Islam, Muslim / Christian Forum - Welcome All

We realize it would be convenient for you to believe, that what you suggest would constitute justification for the mass-murder beheading of little post-pubescent farm boys and their peaceful, faithful, date-farming dads and grandpas, but you need to present some evidence from the Quran or Ishaq, Tabari, Bukhari or Muslim, that suggests that the Quraish were the betrayers rather than as is far more obvious, the ones that were betrayed.

"Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, Allah does not allow you to harm them" (Surah 4:90).

In the earliest stage of Islam, Muhammad began peacefully calling the people of Mecca to accept Islam. He did this for about 10 years without fighting or killing anyone. At a certain time, however, because of their belief, Muhammad and his followers were strongly opposed. Several Meccan chiefs and leaders formed an alliance a plot an attack against the Muslims. Then, the situation started to become worse until the Muslims were forced to migrate. Muhammad and his followers fled from Mecca to Medina and they were pursued closely by the assassins for days. They were severely tortured, expelled, had their property seized, and even killed to make them give up their religion. Despite all this, Muslims still did not waver from the Islamic principles of peace, non-violence, and passive resistance. In Medina, the Islamic community was established and Muhammad continued his peaceful mission of calling people to Islam.

However, the Quraish alliance was persistent on extinguishing Islam. Several major military campaigns were waged to attack Medina in order to annihilate the Muslims. When the well-equipped armies of aggressors were forming on the horizon, far outnumbering the Muslims, Allah gave Muslims the permission for the first time to defend themselves and their families by taking arms.

Even then, during a war if a Muslim was approached by a pagan asking for asylum, he was ordered to grant it to him, and to give him the opportunity to hear the word of God. Even if the pagan hears the word and does not accept it (meaning he does not convert to Islam), the Muslim is still obliged to protect him as instructed in Surah 9:06 which states, "If any amongst the pagans ask you for asylum, grant it to him, so that he may hear the word of God, and then escort him to a place of safety. That is because they are a people who do not know."

This probably deserves a thread of its own, but I tried to be as brief as possible. See what you can do with it.

The only thing he denounced was not completing the sex act when they raped the captives.

This is made patently obvious since he engaged in the very same, with Safiyah, as one example. Muhammad had ".....killed her father, her husband and many of her relatives....." yet Muhammad took poor Safiyah very shortly thereafter.
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=2829.0
http://www.inthenameofallah.org/Safiyyah's%20RAPE%20by%20Muhammad.html

His marriage to Safiyah has nothing to do with rape nor enslavement. There was no objection from Safiyah nor anyone else about marrying the Prophet (peace be upon him) when this happened.

See this, if you want to learn something:

http://www.letmeturnthetables.com/2009/11/slanders-regarding-holy-prophets-pbuh.html

"Taking together all the narrations above we come to know that Sayyidah Safiya (RA) had a feeling of affection for the Prophet (pbuh) before they met (Tabarani 19667). When her father and husband were killed in the battle she developed some feeling of hatred for the Prophet (PBUH) for natural reasons but when the Prophet (PBUH) explained to her what all her father did to him (Tabarani 19668) she realized that her father met such an end because of his own deeds (Ibn Saad 8/123) and so her ill feelings for the Prophet (PBUH) completely vanished and she was left with the feelings of love for the Prophet (pbuh) that the All-Wise and Almighty had put in her heart through a dream (Tabarani 19667 & 19668)."

I see. You seem to be suggesting that you believe that the women and little girls of the literate, peaceful, faithful, Jewish date farming community of the Banu Qurayza, whose little brothers, sons, husbands, fathers and grandpas were beheaded at Muhammad's behest for denying him, would then desire to have sex with the men that beheaded their husbands and young sons and sold their littler brothers, sisters, moms, and grandmothers into slavery (while also stealing their property and the fruit of their labor of generations). Do I understand you correctly?

Yes, just like in the example that I mentioned above. They were aware of the hostile actions that their own family members were taking against the Prophet and his followers. Gradually, some of them even started to love the Prophet and his followers, and naturally enough, then they were willing to marry them. There is nothing shocking to that.

Moreover, it was a common practice at that time that the Muslims would marry women who were widowed in order to protect them and to support them, as long as they were willing. Is that unethical? No. Is that rape? No. Is that enslavement? No.

