Religion... Good or bad for us?

[B_Positive]

NOTE: Guys please dont use this thread for any hatred comments. Please comment logically.

Recently there have been some incidents which made me ask this question. Why do you think we need to have religion in place to think logically what is good or bad? Why does Islam or any religion needs to be in place to teach us what is right? Dont you think that religion makes us believe in things regardless of any logic? And you cant even deny that because we are taught that its god's teachings. For sure this will bring in conflict in the world. They might believe in something else which their religion teaches them.

Example in Asia Bibi's case what is she being punished for? For drinking some water out of a muslim's cup? Is Islam that brutal that it doesnt allow that? Leave that, our judges who are so well educated have given them death sentence for this "CRIME". High court didnt listen to her appeal. And she might as well get hanged for it.

Most of the extremism now a days is because of religion. Every terrorist group is doing something because they have been told that they are protecting their religion. Look at Kasab, he killed so many people just because he was told that he is saving Islam and doing Jihad. Look at RSS who do so many hatred speeches and threaten to rape Muslim girls. And jews are against Islamic nations. And many other examples can be given.

Question is why follow religion and not your own intelligence? Why cant we educate people correctly? Because if even the judges are giving death sentence for this then their is some problem with our society and this world.

What do you think?

 

[DeadBall]

Any system, rule, law that cannot be upgraded due to it being divine is bad for human evolution. Never mind that it is written is such a vague manner that anyone with an agenda can interpret it to suit their own needs, not to mention most of the people following the word of "God" don't even understand the language it's written in and have to rely on the various interpretations the bickering "scholars" have.

Even most of the Arabs have somewhat moved on but the SC Muslims tend to hold to it like a mother holding a baby to it's bosom due to indoctrination, brainwashing, lack of actual education, an identity crisis and a religion forced upon them by the invaders. The level of holier than thou the SC pious people portray is on a different level of insecurity and ignorance.

 

[troodon]

IN THis day and age, it is bad. It suppresses your thinking brain and forces you to accept everything as God’s plan or God did it stories.

I say, even before modern age, the concept of God stunted the growth of human civilization. You cannot do or think anything that goes against the revelations of God. Con men have used this wonderfully to cheat masses and in some cases used God as a tool to motivate gullible people to conquer and butcher innocents.

 

[JaDed]

IN THis day and age, it is bad. It suppresses your thinking brain and forces you to accept everything as God’s plan or God did it stories.

I say, even before modern age, the concept of God stunted the growth of human civilization. You cannot do or think anything that goes against the revelations of God. Con men have used this wonderfully to cheat masses and in some cases used God as a tool to motivate gullible people to conquer and butcher innocents.

Well said.

 

[RogerBao]

Moving Humanity from Religion to Responsibility (4mins)

 

[Robert]

Spirituality good. Religion bad.

 

[Madplayer]

Whats the foundation of this question?

Religion has come to us through God so First you should answer whether God is real or not.

If God is real, then this thread becomes invalid because then religion cannot be bad. And then you have to deal with questions like which religion is true.

If God is not real, then this thread becomes valid and warrants some sort of philosophical discussion in terms of whether its okay to devote one's life to a religious code even when you know God isnt real. For things like discipline, morality, obedience to law etc.

Hence i believe the foundation of this thread is that God isnt real and hence the OP has an inherent bias to begin with. Unless the foundation could be explained in some other way.

 

[RogerBao]

Whats the foundation of this question?

Religion has come to us through God so First you should answer whether God is real or not.

If God is real, then this thread becomes invalid because then religion cannot be bad. And then you have to deal with questions like which religion is true.

If God is not real, then this thread becomes valid and warrants some sort of philosophical discussion in terms of whether its okay to devote one's life to a religious code even when you know God isnt real. For things like discipline, morality, obedience to law etc.

Hence i believe the foundation of this thread is that God isnt real and hence the OP has an inherent bias to begin with. Unless the foundation could be explained in some other way.

What you wrote is not accurate.

1.There are religions that are not claimed to have come thru God.

2.God can be real. It doesn't mean books claimed by some humans as being from God must be real/true too.

This tread is very much valid.

 

[Madplayer]

What you wrote is not accurate.

1.There are religions that are not claimed to have come thru God.

So thread should explicitly mention that it is talking about those kind of religions only. Isnt it?

2.God can be real. It doesn't mean books claimed by some humans as being from God must be real/true too.

The OP mentioned Islam, Jewish religion etc if you read it. Hence, it is talking about religions which have been sent to us by God through his Prophets, books etc.

This tread is very much valid.

I am willing to accept it as valid once the doubts are cleared.

 

[RogerBao]

So thread should explicitly mention that it is talking about those kind of religions only. Isnt it?

The OP mentioned Islam, Jewish religion etc if you read it. Hence, it is talking about religions which have been sent to us by God through his Prophets, books etc.

I am willing to accept it as valid once the doubts are cleared.

The OP mentioned this.

..Why does Islam or any religion needs to be in place to teach us what is right?..

 

[Madplayer]

The OP mentioned this.

..Why does Islam or any religion needs to be in place to teach us what is right?..

Come on. Lets be honest, that doesnt answer my question appropriately at all.

 

[BlackShadow]

The only objective analysis of religion can come from non-religious people, so debating this on a religious forum is an exercise in futility.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

NOTE: Guys please dont use this thread for any hatred comments. Please comment logically.

Recently there have been some incidents which made me ask this question. Why do you think we need to have religion in place to think logically what is good or bad? Why does Islam or any religion needs to be in place to teach us what is right? Dont you think that religion makes us believe in things regardless of any logic? And you cant even deny that because we are taught that its god's teachings. For sure this will bring in conflict in the world. They might believe in something else which their religion teaches them.

Example in Asia Bibi's case what is she being punished for? For drinking some water out of a muslim's cup? Is Islam that brutal that it doesnt allow that? Leave that, our judges who are so well educated have given them death sentence for this "CRIME". High court didnt listen to her appeal. And she might as well get hanged for it.

Most of the extremism now a days is because of religion. Every terrorist group is doing something because they have been told that they are protecting their religion. Look at Kasab, he killed so many people just because he was told that he is saving Islam and doing Jihad. Look at RSS who do so many hatred speeches and threaten to rape Muslim girls. And jews are against Islamic nations. And many other examples can be given.

Question is why follow religion and not your own intelligence? Why cant we educate people correctly? Because if even the judges are giving death sentence for this then their is some problem with our society and this world.

What do you think?

It could be argued that in the majority of Islamic countries, people are following their intelligence, hence you get leaders like Nawaz Sharif looting the exchequer to fund his property empire abroad, and Zardari, the former PPP PM of Pakistan who earned the nickname of Mr 10%. Clearly these leaders of Pakistan believe in wealth accumulation for this life over the hereafter, so religion seems more of hoodwink for the masses in Pakistan at least.

 

[barah_admi]

IN THis day and age, it is bad. It suppresses your thinking brain and forces you to accept everything as God’s plan or God did it stories.

I say, even before modern age, the concept of God stunted the growth of human civilization. You cannot do or think anything that goes against the revelations of God. Con men have used this wonderfully to cheat masses and in some cases used God as a tool to motivate gullible people to conquer and butcher innocents.

I have highlighted a particular point you made and counter it with my own point: religion and religious figures have furthered human civilisation more so than any other ideology and its followers in human history.

Did you know the first man in modern times to propose the idea of an expanding universe for a Roman Catholic? His thinking was so advanced that even Einstein tried to reject him, found his own formulas could not and gave up.

Did you know, the founder of the modern scientific method is Ibn Hatham (hopefully I have the right name through memory), who was a Muslim? Without his methodology you would have nothing of modern science. He practised science 800 years before Galileo.

Did you know it was the Muslims, under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad PBUH who set up the first ever welfare state, it took until the 20th century for modern, "secular" Europe to catch on to that idea and implement it?

Did you know the founders of modern atomic physics were all Jews?

All the laws you have right now and moral values have their roots in monotheistic religion?

If you studied history, science, law and decided to take religion out of the equation, you would have no civilisation to study.

 

[CricketCartoons]

I have highlighted a particular point you made and counter it with my own point: religion and religious figures have furthered human civilisation more so than any other ideology and its followers in human history.

This is true. It is the belief in common myths and fiction which enabled humans to cooperate on a large scale and advanced their civilization.

 

[troodon]

^
Many scientists before were religious clergy. No doubt about it. They were hailed until they went against the teachings of religious scriptures. Once they proposed or found something that went against the religious scriptures, they were tortured and killed.

Humans advanced science in spite of religious dogma. Not due to religion. Religion is/was a big impediment to human progress.

 

[Justcrazy]

What OP mentioned its fault of Humans not religions. People claim to be following a particular religion , but they are doing that just by name , they are not aware of there religious books or injunctions.

 

[barah_admi]

^
Many scientists before were religious clergy. No doubt about it. They were hailed until they went against the teachings of religious scriptures. Once they proposed or found something that went against the religious scriptures, they were tortured and killed.

Humans advanced science in spite of religious dogma. Not due to religion. Religion is/was a big impediment to human progress.

You will have to provide evidence of this, who they were, how many, what percentage of religious scientists in general etc.

Bold claims without proof are pointless.

 

[RogerBao]

^
Many scientists before were religious clergy. No doubt about it. They were hailed until they went against the teachings of religious scriptures. Once they proposed or found something that went against the religious scriptures, they were tortured and killed.

Humans advanced science in spite of religious dogma. Not due to religion. Religion is/was a big impediment to human progress.

Scientific achievements are neither solely because of religion nor because of rejecting religion. Perhaps it's just inspite of religion. Same goes when discussing "Muslim" or "Jewish" scientist. Reminds me of Abdus Salam, are his discoveries because of Islam? The irony is as per Islamic Republic of Pakisatan's law he is not even a Muslim but the rest of the Muslim world celebrates him as a Muslim scientist!!? As for Jewish scientist, has it got to do more with their scientific culture than the Torah as a inspiration for their discoveries?

For instance, today, as a religious group, Muslims are the most abysmall in science compared the rest (only 3 Nobel winners since 1901 including Abdus Salam) On the other hand, Muslims also make up the largest group to be governed in a religious/non-secular setup. Is that a coincidence or there is a correlation?

 

[Robert]

I have highlighted a particular point you made and counter it with my own point: religion and religious figures have furthered human civilisation more so than any other ideology and its followers in human history.

Did you know the first man in modern times to propose the idea of an expanding universe for a Roman Catholic? His thinking was so advanced that even Einstein tried to reject him, found his own formulas could not and gave up.

Did you know, the founder of the modern scientific method is Ibn Hatham (hopefully I have the right name through memory), who was a Muslim? Without his methodology you would have nothing of modern science. He practised science 800 years before Galileo.

Did you know it was the Muslims, under the leadership of Prophet Muhammad PBUH who set up the first ever welfare state, it took until the 20th century for modern, "secular" Europe to catch on to that idea and implement it?

Did you know the founders of modern atomic physics were all Jews?

All the laws you have right now and moral values have their roots in monotheistic religion?

If you studied history, science, law and decided to take religion out of the equation, you would have no civilisation to study.

Yes, and Newton was Christian. You had to be religious in those days. You would probably be killed by the state otherwise. Only with the rise of liberal Enlightenment in the West did culture evolve to become less savage.

Islamic culture made marvellous advances as you say, yet hit a wall at around 1200 CE as intellectual curiosity became replaced by scriptural literalism. European culture started to become dominant as the Caliphates went into decline and stagnation.

