The 'Birmingham Koran' fragment that could shake the Islam world.

a reply to: Sahabi
I never got that grouping- as if Sufis are something separate from Shias and Sunnis, when in fact, every sufi tradition I know of is either Shia or Sunni. Hossein Nasr for example happens to be Shia.

Of course, I'm not saying it is wrong because it is shia, or something is right because it is sunni, just that it is not universally accepted, where "not universally accepted" here means that the vast majority of Sunnis, who happen to be the vast majority of muslims (not making an argument from numbers, just pointing it out), do not accept that narrative (I mean, you could say that "Abu Bakr is an early muslim figure who is revered by Sunnis and some Shias", and it'd be just as meaningless), and it happens to be a particular point in Shia tradition that just happens to conveniently "one up" Shia figures in opposition to Sunni figures.

a reply to: babloyi

Muhammad (pbuh) was known for saying that the best Muslims were the 1st generation, the second best were the 2nd generation, the third best were the 3rd generation, and so on...

It could be interpreted that he foresaw corruption after each generation as an inevitability...

& as my ATS friend Boeing so wisely put it the other day, it is better to identify as a Muslim, than a Sunni , Wahhabi or Shiite...
Because that was Muhammad's intention for all to be one Ummah (community).

I myself do not adhere to the dogma of the different sects either...
I just follow the my Heart, Mind & The Holy Quran.



Side note; Sufiism is generally older than Islam, but has been incorporated into a subsect of Islam typifying the mystical.
Again, I don't really follow it.


Side, side note; not that I frown upon sects either, to each their own is paramount in belief.

Surah 109: Ayat 6: For you, your faith, & for me, my faith.

It sounds more to me like they may have found possibly the first written Koran? Which is pretty neat if you ask me, and the one "scholar" says if translated it should reflect what the Koran is today, I am more curious to find if it has been fully translated and how closely it resembles what is commonly produced now.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs
Agreed. When someone asks what sect I am from, I get irritated (the kind of person who'd ask you what your sect is would probably be full of such irritating questions) and say "I'm a muslim", but if I'm being honest with myself, the traditions I follow (the way I practice my faith), and the beliefs (not considering Muhammad's family line to be necessary) I follow would probably have me counted as a sunni.

a reply to: CalibratedZeus

Possibly, but most of the first verse fragments were written on bone, vine leaves etc.

a reply to: babloyi

I'm exactly the same when it comes to the lineage aspect.

There is nothing to suggest the Mahdi or Caliphs must come from Muhammad's line, but again, if people choose to believe that, that's their decision.

It's too restrictive, in my opinion.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

I am surprised they even bother with the mere 2 year discrepancy. That's poking the hornests nest just for thrills, IMO.

originally posted by: CharlieSpeirs

originally posted by: angeldoll
Anyone who believes a document of the magnitude of the Koran could be accurately passed down verbally for thousands of years has blind faith in human infallibility. It's quite simply not possible because: humans.

If you orally recited your favourite song to your children and friends, and it became their favourite song...
& continuing on they did the same with their children and friends...

Would you trust it to remain pretty much identical?

I would, because learning the words of a song is pretty easy.

The Quran, in Arabic, rhymes throughout.
Even I, as a slow learning Londoner when it comes to other lexicons, already know the 1st Chapter of the Quran in Arabic without having to read it.

I'd imagine Arabs would find it even easier to remember and recite correctly.


Not to sway your opinion, Angel, just another perspective.

This is a good point, Charlie. We know that the Celts passed down history, ordinances, and religious beliefs through word of mouth long before the Romans invaded Europe. They used Druids, Bards, and Ovates, who went through very stringent schooling to hold their respective title. Not one word could be changed or misquoted from generation to generation, and they used repetition, poetry, and music to keep it accurate. Also, they made sure enough people held these offices to correct anyone who misquoted. Not a perfect system, but still very accurate. Some Gallic folk lyrics are considered to be near identiical to what they were centuries ago because of this type of system.

a reply to: Klassified

Not surprising...
Actually there are some real similarities between Gaelic & Semitic languages as well in terms of pronunciation and sentence structuring.

