9:5 is written in context of a war. This is how Muslims interpret it.
“This is because in Islam what was revealed later supersedes that which came before it.”
As a person who was muslim for 20 years, I can tell you that’s false.
You know Islam can be strongly critiqued, and your failing at that. But that’s not even the point. The point is Muslims. And Muslims aren’t anyone you should fear over any other groups. People are not groups. They are individuals. Not drones.
Back in my neo-con days I read The Politically Incorrect Guide To Islam and the Crusades. The Verse of the Sword is the overarching point that I got from the book, as well as the line I used to quote constantly: “There are moderate muslims, but Islam is not moderate.” I’m not criticizing Islam. I understand human nature a lot more now than I did then and know that terrorism isn’t caused by Islam but by blowback. However, I would still sincerely like to know what the response to the following claims are by Muslim theologians supposedly explaining the Verse of the Sword. I’m hoping Libertyandlife would kindly elaborate. I’ll quote the book (p. 24):
"What’s more, the Qur’an’s last word on jihad is not defensive, but offensive. The suras of the Qur’an are not arranged chronogically, but according to length. However, Islamic theology divides the Qur’an into “Meccan” and “Medinan” suras. The Meccan ones come from the first segment of Muhammad’s career as a prophet, when he simply called the Meccans to Islam. Later, after he had fled to Medina, his positions hardened. The Medinan suras are less poetic and generally much longer than those from Mecca; they’re also filled with matters of law and ritual - and exhortations to jihad warfare against unbelievers. The relatively tolerant verses quoted above and others like them generally date from the Meccan period, while those with a more violent and intolerant edge are mostly from Medina.
Why does this distinction matter? Because of the Islamic doctrine of abrogation (naskh). This is the idea that Allah can change or cancel what he tells Muslims: “None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or something similar: knowest thou not that Allah hath power over all things?” (Qur’an 2:106) According to this idea, the violent verses of the ninth sura, including the Verse of the Sword (9:5), abrogate the peaceful verses, because they were revealed later in Muhammad’s prophetic career: In fact, most Muslim authorities agree that the ninth sura was the very last section of the Qur’an to be revealed.
In line with this, some Islamic theologians have asserted that the Verse of the Sword abrogates no fewer than 124 more peaceful and tolerant verses of the Qur’an. Tafsir al-Jalalayn, a commentary on the Qur’an by the respected imams Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Mahalli (1389-1495) and Jala al-Din 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr al-Suyuti (1445-1505), asserts that the nith sura “was sent down when security was removed by the sword.” Another mainstream and respected Qur’an commentator, Isma’il bin 'Amr bin Kathir al Dimashqi (1307-1372), known popularly as Ibn Kathir, declares that sura 9:5 “abrogated every agreement of peace between the Prophet and any idolater, every treaty, and every term…No idolater had any more treaty or promise of safety ever since Surah Bara’ah [the ninth sura] was revealed.” Ibn Juzayy (d. 1340), yet another Qur’an commentator whose works are still read in the Islamic world, agrees: The verse of the Sword’s purpose is “abrogating every peace treaty in the Qur’an.”
Ibn Kathir makes this clear in his commentary on another “tolerance verse”: “And he [Muhammad] saith: O my Lord! Lo! these are a folk who believe not. Then bear with them, O Muhammad, and say: Peace. But they will come to know” (Qur’an 43:88-89). Ibn Kathir explains: Say Salam (peace!) means, ‘do not respond to them in the same evil manner in which they address you; but try to soften their hearts and forgive them in word and deed.’" However, this is not the end of the passage. Ibn Kathir then takes up the last part: “But they will come to know. This is a warning from Allah for them. His punishment, which cannot be warded off, struck them, and His religion and His word was supreme. Subsequently Jihad and striving were prescribed until the people entered the religion of Allah in crowds, and Islam spread throughout the east and west.”
That work is not yet complete.
All this means that warfare against unbelievers until they either become Muslim or pay the jizya - the special tax on non-Muslims in Islamic law- “with willing submission” (Qur’an 9:29) is the Qur’an’s last word on jihad. Mainstream Islamic tradition has interpreted this as Allah’s enduring marching orders on the human race: The Islamic umma (community) must exist in a state of perpetual war with the non-Muslim world, punctuated only by temporary truces.
Some Islamic theologians today are attempting to construct alternative visions of Islam based on a different understanding of abrogation: however, such efforts have met with little interest and support among Muslims worldwide - not least because they fly in the face of interpretations that have been mainstream for centuries.
That’s what is taught at Al-Azhar university, which is the Harvard of the Islamic world. Don’t just take my word for it though. There is a developed doctrine in Islam for this concept of the later passages being superior to the earlier ones.
“None of Our revelations do We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, but We substitute something better or similar: Knowest thou not that Allah Hath power over all things?” Surah 2: 106
“When We substitute one revelation for another, and Allah knows best what He reveals (in stages), they say, “Thou art but a forger”: but most of them understand not.” Surah 16:101
Feel free to educate yourself, it is a very important topic.