As for the atom scientists one can be culturally Jewish without being religious. I’m culturally Christian, but I don’t believe much of it to be literal truth. I accept some of the metaphors as personally and societally positive.

Religion is part of history and cultural development as you say, but culture evolves and we don’t need literalist religion any more. Literalist religion is holding us back now.

 

[JaDed]

Whats the foundation of this question?

Religion has come to us through God so First you should answer whether God is real or not.

If God is real, then this thread becomes invalid because then religion cannot be bad. And then you have to deal with questions like which religion is true.

If God is not real, then this thread becomes valid and warrants some sort of philosophical discussion in terms of whether its okay to devote one's life to a religious code even when you know God isnt real. For things like discipline, morality, obedience to law etc.

Hence i believe the foundation of this thread is that God isnt real and hence the OP has an inherent bias to begin with. Unless the foundation could be explained in some other way.

Religion has not come.to us through GOD but man, if the creator told me set of.illogical rules him/herself I would actually care to believe them.

 

[B_Positive]

Religion has not come.to us through GOD but man, if the creator told me set of.illogical rules him/herself I would actually care to believe them.

Great point. Agree to this. There is some supernatural force in this world i.e. known as God. But he didnt created religion. God may not be like the religion portrays it to be. Religion just makes human to believe in God to their own benefits.

People are told that their religion is the best amongst all. Be is Muslims or Hindus. I cant say about Christians because many of my fiends dont agree to this. But this is what creates conflicts among people to live together peacefully. Asia Bibi is just one victim of this. Terrorists I might say that they dont understand things well and their minds are filled up with garbage. But what baffles me that even educated people follow this suit.

 

[RogerBao]

Even most of the Arabs have somewhat moved on but the SC Muslims tend to hold to it like a mother holding a baby to it's bosom due to indoctrination, brainwashing, lack of actual education, an identity crisis and a religion forced upon them by the invaders. The level of holier than thou the SC pious people portray is on a different level of insecurity and ignorance.

One example is, Arabs use the word zawj for marriage instead of nikah when they are with their mom/sisters because nikah literally means to *F*. SC & South East Asian Muslims use them freely because their mullahs do. Mullahs still use them cos' God does too.

https://www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-handbook-syed-athar-husayn-sh-rizvi/importance-marriage-islam

Another example is, except for the name of prophets in the Quran, most Arab & Persian names are of pagan origin. Though now Muslims, the Arabs & Persians still have their heritage names cos IT IS theirs. On the other hand SC Muslims change their heritage/pagan Hindu name for pagan Arab names.!!

The irony is some of the "Muslim" names are actually by origin direct names of Gods & Goddesses of ancient middle east e.g Manaf, Hilal , Hakim etc. Some try to explain that these names have different meanings now, which is even funnier. It's like saying for instance a Turkish Muslim having a name Krishna which is OK cos it also means "All Attractive"!! Now, Imagine a Hindu in Bengal converting to Islam centuries years ago where he changes his name from Haralal to Hilal. Hilal is the crescent moon God while Hara (Shiva) is the God with a crescent moon. Makes perfect sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-Islamic_Arabian_deities

 

[enkidu_]

Even most of the Arabs have somewhat moved on but the SC Muslims tend to hold to it like a mother holding a baby to it's bosom due to indoctrination, brainwashing, lack of actual education, an identity crisis and a religion forced upon them by the invaders. The level of holier than thou the SC pious people portray is on a different level of insecurity and ignorance.

I don't know in which parallel universe you dwell but in the real world Arabs all over the world have been fighting their secular govts. to implement Islamic rules and laws. You seem to be the one to suffer from identity crisis if you think that worshipping God is identity crisis, and if we talk of systems forced upon by the invaders, the Iraqi's or Afghan's would be the most Westernized populations in the world, but I guess it's easier to have a houlier than thou pseudo intellectual and pseudo subversive posture on an internet forum than try to come up with a decent point, that's obviously not narcissism but top notch rationalist intellectualism.

Did you know the founders of modern atomic physics were all Jews?

I agree with the rest of your post, but on this point, these were ethnic Jews who nearly always (if not always) rejected Judaism as religion. Nowadays Ashkenazi Jews, unless in Israel, consider themselves more Jewish in terms of belonging to a people than a religion.

One example is, Arabs use the word zawj for marriage instead of nikah when they are with their mom/sisters because nikah literally means to *F*. SC & South East Asian Muslims use them freely because their mullahs do. Mullahs still use them cos' God does too.

https://www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-handbook-syed-athar-husayn-sh-rizvi/importance-marriage-islam

Another example is, except for the name of prophets in the Quran, most Arab & Persian names are of pagan origin. Though now Muslims, the Arabs & Persians still have their heritage names cos IT IS theirs. On the other hand SC Muslims change their heritage/pagan Hindu name for pagan Arab names.!!

The irony is some of the "Muslim" names are actually by origin direct names of Gods & Goddesses of ancient middle east e.g Manaf, Hilal , Hakim etc. Some try to explain that these names have different meanings now, which is even funnier. It's like saying for instance a Turkish Muslim having a name Krishna which is OK cos it also means "All Attractive"!! Now, Imagine a Hindu in Bengal converting to Islam centuries years ago where he changes his name from Haralal to Hilal. Hilal is the crescent moon God while Hara (Shiva) is the God with a crescent moon. Makes perfect sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-Islamic_Arabian_deities

The Semitic root nun-kaf-ha (ن ك ح) means to tie/to knot in Arabic dictionaries, and as for the deities, if you read Qur'an 7:71/12:40/53:23 you'd see that the deities were just that - names -, and that Islamic appropriation of a defunct cultre means a symbolic triump of its deities incapable of everything incl. existing.

I know Muslims genocided millions of Hindus but Hinduism is somehow still there, so being called Krishna is not the same as being called by an epithet which was used for a deity once upon a time, otherwise you basically can't even have names to begin with.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

One example is, Arabs use the word zawj for marriage instead of nikah when they are with their mom/sisters because nikah literally means to *F*. SC & South East Asian Muslims use them freely because their mullahs do. Mullahs still use them cos' God does too.

https://www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-handbook-syed-athar-husayn-sh-rizvi/importance-marriage-islam

Another example is, except for the name of prophets in the Quran, most Arab & Persian names are of pagan origin. Though now Muslims, the Arabs & Persians still have their heritage names cos IT IS theirs. On the other hand SC Muslims change their heritage/pagan Hindu name for pagan Arab names.!!

The irony is some of the "Muslim" names are actually by origin direct names of Gods & Goddesses of ancient middle east e.g Manaf, Hilal , Hakim etc. Some try to explain that these names have different meanings now, which is even funnier. It's like saying for instance a Turkish Muslim having a name Krishna which is OK cos it also means "All Attractive"!! Now, Imagine a Hindu in Bengal converting to Islam centuries years ago where he changes his name from Haralal to Hilal. Hilal is the crescent moon God while Hara (Shiva) is the God with a crescent moon. Makes perfect sense.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-Islamic_Arabian_deities

I always thought names were not that important in Islam, that is why you often get some who convert keeping their original names, while others take on more Islamic sounding names of their own choice.

Regardless, the strength of the Muslim brotherhood has never been based on whether you were called Bilal or Govinder, it is on the tenants of belief in Quran and the messenger. That is why you still have odd sounding names for Turks despite them holding the seat of Islamic power during the era of the Ottoman caliphate.

 

[barah_admi]

I agree with the rest of your post, but on this point, these were ethnic Jews who nearly always (if not always) rejected Judaism as religion. Nowadays Ashkenazi Jews, unless in Israel, consider themselves more Jewish in terms of belonging to a people than a religion.

This is one of the great deceptions that the Jews have created, by coining the term "cultural Jew". Those who ascribe themselves to this label claim to be atheists but in reality, they are anything but. What they truly are is enemies of God, they reject his authority, not his existence. If you look at a number of these figures, they were/are all zionists, supporters not only of Israel but its religious right to exist and its importance in the wars to come in the end times.

Anyway, bit off topic but just wanted to point that out.

I always thought names were not that important in Islam, that is why you often get some who convert keeping their original names, while others take on more Islamic sounding names of their own choice.

Regardless, the strength of the Muslim brotherhood has never been based on whether you were called Bilal or Govinder, it is on the tenants of belief in Quran and the messenger. That is why you still have odd sounding names for Turks despite them holding the seat of Islamic power during the era of the Ottoman caliphate.

Islamically speaking, names have huge value but with regards to conversion, if a name before that person became Muslim does not allude to any other religion (Christian for example) or have a bad meaning, then it can be kept. Having said that, most reverts do like to choose Muslim names because it fits them better.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

With or without religion, good people can behave well and bad people can do evil; but for good people to do evil - that takes religion.

Quote by Steven Weinberg

 

[Chrish]

Historically there has been a huge economic disparity among countries that are religious vs non-religious.

Now country like America would be classified as non-religious in my book since they believe in Sunday-church theory vs places like India/ or Muslim counties that specialize in 24/7 religious theory.

 

[RogerBao]

The Semitic root nun-kaf-ha (ن ك ح) means to tie/to knot in Arabic dictionaries, and as for the deities, if you read Qur'an 7:71/12:40/53:23 you'd see that the deities were just that - names -, and that Islamic appropriation of a defunct cultre means a symbolic triump of its deities incapable of everything incl. existing.

I know Muslims genocided millions of Hindus but Hinduism is somehow still there, so being called Krishna is not the same as being called by an epithet which was used for a deity once upon a time, otherwise you basically can't even have names to begin with.

Tying knot or marriage may be the intended meaning, but it’s literally the *F* word. This is the Arabic word nikah --> نكاح , anyone who is reading this can try copy paste in Google translate and see what comes up. The Islamic link I quoted above in post #23 is honest enough to admit it.

As for appropriation of defunct culture, this makes sense for an Arab or Persian. Defunct maybe but it is THEIR Arab/Persian culture which has nothing to do with SC Muslims. Let’s say a Persian invader pillaged a village in Punjab and the villager converts to Islam. Now from the conquered he suddenly becomes the conquerer!? Then he adopts/”appropriates” the name of a pagan Arab idol. Now he is a proud Muslim viv a vis his Hindu neighbor? If this is convincing to you, fine but what has the defunct Gods of the pagan Arabs have to do with you a Punjabi? Nothing! Going by your logic, you will actually need to appropriate (revert to) Hindu names once Ghazwah-E-Hind is completed and Hinduism becomes defunct.

After your self-consolations, finally the last & bolded sentence of yours is the real & sincere answer. It is a simple case of you having no choice. And this was my point about the predicament of SC Muslims.

As for claim that the deities are incapable of doing anything including existing, how is that different from Allah?

 

[RogerBao]

I always thought names were not that important in Islam, that is why you often get some who convert keeping their original names, while others take on more Islamic sounding names of their own choice.

Regardless, the strength of the Muslim brotherhood has never been based on whether you were called Bilal or Govinder, it is on the tenants of belief in Quran and the messenger. That is why you still have odd sounding names for Turks despite them holding the seat of Islamic power during the era of the Ottoman caliphate.

Names may not mean much to you but they do for most Muslims especially from the SC. We are discussing the very definition of “Islamic” sounding name, where I showed many of them are actual names of pagan Gods/Idols. As for Muslim brotherhood, less said is better. Today, no other religion has this much mayhem & conflict among themselves than Muslims. There could be some political angle to it but the root is ideological & sectarian in nature. Even in Malaysia where I live , all non-Sunni sects are banned. Their mosques are banned , dargahs are banned. Shias, Sufis etc can only practise their faith within their four walls. Any hint of congregation or preaching will be dealt swiftly. Brotherhood?

