From: bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Subject: Re: Few remarks about discussion on Baha'i Faith.
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 16:46:08 GMT

In article <1992Jul23.184429.6632@ac.dal.ca> 01saeid@ac.dal.ca writes:
>In article <1992Jul21.104425.6862@cco.caltech.edu>, bes@cco.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>> Concerning:  The authenticity of the Qur'an and of Hadith.
>> 
>Dear Behnam;
>I have read your article and I am sorry for not replying to you soon.
>I read your reply and frankly did not get very much out of it. One thing
>that I would like for you to do is not to post my article back again.
>This makes me believe that you really do not read my articles and simply
>pick a paragraph and elaborate on that. As an example I only post back
>one of your answers to my paragraphs.
>===================================================================
>>> ...
>>>Instead he and all the others in the past somehow claimed to be the last
>>>prophets. It is due to the imperfection of the humanity that the words
>>>have to be twisted around. Just the same as current political game with in
>>>the American system in order to win the election.
>>>...
>> Frankly, I am surprised to hear a Bahai compare the Messenger of God
>> to a politician who would want to mislead people.
>> 
>> Behnam Sadeghi
>============================================================
>My dear frind, I had half of a page writing prior to making my point and
>you just took the last paragraph and made a comment about it. 

I read all of your article.  I didn't have any comments I the part from
your article that I didn't quote, but I just found the above sentences
(which I did quote) somewhat objectionable.  

Anyway, from now on I'll try to quote the whole of articles even if
I don't have any comment on most of them.

>Unfortunately this has been the trend for most of the articles posted
>in this news group in the last while.
>This also makes me to believe that you do not understand correctly what
>I wrote other wise you did not refer back to them as often. 
>A correct way of exchanging ideas in this manner is for each of us
>to read others ideas, think about them and write to answer the articles
>or make new points. So I start by refering to your points regarding
>the correctness of Qur'an.
>
>My friend, I am not against the correctness of Qur'an. Moreover, as a
>Bahai I an instructed to beleive in Qur'an as the holy book of Islam.
>But as person with the current standards of technology I have my doubts
>and that is why I am looking to find a more current book where the information
>in that book is according to the new era where I am living in. I do not
>deny the correctness of the book but what I am saying is that I simply
>need a new book since I am living in the new era.
>I don't believe it when you say that Qur'an was memorized and preserved
>correctly. You as human when try to memorize something can only memorize
>it for so long and then start to imagine the words either shorter or longer
>than they were. As far as I am concern the compilation of Qur'an took
>almost four hundred years. Now you tell me it is the exact words of the
>prophet. I am saying I have a hard time believing in that.

O.K., I read all of what you wrote.   You say the compilation of the
Qur'an took 400 years.  I am not going to argue on this, but I'll
just suggest that you do some reading on this subject.  It doesn't
matter too much which sources you refer to as the answers are going to be
more or less the same.  

You also say that you don't believe the Qur'an could be memorized
correctly.  Fine.  But if you read my earlier reply, you'd notice
that I said that Qur'an was *both* written down (immediately as 
dicated by the Prophet) *and* memorized.  So memorization wasn't
the only method of preservation.

As for the perfection of memorization, the fact that Qur'an was revealed
gradually over a period of 23 years made it easier to memorize it.  There
were a good many of the companions of the Prophet who memorized it. 
Memorization *can* be perfect or near perfect.  Even today we have 
teenagers who have the whole of Qur'an by heart.

There were also a good many companions of the Prophet who served as 
scribes and wrote down the word of God.

>Regadring the Ahadith you mention that many of the ahadiths have to be
>analysed carefully and if any of them are against Qur'an they can not
>be believed in. I am asking who is to take the task to analyse them.
>So many diversity in Isalmic religion that makes me wonder who has the
>right to analyse the Ahadiths. Who has the right to analyse the Qur'an.
>Don't you think that giving the authority to someone to analyse Qur'an
>and then giving the authority to someone else to do the same thing
>will cause anarchy. I believe there is an anarchy in Moslim religion as
>to who is saying the right thing and who has the right to analyse.
>To become a Moslim Scholar you have to become familiar with all aspects
>of Islam and finally you have to start analysing the events and Qur'an.

I read all of the above.  I don't have any comment.

>In one of your articles you mention a method to find the correctness
>of Ahadith. Frankly I still stayed confused because you say that stick
>to one analyser and do not leave it even if it is wrong.

The method I mentioned (isnad analysis + matn analysis) is the 
usual way of evaluating ahadith.  It's the logical way of going
about this business.  And that's what scholars do.
For example, isnad-analysis means that you rate a hadith based
on the nature and number of its isnads and based on the 
credibility of the narrators.   And there are many ratings.  To
name a few: mutawatir, sahih, hasan, maqtu' or munqati', mursal,
da'if, qarib, etc.

However, I suspected that perhaps the premises of Mr. Hakim on Hadith
were different.  So I offered to base our discussions 
on Mr. Hakim's premises.  I did this for two reasons:

1.  It won't  affect the outcome of the argument.
2.  It saves us time as we can perhaps avoid technical arguments
    about hadith.

>I ask you why there is so much analyses of the word of god that I have to
>be confused in choosing the right word and I always have to be scared that
>if I ever chose the right Mullah for my analyses or even if half way trough
>my life I find that I don't like the analyses I can replace the ideas
>of that Moslim Scholar with another and I will be fine.

On minor and technical legal issues, diversity of 
opinion is to be expected.  However, on major issues there's no
room for diversity.  An obvious example is that the Unity of God is 
emphasized, so there's no room for polytheism.  Another simple example
is the meaning of the phrase "yawm al-qiyama" (Day of Resurrection).  This
phrase appears exactly 70 times in the Holy Qur'an.  There's also a whole
Sourah just named al-qiyama which graphically describes the Day of 
Resurrection.  What this terminology is all about is cannot be mistaken
by any person of average mind who reads the Qur'an.  Of course, there are
many other examples.

>I am sorry but this way of life if too complicated for me and there is more
>in this life than fighting over analyses and correctness. I think things had
>to be keep in one piece at the beginning otherwise the wall will start cracking
>as it looks in the Moslim religion.

It's actually very simple.  I talk from first hand experience!

>In the end My friend I do not make similarity between the Messanger of god
>and the politics today. I am telling you that look that inefficiency of the
>human language to deal with the situations and obviously you either did not
>get my point or you went on assuming that by cutting my article you can fool
>me.

It's possible that I didn't understand your point.  It's also possible
that you didn't explain your point clearly enough.
But I certainly didn't want to "fool" you.

>Saeid

Behnam Sadeghi
Newsgroups: soc.culture.iranian