Talk:Quran/Archive 2

message: Re: 
::Some Muslims claim that the Quran contains much information about entities and events that has been confirmed by science and technology many years after the Qur'an was revealed, and take this to constitute further evidence that the Qur'an is indeed the true, eternal word of God.
... though I most powerfully and potently believe, I hold it not Wikipedia to have it thus set down. Hard to imagine defending a description along these lines of any other religious text, and I foresee a series of editorial conflicts on the impossible-to-resolve-objectively question of whether this sentence is justified by specific Qur'anic passages, and if so, which ones. Waste of time, and certainly such predictive passages, as remarkable as they are, are are not central to Islamic theology. (Placement of this passage in the article, however, suggests to the contrary.) May I vote for deletion? BrandonYusufToropov 14:35, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Entitites and events ... confirmed by science..." 

message: Can anyone verify yet the new artwork entitled Piss Koran? I just found a page on it in Wikipedia: Piss Koran. Flatbush 22:39, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a reason that page is up for deletion... - Mustafaa 23:33, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Piss Koran? 

message: A new anon editor worked a bit on the Qur'an article, modifying text re comprehensibility of literary Arabic vs. colloquial Arabic, adding bits re beauties of Quranic prose and value as guide to life. I reverted those edits. 
The first, because it contravenes everything I've read about the Qur'an and Arabic dialects -- even though it also exemplifies a phenomenon noted by various linguists, that is, Arab insistence that literary/Quranic Arabic is the only REAL Arabic, and consequent averting of the eyes from colloquial Arabic. Though .... hmmmm ... it might be useful to spell that out in the article, so that this doesn't come up again and again. This is the second time.
The last-named edits, because they were pietistic and POV. If there were no other comments re the reverence Muslims feel for the Quran, these edits might have been useful, but I think there's sufficient material there to indicate reverence. Zora 22:52, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pietistic edits by anon 

message: This article is meant to be acceptable to all, Muslim or non-Muslim; it should not be a pious tract. Devabration, your additions were too POV to keep. Sorry ... please try again, perhaps on a less charged topic. Zora 06:27, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: POV or non-POV, Debravation's edits are copied from Qur'an Complex, which is copyrighted text ("All Rights Reserved for the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an"). Please respect the relevant laws. - Mustafaa 19:17, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Devabration's edits 

message: Please delete the "lady". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.187.92.231 (talk • contribs) 14:11, 9 July 2005
:Please explain why.  I agree it's not the best picture there could be but it is not disrespectful and it rightfull shows that Qur'ans are put on display (at least in the west) for their beauty. gren 9 July 2005 18:34 (UTC)
:I see no reason to remove it. Sure it have been vandalized many times, but no one has offered a valid reason to remove it. Jwissick 04:21, 19 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It does look a bit unwanted if not offensive.I don't think its absolutely necessary to have a woman dressed in a manner contrasting to what the Qur'an says near to a picture of the Qur'an.It sure hurts the sentiments of those who love the Holy Book Nabeelmoidu 06:31, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  What's next? Posting guards at the Smithsonian to make women to wear burkas if they want to see the Qur'an?  People are offended by the Piss Christ image, yet we leave them and others.  If she was wearing a tube top or bikini, then I could see the point... but she is dressed conservitivly. I say leave it. Jwissick 06:43, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text:  The human figure in the picture is useful, as showing the scale of the Qur'an page. While I am not in favor of wantonly offending people, I also really don't feel I have to bend over backwards for people who have hair-trigger sensitivities. Nor should Wikipedia. Zora 07:30, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture on the bottom 

