the three goddesses of arabia

[sm_yaseen]

AoA everyone,

This has been really bothering me for sometime and I want to get this sorted out asap. What the deal about the '3 goddesses of arabia' and verses about them being revealed first, and then redacted?

[shaad_lko]

its a lie - many versions peddled by Orientalists, but none with a grain of truth.

there are many rationale for the same - the defective chain of such narrations, lack of coherence with the overall narrative of Sura Najm, lack of historical and linguistic accuracy, lack of correspondence with rest of the Quranic text and mode of transmission...

[sm_yaseen]

jazakallah, shaad bro. That's everything I needed. Finally an end to something started by the Jaipur lit. fest and Rushdie...

[ihsan]

What many commentators fail to point out is surah Najm is the first surah in which a prostration is said to have occurred. This prostration occurs at the end of the verse:


And you laugh at it and weep not,
Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements (singing, etc.).
So fall you down in prostration to Allah, and worship Him (Alone).

Authentic traditions in Bukhari from ibn Masood state this happened in a gathering of the Prophet and the leaders of Quryash. So powerful was the recitation, that when the Prophet prostrated at the end to the Almighty, all the Qurayshi leaders prostrated with him to Allah.


Volume 2, Book 19, Number 173:

Narrated 'Abdullah bin Masud :

The Prophet recited Suratan-Najm (103) at Mecca and prostrated while reciting it and those who were with him did the same except an old man who took a handful of small stones or earth and lifted it to his forehead and said, "This is sufficient for me." Later on, I saw him killed as a non-believer.


Volume 2, Book 19, Number 176:
Narrated 'Abdullah bin Masud:

The Prophet recited Surat-an-Najm (53) and prostrated while reciting it and all the people prostrated and a man amongst the people took a handful of stones or earth and raised it to his face and said, "This is sufficient for me. Later on I saw him killed as a Nobel ever. "

To quote the following:


Al-Bukhari recorded that `Abdullah said, "Surat An-Najm was the first Surah in which a prostration was revealed. The Prophet (recited it in Makkah) and prostrated. Those who were with him did the same, except an old man who took a handful of soil and prostrated on it. [B]Later on, I saw him killed as a disbeliever; he was Umayyah bin Khalaf.'' Al-Bukhari recorded this Hadith in several places of his Sahih, as did Muslim, Abu Dawud and An-Nasa'i, using various chains of narration through Abu Ishaq from `Abdullah.

This clearly establishes that this occured in public, before the leaders of Quraysh who themselves, out of the power of the recitation, prostrated as well. ibn Abbas is said to have narrated this account, but it is obviously incorrectly attributed to him, for he would have not been born at this time:


Volume 2, Book 19, Number 177:
Narrated Ibn Abbas:

The Prophet I prostrated while reciting An-Najm and with him prostrated the Muslims, the pagans, the jinns, and all human beings.

The narration establishes that Muslims alone did not prostrate, but pagans as well.

If the story regarding the prostration is true, it seems obvious that the Qurayshi leaders tried to create propaganda out of the event and had to explain why they prostrated. They probably concocted some story that the Prophet praised their idols in this moment and duped them and the events in the non-authentic accounts probably re-transmitted the false story with their false explanations of the event.

[Perseveranze]

Asalaamu Alaikum,

It's fabricated. Do searches on Searching-Islam (http://searching-islam.com), you'll find alot of refutes.

Here's 2 -

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Polemics/sverses.html
http://www.load-islam.com/artical_det.php?artical_id=641&section=memberbase&subsection=memberarticles



There existed therefore a compelling theoretical motive for the invention of these infamous hadiths. If it be felt that this has now been demonstrated, there should be no further difficulty in suggesting that those hadiths have no historical basis. - J. Burton, "Those Are The High-Flying Cranes", Journal Of Semitic Studies, 1970, Volume 15, No. 2, p. 265.

[Resigned]

The stories are not necessarily fabricated. They simply derive from islam's pagan roots.

[Perseveranze]

The stories are not necessarily fabricated. They simply derive from islam's pagan roots.

Fabrication = invented story. This wasn't the only one. I'd recommend you look up hadith sciences.

[Resigned]

Fabrication = invented story. This wasn't the only one. I'd recommend you look up hadith sciences.
It's good that you understand the concept of fabrication as equating the process of science with hadith is truly a fabrication. There is no science involved in the pick and choose allowance for preferring one hadith or collection of hadith vs. another.
With the process of science, we have the benefit of peer review, falsification and repeatable results. With hadith, we're left with little more than islamists never coming to a consensus. And of course, there is no way they can.

For example, whether Ishaq was literally correct in his writings of "the prophet said... ]/i]", or Ishaq's claims regarding what [i]others have claimed "the prophet said... ]/i]", all suffer from the same fatal flaw: it's all hearsay evidence. The alleged "relative strength" of various claimants as to what "[i]the prophet said... ", is merely a matter of choosing to accept the stories (tales and fables) of some claimants in deference to others. It's remarkable that you and others will bicker about - and even defend - the relative strength of such hearsay claims yet the claims of muhammud (hearing voices and receiving so-called revelations from a supernatural entity), are, for some strange reason, accepted without such critique. It's all legend building as far as I'm concerned.

[shaad_lko]

It's all legend building as far as I'm concerned.

and here we have a legendary spectacle again..

[Resigned]

and here we have a legendary spectacle again..

Listen and learn.

Some of the verbiage may not be the user-friendly monosyllables you're best suited for so keep a link to an online dictionary available.

