Alright, I'll start at the top.
Im not condemning Muslims or anyone else
Yes, unfortunately, you are. This disclaimer is a cop out in order to avoid sticking by what you are saying, I'm actually somewhat shocked you would use it you seem very intelligent and principled.
I believe that Islam is a "re-envisioning" of arab pagan beliefs. Of course I could be wrong. But Im pretty sure.
A half-truth. Mohamed (pbuh) was a crafty politician, no historian should dispute this, his choice of the word "Allah" as opposed to a less generic term was no mistake, as I said it made it easier to convert illiterate and uneducated pagans initially to Islam, the same could be said of the pre-islamic practices of circling the Kaba etc. etc.. Make no mistake, this might have been the action but the intent far outstretched this. I make it absolutely clear, regardless of any of this Mohamed's (pbuh) smashing of the idols and wars with the pagans make it quite clear that he wanted nothing to do with pre-Islamic polytheistic beliefs.
An idol of Hubal was placed on the Kaba 400 years before Muhammad according to several MUSLIMS
"About four hundred years before the birth of Muhammad one Amr bin Lahyo ... a descendant of Qahtan and king of Hijaz, had put an idol called Hubal on the roof of the Kaba. This was one of the chief deities of the Quraish before Islam. ("Muhammad The Holy Prophet", Hafiz Ghulam Sarwar (Pakistan), p 18-19, Muslim)"
Your capitilisation and use of a Muslim source do nothing to add to your argument as they are historical facts that no one denies, their use is a smokescreen used by many anti-Muslim scholars to add weight to their argument.
His symbol was a star and crescent moon...the crescent moon is the symbol used to identify Islam
The crescent moon was adopted by the Islamic Empire, not by Mohamed and hence is no more Islamic than the Eagle on the US flag being Christian. (pbuh)
In fact for the first 3 centures of Islam, and in the hadith and Qu'ran, there is no mention of the Crescent moon. Besides that fact, the symbol of a religion is not the object of it's worship, Daoism has the ying yang yet daosists do not worship it, Buddhists do not expressley worship buddha and Christians do not worship the cross which Jesus was crucified on.
I assure you the furthest thing from a Muslims mind is worshipping the sun or the moon, rather worshipping Allah as the creator of these things. Once again, the intent is misinterpreted by actions viewed from the outside.
Arabs of the times used the moon and lunar calendar to regulate fasting and days, this doesn't mean they worshipped it. Does someone who uses the sun to regulate their days worship the sun? Why the moon and not the sun is anyones guess, it's hot in the desert during the day and much of it would have been spent inside tents, travel would have been done when it was less sunny, so perhaps the moon was just an easier way of keeping track of days. Quite frankly it make sense..why would one stare at the sun and figure out the days when they could look at the moon (less blinding I presume) and figure it out.
I would like you to address the inherent and unescapable flaw which forms the basis of your argument, that of "Hubal" which I have repeatedly refuted, without Hubal you have no argument, so unless you can actually address that without bringing up other things it may be best to drop this now.
Could you explain this Che? Why are the daughters of Allah named the same as 3 female deities worshipped in the same area as Hubal? And why are they Allahs daughters? Do you see the connection between Allah and his daughters and the fact that under Hubal in the god food chain of the pagans were 3 other gods named Allat, Uzza and Manat??
Ah, the satanic verses, abrogated from the Qu'ran shortly after.
This is where the word Faith comes in handy and subjective things are played into it.
It is said that Mohamed (pbuh) succumbed to Satan briefly in order to attract the pagans to Islam and heard a verse which was not meant to be in the Qur'an. It more or less hailed the three daughters of Hubal as being part of the religions worship.
While receiving the qur'an later in his life he was corrected by God and Gabriel scolded him for his mistake, the verses were removed and the Qur'an appears today as it did after they were removed, without giving the Daughters of Alilah such a status.
Moderns mock the pagans for their belief that God could bear offspring, and that is their mention in the Qur'an. In fact, one of the things normally following utterance of "Allah" (can't remember exact wording) is something to effect that Allah is exalted and does not bear children.
Many Muslims outright reject that this happened at all, there are books and books filled with speculation on the topic and I'm in no way qualified to comment on it beyond what I've done so already.
I dont buy the argument that "it has to be read in Arabic". I believe thats smoke screen. Yes some meaning change from Hebrew to english for the bible but the message stays the same. Its pretty easy to dismiss the horrible verses by saying "thats not the arabic so it doesnt count".
And I would be inclined to agree with you that translation does not change intent, look in any religious text based on divine inspiration and you're going to find alot of things that are horrible by todays standards, however when your argument is based on translation of the word "Allah" it becomes the single most important fact and if I can disprove your argument about Hubla (and I feel I have as you have yet to counter my refuting of it) by writing a full post on semetic languages (which I've done) and how translations can help and hinder certain arguments, I'm going to do so.
"the high stakes world of peoples souls" - Che
- Very interesting phrase. Well done.
Tom
meant partly in jest