Ha, you are so desperate that you are putting words in my mouth, and not even making sense anymore. Well, congrats on making a fool out of yourself.

You have no idea of the things that you're even quoting. I am sure those are either mistranslations or alterations that do not match with the original hadiths. As a matter of fact, there are many ant-Islamic websites I've come across which quote hadiths from Bukhari by adding extra stuff to it.

Edit: Even if those hadiths are accurately translated, they still do not encourage coitus interruptus. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said (in the second hadith you quoted), "Do you really do that? It is better for you not to do it." You should have highlighted that part, but obviously you didn't.

BTW, since you retitled the thread, now you should move it to a more appropriate section, because the discussion is not about Mecca anymore. I've already exposed that your claim that I spammed and ignored your points (on that very thread that I replied to) is a lie. And you still haven't clarified exactly why my posts in that thread constitute spam. You haven't been specific enough in answering that.

Plus, you keep bringing up more and more points which are unrelated to the main topic of the thread. Even after I respond to something, you bring up another point, just so that you can pin me for ignoring something. Your tricks are getting very old here.

Unsurprisingly you avoided the question. Let's try it again.
Do you believe Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and The Islamic State are motivated by God or by Satan?
Who is ruling over them, God or Satan?

Satan, I suppose. I thought you would have figured that out already when I said that ISIS is extremist, hence not what Islam stands for.

Would it be your opinion that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and The Islamic State are motivated by God or by Satan?

ISIS is product of religious extremism, but I can say without a doubt that this is not what Islam really stands for.

Besides, by now it is an open secret that the US and it's allies have intentionally supported, funded, and armed extremist groups, along with ISIS.

As one example. a document obtained by Judicial Watch on May 18, 2015, formerly classified as "secret," is a US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document that provides evidence of Western support for Islamist extremists. The DIA report, dated August 12, 2012, reveals that in coordination with the Gulf states and Turkey, the West intentionally sponsored violent extremist groups for the purpose of destabilizing Assad, and that these "supporting powers" desired the emergence of a "Salafist Principality" in Syria to "isolate the Syrian regime."

The rise of such a Salafist Principality in the region would offer the supporting powers (the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey) a tool for regime change in Syria, which is exactly what they want. As the document states, "If the situation unravels there is the possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist Principality in eastern Syria (Hasaka and Der Zor), and this is exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion (Iraq and Iran)."

According to Brad Hoff, an independent journalist, teacher, and former US Marine who served during the early years of the Iraq War, the DIA report provides extraordinary confirmation that US intelligence envisioned the terror group ISIS as "a US strategic asset." As he wrote in the Levant Report on May 2015, "US intelligence predicted the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS), but instead of clearly delineating the group as an enemy, the report envisions the terror group as a US strategic asset."

Also, a report recently published by Amnesty International provides convincing evidence that the formidable firepower of ISIS was largely a result of reckless arms trading in Iraq. The arms continued to flow into Syria, even while it was known by US authorities that there was an increasing presence of extremists in parts of Syria who were coming from Iraq.

Nice epic fail to reply to my post that exposed your effort to substitute taqiyyah in place of an answer.
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=4969.msg19109#msg19109

But it's certainly not as epic as your epic fail to reply to my replies. That said, let everyone judge for themselves now:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160513221812/http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=4970.0

And this is how much you've been able to reply to:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=4964.0

What I'm getting at here is that Muhammed's source of inspiration seems to be very different from that of the Old Testament prophets. The OT prophets always spoke the message of God received from God directly, from the Singular. On the other hand, Muhammed seems here to have been speaking with many spiritual sources. So who were they, if not God directly? And what authority do they have, if not God?

The Quran is directly from God also. The "We" is just a refference to the angels and Jinns that obey Allah's commands, which includes reciting the Quranic verses to Muhammad (peace be upon him) which were newly sent upon them. That doesn't mean that the Quran was inspired by more than one source, however.

I would agree, to some extent, that lack of archaeological evidence isn't always conclusive. However, without it one has to wonder; what is the basis of the said "academic books" and "academic sources" which testify to Mecca's claimed ancient history?

