Islam was historically more tolerant of homosexuality than was Christianity

[Kamal900]

Grouping Christians and Muslims into single entities for one is very dubious, Islam is just as diverse as Christianity in terms of sects. Homosexuality in Islam revolves around almost exclusively Turkic peoples. All the drawings/engravings of homosexuality are all Turkish and most revolve around Sufism which the main schools of Islam generally disavow as Bid'ah which means innovation and thus haram. Muslims unlike us Christians follow practiced and arbitrated law like the Jews and in most schools of Islam sodomy is a sin regardless of whether or not its with a woman or not as Christianity and Judaism does.

In the case of Afghanistan the rampant homosexual pedophilia is practiced mostly by Turkic peoples and Northern Alliance Pashtuns. The Taliban may look faggy but they wear eyeliner as means of tradition that supposedly goes back to Muhammad, from which you can find many movies depicting Arabs wearing eyeliner, I was told by an Arab that it's for eye protection. The Taliban does not practice homosexuality, however since they are not a singular entity themselves anymore there may be warlords who do practice it as Afghan warlords are known to be debauch tyrants with insatiable appetites for deviancy.

I am not saying this to defend Islam, but most western people go off the usual talking points and arguments about Islam without actually reading for themselves. I have read many religious texts and those pertaining to religious law and have a unique insight.

Christianity is not without it's deviancy either, for instance Universalist/Methodists Christians can have Gay/Lesbian preachers, the Catholic Church has been practicing pedophilia since essentially the beginning and is a massive epidemic today. Power breeds corruption of character, Islam, Christianity and Judaism at their cores do not promote, allow or even tolerate homosexuality. At their core all these religions follow the 10 commandments and all the mainstream branches forbid premarital sexual activity aside from males being able to have sex with their slaves or concubines.

Homosexuality is punishable by death in both the Torah and the Bible, and yet, you don't see modern day Jews and Christians doing it due to secular values and liberalism. The Arab and most of the Muslim world isn't influenced by secularism..at least not yet anyway.

[henry007]

Homosexuality is punishable by death in both the Torah and the Bible, and yet, you don't see modern day Jews and Christians doing it due to secular values and liberalism. The Arab and most of the Muslim world isn't influenced by secularism..at least not yet anyway.

Edit: deleted

[Laly]

B. JEWISH INFLUENCES IN THE QUR'AN.

1. Muhammad's Debt to Judaism.

We have already seen that many of the narratives in the Qur'an and Hadith have extra-Islamic origins. In this section we shall briefly examine the substantial presence of Jewish historical and mythical material in the Qur'an. Indeed there is so much of it that whole books have been written on the subject and it is striking to find how heavily Muhammad relied on his Jewish contacts for the passages and teachings he ultimately set forth as part of the divine revelation.

So much, indeed, was Muhammad indebted to the Jews for a great portion of his teaching on this and other subjects that the Qur'an has been described as a compendium of Talmudic Judaism. (Blair, The Sources of Islam, p. 55).

One finds many of the Old Testament stories of the prophets reproduced in the Qur'an, sometimes in a precis form where the Qur'anic record is a faithful, though often vague, summary of the original Biblical narrative (e.g. the story of Jonah in Surah 37.139-148). On other occasions the Qur'anic narratives contain elements of Biblical truths confounded with folklore and fables extracted from the Talmud and in some cases (such as the story of Abraham and the idols which we shall presently consider) the sources are entirely Midrashic/Haggadic and are accordingly purely fictitious.

This accounts for the seeming discrepancies between the stories of :he Bible and the Koranic version of the same narratives. However, in relating the Koranic version of the biblical story to the Aggadic source as indicated in our study, the discrepancies almost entirely disappear. For, astonishingly enough, the biblical narratives are reproduced in the Koran in true Aggadic cloak. (Katsh, Judaism in Islam, p. xvii).
Virtually all the Qur'anic records which are reliant on Jewish sources can be traced either to the Bible or to Talmudic records such as the Midrash, Mishnah, etc. There are, however, a few occasions where one finds narratives obviously reliant on Jewish historical sources which are today unknown to us (for example the story of the sacrifice of Abraham's son which has elements not found in the preserved works of Judaism as it is recorded in Surah 37.100-113). It seems indeed that Muhammad was reliant on Jewish materials but we must ask how he came by them in the course of his mission.

