Reddit Reddit reviews Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (Islam in the Twenty-First Century)

We found 11 Reddit comments about Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (Islam in the Twenty-First Century). Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (Islam in the Twenty-First Century)
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11 Reddit comments about Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy (Islam in the Twenty-First Century):

u/autumnflower · 12 pointsr/islam

I'm just going to answer what I can, hopefully other can address the rest.


>If this is true, why was the entire Jewish tribe that violated the treaty with Muhammad be punished for their leaders' decision?

Because the entire tribe committed treason. Yes it was their leaders' decision, but the people following the leaders were perfectly able to not accept their leaders' decision and go out and support the prophet (sawa) during the battle rather than stay behind and defy the treaty. Or they could have come to him and say we are innocent of what our leaders did and do not think it is right. They did not do so and where willing to fight for their leaders. Just because someone else came up with the idea does not excuse the one who followed and accepted it.

>Why are we taught to distrust Jews?

Um... you should not be taught that. A lot of people, especially from the middle east, speak generally about Jews but what they mean is Israeli. More recently, with the internet and increasing understanding that Jew does not equal Israeli, it is less and less the case. The distrust is due to politics and wars and not due to Islam. Before the current Palestine/Israel crisis, Jewish people lived in the Muslim world in peace. In fact, during the Spanish inquisition, it was Muslims who took in Jewish people escaping persecution.

>I was also taught that on Judgement Day, when a person is being dragged to hell, he would also drag people who he feels could have helped him become better to hell too.

I'm not sure where this comes from. It might mean that if you are someone who is in a position to help another person find guidance and refuses to do so, leaving him in misguidance, that its a bad thing.

>How are Muslim conquers and wars any different than plain colonialism

For this you'll have to read the history of each conquest in detail. The state of the world worked differently. There was no nation state where people chose their own leaders. Most places where under the rule of large Empires (for ex. Byzantines or Persians) and the borders between them would constantly change based on who was stronger. People accepted a ruler only because the ruler was strong enough to conquer them. A newly formed state would have to expand or be conquered by neighboring empires with large resources. If you read history, many of the tribes living on the borders of the Persian or Byzantine empire would ask the Muslims to take over because of the oppressive rule of these Empires, and that these Empires would start war with the Muslims. The Muslims never enforced Islam on anyone and left non-Muslims to locally conduct themselves by their own religious rules.

Now, people live in nation states with well defined borders that have signed treaties with each other protecting their sovereignty and where the people choose their rulers. ISIS, first of all is not an Islamic caliphate. Second it is expanding into places that were at peace, and were self governing. It is killing innocent people, muslims and non muslims, forcing their version of twisted Islam on the populace and killing whoever disagrees. There's currently on the sub a thread I believe linking to a book that theologically refutes ISIS and goes into why they are wrong, so you might be interested in checking it out.

>As children, I used to play 'bad telephone'. One person whispers a phrase to another and this goes on until the whole line of children are finished with it. At the end of the game, the original phrase is completely distorted. How are hadiths any different from plain hearsays?

There's a whole science to hadith literature to decipher exactly this. It wasn't like person X said this and we just accept it. Many hadiths would be transmitted through different chains making it unlikely that everyone made the exact same mistake. You might be interested in reading Misquoting Muhammad.

>I come from a science-oriented background but since Islam plays a huge influence here, the evolution theory is rejected. I believe in evolution. But I also believe in Adam and Eve being the first humans on Earth. What is so wrong in believing that God has created all the evolutionary processes to create an Earth that is suitable for humans to live in?

Nothing. There's nothing wrong with believing in evolution as just another scientific/biological process the God created. I believe in the evolutionary theory as well, and believe that Adam and Eve were chosen to be the first humans on Earth. Are there things we don't yet know for sure about how they came to physical existence on earth? Sure, and I doubt we'll ever have perfect knowledge. But there's no contradiction between evolution and Islam.

>I was taught that a Muslim man can marry 4 women simply because 'men are capable of if while women can't'.