Perhaps you could start by showing us some of these academic works? How old are they? Who authored them? Are they merely fanciful opinion or political in nature? Unfortunately Islam and its adherents have a long record of trying to re-write history (eg the so called "Gospel of Barnabas" - an Islamic forgery and propaganda device) so you hopefully at least understand our scepticism.

The sources are all here:
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=4954.msg19053#msg19053

Not surprisingly, though, Petewaldo moved all those posts to the spam section because he doesn't want others to see that I actually replied to his points.

The only "substantive" reply I see is with regard to the Quran's commentary on the crucifixion.

I provided scholarly commentaries as well, and other comments including what the Jews believe regarding the death and crucifixion of Jesus, which are all parallel to the Muslim view regarding the subject.

Like this:

Yet their practice and their beliefs are very much different, because Christians parted ways from the Jews once they began upholding the New Testament in addition to the Old Testament.

According to the Old Testament, for example, it is considered to be a great blasphemy and a sin to attribute Jesus as being God Himself or anything of that sort. To the Jews and Muslims, Jesus was only a Prophet of God, nothing else. And he didn't come to earth to perform any kind of a sacrifice on himself for anyone's sins. However, one of the core beliefs of Christianity is the death of Jesus/God as an "atonement" for sins. That is one of the central beliefs of Christians today which are in contradiction with Muslim and Jewish beliefs. Christians believe in original sin but Jews and Muslims clearly don't. See the comparison chart below:
http://christianityinview.com/xncomparison.html

This:

And the question is, why did he shed his blood? Apparently, according to Mark and Luke, the answers are quite different:

"So what is the reason for Jesus’ death in Luke? The matter becomes clearer in Luke’s second volume, the book of Acts, where the apostles preach about the salvation that has come in Christ in order to convert others to the faith. In none of these missionary sermons is there a single word about Jesus’ death being an atonement. Instead, the constant message is that people are guilty for rejecting the one sent from God and having him killed. The death of the innocent one (Jesus) should make people repent of their sins and turn to God, so he can forgive them (see Acts 2:36–38; 3:17–19). Luke’s view is that salvation comes not through an atoning sacrifice but by forgiveness that comes from repentance." (Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted, p. 93-94)

"The death of Jesus is important to both Mark and Luke. But for Mark, his death is an atonement; for Luke, it is the reason people realize they are sinful and need to turn to God for forgiveness. The reason for Jesus’ death, then, is quite different, depending on which author you read." (Ehrman, 94)

This:

The purpose of the Messiah was to bring back people to the worship of the one God just as all the other Prophets have done and THAT is how he "saves", "delivers," or "rescues." Not by dying on a cross for the sins of other people which he is not even responsible for. Just because his name means one who "rescues' or "delivers" doesn't mean that he also had to go through a very painful suffering or a sacrifice for doing that.

And this:

I recognize it, and it's just one of the many ways that typical Christian missionaries like yourself twist the meanings of that verse and quote it as a proof of a so-called "suffering" Messiah. Even the Jews found it ridiculous.

"In reality, the idea that Jesus was the suffering Messiah was an invention of the early Christians. It is no wonder that the apostle Paul, writing decades after Christians had come up with this idea, indicates that it is the greatest 'stumbling block' for Jews (1 Corinthians 1:23). Even though this is the very foundation for all Christian belief, to many Jews it was a ridiculous claim." (Bart Ehrman, Jesus Interrupted, 236)

Please begin with this single point.
By Muhammad's 7th century the Gospel had been translated into every popular language, had been copied tens of thousands of times, and had been read all over the known world for centuries. Indeed we have 5300 partial or complete manuscripts that date prior to 300 AD.
The whole subject of that Gospel, just as today, was of course the crucifixion, death and resurrection of the Passover Lamb of God, who saves all from sin who have faith in His shed blood.
http://www.beholdthebeast.com/bible_manuscript_errors_.htm

In that same 7th century Muhammad quipped:

Sura 5:47 Let the people of the Gospel judge by what Allah hath revealed therein. If any do fail to judge by (the light of) what Allah hath revealed, they are (no better than) those who rebel.

Please explain how you reconcile Muhammad having made, what your claims of bible corruption can only lead you to conclude, was such a foolish recommendation.

