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u/exmindchen · 1 pointr/exmuslim

This would be a better option...

Try these short videos (around 10 minutes) about earliest qur'anic Arabic

Origin- part 1
https://youtu.be/6C3DuLnUh7w

Part 2
https://youtu.be/U_sv5tPlnng

Informative e-book on early islam and Arab history
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00903HTIE/ref=cm_sw_r_wa_awdb_06TrzbNDSAW50

Passages copy pasted from a book. A peep hole into the real historicity of "islam"

*

Professor Johannes Thomas of the University of Paderborn pointed out that our sources for the conquest of Spain by Muslims are quite late and unreliable. There are no Arabic inscriptions dating back to the Eighth Century and only six dating back to the Ninth. The earliest description of the conquest of North Africa and Spain written in Arabic was written by Ibn Abd al-Hakam, an Egyptian who had never been in Spain and who is said to have written the text in the middle of the 9th Century. As the Dutch Arabist Rienhard Dozy said this account has no more historical value than the fairy tales in "The Book of the Thousand Nights"

Professor Helmut Waldmann of TŸbingen gave a brief history of Zurvanism -a branch of Zoroastrianism that had the divinity Zurvan as its First Principle (primordial creator deity). In the second part of his talk, Waldmann gave a sketch of the influence of Zurvanism on Islam.

****


Christoph Heger, convinced of the validity of Christoph Luxenberg and Volker Popp's thesis that early documents, inscriptions and coins that contain the terms "muhammad" and " 'ali" should not be understood as proper names of the putatively historical figures of Islamic historiography but as honorific titles of Jesus Christ, argued that confirmation of the said thesis could be found in the old text of an inscription of a talisman in the possession of Tewfik Canaan. The text of the talisman should be read as:

"O healer, O God! Help from God and near victory and good tiding of the believers! O praised one [muhammad], O merciful one, O benefactor. There is no young man like the high one [ 'ali] and no sword like the two-edged sword of the high one. O God, O living one, O eternal one, O Lord of majesty and honour, O merciful one, O compassionate one".

This text should be understood as an invocation of Jesus Christ- the healer, the good tiding, the praised, merciful and high one, the young hero, "out of the mouth [of whom] went a sharp two-edged sword" [Apoc. 1:16], namely “the word of God,” which is “sharper than any two-edged sword” [Hebrews 4:12].

*


Where Dr. Markus Gross discussed the Buddhist influence on Islam, Professor Kropp explained the Ethiopian elements in the Koran. Independent scholar, traveller, and numismatist Volker Popp argued that Islamic history as recounted by Islamic historians has a Biblical structure –the first four caliphs are clearly modelled on Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses. The Muslim historians transformed historical facts to fit a Biblical pattern. Popp also developed a fascinating thesis that Islamic historians had a propensity to turn nomen (gentile) (name of the gens or clan) into patronyms; a patronym being a component of a personal name based on the name of one's father. Thus Islamic historians had a tendency to take, for instance, Iranian names on inscriptions and turn them into Arabic-sounding names. Having turned Iranians into Arabs, the next step was to turn historical events connected with the original Iranians which had nothing to do with Islamic history into Islamic history. For example, Islamic history knows various so called Civil Wars. One of them was between Abd-al-Malik, his governor al-Hajjaj and the rival caliph inMecca by the name of Abdallah Zubair. The evidence of inscriptions tells us that the name Zubayr is a misreading. The correct reading is ZNBYL. This was made into ZUBYL by the Arab historians. From ZUBYL they derived the name Zubair, which has no Semitic root. The real story is a fight between Abd al-Malik at Merv and the King of Kabulistan, who held the title ZNBYL. This took place between 60 and 75 Arab era in the East of the former Sassanian domains. The historians transferred this feud to Mecca andJerusalem and then embedded the whole into the structure of a well known story from the Old Testament, the secession of Omri and his building the Temple of Samaria.

**

The paper delivered by Rainer Nabielek of Berlin provided evidence of a successful application of Luxenberg’s method not only to the Koran but to non-religious texts as well. This was convincingly shown by means of a hitherto unsolved medical term. This medical term can be traced back to Syriac in the same way as many Koranic expressions as demonstrated by Luxenberg. In addition to this Nabielek pointed in his paper to the hitherto overlooked phenomenon of the existence of loan syntax in classical Arabic. His contribution confirms the validity of Luxenberg’s method in general.