The Collection and Sources of the Qu'ran

I never denied the Quran is based significantly on Jewish literature, including the Talmud. I say that this literature was revisited by the Judeo-Nazarenes (Ebionites, Elkasaites…), inflecting the content according to a singular ideology, which was opposed to that of Phariseeism/Rabbinic Judaism/Talmudic Judaism. So no, contrary to what you said, Islam is not “essentially Phariseeism translated into Arabic”. How can you say that when the anti-Rabbinic Jewish polemic is so present in the Quran? And I gave you an example with the surah Mariam, where the scribes of the Quran respond to elements of the Talmud concerning Mary.

In short, I say that what makes the essence of Islam, its singularity, is inherited from the marginal Jewish movement of the Judeo-Nazarenes.

Nowadays, it is accepted by many important scholars of Quranic studies that Islam was born in the margins between Judaism and Christianity.

I found this in English that you can read about the Ebionites, by one of the most important scholars of Islam, Patricia Crone:
https://books.google.be/books?id=_wp...onites&f=false

And just to say, I would not have highlighted that quote by that Blair. I do not put in doubt his respectability but he is merely a pastor and not a reference at all on the topic. What is more, his book is from 1925 and the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing the writings from the marginal movements of Judaism (Ebionites), were discovered and studied only from the 1940’…

[Laly]

They're the same god, and the word, Allah, isn't a name for some unknown deity but rather was a title for the god, 7ubal, before the title was given to the Abrahamic god which was called with many different names back then like Yaweh, Jehovah, Hashem, and so on. Lol, PaleoEuropean knows a lot about the history of the Semitic peoples than you do.

Muslims do believe in Abraham, David, Jesus and all of the bible figures in the Bible and the Torah, just the stories behind these figures are altered.

I reject the expression “Abrahamic religions” in order to put together Judaism, Islam and Christianity. It is recent (not in the Quranic sense of "religion of Abraham" which implies only one immutable religion - Islam) and somehow similar to the Quranic expression “People of the Book” and I don’t see why we should adopt the Islamic Weltanschauung!

There are no common figures between Judaism and Christianity on one hand, and Islam on the other hand. Islam distorts Biblical figures, clearing them out of their substance.

[Östsvensk]

I never denied the Quran is based significantly on Jewish literature, including the Talmud. I say that this literature was revisited by the Judeo-Nazarenes (Ebionites, Elkasaites…), inflecting the content according to a singular ideology, which was opposed to that of Phariseeism/Rabbinic Judaism/Talmudic Judaism. So no, contrary to what you said, Islam is not “essentially Phariseeism translated into Arabic”. How can you say that when the anti-Rabbinic Jewish polemic is so present in the Quran? And I gave you an example with the surah Mariam, where the scribes of the Quran respond to elements of the Talmud concerning Mary.

In short, I say that what makes the essence of Islam, its singularity, is inherited from the marginal Jewish movement of the Judeo-Nazarenes.

Nowadays, it is accepted by many important scholars of Quranic studies that Islam was born in the margins between Judaism and Christianity.

I found this in English that you can read about the Ebionites, by one of the most important scholars of Islam, Patricia Crone:
https://books.google.be/books?id=_wp...onites&f=false

And just to say, I would not have highlighted that quote by that Blair. I do not put in doubt his respectability but he is merely a pastor and not a reference at all on the topic. What is more, his book is from 1925 and the Dead Sea Scrolls, containing the writings from the marginal movements of Judaism (Ebionites), were discovered and studied only from the 1940’…

To the common mind there is, indeed, no distinction whatever between the ceremonial law and the moral nor is it easy to find such a distinction even implied in the Koran. It is as great an offense to pray with unwashen hands as to tell a lie, and "pious" Moslems who nightly break the seventh commandment (according to their own lax interpretation of it) will shrink from a tin of English meat for fear they be defiled with swine's flesh. As regards the moral code Islam is phariseeism translated into Arabic.