That is not actually a "single point," because now you're bringing in issues such as crucifixion, the death and resurrection of Jesus, having faith that he shed his blood for our sins, the consistency of Biblical manuscripts, etc. You're pretty much going all over the place, so it's not a single point.

In spite of that, I still responded to at least some of those points, all of which you moved to the spam section, then brought them back to this section, and then again moved them to spam. By doing all of this, you are acting like a big, trapped loser, which is exactly what I expected.

I'm sorry, but if you review the forum rules you agreed to when you joined, you will notice that your spam posting, as well as your bowing out without engaging in an exchange, are both against forum rules that you agreed to abide by when you joined.
http://www.islamchristianforum.com/index.php?topic=35.0

"Thus our only rule is that members that initiate topics, or post in existing topics, be willing to engage in a dialog - in an exchange. When you begin, post a thread or comment, or even a couple, including just a point or two, then wait for a response, and then reply to responses. In other words don't just spam away while ignoring replies of other members to your posts.
Responding to a post does not constitute an opportunity to clutter your reply with a bunch of unrelated material."

Your forum decorum violating posts will be stored in the spam section (accessed by this link), where we can discuss them point by point in an exchange. Your failure to engage will result in their being moved to offline storage.
So let's get on with it in the next post.

First of all, none of my posts were spam, because I took each of your comments and then I gave a direct response to each.

Secondly, just because I don't want to continue discussing the subject with you doesn't mean that I didn't engage in an exchange already. Again, you know that I did reply to your points, and that counts as an exchange, whether I want to continue debating you or not.

Incorrectly moving my posts to the spam section tells me that you're afraid that other people might come across my posts after doing a Google search on Mecca and then see how I've exposed your errors. You don't want that to happen. That's why you moved my posts into a hidden section - because you are afraid of being exposed - not because I "spammed."

Also, if my violation is that I should have just responded to your first post and then waited for you respond (before posting again), then you yourself violated that rule also, because in this thread itself you posted multiple posts with tons of comments one after another, without waiting for me to respond to them first.




 

PotatoMuslim....

I will also pray for you as well.  As Pete stated, I too see you as a sincere person.  A person looking for the truth.

Thank you for the kind words, Bistabuster.

We are here to help you find that way.  Unlike Islam, we will NOT force you to believe in Christianity as Islam does.

We are not supposed to force you to believe in Islam either. Actually, no one can "force" you to believe in something against your will. No one can compel you to believe something. It is just not possible. We are only supposed to remind people and invite them to Islam, in the best manner possible. Then, if they reject the message and starts mocking us, then we should simply turn away from them. Ultimately, it is only Allah that can guide people towards faith, as He says in the Quran: "And if your Lord had so pleased all of those in the Earth would have faith. Would you then compel the people to become believers? And it is not for a soul to believe except by Allah's permission, and He will place wrath upon those who do not use reason." (Surah 10:99-100)

May I suggest a study on Islamic apostasy as well?  I know some friends (Pakistani Muslim) that was truly afraid to leave Islam for fear of burning in hell.  Well, he finally did break down and asked Jesus to come into his life and he felt a peace like nothing he had ever felt before.

Regarding the ruling on apostasy, the majority of scholars agree that the death penalty for apostasy should be applied only if there are treasonous acts involved, especially when the apostates turn against Muslims and then try to cause serious harm or damage to them. However, it is clear that there is no death penalty merely for converting to atheism or to a different religion.

"Islamic scholars say the original rulings on apostasy were similar to those for treasonous acts in legal systems worldwide and do not apply to an individual's choice of religion. Islam advocates both freedom of religion and freedom of conscience, a position supported by verses in the Quran, Islam's revealed text, such as: 'Let there be no compulsion in religion' (Surah 2:256)." - Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR)

Also, see the links below:
100+ Notable Islamic Voices on Apostasy
Affirmation of Freedom of Expression and Belief in the Quran
Preserving the Freedom for Faith

Here is this guy (Pakistani Muslim) telling about his journey to Christ.  He's not lying either.  There is no reason to.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyIptLD939U

Yeah, I've seen that guy on Youtube. I recently watched a long debate that he had with Dr. Shabir Ally regarding the subject of Trinity. He got smashed, IMO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWpqqqZn7Kg