Regarding Turks having their pre-Islamic Central Asian names, it is their heritage of course. For instance Ulgen, Erlik, Tengri are names of Central Asian pagan Gods which Turks still use. My point is about SC Muslims, how a Bangladeshi Muslims copying a name of a Turkish pagan idol makes him Islamic? Nothing. This is nothing but trying to be what you are not. An identity crisis.

 

[enkidu_]

Tying knot or marriage may be the intended meaning, but it’s literally the *F* word. This is the Arabic word nikah --> نكاح , anyone who is reading this can try copy paste in Google translate and see what comes up. The Islamic link I quoted above in post #23 is honest enough to admit it.

It's not the "intended" meaning, but the actual meaning, the meaning you're hinting at is the secondary one, because in a traditional society the F letter you seem to affectionate only gets actualized when you're married. The first definition on Arabic Wikipedia is "الزواج في الإسلام" (mariage in Islam). You are just re-assessing the polemical material you came across on the net, here a more developped answer to your allegations :

https://discover-the-truth.com/2014/02/11/arabic-word-nikah-and-its-meaning/

As for appropriation of defunct culture, this makes sense for an Arab or Persian. Defunct maybe but it is THEIR Arab/Persian culture which has nothing to do with SC Muslims. Let’s say a Persian invader pillaged a village in Punjab and the villager converts to Islam. Now from the conquered he suddenly becomes the conquerer!? Then he adopts/”appropriates” the name of a pagan Arab idol. Now he is a proud Muslim viv a vis his Hindu neighbor? If this is convincing to you, fine but what has the defunct Gods of the pagan Arabs have to do with you a Punjabi? Nothing! Going by your logic, you will actually need to appropriate (revert to) Hindu names once Ghazwah-E-Hind is completed and Hinduism becomes defunct.

After your self-consolations, finally the last & bolded sentence of yours is the real & sincere answer. It is a simple case of you having no choice. And this was my point about the predicament of SC Muslims.

As for claim that the deities are incapable of doing anything including existing, how is that different from Allah?

Arabic sounding names make sense because Islam was born in an Arabic cultural context, the same way Europeans took names from the Jewish tradition after their Christianization, or the same way the majority of Hindus have been culturally re-shaped after the Aryans announced themselves - your rhetoric about Islam in fact is basically the same as that of Periyar and some other Dravidian ultra-nationalists about "Hinduism" (if we accept, like you, that it's a "religion" in the Abrahamic sense).

Even for non religious reasons you have the Piyush Jindal becoming Bobby Jindal in the US. A name is a marker of the cultural identity one's chose, and converting to Islam means to get rid of Hindu idolatry as well as cultural identity, and I'd advise to take care more of the societal ills brought by Hinduism (like the situation of Dalits) than the "predicament of SC Muslims".

 

[Azmi]

Muslim Scientists and their work had absolutely nothing to do with Quran or Hadith or Islam, but all that work was their "individual" struggles. I wonder why then Muslims today give credit to Islam for their struggles, while it has ZERO part in it.

It is a challenge to show any quote from these Muslim scientists that they deduced any science from the Quran or the Hadith.

Actually Islam directly and indirectly harmed the sciences and the knowledge.

An example of direct harm is Islamic prohibition of Autopsy in name of the respect of the Dead. And if any doctor tried to do it, then he was punished as Kafir.

Please see the film The Physician (2013 film)

Religions have only and only one emphasis, and that is to spread themselves. And proof of this that in the last 1400 years Muslim World produced millions and millions of Mullahs who were only good for the sectarian fights.

But as compared to these millions and millions of Mullahs, whole Muslim World was unable to produce handful of scientists during last 14 centuries. This is that indirect enmity of the religion towards the science and knowledge, where religion invests all resources in order to only serve it.

And in last, many of the Muslim Scientists were actually blamed to be atheists or Kafirs or going against Islam and their life was made miserable.

For example Yaqoob al-Kandi was lashed 50 times while Maliki Jurists were against him for his learnings of Greek and other Philosophies (link).

And Averroesis (Ibn Rushd) was blamed to become an atheist and he and his companions were exiled to nearby Lucena. Most of his books were burnt. When he tried to fled, he was tied to a pillar of the mosque of Jamah Masjid, and every worshipper was asked to spit on his face. (Read about Ibn Rushd's Ilhaad in detail here)

And Ibn Sina is at the top of this list who suffered at the hands of followers of Islam. He had to hid due to them. Soldiers destroyed his house and the ruler ordered to cut his head. Ibn Sina wrote his famous book on medicine during this period when he was hiding here and there and running for his life.

Let us see what famous Muslim Ulama wrote about Ibn Sina:



Shaykh al-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah on Ibn Sina:

Aboo ‘Alee Al-Husayn ibn ‘Abdillaah ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Alee ibn Sina (d.428) was born to a severely deviant Ismaa’eelee (Shiite) family, known for their severe blasphemy and hypocrisy, as mentioned by Shaykh al-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah.

In fact, as Ibn Taymiyyah said:

وأحسن ما يُظهرون دين الرفض وهم في الباطن يُبطنون الكفر المحض

“The best thing they showed openly was ar-Rafdh (being Raafhidah Shiites), while they concealed pure, absolute KUFR (disbelief) inwardly.”

Ibn Taymiyyah went on to say:

لا يقوله إلا من هو من أجهل الناس وأضلهم وأشبههم بالبهائم من الحيوان

No one says these things other than the most ignorant of people, the most astray, and those who most resemble farm animals!

And the other great Islamic scholar, Ibn Qayyim al-Jowziyyah, said:

He (Ibn Sina) was from the Qaraamitah Baatiniyyah [Sect], those who do not believe in a beginning (of the creation) nor an end, nor do they believe in a Lord of the creation, nor any prophet sent from Allaah, the Most High. Such deviant hypocrites (zanaadiqah) pretend to be Raafidhah, whilst they conceal pure, absolute disbelief inwardly, claiming to be descendants of the family of the Messenger (may Allaah raise his rank and grant him and his family peace). He and his family are all free of them in terms of both lineage and religion…


He concluded with the verdict:

فالرجل معطل مشرك جاحد للنبوات والمعاد، لا مبدأ عنده، ولا معاد، ولا رسول ولا كتاب

The man was a denier (of Allaah’s Attributes), a polytheist, a rejecter of matters related to prophethood and the Ma’aad (the Last Day), having no belief in the beginning or end of creation, nor any belief in a messenger or a book.

Link.

 

[RogerBao]

It's not the "intended" meaning, but the actual meaning, the meaning you're hinting at is the secondary one, because in a traditional society the F letter you seem to affectionate only gets actualized when you're married. The first definition on Arabic Wikipedia is "الزواج في الإسلام" (mariage in Islam). You are just re-assessing the polemical material you came across on the net, here a more developped answer to your allegations :

https://discover-the-truth.com/2014/02/11/arabic-word-nikah-and-its-meaning/

The link I gave is a well known Islamic website. It says

The Islamic term for marriage, “nikah” literally means sexual intercourse
(Reference: Marriage and Morals in Islam, Sayyid Muhammad Rizvi)

www.al-islam.org/islamic-marriage-h...-rizvi/importance-marriage-islam#f_c298e775_5

You have 2 choices, either Muslims can’t even agree on something basic in their deen or that site belong to Zionists trying to defame Islam.

Arabic sounding names make sense because Islam was born in an Arabic cultural context, the same way Europeans took names from the Jewish tradition after their Christianization, or the same way the majority of Hindus have been culturally re-shaped after the Aryans announced themselves - your rhetoric about Islam in fact is basically the same as that of Periyar and some other Dravidian ultra-nationalists about "Hinduism" (if we accept, like you, that it's a "religion" in the Abrahamic sense).

Even for non religious reasons you have the Piyush Jindal becoming Bobby Jindal in the US. A name is a marker of the cultural identity one's chose, and converting to Islam means to get rid of Hindu idolatry as well as cultural identity, and I'd advise to take care more of the societal ills brought by Hinduism (like the situation of Dalits) than the "predicament of SC Muslims".

Arabic sounding names may be fine but how does naming your child with specific names of Arab pagan Gods rid yourself of Hindu idolatry? Furthermore, If Islam was born in Arabic context, then why SC Muslim also take names of Gods & Goddesses of Persian mythology like Naveed, Behram etc too? Giving a name of a living person, historical figure, God etc is to honor them. Thus you are honouring pagan Gods of the Arabs & Persian by naming your child as such. Yet it seems this is not shirk in the SC lexicon.

Also, In your earlier post you wrote that “Islamic appropriation of a defunct culture means a symbolic triump of its deities incapable of everything incl. existing.”
You did not answer my question, how Allah is different from the deities above?

 

[Madplayer]

Religion has not come.to us through GOD but man, if the creator told me set of.illogical rules him/herself I would actually care to believe them.

This is a difference in belief then and we are back to square 1. Believers believe that religion was sent by God Himself. Especially muslims believe that Quran is a direct word of God (not an inspired word like gospels). Ofcourse there are some of us who want God to send them a letter specially addressed to them in order to believe so they suffer in their own misery of exaggerated self-importance.

 

[Madplayer]

Arabic sounding names may be fine but how does naming your child with specific names of Arab pagan Gods rid yourself of Hindu idolatry? Furthermore, If Islam was born in Arabic context, then why SC Muslim also take names of Gods & Goddesses of Persian mythology like Naveed, Behram etc too? Giving a name of a living person, historical figure, God etc is to honor them. Thus you are honouring pagan Gods of the Arabs & Persian by naming your child as such. Yet it seems this is not shirk in the SC lexicon.

Have you tried to check if the names that you mentioned have some meanings other than being similar to old pagan gods? For instance, Naveed also means "bearer of good news". In Islam, intention has huge importance and the intention with which you name a baby matter more than the name itself.

 

[troodon]

Have you tried to check if the names that you mentioned have some meanings other than being similar to old pagan gods? For instance, Naveed also means "bearer of good news". In Islam, intention has huge importance and the intention with which you name a baby matter more than the name itself.

Then in that case SC Muslims can as well keep Hindu names. But no, the moment they convert to Islam, they search for Arabic names.

 

[Musakhel]

Then in that case SC Muslims can as well keep Hindu names. But no, the moment they convert to Islam, they search for Arabic names.

It seems only internet Hindus have a problem with this, It is only natural that once you decide to change your way of life that you want to be identified with That way of life it makes little sense for a muslim to call him self Ram.

 

[enkidu_]

[MENTION=147781]RogerBao[/MENTION] - If you read this scholar's explanations into the context, there's nothing contradictory, it means that mariage is indeed what legitimizes intercourse between two partners, but it's not what you have been regurgating from polemical websites, that is, that the LITERAL meaning of nikah is the F word, and that's why I gave you a link with dozens of lexical developments on the word.

- Islam was born in an Arabic cultural context but was transported to the SC in particular by culturally Persianized populations, like the Mughals. The majority of the Persian names have no particular pagan connotation. For instance in Pak you have many "Irfan", it means "wisdom" but is also a technical world of Sufi theosophy (gnosticism), yet when you call your son "wisdom" you don't hint at that, and it's the same for the majority of the names, no one has in mind defunct pagan cults when naming. That's the whole point.

- That's a matter of faith, you believe the cow is holy while we eat it, in the same way the pagan idols have been removed from the Arabian peninsula and since 1400 years didn't make a comeback.

