The Miracle of Angels in the Battle of Badr

Ron said, "Oh good.  The scholars have declared themselves infallible.  Well, that settles it. "
Response: The existence of scholarship into the field of forgery does show even more strongly that hadith that are presented are extremely reliable.

Ron: "But we weren't talking about making up hadith."
Response: "Actually, you did turn the topic into the reliability of hadith. Now that it is evident that hadith are highly reliable, you want to turn the topic into the reliability of the eyewitnesses themselves."

Ron: "Abdul-Muttalib.  His pride probably would not allow him to admit that he had been captured by an ordinary Muslim, so he made up a story...."
Pride would not have been a problem there since so many other stronger Arab warriors had been killed, routed, or captured by the Muslims. Rather, by confirming the angels, he adds veracity to the Muslims' claim which is contrary to the Pagans' rage then against the Muslims.
Also, Abdul-Muttalib would have denied Muhammad's knowledge of Abdul-Muttalib's secret wealth that could be used as ransom. That had nothing to do with his pride.

Ron: "It doesn't occur to you that these witnesses might have been exaggerating, if not wholly inventing, these accounts, in order to gain status, and/or to bolster their own faith or that of others?"
Response: So, it doesn't occur to Ron that by Abdul-Muttalib stating this explanation, he is strengthening the case for the Muslims?
 
So, based on Ron's premises, Abdul-Muttalib's pride was such that he would create a story about angels, then the Muslims' pride would have been such to deny the help of angels and place the victory on themselves.
On the other hand, based on Ron's premises, if the Muslims' desire to increase the faith was such that they would invent the story, then Abdul-Muttalib would have denied such an event.

Ron is trying to have it both ways. Such do was see the insincerity of the disbelievers. They will imagine any excuse to not believe, no matter how contradictory.

Ron: "So who are we to believe: the pagan captive, or the Muslim?"
Both stated what they believed was true. In this case, the captive turned out to be correct as the Muslim had been too foccussed with the pursuit to notice the angelic assistance, unless God wanted him to notice it.

Ron: " Muhammad, who wasn't even there,, tells the Muslim soldier to "be quiet" and confirms the pagan's story about an angel."
Response: Muhammad didn't need to be there, just as he did not need to be present to see Abdul-Muttalib's plan with his wife concerning his secret wealth, or present to witness the secret assasination plots agaisnt him to know when, where, and who, was involved ahead of time.

Abu Loren,
Yes, it is clear from many previous examples in other posts as well that the disbeliever is just arguing for the sake of arguing and trying to convince himself and his attempt to find excuses to not believe.

The combination of built in disincentive to forge hadith along side with the established standards of scrutiney of the hadith mean that we have a higher standard of authenticity of the events of Muhammad's life than other similar ancient events that are regularly accepted by historians. For a disbeliever to reject all the hadith because there is a miniscule chance that some of them might be partially incorrect shows a definite lack of sincerity.

Even the page he quoted mantioned the hadith: "Allah's Apostle said, "If somebody innovates something which is not in harmony with the principles of our religion, that thing is rejected."

Claiming something which is not said by the prophet is not in harmony with our religion, but the disbeliever left that hadith out even though it was on the same page to which he linked.

So, we can see his deceptive insincerity again.


Edited by Beebok - 11 November 2012 at 3:44pm

Beebok wrote: Ron said, "If you believe something fervently enough, and believe that you have a duty to convince others of this belief, then it is easy to rationalize making up a story to achieve that good purpose." That's completely different than what's happening here. Christians made up stories to get people to believe that Jesus is a god who died for their sins. On the other hand, if we Muslims invent a story about Muhammad, it works against us because it makes it more difficult to enter heaven by following a false example.

Don't kid yourself, Beebok. Pious fraud happens in Islam, too:
"Narrated Um Kulthum bint Uqba: That she heard Allah's Apostle saying, 'He who makes peace between the people by inventing good information or saying good things, is not a liar.'"(Bukhari, Volume 3, Book 49, Number 857)

Besides, it's not necessary to deliberately lie in order to commit pious fraud.  Religious fervour can influence one's judgement and perceptions, leading witnesses to exaggerate events and misremember fantasies as reality.  In other words, people with the best of intentions can delude themselves without even realizing it.

And the extremely strict standards that we set for accepting a narrative such as checking the reliability of the narrators and having multiple chains of narration eliminate those stories that are merely fabricated. The Christians on the other hand, had no such standards at all for determining which gospels would get accepted into the New Testament. Rather, the Roman emperror Constantine held a council at Nicea in 325 AD where he stated which documents he wanted to be accepted, and Christians accept those documents as the gospels of God.

How do you know what standards they used?  Do you think they just tossed dice or something?  Of course they had standards.  But the point is that by those standards they were largely able to agree on what belonged and what didn't belong in the Bible.  There are minor differences between the Catholic and the Protestant versions, for instance, but nothing like the differences between Sunni and Shia.  And that's not even considering the "weak" hadith, which by their own admission Muslim scholars are unable to decide.

That just proves my point. Look how careful we are about what hadith we accept.

Look how careful you need to be, and how even with such diligence you still have a whole boatload of hadith whose status is uncertain.  Good for you that you are open enough to admit it, but it doesn't remove the uncertainty.

Which works to our benefit because we can follow the ones of high certainty and reject the weaker ones.

But what if some of the weaker ones are actually legitimate?  How would that change your beliefs or your practices?  Can you just ignore the (alleged) word of Allah?

Men can also be right, and when they put in the massive intellectual effort and objective scrutiny on standards that are used to accept other ancient events, then they usually are right.

Is that the standard by which you define your religion?  "We're usually right?"

For the caravan, the Muslims wanted to seize the goods. No one needed to get harmed. The caravan was not unarmed, just outnumbered, and back then and that place, warriors were civilians.

Oh, so that makes it okay?

For Manhatten, the USA has no right to complain about anything after having bombed the water treatment facilities and murdered 500,000 Iraqi children from 1991 to 1995 as one of their many, many, uncountable crimes.

I'm going to assume that you are just lost in your own rhetoric, and are not actually condoning 9/11; but it sure sounds like you think that was okay too.

Honeto, in my opinion, a Muslim is not a hypocrite just because he mixes good actions with bad.

A hypocrite (Munafiq) in the Islamic sense is someone who does not really believe, but pretends to be a Muslim to gain advantage.

On the other hand, sincere Muslims who sin out of weakness, addiction, confusion from stress, depression, ignorance, forgetfullness, or some other reason but then repent and try to do good in other places are not the same as those who only pretend to believe.

If a Muslim does sin, like drinking alcohol, then they had better do something good also like remembering God (zikr-Allah) through following the sunnah (example of Muhammad).
But then maybe, being too ashamed to follow the sunnah after sinning is also a form of zikr-Allah.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, when you and your friend sinned, God said something to the angels like, "you see how when even these two of my servants disobey me, one still remembers me by following the sunnah of my prophet to come back to Me, and the other still remembers me and tries to come back to Me by feeling ashamed."

I think that there is difference between a sincere Muslim who sins from weakness and then feels ashamed versus a person pretending to be a Muslim to gain advantage then committing a sin.

So, what I'm trying to say is, let's not be too hard on ourselves or our brothers. We're only human. God is the most Compassionate, the most Merciful.

This is one of the many reasons why we should try to get Islamic governments in our countries like Indonesia, Morrocco, and Jordan, etc, so we can organize the helping of each other, and strengthen each other, and forbid public temptations.



Edited by Beebok - 04 November 2012 at 9:30am