Is the Koran Truly Amazing?

SR...

As much as I have a distaste for your writings... I must say that what you said about Shahab Nama is absolutely the truth... Qudratullah Shahab was an idiot amongst idiots and no wonder chowk`s resident revolutionary from the Darul-Harb is such a big fan.

About Illumdin.. the poor guy was a misguided bhangi who got provoked after listening to the Khubta from the Khateeb of the Sunheri Masjid... through out his court case (of which I have all documents- sessions, high court, Mercy petititon) the guy pleaded innocence (as opposed to the legend where he declared proudly that he had done it)... Not only that but Illumdin also filed a mercy petition to the King Emperor.

Coming back to Shahab... it is ironic that Urstruly - the self proclaimed opponent of military rule- is such a big fan of Qudratullah Shahab... who was after all the Ayub-appointed grand liqiuidator of the Pakistan Times ... the progressive anti-Military anti-establishment paper in Pakistan...

But then again... Urstruly never could argue on facts. Only yesterday he was declaring that by burning CD 70s and CG 125s of lowly Bank clerks... Lahore ka jawans have brought about the ``Bastille Day`` in Pakistan.

#363 by GT, writes <<< The following question is directed to people who have studied the Koran:

Does the Koran state how to falsify the claim ``The Koran is a work of God``?

I ask because the following cannot be used to falsify the claim.

``If it had been from anyone other than God, it would contain many (Kathirun) contradictions (Ikhtelaafun-).`` Koran 4:82

This is because even if one were to find several contradictions (not just the word), the above statement takes no position on whether or not the Koran is a work of God. >>>

Here is a supreme example of hypocrisy, and no I am not going to be polite and not call GT a deceiver here. I am baffled that he began his argument with contrapositive and now has turned completely around. What was the purpose of all those 101 posts about the contrapositive if you were going to deny your assertions here? He started off by stating a contrapositive of the statement, which logically is the equivalent of the original statement. Now when he couldn`t prove his point taking that he goes back to what I had originally claimed about the verse


``If it had been from anyone other than God, it would contain many (Kathirun) contradictions (Ikhtelaafun-).`` Koran 4:82

Contrapostive of the above

If it contains NOT many contradictions then it has been from God. The verse does imply a logically equivalent meaning concerning God when it talks about ghair Allah or other than Allah.

They are logically equivalent, you claimed so truthfully before and now are turning back on your heels. And yes there are several places where the Quran claims divine origin.

55:1 Ar-Rahman, (it is he) who taught the Quran...

Re: # 382 kaal

Yeah, but hamidm`s islam is still on the drawing boards.....hasn`t been released yet.... so the halwa has to wait.....

SR Ji relax; you seem to me like those kaanay Punjabi who hang a roti wali changair on their drawing room walls and think that they have deep roots in their culture. Otherwise how could you not appreciate Shahabnama, it is simply beyond me.

Now following is a translation of a paragraph from Shahbnama where author describes how he took his matriculation exam. He writes:

“For our vernacular final, the exam center was set at the Govt. High School Roapper. The city of Roapper was situated at about 11 miles from the city of Chamkor. All of us students rode a number of bullock carts and got there one day earlier. We were chaperoned by our Persian language teacher, Pandit Sri Ram. We were accommodated at a Sikh student hostel for the duration of exams.

As the sun went down the bell rang calling for the suppertime. All of us students took our respective plates, glass, and ghee and went to the dinning hall (langar khana). I was the only Muslim in the whole group so I was made to sit in a far off corner. One of the cook (laangri) was pouring daal in each students plate with a huge ladle. Two Sikhs were baking rotis on a huge iron skillet (tawa). They were constantly scratching their beards while large droplets of sweat from their bodies were constantly dropping into the dough. In addition, they were constantly wiping off sweat from their foreheads and armpits and continued making rotis with same hands. The cook who was pouring daal into student plates was constantly blowing his nose and everytime he did that, he would rub his nasal secretion between his thumb and finger like cold cream. Sometime he would cough huge balls of phlegm and spit them on the floor and rub it with his toe like an egg yolk. I was so disgusted to the point of petrifaction with this scene that I left without eating anything.