BTW, I see you try to go on the sarcastic tangent with the "Zionist" comment (as if the definition of a word your autism doesn't get is about "deen"), do you want me to quote Hindu scriptures so you'll have all the license in the world to go cynical ?

 

[enkidu_]

Muslim Scientists and their work had absolutely nothing to do with Quran or Hadith or Islam, but all that work was their "individual" struggles. I wonder why then Muslims today give credit to Islam for their struggles, while it has ZERO part in it.

It's a civilization which produces individuals, they don't pop out of thin air.

For instance Newton not only did more works in alchemy than natural sciences (alchemy being seen as nearly devilish post-Renaissance), but he was an Unitarian, that is, he rejected the Trinity, the core dogma of formal Christianity, which made him an heretic for 99.5% of the Christian denominations ; yet he was part of the "Western/Judeo Christian civilization", as much as the pagans Plato and Aristotle or the more religious St Thomas Aquinas and Galilleo, and so are the modern scientists in the US, even if atheists/agnostics.

Ar Razi (the physician, not later Islamic scholar), who was openly a neo Platonic deist, is also considered a product of the Islamic civilization.

In the same way, Ibn Sina, who as per the recent research of Dimitri Gutas might have been a Sunni as opposed to his Ismaili father (and who exerced as Hanifi judge in Hamadan), even if his 'aqida was wrong, he was still a by product of the Islamic civilization ; his access to knowledge networks was due to the fact that he was born during the Samanid empire and its cultural renaissance following that of the Abbassids. Ali Shariati, the great ideologue of the Iranian revolution, and an Iqbalian, asked the same rhetorical question to the ultra Persian nationalists : can you give me the names of Persian scientists predating Islam ? Not "sages" or poets, the likes of Zoroaster, but "scientists" (even the so much tauted academy of Jundashipur is probably a myth).

Ziauddin Sardar has shown how Islamic civilization was about to produce so many polymaths (scholars versed in many different fields of knowledge), because it's linked with tawhid and its specific epistemology. You can read him as well.

What you said about Al Kindi or Ibn Rushd ("Averroes") was not due to their search of knowledge, but because of political reasons, otherwise Ibn Rushd wasn't exiled in the US but in Morocco, also an Islamic nation AFAIK. Ibn Rushd is actually a good case : like Ibn Sina, who's aqida was wrong but who was respected for centuries as philosopher (see the works of contemporary academic Yahya Michot) as well as physician, the same Ibn Rushd's fondness for Aristotle was frowned upon but his works in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is still read in Maliki circles, until today, like his grandfather's, and his "jurist's primer" has been translated into English by a relative of Imran Khan.

You quote Ibn Taymiyyah, but his school condemns all Asharis, which basically means classical and normative Sunni Islam over the centuries.

Your old trope of "Mutazilites = scientists" while "Asharis = mullahs" has been debunked by modern scholarship as well. We're no more in the era of Ernest Renan & co. For instance, George Saliba has demonstrated that the Golden Age of Islam came way after the Mutazilite movement, and its main name, who might have influenced Copernicus, 13th century Ibn al Shatir, was the timekeeper of Damascus' Omeyyad mosque. You have other scholars showing the same dynamism in other fields (Khaled El-Rouayheb for philosophy, etc), but the more generic book on the subject is John Walbridge's "God and Logic in Islam", where he hows that post classical (so after Ibn Rushd/Ghazali) Islam absorbed learning religious as well as "secular" sciences, like mathematics, astronomy, logic, etc it was like this in all of the pre modern Islamic world, here a young American scholar on 18th century Morocco in particular, all these peoples were "mullahs" :

The most important ṭabaqāt work for this period is that of Muḥammad al-Kattānī (d. 1345/1927), whose Salwat al-anfās wa muḥādathat al-akyās bi-man uqbira min al-ʿulamāʾ wa’l-ṣulahāʾ bi-fās (Solace for the souls and the speech of the astute regarding those scholars and saints who are buried in Fez) records 1453 biographies of scholars who lived between the 6th/12th and 13th/19th cen-
turies. Of these, approximately 100 studied one or more of the rational sciences (principally logic, arithmetic, medicine, timekeeping, inheritance law, astrology, and astronomy); a handful of others are described as having combined transmitted and rational sciences.
(...)
In the slightly later work of ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad al-Fāsī al-Fihrī (d. 1131/1718) devoted to scholars who died in the 11th/17th century, we find numerous scholars who are described as having mastered both rational and transmitted sciences, as well as others who were known for their expertise not only in those sciences that have a direct relationship to Islamic ritual practice, such as mathematics, timekeeping, and astronomy, but also in alchemy, natural magic, logic, and medicine.

https://www.academia.edu/6080147/Al...e_Maghrib_in_the_age_of_al-Yūsī_d._1102_1691_

In fact the single most important scientist of the Islamic Golden Age, Ibn al Haytham, who's also the single most important scientist between Archimedes and Newton, might have been an Ashari in terms of 'aqida, but it's tangential, in the sense that, like the deiste Razi or the Jew Maimonides, he was a product of Islamic civilization.

 

[JaDed]

This is a difference in belief then and we are back to square 1. Believers believe that religion was sent by God Himself. Especially muslims believe that Quran is a direct word of God (not an inspired word like gospels). Ofcourse there are some of us who want God to send them a letter specially addressed to them in order to believe so they suffer in their own misery of exaggerated self-importance.

No it's just that I fail to trust Humans when it comes to hearsay.

It's not about self importance because when humans talk Abt magic obviously one needs to use logic int he case, reading news across India Abt sadhu panths I'm sure you understand skepticism/logic should not equated with self importance.

 

[troodon]

It seems only internet Hindus have a problem with this, It is only natural that once you decide to change your way of life that you want to be identified with That way of life it makes little sense for a muslim to call him self Ram.

No. He does not have to be a Ram.

For Shehzad, they can call themselves Yuvraj.
For Husnain, they can call themselves Sundar.
For Abdul, they can call themselves Das.
and so on.....
Nobody is asking a SC Muslim to name themselves as Ram or Krishna etc. But common names like Sundar, Veer, Das, Kumar, Vivek, Vaibhav, Suhas etc could be used instead of Arabic ones. But the infatuation with everyting Arabic is obviouls.

We have huge christian population with names like Nikita George, Swati Andrews, Stephen Sumanth, Joseph Vijay etc... They did not go for an out and out British names like John Walcott, Brian Long etc.

 

[Musakhel]

No. He does not have to be a Ram.

For Shehzad, they can call themselves Yuvraj.
For Husnain, they can call themselves Sundar.
For Abdul, they can call themselves Das.
and so on.....
Nobody is asking a SC Muslim to name themselves as Ram or Krishna etc. But common names like Sundar, Veer, Das, Kumar, Vivek, Vaibhav, Suhas etc could be used instead of Arabic ones. But the infatuation with everyting Arabic is obviouls.

We have huge christian population with names like Nikita George, Swati Andrews, Stephen Sumanth, Joseph Vijay etc... They did not go for an out and out British names like John Walcott, Brian Long etc.

Indian names are phonetically Inferior, even the sweetest of Indian languages Urdu, is Phonetically superior to other Indian languages because of Persian and Arab influence.

 

[troodon]

Indian names are phonetically Inferior, even the sweetest of Indian languages Urdu, is Phonetically superior to other Indian languages because of Persian and Arab influence.

Huh!! What has that got to do with naming kids with Arabic names?

I don't know how names like Hussain, Husnain, Abdul, Khurram, Sarfraz, Zum Zum, Bilkis, Waqar are better sounding than Vivek, Suhas, Vijay, Deepa, Deepak, Vikram etc?

 

[Musakhel]

Huh!! What has that got to do with naming kids with Arabic names?

I don't know how names like Hussain, Husnain, Abdul, Khurram, Sarfraz, Zum Zum, Bilkis, Waqar are better sounding than Vivek, Suhas, Vijay, Deepa, Deepak, Vikram etc?

It's my subjective opinion.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

Regarding Arabic names given to South Asians, my pet hypothesis is that the preponderance of nicknames Muslims have, as well as abridged versions of their real name, like Shaz for Shazad plus Maz, Daz n Faz you also have nicknames totally unrelated to their Arabic name, Spanner, Tamoori, Speedy and Dunda.

Is this because even after centuries of adopting Arabic names, they are still foreign to our native tongue?

 

[Azmi]

Indian names are phonetically Inferior, even the sweetest of Indian languages Urdu, is Phonetically superior to other Indian languages because of Persian and Arab influence.

English and French are far better sounding than Arabic.

Even Persian is also better sounding than Arabic.

Then please finish this Arabic and start using beautiful English, French languages.

 

[Madplayer]

Then in that case SC Muslims can as well keep Hindu names. But no, the moment they convert to Islam, they search for Arabic names.

Their choice. If the names have different meanings then you can keep it for the meaning which doesnt relate to idol worshipping or polytheism. It is preferable to keep a name which doesnt relate to polytheism though. I dont whats there to make a big fuss over such a petty issue.

 

[Madplayer]

No it's just that I fail to trust Humans when it comes to hearsay.

It's not about self importance because when humans talk Abt magic obviously one needs to use logic int he case, reading news across India Abt sadhu panths I'm sure you understand skepticism/logic should not equated with self importance.

Fair enough about skepticism not being same as self-importance.
Sometimes the skeptics find truth in religion and sometimes the believers find relief in abandoning their religion.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

A quick tangent, Allah has 99 names, The Beneficial, The Merciful, The Mighty etc, all are human attributes, how does this square with Allah being beyond our comprehension.

 

[Azmi]

Originally Posted by Azmi
Muslim Scientists and their work had absolutely nothing to do with Quran or Hadith or Islam, but all that work was their "individual" struggles. I wonder why then Muslims today give credit to Islam for their struggles, while it has ZERO part in it.

It's a civilization which produces individuals, they don't pop out of thin air.

I am afraid you are only playing with the words. Do you mean "Islamic Civilization" or the "Muslim Civilization". Please make is absolutely clear.

So, first thing first, you have to openly admit in words that Quran or Sunnah played ZERO role in the science, and therefore ZERO credit goes to them for the work of the Muslim Scientists.

Now coming to the Muslim Civilization, then what is a Muslim civilization?

For sure actual Muslim Civilization then should be the period of prophet of Islam + first 4 Rashid Caliphs.

But we see ZERO scientific work during the times of prophet of Islam or 4 Rashid Caliphs, and actually it stayed ZERO during whole period of Bani Umiyyah.

It was then only the Abbasi Caliphate who started the Bait-ul-Hikmah, where Greek and Roman and Latin works were translated into Arabic for the first time. Only after that Muslim individuals started becoming scientists.

Thus, it was not Islamic Civilization, but it should be named "Abbasi Civilization", and this abbasi civilization didn't deduce it from Islam or prophet or Rashid Calihps, but it was born out of the Greek/Roman civilization.

Abbasi Caliphs were also individuals. One Caliph was supporting the scientists like Ibn Rushd, while the succeeding Caliph was arresting him and lashing him.

Muslim civilization also remained afterwards, but still no progress till today. For example, Hindus are much ahead of education as compared to Muslims, while Islam has very little emphasis upon eduction (worldly education) as compared to Hinduism etc.

Actually Islam destroyed the sciences a lot while it put full emphasis only upon the religious education. It produced millions and millions of Mullahs during last 14 centuries, but only handful of scientists. And culprit for this is religion of Islam as I mentioned above.

