Koranist

Very interesting topic. I was wondering however how accurate are these information. They do not appear to be accounts from the Gospel.

My experience with the Jewish community is similar to the Muslim community in the sense they do not welcome self criticism. Jews may not mind criticism of Judaism since many may not have faith, but issues regarding Jewish ethnicity and interest they generally do not welcome self criticism. I do not have a problem with zionism. My problem is Judaism. And in many way Sunni and Shia Islam are very similar to Judaism. The problem I have with zionist in America is how they like to sell the case for Israel. I have found many of them who are active in media for example as not honest about whats realy happening in the ground in Israel and Palestine. They sell Israel as "the only true democracy" in the Middle East. But I know Judaism is deeply ethnocentric and Israel is more an ethnocracy than a democracy. It does not treat its citizens equally. The settlements they are building for example is only for the Jewish subjects of the state. I am talking about groups like the ADL, American Jewish Committee and AIPAC and so forth who many times conceal to Americans what is going on there. As far as the Turks, they have a problematic history but i generally focus on religion and the Sunni orthodoxy. Because not everything the Islamic rulers do is motivated by religion. I can see you have a grudge against Islam because of what you believed the Turks did to Armenians. The problem is Muslims can counter about the French and British and what they did to some Muslim nations and so on. This kind of debates go in circles. That is why I avoid such debates. Finally there is nothing called a conspiracy. They are activist and groups who promote certain agendas. Just like you have Islamist who try to promote Shariah and are involved in politics, there are Jewish actvist who try to sell the case for Israel. What makes the Jewish actvists in America unique is the almost unlimited access they have with mainstream media and politicians. A remarkable achievement for a community that is barely 3% of the US population.

Puin, and his colleague Graf von Bothmer, have published only short essays on the Ṣana'a find. In a 1999 interview with Toby Lester, the executive editor of The Atlantic Monthly website, Puin described the preserved fragments by the following: "Some of the parchment pages in the Yemeni hoard seemed to date back to the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., or Islam's first two centuries—they were fragments, in other words, of perhaps the oldest Korans in existence. What's more, some of these fragments revealed small but intriguing aberrations from the standard Koranic text. Such aberrations, though not surprising to textual historians, are troublingly at odds with the orthodox Muslim belief that the Koran as it has reached us today is quite simply the perfect, timeless, and unchanging Word of God." [citation needed] The mathematician Jeffrey Lang wrote a letter to the editor of The Atlantic Monthly about the interview: t should be mentioned that the article's alarmist tone concerning the discovery of the Yemeni manuscripts seems totally uncalled for. Lester admits that so far the manuscripts show some unconventional verse orderings, minor textual variations, and rare styles of orthography and artistic embellishment. However, the past existence of such manuscripts is well known to Muslims and those that did not completely agree with the Uthmanic text were eliminated in various ways. The recovery of an ancient manuscript dating back to the earliest history of Islam that differs in minor ways from the Uthmanic text and that was eliminated from circulation will hardly cause Muslims to feel the need to rewrite their history; if anything, it will only confirm it for them."[11] In another interview, Puin said: "So many Muslims have this belief that everything between the two covers of the Qur'an is Allah's unaltered word. They like to quote the textual work that shows that the Bible has a history and did not fall straight out of the sky, but until now the Qur'an has been out of this discussion. The only way to break through this wall is to prove that the Qur'an has a history too. The Sana'a fragments will help us accomplish this."[3][12] Puin claimed that the Yemeni authorities want to keep work on the Ṣana'a manuscripts "low-profile"."[3] In 2000, The Guardian interviewed a number of academics for their responses to Puin's remarks, including Dr Tarif Khalidi, and Professor Allen Jones, a lecturer in Koranic Studies at Oxford University. In regard to Puin's claim that certain words and pronunciations in the Koran were not standardized until the ninth century, The Guardian reported: Jones admits there have been 'trifling' changes made to the Uthmanic recension. Khalidi says the traditional Muslim account of the Koran's development is still more or less true. 'I haven't yet seen anything to radically alter my view,' he says. [Jones] believes that the San'a Koran could just be a bad copy that was being used by people to whom the Uthmanic text had not reached yet. 'It's not inconceivable that after the promulgation of the Uthmanic text, it took a long time to filter down.' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sana%27a_manuscript#About_the_manuscript Of course Muslim authorities will claim that these copies found were the reason Utham (the Caliph) ordered a making of an "official" copy and all other copies to be destroyed since some Quranic scriptures were private copies of people who wrote down how they memorized it and some may have made mistakes. Mslim authorities will use these accounts to prove their point. Muslims claim that during Uthman's era variants were found even more than what Puin is talking about and that is the reason Uthman ordered an official copy to be made. As a Koranist there are some problems with these type of discussions. First: When I say faith, what i mean is that many of Muhammad's early followers in Mecca followed him even when most of the Quran was not revaled. Jesus' followers believed in him without divine scriptures and Jesus used healing and raising the dead as signs. Moses was sent to Pharoah with two signs, the hand and the rod turning to snake. A person of faith will see it as God's signs, other will see magic and sorcery and in Muhammad's case, a brilliant poet. So it boild down to faith. Scriptures are one of God's many signs. Solomon had command of the jinns. David had command of the wind. Noah had the flood and Abraham had his own signs. Finally God only judges a person by what he has possesion of. Not what he is supposed to have. So from a Koranic point of view, this debate is between Sunni Islam and orientalist. Once again Sunni Islam won since it proved their point that their historic accounts are reliable. Whats important is what the Koran has to say. This part is completely missing in such debates.