It (poetic license) does seem a simple & effective way to keep the tradition accurate.


Thanks for the insight too, Klassified, I didn't know much about all that.

a reply to: babloyi

Denominational and sectarian points of contention aside, Professor Seyyed Hossein Nasr carries an impressive international academic background and is accredited with many accolades. His article regarding the Qur'an is included in Encyclopedia Britannica, which is a highly distinguished and prestigious collection of academic knowledge.

If the professor were incorrect in stating that some Sunnis accept the landmark mus'haf of Ali, surely, such a statement would have been torn asunder by the peer-review of religious and theological scholars. If the majority of Shia scholarship accepts Ali's mus'haf, as well as some Sunnis, then such a view should not be thrown out and ignored so easily. My academic background and education can not compare to Professor Nasr.

Additionally, a multitude of Sunni sources have been cited in the Q&A of IslamQuest (Shia site); What is the Sunni viewpoint regarding the Mus’haf of Imam Ali (as)?

As for Sunni sources that have mentioned this Quran up until the eighth century, they are: Al-Tabaqatul-Kubra[8] by Muhammad ibn Sa’d (230 ah), Fada’ilul-Quran[9] by Ibn Dhurays (294 ah), Kitabul-Masahif[10] by Ibn Abi Dawud (316 ah), Kitabul-Fihrist[11]by Ibn Nadim who reports from Ahmad ibn Ja’far Munada, better known as Ibn Munada and Al-Masahif[12] by Ibn Ashtah (360 ah), Hilyatul-Owliya’ wa Tabaqatul-Asfiya[13] and Al-Arba’in[14] by Abi Na’im Al-Isfihani (430 ah), Al-Isti’ab fi Ma’rifatil-As’hab[15] by Ibn Abdil-Birr (463 ah) which has narrated through two ways, Shawahidul-Tanzil[16] by Hakem Haskani (a fifth century scholar) who has proven the existence of this book through numerous proofs, Mafatihul-Asrar wa Masabihul-Anwar[17] by Abdul-Karim Shahrestani (548 ah) (amongst all Sunni scholars, this scholar has reported this Quran in detail, explaining how it was compiled, how the imam offered it to the Sahabah and how they refused to accept it and how he brought them reasoning and arguments in order to persuade them), Al-Manqib[18] by Khatib Kharazm (568 ah), Al-Tas’hil fi Ulumil-Tanzil[19] by Ibn Jizy Kalbi (741 ah).

 

[8] Muhammad ibn Sa’d, Al-Tabaqatul-Kubra, vol. 2, pg. 328.
[9] Muhammad ibn Ayyub ibn Dhurays, Fadha’ilul-Quran (research of Urwah Badir), pg. 36.
[10] Suleyman ibn Ash’ath, Kitabul-Masahif (revised by Atur Jafri, pg. 61).
[11] Muhammad ibn Ishaq, Kitabul-Fihrist, pg. 31-32.
[12] Quoted by: Jalaluddin Suyuti, Al-Itqan, vol. 1, pg. 58.
[13] Abu Na’im Isfihani, Hilyatul-Owliya’ wa Tabaqatul-Asfiya, vol.1, pg. 67.
[14] Quoted from: Ibn Shahr Ashub, ibid, vol. 2, pg. 50.
[15] Yusuf ibn Abdil-Birr, Al-Isti’ab fi Ma’rifatil-Ashab (researched by Muhammad Ali Bajawi), third section, pg. 974.
[16] Hakem Haskani, Shawahidul-Tanzil li Qawa’idil-Tafdhil (researched by Muhammad Baqir Mahmoudi), vol. 1, pp. 36-38.
[17] Abdul-Karim Shahrestani, Mafatihul-Asrar wa Masabihul-Anwar, vol. 1, pg. 121.
[18] Muwaffaq ibn Ahmad Kharazmi, Al-Manaqib (researched by Muhammad ibn Malek Mahmoudi), pg. 94.
[19] Ulumul-Quran indal-Mufassirin, quoted by: Markazul-Thiqafah wal-Ma’ariful-Quraniyyah, vol. 1, pg. 351.

a reply to: Sahabi

Since I do not know what Muhammad really taught then I cannot know if he was one of the "blessed one" sent.