The dormitory I was residing in was also shared by about ten to 12 sikh boys. Just before they were getting ready to go to bed they shed all their cloths and walked around to cool off. After that they sat down in their under wears and opened up their hair. They oiled their long coifs and combed ‘em. Then they oiled their beards and wrapped them in dirty pieces of bandages. After that they kneaded the hair in their armpits and made beads. It was followed by vulgar horse-playing.

In the dining room they had betted each other and ate 20-30 chappatis each and now a fart fest was about to ensue. If one boy would fart then others would try to outdo him in loudness and stench…... Slowly the room was full of stench from their farts but now they started a new game. In this game every time someone farted they started accusing each other. They room had become unbearable and it was getting noisier by the minute. Suddenly the door opened and we saw Master Harbachan Singh at the door. At that very moment all the boys were pointing and screaming at Ajeet Singh accusing him for the latest explosion. Incidentally, Ajeet Singh was the son of Master Harbachan Singh, who was an executioner type master. He stepped into the room and realized what was going on. He sniffed the air for a second and said “Rab di qasme ay meray Ajeet di phoosi naiN”.

Now SR sahib how dare you compare this masterpiece with faggot b/s like yaadon ki barat. This is our culture. Only a kaana Punjabi would not appreciate that.

So many things have been called Islam that a non Muslim does not know how to remain a non Muslim, but hamdim2`s # 375 most certainly takes the halwa :)

Raw_Dust

Thanks, but I am looking for something explicit. Strange that such sentences are difficult to find....

Re: # 370 urstruly {``...Shahabnama is the classic in urdu literature, what are you talking about. ... the children ... were put through convent schools and Aitchison colleges where they didn`t learn a word of their native language...``}

Hazoor-e-walla,

Please don`t be overly generous with your generalizations. Some of us English Medium types do know a word or two of that other imperialist language, (namely: Urdu) that was imposed upon us by the bureaucrats of the Is-slimy Rip Public... Yes, we didn`t learn to read or write a word of our native language (namely: Punjabi)...

``Shahabnama is the classic in urdu literature...`` I beg your pardon, it is mostly a fictionalized aggrandisement disguised as an autobiographical work. Yes, it does have a few high lights but by no stretch of the imagination is it a ``classic in urdu literature`` as were autobrigraphical works like, for example, Yadoon key Baraat or Gangay Frishtay.

Qudrat ullah was a self-serving bureaucrat and an army tout who did much to retard literary scholarship in Pakistan as an intellectual mercinary of the late Field Marshall who made him in charge of the government watchdog ``Writers` Guild`` that later penetrated and destroyed the Progressive Writers` Movement and devised the takeover of the Progressive Papers Ltd... Mr. Shahab`s culpability does not end there. Earlier on he was a willing conspirator with Ayub and Skindar Mirza during the so-called Ghulam Mohammad days. (GM could neither walk, nor talk. Besides being a total hemiplegic he also developed a Tourette`s syndrome like condition, which precluded any reasonable possibility of him being his own man.) GM was a captive puppet in the hands of Mirza and Ayub who used him as a front to manipulate the country. Qudrat ullah Shahab was in the middle of it. He was a part of the cabal.

Next thing I know, you might be promoting the pathological murderer, Ghazi Ilum din Shaheed as a true hero. (Though how he managed to be Ghazi as well as Shaheed, beats the hell out of me.)

I suggest you tone down your Eastern nostalgia and focus on aiding and abetting your real masters, who shall be expecting you to pay your share for the upkeep of their armies in Iraq and Afghanistan less than two months from now; by April 15th.

Respectfully

...SR

Re: # 375 hamidm
[... i am quite content being a muslim as long as i don`t have to really accept muhammad as the last prophet, pray five times a day, pay zakat, starve myself for a whole month and then go to mecca..]

From hence-forth - this should be the definition of the ``true`` muslim - that`s the only way the muslims and the world would get a chance to get out this mess...... Anybody who prays more than twice a year should be ex-communicated from islam - as per the order of the latest [ not the last ] prophet Hamdim[MBUH - Merlot be upon him]...:)

``............ if you ever decide to cross over from the dark side, let me know and we can have some fun right here on god`s green earth ........... ``

We have got sooooo used to the dour political Islam which has infact been cultivated by the Aurangzeb-s and Zia-s of this world to benumb the mediocres of this world into submission that we are ``scared`` to even appreciate the goodies that the almighty has provided us on THIS earth........................we constantly live in the world of FEAR and we transmit this FEAR in other around us as well................and the more we fear the more we bow down and try to blow ourselves...................