Yes it was. Mohammed knew a thing or two about war as he was a warlord and engaged in many AGGRESSIVE battles. Here they are. BTW they teach this stuff with pride in your local madrassa.
After the banu quarida victory he beheaded between and 600-800 prisoners of war himself.
The execution was described as follow by Ibn Ishaq:
Then they surrendered, and the apostle confined them in Medina in the quarter of d. al-Harith, a woman of B. al-Najjar. Then the apostle went out to the market of Medina (which is still its market today) and dug trenches in it. Then he sent for them and struck off their heads in those trenches as they were brought out to him in batches. Among them was the enemy of Allah Huyayy b. Akhtab and Ka
b b. Asad their chief. There were 600 or 700 in all, though some put the figure as high as 800 or 900. As they were being taken out in batches to the apostle they asked Kab what he thought would be done with them. He replied, ‘Will you never understand? Don’t you see that the summoner never stops and those who are taken away do not return? By Allah it is death!’ This went on until the apostle made an end of them. Huyayy was brought out wearing a flowered robe in which he had made holes about the size of the finger-tips in every part so that it should not be taken from him as spoil, with his hands bound to his neck by a rope. When he saw the apostle he said, ‘By God, I do not blame myself for opposing you, but he who forsakes God will be forsaken.’ Then he went to the men and said, ‘God’s command is right. A book and a decree, and massacre have been written against the Sons of Israel.’ Then he sat down and his head was struck off.[4]
^I assure you not all of them do. I’ve been to one.
Talking about violence and religion, has everyone forgotten how violent the bible is? Should we suddenly be suspect of Thomas Woods as a statist?:
Can you prove that they have the authority to speak for God, Mohammed or all muslims in the world? Are you able to prove that what is taught at that school is a higher authority than any other school?
Don’t be silly, there isn’t a God for them speak for, nor can they speak for every individual Muslim. No they DO however adhere to what Mohammed the prophet of Islam taught very strictly. If you take any time to learn a bit about his history you’ll see that he was Genghis Kahn with a religion.
No one is suggesting that ALL Muslims are as totalitarian as the Prophet of Islam. Many Muslims are ignorant of the teachings of their own religion because most Muslims aren’t native Arabic speakers and readers and the Koran must be recited in Arabic. Many Muslims also cling to the teachings of Mohammed earlier in his prophetic career, when he taught what peaceful verses you find in the Koran, (Most of them stolen from other religions). Unfortunately for those Muslims, those verses have been abrogated by the later verses that came after Mohammed became the head of STATE and the leader of an ARMY which he use to take over Mecca after he had been exiled.
Islam comes with a totalitarian STATE which should make any libertarian/Anarchist give pause.
JABB, LibertyStudent’s point is, what matters to Muslims in general as people, not what you or some university thinks is most important to that religion. Muslims I know don’t perceive Islam the way you do.
So JABB and everyone else who buys into this propaganda are just going disregard the blatant double standard they are committing?
Basically the idea is this as I perceive it:
Violence is intrinsic to Islam.
Therefore all Muslims must be statists/violent.
Again, Christianity and Judiasm have plenty of violence to back them up, so my question is, if your going to be consistently full of it:
Are you going to distrust Christians and Jews, and consider them statists? Can Christians and Jews be libertarians?
We’ve already established that religions have violence contained in them, and that most folks here (myself included), do not believe a deity. So if your point is not the above, please get to it, or stop wasting our time.
Excellent Libertyandlife. Another major error they are making is that they are confusing the scripture of a belief system (religion) with the belief system itself. Belief systems are “living” (dynamic, evolving, complex, and variegated) things, and reside entirely in the minds of those individuals who adhere to them.
Belief systems are “living” (dynamic, evolving, complex, and variegated) things, and reside entirely in the minds of those individuals who adhere to them.
Right, but there seems to be a real disconnect here when trying to say that. To me this seems obvious and has been stated several tims over in various ways, yet people seem to be struggling with this concept. Or am I missing something from the other side?
As I stated earlier in this thread (and which you obviously did not read before making your introduction) I have substantial experience and understanding of Islam considering I am a non-Muslim westerner.
The rest of your post seems to just be an unsubstantiated rant.
The only propaganda present here is the idea that Islam is a religion of peace. All the evidence points to the opposite conclusion.
I didn’t make the claim that some who Identifies as Muslim can’t be a libertarian. I claimed that properly understood, the two ideologies are mutually exclusive.
#1 is true. Violence is intrinsic to Islam because Islam is dedicated to conquering and subduing the Infidel everywhere in the world. Muhammed was a vicious warlord, rapist, slaver, murderer and liar. His religion teaches Muslims to act like him. None of that was hyperbole. It’s verifiable in the Koran and the hadiths, which are the traditions of the prophet.
#2 Is silly. It assumes that all Muslims do what their religion says or knows what it says, many don’t on both counts.
We aren’t comparing individuals, we are comparing Ideologies which judgements can be made about on the basis of their content. Islam commands elevated status of Muslims in society, the subjugation of unbelievers, the suppression of women from acting as they might freely choose. Apostasy is punishable by death.