But the duality hate taught in the Quran is clearly not the ideals the "blessed ones" teach. "Fallen ones" teach duality hate and gives people religious rights to kill for plunder and rape (when there are no divine justification for these action).

Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and His Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth from those who were given the Scripture - [fight] until they give the jizyah willingly while they are humbled.

The Jews say, "Ezra is the son of Allah "; and the Christians say, "The Messiah is the son of Allah ." That is their statement from their mouths; they imitate the saying of those who disbelieved [before them]. May Allah destroy them; how are they deluded?

The darkness/corruption to worldly possession and lack of light showing.

Any soul that behaves like this need a extremely long timeout disconnected from everything in existence to ponder it's behavior.

a reply to: stargatetravels

So - um - like Christianity then and almost all religion.

From my point of view: Yes.

a reply to: CharlieSpeirs

How can you propagate the continuation and purity of the Qur'an when today's modern Qur'an differs from all ancient Qur'ans? The differences included additions, omissions, difference of word placement, difference of sentence arrangement, different grammatical tense, such as gender, plurality, singularity, past, present, future, etc.

Here is a wonderful academic database of ancient Qur'anic manuscripts: The Qur'anic Manuscripts. See for yourself that an "unchanged Qur'an" is a myth.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

I'm a Muslim & I'll make this brief.

1. Islam was not founded by the Prophet Muhammad. No Muslim believes Islam started w/him. He is the last of God's Messengers, not the 1st. The Prophet Adam & his wife were the first Human Muslims. As an example, the Prophet Musa/Moses is the Prophet mentioned the most in the Qur'an. And the 2nd Surah/Revelation in the Qur'an (Al-Baqarah, meaning "The Cow") is mostly about the Israelites and the Golden Calf (though it also has a lot of other info in it).

2. Islam teaches that God sent Prophets to every tribe. And all Prophets supposedly taught the same message of submission to God, as well. That's literally what "Islam" means, "submission to God". In fact, if you believe the Hadith, there were at least 200,000 Prophets of God aka Prophets of Islam. Those existed before the Prophet Muhammad.

3. The Prophet Muhammad was illiterate. He literally couldn't read or write. That's one of the reasons he was chosen in the first place. An Angel would tell him a verse & he'd have to have someone else write it down at the same time. Then the person would recite it back to them, to be sure everything was written correctly.

Personally, I think this will be revealed to be fake or mis-dated (don't think that's a word but whatever). However, I'd love to see this fragment myself. One of the main reasons for my travels & research of different ancient groups is for this. I've been trying to find ancient religious beliefs & ancient religious texts that were wiped out in the major mass migrations of the last 2,000-3,000 years. I don't plan on ever sharing that info though- it's strictly for my personal curiosity & amusement

EDIT: And for the record, the Prophet Muhammad isn't the center of Islam, God is. That's why we're Muslims ("those who submit to God") and not "Muhammadans". Only non-Muslims call us that. But it would be like thinking Christianity is based completely on whether the Judge Gideon's historical accounts are authentic or not. We highly respect the Prophet Muhammad, just as we respect God's other Prophets. But he's not the root of Islam or even the reason people become Muslims.

a reply to: LittleByLittle

I fully agree with you. I am an ex-Muslim, and it was the darkness, hate, and the endorsed religious separation of the Qur'an, Hadith, and historic actions of Muhammad that first caused my unease with Islam. Upon deeper research, the corruption of the Qur'an itself finally convinced me to leave Islam behind.

In Mecca, Muhammad's philosophy began as a very beautiful system. However, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." Muhammad began to propagate darkness upon his rise to power in Medina. The Qur'anic revelations, unprovoked preemptive military attacks, and sunnah (actions and sayings of Muhammad) of the Medina-era ruined the previous beauty of Islam, and turned it into the totalitarian and violent ideology that we see today.

a reply to: VigiliaProcuratio

But it also said that some of the passages came from earlier religions.

a reply to: DeathSlayer

If you are an atheist this does not apply to you.