For instance Newton not only did more works in alchemy than natural sciences (alchemy being seen as nearly devilish post-Renaissance), but he was an Unitarian, that is, he rejected the Trinity, the core dogma of formal Christianity, which made him an heretic for 99.5% of the Christian denominations ; yet he was part of the "Western/Judeo Christian civilization", as much as the pagans Plato and Aristotle or the more religious St Thomas Aquinas and Galilleo, and so are the modern scientists in the US, even if atheists/agnostics.

This Cultural argument is only a lame excuse from you.
Muslims condemns the Church that it prohibited the progress of science for centuries.

Same is about the Islamic Civilization, where Islam regressed the progress of science by diverting the resources by making them to take the religious education.

And in some cases, Islam Directly harmed the sciences, as I mentioned above the case of the "Human Anatomy" and "Autopsy". Islam prohibited any kinds of human operations. Millions of people died due to this evil of the religion.

Ziauddin Sardar has shown how Islamic civilization was about to produce so many polymaths (scholars versed in many different fields of knowledge), because it's linked with tawhid and its specific epistemology. You can read him as well.

Wrong.
Islam or monotheism (tauhid) has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific work.

You could bring his arguments, or your arguments here, but up till now you have shown us not a single proof that scientific progress is in any way linked to tawhid.

And Muslims took the knowledge from Greek and Romans, and none of them was a monotheist.

And Muslims took geometry and numbers from Ariya Bhut (Hindu), a polytheist.

There is no angle from where your claim could have any credibility that scientific progress is linked to Tawhid in any way.

What you said about Al Kindi or Ibn Rushd ("Averroes") was not due to their search of knowledge, but because of political reasons, otherwise Ibn Rushd wasn't exiled in the US but in Morocco, also an Islamic nation AFAIK. Ibn Rushd is actually a good case : like Ibn Sina, who's aqida was wrong but who was respected for centuries as philosopher (see the works of contemporary academic Yahya Michot) as well as physician, the same Ibn Rushd's fondness for Aristotle was frowned upon but his works in Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) is still read in Maliki circles, until today, like his grandfather's, and his "jurist's primer" has been translated into English by a relative of Imran Khan.

I wonder what type of reasoning you are presenting here, while it is making no sense to me.

Off course Muslims would have no problems with the Islamic Rulings of Ibn Rushd or his grandfather. Off course Muslims would have no problems with him being a Physician and curing the people.

But Islamic world becomes very narrow minded in cases of knowledge which goes beyond the Islamic Limits, like the teachings of the Plato and Aristotle. Here they start showing their prejudice and narrow minds.

While case of Ibn Sina also showing the similar narrow mind of the Muslims (or the Sect of Muslims which formed the majority). Due to this narrow thinking (a product of Islam) Ibn Sina was forced to hide and all his work is in no way the result of any Islamic or even the so called Muslim culture, but it was 100% individual struggle.

You quote Ibn Taymiyyah, but his school condemns all Asharis, which basically means classical and normative Sunni Islam over the centuries.

Your old trope of "Mutazilites = scientists" while "Asharis = mullahs" has been debunked by modern scholarship as well.

I am sorry, but what we have to do with Ibn Taymiyyah?
He and his whole school of thought was 100% product of Islam, and we have nothing to do with it, but all the credit/discredit goes to Islam.

Similarly, what do we have to do with Mutazilla or the Asharis? Again both of them are the products of Islam and only it is responsible for them.

For us, the so called Allah was not WISE enough, and thus was not able to reveal the Sharia and the teachings in "proper" way. And due to this NUQS in wisdom, there were so many differences in the Sharia and the teachings that dozens of sects came into being with every one claiming his sectarian teachings to be the real Islam, and others to be the Kafirs.

 

[troodon]

Their choice. If the names have different meanings then you can keep it for the meaning which doesnt relate to idol worshipping or polytheism. It is preferable to keep a name which doesnt relate to polytheism though. I dont whats there to make a big fuss over such a petty issue.

The names I mentioned above have nothing to do with polytheism or worshiping Idols.
Sundar = beautiful/handsome
Vijay = Victory
Vikram = Daring or fearless
Deepak = A small oil lit fire
Vivek = Intelligence
Suhas = The one with good smile.

Nothing to do with idol worship or polytheism.
Its not a petty issue. Religion is a choice. Naming does not need to be done the Arabic way. You guys are not Arabs.

 

[Madplayer]

A quick tangent, Allah has 99 names, The Beneficial, The Merciful, The Mighty etc, all are human attributes, how does this square with Allah being beyond our comprehension.

A good observation. See first of all these debates are philosophical in nature and scholars try to explain such issues using the concrete body of information which have been made available to them. Because many such questions were not directly addressed by Islam in order to keep the message concise.

In response to this particular issue which you mentioned, your perception is inverted to how Islam sees it. The attributes which you mentioned are both human attributes and Allah's attributes. However, Allah is associated with these attributes in an infinite capacity eg. All Merciful, All powerful, Almighty etc. And Allah made these attributes available to humans as well but obviously in their case it would be limited by their very nature. Its kinda why we hear Christians say the popular saying that God created man in his own image.

In Quran, humans are asked many a times to develop the same qualities as these because Allah wants them to develop the qualities which Allah possesses and has made available to them. At one place it says Allah is All merciful and at other place it asks people to be merciful because Allah loves those who are merciful.

 

[Madplayer]

The names I mentioned above have nothing to do with polytheism or worshiping Idols.
Sundar = beautiful/handsome
Vijay = Victory
Vikram = Daring or fearless
Deepak = A small oil lit fire
Vivek = Intelligence
Suhas = The one with good smile.

Nothing to do with idol worship or polytheism.
Its not a petty issue. Religion is a choice. Naming does not need to be done the Arabic way. You guys are not Arabs.

Bro, i agree. if somebody changes a name which has nothing to do with polytheism then its his personal choice at best.

I have a close relative whose name is Rohit. One of my teacher's name was Jennifer. Both born muslims and Kashmiris.

 

[troodon]

Bro, i agree. if somebody changes a name which has nothing to do with polytheism then its his personal choice at best.

I have a close relative whose name is Rohit. One of my teacher's name was Jennifer. Both born muslims and Kashmiris.

Never seen a Muslim with names like that in India.

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

Regarding Arabic names given to South Asians, my pet hypothesis is that the preponderance of nicknames Muslims have, as well as abridged versions of their real name, like Shaz for Shazad plus Maz, Daz n Faz you also have nicknames totally unrelated to their Arabic name, Spanner, Tamoori, Speedy and Dunda.

Is this because even after centuries of adopting Arabic names, they are still foreign to our native tongue?

This happens in the UK, not because we desis have problem pronouncing the names, but because it makes it easier for indigenous Brits to say. From your writing style I'd guess you are also UK based, is that correct?

 

[Madplayer]

Never seen a Muslim with names like that in India.

Yes thats why i said they are Kashmiris. ( you fell right into it)

 

[Musakhel]

A good observation. See first of all these debates are philosophical in nature and scholars try to explain such issues using the concrete body of information which have been made available to them. Because many such questions were not directly addressed by Islam in order to keep the message concise.

In response to this particular issue which you mentioned, your perception is inverted to how Islam sees it. The attributes which you mentioned are both human attributes and Allah's attributes. However, Allah is associated with these attributes in an infinite capacity eg. All Merciful, All powerful, Almighty etc. And Allah made these attributes available to humans as well but obviously in their case it would be limited by their very nature. Its kinda why we hear Christians say the popular saying that God created man in his own image.

In Quran, humans are asked many a times to develop the same qualities as these because Allah wants them to develop the qualities which Allah possesses and has made available to them. At one place it says Allah is All merciful and at other place it asks people to be merciful because Allah loves those who are merciful.

Ar-rahman does not translate to All merciful but most merciful, and this fits into observable reality.

 

[Musakhel]

A quick tangent, Allah has 99 names, The Beneficial, The Merciful, The Mighty etc, all are human attributes, how does this square with Allah being beyond our comprehension.

It means our mercy, is not like Allah mercy, humans are merciful, but there is no mercy if Allah did not create within us the ability to be merciful and you can extend this to other attributes.

 

[Madplayer]

Ar-rahman does not translate to All merciful but most merciful, and this fits into observable reality.

You are right about it being "most merciful" but i am not sure if that makes much of a difference.

And kindly explain the observable reality part.

 

[Musakhel]

You are right about it being "most merciful" but i am not sure if that makes much of a difference.

And kindly explain the observable reality part.

We observe Allah wrath from time to time in the way of Natural disasters and other ways, An All merciful Creator Would Always forgive, This however is not the case As we know That Allah punishes some people And this fits into The definition of Most Merciful Rather than All merciful.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

This happens in the UK, not because we desis have problem pronouncing the names, but because it makes it easier for indigenous Brits to say. From your writing style I'd guess you are also UK based, is that correct?

I never said that desis have difficulty in pronouncing names, it's just that they find it easier, dare say more natural, to shorten and punjabify the Arabic names. This I notice from Pakistanis in Pakistan where there are no indigenous Brits about. I don't think a native Brit will call Majid, Majaa.

Yes there are native Brit friendly versions of Muslim names but I wonder if someone here knows a female by the name of Qurat-ul-Nain. I just want to know what moniker they go by.

Yes, I am UK based. Was it the use of n for and that gave it away?

 

[Devilsadvokat]

Forgot to add. Once I asked an Arab what their nickname for someone called Abdul, he said Abood - that's just as long!

 

[Cpt. Rishwat]

I never said that desis have difficulty in pronouncing names, it's just that they find it easier, dare say more natural, to shorten and punjabify the Arabic names. This I notice from Pakistanis in Pakistan where there are no indigenous Brits about. I don't think a native Brit will call Majid, Majaa.

Yes there are native Brit friendly versions of Muslim names but I wonder if someone here knows a female by the name of Qurat-ul-Nain. I just want to know what moniker they go by.

Yes, I am UK based. Was it the use of n for and that gave it away?

Shaz, Maz, Daz and Faz are typically the shortened versions of names you hear in the UK, much easier to say for English people than the full names. In Pakistan the nicknames will be more like Fikay for Rafiq, dull@ for Abdul and so on. It was kind of obvious you are UK based from the samples you gave.

 

[troodon]

Shaz, Maz, Daz and Faz are typically the shortened versions of names you hear in the UK, much easier to say for English people than the full names. In Pakistan the nicknames will be more like Fikay for Rafiq, dull@ for Abdul and so on. It was kind of obvious you are UK based from the samples you gave.

A columbian colleague of mine used to call me Abdool even though I told him I am not a Muslim.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

Shaz, Maz, Daz and Faz are typically the shortened versions of names you hear in the UK, much easier to say for English people than the full names. In Pakistan the nicknames will be more like Fikay for Rafiq, dull@ for Abdul and so on. It was kind of obvious you are UK based from the samples you gave.

Its more natural for the Punjabi tongue to say Fikay rather than Rafiq.

 

[DeadBall]

Forgot to add. Once I asked an Arab what their nickname for someone called Abdul, he said Abood - that's just as long!

Its 3(A)ab-bood. Also it is a nickname for Abdullah (servant of Allah) as Abdul isn't really the full name and only means servant of.

 

[enkidu_]

wrong thread*

 

[enkidu_]

I am afraid you are only playing with the words. Do you mean "Islamic Civilization" or the "Muslim Civilization". Please make is absolutely clear.

