Hafs Warsh 10 Qurans
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Salam,
While I applaud all the efforts that went into this post, I must state that it is simply promoting a
lets put our head in the sandapproach.That different writings of the Quran exist is a fact, that a different verse split exists is a fact...
A muslim builds his/her faith in God not by the ink on paper, but by the signs all around us in heavens and earth that are a testimony to God day and night.
What would Abrar rather have...A muslim who is unaware of textual variations and who has his faith shaken once confronted with these facts sooner or later, or, a Muslim who has studied and understood these differences and still beleives in the divinity of the Quran and believes that the Message is indeed protected and not the ink on paper that may be changed.
It is the Message (Al-Zikr) that God has pledged to preserve...Not the ink on paper.
Finally, your post has made a statement that this site encourages study/exploration of 19. While you may have an adversity to the issue of 19 as some people so, you should note that this site encourages the study of everything (texts, physical evidence, archeology, history, math, science, etc.) and is not limited to one aspect.
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Dear Warner,
The theme of the article you have presented shows that some scholars have no scholarly knowledge of Quran. They are not aware of comprehensive comparisons between various versions of Quran. They have believed in overheard information about the diffrences in various versions of Quran. Quran has the highest standard of literary language in the world. It uses both literal and figurative style which may cause confusions for those who are not at home with linguistics. Such scholars and readers who have a tendency towards hopelessness want everything to seem obvious without pondering, reflection and appreciation.
In chapter 9 verse 11 the God says "If they repent, and they honour the oath of allegiance, and they contribute towards betterment, then they are your brothers in the system. We explain the revelations for a people who know."I cannot locate the verse number in which I remember the God is telling believers not to ask too many questions about Quran which would create trouble, the God makes any matter seem plain to anybody he pleases. It is best explained in chapter 24 verse 35 " God is the Light(guider) of the heavens and the Earth. The example of His light(guidance) is like a concave mirror within a lamp, the lamp is within a glass, the glass is like a radiant planet, which is lit from a blessed olive tree that is neither of the east nor of the west, its oil nearly gives off light(guidance) even if not touched by fire. Light(guidance) upon light(guidance), God guides to His light(guidance) whom He pleases. And God sets forth parables for the people, and God is aware of all things." I understand by this verse that in order to stay on the right path one has not be furious, he has to be calm, peaceful and relaxed and rely on the goodness of his heart which will keep on being guided in the way God pleases. One should not get carried away by knowledge alone but should evaluate knowledge in the light of wisdom in a very peaceful and relaxed way. And one thing should be clear that the 100% meaning of Quran is known to the God alone and not even the prophet but one has to believe in all Quran even if he cannot simplify everything. Every person is in the process of aquiring knowledge from birth to death. And the world is in the process of aquiring knowledge since the begining of mankind and will keep on aquiring knowledge till the last day. progress and elightenment is a constantly ongoing process.
The God says in chapter 3 verse 7 "He is the One who sent down to you the Scripture, from which there are governing verses; they are the essence of the Scripture; and others which are similar. As for those who have disease in their hearts, they will follow what is similar from it seeking to confuse, and seeking to derive an interpretation. But none know its interpretation except God and those who are well founded in knowledge, they Say ?We believe in it, all is from our Lord.? And none will remember except the people of understanding. " -
Peace and greetings
Dear Layth,
I resepect your views but I think you have misunderstood.You said "I must state that it is simply promoting a
lets put our head in the sandapproach."
I do not believe in hiding from facts. One must be aware of as many facts as possible. But it is also a fact that interpretation of facts depends on the individual's wisdom and knowledge that varies from person to person. People should also be presented with logical interpretations of facts instead of just "facts" which could lead to misunderstanding. What if we start researching scientifically the abilities of prophet sulaiman and magic competition between prophet moses and pharo's magicians? faithfreedom.org can cause a great harm in muslim countries if it is not banned. You already know the I.Q level of people in most muslim countries. Would not we have a hard time explaining to people when they have already misinterpreted facts according to their wisdom and knowledge?You also said "That different writings of the Quran exist is a fact, that a different verse split exists is a fact... 'My reply is that it is a fact that unseen realities mentioned in Quran are myths in the light of modern science. If you start researching for each and every why of every thing without utilising wisdom then you are no more human than a computer.
You said "A muslim builds his/her faith in God not by the ink on paper, but by the signs all around us in heavens and earth that are a testimony to God day and night. "This is supported by the God from Quran. In chapter 5 verse 69 the God says, "Surely those who believe(muslims/believers); and those who are Jewish, and the Sabiens, and the Nazarenes, whomever of them believes in God and the Last Day and does good work; then they will have nothing to fear nor will they grieve."
In chapter 2 verse 256 the God says, "There is no compulsion in the system(religion/way of life); the proper way has been made clear from the wrong way. Whoever rejects evil, and believes in God, then he has grasped the most solid branch that will never break. God is Hearer, Knower."Of course not only muslims but the whole of humanity build their faith in God not by the ink on paper, but by the signs all around them in heavens and earth that are a testimony to God day and night.
You said "It is the Message (Al-Zikr) that God has pledged to preserve...Not the ink on paper."Of course it is the message. Ink does inform about the message in physical terms but if it gets a bit wavy or spread out the message is still protected and the variation of ink has not changed any information of the message. Why get involved in an argument about the digital accuracy of the ink when it has caused no confusion about the information of the message?
You said "you may have an adversity to the issue of 19 as some people so, you should note that this site encourages the study of everything (texts, physical evidence, archeology, history, math, science, etc.) and is not limited to one aspect."
I agree that it is the key to sharing of knowledge but evaluations and interpretations on such issues should also be stressed and there should be an encouragement towards well informed study. -
Peace Abrar,
You said "I must state that it is simply promoting a
lets put our head in the sandapproach."
