Does Islam preach forcible conversion?

[rogue06]

I'm going to press X to doubt and suggest you haven't actually read them.

That she never read the OP or second post was evidenced by her sneering demand for where I presented any academics...

I am waiting for you to provide some comments from some accredited Islamicist academics.

Oh but I forgot! You never wrote anything down. Or if you did you cannot bring any of it to mind!

You mean like

• Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi (revered Spanish scholar, poet and sage)
• Ismail ibn Kathir (regarded by many as the Muslim world's most respected qur'an commentator, the revered Muslim expert on tafsir (Quranic exegesis) and faqīh (jurisprudence))
• Ibn Ishaq (regarded as the earliest and most thorough of Islam's historians)
• Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (well respected historian and exegete of the qur'an)
• Umdat as-Salik wa 'Uddat an-Nasik (author of one of the most highly respected works on Islamic theology and jurisprudence)
• Farid Esack (visiting Professor at Auburn Theological Seminary)
• Bassam Tibi (Professor for International Relations at Göttingen University as well as having 18 visiting professorships at top universities such as the University of California Berkeley and Princeton along with being a visiting senior fellow at Yale University)
• Shaul Bakhash (historian in Iranian studies at George Mason University where he is a "Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History")
• Mohammed Adam El-Sheikh (head of the Islamic Judiciary Council of the Shari'ah Scholars' Association of North America)
• Yvonne Haddad (professor in the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding in the School of Foreign Service and the Department of History at Georgetown University)
• Asma Afsaruddin associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, later a professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Indiana University in Bloomington and chair of the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy board of directors

How many times do you have to demonstrate that you skimmed at the very best the OP because each of them are cited in the very first post?

Apparently she read that because she quit yammering about it real fast

[rogue06]

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

But don't you see that because they aren't quoted from books in her personal library they are necessarily uncontextualized and cherry-picked?

Am I the only one who notices how she didn't explain how listing her various claims and the like that are demonstrably untrue was somehow an act of desperation on my part?

[Sparko]

Hey rogue06, I have an idea! You should start a thread showing evidence that Islam preaches and did forcible conversions!

[alaskazimm]

Am I the only one who notices how she didn't explain how listing her various claims and the like that are demonstrably untrue was somehow an act of desperation on my part?

You're desperate to prove her wrong because you know deep down that she's right.



Or something like that. Turtles all the way down again?

[rogue06]

Hey rogue06, I have an idea! You should start a thread showing evidence that Islam preaches and did forcible conversions!

Why didn't I think of that

[rogue06]

You're desperate to prove her wrong because you know deep down that she's right.

Evidently I'm more messed up than I ever imagined.

Or something like that. Turtles all the way down again?

To the Turtles!

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

That she never read the OP or second post was evidenced by her sneering demand for where I presented any academics...

Apparently she read that because she quit yammering about it real fast

You cited the names of various academics and some quotes from them. Yet gave no context. Again, that you allege to have consulted upward of 80+ volumes on this topic, I continue to remain markedly surprised that you cannot call to mind one title or author or any comment[s] made in any of those volumes.

What you have cobbled together is a confection gleaned from various sites and with no real attempt to understand the origins of the religion in its socio-historical context and the situation prevailing in that region in the late sixth and early seventh centuries CE. Nor do you seem to have any understanding of the contemporary tribal hostilities that existed among the Arabs.

I am not attempting to portray Islam as a benign and pacific religion that led to utopian societies. No one is denying that Islam has, on occasion been violent and forced conversions; although in that respect it is little different from the other Abrahamic faiths which likewise have used violence, restrictive measures against those who do not practise that faith, and forced conversions. And no one denies the repressive theocratic regimes to be found within contemporary Islam. As to whether those regimes represent "true" Islam remains a topic for another time.

What you are offering an over-simplistic [and in some quarters markedly popular] notion of Islam as a religion being intrinsically violent and forcing conversion at sword point. That over-simplification supports contemporary bias and prejudice against all the practitioners of that religion. It should also be noted that this popular notion has, to some extent, resulted from the behaviours of extremists within that religion who are active in today's world.

Hence you are making the dangerous assumption that all Muslims [given the opportunity] will be violent and will force conversion, killing those who refuse.

The history of the religion does not bear out that over-simplified view.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

I'm going to press X to doubt and suggest you haven't actually read them.

I sincerely doubt that our mutual friend has read all forty volumes of Al-Tabari and the entire texts of Al-Misri and Ibn Isḥāq.

[rogue06]

You cited the names of various academics and some quotes from them. Yet gave no context.

First you sneer that I never provided any academic sources, amply demonstrating that you never even bothered to read the OP before dismissing it. Something you've repeatedly shown a habit of doing (remember how you dismissed what I wrote about the non-pagan history of Christmas as ridiculous although you never read it?).

Now, after I listed off nearly a dozen either cited or directly quoted you come back with this excuse.