So, first thing first, you have to openly admit in words that Quran or Sunnah played ZERO role in the science, and therefore ZERO credit goes to them for the work of the Muslim Scientists.

Now coming to the Muslim Civilization, then what is a Muslim civilization?

For sure actual Muslim Civilization then should be the period of prophet of Islam + first 4 Rashid Caliphs.

But we see ZERO scientific work during the times of prophet of Islam or 4 Rashid Caliphs, and actually it stayed ZERO during whole period of Bani Umiyyah.

You have absolutely no clue of what makes a "civilization", it's not technological progress, otherwise archaic Greece wouldn't be part of the "Judeo Christian West", civilizations are birthed, rise and decline, but they still remain the same civilization : for instance England has not always been a scientific powerhouse, it's a recent phenomenon, with Roger Bacon/Robert Grossetête in the 12-13th centuries (and even there, their whole career was in Paris), yet England was still part of this civilization, whether it produced a Newton or not.

The Rashidun era as much as Abbassid as much as Mughals and so on are parts of the Islamic civilization, because they subscribe to a set of values and ideals as well a philosophy of history shaped by the Islamic phenomenon.

It was then only the Abbasi Caliphate who started the Bait-ul-Hikmah, where Greek and Roman and Latin works were translated into Arabic for the first time. Only after that Muslim individuals started becoming scientists.

Thus, it was not Islamic Civilization, but it should be named "Abbasi Civilization", and this abbasi civilization didn't deduce it from Islam or prophet or Rashid Calihps, but it was born out of the Greek/Roman civilization.

So British scholar ML West and German scholar Walter Burkert have penned whole books on showing the Eastern debt of the Greek civilization, so we should stop talking of Greek civilization altogether ? Everyone takes from everyone genius.

Abbasi Caliphs were also individuals. One Caliph was supporting the scientists like Ibn Rushd, while the succeeding Caliph was arresting him and lashing him.

Yes, and the first "inquisition" in Islam (mihna) was instituted by an Abbassid caliph as well.

Muslim civilization also remained afterwards, but still no progress till today. For example, Hindus are much ahead of education as compared to Muslims, while Islam has very little emphasis upon eduction (worldly education) as compared to Hinduism etc.

Again prideful ignorance : a Jewish scholar, Franz Rosenthal, has written a whole book entitled "Knowledge triumphant" where he basically shows that the most important single word in the Islamic civilization was not "iman", "jihad", etc but "ilm", knowledge, encompassing worldly knowledge as well. Here some excerpts from the intro and the conclusion I'm sure you'll not read, but it's for others.

Arabic 'ilm is fairly well rendered by our “knowledge”. However, “knowledge” falls short of expressing all the factual and emotional contents of 'ilm. For 'ilm is one of those concepts that have dominated Islam and given Muslim civilization its distinctive shape and complexion. In fact, there is no other concept that has been operative as a determinant of Muslim civilization in all its aspects to the same extent as 'ilm. This holds good even for the most powerful among the terms of Muslim religious life such as, for instance, taw'îd “recognition of the oneness of God,” ad-dîn “the true religion”, and many others that are used constantly and emphatically. None of them equals 'ilm in depth of meaning and wide incidence of use. There is no branch of Muslim intellectual life, of Muslim religious and political life, and of the daily life of the average Muslim that remained untouched by the all-pervasive attitude toward “knowledge” as something of supreme value for Muslim being.
(...)
The title of this book claims that in Islam, the concept of knowledge enjoyed an importance unparalleled in other civilizations. The preceding pages have proved, I believe, its domination over all aspects of Muslim intellectual, spiritual, and social life. “Knowledge” certainly triumphed among the educated classes, and they set the tone for all the others. It has been contended that the great masses of the people cannot have been immune to the inescapable impact of the veneration for knowledge displayed by their leaders.
(...)
Graeco-Roman philosophy had the deepest respect for thinking ( phronein) as the greatest of virtues, as stated by Heraclitus, for pure knowledge (theôria) as the sweetest and best of human endeavors, as it was in the view of Aristotle no less than in that of his teacher, or for knowledge (epistêmê) as the one and only virtue, as the Stoics proclaimed. Yet, nobody would wish to argue that the attitude toward knowledge in the Ancient World as a whole or in any particular region or epoch of it was inspired and sustained by the same single-minded devotion that existed in medieval Islam. In the merger of ethics with knowledge, ethics always retained the greater attraction for the minds and emotions of the Ancients and exercised greater power over them. Nor was the sphere of religion ever fused with that of knowledge as inseparably as happened later on in Islam.

And ironic that you talk of Hinduism and education while in the SC many Hindus went (and some still go) to the madaris for free primary education.

Actually Islam destroyed the sciences a lot while it put full emphasis only upon the religious education. It produced millions and millions of Mullahs during last 14 centuries, but only handful of scientists. And culprit for this is religion of Islam as I mentioned above.

These Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, etc ALL studied religious sciences because the curricula integrated BOTH wordily and religious sciences. What's so hard to understand there ? I already quoted you a dozen of scholars on how Islam SYNTHESIZED all these knowledge into a "caliphate of reason" as the NON MUSLIM John Walbridge calls it.

This Cultural argument is only a lame excuse from you.
Muslims condemns the Church that it prohibited the progress of science for centuries.

Same is about the Islamic Civilization, where Islam regressed the progress of science by diverting the resources by making them to take the religious education.

And in some cases, Islam Directly harmed the sciences, as I mentioned above the case of the "Human Anatomy" and "Autopsy". Islam prohibited any kinds of human operations. Millions of people died due to this evil of the religion.

I'm not making excuses for a Hindu because your opinion means nothing to me, I'm just telling you that in the West there was a religious institution, the Church, which hampered the rise of science, and in fact still kept many of the most famed European philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, etc) into the prohibited "index", but in Islam you simply had no such institution.

And again you have a pedestrian understanding, anatomy was not only a religious issue, but an intellectual one : peoples followed Galen who had a non empirical method. When his influence fanned from the 12th century onward, attitudes changed as well. Here an article :

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fc52/7cc5962c4c16a89d0c19c761d6413f264f2c.pdf

Wrong.
Islam or monotheism (tauhid) has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific work.

You could bring his arguments, or your arguments here, but up till now you have shown us not a single proof that scientific progress is in any way linked to tawhid.

You again are unable to understand for intellectual reasons. Tawhid provided an epistemological model as it has been argued by scholars, in the sense that if you had many polymaths in Islamic civilization (peoples who mastered three or more sciences) it's because tawhid permitted them to have this vision, "multiplicity into unity" and stuff, read them before making assumptions.

I wonder what type of reasoning you are presenting here, while it is making no sense to me.

Off course Muslims would have no problems with the Islamic Rulings of Ibn Rushd or his grandfather. Off course Muslims would have no problems with him being a Physician and curing the people.

But Islamic world becomes very narrow minded in cases of knowledge which goes beyond the Islamic Limits, like the teachings of the Plato and Aristotle. Here they start showing their prejudice and narrow minds.

While case of Ibn Sina also showing the similar narrow mind of the Muslims (or the Sect of Muslims which formed the majority). Due to this narrow thinking (a product of Islam) Ibn Sina was forced to hide and all his work is in no way the result of any Islamic or even the so called Muslim culture, but it was 100% individual struggle.

You didn't get my point : you can respect Ibn Rushd the jurist or physician yet rebuke the philosopher. The same with Ibn Sina. It's you who see a contradiction while Muslims for centuries didn't, the proof being that Ibn Sina the physician and Ibn Rushd the jurist are still respected. The fact that they have deviant beliefs in 'aqida doesn't take them out of Islam altogether, and even if they were like the physician Ar Razi, they're still products of the Islamic civilization in the sense that they benefited from its institutions, etc the same way modern Western scientists might be agnostics/atheists they're still by products of the Judeo Christian West. There's absolutely nothing hard to understand here.

I am sorry, but what we have to do with Ibn Taymiyyah?
He and his whole school of thought was 100% product of Islam, and we have nothing to do with it, but all the credit/discredit goes to Islam.

Similarly, what do we have to do with Mutazilla or the Asharis? Again both of them are the products of Islam and only it is responsible for them.

You quoted a neo Salafi website itself quoting Ibn Taymiyyah on Ibn Sina, I'm just telling you Ibn Taymiyyah is a polarizing figure in Islamic scholarship and in fact in his own Hanbali school of jurisprudence, and not the Alpha & Omega was Islamic jurisprudence. The same Ibn Taymiyyah bashed Al Ghazali who's hailed as the single most influential Muslim thinker in history, so his opinion on Ibn Sina or whatever is not Gospel.

For us, the so called Allah was not WISE enough, and thus was not able to reveal the Sharia and the teachings in "proper" way. And due to this NUQS in wisdom, there were so many differences in the Sharia and the teachings that dozens of sects came into being with every one claiming his sectarian teachings to be the real Islam, and others to be the Kafirs.

What are you even talking about ? There have been dozens of schools of jurisprudence, many who disappeared (like that of Sufyan At Thawri), and in the 12-13th centuries 4 cemented, the Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbahi and Sha'afi, which represent normative Sunni Islam, itself representing 90% of Islam. They didn't call the other kafirs.

 

[Azmi]

You have absolutely no clue of what makes a "civilization", it's not technological progress, otherwise archaic Greece wouldn't be part of the "Judeo Christian West", civilizations are birthed, rise and decline, but they still remain the same civilization : for instance England has not always been a scientific powerhouse, it's a recent phenomenon, with Roger Bacon/Robert Grossetête in the 12-13th centuries (and even there, their whole career was in Paris), yet England was still part of this civilization, whether it produced a Newton or not.

The Rashidun era as much as Abbassid as much as Mughals and so on are parts of the Islamic civilization, because they subscribe to a set of values and ideals as well a philosophy of history shaped by the Islamic phenomenon.



So British scholar ML West and German scholar Walter Burkert have penned whole books on showing the Eastern debt of the Greek civilization, so we should stop talking of Greek civilization altogether ? Everyone takes from everyone genius.



Yes, and the first "inquisition" in Islam (mihna) was instituted by an Abbassid caliph as well.



Again prideful ignorance : a Jewish scholar, Franz Rosenthal, has written a whole book entitled "Knowledge triumphant" where he basically shows that the most important single word in the Islamic civilization was not "iman", "jihad", etc but "ilm", knowledge, encompassing worldly knowledge as well. Here some excerpts from the intro and the conclusion I'm sure you'll not read, but it's for others.



And ironic that you talk of Hinduism and education while in the SC many Hindus went (and some still go) to the madaris for free primary education.



These Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, etc ALL studied religious sciences because the curricula integrated BOTH wordily and religious sciences. What's so hard to understand there ? I already quoted you a dozen of scholars on how Islam SYNTHESIZED all these knowledge into a "caliphate of reason" as the NON MUSLIM John Walbridge calls it.



I'm not making excuses for a Hindu because your opinion means nothing to me, I'm just telling you that in the West there was a religious institution, the Church, which hampered the rise of science, and in fact still kept many of the most famed European philosophers (Descartes, Spinoza, etc) into the prohibited "index", but in Islam you simply had no such institution.

And again you have a pedestrian understanding, anatomy was not only a religious issue, but an intellectual one : peoples followed Galen who had a non empirical method. When his influence fanned from the 12th century onward, attitudes changed as well. Here an article :

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/fc52/7cc5962c4c16a89d0c19c761d6413f264f2c.pdf



You again are unable to understand for intellectual reasons. Tawhid provided an epistemological model as it has been argued by scholars, in the sense that if you had many polymaths in Islamic civilization (peoples who mastered three or more sciences) it's because tawhid permitted them to have this vision, "multiplicity into unity" and stuff, read them before making assumptions.



