The brief appearance of Islamic members.

Islam certainly has many features of Judaism. One narrative explains Mohammed as a rejected claimant for "prophet-dom" by the Jews of the region whom he wished to join.

I am quite interested in the nature of a possible Sufi-Kabbalah correspondence with respect to "levels of existence" but there is probably too much baloney floating around to get at the meat.

Do you think it is hard to avoid such 'baloney' perhaps because there is a necessarily elitist/patronizing aspect to such traditions. Sort of a "secret knowledge" that the rest of us simple believers don't understand. Much in the way of the Gnostic Christian interpretations.

From one point of it appears that a bit of "pyramid selling" goes on in the esoteric systems I have glimpsed, such that progressive "intellectual sacrifices" are required for ascendance of "levels". From another it can be argued that particular semantic fields are being gradually acquired which restructure thinking paradigms (Buddhism is no exception). so the question of whether these "routes" and paradigms are "equivalent" is problematic because normal "rationality" is axiomatically suspended.

And on the fringes of these alternatives we find the "spirituality" of J. Krishnamurti who argues that "Truth is a Pathless Land". It is more likely that it is from such writings as his that we can evaluate the equivalence or otherwise of specific systems.

I agree.
Normal rationality is also somewhat axiomatic itself. For instance we must place an a-priori value on something. For instance coherence, or simplicity.

The Aramaeans were a people speaking a Semitic language who first appear in the historical record more than 3000 years ago. Their descendants are known as Syriacs and we would place Aram, their homeland, in central Syria.

After having gone to war several times with the Hebrews (accounts are confused, but it appears there is some basis for the Biblical accounts of Solomon and King David), they became confessional Jews, which may at first simply have been expedient. The Aramaeans became the most common traders in the middle east and beyond. Aramaic was the lingua france of the middle east for centuries, both before and after the Greco-Macedonian conquest. The Hellenistic culture may have made Koine Greek the language of the elites and of official documents, but Aramaic continued to be the language with which people from different places and cultures communicated.

They also spread confessional Judaism throughout the middle east, and beyond, into central Asia and as far east as China. When Marco Polo talks about there being Jews in this or that region on his travels, he wasn't blowing smoke. Judaism was the dominant "non-pagan" religious practice of the Arabian peninsula in the seventh century, and had been so firmly ensconced there, and was so widely practiced that Christianity failed to displace it as it did in so many other places.

If Mohammed was not a pagan, about the only reasonable option would have been that he was a confessional Jew.

Thanks Set.
Something else I've merely heard but not researched.
Wondering how "conspiracy theory"-ish it is.
Could it be true that Mohamed was illiterate, while his wife from a higher economic class was not? Could his wife have been the one to at least transcribe the Quran?

There is a sura which implies that he was illiterate, and Muslims who have posted here have not denied it, but just start ranting about divine inspiration. I'll be back.

There are so many sources out there, which cite both suras and hadith, that i'm not going to bother attempting to nail it down to any one specific citation. It is claimed that Allah referred to Mohammed as "Umma," the unlettered one. This is source of embarrassment to some Muslims, but others point to it as evidence that he was divinely inspired. (There's no reasoning with religious enthusiasts--pointing out that this makes the Quran dubious as to its provenance just enrages them.)

Mohammed's first wife was the daughter of a wealthy merchant who managed his business successfully after his death. This certainly implies that she was literate. She was from a different clan. You can do the homework yourself to decide if you believe that he was her social inferior.

thanks
I'm not familiar with 'suras' and 'hadith'...?

Suras are chapters or verses of the Quran (which is not organized as the bible is). Hadith are the actions or sayings attributed to the Prophet and the Companions, from which moral or spiritual truths are inferred. Islam established universities fairly early on, and they studied both the suras of the Quran and the Hadith, to determine what was lawful and what was moral. Additionally, they examined new claims of Hadith, to determine if they were genuinely attested actions or saying of the Prophet and the Companions. The Companions were those righteous men who accompanied him into exile in the early days of Islam. Sharia, the laws of Islam, ostensibly derive from the Quran and the Hadith.