Keith Small compared the textual variants in the New Testament manuscripts and Koranic manuscripts. Dr. Elisabeth Puin gave a lucid, and highly original analysis of an early Koran manuscript from Sana, Yemen, [DAM 01-27.1] in part written over a palimpsest Koranic text. Dr. Elisabeth Puin summarized her findings and their implications,


“As for the scriptio superior, the comparison with the Standard text [Cairo 1924/25 Koran] shows that it still contains many differences in orthography and verse counting; there are even minor textual variants, like, for example, singular instead of plural, wa- instead of fa-, and so on. Some - but by far not all - of those differences were at a later stage corrected by erasure and /or amendments. We cannot suppose that all the differences are only due to the calligrapher's inattention, being simply spelling mistakes; there are too many of them on every page, and some of them are found repeatedly, not only in this manuscript but in others too. So we must conclude that at the stage when and in the region where the manuscript was written those variants were not felt to be mistakes but conformed to a specific writing tradition.”    

------------
Professor Van Reeth, already much impressed by Luxenberg's thesis and methodology, gave two talks at the conference. The shorter one compared the image of the pearl in four passages in the Koran that refer to a eucharistic prayer, and a parallel image found in the Eucharist of the Manichaeans. The longer talk discussed the similarities of the Islamic vision of the union of Muhammad with his God, and the commentary of Ephrem the Syrian on the union of the believer with God.

****

Dr Reynolds of the University of Notre Dame (U.S.A.) examined the meaning of the difficult term hanif, found in the Koran but clearly a non-Arabic word. It probably comes from the Syriac word hanpa, meaning pagan, but in the Koran it has a secondary Syriac meaning, of a clan (gens); ethnicity. In the Koran the term is almost always used in connection with Abraham, but in the sense of his ethnicity and never his religion.

*****
Finally, Christoph Luxenberg himself gave an impressive talk that seemed to untie some difficult knots that several centuries of both Islamic and Western scholarship had been unable to undo. He gave an original explanation of the so-called mysterious letters with which some Surahs commence. At the beginning of twenty nine suras following the bismillah stands a letter, or a group of letters which are simply read as separate letters of the alphabet. Luxenberg suggested that they all had something to do with Syriac liturgical traditions. For instance, the letter êŒd at the beginning of Surah 38 indicates the number 90, referring to Psalm 90, while the letters A L R to be found at the beginning of Surahs 10, 11, 12, 14, 15 are a Syriac abbreviation meaning “The Lord said to me.”

u/ReasonOnFaith · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

A great resource that has taught me tons, is "The Atheist Debates Project" run by and featuring Matt Dillahunty. Watch the episodes for free on YouTube. I'm a patron to support the excellent work that Matt does.

Further, you can see these ideas in action, by listening/watching the podcast/YouTube/live stream of the Internet TV show, "The Atheist Experience". Some callers aren't interesting, but some exchanges are just gold.

I myself have written a primer on beliefs and labels to help introduce one to the landscape. Read that to understand the concepts. View the links in the green resource boxes to dive deeper into any subject. Watch the debates linked to, to see how others argue the material.

Just be a sponge for this. Prop up you iPhone in the bathroom and play debates while you brush your teeth or in the kitchen as you scramble your eggs. You'll get in an extra 30+ minutes a day of absorbing this content.

To learn about how best to get people to think without ever really arguing, but instead, using the socratic method to get them to think about their own positions, read the book (or listen to the excellent audiobook), A Manual for Creating Atheists. Based on these techniques, you can watch Anthony Magnabosco as he approaches people and politely asks them questions to get them to think. This technique is called Street Epistemology.

Finally, go through the Philosophy playlist on YouTube, from the channel Crash Course. They do an excellent job of introducing a lot of the concepts and terminology involved in philosophical argumentation--which is what all of this comes down to.

We need more people who educate themselves and can speak intelligently to the issues. So thank you for taking an interest. This is an awesome journey. Welcome.

u/therigdenking · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

> why u say hadith and sirah? I thought the sirah is just the lifestory of muhammad and this is found in the ahadith. Also the tafsirs use hadith. And i think there r many different sirahs, all leaving out stuff xD by modern authors etc.

When I say hadith, I generally mean sahih bukhari, sahih muslim etc. When I say sirah I mean biography of Muhammad by ibn ishaq/ibn hisham, one of the earliest biographies of Muhammad.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Prophetic_biography

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ibn_Ishaq#/Biography_of_Muhammad

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Ibn_Hisham

> I dont want to correct u, but i want to understand xD

No you have pretty good knowledge actually. Feel free to correct me whenever I make a mistake. I want to learn the Islam as objective as possible, as I have no intention to practice taqiyya lol

> Such fascinating ideas on how islam came to be xD gonna get that book

https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Sword-Birth-Global-Empire/dp/0307473651

This is the book. You may find it a pdf online maybe, or order it online. But definitely read it.

