Questions about the Koran

[piers]

william lane craig quoted a german scholar, unfortunatly I cannot work out the spelling for his name, it sounds something like gaer puin. Now 20% of the koran being unintelligible would go against the idea of the beauty of the koran and the message of mohammed being for all men, lets face it if the koran is for all men and 20% of it cant be understood then that makes it even more difficult to understand. Also weather the koran is beautiful or not doesnt really show it to be true or not.

Now the idea of mohammed bringing a message for the whole world seems a bit dubious, I mean first of all islam is a religion which can only be understood in its original arabic form. The highest percentage I have heard from an imam quote for the loss of meaning in a translation is %80 and that is significant instruction which is limited to people who can speak arabic. Also culturally mohammeds message doesnt travel well, you only need to be ni england to hear of the honour killings to see that. The fact islam is an orthaproxy religion means that you can have some mahdi sects believing in a prophet after mohammed and then a sunni beliving you can bomb someone and all can come under the umbrella of islam without going against the teachings of mohammed in the hadith. Also even in the koran when you get verses like "no compulsion in religion" it is owellian double speak because if someone converts from being a muslim, they either get rejected by their family or even killed. where is the beauty in that?

['Abd-al Latif]

Now 20% of the koran being unintelligible would go against the idea of the beauty of the koran and the message of mohammed being for all men, lets face it if the koran is for all men and 20% of it cant be understood then that makes it even more difficult to understand. Also weather the koran is beautiful or not doesnt really show it to be true or not.

Where is this 20% that cannot be understood?

Now the idea of mohammed bringing a message for the whole world seems a bit dubious, I mean first of all islam is a religion which can only be understood in its original arabic form.

I think it's fair to say that the majority of coverts in Islam don't know arabic. Any religious scripture would have to be revealed in some sort of a language and for Islam god chose Arabic as it is the deepest, most precise, concise and clear language. This is a topic that we can be discussed at length if you want.

Every Prophet of God was sent to their own nation. Jesus and Moses etc were not sent for the whole of mankind as they were restricted to their own nation. Muhammad's (pbuh) message is for the whole of mankind.

The highest percentage I have heard from an imam quote for the loss of meaning in a translation is %80 and that is significant instruction which is limited to people who can speak arabic.

And that's because the Arabic is the word of God himself, whereas the translation is the word of a human being. You cannot translate the miracle of the Qur'an as this is limited to the Arabic.

Also culturally mohammeds message doesnt travel well, you only need to be ni england to hear of the honour killings to see that.

Honour killings is not a part of Islam, this is a cultural and unislamic practice.

The fact islam is an orthaproxy religion means that you can have some mahdi sects believing in a prophet after mohammed

Nope. Prophet Muhammad is the last and final Messenger and this is in the Qur'an, Hadeeth and the conses of the Muslim scholars.

and then a sunni beliving you can bomb someone and all can come under the umbrella of islam without going against the teachings of mohammed in the hadith.

Yeah that's the media for you. After the second world war every German was a terrorist. After the war with the russians every russian was a terrorist. Now history repeats it self and every Muslim is unjustly labeled as a terrorist.

As far as Islam and Muslims are concerned, suicide is impermissible. Killing innocent women and children and any unjust killing for that matter is impermissible.

Ask Muslims about Islam, not non-muslims.

Also even in the koran when you get verses like "no compulsion in religion" it is owellian double speak because if someone converts from being a muslim, they either get rejected by their family or even killed. where is the beauty in that?

The punishment for murder and espionage (also known as high treason) is death, then what about the one who rejects the One true Lord?

[Tony]

william lane craig quoted a german scholar, unfortunatly I cannot work out the spelling for his name, it sounds something like gaer puin. Now 20% of the koran being unintelligible would go against the idea of the beauty of the koran and the message of mohammed being for all men, lets face it if the koran is for all men and 20% of it cant be understood then that makes it even more difficult to understand. Also weather the koran is beautiful or not doesnt really show it to be true or not.

Now the idea of mohammed bringing a message for the whole world seems a bit dubious, I mean first of all islam is a religion which can only be understood in its original arabic form. The highest percentage I have heard from an imam quote for the loss of meaning in a translation is %80 and that is significant instruction which is limited to people who can speak arabic. Also culturally mohammeds message doesnt travel well, you only need to be ni england to hear of the honour killings to see that. The fact islam is an orthaproxy religion means that you can have some mahdi sects believing in a prophet after mohammed and then a sunni beliving you can bomb someone and all can come under the umbrella of islam without going against the teachings of mohammed in the hadith. Also even in the koran when you get verses like "no compulsion in religion" it is owellian double speak because if someone converts from being a muslim, they either get rejected by their family or even killed. where is the beauty in that?

OOOOHHHHHH its getting so tedious trying to explain to these people that Allah loves them and that the Qur'an is to make there way easy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May Allah OPEN thier eyes to the Noble Qur,an narrated to our beloved Rasulullah (pbuh)

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

^^ Ameen. Beats me why people don't actually ask rather than spew something alien to Islam:rollseyes

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

[جوري]

why is this guy still here with people humoring him?

sobhan Allah

[piers]

OOOOHHHHHH its getting so tedious trying to explain to these people that Allah loves them and that the Qur'an is to make there way easy!!!!!!!!!!!!!! May Allah OPEN thier eyes to the Noble Qur,an narrated to our beloved Rasulullah (pbuh)

is the way in the koran really that easy? I mean after all allah puts your good deeds and your bad on the scales. how can you be sure when your on your death bed that you have done enough good deeds? it means you could be a muslim your whole life and if you have 1 bad deed more than good you dont get into paradise.

[glo]

is the way in the koran really that easy? I mean after all allah puts your good deeds and your bad on the scales. how can you be sure when your on your death bed that you have done enough good deeds? it means you could be a muslim your whole life and if you have 1 bad deed more than good you dont get into paradise.