How can anyone who believes in a God who created everything we see not also believe that the same God could send words to a prophet and protect them from corruption? The bible, The Quran, the Vedas, regardless of your religion how big or small is your God? If the books are corrupt why believe anything in them?

The Quran says that the words in the OT, NT and Quran are not corrupted, only the interpretation applied to the words are corrupt. And I agree with the Quran.

Preserving the words in a few books was not a hard thing for the God I believe in.

The Quran would be the hardest of all the texts to corrupt, because it is a song. You can't just change the words of your favorite song. Is it possible that some people who's memory was not so good wrote down portions of the Quran but wrote parts down incorrectly, sure.

But in Islam there is a name for people that memorize the entire song called Hufiz.

Just as it would be impossible for someone to debate the song of the Quran with a Hufiz today, this would be the same oral tradition that the modern accepted Quran would have come from.

Much of the ancient writing that has survived was poetry or song in it's native language, because you can't just change the words of a song, it would loose it's rythm and meter. This practice ensured both easy memorization and exact memorization.

A link about modern day Hufiz, or plural Huffaz.

m.stltoday.com... mobile_touch=true

The bias in your article is rediculace. No muslim is going to believe anything other than this confirms the Quran was written down during Mohammeds lifetime, exactly as is expected.

a reply to: Sahabi

I would expect many Muslims who were indoctrinated into the Hadith would feel like you. The Quran however calls itself complete, meaning not in need of Hadith to explain it.

In the Quran Mohammed made it unlawful to attack. It is only lawful to defend, and peace must always be accepted when it is asked for.

What you were taught contradicts the words of the Prophet found in the Quran proving the Hadith is false doctrine.

There are also many very bias interpretations of the Quran. This is a link to a more word for word translation that has minimum bias if your interested in separating false Hadith from the truth found in the Quran.

www.holybooks.com...

The Talmud is the Jewish version of the Hadith. Both the Talmud and the Hadith promote religious superiority, intolerance and poor treatment of non believers. These are not the words of Moses and Mohammed.

Why on earth should people be surprised about this because none of the desert religions were recorded when they first started up. They were all recorded by others at a later time with their own political agendas. They all serve the purpose to subjugate the community to the will of the leaders.

When you consider Judaism, Genesis isn't Jewish it comes direct from earlier civilisations in Babylon and was utilised by its priests who politically altered/adapted parts from the Enuna Elish, Noah and the flood myths which have become welded into Jewish history. The tragedy is here that Adappa and the Serpent has been politically twisted and made to create a devil because in the original myth the serpent, a creature of wisdom wanted to help Adam gain longer life, not harm him.

Christianity is a totally made up political religion based on a character whose records have mystically disappeared. The early church fathers wanted the protection of the Emperor in order to gain credibility and a living of course and the emperor wanted a velvet glove and spies in the community which the priesthood happily provided by terrorising people with the threat of hell and damnation.

Why on earth would anyone think Islam would be any different its yet another off shoot of both Christianity and Judaism whose roots were planted by ambitious men with domination in mind. Sure they all loved the idea for the simply minded that truth, justice etc was going to be honoured and upheld - but is it ever in any of these religions when you honestly think about it.

Most of us think they all service the purpose of giving us the moral high ground, but Hammarabi's Code predates the 10 commandments so its all borrowed and adapted - the trouble is we have been sold the myth that the desert religions are spiritually attuned to God where as man is the culprit - whether he heard voices, after starving himself deliberately as Mohammad did, although the Buddha also did this as indeed Christ is supposed to have done e.g. 40 days in the desert being tempted.