It's not about sexual capability. Marriage is the fundamental building block of society in Islam. Men can marry 4 women because throughout history, wars and general hardship meant many men would die. Because of biological facts that make the woman the one going through child birth and nursing, and needing support, she would need support, financial and physical. One man can have the capability of supporting more than one woman. Historically, before birth control and traditional schools that serve as day time baby-sitters, women were severely limited in their capability to go out and earn a living. Even today, a single mother is one of the most vulnerable members of western society, and without social support, many find themselves looking for shelters or help. So a woman was in greater danger of finding herself destitute than a man, when falling upon hardship, becoming widowed or losing parents, etc. Also it allows a society to maintain birthrate and structure when men of wealthier means are able to support more than one woman.

>Why aren't we allowed to eat pork?

Because God said so. It's not about bacteria or any of that. That is just people trying to guess the reason why. We are not allowed to eat pork or carrion or drink alcohol because God explicitly states that they are haram in the Qur'an. No technology will change that fact. If you are asking why did God make it haram, the true is answer is "we don't know."

>We see the Canadian children singing to welcome the refugees. Would we be willing to let our children do the same if the situation is reversed, say, Jewish refugees?

I certainly hope so. Muslims welcomed Jewish refugees once when they kicked out of Spain, and I hope if such a situation arises again, we would find ourselves being welcoming people again.

>Why aren't we doing anything about ISIS other than publicly declaring that they aren't practicing 'true Islam' (which, on its own, is a whole another debate)?

Who's we? Who do you think is on the ground physically fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq? Hint: It's muslims.

>Why are we so petty about things? Haram this, haram that. Ban music, ban yoga, ban the Union Jack flag, spy on people to catch unmarried people having sex

Wait what? I go to Yoga class once a week. I also enjoy classical music. Also, Islamically, it is haram to spy on people period.

I feel that you might be exposed to some super strict version of Islam as the only right one. There's no question some people wish to be very strict on themselves, but you should keep in mind that there are large variations in accepted orthodox Islamic traditions, and no one has the right to impose their own understanding on others.

u/ExpensiveCancel · 9 pointsr/progressive_islam

>For more references, read a whole chapter about it in Jonathan Brown’s book Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet’s Legacy (specifically pp. 189-199). Even he, who otherwise holds rather patriarchal ideas about women, agrees that there’s no prohibition on mixed-gender female-led prayers and that the scholars had nothing to stand on for prohibiting it.

i loved the entire response, but this part was news to me! I've never cared for Johnathan Brown but i recognize his scholarship and think it's really cool that there really is no prohibition against women leading prayer.

So who are we to make something that isn't known to be haram into a sin?

Yasmin and anyone else who think it's haram for a woman to lead are essentially just speaking for Allah when they have zero authority to be doing that. In fact, their rhetoric is what drives people further from Islam and they'll probably have to answer to Allah for that.

u/costofanarchy · 9 pointsr/islam

This is correct in terms of both contemporary Sunni and Shi'i Islam. Scholars are generally recognized by their erudition and contributions to the theory and/or application of Islamic (as well as other areas such as theology, Qur'anic exegesis, spiritual practice, etc.).

I can comment more on the situation in Twelver Shi'ism, as I am a Twelver Shi'i Muslim myself. Twelver Shi'ism will appear to have more of a hierarchical structure or at least exhibit more centrality than what is seen in the Sunni world, but it's still very far form the central hierachy of the Catholic clergly. While often finds comparisons between the Shi'i scholars and the catholic clergy in the media and even in the academic literature, these comparisons are often misguided, and at the very least reductive. Basically, within Twelver Shi'ism since the late eighteenth (or perhaps more accurately/practically, the mid-nineteenth century), the common practice has been for the laity to follow the rulings of the most learned scholar that has the authority to exercise independent legal judgements (although these are still, at least nominally, only derivations made from the source material, the Qur'an and ahadith, rather than original legislation); they would also pay the khums tax to this scholar if applicable, which among other things, funds the seminaries. At various points in time one figure would be seen by the vast majority as the most learned, but at other points in time (such as the current era), there would be multiple figures with large followings. Virtually anyone could announce themselves as a learned scholar, but to be taken seriously by much of the population, and indeed by ones peers, one would typically need to study in one of several seminaries (which today would primarily be those in Qum, Iran and to a lesser extent in Najafi, Iraq) under well-known teachers (generally, the most recognized scholars of the previous generation). Things have become more complicated since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, where the lines between scholarship and public service (i.e., holding positions of political power) are becoming blurred.

