The Smoke Article

[Layth]

Peace,

On the FM website there is an article 'The Smoke' which theorizes the meaning to be that of a nuclear war and even goes on to place together some events and dates to form a certain hypothesis.

http://www.free-minds.org/articles/science/wwiii.htm

Should this article be published on the website?

Or should it be confined to the forum?

I am open to hear opinions on this...

[shamsul-arefin]

well, I dont think its necessary to remove but I dont agree with the article either. Its a theory..speculation. It might make some ppl to think..

My speculation ofthe smoke is more towards Super volcanic thing


peace

[Layth]

Peace,

Just to have a specific time-line, I will leave this poll running till Monday (10/1/2005). Then the resulsts will be acted on (God willing).

[Wakas]

peace All,

No, it should not be removed. Articles which are more speculative than average (such as this one) should have an individual disclaimer (even though there is one in the main articles section). That is my view.


Wakas

[beatnik]

I agree with Wakas, it should have a disclaimer before it ensuring the reader is aware it is the author's personal opinion, and not necessarily something believed by all muslims/freeminds/whatever we're called this week  

[ayman]

Peace brother Layth,

Whether the article is published on the web site or on the forum, either way is fine and I trust your judgment. I think that either way the following are some of the major unresolved issues that have to be addressed, either in the body of the article or in a section for "Directions for Future Research" or something similar at the end of the article, if unable to address them at this time.

1. Is the messenger in 44:14 the only one described as "educated"?

other messengers were always called ?magician, poet, soothsayer, crazy? but never ?well educated?

The justification for accepting RK as the messenger in 44:14 based on the assumption that no other messenger is described as "educated" (in the passive by someone else) is not warranted based on 16:103 where the messenger who brought the Arabic reading is accused of being "taught/educated" by someone else:

16:103. And indeed We know that they say: "It is but a human that is educating/teaching him." The language of the one they falsely attribute to is non-Arabic, while this is a clarifying Arabic language.

2. The early copies of the great reading did not have any separators (stars or asterisks or numbering). The present alleged verse separation locations were not agreed on until as late as 1924. Those who make conclusions based on verse separations assume that the separators were divinely inspired. What evidence is there that divine inspiration is what guided the clergy to decide many hundreds of years after the fact to have a separator before "fartaqib" and after "mubin" to make "fartaqib yawm taati alsamaa bidukhan mubin" 44:10?

There is no excuse for not addressing issue 2 because early copies of the great reading are available on the internet and in museums for everybody to verify what I am saying. One can even find a picture of a page of the Tashkent copy on the submission.org web site and it confirms what I am saying.

3. Where does the great reading describe itself as being in "verse" format? Does the word "aya(t)" mean "verse" or "sign"?

4. What evidence is there that "alm", "alr" are not connected words, while they are clearly written as such? Also, from Chapter 42 it is clear that the words at the beginning are words and not initials and the separation and joining is not haphazard because of the deliberate separation between "ﻢﺤ" and "عسق" when they could have been written as:

حمعسق

5. There is absolutely no mention in 74:30-31 of any relation to alleged initials or that we should start counting the letters of the book.

6. The "count"/"3ida(t)" of 19 and not the number/"3adad" 19 is described as "fitna"/trial. Thus, it is clearly those who "count" 19 who are being tried.

7. Here is the question that anyone who reached any answers based on counting 19 had to ask first: "What did The God intend with this example". Who asks this question in 74:31?

Peace and all best wishes,

Ayman

[Edip Yuksel]

The early copies of the great reading did not have any separators (stars or asterisks or numbering). The present alleged verse separation locations were not agreed on until as late as 1924. Those who make conclusions based on verse separations assume that the separators were divinely inspired. What evidence is there that divine inspiration is what guided the clergy to decide many hundreds of years after the fact to have a separator before "fartaqib" and after "mubin" to make "fartaqib yawm taati alsamaa bidukhan mubin" 44:10?

Brother Ayman raises some good and interesting points in his reaction to Layth's article. I will only deal with the point quoted above.

I have seen several copies of very old manuscripts kept in London, Topkapi Museum, and Sulaymania Library, and noticed that verses were distinguished from each other by big dots, mostly colored in red. The fotocopies of those copies usually do not show those dots, perhaps because of their light colors.