About last part, yeah I agree. Even though the cult leader Muhammad we encounter in hadith and other sources seem so real, the fact that there's so little written evidence about Islam's origins is a something to think about. When Umar(supposedly) conquered Jerusalem in 640, why didn't he wrote down a Quran? Why didn't they write a biography of Muhammad, or their history in general? Holland again says that for example even when barbarian tribes invaded Roman Empire, like the Germanic tribes in Britain, even their king stopped and wrote down books. But these people, whose motivation is built upon a "holy book", don't write down shit for at least 100 years. The name Muhammad start to appear in 690-710. The first manuscripts of Quran came from 8th century, why? And even then they are incomplete. And they were distributed in Umayyad era, while traditional muslim belief is that Uthman distributed those copies. Where is Uthman's Quran, the first Quran? Again, the belief is that a Umayyad ruler burned it. WTF lol! There's no original Quran. How are we going to be sure that Umayyads didn't sit down, observed Judaism, Christianity and wrote down a book according to that, while putting info from various other sources?(embryology in the Quran and other stuff)

u/not_stoned · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

>How did Islam spread so wide so quickly?

It didn't. This is a huge myth. I'll elaborate on this further down.

>There must be a significant number of early adopters of Islam that genuinely believe in Mo's message.
How did Mo convince them? If it was coercion, I doubt it will last. I am surprised that after his death, only a handful of apostate tribes rebelled. I would expect the whole of arabia would return to their pre-Islamic days, if indeed most of the conversions were half-hearted. But as you can see, that motley crew in medina grew to become 1.7 billion.

Muhammad preached Islam for 13 years in Mecca. Do you know how many followers he got? 150. This is supposedly the best version of Islam too, the most tolerant as much of it wasn't abrogated by later actions in Medina.

Muhammad conquered Arabia by force, and he converted tribes by force. You say only a handful of tribes rebelled, but that's false: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridda_wars

Majority rebelled, except those around Mecca & Medina. We can see Islam was not as popular with Arabs as the PR claims.

>It's the youngest abrahamic religion and yet had the fastest growth. No other major religions come close.

>We could probably dismiss the whole of sirah as a fabrication, but they are substantiated by hadiths, and as u know, hadiths are kinda hard to fake, unless a grand conspiracy is going on, but that would take the entire first and second generation muslims to agree to it. FYI, I'm more inclined towards this explanation, even though it's highly unlikely. It's still possible.

You've answered the question yourself. Much of Islamic history we know was written hundreds of years after Muhammad. Nothing is verifiable, Hadith are faked all the time. Even a few Muslims believe the Hadith compilations like Bukhari, Muslim etc were canonized for political reasons.

You can read Fred M. Donner's Muhammad and the Believers if you want to get an idea of how the actual Muhammad might have been (Donner is one of the most foremost Western scholars of Islam). https://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Believers-At-Origins-Islam/dp/0674064143

It posits that Islam wasn't even defined as a religion until much later than originally thought. Many similar theories exist too, some saying Islam was only formalized by the early empire for legitimacy reasons (as neighbor empires like Persians and Romans had their own state religions). There is heaps of evidence for this.

He even says the early Muslim armies were multiethnic and mutlireligious, with Christians and Jews among them.

>So what is Islam's secret? There must be some proper explanation other than "divine intervention". Something far sinister perhaps?

It's way more mundane than you think. It boils down to Islam coming along in the right place at the right time. Let me list some factors and facts:

  1. Arabian kingdoms were nothing new, Muhammad was the first to unite Arabia proper though. Similar happened to the Mongols under Genghis Khan - there's actually a lot of parallels with Genghis Khan and Muhammad but that's another topic. The point is that it was inevitable that someone would come along and do this. Both Mongolia and Arabia were ripe for this to happen when it did.

  2. Persia and Rome had fought each other for 1000 years constantly and were exhausted. This made them easy pickings for the newly united, fanatical Muslim Arabs. Conquering Persia is what truly set Islamdom on the map to being relevant.


  3. Muslims allowed conquered peoples to mostly do their own thing, but gave them second class status which made converting to Islam a huge incentive. That's not to say they didn't oppress anyone though, because they did. Zoroastrians for instance were treated horribly. But MANY people, maybe even the majority, converted for economic reasons.

  4. Islam spread quickly because the Muslim armies spread quickly, mostly thanks to the above mentioned reason #2. However, that doesn't mean everyone converted to Islam. Look at Turkey for example, it very, very slowly converted to Islam. It took hundreds of years. This is the case everywhere - in the "Golden Age of Islam" I would say in many areas Muslims were 50/50 with local Christians & Jews & others rather than at the 90% population numbers you see today. It's controversial, but you can directly correlate the rise of the Muslim population through conversions and birth to the stagnation of the region as a whole - take that with a grain of salt though.