Abu Dawud has collected the following saying of the Prophet:
" 'Ikrimah said: Ali burned some people who retreated from Islam. When Ibn Abbas was informed of it he said, 'If it had been I, I would not have them burned, for the apostle of Allah said: ‘Do not inflict Allah’s punishment on anyone.’ But would have killed them on account of the statement of the Apostle of Allah, ‘Kill those who change their religion.’ "
What kind of peaceful religion doesn’t allow you to leave it?
Islam should rightly be recognized as a religious/political ideology as it brings with it it’s own legal code, (sharia) and seeks to impose it on believers and unbelievers alike.
Islam is clearly at odds with the non-aggression principal as it commands the faithful to aggress against the non-belivers and institutes an unfair legal system based on the rantings of an 8th century desert warlord.
Who said that?
I’m not unaware of that Mr. Sanchez. In fact I depend on that. If every Muslim on the planet adhered to their religion exactly as it is expressed in the Koran, Hadiths, the Sira, and mainstream Muslim interpretation of those texts for their duration on the planet. The entire world would have already been brought under subjugation.
Muslims are individuals and not Mohammed modeled automatons. There are peaceful Muslims but they are used as cover and human shields for the Mujahideen.
So the issue isn’t if Muslims act like automatons but rather if the violent muslims are properly interpreting their religion, and unfortunately they are. It’s the peaceful Muslims who are unIslamic. We need to encourage Muslims to leave the faith and expose the actual teachings of the religion.
Abrogation as a concept isn’t universally accepted- and as a Muslim I don’t ever see anyone care for so called harvard’s of the Islamic world like Al-Azhar university, nor do I pretend to think that they are the one’s that “Truly” follow Islam. Most Muslim scholars are very hard for me to believe- most of their study is not even done in regards to Quran. Everyone who paints Islam as violent always tells me that the violent ones are the real practicing Muslims, to me that’s nonsense. My own study of Quran has brought me closer to the understanding of just what love is, what Islam is, and its done the same for many. You hold that you found the truth of Islam and when other’s find out they will be quick to leave it- not so fast.
Abrogation just does not exist. http://www.submission.org/abrogation1.html . (specifically mentioning the quotes you talked about regarding abrogation).
Islam certainly allows you to leave it according to many Quranic ayats. . Most hadith’s were recorded hundreds of years after the prophet’s death and I do not think they are reliable sources of information at all, especially if you look into their own understanding of Quran based on hadith. The quote you just listed completely contradicts Quran->
“Had your Lord willed, all the people on earth would have believed. Do you want to force the people to become believers.” 10:99__. (Mocks the idea of forcing people to believe)__
[88:21-22**]** You shall remind, for your mission is to deliver this reminder. You have no power over them.
[1091-6]Say: O disbelievers! I worship not that which ye worship; Nor worship ye that which I worship. And I shall not worship that which ye worship. Nor will ye worship that which I worship. Unto you your religion, and unto me my religion.
Now faced with those quotes- what you should do if you were interested is research the validity of that hadith claim. I won’t accept that those quotes were abrogated just because Al-Azhar university doesn’t know how to read classical arabic.
But what I’ve learned about Islam is that- people will take whatever view about Islam that suits their agenda best. If they want to paint it as a threat- they’ll view it that way until the day they die. The conversation becomes pointless. Websites like “answeringIslam” have no real intention of actual conversaton and learning from one another- they have an agenda that want to push and thats the end of the story.
So if we aren’t comparing individuals- in what way will you collectivize? If I say I am a Muslim, will you consider me a greater threat to your freedom?
Most “violent” Muslims- I will think you are talking about those that engage in honor killings, female genital mutilation, stoning people to death for apostasy- they are peoples with very old pre-islamic tribal practices. I’ve met these people- and their practices are done to keep the tribe and those part of it to function the way it always was. They hold onto the authority of “God” because the people they control are too illiterate to know any better, they don’t have the means to study on their own so they believe whatever their tribal elders tell them. And this is no exagerration.
You claim to not be making the error I am pointing out, and then immediately make that very error. The religion of Islam is not expressed in holy texts or their interpretation by scholars you dub as “mainstream”. It is expressed in the actual beliefs of Muslims themselves.
Islam is a barbarian religion for sure, and I really do not have sympathy for most of the people living in a lot of islamic nations. However western foreign policy in the middle east is so incoherent it is no wonder that the west is in the situation it is in now.
You have to judge religions by their founding texts, not by how people want their religion to be. The fact is the majority of people who call themselves Christians (including so called “fundementalists”) are not Christians at all. Even if we define Christian as “Those people who agree with the sermon on the mount” which is a pretty sound definition we have a bunch of “Christian” groups who more or less reject parts of that message.
Even then it is hard to see how he can reconcile the two (anti-statism and Christianity) considering Jesus seemed to have thought that resisting taxes was a pointless affair and that you should just concentrate on your spirituality.
How about religions with no founding texts, like nearly all pre-Christian religions? How would you judge those?
Clearly these anti-islamers know jack squat about Moses and what he taught, or they would be just as hard against all Abrahmic religions.
Jesus was the only non-tyrannical one of the bunch. ANd he’s a commie.