- The Moslem Doctrine of God, S.Zwemer, ch. IV

I don't disagree that Christianity had a founding effect on Islam and there are documented accounts of early Muslims such as the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya praying at Christian sites in Jerusalem. It seems rather, perhaps, that early Muslims intended to replace Christianity with the new that was Islam. I am arguing that it shouldn't be considered 50/50 and that overall, Islam has more in common with Judaism than with Christianity. Jews will agree, since Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature.

This ex-Muslim who has read Patricia Crone seems to basically agree with what I am saying:

As we all know, Islam bears a very close resemblance to its Jewish and Christian predecessors because both religions were well established in Syria and Arabia by the 7th century, when Mohammed is supposed to have received his revelation. The Jews had fled the persecution of Heraclius and drafted Arabs in their attempt to reclaim their land in Jerusalem. Playing on the notion of a common ancestor, Abraham, Ishmaelites and Jews, both hostile to the notion of the Trinity, started out as allies on a hijra (exodus) to the Holy Land, now seen as a birthright of the Hagarines—the descendants of Hagar, Abraham’s concubine and mother of Ishmael.

[...]

This and other tensions kept Islam’s political imagination “fixated on the desert.” Islam’s jahiliyya (pre-Islamic period) was a world of poetry and prophets speaking Arabic, not thinking philosophers discoursing in Greek, the language of the Syrian elite. They chose the Jewish notion of a personal (and jealous) god for their Allah, not the Greek penchant for dabbling in speculation and “impersonal concepts.” Christianity sought compromise and evaded the extremes of both, but the Muslim Allah simply grew more distant, eluding the physical access of the pagans or the scrutiny of philosophers. Only illiterate prophets were licensed to tell us what he is like.

https://www.tingismagazine.com/edito...arab-religion/

But well, according to Muslims themselves, the Qur'an was spoken by Allah himself and all of what I am saying is pure fictitious nonsense.

[Laly]

To the common mind there is, indeed, no distinction whatever between the ceremonial law and the moral nor is it easy to find such a distinction even implied in the Koran. It is as great an offense to pray with unwashen hands as to tell a lie, and "pious" Moslems who nightly break the seventh commandment (according to their own lax interpretation of it) will shrink from a tin of English meat for fear they be defiled with swine's flesh. As regards the moral code Islam is phariseeism translated into Arabic.

- The Moslem Doctrine of God, S.Zwemer, ch. IV

I don't disagree that Christianity had a founding effect on Islam and there are documented accounts of early Muslims such as the Umayyad caliph Mu'awiya praying at Christian sites in Jerusalem. It seems rather, perhaps, that early Muslims intended to replace Christianity with the new that was Islam. I am arguing that it shouldn't be considered 50/50 and that overall, Islam has more in common with Judaism than with Christianity. Jews will agree, since Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature.

This ex-Muslim who has read Patricia Crone seems to basically agree with what I am saying:

As we all know, Islam bears a very close resemblance to its Jewish and Christian predecessors because both religions were well established in Syria and Arabia by the 7th century, when Mohammed is supposed to have received his revelation. The Jews had fled the persecution of Heraclius and drafted Arabs in their attempt to reclaim their land in Jerusalem. Playing on the notion of a common ancestor, Abraham, Ishmaelites and Jews, both hostile to the notion of the Trinity, started out as allies on a hijra (exodus) to the Holy Land, now seen as a birthright of the Hagarines—the descendants of Hagar, Abraham’s concubine and mother of Ishmael.

[...]

This and other tensions kept Islam’s political imagination “fixated on the desert.” Islam’s jahiliyya (pre-Islamic period) was a world of poetry and prophets speaking Arabic, not thinking philosophers discoursing in Greek, the language of the Syrian elite. They chose the Jewish notion of a personal (and jealous) god for their Allah, not the Greek penchant for dabbling in speculation and “impersonal concepts.” Christianity sought compromise and evaded the extremes of both, but the Muslim Allah simply grew more distant, eluding the physical access of the pagans or the scrutiny of philosophers. Only illiterate prophets were licensed to tell us what he is like.

https://www.tingismagazine.com/edito...arab-religion/

But well, according to Muslims themselves, the Qur'an was spoken by Allah himself and all of what I am saying is pure fictitious nonsense.

