With Merkel's Foes in Disarray, Germany Defies the Trump Trend

[Dill]

(04-27-2017, 08:37 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This generated a serious question I have in all of this. This is something from the Hadith, not the Koran (correct me if I am wrong, anyone, I am not an expert on these things). The Hadith are interpretations and commentary on Mohammed and the Koran by people at the apex of the religion at various times. So, it would be like the writings of Popes.

If you are not a true Muslim unless you follow the Hadith, then would that not also mean that you are not a true Christian unless you follow the writings of the Popes?

I understand there are denominations that have broken off, especially being a Lutheran, but the Catholic Church is the OG. Just like in Islam there are many members that follow some of the original interpretations but there are also many that do not. So why would it make a Muslims not a true Muslim if they did not follow the Hadith, but a Christian is still a true Christian even though they don't follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Two quick points. The Qu'ran has no mention of stoning, but Musnad Achmed bin Hanbal, one of the followers of Muhammed, claims that there was such a verse but a goat ate it shortly after the death of Muhammed. 

Statements like that of Hanbal circulated for a generation after the Prophet's death, and were then collected and written down at various times with varying levels of care.  The result is a collection of sayings, each with its own supposed geneology. The four differing law traditions of Islam rate these sayings on a scale from "true" to "improbable" or "weak."  The ones that all four schools agree are true have the most force.

Which brings me to my second point. The Hadith are more comparable to the Gospels, written a generation or more after Jesus death. Remember that it was not until late in the 4th century that both the Greek and Roman churches agreed on the 27 books now canonized in the New Testament. The really interesting ones (Thomas, Barnabas) didn't make the cut.

Within Islam, "leftist" feminist Muslims hotly dispute the stoning claim. The Turkey based organization Violence Is Not Our Culture says: "We fully reject the notion that violence in any form is part of our culture, religion, or traditions." And they link to number of contemporary religious authorities who say stoning is anti-Islamic. There is even a fatwa against stoning in Persian. http://www.violenceisnotourculture.org/node/13.

So you have Muslims who to live under Sharia, but separate Islam from stoning and other forms of misogynistic violence--a debate which criscrosses the Muslim world from Indonesia to Morocco to Europe.