The situation within contemporary Sunni Islam is even more decentralized. For one things, there are four major legal schools within Sunni Islam, and then there's also the Salafi movement that exists outside of those legal schools. Moreover, scholarship even within the same legal school can be quite different based on geography. For example, the Hanafi school is the primary school followed in both Asia Minor (e.g., Turkey) and Central/South Asia, but as I've heard there's quite a difference between the practice of the religion, even in its more legal dimensions, between say Turkey and Pakistan; in fact even within South Asia, there are multiple approaches taken by Hanafi Sunni Musilms that lead to quite different expressions of religion, and each will have their own scholars.

Moreover, the prestige of centers of learning within Sunni Islam have also been in flux lately. One of the issues in Sunni scholarship today is that whereas in Shi'i Islam centers of learning are primarily funded through khums, in Sunni Islam they've historically relied mainly on awqaf (charitable endowments, the singular form is waqf), and these were regulated if not outright taken by modern nation states in the contemporary era. In fact, modern (often secular) nation states in the Islamic world began to increasingly oversee and regulate the formal practice of religion and its scholarship within their borders. Therefore, scholars became increasingly dependent on the state for support, so you have something like national hierarchies forming, with say, a grand mufti at the head. This in term led to the prestige of centers of learning such as Al-Azhar university in Cairo, Egypt to fall in the eyes of many, as they were seen as being co-opted by the state (although the relationship between scholars and temporal power has always been tenuous and tricky in both the Sunni and Shi'i traditions). Simultaneously, we've seen increasing prestige associated with the Salafi expression of Islam (with centers of learning in Saudi Arabia), which ostensibly eschews all hierarchy even more rigorously than what's seen in other expressions of Islam, by rejecting the legal schools. However, some would contend that effectively, much of Salafi practice comes from treating a small number of contemporary scholars as authorities.

Of course there are other Muslim groups, so we can briefly cover them. Zaydi Shi'ism also has a rich history of scholarship, based primarily in Yemen, but I'm less familiar with that to comment (and at various times throughout history the lines between Zaydi scholarship and Sunni scholarship have become blended), and I know virtually nothing about Ibadi scholarship (which is a school of thought that is neither Shi'i nor Sunni, largely based in Oman), and ditto for Zahiri scholarship (sometimes considered a fifth school in Sunni Islam). I should add that the Nizari Ismaili Shi'i community does feature a type of hierarchy, in that they have a present living Imam who carries the charismatic authority of the Prophet (saws), as opposed to the hidden Imam of the Twelver Shi'is; this Imam can act as an infallible. But really this is one charismatic figure, who essentially acts like a head of state without a territory in the modern world, surrounded by a bureaucracy. For more information, you can look up the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN). I should add though that Nizari Isma'ilis today resemble something that is basically unrecognizable when compared to normative Sunni, Twelver/Zaidi/Shi'i, and Ibadi Islam.

There are also Sufi groups, most of which fall within Sunni Islam legally speaking, but some of which are not strictly speaking Sunni (and might actually be affiliated with Twelver Shi'ism, even though Sufism is generally viewed upon negatively in that tradition). Here you might have some hierarchy within a tariqa but that's different. There are also antinomian Sufi groups, which do their own thing and don't really follow Islamic law. These may exhibit some cult-like tendencies, where you have a charismatic community built around one or a small group of leaders, but here I'm just speculating as this is pretty far from the areas I'm knowledgeable about.

In short, aside from these mystical/antinomian persuasions, in theory, a scholar in Islam is really no different than a member of the laity in religious/theological terms, except for their ability to issue rulings on religious law. Although I don't know much about Catholicism (so take this with a grain or few of salt), I guess you can think of Muslim scholars as something in between a lay theologian and a canon lawyer I guess. In practice, of course, they serve in a distinct social/cultural role, and do things like leading prayers, officiating marriages, handling burial rites, counseling people and giving them advice, etc., although a qualified lay individual can fulfill all these functions too.

