Like many other people, I read these blogs every week and have done so from the beginning. I enjoy them, learn much from them, and appreciate your efforts. I especially enjoy when you answer questions towards the end of each week’s comments. I don’t often comment, but did want you to know that I am out here, looking forward to the latest entry each week.

TheBigOldDog:

I wonder of American Liberals and Feminists in particular realize this.

They don’t. They appear not to care to realize it.

Robert Spencer on May 4, 2008 at 2:20 PM

My theory on why feminists, and liberals in general, not only refuse to see Islam as the farce that is, but go out of their way to defend it, is because of their hatred of Christians and Jews, and their overall hatred of anything that they perceive to be connected a male dominated system of the West.

I think they see Muslims as the “underdog” and they defend them without any regard for what they are defending. Liberals tend to think in terms “if you are for something, you must be against its opposite” and “if you are against something, you must be for its opposite”.

So they refuse to contemplate the plight of Muslim women because that would mean they would have to criticize something that conservatives criticize.

It’s sort of like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” sort of thinking.

Of course, they could all just be stupid.

This is why, as much as Musharraf can be a buffoon, he’s got more sense in terms of individual rights than any mullah. We have to keep supporting him.

Given this rift, whenever any hadiths say ‘Narrated Aisha’…, do Shia Muslims automatically discount it, since Ali too discounted Aisha’s protestations of innocence in this incident?

No, not automatically.

Or is she given as much credibility as others, such as Abu Huraira? Reason I ask is that I’ve heard that Shia reject hadiths, but is that true, or is it just that they reject Aisha’s accounts that appear in any Hadiths, be it Bukhari, Muslim, et al? Also, do Shia follow the same Bukhari and Muslim hadiths, or do they prefer other hadiths instead?

Instead of the canonical Sunni collections, Shi’ites use Kulaini’s Kitab al-Kafi, Saduq’s Man la yahduruhu al-Faqih, the Tahdhib al-Ahkam, the Nahj al-Balagha, etc. In content they’re not all that different from the Sunni Sahih Sittah.

Tangential question. This incident appears to be at the root of the rift between Aisha and Ali, and she avenged her insult by shooting down his succession of Mohammed in favor of her father Abu Bakr.

Given this rift, whenever any hadiths say ‘Narrated Aisha’…, do Shia Muslims automatically discount it, since Ali too discounted Aisha’s protestations of innocence in this incident? Or is she given as much credibility as others, such as Abu Huraira? Reason I ask is that I’ve heard that Shia reject hadiths, but is that true, or is it just that they reject Aisha’s accounts that appear in any Hadiths, be it Bukhari, Muslim, et al? Also, do Shia follow the same Bukhari and Muslim hadiths, or do they prefer other hadiths instead?

The schools of Islamic jurisprudence are agreed that to be a witness one has to be a male Muslim who saw the act. Four such witnesses would establish that it happened.

Robert Spencer on May 4, 2008 at 2:18 PM

Wow. It just makes no sense that if a woman is raped, there would have to be four Muslim males to actually witness the act, AND come forward. No wonder, as you point out, that Pakistani prisons are full of women like this.

And of course, it’s probably the woman’s fault if she is raped…

Most religions, even Christianity, have historically treated women as lesser than man. But Islam really seems to take the cake on this.

If Aisha had actually been guilty of adultery but had asked for and received Allah’s forgiveness as Muhammad suggested, would she still have been subject to death under Muslim law?

Probably. The punishment for the crime is distinct from forgiveness. The stoning might have taken place anyway, as per the second story in my answer immediately above this one.

Who did Muhammad carry out the penalty of Rajam against? His favorite wife, the falsely accused Aisha, was innocent of adultery, according to Allah himself. Was there another wife whom Muhammad killed because of adultery?

No, he didn’t stone his wives. It was other people.

Here are three such incidents:

Abu Sa’id reported that a person belonging to the clan of Aslam, who was called Ma, iz b. Malik, came to Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) and said: I have committed immorality (adultery), so inflict punishment upon me. Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) turned him away again and again. He then asked his people (about the state of his mind). They said: We do not know of any ailment of his except that he has committed something about which he thinks that he would not be able to relieve himself of its burden but with the Hadd being imposed upon him. He (Ma’iz) came back to Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) and he commanded us to stone him. We took him to the Baqi’ al-Gharqad (the graveyard of Medina). We neither tied him nor dug any ditch for him. We attacked him with bones, with clods and pebbles. He ran away and we ran after him until he came upon the stone ground (al-Harra) and stopped there and we stoned him with heavy stones of the Harra until he became motionless (lie dead). He (the Holy Prophet) then addressed (us) in the evening saying Whenever we set forth on an expedition in the cause of Allah, some one of those connected with us shrieked (under the pressure of sexual lust) as the bleating of a male goat. It is essential that if a person having committed such a deed is brought to me, I should punish him. He neither begged forgiveness for him nor cursed him.

That’s from here.

