Islam and Scripture: Difference between revisions

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 ====Child marriage====
 {{Main|Child Marriage in the Qur'an}}The Quran, in laying out the rules of divorce, provides also the procedure for divorcing pre-pubescent girls and in doing so affirms the hadith accounts and near-universal formulations of Islamic law which endorse child marriage and permit the [[Rape in Islamic Law|marital rape]] and [[Wife Beating in the Qur'an|beating]] of child brides. The relevant verse is {{Quran|65|4}}.{{Quote|{{Quran|65|4}}|And (as for) those of your women who have despaired of menstruation, if you have a doubt, their prescribed time shall be three months, '''and of those too who have not had their <i>courses</i>'''; and (as for) the pregnant women, their prescribed time is that they lay down their burden; and whoever is careful of (his duty to) Allah He will make easy for him his affair.}}The verse discusses the ''Iddat'' (العدة‎), which is a waiting period a female must observe before she can remarry. According to this verse, the stipulated waiting period for a divorced girl who has not yet menstruated is three months.
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 ====Muqatta'at====
 {{Main|Muqatta'at}}''Muqatta`āt'' (Arabic): مقطعات, are unique letter combinations that begin certain chapters of the Quran. Muqatta`āt, literally, means abbreviated or shortened. They are also known as ''Fawātih'' (فواتح) or openers as they form the opening verse of the respective chapters. In Arabic language, these letters are written together like a word, but each letter is pronounced separately. While the letters appear joined together in print, they do not form a meaningful Arabic word, and are held by traditional Islamic scholars as having a metaphysical meaning 'beyond human comprehension' and which therefore serve as reminders of human ignorance. Historians have generally found these arguments unconvincing and have advanced a variety of (as yet inconclusive) alternative hypotheses. ''Muqatta'at'' have been and continue to be a topic of intense research and academic discussions in Islamic literature and Quranic studies.
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 ===Mistranslations of the Quran in English===
 {{Main|Mistranslations of Islamic Scripture (English)}}In some cases, published English translations of the Quran have opted for incorrect translations. Critics have suggested that this is for the same evangelical and interfaith-based reasons for which the scripture is often misrepresented in the first place. Translations with apparently deliberate errors include well known editions, such as the Yusuf Ali, Rashad Khalifa, and Muhammad Asad translations. Whereas scripture, critics argue, is frequently misrepresented in various contexts in the name of various levels of expedience, published mistranslations tend to deliberately err only in those instances where the original text poses a very acute challenge to Western values and sensibilities, particularly with respect to human rights and science. The verses most often distorted in published translations include {{Quran|4|34}} (which regards wife-beating), {{Quran|67|5}} (which regards the nature of stars, meteors, and/or comets), {{Quran|86|7}} (which regards the origin of semen), {{Quran|21|91}} & {{Quran|66|12}} (which regard the birth of Jesus), {{Quran|3|52}} (which describes Allah as 'the best deceiver'), and the various verses which employ the word ''qatal'', which means 'kill', 'massacre', or 'slaughter'.
 The pages listed below cover some of these mistranslations individually:{{col-float|width=25em}}
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 :''Main Article:'' ''[[Hadith (definition)|Hadith]]''
-The ''Hadith'' (الحديث ahadith, plural) are traditions of Muhammad, giving us important information about him and his life. They are usually narrations about a certain incident in which he said, did, or tacitly approved of something. Unlike the Qur'an, they typically follow a chronological order, and most of them are compiled by category (i.e. Jihad, Nikah, etc.). The Hadith is where Muslims derive the majority of Islamic law from and determine the ''Sunnah'' (or way‎) of the prophet, which is all based on Muhammad's words, actions, and practices. This is key to [[Islam]] since Muslims are commanded to obey and [[Uswa Hasana|emulate him]], so even the most insignificant of actions on his part have an effect upon the doctrines and [[Islamic Law|laws]] of Islam.
+The ''Hadith'' (الحديث ahadith, plural) are traditions of Muhammad which provide information about him and his life. They are usually narrations about a certain incident in which he said, did, or tacitly approved of something. Unlike the Qur'an, the books that contain them are usually arranged in some logical fashion. The majority of Islamic law and belief derives from the hadiths. The hadith are said to be of varying authenticity according to the Islamic tradition, with some considered to be so reliable that to reject them would be tantamount to disbelief. Historians are less certain about the reliability of the hadith, as they were supposedly transmitted orally and written down, for the most part, some 150-200 years after Muhammad's death.
-===The Importance of Hadith===
+===The importance of Hadith===
-{{Main|Quranism}}The Qur'an, often presented as the exclusive domain of God's commands, also contains numerous injunctions from Muhammad himself, and indeed commands obedience of Muhammad.{{Quote|{{Quran|4|80}}|'''He who obeys the Messenger, obeys Allah''': But if any turn away, We have not sent thee to watch over their (evil deeds).}}In fact, doctrines as important as the [[Five Pillars of Islam]] lack explicit formulation in the Qur'an (as many would argue is the case with the Trinity in the Bible), and are only found in the hadith.
+{{Main|Quranism}}The Qur'an, often presented as the exclusive domain of God's commands, also contains numerous injunctions from Muhammad himself, and indeed commands obedience of Muhammad. Traditionally, therefore, the hadiths have been viewed as an Islamic scripture of fundamental importance, without which Islam as it is known could not exist, since the Quran contains a relatively paltry amount of legal, ritual, and doctrinal content when compared to the hadith literature.{{Quote|{{Quran|4|80}}|'''He who obeys the Messenger, obeys Allah''': But if any turn away, We have not sent thee to watch over their (evil deeds).}}In recent times, a small minority of Islamic thinkers and modernists identifying as 'Quranists' have tried to reinterpret Islam from the ground up relying only on the Quran while at the same time disqualifying the hadith effectively wholesale, either on the basis of their historical questionability or on the basis of their at times troubling content. This has vexed traditionalist scholars, who consider the hadith to be of fundamental importance and without which, they point out, Muslims would have no solid epistemological grounding for such integral items as the rituals of the daily Islamic prayer, among other things.
 ===Uswa Hasana===