  5. Christianity spread pretty slowly until Rome adopted it when it kicked into overdrive. So you can see how influential an empire with a state religion is in converting people. Muslims just happened to have a state religion for their empire from almost the very beginning, unlike Rome who fought against Christianity & tried to suppress it for a long time.

    There's nothing really miraculous about this stuff.

    Now, you want to see an example of a religion that really was impressive in how it spread? Look at Manichaeism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

    This faith started in Iran and ended up spreading as far away as China and Britain - all without military conquest but purely through trade.

    Now that's a fucking miracle! It even rivaled Christianity at one point, and in an alternate history could have easily replaced it had some things gone differently.

    Shame it was persecuted heavily by pretty much everyone, from Zoroastrians to Muslims.

u/islamchump · 1 pointr/exmuslim

heres for your 4:34 here you go, these are passages from the study quran book that i have. i'm sure youll find your answers here

Heres a video from nouman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1azySjz4edk

Al-Tirmidhi Hadith 628 Narrated by Abu Hurayrah The Prophet (saws) said: Among the Muslims the most perfect, as regards his faith, is the one whose character is excellent, and the best among you are those who treat their wives well


idk the answer to your first question allah knows best.

u/wazzym · 29 pointsr/exmuslim

"When Islam was reveled to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), slavery was a worldwide common social phenomenon; it was much older than Islam. Slavery was deeply rooted in every society to the extent that it was impossible to imagine a civilized society without slaves."

A lot of other things were acceptable in the past, but that does not make them any more moral or right.
Drinking alcohol and gambling were both permitted activities in pre-Islamic Arabia, yet Muhammad chose to ban these relatively harmless "cultural norms" Why did he not do the same for slavery or pedophilia? My guess is he made everything up so he could get as many women as he wanted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque This is cultural relativism and not any objective morality. you can't have it both ways and you sound like christians. It's either right to own a human being or not. If muhmmaed was a messenger for all times then we should still have slaves today.


I know muhammed gaves slaves certain rights but he never tried to abolish slavery that's just some apologetic bullshit you have been fed. He himself was a slave owner and a slave trader. There are many verses from the Quran and the Hadith that are dedicated to telling people how to deal with the slaves

Under Islamic law people can only be legally enslaved in two circumstances: as the result of being defeated in a war that was legal according to sharia if they are born as the child of two slave parents like you said.

This includes the many women that were captured by the Muslims at war and used as sex slaves, or as they would call them… “those whom your right hands possess”.

There might have been a couple times where Muslims were told to treat their slaves nicely, or promised a great reward in heaven if they choose to free a slave. But there is not a single verse in the Quran or Hadith that abolishes slavery! (It's not haram to own a slave like drinking or gambling)

In fact, the only times that Muslims were required to free one slave (with no payment) is as a punishment for a sin they have committed! That is not abolishing slavery! That is saying that if you are good, you can keep your slaves. A slave might be allowed to buy his freedom only if his master agrees to some kind of payment. That should be a crime! You should not have to buy your freedom.

Slaves who convert to Islam are not automatically freed. Children born to legally enslaved Muslims are also slaves Dhimmis.

Islamic law allows slaves to get their freedom under certain circumstances. It divides slaves with the right to freedom into various classes:

The mukatab: a slave who has the contractual right to buy their freedom over time

The mudabbar: a slave who will be freed when their owner dies (this might not happen if the owner's estate was too small)

The umm walid, a female slave who had borne her owner a child
Also Slaves must accept Owners are allowed to have sex with their female slaves
All the attempts to justify slavery has failed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/ethics/justifications.shtml


All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood. (In islam not all people are born free this is my problem)


Article 1, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 3, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms

Article 4, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

You should read this book http://www.amazon.com/The-Legacy-Arab-Islam-Africa-Inter-religious/dp/1851682732

u/ShitArchonXPR · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

That's a good question. Several short videos turn up with a cursory Google search, but they aren't documentaries. Dr. John Azuma wrote a book on it. The author is interviewed [here:]((https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV-KAyW7pI8)

>The Fulani in West Africa in particular were very fond of conquering and imposing Islamic rule on other tribes.

>>What about the Arab conquest of North Africa? Was that a form of colonization?

>Absolutely. The Arab conquest of North Africa was a form of colonization that took place in the seventh century, when Arab Muslims based out of Saudi Arabia conquered Egypt, and went on to conquer the whole of North Africa. There were a lot of Berber tribes there; the Egyptian Copts were the original indigenous of the land, as well as the Berbers, and they were all conquered and Islamized and Arabized. That was also a form of colonization, definitely.

Good luck finding any modern anti-colonialist crusaders willing to say a peep about the treatment of the Berbers or Egypt's indigenous Copts.

>>Now, do Muslims today acknowledge this? Are they self-critical about this?

