Re: 12 Contradictions in the Koran

as-salaamu ^alaykum.

The topic of kufr and the legitimacy of calling someone "kaafir" is
being discussed on this newsgroup. I find this exchange in this thread
relevant to this. Hence I am quoting more of the history than I might
otherwise.

Kufr is often translated as "unbelief," but this English term carries
meanings not clearly connected with kufr, and it does not express
meanings that are. Kufr is an act of rejection, and in particular, it
is an act of rejection of truth, when it comes in a form that the
person in question is capable of understanding, but the person either
does not understand out of culpable negligence, or actually does
understand but represses ("covers") the understanding.

I have often encountered among Muslims the idea that kufr is only
about religion. However, it's been my point for some time that our
relationship with truth is precisely our relationship with God. If we
reject truth when it comes to us, we are rejecting God. God is truth.
Truth is God. This is why I made that statement in a prior post.

Now to the ongoing discussion:

On Wed, 17 May 2006 11:46:41 -0500, "Vladimir Youssef Hattaat"
<for_sri@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Abd ulRahman Lomax wrote:
First of all, I have not claimed that the
Qur'an has no contradictions. Secondly, I have not stated that I
believe that it cannot contain any contradictions. Third,
"contradiction" has been insufficiently defined for me to express any
clear opinion.

Now, these are categorical statements. I think they are clear,
especially the first two. Further, they are easily verifiable by
examining the record. It is one thing for a writer to misremember what
has been said, and it is common among us humans to remember what we
thought a person meant rather than what the person actually says.
Causes a lot of arguments, among those inclined to argue!

However, when the possibility of error is pointed out, by a direct
denial, presumably based on knowledge (I do have some idea of what
I've written, and, besides, I think I looked back and checked, though
I too could miss something), the writer is on notice. The writer can
reject what I'm saying (one of the equivalent terms to kufr is
kadhdhab, or "crying lies") or, if the writer is among the cautions,r
accept it, or, prudently, assign it the possibility of truth and not
deny it until further investigation.

I do not assume that a person is cautious because he calls himself
Muslim, nor do I assume that a person is incautious because he does
not call himself a Muslim. Rather, if I am going to judge at all, I
look at the behavior of the person.

Now, here comes Mr. Hattat with his "evidence:"

But you stated that:
1) If you see a contradiction in the Koran then the problem is in YOU,
no in the Koran.

I did not say that. I said something that he interpreted that way. But
there was a crucial difference between what I said and what he heard.
I'd guess that he has not gone back to read the original. So I'll
bring it here. I did this before, by the way, but he has insisted on
quoting a paraphrase instead of what I actually said. And he even had
the temerity to put quotation marks around it:

2) "I believe that the Koran is from God so I dont dwell much on the
possiblity that the Koran could have contradictions."

What I actually said:

When we look at
our understanding of the world and we see contradiction, it is a sign
that we have not understood something. When I read the Qur'an and it
seems to be saying something untrue -- if this has never happened to
you, I'd suggest that you are probably either not paying attention, or
you are incapable of questioning what you've been told is true, or you
are magnificently deep and wise, blessed by Allah to understand all the
hidden meanings of things. I would not bet my life on the last
possibility. -- I take it to mean that something is incomplete in my
knowledge or analysis. The problem could be anywhere. Theoretically, it
could be in the source text itself. But I'm a Muslim, "all of it is
from the presence of God," so I don't dwell on that possibility a lot.

This does not assert that there is no contradiction in the Qur'an. It
does note that "I don't dwell on that possibility a lot," which
comment makes it quite clear that it is logically a possibility.

Hattat said, to repeat:
But you stated that:
1) If you see a contradiction in the Koran then the problem is in YOU,
no in the Koran.

What I actually stated, in the full original post, was that this is
one of the logical possibilities. That is, if I see a contradiction in
the text, one of the possibilities is that I have not properly
understood the text. This is true with *any* text, actually. But
Hattat, I think, wants to dismiss me as a religious fanatic, so he
does not see what I actually wrote, but only seizes on an appearance
of it. This is, it seems to me, precisely what he does with the
Qur'an: he would rather see a contradiction than interpret the Qur'an
in such a way that the contradiction disappears. This clinging to
contradiction is precisely the description of the people of the left
hand in Waaqi'a. As I recall, "Do you make it your livelihood to call
it lies?"

