Does Islam, in fact, Encourage Paedophilia?

PM is inching closer to his eventual circumcision..... afsoos sud afsoos!

Tahmed is an old man afraid of dying soon. His heartfelt appeals to let him live in peace before it all ends should be taken into consideration. He really has no answers for arjun or sattar.

Go in peace old man but be warned, you are an idiot..

dost mittar: "But religion is more than that, isn't it? " Sure. Much more. as I have tried to start explaining in #355. Religion is about respect for God's Creation.

I make no assumptions about what exactly happened in the cave, but am not interested in speculating. All I care about is that the muslim tradition that I was brought up in matches my instincts (which is basically awe and respect for the universe around us, as I have tried to explain in #355). Looking to some other man for guidance makes no sense to me, the muslim tradition I was brought up in was one that emphasized honesty, simplicity, respect for servants and the poor, taking responsibility and malice towards none. I found this reflected in the Quran which I studied carefully as suggested by my father, and that is good enough for me. I dont need to look to urstruly's maudoodi or sharia or sattar's khalifah or for guidance. (and, as I told sattar, and as I say to anyone who disagrees with my views - to him be his way and to me be mine).

Nice chatting with you. And thanks for your patience, and regrets to you and all chowkies for having said anything that offended them.

sattar: You keep writing posts to me, and I have not responded to them. I am sorry if this seems rude, but I really have no interest in discussing issues you keep bringing up. You are welcome to your beliefs, and like I said: to you be your way and to me be mine.

If it helps, you can declare yourself the winner on all these issues by default and give yourself a medal.

PM #338/#339: "What good is it knowing that something exists if you can't relate to it in any way or at any level at all? "

"Knowing" is the wrong word (since no one can know of what lies in the unknown), and "Faith" is the appropriate word. And "Faith" is useful I think to the extent it makes us realize how little we know, and to have respect for what we do not know.

I am going to ramble on now to set the mood for my grand finale tothe discussions on this board, so bear with me: We are so bloody teeny weeny, insignificant, totally unimportant, little worms that it isnt even funny.

We have looked out at the universe and seen more suns then there are sand particles in the ocean!! We have looked as far away as 16 light years times 365 times 24 times 60 times 60 times 186,000 miles, and there are suns out there. And a lot of weird objects like quasers and neutron stars. And this nothing yet - if we could look further, we would find more stars and planets and things. There is dark matter and dark energy that is "dark" because it lies in the realm of the unknown for us at this time. And we are clueless on where all this ends, or if it does end. There are universal rules that seem arbitrary (plancks constant) and with slight changes in values would make the universe a totally different place.

We have looked inwards, and found atoms and molecules and things we couldnt have dreamt of just a few generations ago. There is a weird world in a single grain of sand that we have as much hope of understanding as a dog has of learning advanced calculus. This is a world where the same thing can be on opposite ends of the universe at the same time. Where things change simply because they are observed. Where billions of ghostly neutrinos go through our bodies every second without so much as shaking an electro loose.

And all this is just the beginning. We dont have a clue about the Big Bang except that it almost certainly happened, and happened around 16 billion ears ago. There are dimensions beyond the ones we perceive.

In short, we are like I said, teeny weeny insignificant little self-absorbed little worms in the greater scheme of things. And simply be realizing this, we are able to put things in proper perspective.

All the words of wisdom handed down through the generations and across cultures ("if you can meet victory or defeat, and treat both these imposters just the same"; "you cant take it with you"; "honesty is the best policy"; or as we muslims say "there is no god by Allah") suddenly take on a whole new meaning. Things that get the little worms excited (becoming dicators or khalifas, winning the lottery) seem trivial. You are at peace with yourself and the world.

The above may sound like bs to many for whom newspaper headlines are all that matters in the universe, and that is fine. To each his own. But that is my answer to your question. This (plus a couple of brief posts that appear above) is my last post on this board since I need to get on with other things.

Nice chatting with you. Thanks btw for writing the post further below on my behalf. Merry Christmas (never to early to wish someone Merry Christmas).

tahmed#332:

I can see why reason might lead one to the existence of God or gods for that matter. But religion is more than that, isn't it? In your case, for example, you also have to believe in messengers carrying messages from God and also this message business came to an end with Prophet Mohammad, that he received apparently self-serving revelations not once but several times (sattar2 has given several examples). This is faith, not reason.

tahmed,

You have ducked the issue. Here it is again …

- What should one make of Quranic verse telling believers not to marry Prophet’s widows once he has departed? Did Allah really say this in 33:53? Or did Muhammad slip this one in??

- Quran doubles the punishment for wives of the Prophet if they were to sin. Sounds like something a devious husband would wish for in order to keep his wives in line. And apparently Allah sided with this husband! While believers are commanded to marry widows in general, widows of the Prophet are off limits. Go figure.

- Quran further tells Prophet’s wives that if they are obedient to the Prophet, they will get double the reward! Once again Allah is playing favorites with His messenger. Check 33:30-31 if you don’t believe me.

- Apparently Allah even made an exception for Muhammad regarding marriage, which, by Quran's own admission, was not granted to other believers. Check 33:50 where Allah makes no bones about who is His favorite.

- And now that kaka has raised the issue, consider this as well: right when the Prophet was considering marriage to his adopted son’s divorced wife, along comes a verse of Quran validating such a marriage! Gabriel’s timing was impeccable here also. No?

+++

So tell us once again … how you think Quran treats Muhammad like it treats any other believer. Remind us how this even-handedness of Quran is the reason you believe in it.

There is something quite amusing about a believer trying to rationalize his faith. We all could use a good laugh … so don’t hold back.