I do not believe in hiding from facts. One must be aware of as many facts as possible. But it is also a fact that interpretation of facts depends on the individual's wisdom and knowledge that varies from person to person. People should also be presented with logical interpretations of facts instead of just "facts" which could lead to misunderstanding. What if we start researching scientifically the abilities of prophet sulaiman and magic competition between prophet moses and pharo's magicians? faithfreedom.org can cause a great harm in muslim countries if it is not banned. You already know the I.Q level of people in most muslim countries. Would not we have a hard time explaining to people when they have already misinterpreted facts according to their wisdom and knowledge?Not sure I agree with that...People are all given the mind, eysight and hearing to find out truth from falsehood...Presenting the facts does not deter from the conclusions that people can reach on their own That God exists, that they must do good work at all time.
You also said "That different writings of the Quran exist is a fact, that a different verse split exists is a fact... 'My reply is that it is a fact that unseen realities mentioned in Quran are myths in the light of modern science. If you start researching for each and every why of every thing without utilising wisdom then you are no more human than a computer.
It is not
Gods willthat changes occur to His word, neither in the Quran nor in any other Scripture from Him...Rather, it is human sloppiness as well as sometimes hidden agendas that causes the word of God to be amdended or even distorted...By pointing out the obvious, the next logical step is to conduct more detailed research/study until the ultimate Quran written by Mohammed`s hand is found, or, that a unification of the Quran occurs based on sound study and all other copies removed/eradicated.Of course not only muslims but the whole of humanity build their faith in God not by the ink on paper, but by the signs all around them in heavens and earth that are a testimony to God day and night.
Yes, that is what I want people to undertsand...Our father Abraham did not find God in a book, he found him in the creation of the elements all around him.
You said "It is the Message (Al-Zikr) that God has pledged to preserve...Not the ink on paper."Of course it is the message. Ink does inform about the message in physical terms but if it gets a bit wavy or spread out the message is still protected and the variation of ink has not changed any information of the message. Why get involved in an argument about the digital accuracy of the ink when it has caused no confusion about the information of the message?
Because the discussion and knowledge that there are differences is a fact of our reality...We cannot wish it away because we are fearful that people would be weak to the knowledge, we can expose it to all and conclude, as you have done, that the message is preserved and that is what matters.
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Peace and greetings
Dear Layth,
I agree with you about the freedom of information but In my view the more important aspect of information is its effect on majority of the people. The information should have a direction which does not mean that undesirable or inconvenient information is kept hidden but more focus should be given to the quality of information and not quantity. Directing the information(not hiding) in a sensible way is more beneficial than collecting terabytes of information and stressing that quantity alone would increase understanding without having a direction. From the begining of mankind to the present times, information is continously increasing in quantity but quality remains universal throughout the ages i.e heart's goodness. Most people get easily distracted by disorganised information without having an idea about its direction. More stress should be placed on the organisation of information and not on collection alone.
You said "By pointing out the obvious, the next logical step is to conduct more detailed research/study until the ultimate Quran written by Mohammed`s hand is found, or, that a unification of the Quran occurs based on sound study and all other copies removed/eradicated."
Goal for an "ultimate Quran" is a search according to good intentions of the heart but this goal is "unrealistic" because those holding such views are not satisfied by the subject matter of quran completely and they have expection for something more. They become blind to logical interpretation and have doubts because they are overconcious about archetectural style accuracy without using the concept of linguistic accuracy. If we start researching in such a way then it may require many centuries to figure out about the word of God. According to my knowledge such research is being encouraged by scholars who are trying hard to prove that Quran is just a cultural development and they are also encouraging muslim scholars for such a research.
The modern research to analyse Quran http//www.iran.ru/eng/koran.php
I have thoroughly read the information in the link which clearly supports your arguments but I have also thoroughly read the criteria for credibility of historical sources at
http//www.terrace.qld.edu.au/academic/socenv/junhistory/reliab.htmhttp//www.fordham.edu/HALSALL/ancient/alexfake.html
You cannot assume history to be the criteria for your arguments because we have not witnessed it and anyone could have done anything who knows? There is no need of unification of Qurans because of the expalnations i have given you in my post.
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Peace and greetings,
Dear Warner,
I have read your article and the person who has written the article lacks logical understanding so his article is full of logical fallacies."a rational proof for the validity of the text, not a blind emotional argument". in chapter 3 "produce proof". Is it not emotional to be rational after all according to rationality that humans are just animals with limbs and smarter intelligence than other mammals. The concept of Just/fair evaluation of data is rationality or is it just an emotion? Is Following knowledge made up of data and information in the light of justice a mere emotion? Is the thirst for rationality a
mechanical concept or an emotional one? Does anything other than human has a thirst for rationality? Would you call thirst for Rationality mere rationality? How do you exactly disconnect a human from emotions? By giving somekind of numbness drug? What is morality? Is it rationality? Is it not rational to treat human as an animal since he is just a mortal object and here are many? How do you exactly define blindness? do'nt you write the word "blindness" when you "feel"(emotional) unjustified in the light of obejective knowledge? Can you rationally disconnect from emotions without being numb? You probably do not know the difference and similarities between the terms subjectivity, objectivity, rationality, emotions, and feelings."The miracles performed by the above prophets were only miracles for that specific period of time. But how do we know these messengers existed or that such miracles really occurred? In fact, how do we know that they are not just legends or fables?" in chapter 3 "produce proof"
Is it not a miracle that human body temperature remains within narrow defined limits? Is flying into the air not a miracle for past generations? Is television not a miracle for previous generations?When something is mysterious does it not remain miraculous until objective reasons are discovered? Do you know about telekinetics? It is the psychic ability of the human mind to move and bend objects but it is harmful to practice? You can visit the following links for information of
telekinetics
http//www.geoza.com/system/psychics/telekin.htm
"So, what miracle do we have right now to convince the mind and guide man through his life?"A person writing such words seems to have no faith in someone who is all knowledgable and all wise. This person thinks that everything is known and boring so has no regards for
appreciation of the universe which is full of miraculous phenomena. Everything that is science is a miracle for those who appreciate and for hopeless ones anything mysterious or beyond the reasoning of present day science is just magic. How do you explain by your obvious science free of unexplained mysterious magic that some people have a natural immunity to HIV virus.