Re: # 372 Hamidm2
Hamidm2, you have nailed Tahmed using logic, and the man is gored and is wincing. Let him be..Let him be. You won`t win, not because you are not right, but because the man won`t concede defeat, even if it stares at him from all sides. It amazes me that grown up, `educated` folks like Tahmed can have blinders on that prevent them from seeing their folly. Ciao

Re: # 367

masanamuthu,

before you post any more, you need to go back and read the original article. then ask yourself these important questions.... am i a good person.... am i a damn good intelligent individual.... or am i just a damn fool???

from the writings you`ve posted so far, it shows that you have only the `damn fool` attribute.

you`re giving bad names to one of the greatest nations in the world.... i am sure your forefathers would collectively want to slap you in the face if they can get to you.

Adios bro.

Re: # 364

raw-dust,

...... to be very honest i don`t know much about this punjabi supremacy stuff because i have never experienced it myself ........... even though my father was a punjabi (potohari) my mother was a pathan and we grew up speaking urdu .......... gwhile rowing up my friends were an odd mixture of biharis, anglo-indians, parsis, punjabis who didn`t speak punjabi, and a baluchi who claimed to be from karachi ...........

...... on a purely political basis i think that punjab with its overwhelming size and population was too big and should have been broken up into at least three provinces (and the others should have been broken up into at least two each )............

........... and i am not being all that introspective - i am quite content being a muslim as long as i don`t have to really accept muhammad as the last prophet, pray five times a day, pay zakat, starve myself for a whole month and then go to mecca with two million other third-world types .......... i am perfectly happy to pray twice a year, eat halwa (burp and say al hamdo lillah) and greet people with a hearty as-salaam o` alaikum ! .......... to me that is the essence of islam - the rest of it is superfluous stuff .............

I have not been following this discussion fully. But I saw this article in my local daily, The Ottawa Citizen, about a new book by Sam Harris about religions, which I thought may be of interest to people here. I was particularly struck by the following quote: ``Worse, Harris argues, moderate faith unwittingly shields fundamentalism. ``It provides cover for fundamentalists because religious moderates don`t want faith criticized. They don`t want the basic project of organizing your life around a given tradition and raising your kids in this tradition to be criticized. They want this tradition to be held sacrosanct.``



Religions haven`t earned our respect, says author
It`s dangerous for humanity to cling to irrationality
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Font: * * * * Dan Gardner, CanWest News Service
Published: Saturday, February 18, 2006
An American author`s examination of how faith triumphs over reason is more relevant now than ever before

As the controversy over the Danish cartoons continues to burn, one of the dominant themes to come up in this country is the need to respect religious beliefs. All faiths deserve deference, we often hear. It`s indecent to blaspheme against any religion. Some have even argued it should be illegal.

All wrong, says Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith. Religions don`t deserve respect because they haven`t earned it, he told me in an interview this week.

``You`re never admonished to respect a person`s ideas about physics or history or medicine or anything else except about God,`` he says. Religion aside, we don`t respect a person`s belief simply because she believes it. We look at her reasons for believing it. If the reasons are sound, we respect her belief. If not, we dismiss it -- sometimes quite rudely.

``It`s only on the subject of religion that we respect people who believe things strongly without good reasons or without good arguments or evidence,`` says Harris, whose book`s sharp logic and sharper words caused a stir when it was released in 2004.

``We have this double standard in our discourse. We allow people to say the most outrageous things on the most ambiguous evidence. We praise them for it and we have made it a taboo to criticize them for it as long as they`re making the claims in the language of one or another mainstream religion. If they`re talking about Zeus, obviously they`re marginalized. If they`re claiming that Elvis is still alive, they`re marginalized. But if they claim that Jesus was born of a virgin and will be coming back to earth like a superhero, they can get elected president of the United States. And, in fact, they could not possibly get elected if they were criticizing these ideas.``

Harris`s attacks on faith stem from more than the traditional hostility of the atheist. In a world of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and galloping technological advances, he argues, it`s increasingly dangerous for humanity to continue clinging to irrationality.