message: Altafuzzaman added a link, pointing to the United Submitters website (Rashad Khalifa's group). I erased it, because I felt that leaving it where it was really wasn't fair to someone just coming to this article for info. That's such a minuscule sect, not really representative of most Muslims. However, that reminds me that we need to revise any sections of this article relating to Qur'an Alone Muslims, as we now have somewhat more information about them. (I found a site maintained by a Bosnian dentist, linking to a bunch of other Quran Alone sites -- does seem to be an interesting if utterly disunited bunch of people. The Bosnian dentist defends slavery, as it is allowed by the Qur'an, and thinks all the Qur'an Aloners should make hegira to some place where they could live together in communal harmony <g>.) Zora 08:26, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: There should be one link to Qur'an alone on the page and from there they can find out what they want about the wide (yet not deep) variety of people who reject hadith, etc.  They are an interesting group and not "Qur'an Alone" like it used to be but more "Qur'an alone" -- since that's their main religious philosophy rather than their religious identification.  I think it's a very interesting group because you can have reformists who say without hadith if we follow what the Qur'an says we'll get western-liberal-democracy-with-moral-values and then you have the one supporting slavery as you mentioned and a whole boatload in between.  It has also spawned many new translations of the Qur'an, some trying to be more literal and some more or less incorporating Tafsir into the translation.  You have the Khalifa translation, ones done by (or related to) people at free-minds, the various branches of the Qur'an as it explains itself project.  Bunches of little grassroots groups armed with Arabic lexicons trying to get the Qur'an into the hands of the people.  I have no idea what (if any) effect they are having, but it's interesting to me.  I also don't know if they are "removing the bias of hadith and tradition from the Qur'an" as they say or doing apologetic translations.  In any case that's enough of that and... we shouldn't let fringe groups get too big for their boots... they have their own pages. gren 08:57, 26 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Link to submission.org 

message: Should this be included?`
http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/forgery.html
--Striver 16:51, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes it should! Thank you for bringing that to our attention, Striver. Shi'a are constantly being accused of having a different Qur'an. I thought that those accusations derived from the old traditions re the variant versions of the Qur'an kept in defiance of Uthman, one of which was Ali's. But it seems that the Sunni accusations derive from a different source entirely! This should be explained, certainly. I am not feeling well, but I will get to it later today, or tomorrow. Zora 19:25, 28 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  false suras 

message: Anent the 2nd sentence in the introductory paragraph of this article: many who self-identify as Muslim do not accept every word of the Qur'an as having been derived as stated. Would it not therefore be more accurate and NPOV to change the first two words so as to form the following sentence:
It is a tenet of Islam that the Qur'an is the literal word of God and the culmination of God's revelation to mankind, revealed to Muhammad over a period of 23 years through the angel Jibril (Gabriel).
An alternative substitution for the first two words is: "Islam holds". Myron 10:54, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: So what is the difference between "Islam holds" and "Muslims believe"? A Muslim by definition  is somebody who believes the tenets of Islam. Since I think your suggestion is equivalent to what is there already, I do not positively object to it, of course. dab (ᛏ) 14:52, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: My point is that someone who identifies as "Muslim" because of family background may not actually be devout, or practice or even believe in much or any of the religion. Thus some people claim a religious affiliation despite total lack of faith. I thought the rewording I offered might satisfactorily cover such contingencies, rather than imply that everyone who calls him or herself a "Muslim" necessarily believes exactly what is stated in the sentence in question. I wanted some discussion about this before making the change. Myron 15:34, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree that "Islam holds" is the better wording.  Although Dbachmann is right in that the word Muslim means a follower of the tenets of Islam, in today's world the word has taken on a different meaning with the millions of basically secular Muslims living in the West.Heraclius 15:36, 1 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: well, then I argue they cease to be Muslims. "secular Muslim" is an oxymoron, since Muslim is simply the participle to the verbal noun Islam (Muslim:Islam == Faithful:Faith). You can have an Islamic cultural background and be secular, but you can hardly be a Muslim and secular, any more than you can be a Christian and secular. Anyway, the point is moot, I don't want to dispute anything; I'm just saying that I am happy with both versions ;) dab (ᛏ) 11:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Muslims believe" questioned 

