The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

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Parodite
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The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Parodite »

It is kindova mystery how Islamic culture operates in the world. There are Muslims who in the name of their prophet commit atrocities or organize their society in ways in severe conflict with modern values and human rights, and there are Muslims who in the name of their prophet reject those atrocities (and mindset) and claims of being Islamic.. embracing diversity and tolerance instead; also in the name of Islam and its prophet Muhammad. People who discuss the question whether Islam is a religion of peace or of violence and conflict. Of tolerance or of supremacist intolerance. They all seem to have a case. That where people commit atrocities/terrorism in the name of Islam they in fact react to injustices done to them by Western or Zionist forces in the Meddle East, or by fellow Muslim dictatorships that abuse political power as all dictatorships do. Add the various ethno-sectarian divides as between Sunni and Shia Islam. The mess seems to be total and complete.

I take it that violent territorial and political conflicts are as old as the world; they are there with and without religious beliefs. Yet strongly held ideas and beliefs do have behavioral consequences, for better or worse. Skillful propaganda can sell any type of idiotic nonsense or toxic vitriol creating imaginary friends.. and imaginary enemies. When these ideas and beliefs become strong enough and gain momentum propagating socially, culturally and politically, they are a strong force that shapes reality. Islam as such, seems to be in a serious crisis. How do Islamic beliefs interact and operate within the Islamic world, and in relation to the wider non-Islamic world? One can't escape the impression of diffraction, dissolution, disintegration.

Some claim that the problem with Islam is that it has no central authority, no head-of-state like the RCC with a pope. There are as many Imams with different ideas as there are opinions in a Western parliament, so who do you talk to? The only common denominator is that they all say that God is Great, that Muhammad their leading prophet and the Quran the holy book in which God gave his final message to mankind.

But is all they are missing a central authority, or is there a reason why they have no central authority? I start to think the problem is systemic and originating from within the Quran itself. Once you deem the Quran as the word of God, word by word written down by humans without alteration.. then it is obvious why no central authority can arise from it nor a scholarly consensus interpretation; the Quran does not speak with one voice and has no coherent persistent moral message throughout the texts. Allah and its Prophet talk and behave like a Patriarch with mood swings, from a loving tolerant Father who raves poetically about not making religion compulsive and be tolerant and open to other people, to a merciless psychopath warlord foaming around the mouth with hate speech about enemies like heretics, Jews, Christians, polytheists who all need to either convert, surrender or die at gun point. Imagine Jesus or Buddha to have these mood swings and consider all they say in those different contradictory modes to still be the one voice of God. It would be impossible to create an internally harmonious culture and theology, and a head-of-state like a Pope is unlikely to be formed.

The evolution of Allah and his Prophet, the changes of voice, have historical roots. I found this scholarly work of John Medows Rodwell:
http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Rodwell_Koran.html

The contrast between the earlier, middle, and later Suras is very striking and interesting, and will be at once apparent from the arrangement here adopted. In the Suras as far as the 54th, p. 76, we cannot but notice the entire predominance of the poetical element, a deep appreciation (as in Sura xci.) of the beauty of natural objects, brief fragmentary and impassioned utterances, denunciations of woe and punishment, expressed for the most part in lines of extreme brevity. With a change, however, in the position of Muhammad when he openly assumes the office of “public warner,” the Suras begin to assume a more prosaic and didactic tone, though the poetical ornament of rhyme is preserved throughout. We gradually lose the Poet in the missionary aiming to convert, the warm asserter of dogmatic truths; the descriptions of natural objects, of the judgment, of Heaven and Hell, make way for gradually increasing historical statements, first from Jewish, and subsequently from Christian histories; while, in the 29 Suras revealed at Medina, we no longer listen to vague words, often as it would seem without positive aim, but to the earnest disputant with the enemies of his faith, the Apostle pleading the cause of what he believes to be the Truth of God. He who at Mecca is the admonisher and persuader, at Medina is the legislator and the warrior, who dictates obedience, and uses other weapons than the pen of the Poet and the Scribe.
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Endovelico
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Re: The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Endovelico »

Islam, like any religion, is very much the ideal excuse for people to do what they have always wanted to do but didn't dare to do it on their own authority... Killing, maiming, raping only becomes respectable if you do it in the name of God...
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Re: The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Parodite »

Endovelico wrote:Islam, like any religion, is very much the ideal excuse for people to do what they have always wanted to do but didn't dare to do it on their own authority... Killing, maiming, raping only becomes respectable if you do it in the name of God...
Not necessarily me thinks.. but in general always a good excuse to be used if it comes in handy.