Go to the link belowhttp//www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060818180225.htm
Albert Einstien was the greatest of all scientific geniuses who believed in God. He appreciated God's universe as nothing less than a miracle. A 12th-century Jewish philosopher, physician, scientist, and rabbi, Feit says that "the best way to develop a love and appreciation for God is by studying the works of his hand. There are certain blessings that a religious Jew makes every day. Some of them have to do with the fact that the sun rises and sets regularly, that all of the stars travel in their right orbits, and that all of our physiological functions work appropriately.
With my knowledge of human physiology, I have a very different, and I think enhanced, appreciation when I make that blessing in the morning."Here is the full article about science vs.faith which i am pasting because the link does not work anymore.
When Science and Religion Collide or Why Einstein Wasn't an Atheist
News Scientists talk about why they believe in God.By Gordy Slack
November/December 1997 Issue
How has religion held up under the scrutiny of modern science? Not well, according to
evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who believes the only reason religion is still with us at all is not because it has inherent worth but because it's as catching and incurable as any virus (see "Religion Is a Virus". Others beg to differ.
In his day, Albert Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." More recently, a Nature survey of American scientists found about 40 percent of them to be religious. How do these scientists reconcile their understanding of the physical world -- of evolution, for example -- with their religious beliefs? To explore these and other questions, the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences sponsored interviews with more than 30 top scientists from a variety of fields. Here are a few of their responses Francisco J. Ayala, a professor of genetics and evolutionary biology at the University of California at Irvine, was ordained a Catholic priest at just about the time he began studying genetics. Since then, his career has been primarily occupied by science. Ayala says he is a materialist insofar as he holds that "nothing in the natural world is left out" of science's powers of description. But, he adds, in the same way that a complete physical description of Picasso's Guernica would not begin to convey what the painting says about man's inhumanity, a scientific description of the world does not begin to explain life's meaning. "In terms of fulfilling the human spirit, there is a lot to be said about the world, whether it is the physical world or the living world, that is completely outside the realm of science," Ayala says. "Science and religion are dealing with different dimensions of reality, different levels of experience. Anybody who thinks that everything in the world can be explained in a reductionistic, materialistic way is just naive." Applying the criteria of scientific truth to religious claims is to make what philosophers call a categorical mistake, says Ayala. "In a sonnet Shakespeare may refer to his beloved as a rose. A scientist could say, 'This guy is an idiot. A woman is not a rose.' Of course the idiot would be the one who made that comment. Shakespeare knows she is not a rose! But that doesn't mean that describing his beloved as a rose is not telling the world a lot about what he thinks about her, and what she is like, and what love is like." Kenneth S. Kendler, a professor of psychiatry and human genetics at the Medical College of Virginia, also struggles not to mix up his religion (Judaism) and his science. Like knowledge and wisdom, he says, they have different foundations. "The two don't use similar methods, don't have similar goals, and in some substantial ways don't conform to one another," he says. "Maybe the best way to put it is to say that they complement one another. They really don't conflict, but they don't entirely exist on the same plane. Knowledge is something that is ultimately testable -- wisdom comes in many varieties."
Arno Penzias, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1978 for his part in the discovery of the background radiation that constituted the first material evidence for the big-bang theory, does not look for direct evidence of God's existence in the world. To the contrary "If God created the universe," says Penzias, who is Jewish, "he would have done it elegantly. The absence of any imprint of intervention upon creation is what we would expect from a truly all-powerful Creator.
You don't need somebody diddling around like Frank Morgan in The Wizard of Oz to keep the universe going. Instead, what you have is half a page of mathematics that describes everything. In some sense, the power of the creation lies in its underlying simplicity." {publish-page-break} But for Carl Feit, an Orthodox Jew and professor of biology at Yeshiva University, science is itself a spiritual practice. Invoking Maimonides, the 12th-century Jewish philosopher, physician, scientist, and rabbi, Feit says that "the best way to develop a love and appreciation for God is by studying the works of his hand. There are certain blessings that a religious Jew makes every
day. Some of them have to do with the fact that the sun rises and sets regularly, that all of the stars travel in their right orbits, and that all of our physiological functions work appropriately. With my knowledge of human physiology, I have a very different, and I think enhanced, appreciation when I make that blessing in the morning." Brian Cantwell Smith, a renegade computer scientist and philosopher who recently left Stanford for Indiana University, agrees that religion and science are not entirely separable. Smith (who says he "probably" doesn't believe in God) quotes his father, theologian Wilfred Cantwell Smith, who told him that to be religious is "to find the world significant." The younger Smith explains "It is not an etymological accident that 'significance,' in English, means 'importance.' From what I can tell from having studied intentional systems, 'truth' and other values cannot, in fact, be wholly pulled apart." The problem, he says, is that while science has always taken truth seriously, it has traditionally left values of beauty and goodness pretty much untouched. However, Smith sees the current work being done in mathematics, computer science, philosophy, and cognitive science as increasingly shedding light on the relationships between beauty, goodness, and truth in a way that may lead to a reintegration of these three values, thanks to a rigorous "study of significance." Smith says "One of my most basic metaphysical commitments is that truth, beauty, and goodness are not completely separable. Just as the physicists claim that gravity, charge, mass,
etc., weren't separate in the first moments of the universe, I don't think God made the world with truth, beauty, and goodness fully separated out, either. In fact, I think the idea that they are independent is our idea -- and not necessarily the greatest idea, at that. You can see this in modern software design. Whether programs work well, whether they're beautiful, and whether they're right in practice -- these things aren't all that separable." According to Lindon J. Eaves, a professor of human genetics and psychiatry at the Medical College of Virginia and an Anglican priest, "There's a large degree of identity between the love of God and the love of truth. And the same kind of rules and passions that we bring to the issue of loving God, the scientist embodies in his passion for truth. "What keeps the scientist working long hours into the night?" asks Eaves. "Well, maybe there's a truth out there that will be beautiful when we find it." Carl Feit concurs. "I think that fundamentally the impetus for the two quests is the same," says Feit. "Religion and science are two ways of looking at the world, and each helps guide our search for understanding. Profoundly religious people are asking the same questions as profound scientists Who are we? And what are we? What's the purpose? What's the end? Where did we come from? And where are we going? We have this need, this desire, this drive, to understand ourselves and the world that we live in."Gordy Slack is the associate editor of California Wild, a natural history magazine.