[Perseveranze]

It's good that you understand the concept of fabrication as equating the process of science with hadith is truly a fabrication. There is no science involved in the pick and choose allowance for preferring one hadith or collection of hadith vs. another.
With the process of science, we have the benefit of peer review, falsification and repeatable results. With hadith, we're left with little more than islamists never coming to a consensus. And of course, there is no way they can.

Nope, hadith science involves many things such as;

- Strength/weakness of the chain of narration
- Contradiction/relevance to the Qur'an
- Hadith replications, such as repeated hadith by different narrators
- Nature of the text/speech
- etc.

It has nothing to do with "picking and choosing", that's quite a clueless analysis.

I'd recommend you read it about it here - http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/Ulum/

[Resigned]

Nope, hadith science involves many things such as;

- Strength/weakness of the chain of narration
- Contradiction/relevance to the Qur'an
- Hadith replications, such as repeated hadith by different narrators
- Nature of the text/speech
- etc.

It has nothing to do with "picking and choosing", that's quite a clueless analysis.

I'd recommend you read it about it here - http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/Ulum/

Here again, you don't understand the process and the discipline of science. Those two attributes are not applied to the hearsay claims of what someone said to someone else who heard someone say "the prophet said".

To worship what "the prophet' may or may not have said is subject more to pick and choose preferences than islamists would like to admit. We saw that dynamic in the thread regarding muhammud's relations with his child bride. There was a hadith available to promote any position one wanted to defend. Any number of these "the prophet said" hadith were contradictory with others such that whatever one wanted to believe, there was a handy hadith available.

There is no science in unverifiable, hearsay claims.

I'd suggest you get at least a middling understanding of the scientific method before trying to make it apply to hearsay claims.

[shaad_lko]

its a sight to behold an agitated evangelical atheist, but gets boring after a time..

[Resigned]

its a sight to behold an agitated evangelical atheist, but gets boring after a time..

If you're unable to defend an argument, spamming the thread like a petulant child just makes you look foolish.

[ihsan]

So what Resigned is actually saying is that Muslims shouldn't employ scholarly criticisms to analyze their own texts, while praising the West and their inherent ability to be scholarly and critical regarding their own texts.... when it comes to Muslims and criticizing texts, he calls it being subjective... I guess historians aren't critical in accepting narrations and take them face value as pure evidence... that's why historians actually believe the Pharoahs of Egypt vacationed to the netherworld....

[Resigned]

So what Resigned is actually saying is that Muslims shouldn't employ scholarly criticisms to analyze their own texts, while praising the West and their inherent ability to be scholarly and critical regarding their own texts.... when it comes to Muslims and criticizing texts, he calls it being subjective... I guess historians aren't critical in accepting narrations and take them face value as pure evidence... that's why historians actually believe the Pharoahs of Egypt vacationed to the netherworld....
Try and think this through. A man claiming he was spoken to by an angel - even though he was able to convince the gullible around him this actually occurred - is hearsay evidence and nothing more than tales and fables.

[ihsan]

Try and think this through. A man claiming he was spoken to by an angel - even though he was able to convince the gullible around him this actually occurred - is hearsay evidence and nothing more than tales and fables.

An absolutely pointless statement that has nothing to do with the context of this thread...

[Resigned]

An absolutely pointless statement that has nothing to do with the context of this thread...

Actually, it does. Once again, try and think it through. Islamist "scholars" have no way of verifying the claims of muhammud hearing voices.

Your claimed "scholarly" criticisms are opinions based on hearsay and conjecture.

[ihsan]

Actually, it does. Once again, try and think it through. Islamist "scholars" have no way of verifying the claims of muhammud hearing voices.

Your claimed "scholarly" criticisms are opinions based on hearsay and conjecture.

Actually, it doesn't. Try again...

[Resigned]

Actually, it doesn't. Try again...

You're the one making specious claims you are unwilling or able to defend. You're the ons tasked with proving your claims.

You're required to substantiate your claims (use the process of science, not islamo-science), to prove to us that the hearsay evidence you attribute to 7th century characters is true. Once that is performed, you can move on to proving that a 7th century character who claimed he heard voices from an angel actually was visited by an angel. With that complete, you can then prove that the man who claimed he heard voices from an angel was actually an angel of the gods and that those gods actually did instruct an angel to put voices in the head of said 7th century character.

Get back to us with what you find.

[ihsan]

You're the one making specious claims you are unwilling or able to defend. You're the ons tasked with proving your claims.

You're required to substantiate your claims (use the process of science, not islamo-science), to prove to us that the hearsay evidence you attribute to 7th century characters is true. Once that is performed, you can move on to proving that a 7th century character who claimed he heard voices from an angel actually was visited by an angel. With that complete, you can then prove that the man who claimed he heard voices from an angel was actually an angel of the gods and that those gods actually did instruct an angel to put voices in the head of said 7th century character.

Get back to us with what you find.

the context of this thread was surely not about judging prophetic experience, but about history as a 'science'... like I said, try again...

[Resigned]

the context of this thread was surely not about judging prophetic experience, but about history as a 'science'... like I said, try again...
The context of was Shirley about pagan goddesses. But that does you a good reason to sidestep.

[ihsan]

The context of was Shirley about pagan goddesses. But that does you a good reason to sidestep.

which makes the original comment by you about 'subjective' picking-and-choosing of history as totally irrelevant.. so I responded to your irrelevant tangent...

like I said, try again...