But what you believe in does matter. If you only want to emulate Jesus for instance, things are not very complicated. Just be nice to other people, forgive those who do you wrong, help those in need, share what you have with others. And rather be murdered than become a murderer yourself. Avoid becoming part of worldly power games that always end in blood and tears. And stay in personal contact with your Creator. Or practice Buddhism, which is the Christian lifestyle but without monotheistic voodoo.

In the case of Jesus, there is some moral contradiction if you insist that the entire new testament is willed and written/inspired by Jesus' God. Notably Revelations of John is an outlier, a psychotic rage of a troubled mind. Paul is a bit of an odd ball, but still his message and morals are close to Jesus' teachings and example.

Of course much in the old testament reminds of Allah in his bad psychopathic moments and is at total odds with Jesus teachings. Now imagine you take the best of Jesus and the worst in the old testament... and have that operate in one and the same character. One moment he teaches you to love, respect and forgive... another he tells you to hate, disrespect and kill. If you believe this character is The One to be followed and emulated... what does that do. It will totally f*ck you and your community up.

Ironically, this makes me think that indeed Muhammad is the final prophet: all the sh*t of the archetypical cruel Patriarch of the old testament and the bliss of Jesus' teachings in the new testament represented All-In-One person; a summary of the disaster of the Abramic monotheist traditions. :P Impossible to make moral or any other sense of.
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Re: The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

All religion has sociological, historical, anthropological, theological, psychological and economic aspects. One must consider these aspects individually. They interact, but are seperate factors and confusing them leads to error.

There is not an "Islamic culture" as Parodite claims, and his confusions stem from trying to reduce the complexity of religion beyond even theology to a portion of Islamic scripture most Muslims have never even read.

Of course, most Christians have never read the bible much less read it under the supervision of an informed guide. I am reminded of Thomas Linacre's (1460-1524, Henry VIII's personal physician) diary comment upon reading the gospels in the original Greek instead of the Latin Vulgate for the first time, " Either this is not the real gospel, or we are not real Christians!".

And Linacre was an intellectual! Most jihadis are not.

I suggest using Occam's razor to first consider known human causes of revolution and violence before considering the supernatural. People almost always act in their own self-interest, even when it comes to religion (or lack of it).
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Re: The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Parodite »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:All religion has sociological, historical, anthropological, theological, psychological and economic aspects. One must consider these aspects individually. They interact, but are seperate factors and confusing them leads to error.
Indeed.
There is not an "Islamic culture" as Parodite claims, and his confusions stem from trying to reduce the complexity of religion beyond even theology to a portion of Islamic scripture most Muslims have never even read.
You read me wrong: read again.
Of course, most Christians have never read the bible much less read it under the supervision of an informed guide. I am reminded of Thomas Linacre's (1460-1524, Henry VIII's personal physician) diary comment upon reading the gospels in the original Greek instead of the Latin Vulgate for the first time, " Either this is not the real gospel, or we are not real Christians!".

And Linacre was an intellectual! Most jihadis are not.

I suggest using Occam's razor to first consider known human causes of revolution and violence before considering the supernatural. People almost always act in their own self-interest, even when it comes to religion (or lack of it).
There is no mystery in human behavior. The compound mix of all you mention, included ideas and beliefs, is what outputs to human behavior. However you suggestion to consider them separately is meaningless since they always operate simultaneously. In human behavior beliefs and ideas always play a major role. That is what makes us human. So there is a simple observation of fact that ideas influence human behavior. My interest is how Quranic texts influence human behavior and culture. If you prefer to leave religious ideas out of the equation for now and start with causes of revolution and violence that's fine, but then you would have to study human behavior before they were able to form conceptual ideas. This action on your part of course I can only see as another attempt to divorce religion from reality. ;)

If you want to contribute to this thread however and for a moment assume there are in fact many Muslims who do read the Quran from cover to cover back and forth (and some even in reverse even I'm told...) how do they process these ambiguous and even contradictory verses/mindsets of the poetic mellow older ones to the more capricious hate-infested later ones?
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Re: The Quran: from poetry, to politics to violence

Post by Nonc Hilaire »

There is significant evidence that the Q'uran was based on Ebionite (Jewish) and Persian Christianity.