From what I understand that's about right.
No Muslim ever knows for sure whether s/he will make it into Jannah.

But then, Allah is merciful too ...
(But I better let Muslims answer you :))

[جوري]

From what I understand that's about right.
No Muslim ever knows for sure whether s/he will make it into Jannah.

Do you know if you'll be headed there? without quoting me something from your bible about how Jesus eats the sins of those who believe him while promising a land to those who have crucified him?

all the best

[salafy_masry]

Sheik Yusuf Estes once said .. " Islam is the only religion that will gurantee you'll go to hell " i will post the vid in a second :)

[salafy_masry]

there you go :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY1cIMrUE5M

[aadil77]

From what I understand that's about right.
No Muslim ever knows for sure whether s/he will make it into Jannah.

But then, Allah is merciful too ...
(But I better let Muslims answer you :))

Actually thats not right, every muslim knows they're eventually going to Jannah, but for that they have to possess atleast the basic tenents of faith. But if they've been naughty then they'll have to stop over in Jahannam for quite a while, then they will have got what they deserved in punishment and then they'd get what they deserved for their true faith in Jannah.

[salafy_masry]

there you go :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uY1cIMrUE5M

btw .. you'll find what I said above in the 1st minute .. so you don't have to go through all the vid

[Zafran]

salaam

Yeah all muslims go to heaven - one way or another - the hard way or the easy way - its up to the individual.

or has Woodrow said - Muslims go to heaven by not going on the road to hell - (something like that).

peace

[doorster]

@ English speakers
http://islamawakened.com/Quran/1/1/
http://islamawakened.com/Quran/

[MSN]

salaam

Yeah all muslims go to heaven - one way or another - the hard way or the easy way - its up to the individual.

or has Woodrow said - Muslims go to heaven by not going on the road to hell - (something like that).

peace

What about Moshrikeen?You do know God forgives all sins except Shirk.(UNLESS you repent)

[Tony]

is the way in the koran really that easy? I mean after all allah puts your good deeds and your bad on the scales. How can you be sure when your on your death bed that you have done enough good deeds? It means you could be a muslim your whole life and if you have 1 bad deed more than good you dont get into paradise.

exactly thats it in a nut shell, alhamdulillah

[piers]

salaam

Yeah all muslims go to heaven - one way or another - the hard way or the easy way - its up to the individual.

or has Woodrow said - Muslims go to heaven by not going on the road to hell - (something like that).

peace

so are you one of these muslims that believes in a tempory hell? if so do you believe that muslims who dont have enough good deeds go to hell for a bit and then into heaven?

[Tony]

so are you one of these muslims that believes in a tempory hell? if so do you believe that muslims who dont have enough good deeds go to hell for a bit and then into heaven?

He is one of these muslims that believes in the Qur,an and the prophet Muhammads (pbuh) teachings, and yes muslims will be in hell for varying degrees except the true and pure ones who are few and far between, the rest of us are in the business of damage limitation:D

[doorster]

hello

so are you one of these muslims that believes in a tempory hell? if so do you believe that muslims who dont have enough good deeds go to hell for a bit and then into heaven?

see thread What happens after death? posts(#7 and (#8 for some related info

[aamirsaab]

is the way in the koran really that easy? I mean after all allah puts your good deeds and your bad on the scales. how can you be sure when your on your death bed that you have done enough good deeds?

You cannot. That's why we are encouraged in Islam to do good and avoid bad. Even the Sahabah (companions of the Prophet [saw]) were afraid that they had not done enough to enter Paradise - and these were the guys who followed directly in the footsteps of the Prophet [saw]!

it means you could be a muslim your whole life and if you have 1 bad deed more than good you dont get into paradise.

For several reasons, this is not true:
1) Good deeds outweigh bad deeds at a minimum of 10 to 1
2) Intention of good = 1 good deed; intention of bad = 0 bad deed
3) If your bad deeds somehow outweigh your good deeds, you will serve some time in Hell, then you will enter paradise.
4) At the end of the day; Allah decides who enters paradise and who does not.

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

What about Moshrikeen?You do know God forgives all sins except Shirk.(UNLESS you repent)

What about them?

[MSN]

What about them?

If they don't repent and since Shirk is the WORST sin and Allah doesn't forgive,will they enter Paradise?

['Abd-al Latif]

so are you one of these muslims that believes in a tempory hell? if so do you believe that muslims who dont have enough good deeds go to hell for a bit and then into heaven?

It's not 'temporary hell' because hell will never cease to exist and neither will it's inhabitants. The punishment for non-muslims will be eternal whereas the punishment in hell for muslims will only be for the crimes one has committed against god but will eventually be allowed to come out of hell and admitted into paradise. The muslim will be admitted into hell for his sinful deeds and the punishment will act as a purification for him. Sins are impure, and none but the Pure will enter into eternal bliss. Once the Muslim is purified from his sins in Hell then he will be removed from there and admitted into paradise.

This punishment in hell can last as long as Allah wills, but the minumun requirement is to believe in Allah with a sound belief that He is the One true Lord besides whom there is no other god.

[- Qatada -]

If they don't repent and since Shirk is the WORST sin and Allah doesn't forgive,will they enter Paradise?

:salamext:


No

[rpwelton]

Now the idea of mohammed bringing a message for the whole world seems a bit dubious, I mean first of all islam is a religion which can only be understood in its original arabic form.

And I suppose you think that Jesus spoke English?

[جوري]

Still, I insist.. why do you humor someone like this? he is merely one stop up from those who come in for the purpose of plastering pornographic images!

:w:

[Follower]

I find the Quran very simple. The only thing not explained are the initial letters.

I wouldn't say that Arabic is the deepest, most precise, concise and clear language. Every language has this potential in their own unique way.

I would think that GOD's language is every language- He can hear all of our prayers in any language.