As the singular naughty swine so amply stated, if you actually believed this lame dodge then

Since attempting to ignore her gaffes hasn't worked, she's switching to hand-waving. It should be trivially easy to expose uncontextualized comments (by providing context) and cherry-picked verses (by showing contrary ones), especially given that they are from "easily available online texts."

But for some funny reason you utterly fail to do that but instead merely claim that I must be taking them out of context.

Well then, lift your hindquarters out of that comfy chair that you pontificate from and demonstrate it. After all, again...

It should be trivially easy to expose uncontextualized comments (by providing context) and cherry-picked verses (by showing contrary ones), especially given that they are from "easily available online texts."

So stop with the pitiful flail and fail routine and get to work.

Again, that you allege to have consulted upward of 80+ volumes on this topic,

I gave no numbers of how many volumes I consulted but rather wrote that I'd grab a half dozen off the shelf during each visit. Often they were some of the same books since I'd be looking up a number of different aspect of Islam (researching the claim that one is supposed to spread Islam forcibly if people don't want to convert was just one of several subjects I was exploring). Since I tend to reshelf my own books (libraries typically don't like that because most people just stick them anywhere), I knew where on the shelves many of them sat and I'd pluck them off the shelf as I passed by on my way to my seat.

I continue to remain markedly surprised that you cannot call to mind one title or author or any comment[s] made in any of those volumes.

Only some of the titles. Several I cited. Many of the others I've cited in different threads but don't here because they're irrelevant to this discussion. I even noted that but you showed no interest so I didn't bother after that.

Further, the fact that I provide numerous citations and quotes puts the lie to your assertion that I "cannot call to mind any comment[s] made in any of those volumes" as you pretend.

And of course, if you believe that I am providing an over-simplistic view supported by out-of-context quotations, then get off your butt and as OBP notes

It should be trivially easy to expose uncontextualized comments (by providing context) and cherry-picked verses (by showing contrary ones), especially given that they are from "easily available online texts."

In fact, at this point it is reasonable to believe that you tried only to discover that you were, yet again, wrong. But rather than admit it, you just keep throwing out the same baseless accusation.

Flail and fail.

Of course, since it is apparent that you cannot support your claim maybe you should address some of your earlier doozies, namely

[BOX]

Islam does not preach forcible conversion.

We do not know what Muhammed said. The Qur'an was written down centuries later.

Around 800 CE biographies of Muhammed came to written and these were carefully preserved. Before that? We have nothing.

The Qur'an is silent on Gabriel's revelations or any supernatural voice. The figure does appear in some verses but there is no mention of that figure being the messenger of supernatural revelations.

Nor were the hadiths ever intended to be considered in such a manner.

Or maybe more attempts to show that Jesus also commanded conversion by the sword that have been a regular laugh riot so far.

At the very least please find another source who will do something like your last one and insist that the notion that Islam was spread at the point of the sword was nothing but some myth that the Crusaders came up with.

[rogue06]

I sincerely doubt that our mutual friend has read all forty volumes of Al-Tabari and the entire texts of Al-Misri and Ibn Isḥāq.

No need to read the entire work if you're seeking something specific that other texts indicated were in there. Remember the collection of hadiths with the incredibly detailed cross-referenced indices I noted and wish I still had access to? It was hardly the only reference work that provided information where in a text something can be found. That makes hunting through the (IIRC) roughly 10,000 total pages of Al-Tabari's Annals of the Apostles and Kings a much less daunting task. That, and the fact that he did things on a very strict chronological basis, so if you knew when something you want information on took place, it becomes much easier as well.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

First you sneer that I never provided any academic sources,

Mentioning the names of various individuals and the institution in which they are based, along with an [unreferenced] quote from them not citing academic sources.

As the singular naughty swine so amply stated, if you actually believed this lame dodge then

I have checked several sites and found the various Islamic sources you have mentioned are easily available online [i.e. English translations of Al Tabari', Al-Misri, Ibn Isḥāq]. Those sites include Internet Archive Digital Library [with download options] and Open Maktaba [the latter offers pdf downloads for all three authors], and indeed many other Islamic writings.

So stop with the pitiful flail and fail routine and get to work.

From what you have produced it is apparent that none of it came from hours spent in a library. Your inability to cite a single text or author or some comments [even paraphrased] from such texts has demonstrated that. No one who professes an interest in a subject and who has read widely on that subject then finds themselves entirely unable to call to mind a single comment, author, or text on that subject.

I gave no numbers of how many volumes I consulted but rather wrote that I'd grab a half dozen off the shelf during each visit. Often they were some of the same books since I'd be looking up a number of different aspect of Islam (researching the claim that one is supposed to spread Islam forcibly if people don't want to convert was just one of several subjects I was exploring). Since I tend to reshelf my own books (libraries typically don't like that because most people just stick them anywhere), I knew where on the shelves many of them sat and I'd pluck them off the shelf as I passed by on my way to my seat.

Stop making excuses. You are beginning to appear rather pathetic.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Mentioning the names of various individuals and the institution in which they are based, along with an [unreferenced] quote from them is not citing academic sources.