I can't claim that Hattat is a kaafir. That depends on balance, and I
only see a very narrow slice of his presence here. But what I can see
here is, indeed kufr. And that is not at all based on a judgement that
anyone who criticizes the Qur'an is a kaafir. I don't make that
judgement, as certain Christians who used to write on this newsgroup
would, I think, testify. Indeed, if one were to reread my posts, back
up this thread, one would see that I consider that someone who does
not see contradiction in the Qur'an may be "not paying attention," or
worse. Fanatic belief in the Qur'an is, in fact, in every case I have
seen, belief in, not the Qur'an, but a set of ideas projected onto the
Qur'an. Such as, for example, the idea that all Christians are kaafir.
After all, qad kafara lladhiyna qaaluw....

My point here is that the writer cannot see what is in front of him,
in plain speech, much less what is in the Qur'an.

I'm not sure there is much of value left in the rest, but we'll see:

Your condescending remarks are noted. How scholarly and guru-like.

Some might say that. And some dislike honesty as well. What am I
supposed to do, pretend that Hattat is cogent?

I'm interested in this thread for what it shows us, right here, right
now, about Reality.

[...]
I didn't say I will disagree with anything you ever say without even
reading. In this above sentence I say that I disagree with your
personal opinion that "truth is not in any text, it is beyond symbols"
etc.

This could possibly be interesting. A modern form of kufr is the
belief that reality has no meaning, there are only opinions. This, in
my view, is true atheism.

Do symbols and their arrangement capture truth? Is there any sentence
that could describe a flower in any way other than by reminding us of
it? We could fill the universe with symbols and it would only describe
a tiny part of reality.

It is my opinion that God is efficient. He stores his knowledge in
Reality itself, there are not two things: his knowledge and reality,
there is only one. This is how his knowledge can be comprehensive.

And, rather neatly, it leaves no room for a split between religion and
science, except as to approach. Science approaches reality through
detail and analysis, which the knowledgeable accept will always be
incomplete. Even if we do find the link between relativity and quantum
mechanics. Religion, or, shall I say, true religion, trusts reality,
without knowing it in detail or comprehensively. There is no division
here.

I said it was my opinion, perhaps. As to disagreement with it, perhaps
the disagreement is closer to the truth.

In other words, perhaps there is, indeed, truth in a text. Such as the
text of the Qur'an, as a proposed example. Even in the meaning that
I'm giving the word, which is quite equivalent to "God." This is, in
fact, the classical position of the scholars. Don't ask me to explain
it.

You need to make up your mind, perhaps.

No, I don't.I do not need to make up my mind, indeed I strongly resist
making up my mind, about things where I have insufficient knowledge.
This particular point engaged some of the best minds in Islamic
history. I do not presume that I am going to solve it. And, frankly,
I'd rather take my daughter to her dance recital.

You shouldn't immediately accuse other people with being insincere
"coverers of the truth" when they disagree with what you say, perhaps.

I have not accused Hattat of being insincere. If my memory is faulty
or I mistyped, though, I apologize. I do not think he is insincere,
though he has not disclosed his agenda. Why, indeed, is he writing
here? To make Muslims look foolish? To save us from our ignorance? To
display his superior knowledge? To seek truth?

Any of these would be "sincere." In a way.

But I will claim that he is unwilling to grant points made, and thus
unlikely to learn much.

You may look foolish when you later agree with them on what they had
disagreed with, perhaps.

I don't give a fig about looking foolish, because I *am* foolish. At
least sometimes. Why should not my appearance match my reality?

"Truth is not in any text, truth is beyond symbols."
Truth about what? Make yourself clear.

"A long road to go down."
How mystical.

A long road, sometimes dry and dusty, sometimes through lush valleys
and over vast mountain ranges. "Mystical"? Depends, I suppose.

Sayeth the wise guru who passed through all those valleys and rivers
and reached the end, while looking back and watching us mere mortals
still struggling through those valleys and mountains, and, with the
posture of a true enlightened man, while stroking his long white beard,
he added: "Mystical? Depends, I suppose."

Aw, shucks. Thanks. However, my beard is not white, it is grey.

Remember, I'm not writing for the kafiruwn, I'm writing for those who
are capable of being reminded. Now or in the future, here or there.

Your condescending remarks are again noted.

Everything is noted. You know, a writer just asked my permission to
delete from a Usenet archive something that he had written many years
ago. Seems he no longer thinks it should be floating around. I had
quoted him, so he needed my permission to have my post deleted. I
granted it.

Everything is noted. It would help to remember that. If we but knew!

Any member of any religion or mystical philosophies such as
neo-platonism can utter that sentence "God is Truth, Truth is God."

I suppose. So what? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Anyway,
I'm in some fairly good company on this particular point. There are
people who say "Allah Haqq" for hours.... nice people, too.