For further reading on Sunni scholarship, see Jonathan A.C. Brown's Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy, and for further reading on Shi'i scholarship, see Roy Mottahedeh's The Mantle of the Prophet.

u/zbhoy · 7 pointsr/islam

I recommend you read Misquoting Muhammad by Jonathan Brown. It's not perfect but very good and definitely great for intro reading.

Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy https://www.amazon.com/dp/1780747829/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_SNk7AbN3K3351

u/RadioFreeCascadia · 6 pointsr/MapPorn

Diversity of ideas, not skin color. I find that people who live in different states tend to have different views and ideas, while a visually diverse city or urban area can become quite orthodox and rigid in terms of ideas

Or, to pouch a quote I love: "Cosmopolitanism does not mean people of different skin colors all sitting around a bistro table complaining about organized religion. It means people who hold profoundly different, even mutually exclusive beliefs and cultural norms "
(Jonathan Brown, Foreword to Misquoting Mohammed: The Challenges and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy)

u/hdah24 · 5 pointsr/islam

The problem with any argument based on the life and actions of Muhammad is that such actions are hotly contested. Historically speaking, there is little trustworthy evidence covering his life - and western historiography has struggled to make anything of what is left (scholars such as P. Crone, M. Cook and more recently Tom Holland have done a lot of work on this).

If you're interested in this topic, I suggest you get your hands on J. A. C. Brown's book 'Misquoting Muhammad'. At a fundamental level it will demonstrate how elements of the prophet's life were reinterpreted (read: rewritten) by later scholars to justify certain acts, but it also (and Patricia Crone, Michael Cook and Tom Holland concentrate on this) covers the very serious problems faced in looking at Muhammad's life historically.

It goes like this:

In Islam, one aims to be like Muhammad. He is the role model and his actions determine how one should act. Thus you have hadith telling you whether he urinated standing up or sitting down, just as a silly example. Extremist groups like IS take this to the extreme (hence they are 'extremists'). Most Muslims are willing to accept, just as Christians are in reference to the Bible, that their prophet lived within a historical context and that God's revelation was relevant to that context. For many Muslims, it is compatible that they deviate from Muhammad's example in some ways, for he lived in a different time. They focus on the positive aspects of his character, of which there truly is many - he is by all accounts a great man, kind and generous, diplomatic and peace-loving. The negative aspects of his character are ignored, for to acknowledge them would be to undermine his importance and sanctity as a messenger of God. It's around here that I personally unsubscribe from religion - I find this idea incompatible. But to many, many people, this is okay, and they remain believers. I, and all, should respect that choice.

Anyway, herein lies a very strange historical phenomenon. Usually, the further we get from a historical event, the less is known. For the life of Muhammad, however, it seems the opposite is true: the further we get from his life the more and more detail there is about him. This can be explained, but the explanation is uncomfortable for a lot of Muslims. His life was not recorded at the time. It was remembered orally - thus you have the isnad chains of the hadith - as was the qur'an which was not codified until Caliph 'Umar at the earliest. Oral transmission is not a reliable way to preserve historical truth, especially when we're talking about centuries of oral transmission. Muslim scholars of the 10th and 11th centuries, when the life of Muhammad was codified, tried their utmost to determine what was legitimately true and what was not. But a significant amount of these 'true' hadiths have been found to be problematic (see Ignaz Goldziher, for one).

I could go on, but the general moral of the story here is that the life of Muhammad is a fascinating historiographical phenomenon. Here we have possibly the most detailed account of the life of any historical individual: few humans in history have had so much written about them. Yet all of that knowledge is on incredibly shaky ground, and in reality we are left with very little, if anything, about his life.

In relation to your questions, this is just a background understanding which I think it is important. I wish to respond to them, though, on an understanding (for sake of argument) that the early Islamic historical tradition is reliable (which it is not). For the record, I'm a Western Historian with no religious biases either way, interested only in historical fact and the implications of that fact.