You seem to be stuck in the XIXth century's Orientalism. It’s like you want to understand Prehistory only from works like the “Celtic and pre-Flood Antiquities” (Les Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes), by Jacques Boucher de Perthes. These works have the merit of existing, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. You quote Zwemer, who wrote that book in 1906, and don’t address what I say, for example concerning the exceptional discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran, in the 1940’.

But even if you affectionate so much the pioneers of Islamology, you could have referred to the important scholar Adolf von Harnack, for example, who doesn’t say what that Zwemer says. The ideas of von Harnack should be nuanced, but they seem, to me, closer to reality and certainly closer to the current tendencies in Quranic studies:



https://books.google.be/books?id=oSl...arnack&f=false

You say: “It seems rather, perhaps, that early Muslims intended to replace Christianity with the new that was Islam.”

I say: early Muslims intended to replace particularly mainstream Christianity (Nicean Christianity) and mainstream Judaism (Phariseeism/Rabbinic Judaism/Talmudic Judaism, whatever you call it).

You say: “I am arguing that it shouldn't be considered 50/50 and that overall, Islam has more in common with Judaism than with Christianity. Jews will agree, since Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature.”

I say: indeed, Islam is overall closer to Judaism. The preponderance of orthopraxy, politics and law in Judaism and Islam makes them very different from Christianity in the point of view of the essence. I don’t even think our word “religion” really suits to describe Judaism and Islam. May I know where you get from that “Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature”? According to Rabbinic Judaism, any Gentile following the Noachide laws is righteous.

To be in total accordance with Patricia Crone, your ex-Muslim could have specified that it’s not mainstream Judaism/Phariseeism that emulated the Hagarenes (“Muslims”). The ex-Muslim mentions the Jews in the context of the Hijra towards Jerusalem. It’s not what we were talking about. Jews, who wanted to get rid of the Byzantines, helped indeed the “Muslims” in their conquest, but in the Byzantine Empire, the “Muslims” were also helped by Christian sects rejecting the Trinity and the Divinity of the Christ.

Patricia Crone believes Islam is the product of some Judeo-Nazarene sects.



https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682212?seq=1

[Östsvensk]

You seem to be stuck in the XIXth century's Orientalism. It’s like you want to understand Prehistory only from works like the “Celtic and pre-Flood Antiquities” (Les Antiquités Celtiques et Antédiluviennes), by Jacques Boucher de Perthes. These works have the merit of existing, but a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. You quote Zwemer, who wrote that book in 1906, and don’t address what I say, for example concerning the exceptional discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran, in the 1940’.

But even if you affectionate so much the pioneers of Islamology, you could have referred to the important scholar Adolf von Harnack, for example, who doesn’t say what that Zwemer says. The ideas of von Harnack should be nuanced, but they seem, to me, closer to reality and certainly closer to the current tendencies in Quranic studies:



https://books.google.be/books?id=oSl...arnack&f=false

You say: “It seems rather, perhaps, that early Muslims intended to replace Christianity with the new that was Islam.”

I say: early Muslims intended to replace particularly mainstream Christianity (Nicean Christianity) and mainstream Judaism (Phariseeism/Rabbinic Judaism/Talmudic Judaism, whatever you call it).

You say: “I am arguing that it shouldn't be considered 50/50 and that overall, Islam has more in common with Judaism than with Christianity. Jews will agree, since Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature.”

I say: indeed, Islam is overall closer to Judaism. The preponderance of orthopraxy, politics and law in Judaism and Islam makes them very different from Christianity in the point of view of the essence. I don’t even think our word “religion” really suits to describe Judaism and Islam. May I know where you get from that “Muslims are considered the only other religious community outside of Judaism that is "righteous" in rabbinical literature”? According to Rabbinic Judaism, any Gentile following the Noachide laws is righteous.