"Lastly I must bring into relief the case of the word la ( ), which in four or five cases is only l ( ) without the final alif. The word la means no, and the word l means certainly. It is horrible to think when it is meant "the believers certainly shall assemble unto God" and "the unbelievers certainly shall assemble in the hell", and the unfortunate ignorant reader unintentionally says "not" instead of "certainly". We will point out these passages in our second list" (Orthographical Peculiarities In The Text Of The Qur?an, M. Hamidullah, Islamic Order (Karachi), Vol. 3, no. 4, 1981, p.78; article received from Islamic Foundation U.K. as per citation in Ulum al-Qur?an,
p.60; emphasis added)." The point of making of such an argument is to like making fuss about how an english language etter "D" should be pronounced in arabic and then disregarding the language as inferior if it does not make sense. laam alif or a single laam with a mark of standing fatha over it means the same. If the way of pronunciation is not clarified then it is not justified to term that as abrogation. Do you know about the shorthand writing? If you do'nt then go to the link belowhttp//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shorthand
How do you know that the person who wrote single laam alif really meant it instead of laam ? He might have a quick way of writing. Do you know that if a standing fatha over single laam is supposed then it would mean the same ? If you do not believe in quickness then it must have been his style of saying the same as laam alif.
"mundireen () means "those who warn, i.e., the prophets", and mundhareen (), which is written alike, and in the absence of the marking of the vocalization sign it is impossible to distinguish, means "those who have been warned, i.e., the infidels".
If a person is too unfamiliar with arabic then it is understandable but where is the intellectual power of the language of those at home with classical arabic? Is a scholar and a layman similar in their use of language?"Obviously, any written text would have constituted only a very basic consonantal symbol outline"Are you sure how each and very language comes into being? can you invent one of your own?
It is your subjective generalisation."If God so willed , He could make you all one People But He leaves straying Whom He pleases, and He guides Whom He pleases but ye Shall certainly be called to account For all your actions."
Of course God is not playing with dice as if he gets surprised by future events or something escapes him. Nothing is out of His grip and reach. It is he who rewards, punishes, makes circumstances and helps out in whichever way he pleases. Go sit next to God if you want to explore this phenomena scholarly and tell Him how to get pleased. What I can do is think with my mind i.e future is unknown to me, have to do good, ask forgiveness for mistakes and worry about myself and my responsibilities towards others and not other people's way of thinking. Would a psychiatrist worry how to make an insane person sane by psychotherapy? Would'nt it cause waste of words and mind? God has made the person insane and not the person. Nothing can escape God, everything happens with his will. But if a human starts figuring out how then it would be better to lie down alone in a jungle and hope for death because everything is happening with God's will and it is not the person's fault? If you start exploring such issues how long would you be sane for? do you have to make God lesser in decision making, just to remain sane?
The arguments presented in this article is of a similar nature when atheists try to prove mathematically that God does not exist. -
Peace and greetings,
Absolute predictions on the basis of scientific analysation of secondary scientific evidence can prove to be invalid. Consider the case for the predictions of astronomers about the composition of comet before NASA took first hand evidence in their stardust spacecraft mission launched in February 1999, collected particles from the coma of Comet Wild 2 in January 2004, and returned the samples to Earth in a capsule in January 2006. Before this research astrnomers using their scientific knowledge of secondary evidence based on their hypothesis believed in a fictious composition of comets. American astronomer Fred L. Whipple proposed in 1949 that the nucleus, containing practically all the mass of the comet, is a ?dirty snowball? conglomerate of ices and dust. Major proofs of the snowball theory rest on various data. For one, of the observed gases and meteoric particles that are ejected to provide the coma and tails of comets, most of the gases are fragmentary molecules, or radicals, of the most common elements in space hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. According to NASA there is no evidence for carbonate minerals and silicate minerals that contain bound water. To date, these materials do not seem to exist or at least be common in comet Wild 2 sampled by Stardust. Analysis of the large particles that traveled all the way to the button of the tracks has revealed a remarkable range of minerals. Some of these particles contain minerals the form only at extremely high temperatures - temperatures that could not have existed where the comets formed. Some of these minerals are similar to "refractory" materials that formed in the hottest, innermost regions of the disk of gas and dust that formed the Sun and planets. If these minerals in the comet are from our solar system then they probably formed close to the young Sun and were transported all the way from inside the orbit of Mercury past the orbit of Neptune.
This is NASA's report on their findings of the Stardust missionScientists have long thought of comets as cold, billowing clouds of ice, dust and gases formed on the edges of the solar system. But comets may not be so simple or similar. They may prove to be diverse bodies with complex histories. Comet Wild 2 seems to have had a more complex history than thought. "We have found very high-temperature minerals, which supports a particular model where strong bipolar jets coming out of the early sun propelled material formed near to the sun outward to the outer reaches of the solar system," said Michael Zolensky, Stardust curator and co-investigator at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. "It seems that comets are not composed entirely of volatile rich materials but rather are a mixture of materials formed at all temperature ranges, at places very near the early sun and at places very remote from it." One mineral found in the material brought back by Stardust is olivine, a primary component of the green sand found on some Hawaiian beaches. It is among the most common minerals in the universe, but scientists were surprised to find it in cometary dust. Olivine is a compound of iron, magnesium and other elements. The Stardust sample is primarily magnesium. Along with olivine, the dust from Wild 2 contains high-temperature minerals rich in calcium, aluminum and titanium. Stardust passed within 149 miles of comet Wild 2 in January 2004, trapping particles from the comet in an exposed gel. Its return capsule parachuted to the Utah desert on Jan. 15 2006. The science canister with the Wild 2 sample arrived at Johnson on Jan. 17. Samples have been distributed to approximately 150 scientists for study. "The collection of cometary particles is greater than we ever expected," said Stardust Deputy Principal Investigator Peter Tsou of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "The collection includes about two dozen large tracks visible to the unaided eye." The grains are tiny, most smaller than a hair's width. Thousands of them appear to be embedded in the glass-like aerogel. A single grain of 10 microns, only one-hundredth of a millimeter (.0004 inches), can be sliced into hundreds of samples for scientists. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Stardust mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, developed and operated the spacecraft.