You didn't get my point : you can respect Ibn Rushd the jurist or physician yet rebuke the philosopher. The same with Ibn Sina. It's you who see a contradiction while Muslims for centuries didn't, the proof being that Ibn Sina the physician and Ibn Rushd the jurist are still respected. The fact that they have deviant beliefs in 'aqida doesn't take them out of Islam altogether, and even if they were like the physician Ar Razi, they're still products of the Islamic civilization in the sense that they benefited from its institutions, etc the same way modern Western scientists might be agnostics/atheists they're still by products of the Judeo Christian West. There's absolutely nothing hard to understand here.



You quoted a neo Salafi website itself quoting Ibn Taymiyyah on Ibn Sina, I'm just telling you Ibn Taymiyyah is a polarizing figure in Islamic scholarship and in fact in his own Hanbali school of jurisprudence, and not the Alpha & Omega was Islamic jurisprudence. The same Ibn Taymiyyah bashed Al Ghazali who's hailed as the single most influential Muslim thinker in history, so his opinion on Ibn Sina or whatever is not Gospel.



What are you even talking about ? There have been dozens of schools of jurisprudence, many who disappeared (like that of Sufyan At Thawri), and in the 12-13th centuries 4 cemented, the Hanafi, Maliki, Hanbahi and Sha'afi, which represent normative Sunni Islam, itself representing 90% of Islam. They didn't call the other kafirs.

I read your long post. But I find there only the wordings, but not a single solid proof which I have to refute.

You must realise that your deception that Tauheed (Monotheism) supported the science is going to bring you no where. You see that Greeks and Romans and Hindus and Chinese all were polytheists, but despite this polytheism they got the culture of Science.

Therefore, neither Quran/Hadith had any role in progress of science (0% role), nor the so called monotheistic civilization makes any thing different from the polytheistic civilization regarding the scientific progress.

And please also don't deceive us by bringing the Jewish Scholar about ILM in Quran. We have direct Quran in our hands and all the verses of Quran which are talking about ILM, it is the religious knowledge and has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific knowledge.

Here are all the verses about knowledge: https://quranindex.net/kelime.php?id=8385

Since it consisted solely upon the religious knowledge, therefore we see not a single scientific work during the time of prophet, 4 rashid caliphs, and Bani Ummiyyah whole period.

And I mentioned many times (and you neglected many times) that Islam inflicted great loss to the resources by producing millions and millions of religious scholars, but only a handful of the scientists.

 

[enkidu_]

I read your long post. But I find there only the wordings, but not a single solid proof which I have to refute.

You read it but are unable to understand it.

You must realise that your deception that Tauheed (Monotheism) supported the science is going to bring you no where. You see that Greeks and Romans and Hindus and Chinese all were polytheists, but despite this polytheism they got the culture of Science.

Therefore, neither Quran/Hadith had any role in progress of science (0% role), nor the so called monotheistic civilization makes any thing different from the polytheistic civilization regarding the scientific progress.

I specified how tawhid in the Islamic sense provided a framework to critically unite an array of sciences. That's how many have explained the large numbers of polymaths during the Islamic civilization, till the modern times (see the Algerian résistant to France, Abd al Qadir, who read Aristotle, Galen, Ibn Khaldun, etc apart from religious sciences, and was noted for quoting these sources from his head while in jail in southern France.)

Ironically Alexandre Kojeve, a well respected historian of science, made the link between monotheism (not only Islamic, but in the Abrahamic sense) and the rise of science, but like all the authorities quoted I guess you're smarter than him.

And please also don't deceive us by bringing the Jewish Scholar about ILM in Quran. We have direct Quran in our hands and all the verses of Quran which are talking about ILM, it is the religious knowledge and has absolutely nothing to do with the scientific knowledge.

Here are all the verses about knowledge: https://quranindex.net/kelime.php?id=8385

And where do you think Rosenthal looked for his sources, genius ? The Qur'an, ahadith, works of Islamic scholars, etc

Since it consisted solely upon the religious knowledge, therefore we see not a single scientific work during the time of prophet, 4 rashid caliphs, and Bani Ummiyyah whole period.

Can you really read ? I said that producing science and technology has nothing to do with regards to one's belonging to a civilization. If tomorrow let's admit all universities are closed and they don't produce a single scientist anymore, the UK will still be part of the Judeo-Christian West, like archaic Greece was part of it without producing knowledge. Of course during the Rashidun era there wasn't knowledge because they were still busy creating and then expanding an empire. But they're as much as part of the Islamic civilization as Abbassids, Ottomans, Mughals, Safavids, etc

And I mentioned many times (and you neglected many times) that Islam inflicted great loss to the resources by producing millions and millions of religious scholars, but only a handful of the scientists.

Is that autism ? I already addressed it several times, quoting scholars as well : in the Islamic civilization religious AND wordily knowledge was linked, so when it produced religious scholars, it also produced physicians, astronomers, etc it's just in your little head that you only had religious scholars.

 

[Azmi]

I specified how tawhid in the Islamic sense provided a framework to critically unite an array of sciences. That's how many have explained the large numbers of polymaths during the Islamic civilization, till the modern times (see the Algerian résistant to France, Abd al Qadir, who read Aristotle, Galen, Ibn Khaldun, etc apart from religious sciences, and was noted for quoting these sources from his head while in jail in southern France.)

I already told you that monotheism or polytheism has no influence upon the scientific culture, and therefore the polytheist Greek and Romans and Indians were producing many times more scientific work than the contemporary Abrahamic Judaism/Christianity.

And there were also parts of polytheist world where there was no scientific culture. And same is true with Islamic world where only handful of cities got the libraries and produced the scientists, while remaining big part of the Islamic caliphate had no culture of science.

Ironically Alexandre Kojeve, a well respected historian of science, made the link between monotheism (not only Islamic, but in the Abrahamic sense) and the rise of science, but like all the authorities quoted I guess you're smarter than him.

I asked you to bring his proofs so that we could judge, but you failed to show them.

Issues are solved through evidences, and not on the bases of claims of more knowledge or or being more smart. Otherwise Satan (Devil) was more knowledgeable and smart than any of Muslim Mullah, but according to you he still went astray.

And where do you think Rosenthal looked for his sources, genius ? The Qur'an, ahadith, works of Islamic scholars, etc

Again you failed to bring direct proofs from Quran and Ahadith. If you think that Rosenthal is more genius, why then you people are always unable to bring the direct proofs instead of you people being more smarter and knowledgeable?

Can you really read ? I said that producing science and technology has nothing to do with regards to one's belonging to a civilization. If tomorrow let's admit all universities are closed and they don't produce a single scientist anymore, the UK will still be part of the Judeo-Christian West, like archaic Greece was part of it without producing knowledge. Of course during the Rashidun era there wasn't knowledge because they were still busy creating and then expanding an empire. But they're as much as part of the Islamic civilization as Abbassids, Ottomans, Mughals, Safavids, etc

And I have been refuting you since beginning that Religions or Monotheism or Polytheism has nothing to do with progress of science or scientific culture etc., but it is the "Individual Interests" of the "FEW" Caliphs which introduced that scientific culture.

That is why when Haroon Abbasi personally took interest in sciences and other cultures, only then Muslim scientists were started producing.

And when the Abbasid Caliphate ended, thereafter, in total there was lack of interest in sciences by the individual Muslim Caliphs and Kings, and thus that scientific culture stopped existing in the Muslim culture. And then we saw the most uneducated Islamic Culture during the last few centuries.

Is that autism ? I already addressed it several times, quoting scholars as well : in the Islamic civilization religious AND wordily knowledge was linked, so when it produced religious scholars, it also produced physicians, astronomers, etc it's just in your little head that you only had religious scholars.

It is again a deception.

Not all the religious scholars were the scientists. In a Muslim culture, there were millions of Islamic scholars, but hardly some of them were the scientists.

What scientific work had been done by the 4 Aima? And what scientific work was done by their thousands and thousands of students except for the religious work?

What about the tons of the Muhadditheen (Hadith compilers)? Were Bukhari and Muslim were scientists? What about the Quran Mufassireen? How many of your famous Mufassireen were scientists?

Look in the last few centuries. Look at it today. There are millions of Islamic scholars are produced, but hardly any scientific scholars in the Islamic civilizations.

 

[enkidu_]

I already told you that monotheism or polytheism has no influence upon the scientific culture, and therefore the polytheist Greek and Romans and Indians were producing many times more scientific work than the contemporary Abrahamic Judaism/Christianity.

And there were also parts of polytheist world where there was no scientific culture. And same is true with Islamic world where only handful of cities got the libraries and produced the scientists, while remaining big part of the Islamic caliphate had no culture of science.

LOL when it suits you the religion is responsible for all the obscurantism, but otherwise a religion certainly CAN'T be the reason of interest in science right ? And yes genius, in every society only an élite within some restricted urban centers produce the scientists (as well as the artists and sportsmen), for instance in France you have Paris, in England you have London, etc

I asked you to bring his proofs so that we could judge, but you failed to show them.

Issues are solved through evidences, and not on the bases of claims of more knowledge or or being more smart. Otherwise Satan (Devil) was more knowledgeable and smart than any of Muslim Mullah, but according to you he still went astray.

I'm not your daddy, I've given you many names, add that of Michel Serres as well, and go look up at what they say by yourself like a responsible adult. I don't know what Satan is doing in this discussion, you do seem to believe in him more than God.

Again you failed to bring direct proofs from Quran and Ahadith. If you think that Rosenthal is more genius, why then you people are always unable to bring the direct proofs instead of you people being more smarter and knowledgeable?

Do a Google search.

And I have been refuting you since beginning that Religions or Monotheism or Polytheism has nothing to do with progress of science or scientific culture etc., but it is the "Individual Interests" of the "FEW" Caliphs which introduced that scientific culture.

That is why when Haroon Abbasi personally took interest in sciences and other cultures, only then Muslim scientists were started producing.

And when the Abbasid Caliphate ended, thereafter, in total there was lack of interest in sciences by the individual Muslim Caliphs and Kings, and thus that scientific culture stopped existing in the Muslim culture. And then we saw the most uneducated Islamic Culture during the last few centuries.

You have an OLD orientalist historiography of the history of science in Islam I ALREADY told you about GEORGE SALIBA who talks of GOLDEN AGE of ASTRONOMY in ISLAM well AFTER the ABBASSIDs and there are MANY others who talk of GOLDEN AGE of PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY in ISLAM well AFTER the ABBASSIDs like ROBERT WISNOWSKY of Canada, etc, etc but you don't have the braincells to treat all that info that's why you have been by passing it since weeks.

It is again a deception.

Not all the religious scholars were the scientists. In a Muslim culture, there were millions of Islamic scholars, but hardly some of them were the scientists.

What scientific work had been done by the 4 Aima? And what scientific work was done by their thousands and thousands of students except for the religious work?

What about the tons of the Muhadditheen (Hadith compilers)? Were Bukhari and Muslim were scientists? What about the Quran Mufassireen? How many of your famous Mufassireen were scientists?

Look in the last few centuries. Look at it today. There are millions of Islamic scholars are produced, but hardly any scientific scholars in the Islamic civilizations.