To be in total accordance with Patricia Crone, your ex-Muslim could have specified that it’s not mainstream Judaism/Phariseeism that emulated the Hagarenes (“Muslims”). The ex-Muslim mentions the Jews in the context of the Hijra towards Jerusalem. It’s not what we were talking about. Jews, who wanted to get rid of the Byzantines, helped indeed the “Muslims” in their conquest, but in the Byzantine Empire, the “Muslims” were also helped by Christian sects rejecting the Trinity and the Divinity of the Christ.

Patricia Crone believes Islam is the product of some Judeo-Nazarene sects.



https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/682212?seq=1

Ebionites/Nazarenes were possibly or probably the group that was led by James the Just, the older brother of Jesus, and appearing in Acts 15. They were mostly Jewish followers of John the Baptist and later Jesus. Non-Jews among them were expected to follow some version of Noahide laws, and excluded from undergoing circumcision as we read in the chapter.

By the late 2nd century, there might have been a split between the Nazarenes and Ebionites. That is when Roman Catholic church historians start to describe them as different sects. Nazarenes are described by them a bit more positively by then. They accept Paul, although with caution, the Virgin birth and some aspects of the Divinity of Jesus.

There are those who will point to the Ebionites as the predecessors of Muslims. Some problems with this is that the Ebionites rejected the Virgin birth and believed that Jesus had a biological father. They were also vegetarians and preached non-violence.

[Laly]

Ebionites/Nazarenes were possibly or probably the group that was led by James the Just, the older brother of Jesus, and appearing in Acts 15. They were mostly Jewish followers of John the Baptist and later Jesus. Non-Jews among them were expected to follow some version of Noahide laws, and excluded from undergoing circumcision as we read in the chapter.

By the late 2nd century, there might have been a split between the Nazarenes and Ebionites. That is when Roman Catholic church historians start to describe them as different sects. Nazarenes are described by them a bit more positively by then. They accept Paul, although with caution, the Virgin birth and some aspects of the Divinity of Jesus.

There are those who will point to the Ebionites as the predecessors of Muslims. Some problems with this is that the Ebionites rejected the Virgin birth and believed that Jesus had a biological father. They were also vegetarians and preached non-violence.

The expression “Judeo-Nazarene” is quite new and refers to an ensemble of groups, including the Ebionites, but not only, as there were also the Elchasaites, for example, mentioned in the texts I provided by Patricia Crone, and the latest believed in the in the virgin birth and were anti-Paulinian.

[Östsvensk]

The expression “Judeo-Nazarene” is quite new and refers to a ensemble of groups, including the Ebionites, but not only, as there were also the Elchasaites, for example, mentioned in the texts I provided by Patricia Crone, and the latest believed in the in the virgin birth and were anti-Paulinian.

The Christians who Muhammad was in contact with are believed to have been some Arabian heretics who worshipped Mary. For the Qur'an says that the Christian Trinity consists of God, Mary and Jesus (4:171). I have seen no historical records of such a group of Arabian heretics existing, but Muslims have to sustain that Muhammad was in contact with such a group nevertheless. If Muhammad was in contact with true Christians, it would render the Qur'an embarrassingly erroneous.

[Laly]

The Christians who Muhammad was in contact with are believed to have been some Arabian heretics who worshipped Mary. For the Qur'an says that the Christian Trinity consists of God, Mary and Jesus (4:171). I have seen no historical records of such a group of Arabian heretics existing, but Muslims have to sustain that Muhammad was in contact with such a group nevertheless. If Muhammad was in contact with true Christians, it would render the Qur'an embarrassingly erroneous.

The surah 5,116 has the same spirit as the one you mentioned (4,171), and the first one does not only evoke the Trinity (“don’t say three”), but clearly, explicitly, Jesus’ mother as part of it.

In a book I have on the origins of Islam, by the French scholar Edouard-Marie Gallez, “Le Messie et son Prophète” (The Messiah and his Prophet), the explanation given is that in Hebrew and Aramaic, the word “spirit” is feminine and it was a manner of speaking among Hebraic and Aramaic Christians to call, consequently, the Holy Spirit “Mother”. Edouard-Marie Gallez says that it’s still topical among Chaldeans.