>Not to the extent that the West has become very critical. In fact, many Muslims don't even admit that there was any form of colonization--even though, if you talk to the Berbers (and let's be also aware that many of the Berbers have become Muslim), the Berbers will tell you they have been colonized. There's been Arab imperialism. The same thing in Egypt. The Copts know that they are the original--the indigenous of the place. They feel like they have been colonized. The same thing happened--when you talk to Sudanese, they will tell you that Sudan was colonized by Arab and Muslim invaders. So yes, they will not admit it, but there is that kind of history there.

>>Okay. Thanks for that. I want to move on to the topic of slavery now.

>>Did the Muslim empires practice slavery?

u/massimosclaw · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

I know how you must feel. I went through the same thing. I was threatened by my mother, grabbed by the chest, and threatened to be kicked out of my house. I refused because I had no place to go, as my dad tried to calm her down, luckily they had to leave. I've learned a lot since then, and went back into the closet (though you seem to have a job, and security, so I'd say you don't have to do that) I think there's one effective persuasion technique that you may have not been exposed to - but maybe now it's too late because you're out of the closet. You might even be going through what many people call "an angry atheist phase", this can cause you to become more tribal which can send you into a downward spiral of anger and pain, and suck time like hell.

Here's the effective strategy I came across - this must be approached after you are both cool and preferably the other person doesn't know you are an atheist (but again, to me, it just seems too late):

It's called Street Epistemology. It's most concisely put in this book "A Manual for Creating Atheists", and you can see a good example of it on video here.

If you were an American Indian and you were dancing around the fire with feathers in your head gear, and I walked up to you and said "What are you dancing around the fire for?" You don't take your hat and throw it on the ground and say "You know I never thought of it that way!" We can't do that, we look at the world with our background, we have no other way of doing it.

Why is it that a Nazi gets a lump in his throat when he sees a swastika, and an American feels anger? The difference is the environment they've been brought up in. And if you're brought up in an environment with misinformation, you will behave that way.

No Chinese baby was ever born speaking Chinese, no matter how many generations of Chinese.

A child never writes his own alphabet

I believe, all behavior and actions that all people take are perfectly lawful to their environment and background. How your wife reacted, while it is very harmful to you, and I certainly empathize all the pain that my family has caused me specifically, is perfectly appropriate to her background and upbringing. Not saying what she did to you was beneficial. I'm saying that that is perfectly appropriate to the way she was brought up, and because of her indoctrination, it requires a different approach if you would like to change her beliefs and behaviors.

Over the years I've discovered a better way to convince believers. It's not hard either. It just takes some reading, and understanding on how human behavior works and how people are brainwashed. And how they are victims of that, not acting with their own free will and their own ideas.

A few books that helped me with convincing believers were: Nonviolent communication by Marshall Rosenberg, and semantics to clear language, the easiest book: Language in Thought and Action by Hayakawa. To understand psychological biases check out You Are Not So Smart by David McRaney

But perhaps the most helpful person was being exposed to Jacque Fresco - I shared some of his thoughts above. I highly recommend him - his ideas have changed my life.

I shared this snippet from Jacque Fresco on another post in this subreddit, but it bears repeating:

Conflict occurs when a person doesn’t seek your advice but you advise them.
So the way to get along with people is to let them be what they are unless they say I don’t seem to get along with pollocks whats my problem? Very few people say “What do you think of my value system?” If they do that and it’s sincere, not an ego thing...
If they ask a question, thats where you can get in and suggest but if they don’t, don’t s superimpose your values even if they’re better

If you suggest, 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

and they say I don’t like 4 and 5,

don’t argue.

Your question is: How different is the persons background than yours? And does the person seek information? And if they did, don’t feel like you’re instructing them.
If you come home and you brother is using a shovel in the lawn, and he's struggling with it and you come up to him and say "That's no way to use a shovel!"

That's not going to change him. If, however, you say nothing - and he comes up to you, and says "I can't seem to use this shovel efficiently, can you help me?" then you can instruct them but don't feel like you're instructing them so you say "I used to do it that way, then another person taught me to push it down with my foot, and that was easier"

Sometimes people don’t want advice. They feel they’re being put down. So stop giving one another advice, that produces antagonism, unless they ask for it.
You can’t point out “The trouble with you is you don’t listen to anybody” That doesn’t cause em to now listen. They’ll go on with their same pattern.

Unless they say to you “Am I inattentive? Or Do I appear inattentive?” Very few people talk like that. That’s what sane means. Sane means when a person comes over “I’m not familiar with that jigsaw. How do you use it?” Then you instruct them. If they come over everyday and ask you - watch them and guide them through it.
Making a comment “Your’e dimwitted or slow. The trouble with you is you have no imagination.” That doesn’t alter behavior, it only increases conflict.

