From Ibn Ishaq's biography of Mohammad, the earliest account of his life.
The apostle said, “Kill any Jew that fails into your power.” Thereupon Muhayyisa b. Mas’ud leapt upon Ibn Sunayna, a Jewish merchant with whom they had social and business relations, and killed him. Huwayyisa was not a Muslim at the time though he was the elder brother. When Muhayyisa killed him Huwayyisa began to beat him, saying, “You enemy of God, did you kill him when much of the fat on your belly comes from his wealth?” Muhayyisa answered, “Had the one who ordered me to kill him ordered me to kill you I would have cut your head off.” He said that this was the beginning of Huwayyisa’s acceptance of Islam. The other replied, “By God, if Muhammad had ordered you to kill me would you have killed me?” He said, “Yes, by God, had he ordered me to cut off your head I would have done so.” He exclaimed, “By God, a religion which can bring you to this is marvelous!” and he became a Muslim.
2 comments:
I think the proper questions for us are, What do powerful "deep traditionalists" such as WJC (according to HRC) know of Islam, and when did they know it?
On the meaning of 'deep' cf Nietzsche BGE 40 first line.
BTW, curious that the wiki author when explaining fitrah (an inner divine sense) offers this statement, which seems to condemn circumcision:
»Narrated Abu-Huraira: Allah's Apostle said, "No child is born except on the fitra and then his parents make him Jewish, Christian or Magian (Zoroastrian [Pharisee, Parsi]), as an animal produces a perfect young animal: do you see any part of its body amputated?" - Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 2, Book 23, Number 441«
Amputation maybe is explain'd in terms of 'symballon' as in Aristophanes' discourse in Plato's Symposium, or as the name for a Christian creedal summary as a "symbol" of the faith: a halving of the knowledge of the Self occurs by the shirking positive doctrine of Judaism, Christianity, or Phariseeism, by which the whole meaning of the self finds its complement in the afterlife. Aquinas in the Summa theologiae says that any symbol of the faith is a taking away form the whole meaning of the faith.
A circumcised dork-man perhaps finds his missing ring in the afterlife.
On traditionalism, cf David Riesman pouring scorn on anyone "other-directed" who considers direction based in the world or the outer world (as in a secularization of Christian doctrine and life), rather than being 'inner-directed' or 'tradition-directed' (David Riesman, Nathan Glazer and Reuel Denney, 'The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Culture' (1950).
Betty Friedan's project was to enculturate girls to abandon distinctive womanhood as worthless odium and to strive for accomplishment in the prestige career structures of the outer world, which was being emtpy'd of purpose and meaning by Riesman et al. ... And today, the only valid purpose of these careers and the outer world in general is to protest, resist, dissolve, etc western Christendom and its aftermath in the outer world. Women and subaltern minorities are agents for change even when lawyers -- unless they are wasting their lives as white men do in these structures.
This is the desublimational agenda of 'critical theory' even though the outer world is necessary (no inner world to flee to without an outer world to flee from!).
But this means Friedan's project maybe isn't irredeemable: achievement in the world is achievement in a necessary kosmos. ... According to Sufi Islam the outer world, olam, is the place for Shariah.
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