I like the Q'uran in general, but there are some issues. The biggest one in my mind is that God in the Q'uran is so generalized and nonspecific that the believer is pretty much left to imagine their own diety.

There is a lot of beauty in the Q'uran, but most of the specific points of the faith comes from the collected sayings of Muhammad. All have varying degrees of authenticity, and rarely any context. Islam based only on the Q'uran died with Muhummad.
“Christ has no body now but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks with compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks among His people to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses His creation.”

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Memorize the Whole Koran/Abrogation:No more Mr. Nice Guy....

Post by monster_gardener »

Parodite wrote:
Nonc Hilaire wrote:All religion has sociological, historical, anthropological, theological, psychological and economic aspects. One must consider these aspects individually. They interact, but are seperate factors and confusing them leads to error.
Indeed.
There is not an "Islamic culture" as Parodite claims, and his confusions stem from trying to reduce the complexity of religion beyond even theology to a portion of Islamic scripture most Muslims have never even read.
You read me wrong: read again.
Of course, most Christians have never read the bible much less read it under the supervision of an informed guide. I am reminded of Thomas Linacre's (1460-1524, Henry VIII's personal physician) diary comment upon reading the gospels in the original Greek instead of the Latin Vulgate for the first time, " Either this is not the real gospel, or we are not real Christians!".

And Linacre was an intellectual! Most jihadis are not.

I suggest using Occam's razor to first consider known human causes of revolution and violence before considering the supernatural. People almost always act in their own self-interest, even when it comes to religion (or lack of it).
There is no mystery in human behavior. The compound mix of all you mention, included ideas and beliefs, is what outputs to human behavior. However you suggestion to consider them separately is meaningless since they always operate simultaneously. In human behavior beliefs and ideas always play a major role. That is what makes us human. So there is a simple observation of fact that ideas influence human behavior. My interest is how Quranic texts influence human behavior and culture. If you prefer to leave religious ideas out of the equation for now and start with causes of revolution and violence that's fine, but then you would have to study human behavior before they were able to form conceptual ideas. This action on your part of course I can only see as another attempt to divorce religion from reality. ;)

If you want to contribute to this thread however and for a moment assume there are in fact many Muslims who do read the Quran from cover to cover back and forth (and some even in reverse even I'm told...) how do they process these ambiguous and even contradictory verses/mindsets of the poetic mellow older ones to the more capricious hate-infested later ones?
Thank You VERY Much for your post, Parodite....
there are in fact many Muslims who do read the Quran from cover to cover back and forth (and some even in reverse even I'm told...)
Yep.....

AIUI some memorize all of it too.....

Hafiz (Arabic: حافظ‎, ḥāfiẓ, Arabic: حُفَّاظ‎, pl. huffāẓ, Arabic: حافظة‎ f. ḥāfiẓa), literally meaning "guardian," is a term used by modern Muslims for someone who has completely memorized the Qur'an.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hafiz_%28Quran%29

how do they process these ambiguous and even contradictory verses/mindsets of the poetic mellow older ones to the more capricious hate-infested later ones?
The official method is Abrogation/Naskh.....
Naskh employs the logic of chronology and progressive revelation. The different situations encountered over the course of Muhammad's more than two decade term as prophet, it is argued, required new rulings to meet the Muslim community's changing circumstances. Or, from a more theologically inflected stand-point, the expiration points of those rulings God intended as temporary all along were reached. A classic example of this is the early community's increasingly belligerent posture towards its pagan and Jewish neighbors:

Many verses counsel patience in the face of the mockery of the unbelievers, while other verses incite to warfare against the unbelievers. The former are linked to the [chronologically anterior] Meccan phase of the mission when the Muslims were too few and weak to do other than endure insult; the latter are linked to Medina where the Prophet had acquired the numbers and the strength to hit back at his enemies. The discrepancy between the two sets of verses indicates that different situations call for different regulations.[8]
There is a bit more to it....... See the link.....

But basically what is now official Malignant Muslim policy is what is orthodox....