> Didn't Muhammad collect sex slaves

He certainly had at least one: Maria al-Qibtiyya, who was a Coptic slave (Christian from Egypt) and bearer of his only son, Ibrahim, who died as a child. The two were not married, and she was in servitude to him, having been a gift from al-Muqawqis, the Christian ruler/governor of Egypt.

Now we return to historical context, which I'm sure you would agree is hugely important. Groups like IS, being 'extreme' (as I discuss earlier), ignore historical context. But the majority of Muslims worldwide are happy to accept that this was appropriate at the time, but no longer is. For in 7th century Arabia - and indeed across the world from China to Constantinople, from Balkh to Rome - sex slaves were an accepted part of society. The Christian monarchs of medieval Europe had sex slaves. By modern standards even, almost all of those monarchs were sexual abusers - their wives were usually younger than 18, often younger than 16.

My point here, as in the next couple of points, is that context is everything. What Muslims do celebrate though is that Muhammad's treatment of women was actually far, far better than that of the cultures which preceded him. Islam gave women property rights, for example. Women in China, Iran and Europe did not have property rights. Many contemporary observers in Europe from the 7th century onwards actually express surprise at the high status given to women in Islamic society - it is unusual to them.

>"Strike at the neck" to his enemies

This is from Qur'an 47:4, and is one of many massively misunderstood passages explained by this helpful infographic. Ironically, you'll find this if you browse the top of all time on this very subreddit.

> A religious tax

This is a seriously long and complicated subject and i've already babbled on enough, but I will make one important point here: the level of tax imposed by the Arabs on the empire established under the Rashidun was significantly better than the level of tax imposed prior. Those who lived in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt etc. actually found that under Islamic government they had a far better deal than under Byzantine or Sasanian rule.

Furthermore, there was no concerted effort of conversion. The idea that Islam was spread by the sword is historically false. In Western historiography we call the conquests 'Arab', not 'Islamic', in order to make this clear. In fact, we find the opposite is true: the Arabs were very reluctant to let non-Arabs convert to Islam. The Abbasid revolution in 750, one of the great historical junctures in the political history of Islam, was a direct result of non-Arab converts (mawali) being angry that Arab Muslims were not treating them like Muslims. The conquests, and the rule of the 'Islamic' world from the 7th century until about the 10th, was 'Arab', not 'Muslim'. After ~10th century, with the Shu'ubiyya and rise of Persian dynasties, it became 'Persian', rather than Arab - but still not 'Muslim'. This idea of 'Islamic conquests' and 'Islamic rule' is historically unfounded.

I could go on, but Islam has an incredible political, cultural and religious history which I highly recommend you read about. I'm not a Muslim and not a die-hard defender of religion, nor am I anti-religious or anti-Islam. The more I learn about it, the more I find ignorance and misunderstanding on both sides. The more I realise that, as with all history and cultural development, the truth is murky and somewhere in the middle.

TL;DR: From a historical perspective, we have to be careful when talking about the life of Muhammad. Some of what you claim is true, but must be contextualised. Some is not, and represent major misunderstandings of Islam found in the west. Overall, we should all be a bit more critical of what we think we know and understand. That goes for anti-Islamic people and Muslims alike. Perhaps the world would be a better place if everyone just accepted that we all have different worldviews, and none of them are perfect.

u/hl_lost · 3 pointsr/islam

>Muslims say Bukhari and Muslim are 100% authentic

No, only the uneducated ones say that. Amongst scholars there is no difference of opinion on this. Even Bukhari and Muslim have hadith which are not authentic. This is a huge topic but the book recommendations below will help you get context around this.

You are going down a slippery path of following dogma and institutionalization of Islam. There is a reason why you (and I) gain spirituality from reading the Quran and not so the auxiliary materials.

I highly recommend you read the following books.