Jesus was actually sent for all of man- Muslims always quote the verse before He laid His life down for His sheep to mean that He was sent just for the Jews.

Look how He talked to the woman at the well she was not Jewish.

John 4
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Jesus tells us in
Matthew 24
14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

It only makes sense that Jesus went to the Jewish people first, they had the Law of GOD, the gentiles knew nothing about GOD. What good would it have been for Jesus to come first to the gentiles?!

[Follower]

Do you have references for the following information? Thanks.

For several reasons, this is not true:
1) Good deeds outweigh bad deeds at a minimum of 10 to 1
2) Intention of good = 1 good deed; intention of bad = 0 bad deed
3) If your bad deeds somehow outweigh your good deeds, you will serve some time in Hell, then you will enter paradise.
4) At the end of the day; Allah decides who enters paradise and who does not.

Is it Quran or hadith?

[جوري]

why have christians done all the following, don't they believe it is against their god?

WONDERFUL EVENTS THAT TESTIFY TO GOD'S DIVINE GLORY"Listed are only events that solely occurred on command of church authorities or were committed in the name of Christianity. (List incomplete)
Ancient Pagans

• As soon as Christianity was legal (315), more and more pagan temples were destroyed by Christian mob. Pagan priests were killed.
• Between 315 and 6th century thousands of pagan believers were slain.
• Examples of destroyed Temples: the Sanctuary of Aesculap in Aegaea, the Temple of Aphrodite in Golgatha, Aphaka in Lebanon, the Heliopolis.
• Christian priests such as Mark of Arethusa or Cyrill of Heliopolis were famous as "temple destroyer." [DA468]
• Pagan services became punishable by death in 356. [DA468]
• Christian Emperor Theodosius (408-450) even had children executed, because they had been playing with remains of pagan statues. [DA469]
  According to Christian chroniclers he "followed meticulously all Christian teachings..."
• In 6th century pagans were declared void of all rights.
• In the early fourth century the philosopher Sopatros was executed on demand of Christian authorities. [DA466]
• The world famous female philosopher Hypatia of Alexandria was torn to pieces with glass fragments by a hysterical Christian mob led by a Christian minister named Peter, in a church, in 415.
  [DO19-25]

Mission

• Emperor Karl (Charlemagne) in 782 had 4500 Saxons, unwilling to convert to Christianity, beheaded. [DO30]
• Peasants of Steding (Germany) unwilling to pay suffocating church taxes: between 5,000 and 11,000 men, women and children slain 5/27/1234 near Altenesch/Germany. [WW223]
• Battle of Belgrad 1456: 80,000 Turks slaughtered. [DO235]
• 15th century Poland: 1019 churches and 17987 villages plundered by Knights of the Order. Victims unknown. [DO30]
• 16th and 17th century Ireland. English troops "pacified and civilized" Ireland, where only Gaelic "wild Irish", "unreasonable beasts lived without any knowledge of God or good manners, in common of their goods, cattle, women, children and every other thing." One of the more successful soldiers, a certain Humphrey Gilbert, half-brother of Sir Walter Raleigh, ordered that "the heddes of all those (of what sort soever thei were) which were killed in the daie, should be cutte off from their bodies... and should bee laied on the ground by eche side of the waie", which effort to civilize the Irish indeed caused "greate terrour to the people when thei sawe the heddes of their dedde fathers, brothers, children, kinsfolke, and freinds on the grounde".
  Tens of thousands of Gaelic Irish fell victim to the carnage. [SH99, 225]

Crusades (1095-1291)

• First Crusade: 1095 on command of pope Urban II. [WW11-41]
• Semlin/Hungary 6/24/96 thousands slain. Wieselburg/Hungary 6/12/96 thousands. [WW23]
• 9/9/96-9/26/96 Nikaia, Xerigordon (then turkish), thousands respectively. [WW25-27]
• Until Jan 1098 a total of 40 capital cities and 200 castles conquered (number of slain unknown) [WW30]
• after 6/3/98 Antiochia (then turkish) conquered, between 10,000 and 60,000 slain. 6/28/98 100,000 Turks (incl. women & children) killed. [WW32-35]
  Here the Christians "did no other harm to the women found in [the enemy's] tents - save that they ran their lances through their bellies," according to Christian chronicler Fulcher of Chartres. [EC60]
• Marra (Maraat an-numan) 12/11/98 thousands killed. Because of the subsequent famine "the already stinking corpses of the enemies were eaten by the Christians" said chronicler Albert Aquensis. [WW36]
• Jerusalem conquered 7/15/1099 more than 60,000 victims (jewish, muslim, men, women, children). [WW37-40]
  (In the words of one witness: "there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes", and after that "happily and crying for joy our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude")
• The Archbishop of Tyre, eye-witness, wrote: "It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished." [TG79]
• Christian chronicler Eckehard of Aura noted that "even the following summer in all of palestine the air was polluted by the stench of decomposition". One million victims of the first crusade alone. [WW41]
• Battle of Askalon, 8/12/1099. 200,000 heathens slaughtered "in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ". [WW45]
• Fourth crusade: 4/12/1204 Constantinople sacked, number of victims unknown, numerous thousands, many of them Christian. [WW141-148]
• Rest of Crusades in less detail: until the fall of Akkon 1291 probably 20 million victims (in the Holy land and Arab/Turkish areas alone). [WW224] Note: All figures according to contemporary (Christian) chroniclers.