If verses were distinguished by dots from the beginning, then they were automatically numbered, since numbers are just order of different units.

Another point, which I will make it in haste, is many people's lack of accurate information about the history of mathematics and their skepticism and even allergy regarding Gematria or ABJAD; the ancient order of the Arabic alphabet, which was used during the time of Muhammad as the number system, like Roman numerals.

Thera are numerous sources that historically and arhchologically support this fact. I recommend everyone, including brothers Ayman and Layth, the following book by a prominent scholar. It is the best book on this subject:

The Universal History of Numbers, Georges Ifrah, Wiley, 2000.

I would like to quote extensively from the book, but now I have to get ready for the bed:)

Well, just atfer posting this answer, I noticed Ayman's objection to the mathematical system based on the number 19. His bias and lack of knowledge on the subject is evident, and it will take perhaps another book the size of Running Like Zebras to flush out all his misconceptions, misunderstanding, false assumptions and phobias.

I recommend him to visit the following links with open mind:

http://www.yuksel.org/e/religion/saqar.htm

and

http://www.yuksel.org/e/religion/zebras.htm


Peace,
Edip

[shamsul-arefin]

peace to all

I think every article should have a disclaimer of the writer as these are the thoughts/analysis of that person only.

peace

[ayman]

Peace brother Edip,

Thank you for your response.

The early copies of the great reading did not have any separators (stars or asterisks or numbering). The present alleged verse separation locations were not agreed on until as late as 1924. Those who make conclusions based on verse separations assume that the separators were divinely inspired. What evidence is there that divine inspiration is what guided the clergy to decide many hundreds of years after the fact to have a separator before "fartaqib" and after "mubin" to make "fartaqib yawm taati alsamaa bidukhan mubin" 44:10?

Brother Ayman raises some good and interesting points in his reaction to Layth's article. I will only deal with the point quoted above.

Actually, in the latest article, brother Layth does good by avoiding the murky waters of verse numbers. This was not the case in his WWIII article though and that is the article that #2 was addressing.

I have seen several copies of very old manuscripts kept in London, Topkapi Museum, and Sulaymania Library, and noticed that verses were distinguished from each other by big dots, mostly colored in red. The fotocopies of those copies usually do not show those dots, perhaps because of their light colors.

If verses were distinguished by dots from the beginning, then they were automatically numbered, since numbers are just order of different units.

Many of the early manuscripts of the great reading do not contain verse separators such as dots, stars, or numbers. But even those that do contain some kind of seperators, such as the ones you saw, if you examine them, you will see that they are in different locations and at much wider intervals than the present copies of the great reading. You can see this here:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/yem12a.html

As you can see above, there is a separator in 17:20 but none at what is currently 17:21 and 17:22.

Below one can see that there is a separator where 5:118 is today but there is no separator where 5:117 and 5:119 are today.

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/yem23a.html

Again, when the man-made separators were added, their purpose was  ease of reading and reference. For example, so that the reader can stop and take a breath at a certain location while reciting and can more easily refer to a certain passage. It is only now that people believe that the separators were divinely inspired.

In the following manuscript from the 2nd century there is a separator between Chapter 8/9 and Chapter 10, but no separators between alleged verses at all:

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Text/Mss/yem2a.html

In fact, even in the copies of the great reading where there are some separators, the spacing suggests that separators were squeezed in later. They were also done using a different type of ink and they exhibit different aging pattern to the rest of the text and hence cannot be dated to the same period as the original text.

The above are just some examples and there are plenty more.

As for lack of information on mathematics, looking for patterns based on any number and then only presenting the results that show a pettern and not the many other failed trials where one did not get the pattern is not mathematics. It is called numerology and that is what Carl Sagan tried to explain that to you.

Thus, in order to make it mathematics, you have to document BOTH the successes and the failures and use a standard methodology that doesn't temper with the data.

I hope this helps.

Peace and all best wishes,

Ayman

[mh]

peace to you all,

i left a time ago and people were studying the verses and now i see that people are getting back to counting them!

take care.

God bless.