Thanks Set. Very informative.

Evolution is a lie. You need 4.6 billion more years to prove your faith in evolution is not in vain. Creation : 6 days. Global Flood:we live post global flood. †

I don't think it has anything to do with Islamophobia.

I also think Islamophobia is a word Muslims made up to play the pity card.

But I do pity Muslims. Most of their problems with sex, money, or violence are self-inflicted. I read a book called Nomad, and everyone else should too.

As for their appearance and disappearance, maybe it's because most memvers here seem to be agnostic and have no time for their crap.

The first recorded use of the term in English, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was in 1923 in an article in The Journal of Theological Studies.

Due to "phobia", hostility to Islam should perhaps be named with a different term in English (and French, although "Islamophobie is already defined as « hostilité envers l'islam, les musulmans ».)

European Jewish organisations (like many others) compare 21st century Islamophobia to anti-Semitism: "Increasingly, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia seem to be two sides of the same coin, in which stereotypical actions and new misunderstandings are engraved in large letters."

As a christian to a Christian: I have to wonder - how does your faith survive your unchristian characterizations of others? At what point does "judge ye not" begin to kick in?

If you think 'Islamophobia is fake, what do you make of the hugely specious the 'War on Christmas'?

Doesn't matter who wrote it.

What matters is that the Dark Ages continued from the fallout of the fall of Rome (5th century)
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Fall_of_Rome
to the 14th century.
https://www.historyhit.com/why-were-the-early-middle-ages-called-the-dark-ages/
The Muslim Golden Age was from 8th century to 14th century.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age

Note the 14th century. In other words, while the Fall of Rome and the subsequent Germanic barbarian invasion caused the Dark Ages, countless raids and aggression kept western culture from reasserting itself for the next 5 centuries?

Castles? No, they weren't for kings to oppress townspeople. In fact, the inside of a castle was often basically a town.
Inquisition? To root out false converts from Islam and Judaism. There was a reasonwhy Spain held the Inquisition. Spain was flooded by Moors (Muslims) from nearby Africa.
Columbus and other explorers sailing west? It wasn't "to prove the Earth was round" we already knew the Earth was at least rounded, it was to find a western route to China, because Islam had basically created a trade blockade since we wouldn't convert. (1492, just after the 14th century) The southern cape in Africa was a shipwreck zone, and Russian waters were too cold.
The Crusades? The Hagia Sophia in Turkey had just been taken over, and the Pope finally decided to take the velvet gloves off.

Btw, for TWELVE HUNDRED YEARS, Muslims have fough a mostly unprovoked war of aggression against Christian and Jews.

My barbers are Muslims, wonderful people, a darn sight better than most churchgoers.

Thank G*D for my Muslim women Primary care physicians and surgeon, and my Muslim male surgeon. They saved my life and there is no exaggeration in that statement. My primary physicians both have advocated successfully for me in the face of the anonymous board that monitors treatment plans.

Good people are good people. And by and large like most people anywhere, most Muslims (and most Christians, most Agnostics, most Atheists, most Taoists, etc etc etc) are good people.

It does, since you think Islamophobia is a word Muslims made up to play the pity card.

The term “Dark Age” for a particular period of ancient Greek history was initially adopted on the analogy with medieval Europe.
The [European] period of the Dark Age not only saw little scientific and cultural advancement but more significally (the original meaning of dark' here): we don't have many (for some centuries even none) written sources.

We've two hospitals in our townn: in the "Evangelical Hospital" about 1/3 of the medical doctors are Muslims; in the catholic and slighly larger "Holy Trinity Hospital" the number is a bit lower (but a lot larger, if you include the student doctors).

I don't judge people according to their religion, and everyone's religion is this person's private affair.