We can conclude that blind reliance on secondary sources of evidence can lead to fictious conclusions. You must know that exactly how the Pyramids in Egypt were built remains a mystery to explain for the archaelogists because the explanations are not in line with the technologies that were available to ancient Egyptians at that time.
I am pasting an article on pseudoarchaelogy from
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudoarchaeology
For more information please visit the above mentioned link.
Pseudoarchaeology (also called fantastic archaeology) is pseudoscientific archaeology, i.e. the interpretation of material remains and sites (which are not necessarily genuine) using methodology that is not part of the established scientific method. Archaeological theories, sites, site excavations and publications which do not conform to standard accepted archaeological methedology generally fall under the category of pseudoarchaeology.Pseudoarchaeology can be practised intentionally or unintentionally. Archaeological frauds and hoaxes are considered intentional pseudoarchaeology. Genuine archaeological finds may be unintentionally converted to pseudoarchaeology through unscientific interpretation.Pseudoarchaelogy is frequently motivated by nationalism or a desire to prove a particular religious, historical, political or anthropological theory. In many cases, an a priori conclusion is established, and fieldwork is undertaken explicitly to corroborate the theory in detail.Practitioners of pseudoarchaeology often rail against academic archaeologists and established scientific methods, claiming conventional science has overlooked critical evidence.
Examples
Notable examples of nationalistic or chauvinistic pseudoarchaeology include Piltdown Man, forged possibly to ensure that the earliest hominid was English, supposed Viking artifacts (Kensington Runestone and Viking Altar Rock), and speculation on pre-Columbian contact between Egypt and the Maya. The latter philosophy is often linked with ancient astronaut theory and the antiquated theory of the Moundbuilders as examples of racist pseudoarchaeology. Examples of religiously-motivated pseudoarchaeology include repeated "discoveries" of Noah's Ark on Mount Ararat or neighboring mountain ranges, and use of questionable artifacts such as the Los Lunas Decalogue Stone as proof for the presence of a pre-Columbian Semitic culture In America. Pseudoarchaeology that is labelled as such due to unconventional or scientifically suspect methodology includes Thor Heyerdahl's Kon Tiki expedition, the published work of Barry Fell, and Dr. Virginia Steen-McIntyre's circular dating of Hueyatlaco spearheads ().
Other pseudoarchaeological topics include lost continents such as Atlantis or Lemuria,
contested by mainstream archaeologists and historians as lacking critical physical evidence and general historical credibility.There are a number of legitimate archaeological sites that have long been the focus of a disproportionate amount of unscientific speculation which is often described as pseudoarchaeology. Among these are Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, the Sphinx, Etruscan inscriptions, pre-Columbian European relics in the Western Hemisphere, Easter Island, Teotihuacan, Palenque, Chichen Itza, the Nazca lines and the stone spheres of Costa Rica.Relativist and post-modern responses
Researchers accused of pseudoarchaeology often respond to such allegations research by noting that many scientific truths are frequently ridiculed when they are first proposed.Archaeologists schooled in Marxism and Critical Theory argue that scientific thought can support contemporary ideology by taking advantage of scientists' status as 'experts'. Incorporation of postmodernism into archaeological theory has led some archaeologists (e.g. Bettina Arnold, Bruce Trigger) to explore the role of archaeology in state formation and to reexamine archaeologists' status as neutral investigators of the past. The growth of Cultural Resources Management, wherein archaeology is used to guide political decisions, does little to refute these ideas.Most archaeologists attempt to distinguish their research from pseudoarchaeology by pointing to differences in research methodology, including recursive methods, falsifiable theories, peer review, and a generally systematic approach to collecting data. Few see themselves as unwitting cogs in a wider conspiracy, and many strive to make their work relevant to contemporary society.
History
Though the archaeological report given by Socrates Scholasticus (died c. 380), in his
Ecclesiastical History, of St Helena's discovery of the True Cross may make her the patron saint of pseudoarchaeology to skeptics, it is clear that the manipulation of archaeological sites and "finds" to assist propaganda and pseudohistory is not a phenomenon simply of modern historicist culture. In the mid-2nd century, those exposed by Lucian's sarcastic essay Alexander the false prophet prepared an archaeological "find" in Chalcedon to prepare a public for the supposed oracle they planned to establish at Abonoteichus in Paphlygonia"in the temple of Apollo, which is the most ancient in Chalcedon, they buried bronze tablets which said that very soon Asclepius, with his father Apollo, would move to Pontus and take up his residence at Abonoteichus. The opportune discovery of these tablets caused this story to spread quickly to all Bithynia and Pontus, and to Abonoteichus sooner than anywhere else."
At Glastonbury Abbey in 1191, at a time when King Edward I desired to emphasize his
"Englishness" a fortunate discovery was made the coffin of King Arthur, unmistakably identified with an inscribed plaque. Arthur was reinterred at Glastonbury in a magnificent ceremonial attended by the king and queen.British archeologists for some time argued that the use of masonry in and around Great Zimbabwe could not have been accomplished by native Africans, and was therefore attributed to Arabs or Jews. A similar racial motive has been argued against claims that megalithic sites
in the new world were created by White Europeans. -
Peace be with you Abrar
Thanks for the explanation. I understood some of the arguments in the article are
Childish although some seems to carry weight. With my lack of Arabic knowledge any argument by someone who knows Arabic is formidable.It will do lot of good if you can write a really detailed refutation of each point of the article , maybe in another thread so others can join in for the discussion, since this article can throw doubt in a person about the preservation of the Quraan.
Also what is your opinion on the 7 th century Quraans and documents found buried in the tomb/grave in the mosque in Sanaa , Yemen.
