icantfindaname posted:

Why is religion being considered separate from the society as a whole? Who gives a poo poo if a premodern enpire was motivated by religion or not? Why are the Umayyads worse than Alexander or Ghengis Khan? If you get stoned for adultery why is it worse if that is prescribed in a holy book vs being a secular law?

Religion is simply one component of a society or culture and IMO it's very hard to separate it from those other components

Crowsbeak posted:

Would this be like if a Christian church banned the sacrament? Arguing its un biblical?

Wez posted:

Cockmaster posted:

For what it's worth, it was for less than one century that blaming an entire race for the actions of a handful of its members was widely frowned upon.

TheImmigrant posted:

No, it wasn't.

TheImmigrant posted:

I'm sure you believe that, son, and it is very gallant of you to come forward as champion for forums poster "fspades." Just the same, I've seen enough bankrupt relativism expressed on this forum, particularly regarding dear fetish peoples, that I'll wait for xir to clarify before believing it.

fspades posted:

It was also OK to not allow women to vote and punish people for homosexuality until very recent times, but now the Western world is over those they can lecture the rest of the world about their cultures' inherent sexism and homophobia.

Schizotek posted:

Hey folks! I know its a bit late, by its time for the first installment of

Wherin we shall delve into that most controversial of texts, the Quran. One surrah at a time. Starting with the first, Al Fatiha (The Opening).

Not too much to discuss. it's a pretty basic prayer. A fairly important one, as its part of the Rakah, the basic component of Muslim prayers.
As the first Surrah, and a short one at that, it makes a good starting point for aspiring Hafiz and Hafiza, who then clutter up the Muslim corner of youtube with it. Its like the "dog howling with sirens" video for devout Muslims:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlSMt5IkzqI
As well as being common for doing the whole "calligraphy artwork" thing:


Shockingly, this short inoffensive prayer is our first step into controversy. The most widely and easily available English translation of the Quran is not the one I used. It's the so called "Noble Quran", or the Khan translation. That version goes:

If you got your Quran for free on your Ipad or Kindle, it was probably this one. The original Arabic doesn't mention Jews or Christians, but the translators felt that many passages should be "clarified" with the commentary of Muslim scholars who were alive during the Crusades. Literally loving medieval. Unsurprisingly this is the official Saudi translation into English, and they spread it as much as possible. Despite its overall popularity with people looking to read the Quran due to its easy availability and zealous Saudi missionaries throwing free copies at anything and everything, it's pretty widely despised among American Muslims. Pray it stays that way.
For the duration of Hawza 'Ilmiyya Al-Schizotek we shall be using Arberry's translation found here: http://www.iqbalcyberlibrary.net/pdf/QA.pdf
Read the preface. It's pretty at the end.

almighty posted:

Wrong. 'Polytheists' refer to the old/non-Abrahamic religions that were dominant in the peninsula before Islam among the Arabic tribes. Basically, it extends that back and overlaps it with the usual biblical scripture regarding the end of the days and the anti-christ. It does not refer to Christianity at all. Seperately, the book deals with Christianity and Judaism as the books of God and goes as much to name the followers of Christianity and Judaism as 'the people of the book'. Theologically, Islam establishes itself as the natural successor to the line of mythology that came along through Abraham and the book is supposed to supercede Judaism and Christianity.