The problem is the sources you rely on are Neocon sources. Hadith is important to them since it is hadiths that makes Islam easy to criticize. You did point out Puin who is a legitimate Islamic scholar. The variants he talks about are spelling variants and not text. Arabic has no vowels like English so there can be difference in how words are pronounced and therefore spelled. It can change meaning in some cases. So a term like "Muhammad" in Arabic is written MHMD. It can be pronounced Muhammad, it can be Mihammid, it can be Mahummad, it can Mohommid depending on how the vowels are supposed to be. In some cases the meaning can change due to different words being singular. Vowels like a, e, i, o, u etc have letter representation in Arabic.

Yes. I bellieve Shariah law existed before the hadith literature. Hadith came to give it islamic legitimacy. Its very likely that this concept was taken by the Arab dynasties from Judaic infkuence. They saw in oral traditions a way to change Islamic interpretations. Jospeh Schacht summarization by Herbert berg PhD Schacht asserts that hadiths, particularly from Muhammad, did not form, together with the Qur’an, the original bases of Islamic law and jurisprudence as is traditionally assumed. Rather, hadiths were an innovation begun after some of the legal foundation had already been built. “The ancient schools of law shared the old concept of sunna or ‘living tradition’ as the ideal practice of the community, expressed in the accepted doctrine of the school.” And this ideal practice was embodied in various forms, but certainly not exclusively in the hadiths from the Prophet. Schacht argues that it was not until al-Shafi`i that ‘sunna’ was exclusively identified with the contents of hadiths from the Prophet to which he gave, not for the first time, but for the first time consistently, overriding authority. Al-Shafi`i argued that even a single, isolated hadith going back to Muhammad, assuming its isnad is not suspect, takes precedence over the opinions and arguments of any and all Companions, Successors, and later authorities. Schacht notes that: Two generations before Shafi`i reference to traditions from Companions and Successors was the rule, to traditions from the Prophet himself the exception, and it was left to Shafi`i to make the exception the principle. We shall have to conclude that, generally and broadly speaking, traditions from Companions and Successors are earlier than those from the Prophet. Based on these conclusions, Schacht offers the following schema of the growth of legal hadiths. The ancient schools of law had a ‘living tradition’ (sunna) which was largely based on individual reasoning (ra’y). Later this sunna came to be associated with and attributed to the earlier generations of the Successors and Companions. Later still, hadiths with isnads extending back to Muhammad came into circulation by traditionists towards the middle of the second century. Finally, the efforts of al-Shafi`i and other traditionists secured for these hadiths from the Prophet supreme authority." Herbert Berg PhD on Jospeh Schacht So Western Scholars generally saw Shariah law as a later invention with hadith created to give it an Islamic legitimacy. However after the 70s and 80s their influence in world affairs declined probably due to the rise of fundementalist Islam and the neoconservatives in America. Today very few legitimate Islamic scholars are sought and instead there are just critics like Ayaan Ali, Robert Spencer and Wafa Sultan.