Heretics

• Already in 385 C.E. the first Christians, the Spanish Priscillianus and six followers, were beheaded for heresy in Trier/Germany [DO26]
• Manichaean heresy: a crypto-Christian sect decent enough to practice birth control (and thus not as irresponsible as faithful Catholics) was exterminated in huge campaigns all over the Roman empire between 372 C.E. and 444 C.E. Numerous thousands of victims. [NC]
• Albigensians: the first Crusade intended to slay other Christians. [DO29]
  The Albigensians (cathars = Christians allegedly that have all rarely sucked) viewed themselves as good Christians, but would not accept roman Catholic rule, and taxes, and prohibition of birth control. [NC]
  Begin of violence: on command of pope Innocent III (greatest single pre-nazi mass murderer) in 1209. Bezirs (today France) 7/22/1209 destroyed, all the inhabitants were slaughtered. Victims (including Catholics refusing to turn over their heretic neighbours and friends) 20,000-70,000. [WW179-181]
• Carcassonne 8/15/1209, thousands slain. Other cities followed. [WW181]
• subsequent 20 years of war until nearly all Cathars (probably half the population of the Languedoc, today southern France) were exterminated. [WW183]
• After the war ended (1229) the Inquisition was founded 1232 to search and destroy surviving/hiding heretics. Last Cathars burned at the stake 1324. [WW183]
• Estimated one million victims (cathar heresy alone), [WW183]
• Other heresies: Waldensians, Paulikians, Runcarians, Josephites, and many others. Most of these sects exterminated, (I believe some Waldensians live today, yet they had to endure 600 years of persecution) I estimate at least hundred thousand victims (including the Spanish inquisition but excluding victims in the New World).
• Spanish Inquisitor Torquemada alone allegedly responsible for 10,220 burnings. [DO28]
• John Huss, a critic of papal infallibility and indulgences, was burned at the stake in 1415. [LI475-522]
• University professor B.Hubmaier burned at the stake 1538 in Vienna. [DO59]
• Giordano Bruno, Dominican monk, after having been incarcerated for seven years, was burned at the stake for heresy on the Campo dei Fiori (Rome) on 2/17/1600.

Witches

• from the beginning of Christianity to 1484 probably more than several thousand.
• in the era of witch hunting (1484-1750) according to modern scholars several hundred thousand (about 80% female) burned at the stake or hanged. [WV]
• incomplete list of documented cases:
  The Burning of Witches - A Chronicle of the Burning Times

Religious Wars

• 15th century: Crusades against Hussites, thousands slain. [DO30]
• 1538 pope Paul III declared Crusade against apostate England and all English as slaves of Church (fortunately had not power to go into action). [DO31]
• 1568 Spanish Inquisition Tribunal ordered extermination of 3 million rebels in (then Spanish) Netherlands. Thousands were actually slain. [DO31]
• 1572 In France about 20,000 Huguenots were killed on command of pope Pius V. Until 17th century 200,000 flee. [DO31]
• 17th century: Catholics slay Gaspard de Coligny, a Protestant leader. After murdering him, the Catholic mob mutilated his body, "cutting off his head, his hands, and his genitals... and then dumped him into the river [...but] then, deciding that it was not worthy of being food for the fish, they hauled it out again [... and] dragged what was left ... to the gallows of Montfaulcon, 'to be meat and carrion for maggots and crows'." [SH191]
• 17th century: Catholics sack the city of Magdeburg/Germany: roughly 30,000 Protestants were slain. "In a single church fifty women were found beheaded," reported poet Friedrich Schiller, "and infants still sucking the breasts of their lifeless mothers." [SH191]
• 17th century 30 years' war (Catholic vs. Protestant): at least 40% of population decimated, mostly in Germany. [DO31-32]

Jews

• Already in the 4th and 5th centuries synagogues were burned by Christians. Number of Jews slain unknown.
• In the middle of the fourth century the first synagogue was destroyed on command of bishop Innocentius of Dertona in Northern Italy. The first synagogue known to have been burned down was near the river Euphrat, on command of the bishop of Kallinikon in the year 388. [DA450]
• 17. Council of Toledo 694: Jews were enslaved, their property confiscated, and their children forcibly baptized. [DA454]
• The Bishop of Limoges (France) in 1010 had the cities' Jews, who would not convert to Christianity, expelled or killed. [DA453]
• First Crusade: Thousands of Jews slaughtered 1096, maybe 12.000 total. Places: Worms 5/18/1096, Mainz 5/27/1096 (1100 persons), Cologne, Neuss, Altenahr, Wevelinghoven, Xanten, Moers, Dortmund, Kerpen, Trier, Metz, Regensburg, Prag and others (All locations Germany except Metz/France, Prag/Czech) [EJ]
• Second Crusade: 1147. Several hundred Jews were slain in Ham, Sully, Carentan, and Rameru (all locations in France). [WW57]
• Third Crusade: English Jewish communities sacked 1189/90. [DO40]
• Fulda/Germany 1235: 34 Jewish men and women slain. [DO41]
• 1257, 1267: Jewish communities of London, Canterbury, Northampton, Lincoln, Cambridge, and others exterminated. [DO41]
• 1290 in Bohemian (Poland) allegedly 10,000 Jews killed. [DO41]
• 1337 Starting in Deggendorf/Germany a Jew-killing craze reaches 51 towns in Bavaria, Austria, Poland. [DO41]
• 1348 All Jews of Basel/Switzerland and Strasbourg/France (two thousand) burned. [DO41]
• 1349 In more than 350 towns in Germany all Jews murdered, mostly burned alive (in this one year more Jews were killed than Christians in 200 years of ancient Roman persecution of Christians). [DO42]
• 1389 In Prag 3,000 Jews were slaughtered. [DO42]
• 1391 Seville's Jews killed (Archbishop Martinez leading). 4,000 were slain, 25,000 sold as slaves. [DA454] Their identification was made easy by the brightly colored "badges of shame" that all jews above the age of ten had been forced to wear.
• 1492: In the year Columbus set sail to conquer a New World, more than 150,000 Jews were expelled from Spain, many died on their way: 6/30/1492. [MM470-476]
• 1648 Chmielnitzki massacres: In Poland about 200,000 Jews were slain. [DO43]

(I feel sick ...) this goes on and on, century after century, right into the kilns of Auschwitz.