These religions were created to take over the pagan world and they were put together with an agenda of fear and dominance. None tolerate dissension and all hope to control people's allegiance and therefore their money flowing in. In fact when you think of the adaptions form the pagan world and the deification of emperors, kings and the prestigious position of the clerics they have done a very good job but now the truth is coming out. My parents had not idea of the information to hand today but from my generation it has been easier to find out the history behind our religions and research the books not included in the biblical texts and the mixed messages all three expect us to pay homage to. I am glad this information has come to light - but from Birmingham I would have expected something like this from a desert country!

a reply to: Isurrender73

"In the Quran Mohammed made it unlawful to attack.

All of Muhammad's military campaigns were preemptive and waged on foreign ground. During the many battles and military exploits of Muhammad and his army,... which ones were defensive and who ever attacked Medina? None and no one. If Muhammad was such a defensive strategist who rejected attacking, please explain this:



Upon leaving Mecca to establish his stronghold in Medina in 622 CE/AD, Muhammad was still preaching peace, tolerance, and religious freedom. The Jews of Medina, as shown in the following painting, happily welcomed Muhammad as new ruler of Medina. In the early days of Muhammad’s arrival to the new city, the Jewish tribes of Banu Khazraj and Banu Aws merged together with some other smaller Jewish factions and Jewish individuals, converted to Islam, and became known as the Ansar (Helpers).



Some Jewish tribes of Medina and its vicinity chose to retain their Jewish heritage, religion, and identity during Muhammad’s reign. Most notable are the tribes of Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir, and Banu Qurayza. All Jews of Medina and the surrounding area were ordered to pay the jizya tax to Muhammad. Jizya is a tax imposed upon non-Muslims living in Muslim lands.

When Muhammad took sovereign reign over his new stronghold of Medina, Allah’s revelations began to break away from the message of peace and began to move towards jihad. Muhammad and his followers began jihad military operations by first attacking and robbing unarmed and unprotected merchant caravans. These aggressive acts of highway robbery helped to strengthen Muhammad’s government and military. These caravan robberies had a tremendous impact upon the markets of the Arabian Peninsula.

As a combined result of the imposed jizya tax and Muhammad’s destabilization of trading and markets in the area, the once welcoming Jews of Medina began to voice public dissident and write degrading accounts and poems about Muhammad. Displeased with the freedom of speech that unhappy Jews were voicing, Muhammad declared unfounded and unsubstantiated accusations of assassination plots being planned against him. Muhammad then ordered many successful assassinations against various Jewish tribe leaders.

The first Jewish tribe of Medina to be targeted was Banu Qaynuga. Muhammad and his army besieged their village for 14 days. Banu Qaynuga then surrendered and all of their land, businesses, wealth, and goods were seized by Muhammad, and the tribe was forcefully expelled from Medina. They eventually settled in Syria.



The next group of Jews on Muhammad’s list was Banu Nadir. Their plight is mentioned above in the second post of the op. They were attacked, their wealth, property, and goods were confiscated, their men were executed, and their women and children were enslaved.



As a result of Muhammad’s indiscriminate robbery of merchant caravans and his tyrannical attacks against Banu Qaynuga and Banu Nadir, the non-muslim Arabs and Jews of the Meccan area launched a failed attack against Muhammad known as The Battle of the Trenches.

During the Battle of the Trenches, the Banu Qurayza tribe remained neutral and did not participate in the war. However, after winning this war, Muhammad turned his army against Banu Qurayza UNPROVKED, and utterly massacred all of their men, enslaved their women, and seized all property, wealth, and goods.



After the robbery, destruction, murder, enslavement, and execution of the Jews of Medina, the Jews who survived gathered with other Jewish groups to the north of Medina in the area of Khaybar. Here the Jews barricaded themselves in their settlement, desperately trying to survive Muhammad’s onslaught.



Muhammad’s forces laid siege to the Jews of Khaybar and after several weeks The Jews surrendered. In order to avoid expulsion or execution, Muhammad ordered that 50% of all of their agricultural harvests would be seized as an alms to Muhammad and his Muslims. However, Muhammad’s second successor Umar ibn al-Khattab later expelled the Jews of Khaybar out of Arabia.






Islam's Lie: "There Is No Compulsion In Religion" (2:256)