And the old Mr. Nice Guy stuff that Mohammed had to fake while he was in Mecca the first time is soooo out of date and obsolete....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_%28tafsir%29
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Had It with Hadiths......

Post by monster_gardener »

Nonc Hilaire wrote:There is significant evidence that the Q'uran was based on Ebionite (Jewish) and Persian Christianity.

I like the Q'uran in general, but there are some issues. The biggest one in my mind is that God in the Q'uran is so generalized and nonspecific that the believer is pretty much left to imagine their own diety.

There is a lot of beauty in the Q'uran, but most of the specific points of the faith comes from the collected sayings of Muhammad. All have varying degrees of authenticity, and rarely any context. Islam based only on the Q'uran died with Muhummad.
Thank You Very Much for your post, Nonc Hilaire.
All have varying degrees of authenticity, and rarely any context.
AIUI the context of hadiths was not infrequently Muslims wanting to justify something and inventing a saying of Mohammed for that purpose.... ;) :twisted: :lol: :roll:

Islam based only on the Q'uran died with Muhummad.
Maybe not completely.....
United Submitters International (also called the Submitters) is a reformist moderate Islamic religious community, and is a branch of Quraniyoon. It follows the teachings of Rashad Khalifa. Submission is a religion whereby one recognizes God’s absolute authority, and reaches a conviction that only God possesses all power; no other entity possesses any power that is independent of Him. The natural result of such a realization is to devote one’s life and one’s worship absolutely to God alone. This is the First Commandment common to all three scriptures: Old Testament, New Testament and Final Testament (The Quran).[1]
Academics and scholars in the Western tradition[who?] have long taken a jaundiced view of hadith (see hadith and sunnah, historiography of early Islam), believing that many of the "traditions" are later inventions. Khalifa was notable for being both a practicing Muslim and an absolutist rejector of hadith and sunnah. He argued foremost that hadith and sunnah were condemned by the Qur'an Alone ideology. He also argued that the hadith and sunnah were not credible, and that much of the elaborate structure of religious and family law, sharia, erected on the basis of the hadith, was not binding on Muslims. Indeed, he argued that the Qur'an alone was sufficient as a basis for Islam. His ideas have clearly had some influence, even outside his group of Submitters, but it would be difficult to quantify it. He promoted the slogan: The Qur'an, the whole Qur'an, and nothing but the Qur'an
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Sub ... and_sunnah

Also.....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quranism
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Parodite
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Re: Memorize the Whole Koran/Abrogation:No more Mr. Nice Guy

Post by Parodite »

monster_gardener wrote:
Parodite wrote:
how do they process these ambiguous and even contradictory verses/mindsets of the poetic mellow older ones to the more capricious hate-infested later ones?
The official method is Abrogation/Naskh.....
Naskh employs the logic of chronology and progressive revelation. The different situations encountered over the course of Muhammad's more than two decade term as prophet, it is argued, required new rulings to meet the Muslim community's changing circumstances. Or, from a more theologically inflected stand-point, the expiration points of those rulings God intended as temporary all along were reached. A classic example of this is the early community's increasingly belligerent posture towards its pagan and Jewish neighbors:

Many verses counsel patience in the face of the mockery of the unbelievers, while other verses incite to warfare against the unbelievers. The former are linked to the [chronologically anterior] Meccan phase of the mission when the Muslims were too few and weak to do other than endure insult; the latter are linked to Medina where the Prophet had acquired the numbers and the strength to hit back at his enemies. The discrepancy between the two sets of verses indicates that different situations call for different regulations.[8]
There is a bit more to it....... See the link.....

But basically what is now official Malignant Muslim policy is what is orthodox....

And the old Mr. Nice Guy stuff that Mohammed had to fake while he was in Mecca the first time is soooo out of date and obsolete....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naskh_%28tafsir%29
I'm not sure the older and more poetic verses attributed to Muhammad are considered obsolete... after all Muslims take the entire Quran as the final as-is word of God. But certainly the newer texts are more political to the point of military and merciless.

So what you have is coming from a one mouth piece God saying: "Love your enemy" and "Hate your enemy". All woven together with, I'm told, mesmerizing Arab prose that easily sets the linguistic parts of your brain on fire... lighting up the Universe with meaning. This is a very toxic mix. People get all crazy.
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