Native Peoples

• Beginning with Columbus (a former slave trader and would-be Holy Crusader) the conquest of the New World began, as usual understood as a means to propagate Christianity.
• Within hours of landfall on the first inhabited island he encountered in the Caribbean, Columbus seized and carried off six native people who, he said, "ought to be good servants ... [and] would easily be made Christians, because it seemed to me that they belonged to no religion." [SH200]
  While Columbus described the Indians as "idolators" and "slaves, as many as [the Crown] shall order," his pal Michele de Cuneo, Italian nobleman, referred to the natives as "beasts" because "they eat when they are hungry," and made love "openly whenever they feel like it." [SH204-205]
• On every island he set foot on, Columbus planted a cross, "making the declarations that are required" - the requerimiento - to claim the ownership for his Catholic patrons in Spain. And "nobody objected." If the Indians refused or delayed their acceptance (or understanding), the requerimiento continued:

I certify to you that, with the help of God, we shall powerfully enter in your country and shall make war against you ... and shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church ... and shall do you all mischief that we can, as to vassals who do not obey and refuse to receive their lord and resist and contradict him." [SH66]

• Likewise in the words of John Winthrop, first governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony: "justifieinge the undertakeres of the intended Plantation in New England ... to carry the Gospell into those parts of the world, ... and to raise a Bulworke against the kingdome of the Ante-Christ." [SH235]
• In average two thirds of the native population were killed by colonist-imported smallpox before violence began. This was a great sign of "the marvelous goodness and providence of God" to the Christians of course, e.g. the Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony wrote in 1634, as "for the natives, they are near all dead of the smallpox, so as the Lord hath cleared our title to what we possess." [SH109,238]
• On Hispaniola alone, on Columbus visits, the native population (Arawak), a rather harmless and happy people living on an island of abundant natural resources, a literal paradise, soon mourned 50,000 dead. [SH204]
• The surviving Indians fell victim to rape, murder, enslavement and spanish raids.
• As one of the culprits wrote: "So many Indians died that they could not be counted, all through the land the Indians lay dead everywhere. The stench was very great and pestiferous." [SH69]
• The indian chief Hatuey fled with his people but was captured and burned alive. As "they were tying him to the stake a Franciscan friar urged him to take Jesus to his heart so that his soul might go to heaven, rather than descend into hell. Hatuey replied that if heaven was where the Christians went, he would rather go to hell." [SH70]
• What happened to his people was described by an eyewitness:
  "The Spaniards found pleasure in inventing all kinds of odd cruelties ... They built a long gibbet, long enough for the toes to touch the ground to prevent strangling, and hanged thirteen [natives] at a time in honor of Christ Our Saviour and the twelve Apostles... then, straw was wrapped around their torn bodies and they were burned alive." [SH72]
  Or, on another occasion:
  "The Spaniards cut off the arm of one, the leg or hip of another, and from some their heads at one stroke, like butchers cutting up beef and mutton for market. Six hundred, including the cacique, were thus slain like brute beasts...Vasco [de Balboa] ordered forty of them to be torn to pieces by dogs." [SH83]
• The "island's population of about eight million people at the time of Columbus's arrival in 1492 already had declined by a third to a half before the year 1496 was out." Eventually all the island's natives were exterminated, so the Spaniards were "forced" to import slaves from other caribbean islands, who soon suffered the same fate. Thus "the Caribbean's millions of native people [were] thereby effectively liquidated in barely a quarter of a century". [SH72-73] "In less than the normal lifetime of a single human being, an entire culture of millions of people, thousands of years resident in their homeland, had been exterminated." [SH75]
• "And then the Spanish turned their attention to the mainland of Mexico and Central America. The slaughter had barely begun. The exquisite city of Tenochtitln [Mexico city] was next." [SH75]
• Cortez, Pizarro, De Soto and hundreds of other spanish conquistadors likewise sacked southern and mesoamerican civilizations in the name of Christ (De Soto also sacked Florida).
• "When the 16th century ended, some 200,000 Spaniards had moved to the Americas. By that time probably more than 60,000,000 natives were dead." [SH95]

Of course no different were the founders of what today is the US of Amerikkka.