-
Peace and greetings,
Dear Warner,
This is a fact that currently christianity is the world's fastest growing religion in terms of number of new converts per year according to well reputed sources which collect statistical data about world religions. They are achieving much of the success through their distorted biblical archaeology in which the objective is to interprete any archaeological fact by any means according to their bible. Arab christians are working hard to use their arabic knowledge to carry out pseudoarchaeological research to discredit Quran. They have even made a joke of producing their own Quran. Check it out at the following link
http//www.islam-exposed.org/
Below is a section of the article about biblical archaeology which can make anything seem true by archaeological means. In my view a drive towards pseudoarchaeology.
"The purpose of Biblical archaeology is the clarification and illumination of the Biblical text and content through archaeological investigation of the Biblical world," wrote J.K. Eakins in an essay (1977) in Benchmarks in Time and Culture .
Bryant G. Wood wrote, "The purpose of Biblical archaeology is to enhance our comprehension of the Bible, and so its greatest achievement, in my view, has been the extraordinary illumination of the... time of the Israelite monarchy" (in Biblical Archaeology Review, May-June, 1995, p. 33).
In a statement of a more nuanced opinion of Biblical archaeology, Robert I.Bradshaw notes, "It is virtually universally agreed that the purpose of biblical archaeology is not to 'prove' the Bible, however ...in as much as archaeology sheds light on that history it is important to biblical studies"
The American archaeologist William Dever contributed to the article "Archaeology" in The Anchor Bible Dictionary (see Anchor Bible Series). There he assessed several negative effects of the close relationship that has existed between Syro-Palestinian archaeology and the Biblical archaeology of the Holy Land, which have especially caused American archaeologists in this field to lag behind the new "processual archaeology" in the region, generally considered "Underlying much of the skepticism in our own field , one suspects, was the assumption (albeit unspoken, or even unconscious) that ancient Palestine, especially Israel in the biblical period, was unique?somehow 'superhistorical' not governed by the normal principles of cultural evolution," and he claims "...the 'new archaeology' of the 1970s-1980s became pass? before we had even caught up with it" (p 357).
Dever finds that Syro-Palestinian archaeology in American institutions has been treated as a subdiscipline of Biblical studies. American archaeologists in this region were expected to try "to provide historical validation for episodes in the biblical tradition." According to Dever, "he most na?ve is that the rationale and purpose of "biblical archaeology" (and, by extrapolation, Syro-Palestinian archaeology) is simply to elucidate the Bible, or the lands of the Bible" (p 35
Professor of Near Eastern Archaeology, William G. Dever writes
Until about a generation ago Biblical achaeologists spoke confidently about William Foxwell Albright's "archaeological revolution". It would assuredly enhance our understanding and appreciation of the Bible and its timeless message-which was thought to be absolutely essential to our cherished Western culture condition. The Bible and the "Christian West," as formerly conceived, are fighting for their lives. Not only has modern archaeology not helped to confirm the earlier tradition, it appears to some to be part of the process to undermine it. This is a not-so-well kept secret among professional archaeologists.
The failure of the "archaeological revolution" means tryng to occupy the beleaguered middle ground, neither extreme skeptics or naive credulists. The clock cannot be turned back to the time when archaeology allegedly "proved the Bible." Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The Biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the "larger than life" portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence. Some of Israel's ancestors probably did come out of Egyptian slavery, but there was no military conquest of Canaan, and many, if not most, of the Israelites throughout the Monarchy were polytheists. Monotheism may have been an ideal of Bible writers. Archaeology cannot not decide what the supposed events described in the Bible mean. That decision is left up to each individual. Archaeology cannot decide this question; it can only sharpen our focus.(Dever, 2006).As far as records from yemen are concerned so there is a lot of pseudoarchaeological research going on and christoph luxenberg who is considered as a german scholar is a passionate biblical archaeologist and is actually an arab christian of lebanon who has craftly played with arabic family of languages to support his passionate research of discrediting the Quran. Even western scholars have criticised christopher luxenburg for the lack of an etymological dictionary of the Semitic languages that meets the strictest contemporary standards.
Here is what an atheist said about the research of arab christian christoph luxenburg who has disguised himself as an innocent german scholar.
"I don't like Luxemberg's book or theory for no other reason than its needlessly complex. The Koran can easily be discredited simply by looking at the myths and doctrines it claims are divine. Its nothing more than a mystic amalgamation, like Mormonism... or for that matter, Judaism and Christianity.Islam is the worst of them all"
Here is the scholarly response to chritoph luxenburg's research by the experts of classical arabic
The title of this book announces a new 'reading' of the Qur'an and the subtitle promises 'a contribution to the decoding of the language of the Qur'an.' The author's theses are summarised succinctly in his 'resum?' (pp. 299-307) the Qur'an is not written in Arabic but in an 'Aramaic-Arabic mixed language' which was spoken in Mecca at the time of Muharnmad. Mecca was 'originally an Aramaic settlement'. This is 'confirmed' by the fact that the name makkah is really Aramaic m?kkQ?, 'low'. This mixed language was recorded, from the beginning, in a defective script, i.e., without vowel signs or the diacritic points which later distinguish b, t, n, y, etc. The author denies the existence of a parallel oral tradition of Qur' an recitation. Classical Arabic comes from somewhere else (but we are not told where). The Arabs could not understand the Qur'an, known to them as it was only from defectively written manuscripts, and reinterpreted these documents in the light nf their own language. The proposed 'Aramaic reading' of the Qur'an allows us to rediscover its original meaning.
It might be useful to distinguish straight away what is new and what is not new in these theses. Muslim scholars of the classical period debated already the question of whether or not there is 'non-Arabic' (Aramaic, Persian, etc.) linguistic material in the Qur.an, whereby at least the more broad-minded authorities were content that there was; since God created all languages there is no reason why He should not have used words from different languages in His revelation. Modern linguistic scholarship established, certainly by the middle of the 19th century, that the Arabic language, both in the Qur'an and in other texts, contains a significant number of loan-words from several dialects of Aramaic (Syriac, Babylonian Aramaic, etc). Aramaic was the principal cultural language of the area between the Sinai and the Tigris for more than a millennium and it exercised a considerable influence on all the languages of the region, including the Hebrew of the later portions of the Old Testament. The Arabs participated in the civilisation of the ancient Near East, many of them were Christians or Jews, so there is nothing surprising about the fact that they borrowed heavily from Aramaic. But this does not make Arabic a 'mixed language'. What is new in Luxenberg's thesis is the ciaim that large portions of the Qur'an are not grammatically correct Arabic, but need to be read as Aramaic, inflectional endings and all. The Qur'an is thus not (grammatically) Arabic with Aramaic loan-words, but is composed in a jargon that mixes structural elements of two different languages. We shall examine the plausibility of this thesis in due course.