In order to avoid conflict don’t generate it. You generate it when you offer something to somebody that they didn’t ask for. Let them be. Whatever they say. Unless they turn to you.

If someone says “I’m a catholic” Say “Do you fully accept everything in the catholic doctrine?” “yes!”

The door is shut. It’s welded.

But if he says “Im not sure” thats an opening.

That goes for any subject. Check for openings before you talk. If you’ve had conflict all your life cause you believe that what you say enters their head the way you want to - thats projection. When you tell something to somebody for their own good. “If you keep drinking the way you are - you may become addicted” But if you come at a person and he says “fuck you” then shut up.

If I’m talking to religious people I would say “The bible says thou shalt not kill” How do you handle war?

I would say “The bible says love thine enemy - if a man strikes you turn the other cheek” How do you deal with that?

u/ohamid234 · 1 pointr/exmuslim

I linked a paper that debunked the argument that human beings and chimps share a common ancestor because of genetic similarity. I have not engaged in any fallacy whatsoever, you, however, engaged in two in your comment. The first is a straw man because you misrepresented what I said, I specifically said that it debunks genetic similarity. Your second fallacy committed here is called the vested interest fallacy which is as follow:

>The Vested Interest Fallacy occurs when a person argues that someone’s claim or recommended action is incorrect because the person is motivated by their interest in gaining something by it, with the implication that were it not for this vested interest then the person wouldn’t make the claim or recommend the action. Because this reasoning attacks the reasoner rather than the reasoning itself, it is a kind of Ad Hominem fallacy.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/fallacy/#VestedInterest

By saying that the paper is on an Islamic website in no way whatsoever degrades the quality of the research or the arguments presented. Indeed, to say that homo sapiens and chimps share a common ancestor due to genetic similarity has, in fact, been debunked. As for evolution in general see my previous comment. I won't repeat myself.

>How do you know that Islam is true? What is the reason you believe Islam is true?

There are plenty of reasons, I recommend checking out Hamza Tzortzis book, The Divine Reality.

>And your claim that Islam is true is unsubstantiated.

Your claim that the 7 year old who memorized the Quran is being abused and indoctrinated is unsubstantiated. Moreover, your substantiation requires scientism and naturalism which cannot be substantiated itself, because, they are, of course, self refuting and conflicting with one another.

Edit: Fixed an error.

u/captaindisguise · 4 pointsr/exmuslim

LOL!

To u/ACaulfield910, it is pretty clear you don't really understand what you are touting.

Just to point out a single example,

  • I think you are an unintelligent ignoramus <-- This is not an ad hominem; this is an insult.

  • I think you are an unitelligent ignoramus, therefore your belief X is false <-- This is an ad hominem

    For another example, when u/wazzym provided you with some links here; your glorious response was to say that they are by "a reddit keyboard warrior with no credibility".

    Now that is an ad hominem worthy of its name. To top that, you followed your ad hominem with an argumentum ad verecundiam.

    Please, get your thoughts straight before trying to teach others logic.

    Apart from that, you aren't doing yourself any favors on this forum if you think you can uncritically accept and merely regurgitate traditional Islamic narratives.

    From your romanticist views of early Islam, it is also clear that you are clueless as to what contemporary critical non-religious scholarship has to say about Islamic origins. I really recommend that you read this book by Stephen Shoemaker

    Good Luck
u/humzak03 · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

For your case I recommend a great book. It’s called “the divine reality” by Hamza Tzortis. It selves into the philosophy of existence, purpose, and god, not only from an Islamic POV but from an atheist POV as well. It’s a very good read as well. Highly recommend reading it.
https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Reality-Islam-Mirage-Atheism/dp/0996545387

u/noflippingidea · 14 pointsr/exmuslim

Definitely. Ironically, /r/Islam is what started me on my journey, because half the content on that sub was stuff I totally disagreed with on a fundamental level. The questions that were being asked were silly (in my opinion), and the answers were even sillier. I didn't realise people actually thought that way. I was a pretty liberal Muslim at the time and thought that you didn't have to follow the Qur'an by the book to be a good Muslim, all you had to do was have good intentions. Seems I was the only one who thought that way.

So I went out looking for a sub that countered that one, which is when I found /r/exmuslim. The more I lurked around this sub the more I started to question organised religion, but still somewhat believed that god existed. Then I read The God Delusion, and that, I think, was the final blow.