I have checked several sites and found the various Islamic sources you have mentioned are easily available online [i.e. English translations of Al Tabari', Al-Misri, Ibn Isḥāq]. Those sites include Internet Archive Digital Library [with download options] and Open Maktaba [the latter offers pdf downloads for all three authors], and indeed many other Islamic writings.

From what you have produced it is apparent that none of it came from hours spent in a library. Your inability to cite a single text or author or some comments [even paraphrased] from such texts has demonstrated that. No one who professes an interest in a subject and who has read widely on that subject then finds themselves entirely unable to call to mind a single comment, author, or text on that subject.


Stop making excuses. You are beginning to appear rather pathetic.

Edited for emphasis.

[One Bad Pig]

<flails wildly>

Stop making excuses. You are beginning to appear rather pathetic.

You are going to extreme lengths to avoid the actual subject matter of this thread. It is patently obvious to all that you goofed. Hard. And all you've got is a vigorous attempt to put the person who pointed out your goof on the defensive, somehow, someway. I may have to bookmark this thread as a testament to your ineptitude.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

You are going to extreme lengths to avoid the actual subject matter of this thread. It is patently obvious to all that you goofed. Hard. And all you've got is a vigorous attempt to put the person who pointed out your goof on the defensive, somehow, someway. I may have to bookmark this thread as a testament to your ineptitude.

Of course you are free to do as you will but purely as a matter of interest, do you have any comprehension of the complexity surrounding the early years for the transmission of the Qur'an? Entire books as well as papers are devoted to that topic.

The traditional and pious view is that the revelation was complete during the lifetime of the Prophet and its fragments recorded and compiled in the early post-Prophetic period by the Caliph Uthman between 650 and 656 CE. However, many Orientalist and Islamicist scholars have disputed this interpretation, noting the lack of direct source material and a reliance on Muslim historical accounts written long afterwards. It is evident that there remain difficulties in gaining any access to this early period of Islam due to the fact that early sources are scant and are often distorted; a problem also noted by Muslim scholars. Furthermore most of the early traditions are oral and therefore cannot be verified historically.

From a paper by Angelika Neuwirth "Qur'an and History — a Disputed Relationship: Some Reflections on Qur'anic History and History in the Qur'an", Journal of Qur'anic Studies, Vol. 5, No. 1 [2003], pp. 1-18.

My emphasis.

We should, therefore, distinguish between a process of canonisation which took place successively and the act of the collection and redaction of the text, which was intended as ne varietur, 'not to be changed'. However the detailed circumstances of that latter venture, which in Islamic tradition is associated with the third caliph Uthman, the initiative to publish an authoritative corpus, a mushaf, marks the dividing line between the new textus receptus, a text claiming to be the definite corpus of the Prophet's recitations, and those textual forms that preceded it, texts that were transmitted orally and/or in writing by diverse transmitters, and thus had taken different shapes as to the sequence of the individual suras, and perhaps in terms of quantity as well. The 'pre-canonical text' thus would appear as a highly conjectural construct, could we not assume a strong oral tradition to have warranted a faithful transmission of the texts, however little is known about its agents.

In most of current Qur'anic studies, however, the redaction of the text is viewed as identical with canonisation, the whole endeavour being dated usually some 150 years after the death of the Prophet. Canonisation is, therefore, in these studies considered as having far more crucial consequences than were hitherto attached to the collection of the Qur'an: canonisation in current scholarship figures as a dividing line between 'what we can know about the genesis of the Qur'an' and 'what we cannot know', the pre-canonical text being considered as completely veiled.

Early Muslim reports also indicate that the Companions to Muhammed had different versions of the Qur'an and some reports give the purported variants in their codices.

In other words the issue is not nearly as simplistic and "cut and dried" as our resident "expert" would like to suggest.

[rogue06]

Mentioning the names of various individuals and the institution in which they are based, along with an [unreferenced] quote from them not citing academic sources.


I have checked several sites and found the various Islamic sources you have mentioned are easily available online [i.e. English translations of Al Tabari', Al-Misri, Ibn Isḥāq]. Those sites include Internet Archive Digital Library [with download options] and Open Maktaba [the latter offers pdf downloads for all three authors], and indeed many other Islamic writings.

From what you have produced it is apparent that none of it came from hours spent in a library. Your inability to cite a single text or author or some comments [even paraphrased] from such texts has demonstrated that. No one who professes an interest in a subject and who has read widely on that subject then finds themselves entirely unable to call to mind a single comment, author, or text on that subject.


Stop making excuses. You are beginning to appear rather pathetic.

Wow. The nerve I hit was especially raw wasn't it? smiley snicker.gif

Were you stomping a foot in petulant anger when you typed that?

Could you possibly make it more obvious that you realize that you not only stepped in it, you proceeded to do a flamenco dance in it?

Anything to distract and deflect from the one-right-after-the-other series of flubs and bungling based on the fact that once again you sought to pontificate on a topic you are wholly ignorant about. This thread is a monument to your invincible arrogant ignorance.

Anything to avoid trying to support your easily debunked nonsense.

What a poser.

What a clown.

What an absolute joke.