Re: # 353

You missed one: Prophet's wives are mothers of the Momineen but he himself is not father of any one of them. What does this imply? I shudder.

zee

Bangladesh... quite a number of muslim girls from there are trafficked via Mumbai. In india - underage muslims girls are routinely exploited by old arab sheiks, with their parent's consent...

In pakiland - Afgan prostitutes are dime a dozen...

PM (#348)

"I suspect that Sidharttha could neither have "come about" in Arabia nor, if he somehow did, nor have his message 'fall on fertile land'. ..."

You are correct. However, I might add that even in modern times, a Martin Luther King has not come out of Palestinian struggle.

There are many pacifists who came in between Buddha and Martin Luther King elsewhere. I suspect the reason is that there is too much anger in Islamic societies for some reason, and that inhibit pacifism to evolve. As if the two are just the opposite of each other.

Christianity did what you said later, but it produced numerous pacifists, including the one, whom Gandhi studied to develop non-violence as a weapon.

Reminder:

#231 Posted by zeemax!

I know some hindu said the trade in underage girls flourishes in Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia etc. too besides bharat ... but does it exist in any Muslim country? If yes, which one? And if no .. why not ... given the contentions of these hindus and the equally lowly diaspoakis on this thread.

#306 Posted by PM on July 24, 2007 11:46:03 pm

PM,

Now you are being a dick telling kaka what 'follow his way' actually means! Don't let kaka remind your auqaat as a karanTa who might have had some 'enlightened' discussion with cliftonbridge types in angraizi, so don't fool yourself about 'real Muslims'.

Many Muslims do BELIEVE that Mohammad's example as exhorted in the Quran and passed down through normative tradition is to be followed in EXACT DETAILS (camels and misvaak et al). Many, in reality, do not get around to doing most of the things Mohammad might have done because of obvious reasons.

Now the ethic of marrying a young one, as MORALIZED by Mohammad, probably escapes most (although urstruly is trying real hard to come to terms with it). PM munnay, you don't have the blood of hadeeth and sunnah running through your veins to feel the pull of Mohammad's morality pushing the wishes of your penis. Of course, a woman like cliftonbridge will be appalled and agree with an miskeen outsider like youself. 'Nuff said.

You might have heard of Maududi who ingeniously combined the 'seal of prophethood' vis a vis qadyani issue with having seen her adopted son's wife naked and wanting to marry her. This was the will of Allah, per Maududi, because Allah wanted to abolish this business of adopting sons and treating their wives as your own daughters. This moral scheme was INCREDIBLY CLEAR to maududi, who saw picking up your adopted son's wife as a PRECEDENT SETTING action. Now tell me whether this case closely resembles the Ayesha story or some random household tidbit such as using a misvaak.

Google up Treaty of Hudaybiyah and how Mohammad got out of it through a loophole. When Arafat signed an agreement with Israel in the 90's and got flaked by all the Arabs, he referred to the Treaty of Hudaybiyah to signal his plan for looking for a loophole. BaiTa PM, you don't know jack about how Muslims thoughout the ages have justified sinister actions by using Mohammad's example.

re. ajeya: sorry I missed this earlier...
"Forcing sex on a woman whose brother and father he killed the same day? That's not an average guy. That's a monster by any standards. From any age.
I'm sorry, I cannot buy that. Compare his actions to that of Buddha who was born about a thousand years EARLIER to him.

I'm sorry, but that WAS what could be expected from an average guy, or even a great guy with a greater-than-average libido in the context of bedouin tribal warfare in the 7th century, or Christian Europe much later too.

Your insistence on staying prisoner to your own era's value judgement is, in fact, a similar phenomenon, and does not make you right.

The Buddha? Can't compare. Each was, by and large, a product of his own circumstances. The Buddha took Jainist teachings to their conlcusion, and kinda formulated the whole salavation thingie. I suspect that Sidharttha could neither have "come about" in Arabia nor, if he somehow did, nor have his message 'fall on fertile land'.

#346 ... she apologized should be 'she relented' ...

#325 Posted by PM,

Yeah ... LoL ... in fact she and Hafsa got together and nagged him and kicked him out of the house so he had to sleep on the floor in the mosque and it was something like a crisis. Eventually, Umar intervened and gave Hafsa a dressing down so she apologised and they let him back in.

Really .... :)

re. ajeya:

"I don't need a course in sociology or anthropology to tell me that a 55 year old man being sexually attracted to a 6-year old is perverted. I know it, because I am a man."

Maybe what you need is a course in Psychology then, with a view to discovering to what extent our sexual preferences are actually learnt or conditioned. You also need to consider that the reasons for a man wanting to marry a minor may not always be a sexual attraction to the latter. If it was, and if indeed Muhammed was the vile creature you make him out to be, you would have to explain what kept him from touching her for the three years that all sources say he abstained.

Besides, there is some strong circumstantial evidence that Ayesha could not have been less than 14 when married.

Oh, and by the way, "child" is a legal construct, not a biological one in the context. In some states, people are "children" until 18, in others until 12. So there's no unanimity. There's only one thing I can say with certainty: Many of those in the the "18" states consider those from the "14" ones, who'd like to have legal sex with those 14 yos, with as much contempt and righteous indignation as you do. Obviously, many in the "14" or "12" states obviously don't!

So, so much for your supposed universal ethics!

"Good people back then did not want to have sex with little children. They still don't."

I suspect you're "proving" yourself right by definition here: Anyone who wants/wanted to have sex with minors will be considered bad. So I can't argue with you on this. Plato and his buddies, were, after all, all evil men.