The second principal component of the author's argumentation is that, since the later Muslims were unable to understand the Aramaic-Arabic jargon of their sacred book, they were forced arbitrarily to add diacritic signs to the text so as to make it into halfway comprehensible (classical) Arabic, thereby inventing a supposed oral tradition to justify this new reading. To rediscover the 'original' meaning we need to disregard the diacritical signs in the traditional text and find some other reading. This line of argument is also not new. It has been pursued in recent years in a series of articles by the North American Arabist J. A. Bellamy as well as in a (particularly bad) book by the German theologian G?nter L?ling; strangely, none of these are mentioned in Luxenberg's bibliography. This too will be discussed in the course of the present review. In any case, a book that announces already in the preface (p. ix) that its author has chosen not to discuss 'the whole of the relevant literature' because this literature' makes hardly any contribution to the new method put forward here' is one that poses, from the outset, questions about its own scholarly integrity.
But let us look at a few examples of the author's 'new method'. Because of the technical linguistic nature of this discussion I will use a consistent Semitist system of transliteration (in bold) and transcription (in italics) for both Syriac and Arabic, a system differing both from the one used by the author of the book under review and from that otherwise followed by this journal.
One of the main planks of Luxenberg's theory of the 'Aramaic-Arabic mixed language' is the contention that in a number of Qur'anic passages the final aleph of an Arabic word stands not for the Arabic accusative ending -an, but for the Aramaic ending of the determinate state ( -? in the singular or -? in the plural). On p. 30 the author discusses Q. 1124 and Q. 3929, where the 'current Qur'an' ('der heutige Koran' has hal yastawiy?ni maQalan, 'are the two similar as an example?', the last word being an accusative of specification (tamy?z). The author thinks that the meaning is improved if is taken to be a 'transcription' of the Syriac plural mtl' (maQl?) and that the sentence consequently means 'Are the examples similar ?'. Translated into modern Arabic' ('ins heutige Arabisch ?bertragen', the Qur'anic sentence would then (supposedly) be hal yastawiy?ni l-maQal?ni. Most first-year students of Arabic are sure to know that this is neither classical nor modern Arabic, but simply wrong. But even without this lapsus, it can hardly be claimed that the 'Syro-Aramaic reading' offers any improvement in the understanding of the Qur'anic passages.
On p. 37 the author discusses Q. 6161 innan? had?n? rabb? 'il? sir?tin mustaq?min d?nan qiyaman, which, if d?nan qiyaman is in fact an accusative of specification, would need to be translated by something like 'verily, my Lord has directed me to a straight path in accordance with a firm religion', or, if we assume a mixed construction (had? construed first with the preposition 'il? and then with double accusative), it could mean '..... to a straight path, a firm religion'. Our author's proposal is that the syntactical difficulty of the latter rendering could be alleviated by taking not as an Arabic accusative but as Syriac dyn' qym' (d?n? kayy?m?), which he translates as 'a firm belief' ('feststehender, best?ndiger Glaube'. But in so doing the author overlooks the fact that, unlike Arabic d?nun, Aramaic d?n? does not actually mean 'belief, religion', but only 'judgement, sentence'. Arabic d?n, in the meaning 'religion', is not borrowed from Aramaic but from Middle Persian d?n (Avestan da?n?-).
On pp. 39ff. the author connects the problematic Qur' anic term han?fun with Aramaic hanp?, 'pagan', and specifically with the Pauline doctrine of Abraham as the paradigm of salvation for the gentiles. I have recently argued along similar lines in a lecture delivered in the summer of the year 2000 and eventually published in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 65 (2002), pp. 16-25, but differently from 'Luxenberg' I did not fail to mention that the same suggestion had been made long ago both by Margoliouth and by Ahrens, nor did I commit the absurdity of claiming (as our author does on p. 39) that Arabic is a 'Wiedergabe' of Syriac hnp', despite the fact that the Arabic form has an -i-, of which there is no trace in Syriac.
But in the eyes of our author, the Aramaic suffixes -? and -? are 'represented' in the Qur'an not only by alif, but also by ha'. Thus Arabic (xal?fatun) is 'the phonetic transcription' of Syriac hlyp' (hl?f?). Unfortunately, no reasonis given for why, in this 'phonetic transcription', the Aramaic laryngeal h is not 'transcribed' by the phonetically identical Arabic laryngeal h, but by x.
On p. 35 the author discusses the Qur'anic word for 'angels' (plural), for which the traditional reading is mal?'ikatun. The author thinks that this is really the Syriac word for 'angels', which he spells, in Syriac script, (correctly) as ml'k', and which he transcribes (wrongly) as mal?k?; in fact, the correct Syriac vocalisation is malax? (the first aleph being left over from the older form *mal'ax- ) In any case, neither the Syriac spelling, nor the correct vocalisation, nor even the author's erroneous vocalisation explains the -y- of the Arabic plural. The author then goes on to claim that the postulated 'Syro-Aramaic pronunciation' of the Qur'anic plural is made certain ('gesichert' by the 'modern Arabic of the Near East mal?yk?. This is a big jumble. In fact, the Arabic singular mal'akun or malakun is in all likelihood borrowed from Aramaic mal'ax- or malax-, but the plural mal?'ikatun is a perfectly regular Arabic formation, and is represented graphically by , with the usual Qur'anic defective spelling of internal -a-. The cited 'modern Arabic' (more correctly Levantine) form is the expected dialectal reflex of the classical pausal form mal?'ika(h), with palatalisation ( 'imalah) of the final -a to -e (I see little justification for the transcription with long -e), and has nothing to do with the Syriac plural malax?.