Losing My Religion by Dr. Lang. I think you will find Dr. Lang's experiences helpful since he went through the exact same struggle that you are going through. He too found the Quran beautiful and found it spoke to him. He too started following the institutionalized version of Islam and found it frustrating. He has good suggestions to avoid the common pitfalls. Its a very light and easy read and he answers common questions from new muslims and western muslims who are more fond of critical thinking.

and of course Misquoting Mohammed as this will give you the broad context on how Islam became institutional, how there were always differences of opinions, how culture and prejudice amongst scholars played a role in its formation, the place of Hadith and the history of its use in Islamic doctrine etc. However, this is somewhat of a dense book and will take time to get through. at least it did for me.

u/horillagormone · 2 pointsr/islam

It was written by a revert. This is the book I was referring to.

u/emp_omelettedufromag · 2 pointsr/worldnews

> A problem only gets bigger if we don't talk about said problem.

100% agreed. And as an example, to come back to the very initial point of the thread, the main issue with most Muslim countries is that they are not within a government allowing freedom of speech, effectively hindering that immensely important action that is talking about the issues and solving them

> Genuine question, you see religion as something more good then bad but at what point would you consider that religion is doing more bad then good?

Genuine answer, religion to me is immensely more good than bad. The bad coming from religion is the bad that stems from people creating justifications to do bad powered by religion - not from "the religion". My general view on it is: if there was no such thing as religion, the very same people will find other ways to hurt others, it just so happens that religion is a great propaganda tool towards the uneducated> A good, harmless example would be to go to South Africa where poor villages are Christian and following "self-declared prophets" who basically preach random stuff and get all the money they can from them. Will you blame religion, or the self-declared prophet for such an evil deed? I blame the latter. Oh by the way if you're interested in the Muslim side of the things I'd recommend you read Misquoting Muhammad by Jonathan AC Brown. It's a great book recollecting the history of governments openly using different interpretations of Islamic texts to drive their country towards the direction they wanted (both good and bad examples are listed, I found it to be a pretty amazing historic book tbh!)

As someone who lived in a religious society and visited several countries, you can very easily see the good that comes immediately from religion. The feeling of brotherhood, the tendency from people to naturally help each other. Random football comparison there but I guess you heard how Dortmund fans housed Monaco fans last week? That's something you'd naturally see in every place where people follow a religion: their religion taught them to look out for others. I've been housed by complete strangers in Peru (amazing Christian family), Morocco and Mauritania (Muslim families), South Africa (Christian family) and others. They were just genuinely looking out for me, it was their natural trait, and all of them insisted that it was part of their religion. I didn't even ask for anything, they insisted they wanted to take care of me! Now to draw a parallel, I have never seen someone genuinely caring that much in countries like France, Norway etc - and it's generally much more rare to see it happening in Western countries. Could this be a good argument towards what religion does good? I think so. And that's just an example. But overall you'll find that religious societies are super welcoming, caring etc - a VERY common trait in religious societies. In less educated places, religion is the best cohesive factor: it gives everyone something to strive for, and a feeling of brotherhood. Aside from all that, the impact religion has on me and my surroundings has been immensely positive.

> My best guess is is because I have lived my entire life without it and you with it and we are both having a great time.

Definitely. All in all the real focus is: if both of us are having a great time, why would any of us be wrong in the way we are having a great time? We should all aim at living together rather than ostracizing ourselves more due to separations we deem are big enough to rule people out of our life!

u/EmperorOmnesDux · 2 pointsr/islam

After reading all that was recommended you should read into Misquoting Muhammad by Dr. Jonathan Brown.

u/leviathanawakes · 0 pointsr/exmuslim

So basically, you accept Quran, but anything more than that such as certain hadith, have to be taken with a pinch of salt and seen if it is really authentic. The way I go about it is,

  1. If a hadith talks about the world and clearly contradicts empirical evidence, such as ones against evolution, I don't accept it.
  2. If a hadith talks about actions etc , I'll look at if it has multiple reliable chains of transmission. (Mutawattir). If it doesn't, then you cant really enforce it.

    Most of the controversial issues regarding Islam stems from hadiths that are single-chain narration. That means only ONE person reported hearing it from the prophet pbuh, and ONE student from him, and so on. Sahih Muslim and Bukhari unfortunately do accept a lot of single-chain narrations.

    ​

    I personally am wary of accepting a single-chain narration.

    ​

    There's this good book that talks about all of these issues with hadiths etc by Jonathan Brown. Misquoting Muhammed