But yes, /r/exmuslim played a huge part.

u/Byzantium · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

>Muslims have been debunking atheist arguments for over a millennium. I would recommend reading Hamza Tzortzis's "The Divine Reality: God, Islam & The Mirage Of Atheism". The first chapter is available for free on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Divine-Reality-Islam-Mirage-Atheism/dp/0996545387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491918002&sr=8-1&keywords=hamza+tzortzis

>There is also plenty of material that is available online for free as well by Muslim authors, they use the standard arguments (i.e. Teleological, Kalam, Contingency). https://asadullahali.com/2015/08/16/the-rationality-of-believing-in-god-without-evidence-part-1/

>Tzortzis's book takes you from atheism to Islam, succinctly.

u/ferengiprophet · 1 pointr/exmuslim

According to the book I'm reading, What the Modern Martyr Should Know: 72 Grapes and Not a Single Virgin, the phrase "b-ismi-llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīmi" means "in the name of the loving and beloved God" in Syro-Aramaic, one of the languages used by Christians in the Middle East. This is important to note because it is theorized that Islam is an offshoot of Syrian-Christianity. Here's a screenshot of the page with Christoph Luxenberg's translation of the phrase.

u/TheIncredibleShirk · 1 pointr/exmuslim

White Gold by Giles Milton

'White Gold, is the story of Thomas Pellow, a Cornish cabin boy who was captured at sea by a group of fanatical Islamic slave traders—the Barbary corsairs, taken in chains to the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Salè in Morocco and sold to the highest bidder. Pellow’s purchaser happened to be the tyrannical sultan of Morroco, Moulay Ismail, a man committed to building a vast imperial pleasure palace of unsurpassable splendour built entirely by Christian slave labour. After enduring long periods of torture Pellow converted to Islam and became the personal slave of the sultan for over two decades—including a stint as a soldier in the sultan’s army—before finally making a dramatic escape and return to Cornwall.'

https://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Gold-Giles-Milton/dp/0340794704

u/REDPlLL · 1 pointr/exmuslim

Well i gave you a dictionary definition of lying. If you define "lie" to mean something else, then go ahead. But Islam does not permit lying according to the definition i gave ("saying something incorrect"). So if someone were to ask me if i was a Muslim and i don't respond, then that's not a lie using the definition i gave.

The problem with your definition is that it leads to interpretive problems (which i think you hate). If i assume your a Christian this whole time, and you are an atheist, then i can claim that you lied to me. You deceived me by not being open to me about your lack of faith. You could claim that you weren't trying to act Christian, but i could claim the opposite and there is no objective measure that we both could agree on to always determine who in fact is right here.

> Can you recommend some? From what I've seen, most of Islamic history is an expansion of conquest and subjugation that makes the British Empire look like the Salvation Army.

More like the opposite. Here's a highly recommended biography:
http://www.amazon.com/Muhammad-Life-Based-Earliest-Sources/dp/1594771537

u/The_Sammich · 5 pointsr/exmuslim

I also recommend reading - White Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellow and North Africa's One Million European Slaves by Giles Milton. Not only is it an informative true account about little known white slavery in Africa it's also really well written and reads like a novel.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Gold-Extraordinary-Africas-European/dp/0340794704

u/heybells2004 · 1 pointr/exmuslim

Read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins...you will be more at peace

https://www.amazon.com/God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248

u/remembertosmilebot · 1 pointr/exmuslim

Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!

Here are your smile-ified links:

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u/twenty-two · 3 pointsr/exmuslim

A Simple Koran

It is rearranged so that the sura are in chronological order for reading straight through and has inserted narrative information to give context.

An Abriged Koran is another version which has less repetition, so it's even easier to read.

u/Pufflemuff · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

Questioning Islam by Richard Townsend is the closest to a critical account that does a fair job of staying impartial (that I've found anyway). The premise is not the history of Islam, but almost every observation is supported by references from the Quran and Hadith. It's not perfect, and I don't agree with everything he says, but it is a good read nonetheless.

u/Awkward_Arab · 3 pointsr/exmuslim

Just noted this part of your reply.

>it's his claim that compared with Jesus, the amount of genuine scholarship on the historicity of Mohammed is woefully lacking.

What are you talking about? There are scholars for the revisionist theory, albeit outdated. John Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, Joseph Schacht, Michael Cook. The ones that I'm fond of and they all have impeccable credentials (the number of degrees, and where you obtained them from actually do matter) Fred Donner, Harald Motzki, Jonathon Brown, and Andreas Goerke.

I usually recommend these two books to anyone that's interested in the history of Muhammad and Islam, they're critical of the traditional narrative among others.

Muhammad And The believers: At The Origins of Islam by Fred Donner

Muhammad: A Very Short Introduction by Jonathon Brown

u/liquid_solidus · 1 pointr/exmuslim

The 'Simple Quran' is a book which has ordered the Quran chronologically. I highly recommend it.

u/AnAnachronism · 6 pointsr/exmuslim

You may be interested in Stephen Shoemaker's The Death of a Prophet.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Prophet-Beginnings-Divinations/dp/0812243560/

It is pricey, so you may want to find it at an academic library. The research and writing is top notch, and everything is superbly cited and referenced.

u/[deleted] · 1 pointr/exmuslim

>>The problem with Islamic sources is the main contribution that people like Crone made.