Second one:

There came to him (the Holy Prophet) a woman from Ghamid and said: Allah’s Messenger, I have committed adultery, so purify me. He (the Holy Prophet) turned her away. On the following day she said: Allah’s Messenger, Why do you turn me away? Perhaps, you turn me away as you turned away Ma’iz. By Allah, I have become pregnant. He said: Well, if you insist upon it, then go away until you give birth to (the child). When she was delivered she came with the child (wrapped) in a rag and said: Here is the child whom I have given birth to. He said: Go away and suckle him until you wean him. When she had weaned him, she came to him (the Holy Prophet) with the child who was holding a piece of bread in his hand. She said: Allah’s Apostle, here is he as I have weaned him and he eats food. He (the Holy Prophet) entrusted the child to one of the Muslims and then pronounced punishment. And she was put in a ditch up to her chest and he commanded people and they stoned her. Khalid b Walid came forward with a stone which he flung at her head and there spurted blood on the face of Khalid and so he abused her. Allah’s Apostle (may peace be upon him) heard his (Khalid’s) curse that he had huried upon her. Thereupon he (the Holy Prophet) said: Khalid, be gentle. By Him in Whose Hand is my life, she has made such a repentance that even if a wrongful tax-collector were to repent, he would have been forgiven. Then giving command regarding her, he prayed over her and she was buried.

That’s from here.

And third:

A Jew and Jewess were brought to the Prophet on a charge of committing an illegal sexual intercourse. The Prophet asked the Jews, “What do you (usually) do with them?” They said, “We blacken their faces and disgrace them.” He said, “Bring here the Torah and recite it, if you are truthful.” They (fetched it and) came and asked a one-eyed man to recite. He went on reciting till he reached a portion on which he put his hand. The Prophet said, “Lift up your hand!” He lifted his hand up and behold, there appeared the verse of Ar-Rajm (stoning of the adulterers to death). Then he said, “O Muhammad! They should be stoned to death but we conceal this Divine Law among ourselves.” Then the Prophet ordered that the two sinners be stoned to death and, and they were stoned to death, and I saw the man protecting the woman from the stones.

That’s from here.

If the part of the Qur’an mandating stoning for adulterers somehow mysteriously “dropped out” of the Qur’an, then how do we know that other important parts haven’t also dropped out as well?

From the standpoint of unbelief, we don’t. From the standpoint of belief, what is in the Qur’an is what Allah wants there, and what isn’t in there is what he doesn’t want in there.

Robert, if Umar is right and the verse concerning Rajam somehow went missing, how then can devout Muslims claim the Qur’an is a literal, error-free copy of a book in Paradise? Doesn’t this tear a large hole in the “unadulterated Word of Allah” claim?

It only tears a hole in it if Allah did not will that the verses of Rajam be dropped, and remembered by Umar.

Interesting. Liberal muslims and non-mulim apologists always say that veiling of women is not a requirement of islam.

Stay tuned: this is next week’s topic.

I wonder of American Liberals and Feminists in particular realize this.

They don’t. They appear not to care to realize it.

Also, what does it say about Muhammad that he so easily believed such a sleazy rumor about his favorite wife?

True, but this must also be balanced against the fact that he received what he represented as a divine revelation exonerating her.

But what constitutes a “witness” in this case? Someone who saw the deed happen, or perhaps heard the man boast of his conquest? Who would decide if a witness is acceptable or not?

The schools of Islamic jurisprudence are agreed that to be a witness one has to be a male Muslim who saw the act. Four such witnesses would establish that it happened.

Does this mean that you would need 8 women to convict someone, or are sexual crimes different? In Sura 4, it states that a woman’s testimony is worth one half of a man’s.

Sexual crimes are different. The schools of Islamic jurisprudence are agreed in ruling a woman’s testimony inadmissible in a sexual crime, even one in which she was the victim.

“Generally Inhospitable”

lol!

Would make a great soap opera.

Connie on May 4, 2008 at 1:13 PM

“All my Harem”

“As the World Burns”

Would make a great soap opera.

Islamic apologists tell us that the injunctions of Shar’ia are contrary to the core of Islam, but this reveals that the Qu’ran itself is frequently the source of such injunctions.

“Surely Allah’s Apostle [that is, Muhammad] carried out the penalty of Rajam, and so did we after him.”

Who did Muhammad carry out the penalty of Rajam against? His favorite wife, the falsely accused Aisha, was innocent of adultery, according to Allah himself. Was there another wife whom Muhammad killed because of adultery?

“if you have committed a sin, then repent to Allah and ask Him for forgiveness, for when a person confesses his sins and asks Allah for forgiveness, Allah accepts his repentance.”

If Aisha had actually been guilty of adultery but had asked for and received Allah’s forgiveness as Muhammad suggested, would she still have been subject to death under Muslim law?

Lashes for adultery? Then why do some Islamic states sentence adulteresses to be stoned to death? Because of a hadith that says that the Qur’an originally mandated stoning for adulterers, but the passage somehow dropped out.

irishspy raises a question above that puzzles me as well. If the part of the Qur’an mandating stoning for adulterers somehow mysteriously “dropped out” of the Qur’an, then how do we know that other important parts haven’t also dropped out as well?

irishspy on May 4, 2008 at 11:01 AM

I was thinking exactly the same thing. It is pretty shocking to me that there are Hadith, or holy Islamic traditions, which claim that portions of the Quran are not original.

This is analogous to the Pope admitting that the Bible contains corruptions. Well… I guess that would bother some Christians more than others. But I can’t imagine what conservative Muslims think of this.

But suppose that it is true. As we have seen, much of the Quran is a corruption of the Torah. Could it be that the original law was influenced by stuff like Deuteronomy 22:23-24, and then quickly changed to 100 lashes as a sort of ‘mitigation’? (if you can call 100 lashes a more just punishment to stoning).

Or, could it just be the claim of sexually repressed mullahs and clerics who want to increase the penalty to death to purify their religion?

After thinking about it, I suspect the later.