But once the 'mixed-language' status of the Qur'an has been postulated, the author evidently thinks it possible to take any Arabic word that vaguely resembles something in Syriac and to determine its meaning not from the Arabic but from the Syriac lexicon. Thus on pp. 196ff. the very ordinary Arabic verb daraba, 'to beat', is quite arbitrarily said to derive from the Syriac verb traf, which, among other things, means 'to beat, to move, to shake (wings), etc.' Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum, p. 290, compares the Arabic verb tarafa, 'to repel'. It seems unlikely that the Aramaic root should also have anything to do with Arabic daraba; the correspondences d/t and b/p(f) are certainly not the norm in Semitic cognates and would be perhaps even more surprising in the case of a loan-word. But this difficulty does not stop the author from assigning the meanings of the Syriac word to the various occurrence of daraba in the Qur'an.
Then, on p. 283 the author claims that the Arabic verb taga, 'to rebel, tyrannise, etc.' has, apart from the secondary , nothing Arabic about it', but is a 'borrowing' from Syriac t
a. He then picks out of a Syriac dictionary the meaning 'to forget' and assigns this to the Qur'anic instances of taga. But the fact that the Arabic root has gayn where the Aramaic hasayin shows very clearly that the Arabic word is not borrowed from Aramaic, but that they are good Semitic cognates. Anyway, the usual meaning of Syriac t`a is 'to err, to be led into error, etc.', although it can also mean 'to forget'. So even if the Arabic verb were a borrowing from Syriac there would still be nothing compelling about the new meaning assigned to it by our author.I shall quote one last example of the author's 'Syro-Aramaic reading' of the Qur'anic text. In Q. 9619 the last word of the sura is (i)qtarib, which has until now always heen understand to mean 'draw near' (imperative). But our author thinks it means 'take part in the eucharist' ('nimm an der Abendmahlliturgie teil', since iqtaraba is 'without doubt borrowed' ('ohne Zweifel .... entlehnt' from the Syriac verb eQkarrab, which besides meaning 'to draw near', also means more specifically 'to (draw near to the altar to) receive the eucharist'. In support of this he quotes (on p. 298, in the wake of some editorial mishap twice) a passage from the Kitabu 1-'agani) in which the Arabic verb taqarraba is used unambiguously to mean 'receive the (Christian) eucharist'. But this alleged confirmation scuppers the author's argument. The (actually well-known) Christian Arabic technical term taqarraba is indeed a calque on Syriac eQkarrab, with the same stem formation, i.e., D-stem with prefix t(a)-. There is no good reason to assume that the same Syriac verb was 'borrowed' a second time as the (differently formed) stem iqtaraba.
The examples that I have quoted could be expanded manyfold, but they are perhaps enough. They illustrate what is actually the less controversial, or in any case less fantastical part of the author's line of argument, the part, namely, in which he applies his 'Syro-Aramaic reading' to the actual traditional text of the Qur'an. But this book goes a lot further. Having established (as he thinks) that the Qur'an is composed in an Aramaic-Arabic 'mixed language' the author proceeds to juggle the diacritic points of the traditional text to create an entirely new Qur' an which he then attempts to decipher with the help of his (as we have observed, often very shaky) knowledge of Syriac. I do not really think that there is very much point in discussing this aspect of the book. There is no doubt that, without the diacritical points, the Qur'an is indeed an extremely obscure work and that the possibility of repointing affords virtually limitless opportunities to reinterpret the scripture, in Arabic or in any other language that one chooses. I think, however, that any reader who wants to take the trouble to plough through Luxenberg's 'new reading' of any of the numerous passages discussed in this book will concede that the 'new reading' does not actually make better sense than a straight classical Arabic reading of the traditional text. It is a reading that is potentially attractive only in its novelty, or shall I say its perversity, not in that it sheds any light on the meaning of the book or on the history of Islam.
It is necessary, in conclusion to say a little about the authorship, or rather the non-authorship, the pseudonymity of this book. An article published in the New York Times on 2nd March 2002 (and subsequently broadly disseminated in the internet) referred to this book as the work of 'Christoph Luxenberg, a scholar of ancient Semitic languages in Germany'. It is, I think, sufficiently clear from this review that the person in question is not 'a scholar of ancient Semitic languages'. He is someone who evidently speaks some Arabic dialect, has a passable, but not flawless command of classical Arabic, knows enough Syriac so as to be able to consult a dictionary, but is innocent of any real understanding of the methodology of comparative Semitic linguistics. His book is not a work of scholarship but of dilettantism.
The NYT article goes on to state that 'Christoph Luxeuberg is a pseudonym', to compare him with Salman Rushdie, Naguib Mahfouz and Suliman Bashear and to talk about 'threatened violence as well as the widespread reluctance on United States college campuses to criticize other cultures'. I am not sure what precisely the author means with 'in Germany'. According to my information, 'Christoph Luxenberg' is not a German but a Lebanese Christian. It is thus not a question of some intrepid philologist, pouring over dusty books in obscure languages somewhere in the provinces of Germany and then having to publish his results under a pseudonym so as to avoid the death threats of rabid Muslim extremists, in short an ivory-tower Rushdie. Let us not exaggerate the state of academic freedom in what we still like to call our Western democracies. No European or North American scholar of linguistics, even of Arabic linguistics, needs to conceal his (or her) identity, nor does he (or she) really have any right to do so. These matters must be discussed in public. In the Near East things are, of course, very different.
You must realise that some fanatic arab christian scholars are making use of their classical arabic for their own passions and are hiding behind pseudoarchaeology.
The article(you suggested) of this christian fellow is no surprise as many of his other fellows are working round the clock to produce even better work than him. These fanatic christians(arab christians) mislead those unfamiliar with classical arabic by playing crafty games with their classical arabic knowledge but their arguments become conjectures when you learn more about classical arabic. -
Peace and greetings,
I have found a very good site that describes the methodology of driving the speed of light from Quran. And also many other interesting phenomena of astronomy.
http//www.speed-light.info/
You should have knowledge about albert einstien's theory of relativity and general astronomy in accordance with laws of physics in order to understand and fully appreciate the content on the website.