As far as Islam's orgins is concerned, Western scholars now are almost unananimous in their belief that the Hadith literature (oral traditions) that was compiled two centuries and more after Muhammad are not reliable. The Oral traditions, known as hadiths, form the bulk of what is known as Shariah law. It has the same place in Islam as the Talmud has in Judaism. However, Western scholars now believe that the Koran is more or less what Muhammad has left behind. So they believe that the Koran is a reliable source that can be traced to Muhammad. I enjoy the works of Joseph Schacht. Jospeh Schacht believed Shariah law was a later invention and he believed that the hadith literature was a way to give Shariah law Islamic legitimacy. He believed many hadiths were a fabrication. He did believe however that the Koran we have today is Muhamedan in origin. Ignaz Goldziher pretty much said the same thing. There were some Scholars like Patricia Crone who question the Koran's Muhamedan orgins but she later retracted that claiming that she now believes that The Koran we have today is what Muhamamd left behind. I also enjoyed Tom Holland's work and his great documentary that caused a stir in the UK. I don't pay attention to Robert Spencer because he strikes me as a Neocon who has a politcal agenda. As far as the Koran's divine origins or not, I think this is a question of faith.

I will respond to your article soon and see what are the issues raised in the links you provided. . Right now I am heading to work.

16:82 But if they turn away from you, your only duty is a clear delivery of the Message 4:79-80 Say: ‘Whatever good betides you is from God and whatever evil betides you is from your own self and that We have sent you to mankind only as a messenger and all sufficing is God as witness. Whoso obeys the Messenger, he indeed obeys God. And for those who turn away, We have not sent you as a keeper." 17:53-54 And tell my servants that they should speak in a most kindly manner. Verily, Satan is always ready to stir up discord between men; for verily; Satan is mans foe.... Hence, we have not sent you with power to determine their Faith 24.54. Say: "Obey God, and obey the Messenger, but if ye turn away, he is only responsible for the duty placed on him and ye for that placed on you. If ye obey him, ye shall be on right guidance. The Messenger's duty is only to preach the clear (Message). 88:21 22; And so, exhort them your task is only to exhort; you cannot compel them to believe. 42:6 48 And whoso takes for patrons others besides God, over them does God keep a watch. Mark, you are not a keeper over them. But if they turn aside from you (do not get disheartened), for We have not sent you to be a keeper over them; your task is but to preach 64:12 Obey God then and obey the Messenger, but if you turn away (no blame shall attach to our Messenger), for the duty of Our Messenger is just to deliver the message. 28.55-56 And when they hear vain talk, they turn away there from and say: "To us our deeds, and to you yours; peace be to you: we seek not the ignorant," It is true thou wilt not be able to guide whom thou lovest; but God guides those whom He will and He knows best those who receive guidance 39:41 Assuredly, We have sent down the Book to you in right form for the good of man. Whoso guided himself by it does so to his own advantage, and whoso turns away from it does so at his own loss. You certainly are not their keeper. 67:25 26 And they ask, "When shall the promise be fulfilled if you speak the Truth?" Say, "The knowledge of it is verily with God alone, and verily I am but a plain warner." As we can clearly see, many of the verses that talks about obeying the prophet also emphasizes the prophet's limited authority, something that the Islamic sects do not recognize. The ruler to them has the authority to punish people for what they consider sins like drinking alcohol, eating pork, not fasting Ramadan, watching pornos etc. The Koran meanwhile focuses on crimes against another like stealing, killing, slandering of women falsely and oppression. It gave the believers the right to fight against those who fight them but not to transgress. It also gave people the right to defend themselves against evictions from their lands. There is no talk about punishing people for something that does not concern somebody else's right. Adultery is the only place where the Koran diverted from this due to the fact that a adultery affects another party. Here the Koran sees adultery as affecting the other partner in a marriage. It’s a betrayal and a breaking of oath. But even then it placed strict standards on that but was lenient when it came to punishing slanders of women. Adultery needs four witnesses but the slander can get punished just from opening his mouth without four witnesses. It’s clear that the verse made it very difficult to implement on adultery but very easy to implement on the slanderer. Further reading of the verse about the Zani and Zania shows us that the issue came up concerning slandering of one of the prophet’s wife presumably. But adultery still affects another party as its a breaking of an oath between a man and a woman and is an act of betrayal. The Koran cannot order the prophet to punish people for sins, that God's job. The Koran gave people the right and freedom to disbelieve let alone sin. Plus how the Koran understands sins is very different