message: When I changed back to "Muslims believe", I hadn't realized that there was talk page discussion on this topic. I should have read it, and commented, before pushing ahead.
I think that we're all on the same wavelength in not wanted to define what Muslims must believe about the Qu'ran in order to be Muslims, it's just a question of the wording to use. We could say, "Most Muslims -- nay, all but a postulated minority of extremely liberal Muslims -- believe that the Qur'an is the word of God." But that's long, and I'm not sure that the "postulated minority" would fly. If I knew that name of ONE prominent Muslim modernist who took the "revelation passed through human understanding and a specific historical context" approach, we could just name him/her, and then the minority would no longer be postulated. Myself, I'm not sure that there are any Muslims who have publically advocated such an approach. I don't think it's because "Islam forbids", I think it's just because there are so many Muslims ready to riot and declare fatwas in "defense" of the Qu'ran that it would be a bold bold Muslim who took such a position. But ... there could be such a bold one. I'm still learning about contemporary Islam. 
We get into quibbles about the wording because we're trying to pack too much into just a few words. Perhaps we should try "unpacking" things a little. Zora 11:07, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Well... I'm not sure what "revelation passed through human understanding and a specific historical context" means exactly... because... I'm not sure that's so radical.  This is not to say that Muhammad was inspired instead of the Qur'an being divine revelation... that is the miniscule minority view.  But, Fazlur Rahman talks about the importance of context of 7th century Arabia and the society it was given to.  I think that's the same approach of Asma Barles and Amina Wadud... they talk about how it was given to a patriarchaly society.... which is why one of their books is title "unreading patriarchal interpretations in the Qur'an"... or something along those lines.  Gradualism that Qaradawi talks about deals importantly with the context of Muhammad's society... so, that statement doesn't seem too radical... not sure what you meant. gren グレン 12:33, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Apology - I edited without reading all the talk page 

message: An anon editor just created a new category of link, General, and put quran.org.uk into it. 
I'm somewhat uncomfortable with this. Putting the category at the TOP and including only one link seems to give this link a prominence it perhaps does not deserve. I had a look at the site and I'm not completely sure that it's inclusive or complete. But I am really really not sure. 
Could other editors, especially Muslim editors, please comment? Zora 21:18, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Addition of quran.org.uk 

message: The Quran is no longer accessible in any recognizable translation on Wikisource. If you search for "Quran" you will not find anything. If you click the Wikisource link from a Sura, and then click the next link on that page, you come to a translation that purports to be a grouping of the many translations into one. While interesting, this is ridiculous. I propose reverting/restoring all original copies of the Quran on wikisource. You'll also notice the Arabic text, previously available on English wikisource, to my knowledge, is no longer there. freestylefrappe 00:27, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  English Wikisource Quran...vandalism 

message: I removed it again. He's an extremist, notable only to extremists, and his work is simply not credible criticism. I'm not one to suppress rational criticism of the Qur'an, or of Islam -- after all, I own about four of Ibn Warraq's books. But unless Robert Spencer manages to get a lot of media buzz, he's not notable. (I would know -- I read the New York Review of Books, New York Times book reviews, and Arts and Letters Daily.) Zora 06:55, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Not notable? He is currently number 15 on the NYT best seller list and has been in the top 15 for 7 weeks. He is also best seller #66 on Amazon. JihadWatch.com is currently number 18,489 on alexa (A very high traffic rating). He is also currently doing talk show interviews all around the country. Ibn Warraq reviewed it and called it "A clarion call for the defense of the West before it is too late.". It is even outselling the Quran. He is most certainly notable.  Jwissick(t)(c) 14:29, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Regardless of notability, his views are not focused on the Qur'an but rather all of Islam. I agree with Zora about his work not being credible criticism. He does not skepticize at the intellectual level but rather focuses all his efforts on his personal animosity and bias against Islam. He just covers his extremism. He really is not that credible and selling books does not mean his link needs to be added to an article about the Qur'an. --a.n.o.n.y.m   t 19:16, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: As the foundation of Islam is the Quran, this book is relevant. His new book dwells on the Quran quite a bit. You both claim his work is not credible. Have either of you read his new book?  If so, then prove it is not credible... Jwissick(t)(c) 20:18, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

text: Even according to the book summary it talks more about fundamentalism. This book does not specifically focus on Quran material but rather Islamic fundamentalist society as a whole. Why does adding a link to spencer on the Qur'an page seem important to you? --a.n.o.n.y.m   t 20:37, 4 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Robert Spencer link