• Although none of the settlers would have survived winter without native help, they soon set out to expel and exterminate the Indians. Warfare among (north American) Indians was rather harmless, in comparison to European standards, and was meant to avenge insults rather than conquer land. In the words of some of the pilgrim fathers: "Their Warres are farre less bloudy...", so that there usually was "no great slawter of nether side". Indeed, "they might fight seven yeares and not kill seven men." What is more, the Indians usually spared women and children. [SH111]
• In the spring of 1612 some English colonists found life among the (generally friendly and generous) natives attractive enough to leave Jamestown - "being idell ... did runne away unto the Indyans," - to live among them (that probably solved a sex problem).
  "Governor Thomas Dale had them hunted down and executed: 'Some he apointed (sic) to be hanged Some burned Some to be broken upon wheles, others to be staked and some shott to deathe'." [SH105] Of course these elegant measures were restricted for fellow englishmen: "This was the treatment for those who wished to act like Indians. For those who had no choice in the matter, because they were the native people of Virginia" methods were different: "when an Indian was accused by an Englishman of stealing a cup and failing to return it, the English response was to attack the natives in force, burning the entire community" down. [SH105]
• On the territory that is now Massachusetts the founding fathers of the colonies were committing genocide, in what has become known as the "Peqout War". The killers were New England Puritan Christians, refugees from persecution in their own home country England.
• When however, a dead colonist was found, apparently killed by Narragansett Indians, the Puritan colonists wanted revenge. Despite the Indian chief's pledge they attacked.
  Somehow they seem to have lost the idea of what they were after, because when they were greeted by Pequot Indians (long-time foes of the Narragansetts) the troops nevertheless made war on the Pequots and burned their villages.
  The puritan commander-in-charge John Mason after one massacre wrote: "And indeed such a dreadful Terror did the Almighty let fall upon their Spirits, that they would fly from us and run into the very Flames, where many of them perished ... God was above them, who laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to Scorn, making them as a fiery Oven ... Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling the Place with dead Bodies": men, women, children. [SH113-114]
• So "the Lord was pleased to smite our Enemies in the hinder Parts, and to give us their land for an inheritance". [SH111].
• Because of his readers' assumed knowledge of Deuteronomy, there was no need for Mason to quote the words that immediately follow:
  "Thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly destroy them..." (Deut 20)
• Mason's comrade Underhill recalled how "great and doleful was the bloody sight to the view of the young soldiers" yet reassured his readers that "sometimes the Scripture declareth women and children must perish with their parents". [SH114]
• Other Indians were killed in successful plots of poisoning. The colonists even had dogs especially trained to kill Indians and to devour children from their mothers breasts, in the colonists' own words: "blood Hounds to draw after them, and Mastives to seaze them." (This was inspired by spanish methods of the time)
  In this way they continued until the extermination of the Pequots was near. [SH107-119]
• The surviving handful of Indians "were parceled out to live in servitude. John Endicott and his pastor wrote to the governor asking for 'a share' of the captives, specifically 'a young woman or girle and a boy if you thinke good'." [SH115]
• Other tribes were to follow the same path.
• Comment the Christian exterminators: "God's Will, which will at last give us cause to say: How Great is His Goodness! and How Great is his Beauty!"
  "Thus doth the Lord Jesus make them to bow before him, and to lick the Dust!" [TA]
• Like today, lying was OK to Christians then. "Peace treaties were signed with every intention to violate them: when the Indians 'grow secure uppon (sic) the treatie', advised the Council of State in Virginia, 'we shall have the better Advantage both to surprise them, & cutt downe theire Corne'." [SH106]
• In 1624 sixty heavily armed Englishmen cut down 800 defenseless Indian men, women and children. [SH107]
• In a single massacre in "King Philip's War" of 1675 and 1676 some "600 Indians were destroyed. A delighted Cotton Mather, revered pastor of the Second Church in Boston, later referred to the slaughter as a 'barbeque'." [SH115]
• To summarize: Before the arrival of the English, the western Abenaki people in New Hampshire and Vermont had numbered 12,000. Less than half a century later about 250 remained alive - a destruction rate of 98%. The Pocumtuck people had numbered more than 18,000, fifty years later they were down to 920 - 95% destroyed. The Quiripi-Unquachog people had numbered about 30,000, fifty years later they were down to 1500 - 95% destroyed. The Massachusetts people had numbered at least 44,000, fifty years later barely 6000 were alive - 81% destroyed. [SH118] These are only a few examples of the multitude of tribes living before Christian colonists set their foot on the New World. All this was before the smallpox epidemics of 1677 and 1678 had occurred. And the carnage was not over then.
• All the above was only the beginning of the European colonization, it was before the frontier age actually had begun.
• A total of maybe more than 150 million Indians (of both Americas) were destroyed in the period of 1500 to 1900, as an average two thirds by smallpox and other epidemics, that leaves some 50 million killed directly by violence, bad treatment and slavery.
• In many countries, such as Brazil, and Guatemala, this continues even today.

More Glorious events in US history

• Reverend Solomon Stoddard, one of New England's most esteemed religious leaders, in "1703 formally proposed to the Massachusetts Governor that the colonists be given the financial wherewithal to purchase and train large packs of dogs 'to hunt Indians as they do bears'." [SH241]
• Massacre of Sand Creek, Colorado 11/29/1864. Colonel John Chivington, a former Methodist minister and still elder in the church ("I long to be wading in gore") had a Cheyenne village of about 600, mostly women and children, gunned down despite the chiefs' waving with a white flag: 400-500 killed.
  From an eye-witness account: "There were some thirty or forty squaws collected in a hole for protection; they sent out a little girl about six years old with a white flag on a stick; she had not proceeded but a few steps when she was shot and killed. All the squaws in that hole were afterwards killed ..." [SH131]
  More gory details.
• By the 1860s, "in Hawai'i the Reverend Rufus Anderson surveyed the carnage that by then had reduced those islands' native population by 90 percent or more, and he declined to see it as tragedy; the expected total die-off of the Hawaiian population was only natural, this missionary said, somewhat equivalent to 'the amputation of diseased members of the body'." [SH244]

20th Century Church Atrocities

• Catholic extermination camps
  Surpisingly few know that Nazi extermination camps in World War II were by no means the only ones in Europe at the time. In the years 1942-1943 also in Croatia existed numerous extermination camps, run by Catholic Ustasha under their dictator Ante Paveli, a practising Catholic and regular visitor to the then pope. There were even concentration camps exclusively for children!
  
  In these camps - the most notorious was Jasenovac, headed by a Franciscan friar - orthodox-Christian serbians (and a substantial number of Jews) were murdered. Like the Nazis the Catholic Ustasha burned their victims in kilns, alive (the Nazis were decent enough to have their victims gassed first). But most of the victims were simply stabbed, slain or shot to death, the number of them being estimated between 300,000 and 600,000, in a rather tiny country. Many of the killers were Franciscan friars. The atrocities were appalling enough to induce bystanders of the Nazi "Sicherheitsdient der SS", watching, to complain about them to Hitler (who did not listen). The pope knew about these events and did nothing to prevent them. [MV]
• Catholic terror in Vietnam
  In 1954 Vietnamese freedom fighters - the Viet Minh - had finally defeated the French colonial government in North Vietnam, which by then had been supported by U.S. funds amounting to more than $2 billion. Although the victorious assured religious freedom to all (most non-buddhist Vietnamese were Catholics), due to huge anticommunist propaganda campaigns many Catholics fled to the South. With the help of Catholic lobbies in Washington and Cardinal Spellman, the Vatican's spokesman in U.S. politics, who later on would call the U.S. forces in Vietnam "Soldiers of Christ", a scheme was concocted to prevent democratic elections which could have brought the communist Viet Minh to power in the South as well, and the fanatic Catholic Ngo Dinh Diem was made president of South Vietnam. [MW16ff]
  
  Diem saw to it that U.S. aid, food, technical and general assistance was given to Catholics alone, Buddhist individuals and villages were ignored or had to pay for the food aids which were given to Catholics for free. The only religious denomination to be supported was Roman Catholicism.
  
