gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN HOSSAM) (12/13/90)
Ayman = gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN>>>>> HOSSAM) Talbis = Talbis Iblis, by al-hafiz al-imam jamal al-din Abul-faraj abd el-rahman ibn al-jawzi al-baghdadi (13th cent.) Talbis> a few as evidence of this. They include their finding similarities Talbis> between the Creator and His creation. If this was true, then He would Talbis> be exposed to the same things [creation] is exposed to. Moshe ben Maimun, in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah, chapter 1, makes exactly the same point. This is why Jews do not, in fact, make this claim. Talbis> Abu abd allah Talbis> ibn hamid reported from one of our professors that the Jews claim Talbis> that the worshipped God is a man made of light who sits on a chair Talbis> made of light and that He has a crown of light on His head. Also, Talbis> He has body parts like humans. Again, the professor was wrong. Jews explicitly deny such a belief. Talbis> Also, the Jews maintain that Uzair Talbis> (Ezra?) is the son of God. However, if they understood the true Talbis> nature of sonship, which goes under the category of parts [i.e. someness, Talbis> the son is part of the father], and that the Creator cannot be Talbis> divided into parts because there is nothing comparable to Him, they Talbis> would not have attributed sonship to Uzair. Talbis> Furthermore, a son has the attributes of his father, and Uzair was Talbis> in need of food and a god is that upon which things depend for Talbis> existence, not that which depends on things for its existence. Once again, a valid point which becomes irrelevant once one realises that it is based on a false premise. I have never heard of anyone considering Ezra to be the son of God. Ezra was not even a prophet. He was merely an extremely righteous and learned man, who was one of the greatest figures in Jewish history. His importance in Jewish history is on a level with that of Moses, Rabbi Akiva, Rambam, and a very few others, but he was no more than a man. --------------------------------------------------------------- Zev has raised a number of good points. In fact, according to an article al-Jahiz wrote in the 3rd (?) century, some Christians were using these same arguments to say that there are errors in the Quran. I don't have a copy of al-Jahiz's book, but I think there's a transalation of some of his works. It's called "The Letters of al-Jahiz,". The appropriate article is al-Jahiz's "Polemic Against the Christians." (Al-Raddu ala al-nasara) Al-Jahiz is more famous as a man of letters than as a religious scholar. I read it a couple years ago, but I recall that he argued that Muslims were in fact as close to Jews as they were to Christians (or as far from Christians as they were from Jews.) he says that the common closeness between christians and muslims in Baghdad during his lifetime was due to the Christian ruler of Abyssinia having provided refuge to Muslims fleeing the persecution of Qureysh and was due to the infrequency of contact between Muslims in Medina and Christians in the Peninsula. He compared the struggles of Muslims and Jews in the Peninsula to wars between cousins in the period before islam: they were always longer and more intense than wars between strangers. The purpose of this excercise was to demonstrate that muslims' relationships to adherents of other religions is at least partly a function of the historical circumstances. It is folly to assume that Islam is inherently hostile to a specific religion. At the same time, I think most Muslims would agree that Islam is the best religion revealed to humankind. I mean, they (and I) would not accept a statement such as "All (present) religions are equally valid expressions of belief in God." Wassalam, Ayman
goer@midway.uchicago.edu (Richard L. Goerwitz) (12/14/90)
In article <1990Dec13.143336.22909@wpi.WPI.EDU> gt8145a@prism.gatech.edu (FADEL,AYMAN HOSSAM) writes: > >Talbis> a few as evidence of this. They include their finding similarities >Talbis> between the Creator and His creation. If this was true, then He would >Talbis> be exposed to the same things [creation] is exposed to. > >Moshe ben Maimun, in Hilchot Yesodei Hatorah, chapter 1, makes exactly >the same point. This is why Jews do not, in fact, make this claim. In an offbeat way, the Muslim point is valid. Jewish interpretation is very concerned with explaining away obvious anthropomorphisms in the Torah and Prophets. In the Torah, God changes his mind (Gen 6:6; wayyinnaxem). There's even a tradition that the scribes emended the sacred text in Gen 18:22 (one of the so-called tiqqune sophrim) to avoid the idea that God 'stood before' Abraham (as if to wait on him). The text, though, as it is has Abraham standing yet before God. God also gets angry, is pleased, and lets the great prophet see his back parts: wahasiroti et-kappi wra'ita et-'axoray - Exodus 33:23 'and I shall remove my hand, and you will see my back' I note, looking in Targum Ps. Jonathan to the Torah a valiant effort is made to avoid the notion that God was actually letting anyone see body parts. No, in fact it was an angel "standing in." To say it wasn't God after all, though, defeats the whole point of the passage. Whether or not modern folk will admit it, historically speaking it appears that there is a problem. All ancient peoples believed in concrete Gods, and ancient Israelites were no different. In fact, there has arisen a big debate in recent centuries over whether Israelites were originally even monotheists (theirs God was simply greatest - not the only God), and whe- ther monotheism only developed later on in the course of history. The very amount of ink spilled in explaining away concrete references to God as metaphorical, or as referring to "angels," implies that there was a need for defense, and that there is, in fact, good reason to infer an anthro- pormorphic view of God from the text. In terms of modern Judaism, though, I think that the Muslim criticism may be very off base. No one thinks this way any more. And probably few have since the early Christian era (probably even since the dawn of Hellenism in the Near East). It's very important that, if you must criticize a per- son of another faith, you understand what he or she believes. -Richard (goer@sophist.uchicago.edu)