From: graham@maths.su.oz.au (Graham Matthews)
Subject: Re: Words Feminists find Demeaning!
Organization: Sydney University Computing Service, Sydney, NSW, Australia
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 01:41:13 GMT

Me:
>The IMHO gives away the fallacy in this sentence Sandra. What is 
>"a true Islamic country". It does not exist because no-one knows
>what the "true Islam" is - you may have an opinion about it (hence
>the IMHO) but there is no clear definition of it. Your statement
>               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>does not mean much then ...

(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>If a "definition" is all you are after, then there's clearly a
>definition of (true) Islam.  Islam is the system of beliefs 
>that was introduced and founded by Prophet Mohammad, peace be
>upon him.  The laws of Islam are defined firstly by the Holy
>Qur'an, which is believed by all Muslims to be the word of God,
>and secondly by the sayings and actions of the Prophet Mohammad.

I have after a clear meaningful definition. I do not have that since
Mohammed is dead and hence I cannot ask him the meaning of the words
he wrote. All I can do is guess at their meaning.

Thus I have a single syntactic definition (the words he wrote) but
many semantic definitions (interpretations of those words).

(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>So much for definition.  But if you had in mind "interpretation"
>rather than definition, then it's only natural that there is more
>than one interpretation of Islam.  We could hardly expect anything
>else, could we?  In fact, there are bound to be differing interpretations
>of almost any document (or ideology), be it the US Constitution or
>the Bible, or the Holy Qur'an.

Sure we could hardly expect anything else. That is my point.
There is no "one interpretation" of Islam that is "the true Islam".
The problem of interpretation ensures this. Yet Sandra's whole
argument is based on the premise that there is a "true Islam",
namely that described by her interpretation.

(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>But how do we decide which interpretation is the more correct one?
>How do we know of a certain belief is consistent with "true Islam"?
>The answer is that we must refer back to the definition of Islam
>and apply that definition as rigorously as we are able to in order to
>assess any given belief.  The closer a given belief is to the letter
>and spirit of the Holy Qur'an and the actions of the Prophet, the
>closer it is to Islam.

BZZZT! You are falling into the same trap as Sandra. You say "refer
back to the definition ..". But the definition is just syntax - devoid
of any meaning. Only interpretations have meaning and there are more
than one of these so you cannot "refer back to THE definition" as
it is not *unique*.

Me:
>>Here we have the "true Islam" fallacy again. The Qu'ran is open for
>>interpretation - it is not clear what its message is in detail.
>>How do you know that those Muslims who use the Qu'ran to oppress 
>>women are in fact not just doing God's word?
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>The answer is that we look at the text of the Qur'an and if we
>see somebody is doing the opposite of what the Qur'an ordains, then
>we decide that he is violating the word of God.

Nope - if a passage in the Quran has more than one interpretation how
can I condemn an action. The action may be right in one interpretation
and wrong in another.

Me:
>>No the problem is again this clinging to a notion of the one true
>>Islam. I really can't understand how you can consider this notion
>>meaningful.
(Behnam Sadeghi) writes:
>"One true Islam" exists and is very meaningful.  For a precise
>definition of it see my first paragraph.

Syntax is not meaningful.

graham
--
Graham Matthews                 And it's true we are immune
Pure Math, Uni.Sydney, Oz       When fact is fiction and T.V. is reality
graham@maths.su.oz.au
Newsgroups: alt.atheism