  The Vietnamese McCarthyism turned even more vicious than its American counterpart. By 1956 Diem promulgated a presidential order which read:
• 
  
  • "Individuals considered dangerous to the national defense and common security may be confined by executive order, to a concentration camp."

Supposedly to fight communism, thousands of buddhist protesters and monks were imprisoned in "detention camps." Out of protest dozens of buddhist teachers - male and female - and monks poured gasoline over themselves and burned themselves. (Note that Buddhists burned themselves: in comparison Christians tend to burn others). Meanwhile some of the prison camps, which in the meantime were filled with Protestant and even Catholic protesters as well, had turned into no-nonsense death camps. It is estimated that during this period of terror (1955-1960) at least 24,000 were wounded - mostly in street riots - 80,000 people were executed, 275,000 had been detained or tortured, and about 500,000 were sent to concentration or detention camps. [MW76-89].

To support this kind of government in the next decade thousands of American GI's lost their life....

• Rwanda Massacres
  In 1994 in the small african country of Rwanda in just a few months several hundred thousand civilians were butchered, apparently a conflict of the Hutu and Tutsi ethnic groups.

For quite some time I heard only rumours about Catholic clergy actively involved in the 1994 Rwanda massacres. Odd denials of involvement were printed in Catholic church journals, before even anybody had openly accused members of the church.
Then, 10/10/96, in the newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany - a station not at all critical to Christianity - the following was stated:

"Anglican as well as Catholic priests and nuns are suspect of having actively participated in murders. Especially the conduct of a certain Catholic priest has been occupying the public mind in Rwanda's capital Kigali for months. He was minister of the church of the Holy Family and allegedly murdered Tutsis in the most brutal manner. He is reported to have accompanied marauding Hutu militia with a gun in his cowl. In fact there has been a bloody slaughter of Tutsis seeking shelter in his parish. Even two years after the massacres many Catholics refuse to set foot on the threshold of their church, because to them the participation of a certain part of the clergy in the slaughter is well established. There is almost no church in Rwanda that has not seen refugees - women, children, old - being brutally butchered facing the crucifix.

According to eyewitnesses clergymen gave away hiding Tutsis and turned them over to the machetes of the Hutu militia.
In connection with these events again and again two Benedictine nuns are mentioned, both of whom have fled into a Belgian monastery in the meantime to avoid prosecution. According to survivors one of them called the Hutu killers and led them to several thousand people who had sought shelter in her monastery. By force the doomed were driven out of the churchyard and were murdered in the presence of the nun right in front of the gate. The other one is also reported to have directly cooperated with the murderers of the Hutu militia. In her case again witnesses report that she watched the slaughtering of people in cold blood and without showing response. She is even accused of having procured some petrol used by the killers to set on fire and burn their victims alive..." [S2]

As can be seen from these events, to Christianity the Dark Ages never come to an end....
References:

[DA] K.Deschner, Abermals krhte der Hahn, Stuttgart 1962. [DO] K.Deschner, Opus Diaboli, Reinbek 1987. [EC] P.W.Edbury, Crusade and Settlement, Cardiff Univ. Press 1985. [EJ] S.Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders, Madison 1977. [LI] H.C.Lea, The Inquisition of the Middle Ages, New York 1961. [MM] M.Margolis, A.Marx, A History of the Jewish People. [MV] A.Manhattan, The Vatican's Holocaust, Springfield 1986.
See also V.Dedijer, The Yugoslav Auschwitz and the Vatican, Buffalo NY, 1992. [NC] J.T.Noonan, Contraception: A History of its Treatment by the Catholic Theologians and Canonists, Cambridge/Mass., 1992. [S2] Newscast of S2 Aktuell, Germany, 10/10/96, 12:00. [SH] D.Stannard, American Holocaust, Oxford University Press 1992. [SP] German news magazine Der Spiegel, no.49, 12/2/1996. [TA] A True Account of the Most Considerable Occurrences that have Hapned in the Warre Between the English and the Indians in New England, London 1676. [TG] F.Turner, Beyond Geography, New York 1980. [WW] H.Wollschlger: Die bewaffneten Wallfahrten gen Jerusalem, Zrich 1973.
(This is in german and what is worse, it is out of print. But it is the best I ever read about crusades and includes a full list of original medieval Christian chroniclers' writings). [WV] Estimates on the number of executed witches:

• N.Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch Hunt, Frogmore 1976, 253.
• R.H.Robbins, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology, New York 1959, 180.
• J.B.Russell, Witchcraft in the Middle Ages, Ithaca/NY 1972, 39.
• H.Zwetsloot, Friedrich Spee und die Hexenprozesse, Trier 1954, 56

[جوري]

Who was the first suicide bomber?

In: War and Military History [Edit categories]








[Edit]


Answer


During the Crusades, the Knights Templar destroyed one of their own ships, killing 140 Christians in order to kill ten times as many Muslims. Another early example of suicide bombing occurred during the Belgian Revolution, when the Dutch Lieutenant Jan van Speijk detonated his own ship in the harbour of Antwerp to prevent being captured by the Belgians.