The problem isn`t just Islam; it`s Islam, Christianity, Judaism and every other ideology that asks us to check reason at the door.

In the U.S., Harris says, ``we have people who quite literally are convinced that the world is going to end some time in their lifetime and that prior to it ending we are going to have a massive civilizational conflict in the Middle East. And the people who believe these things are very close to the seats of power in the United States, if not in the seats of power. So it`s really not far-fetched to consider that an infatuation with biblical prophesy could become a self-fulfilling prophesy.``

Harris has done countless interviews and he`s found that this kind of talk, aimed straight at the Bush administration and the religious right, delights American liberals. ``I receive nothing but praise. But the moment I say politically incorrect things about Islam, we have problems.``

Harris is even tougher on Islam than fundamentalist Christianity. The Koran ``is a manifesto of religious intolerance. There`s nothing communicated so eloquently and so repeatedly as the idea that the infidel is fit only for the fires of hell.``

There are statements urging tolerance in the Koran, Harris notes, but they are the exception. Far more common are declarations that those who don`t believe in the One True Faith are wicked, horrible people who will be cast by God -- ``God the Merciful, the Compassionate`` -- into the eternal torment of hell.

In The End of Faith, Harris lists the Koran`s nasty statements about unbelievers. It spans 51/2 pages.

The Koran is certainly not unique in this, Harris is quick to add. ``The Old Testament is the worst book ever. There`s nothing to compare with Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Exodus for sheer barbarism. That really is the description for a theocracy every bit as barbarous as what we saw under the Taliban. And it`s so barbarous that most fundamentalist Christians and Orthodox Jews can`t even take it seriously. They have rationalized ways to ignore God in those chapters. Because it`s mind-boggling. The killing never stops.``

The New Testament also contains some chilling savagery, particularly the critical moment when Jesus returns as a wrathful conqueror who slays all who do not believe.

Harris appreciates the sentiment of religious moderates who argue that ``all religions teach us to become better human beings by being kind to others`` and that ``we should not allow hate-mongers to sow hatred,`` to quote a recent opinion writer. And he acknowledges that faithful men and women have often been inspired by their faith to be kind to unbelievers. But still, he thinks moderates are deluding themselves. ``Moderation is really nothing more than a relaxation of the degree to which you`re going to adhere to the ancient myths. You`re essentially editing your holy books and ignoring the more barbarous and intolerant bits and holding onto the stuff you like.``

Worse, Harris argues, moderate faith unwittingly shields fundamentalism. ``It provides cover for fundamentalists because religious moderates don`t want faith criticized. They don`t want the basic project of organizing your life around a given tradition and raising your kids in this tradition to be criticized. They want this tradition to be held sacrosanct.``

This is why moderates are so quick to dismiss the religious motivation of terrorism. ``When someone decides to fly a plane into a building at 400 miles an hour, it`s the religious moderates in our culture who say, no, that`s not really Islam. It`s political oppression, our arrogant foreign policy or other psychological or social factors,`` Harris says.

``The problem is religious moderates just don`t know what it`s like to be certain of paradise ... to be certain you`ll get 72 virgins if you die in the right circumstances. But people are telling us every day, with bomb blasts, that they are certain of these things.``

In this way, and many others, Harris sums up, ``we are paying a terrible and unacknowledged price for sheltering religious ideas from criticism.``

Dan Gardner is a columnist at the Ottawa Citizen.

SR,

..``Just take a hint from the Amazing Quran and listen to words of wisdom, let it be... let it be Oh, sorry that`s a hint from Paul McCartney, ... but it`s all the same. John and Paul were better know than Jesus after all``........... that was sooooo funny! .... can i use it ?

Re: # 370

urstruly,

......... sometimes i like you more than tahmed who is beginning to sound more and more like a lawyer: asking for evidence, whining, accusing people of misrepresentation and then sulking ............ just terrible ....... at least you seem to have a sense of humor even though you are intent on blowing yourself up - let me tell you that it is not worth it since they have run out of virgins ............ if you ever decide to cross over from the dark side, let me know and we can have some fun right here on god`s green earth ...........

``I`m quite surprised that this silly article is still engendering so much debate`` (SR)

you can say that again.....:)