But this is not mystical philosophy only. It is simply a definition.
Accept that definition, and the puzzle pieces fall into place. Try it,
or don't. But don't say I never told you.

That line of yours came to me in a post which begins with the lines
"[Those 12 proposed contradictions] mostly sound silly, but some are
interesting, but I say that if you see a contradiction then the problem
is in YOU, not the Koran, because you see, it is the Word of God."

To quote Ronald Reagan, "There you go again." Go back and read the
post, read what I actually wrote. I didn't say that, and, while I
can't yet claim that Hattat is lying -- God, how silly it would be to
lie when the record is open and plain, for everyone to see -- he's
beginning to get to the point where it would be justified.

I *can* say that he is showing reckless disregard for the truth.
Another characteristic, by the way, of kufr. Quite possibly, he will
take this as an insult. It would profit him if he took it as a
warning, because out of the kaafiruwn come the muwminuwn. Some of
them. The rest remain in their state.

This is a big no-no around here, as in most communities, to quote
someone, using quotation marks, when it is not what the person wrote.

I'm using the word as one step more than that. Truth *is* reality.
There are not two things, truth and reality, there is only one.

Okay. Let's see.

Truth=God
Truth=Reality
(hence)Reality=God

Yes. However, don't imagine that either Reality or God are limited to
what we can conceive. I can say the word "Reality." Do I really know
what it is?

Do you have any other metaphysical term that you want to add to the
bundle? This is some sophisticated understanding of metaphysics I must
say. Let me help you:

Perception=Truth (from Altway, who is just a good philosopher as you
are)

I would not dream of making this equation, except in a certain narrow
way. Perception is a phenomenon, and all phenomena are within Reality,
but Reality is not limited by phenomena.

Knowledge=Perception (let me help you)

Again, true in a certain narrow way. Not in the general way that
Hattat might seem to be proposing.

So we have:

Perception=Truth=Reality=God=Knowledge

Yes. That is the narrow way. *God's perception.* Not mine. *God's
knowledge.* Not mine.

All those centuries philosophers pondered upon how to define those
things and their relations with each other in vain. It was so simple
all along. Just equate all the terms with each other! Why couldn't they
think of that earlier? We could have sent man to the moon by the time
of Aristotle.

If he only knew how clearly he can be seen. The philosophers struggled
over a different issue, and the best of them, I suspect, would quite
agree with what I wrote. Yes, it is simple. But it is not
comprehensive, as is the work of some philosphers. Let's say that what
I wrote could be first-grade philosophy, step one. The kindergartner
ridicules it and the one who said it, saying, "If math is so simple
that you can multiply a number by ten just by adding a zero to it, why
then is it so hard that it takes years to learn it?"

Oh well. The world had to wait the sophisticated Islamic
philsophers to come and enlighten us all.

They have already come. But who is listening?

I did. I brought one that I thought was an obvious contradiction. Then
another, And another. Twelve of them and they are posted in this
thread. I conceded two of them, and ten of them remain. No, I don't
think they are a waste of time. They all need to be addressed.

Who says?

I was asking here for Hattat, indeed challenging him, to bring *one*
contradiction on which he would stand, asserting, this is clearly a
contradiction. I would then look at it. As it is, he has presented
twelve, reduced to ten. I'll put the effort into one. If he can find
one that will stand examination, then I'll look at others. But he's
got no credibility with me. After all, he has shown clearly that he
can't see what is in front of his face, why should I assume that he
can see what is in the Qur'an, written in another time and in a
language that, it appears, he does not know?

And I wrote this before:

If you are capable of dealing with one contradiction claim at a time,
then you choose one of your liking and show me how my understanding is
warped and it is not a real contradiction.

I like none of them. I read them over and none of them seemed worthy
of much comment, so I commented on the process itself. Which *is*
worthy of comment, in my judgement.

I assume, from this, that Hattat does not wish to choose one
contradiction as the strongest and clearest, or as one of these.
Instead, he wants to stand on the ten remaining ones, which, I'd
assume, are weak. Really, all he had to do was pick one.

If, as he suggests, *I* pick one, he may then later claim, well, that
one is weak, but there are the other nine. If he picks one as the
strongest, and it is weak, he risks losing all of them. So he won't
take the challenge. It's a game.

Then maybe another day you
will choose another and refute it as well. It is up to you. But see, if
you want one contradiction, all you have to do is, to just go and
choose one out of the ten, and you have one. I deem them all equally
strong. You choose one you deem to be the weakest.

However, since he puts it that way, I will. Not right now, though.
It's late.

.

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