Modern suicide bombing as a political tool can be traced back to the assisination of Czar Alexander II of Russia in 1881. Alexander fell victim to a Nihilist plot. While driving on one of the central streets of St. Petersburg, near the Winter Palace, he was mortally wounded by the explosion of hand-made grenades and died a few hours afterwards. The Czar was killed by the Pole Ignacy Hryniewiecki (1856-1881), who died while intentionally exploding the bomb during the attack.

The ritual act of self-sacrifice during combat appeared in a large scale at the end of World War II with the Japanese kamikaze bombers.

['Abd-al Latif]

I find the Quran very simple. The only thing not explained are the initial letters.

I wouldn't say that Arabic is the deepest, most precise, concise and clear language. Every language has this potential in their own unique way.

I would think that GOD's language is every language- He can hear all of our prayers in any language.

Since you don't know arabic it would be incorrect for you to say that arabic isn't the deepest language.

And yes god can hear prayers in every language because he created these languages. But His word is the Qur'an and this cannot be translated. If you can imagine the distance between the Creator and His creation, then you can imagine the distance between the word of Allah and a translation.

Jesus was actually sent for all of man- Muslims always quote the verse before He laid His life down for His sheep to mean that He was sent just for the Jews.

Look how He talked to the woman at the well she was not Jewish.

John 4
9The Samaritan woman said to him, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)

10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

11"Sir," the woman said, "you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?"

13Jesus answered, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Jesus tells us in
Matthew 24
14And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

It only makes sense that Jesus went to the Jewish people first, they had the Law of GOD, the gentiles knew nothing about GOD. What good would it have been for Jesus to come first to the gentiles?!

Jesus was not sent for all of mankind and he said this with his own words. He was sent for the jews and the jews only. Let's take a look at your bible.

(Matthew 15:24)--- He (Jesus) replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."

(Matt 10:5-6)--- "Don't take the road leading to other nations, and don't enter any Samaritan town. Instead, go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

Muhammad (saaws) was sent to the whole of mankind and this is what your bible says:

Jesus said someone will be sent after him -- he will leave so the Final Prophet or “Comforter” can come with a final law that would judge and establish legal commands of God to follow.

(John 16:5-8)--- "But now I go my way to Him that sent me and none of you asketh me, 'Wither goest thou?' But because I have said these things unto you sorrow hath filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, for if I go not away, the [Last Prophet/Comforter] will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and approve righteousness and judgement"

To approve righteousness and Judgement means a new law would be sent through the Last Prophet.

Obviously Jesus is not talking about the “Holy Spirit” being the comforter/Prophet because the Holy Spirit has already come as once as a dove and many times before that.

The Holy Spirit has already come many times --- (Luke 1:15,Luke 1:41,Luke 1:67,Luke 2:25-26) and it is a divine “favor” or understanding….. not an actual person or Prophet.

(John 14:16-17)--- And I will pray to the Lord, and he shall give you another [Prophet/Comforter/Spirit of Truth], that [his example] may abide with you for ever.

As a mercy unto mankind God has promised to send down and protect a final complete message(Holy book) and code of life (human example) before sealing the Prophethood.

The Sunnah (example of the Prophet) is kept alive by every Muslim copying the life of the Prophet Mohammed.
---------------------
(John 14:26.) ---"But the Comforter[Prophet/Comforter/Spirit of Truth], whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your “remembrance”, whatsoever I have said unto you."

The true message of Jesus, Moses and the Last Prophet is kept alive forever through the memorization and daily recitation of the Quran.

(John 16:12-14)--- "I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now. How be it when he, the Spirit of truth , is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak.

Do these verses remind you of anything?

Allah says in the Qur'an: "To thee We sent the Scripture in truth, confirming the truth of whatever there still remains of earlier revelations, determining what is true therein, and guarding it in safety:" [5:48]

I've got plenty more where that came from, all from your bible. Shall we carry on if you're not convinced?

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

If they don't repent and since Shirk is the WORST sin and Allah doesn't forgive,will they enter Paradise?

Of course not...you answered yourself in your own statement, technically :D

[MSN]

Of course not...you answered yourself in your own statement, technically :D

Then some Muslims are... :X

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

If you mean those Muslims who commit shirk and not repent before they die, then yea...but even they after some time in hell will go to Jannah...since they died as Muslims.

Wait I hope I'm not wrong...feel free to correct me.

[rpwelton]

If you mean those Muslims who commit shirk and not repent before they die, then yea...but even they after some time in hell will go to Jannah...since they died as Muslims.

Wait I hope I'm not wrong...feel free to correct me.

There is a difference between minor shirk and major shirk. I don't have the knowledge to elaborate beyond that, but not all "shirk" is the type that dooms you to hell forever. Yasir Qadhi has some good youtube vids that delve into the difference.

I'll see if I can dig up the links.

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

^^Okies sure thanks, but that doesnt really answer my question. Will a Muslim go to Jannah eventually, regardless of major or minor? We are talkin about Muslims and I didnt say they'll be doomed forever, so if you can address that..:)

[rpwelton]

^^Okies sure thanks, but that doesnt really answer my question. Will a Muslim go to Jannah eventually, regardless of major or minor? We are talkin about Muslims and I didnt say they'll be doomed forever, so if you can address that..:)

Well just think about it for a second. Is the definition of "Muslim" one who worships an idol (major shirk)?

You can't say "la ilaha il Allah" and then turn around and pray to a statue and still be called a Muslim.

As for minor shirk, again I'll have to dig up some references later. I just wanted to state up front that there are different levels of shirk.

[Nσσя'υℓ Jαииαн]

Okiee, I gotcha. JazakAllah Khair.

[alcurad]

^to note, if a Muslim does not realize/was not informed/didn't have the capacity to know it is indeed Shirk/Idolatry then he is still a Muslim regardless of it being 'major'.

[MSN]

^I think we should open a new thread and talk about it there.It's irrelevant to the subject here.
But the Muslims who commit Shirk already know that other Muslims consider some of their actions Shirk.At least some of them.