You really have a real hard time understanding. In Islamic civilization there was both religious and wordily knowledge. Islamic civilization produced imams AND physicians AND astronomers etc like a civilization can produce cricketers AND physicists etc it has produced tons of Islamic scholars and tons of scholars in these rational sciences. That's what ALL contemporary scholars say, I can give you names but again there's no point because you're a troll with no genuine interest in such discussions.

No one asks a mufasir to write on mathematics like no one asks a physicist to write on biology nowadays. You make absolutely no sense.

 

[Azmi]

LOL when it suits you the religion is responsible for all the obscurantism, but otherwise a religion certainly CAN'T be the reason of interest in science right ?

Yes, off course it is the truth. Greek Scientists are the proof enough that monotheism has nothing to do with the scientific culture.

Actually, religions only offered resistance against the Science whenever science went against the god's primitive and wrong scientific claims.

And yes genius, in every society only an élite within some restricted urban centers produce the scientists (as well as the artists and sportsmen), for instance in France you have Paris, in England you have London, etc

What a genius from you.

It is claimed that Quran was revealed for ALL , the elite and the poor. How come then only the elites were able to become the scientists and your monotheism helped the poors nothing although they were also reading the same Quran and practising the same monotheism Tauheed?

Once again it proves that scientific culture occurred due to the effects of the some "powerful elite individuals", like some of the Caliphs personally took interest. And it has nothing to do with montheism Tauheed.

I'm not your daddy, I've given you many names, add that of Michel Serres as well, and go look up at what they say by yourself like a responsible adult. I don't know what Satan is doing in this discussion, you do seem to believe in him more than God.

Do a Google search.

I am sorry, but discussion could not go ahead when you are unable to bring the direct proofs from direct sources like Quran, which are freely available on the net, and I already gave you the link to the verses about knowledge in Quran.

And I believe neither in God, nor in Satan. But it is you and Muslims who believe in Satan, and also believe that Satan is more smarter and more Knowledgeable than any of your Alim, but still he went astray. Therefore, please don't come up with your claim that those Western scholars are more knowledgeable and smarter than me, but instead of this you have to bring direct proofs from the Quran which you are unable to produce.

You have an OLD orientalist historiography of the history of science in Islam I ALREADY told you about GEORGE SALIBA who talks of GOLDEN AGE of ASTRONOMY in ISLAM well AFTER the ABBASSIDs and there are MANY others who talk of GOLDEN AGE of PHILOSOPHICAL THEOLOGY in ISLAM well AFTER the ABBASSIDs like ROBERT WISNOWSKY of Canada, etc, etc but you don't have the braincells to treat all that info that's why you have been by passing it since weeks.

And I told you that all this happened on the Individual level and has nothing to do with Monotheism, otherwise there were millions of Muslim Tauhidic Ulama present during these last centuries, but monotheism helped them nothing in the field of science.

You really have a real hard time understanding. In Islamic civilization there was both religious and wordily knowledge. Islamic civilization produced imams AND physicians AND astronomers etc like a civilization can produce cricketers AND physicists etc it has produced tons of Islamic scholars and tons of scholars in these rational sciences. That's what ALL contemporary scholars say, I can give you names but again there's no point because you're a troll with no genuine interest in such discussions.

And you fails constantly to understand a simple fact that scientific culture in the Islamic civilization had nothing to do with Quran or the religion or the monotheism. If there existed the worldly knowledge in the Islamic world, then it was due to the personal interests of the few influential individual caliphs.

No one asks a mufasir to write on mathematics like no one asks a physicist to write on biology nowadays. You make absolutely no sense.

If anything, then Your connection of monotheism to science makes absolutely no sense.

 

[Hadi Rizvi]

Muslim Scientists and their work had absolutely nothing to do with Quran or Hadith or Islam, but all that work was their "individual" struggles. I wonder why then Muslims today give credit to Islam for their struggles, while it has ZERO part in it.

It is a challenge to show any quote from these Muslim scientists that they deduced any science from the Quran or the Hadith.

Actually Islam directly and indirectly harmed the sciences and the knowledge.

An example of direct harm is Islamic prohibition of Autopsy in name of the respect of the Dead. And if any doctor tried to do it, then he was punished as Kafir.

Please see the film The Physician (2013 film)

Religions have only and only one emphasis, and that is to spread themselves. And proof of this that in the last 1400 years Muslim World produced millions and millions of Mullahs who were only good for the sectarian fights.

But as compared to these millions and millions of Mullahs, whole Muslim World was unable to produce handful of scientists during last 14 centuries. This is that indirect enmity of the religion towards the science and knowledge, where religion invests all resources in order to only serve it.

And in last, many of the Muslim Scientists were actually blamed to be atheists or Kafirs or going against Islam and their life was made miserable.

For example Yaqoob al-Kandi was lashed 50 times while Maliki Jurists were against him for his learnings of Greek and other Philosophies (link).

And Averroesis (Ibn Rushd) was blamed to become an atheist and he and his companions were exiled to nearby Lucena. Most of his books were burnt. When he tried to fled, he was tied to a pillar of the mosque of Jamah Masjid, and every worshipper was asked to spit on his face. (Read about Ibn Rushd's Ilhaad in detail here)

And Ibn Sina is at the top of this list who suffered at the hands of followers of Islam. He had to hid due to them. Soldiers destroyed his house and the ruler ordered to cut his head. Ibn Sina wrote his famous book on medicine during this period when he was hiding here and there and running for his life.

Let us see what famous Muslim Ulama wrote about Ibn Sina:

View attachment 84733

Shaykh al-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah on Ibn Sina:

Aboo ‘Alee Al-Husayn ibn ‘Abdillaah ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Alee ibn Sina (d.428) was born to a severely deviant Ismaa’eelee (Shiite) family, known for their severe blasphemy and hypocrisy, as mentioned by Shaykh al-Islaam Ibn Taymiyyah.

In fact, as Ibn Taymiyyah said:

وأحسن ما يُظهرون دين الرفض وهم في الباطن يُبطنون الكفر المحض

“The best thing they showed openly was ar-Rafdh (being Raafhidah Shiites), while they concealed pure, absolute KUFR (disbelief) inwardly.”

Ibn Taymiyyah went on to say:

لا يقوله إلا من هو من أجهل الناس وأضلهم وأشبههم بالبهائم من الحيوان

No one says these things other than the most ignorant of people, the most astray, and those who most resemble farm animals!

And the other great Islamic scholar, Ibn Qayyim al-Jowziyyah, said:

He (Ibn Sina) was from the Qaraamitah Baatiniyyah [Sect], those who do not believe in a beginning (of the creation) nor an end, nor do they believe in a Lord of the creation, nor any prophet sent from Allaah, the Most High. Such deviant hypocrites (zanaadiqah) pretend to be Raafidhah, whilst they conceal pure, absolute disbelief inwardly, claiming to be descendants of the family of the Messenger (may Allaah raise his rank and grant him and his family peace). He and his family are all free of them in terms of both lineage and religion…


He concluded with the verdict:

فالرجل معطل مشرك جاحد للنبوات والمعاد، لا مبدأ عنده، ولا معاد، ولا رسول ولا كتاب

The man was a denier (of Allaah’s Attributes), a polytheist, a rejecter of matters related to prophethood and the Ma’aad (the Last Day), having no belief in the beginning or end of creation, nor any belief in a messenger or a book.

Link.

Really?

You're gonna rely on Ibn Taymiyyah and Al Jowziyyah (the 2 most controversial ulema in Islamic history and fathers of modern extremism) to prove your point.

That's like me quoting Hitler to prove that Germans are anti semitic.

 

[Azmi]

Really?

You're gonna rely on Ibn Taymiyyah and Al Jowziyyah (the 2 most controversial ulema in Islamic history and fathers of modern extremism) to prove your point.

That's like me quoting Hitler to prove that Germans are anti semitic.

Firstly, all the credit/discredit of Sectarianism in Islam goes to god/allah himself, as it would be said that allah was not able to even sent the basic tenets of Islam in a controversial free form. Where has gone the Muslim claim that 100% perfect Allah revealed the Islam and Sharia in the 100% perfect way?

Secondly, these fatwas of deviation was not limited to Ibn Taymiyyah only, but all the Muslim sects issues the fatwa of deviation upon each other.

And fatwas against Ibn Sina are also not limited only to Ibn Taymiyyah, but many other Ulama also considered Ibn Sina and his Qaramti/Ismaili sect to be severely deviated.

Ibn Hajr quotes an early Shaafi’ee scholar, Ibn Abid-Damm al-Hamawee, as saying:

All the scholars have agreed that Ibn Sina held that the universe was infinite and there would be no physical resurrection, while he did not reject (the concept of) a spiritual resurrection, and that he is reported to have said that Allaah does not know every detailed piece of knowledge, rather He knows things in general.

Thus, the scholars of his time and those after him whose statements are relied upon in all matters have spoken decisively about his disbelief and the disbelief of Aboo Nasr al-Farabi as well, due to their positions on these matters in contradiction to the beliefs of the Muslims. (Reference: Lisaan al-Meezaan (2/293))

You could now see that it was not only Ibn Taymiyyah (who spent his life in the prison), but almost all the Muslim scholars who considered sect of Ibn Sina to be severely deviated.

That is why Ibn Sina was on the run whole of his life and was not getting any relief in any part of the Islamic state due to his personal Aqeedah. Such animosity and hatred happens only in a religious society where Islam becomes theekaydar of aqeedah of all individuals and starts imposing itself on the individuals, while in a secular non-religious society all are free for their Aqeedah, no one will beat you or take your life for that, and you will be only encouraged for your medical work.

 

[Super Santi]

Have not read through this thread in great detail. Was interested in the title.

Has it’s good and bad points.

Good
- for the most part promotes good values and a moral compass.


Bad
- lack of tolerance to people of other faiths, promotes a sense of superiority, leads to conflict etc.
- often places too much faith in values and practices that were seen as normal thousands of years ago and does not move with the times.

Overall, good to believe in something and promote the positives of religion.

However, think more people need to move with the times.

Homosexuality is wrong etc - in this day and age we should be looking to eliminate any type of discrimination and let people live their lives.

 

[Devilsadvokat]

Have not read through this thread in great detail. Was interested in the title.

Has it’s good and bad points.

Good
- for the most part promotes good values and a moral compass.


Bad
- lack of tolerance to people of other faiths, promotes a sense of superiority, leads to conflict etc.
- often places too much faith in values and practices that were seen as normal thousands of years ago and does not move with the times.

Overall, good to believe in something and promote the positives of religion.

However, think more people need to move with the times.

Homosexuality is wrong etc - in this day and age we should be looking to eliminate any type of discrimination and let people live their lives.

Yeah organised religion is meant to be for the greater good, not individual rights and freedoms, pity organised religion becomes corrupt

 

[ManFan]

As Napoléon stated and observed during the Reign of Terror, mankind can do without God but not without religion.

 

[tonmoy]

Have not read through this thread in great detail. Was interested in the title.

Has itÂ’s good and bad points.

Good
- for the most part promotes good values and a moral compass.


Bad
- lack of tolerance to people of other faiths, promotes a sense of superiority, leads to conflict etc.
- often places too much faith in values and practices that were seen as normal thousands of years ago and does not move with the times.

Overall, good to believe in something and promote the positives of religion.

However, think more people need to move with the times.

Homosexuality is wrong etc - in this day and age we should be looking to eliminate any type of discrimination and let people live their lives.

I am sorry but how does religion promote good values?
My teacher, my family and or my environment is responsible for that. Hating a dog only because Islam calls it vile is not good value... Neither is restricting the lifestyle of a women ,believing in fantasies etc etc...