LOL. Crone rejected her previous hagerism theory. Her own student Hoyland wrote a book Seeing Islam as others see it, provide non-islamic source attestation for Islam during 7th-8th century. http://www.amazon.com/Seeing-Islam-Others-Saw-Zoroastrian/dp/0878501258

u/Saxobeat321 · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

"Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Studies in Late Antiquity and Early Islam Book 13)"

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seeing-Islam-Others-Saw-Zoroastrian/dp/0878501258

u/jeffsthename · 1 pointr/exmuslim

I agree with the above. Most ex-moose figure it out on their own. The more you try to show them that their beliefs are wrong the more defensive they get. I suggest you read this https://www.amazon.com/Manual-Creating-Atheists-Peter-Boghossian/dp/1939578094

u/spiral_cloud · 1 pointr/exmuslim
  1. It doesn't matter nor is it pertinent to this conversation at all.

  2. Watch the video before linking me to this partial and incomplete rebuttal.

  3. A sex slave cannot give meaningful consent. She's a slave. The correct ruling would have been to forbid sex with slaves.

  4. There are tons. Here's one: Abbas Abdul Noor. In any case, why does it matter if people who study religion don't leave? Lots of people who study 'false' religions like hinduism, Judaism, christianity, wicca don't leave either. That doesn't make them true.

  5. ?

  6. What I read and do personally doesn't matter. You do not have the complete picture, and in any case, why does it matter?
u/TheCoconutChef · 2 pointsr/exmuslim

Islam is such a controversial topic that, when people make a presentation on it, I think it would do them well to outline their methodological approach before they start talking. They should also try and gauge, minimally, if the audience agrees with the methodology.

For instance, they could start the presentation by saying that they'll do a doctrinal, inter-textual analysis of the Koran as it relates to women, focusing on those statements in which a reference to femininity is made, and will then try and map those statements to instantiated laws in some countries in order to ascertain whether or not laws and doctrine fit with one another.

And then you start to systematically build your case with an avalanche of quotes.

My point is, you really need to make these methodological statements before hand and get the people you're talking to to commit to their validity. If they start to object to the conclusions you reach, you're then in a position to remind them that you're just applying the methodology everybody agreed with at the beginning.

It used to be you didn't need to do this because every body understood that we used reason, evidence, logic, etc, and that the defense of a conclusion at all cost was to be avoided, since we recognized the fact that we might be wrong in principle, since the method had to drive the conclusions and not the other way around. But a lot of people who believe in Islam don't subscribe to those views, so you have to backtrack a bit and tell them "Here is what I'm doing. Here is how I will proceed. Here is why I proceed this way. Here is why truth is important."

People in the west have fuzzily internalized those concepts so much they don't even realize they're achievements in the first place and thus fail to see that they have to explain anything of the sort before starting. And yet, Islam is all about :

  • Revealed truth

  • Doubt as weakness of faith

  • Defense of Islam as duty

  • Weakness of faith as evil

    I mean, concerning doubt, here is what a very recent commentary on the Koran has to say about it, relating to 2:10,

    > In their heart is a disease, and God has increased them in disease. Their is a painful punishment for having lied. (2:10)

    > The disease is usually understood to refer to doubt, hence a spiritual sickness. (see 2:7, 24:50)

    Welp. It doesn't help that what, in the west, is arguably considered to be the father of modern philosophy, had as its prime method of thinking something which we came to call "Cartesian Doubt".

    > Several years have now elapsed since I first became aware that I had accepted, even from my youth, many false opinions for true, and that consequently what I afterward based on such principles was highly doubtful; and from that time I was convinced of the necessity of undertaking once in my life to rid myself of all the opinions I had adopted, and of commencing anew the work of building from the foundation...

    Descartes
u/lesphincteur · 3 pointsr/exmuslim

There's a book called "An Abridged Koran" that supposedly takes out the redundancies and cuts the length by about half. People don't seem to like the author Bill Warner, though and cry bias. I don't know anything about the guy. Might be an interesting read. I have not read it.

https://www.amazon.com/Abridged-Koran-Islamic-Trilogy/dp/0978552849

u/Birden96 · 32 pointsr/exmuslim

" Of course, while the rising rates of professed secularity in the Arab-Muslim world are new, the roots of such secularism run deep. Very deep. Many centuries deep. Despite the fact that many people erroneously associate Islam with nothing but religious fundamentalism, the historical fact is that skepticism, rationalism, and humanism have been long-entrenched within Arabic-Muslim history. "

​

If there was no punishment for apostasy, secularism would have taken over the Arab world by now.