I knew was that you were very aggressive enemy of Islam. During the three days I had chance to browse some of your writings and learn a little about you, as you have been doing the same about me. I cannot claim that I know your philosophy or religion well; but I learned a few things about you that mostly fascinated and occasionally surprised me:
1. You have access to volumes of religious classics and you know well how to navigate among them.
2. You are curious about modern science, you read and you are able to construct some philosophical arguments based on most recent scientific findings or theories. It is a risky business, but hey intellectual entrepreneurs take risks with theories and speculations However, I warn you against taking risks by speculating over speculations.
3. You have great aversion, to the degree of hatred, against the religion falsely introduced as Islam.
4. Your aversion and hatred against the corrupt Islam, which I call Hislam, I think, have led you to lose the diamond (the Quran) in the garbage. (I have read some of your criticism directed to the Quran, and inshallah I will demonstrate the problems with MOST of your arguments).
5. Your fight against false ideas and terrorism is somehow focused on Muslims alone, while a segment of Christendom, especially millions of fanatic evangelists and crusaders, equipped with big financial resources and powerful propaganda machines, are propagating similar false ideas, supporting and encouraging state terrorism, occupations, dictatorial governments, military coups, wars, crusades and destruction around the world; yet, you do not show similar aversion and hatred towards them.
As for me, while I condemn Ben Ladin for killing innocent people, I also condemn the evangelical president of the USA-Inc who has terrorized an entire nation based on lies, deception, and has killed many times more civilians, and destroyed many times more buildings in a poor country that had no connection with Ben Laden. See: www.yuksel.org/e/law
So, if you call Muslims terrorist because they killed several thousand people in last decade, you must call Christians "terrorists to the power of 666" since they killed hundreds of thousands in Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Vietnam, and just recently they killed tens of thousands Iraqi civilians, and wounded even more.
Why terrorizing an entire nation, destroying their cities, killing, torturing, raping and sadomizing their children and youth in the name of "democracy and liberty" should be treated lightly? Why killing tens of thousands of civilians should be forgiven if the murderers, who are also proven congenial liars, use the magic word "collateral damage?" Why smashing the brains of children with bombs or severing their legs and arms should be considered civilized and treated differently than beheadings? Why destroying an entire neighborhood or city and massacring its population by a push of button from the sky should not be considered equally or more evil than the individual suicide bomber blowing himself or herself among his powerful enemies who snuffed away all their hope? Why surviving to push another button to kill more people should be considered a civilized action not the action of those who gave their own lives while doing the killing? How can one honestly call an occupying foreign military force to be freedom fighters? How can one call the native population to be terrorists just because they are fighting against an arrogant and lethal occupation army which was mobilized against them through lies and deception?
If you read my books, articles, and listen to my speeches, you will find that I do not favor one criminal over another because of their religion or nationality. However, I consider state terrorism, regardless of the nationality and religion of the population, to be much more cruel, dangerous, and sinister than the group or individual terrorism. I expect similar consistency and fairness from you. I expect you to PROTEST and CONDEMN the atrocities conducted by Evilgelical-Zionist coalition in Chechnya, Iraq, Palestine, etc., as you rightly condemn the atrocities committed by Hislamic radicals in Afghanistan, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, etc.
Otherwise, your biased stance against Muslims alone might support the speculations that you are used by Evangelical Christians. I do not know and cannot speculate that there is such a connection, but I found your position intellectually problematic and dishonest.
6. Your belief in paranormal was a surprise, though. You might have already read several of my articles on paranormal. My stance on paranormal is somewhere between yours and skeptics'. I do not want to distract our current debate with this subject, so I will just touch the surface.
I found some entertaining writings about you (See the excerpt below). It seems that some people are taking you too serious and considering you together with Van Praagh (a charlatan who fools gullible people on TV) as the founders of a new religion: Rational Spirituality. I do not know whether you take Van Praagh serious, but getting to know you little bit, I will not be surprised if you do so. You might be one of those people with multiple personalities: genius on one page, gullible on the other; against the Muslim terrorist on one page; for the Christian or Jewish terrorists on the other page!
Regardless, I enjoy reading your writings, including your silly and utterly false or nonsense claims. I respect intelligence and revere it as a divine gift. You are gifted in that sense, and you will have equal responsibility. I hope your ego will allow you to control and check yourself. Be reminded that extreme points might be dancing on a circle, the farthest they go away from each other the closest they might get to each other, and the barrier separating both extremes may collapse occasionally. Here is the funny excerpt by one of your "followers":
| Quote: |
| "My fellow friends, we must rally behind Ali and Van Praagh et al. to establish this fledgling religion firmly on earth. I am encouraged by a few converts already joining hands. We must win this battle against the skeptics who destroy people’s lives. Remind you- they never build lives; they only destroy. Think about this: the skeptics’ camp dominated by the Scientists, Rational Humanists, leading Philosophers etc. have done nothing, absolutely nothing to build people’s lives. They have only brought about all scientific progress; they have contributed enormously for the comfortable, easy and just life in this world. Those are just material things – those contributions don’t build people’s life but instead destroy people’s life and destroys people’s hope. Of course, the skeptics never kill people in great numbers; still we must believe that they destroy people’s life. Although, we rational spiritualists just “do twaddles” by means of our new religion but they still build people’s life, bring hopes to people. One may wonder if we destroy the skeptics; who is going to keep the wheel of progress of human life rolling. I don’t think we have any problem there at all. Do we remember the fire-ball Ali witnesses in his sister bed room? Ali says that was clearly an intelligent being. It can be presumed that those intelligent beings may be huge gold-mine of genius and intelligence. Once we have established our new religions by destroying the skeptic scientists, philosophers etc., we can replace them with those intelligence beings and the progress of our Spiritual world can even move forward faster." (Alamgir Hussain) |
Peace,
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.hereticmuslims.com
Last edited by Edip Yuksel on Fri Dec 24, 2004 5:23 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Ali Sina
Joined: 13 Feb 2004
Posts: 4607
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 9:06 pm Post subject: |
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Round III
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Don't be a follower, but a prophet unto your own. |
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Edip Yuksel
Joined: 20 Dec 2004
Posts: 128
Location: Arizona, USA
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| Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2004 10:42 pm Post subject: This is not fair, Ali Sina |
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Dear Ali:
What I see that you are picking and choosing my answers when you are posting them in another page. If you are doing it intentionally, this ammounts to censorship.
Please see my website, 19.org/forum and you will see that I post your every word together with my answers. I am your guest and you have duty to play fair.
This way, you are getting away with many false allegations and accusations.
Please seperate my answers from yours and post them accordingly. Otherwise you have to quote every single word of mine in your answer.
I hope that this is a simple error.
Peace,
Edip
_________________
Edip Yuksel
www.19.org
www.yuksel.org
www.islamicreform.org
www.brainbowpress.com
www.hereticmuslims.com |
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