than how the sects understand sins. In the end the sects had no choice but to abrogate many of these verses, usually invoking the "sword verse". They claim that many of these verses that gave the prophet limited authority(over those who chose to disobey him) has been abrogated by verse 9-5 or verse 9-29. However these verses were about the wars with the pagans, and verse 9-13 and many other verses makes it clear who instigated these battles and why. The Jizya verse (9-29) also was claimed by the sects to be a tax to be paid by non Muslims in an Islamic state for protection. However Jizya never came concerning the Medina community where the prophet and his followers had a community. And only came upon the believers entering of Mecca. Jizya could have easily been compensation for the loss of property and homes that the believers suffered after being forced into exile. The Koran forbade prophets from seeking any form of reward. They can however accept charity on behalf of the believers. But the Sunnah claimed otherwise. In it the prophet was ordered to fight the people till they acknowledge monotheism and also in it the prophet ordered the execution of those who apostate. That’s why they abrogated many of the verses that limited his authority. Then they simply transferred that authority to the Muslim ruler by default. The Ridda war story about Abu Bakr is a case study of this. In that story Abu Bakr apparently fought people for not paying Zakat. Now the authority was transferred from God to the prophet to one of his companions. This made it very easy to then transfer that authority to the ruler. This is why you see places where Shariah law is implemented filled with such concepts like searching cars for alcohol or flogging people for watching pornos or not wearing proper attire. None of this should concern anyone but it has become a punishable sin. God only punishes those who did not get caught and punished in this world. The sects claimed that once punished the sin falls away and disappears. You will not find such a concept in the Koran. There God punishes in a million ways and does not need humans to punish for him. I think the sects introduced this conc3ept to make people more accepting of this by making them think its better for them since God's punishment is more severe. They also introduced stoning the adulterer by claiming the Zina verse in the Koran is concerning fornification and not adultery. They claimed that the verse about stoning was lost and is not included in the Koran but the ruling remains. This of course violated not only the freedom aspect of the Koran but also an eye for an eye and a life for a life. In the Koran, any punishment must be reciprocal and proportionate to the crime and it also must be targeted towards the actual perpetrators of the crime and not someone else associated to the criminal as the case with tribal laws that simply targets anyone from that tribe. They broke this by lower the bar for executions. Some Sunni scholars also gave the authority to execute homosexuals and enslave female prisoners and execute male prisoners. Something the Koran forbade. The Koran gave two options for prisoners, either freedom or ransom of some sort. They gave this authority to the ruler. This is all very sad as the taking of someone’s life is no easy matter in the Koran. God should take life and not humans, but if a person takes a life then he lost his right to live, but even then the Koran gave exile from the community as another option for murder especially if the person shows repentance. So an eye for an eye and a tooth for tooth somehow ended up being an eye for an eye lash and a tooth for a jaw. To be fair the Sunni orthodoxy rarely practiced some of these laws. We know of no time in history where adulterers were stoned to death. Apostasy was rarely practiced, unlike the Christians in Europe that practiced these laws left and right. So the Sunni jurist knew that some of these laws could be controversial and therefore they tended to avoid them. Its very unfortunate the current Islamist in Iran and Sudan and the Salafis in generally never understood why these laws were controversial. But in doing so they exposed much aspect of the sects that people were not aware of. The Sufis provided a convenient cover as they shunned legalism. But even the clerics understood that these laws were controversial. Its not easy in Islam to execute outside of murder. But this wise tradition was broken. That’s very unfortunant as now we see the culture of death has spread among Muslims till Islam became synonymous with violence and killing. Once you lower the bar it spirals out of control. One thing is crystal clear from all this. The Koran's take on human authority and freedom is RADICALLY different than how the Sunni/Shia sects understand it. Therefore the biggest difference between a Koranic state and a Sunni or Shia state will come in the form of the state's authority over the masses. It is this, more than anything else, that separates the Koran from the Sunnah. That’s why the Abbasids championed the Sunnah over the Mutazilites. The Mutaziltes couldn't find the ink inthe Koran to give them such draconian authority. The sects did that by first bringing the divine authority from God to prophet, then propet to Caliph (companions) and now that authority is in Omar Al Bashir, Khamenei, Mullah Omar and Al Saud. And that’s very sad.