User talk:PW. Jansen

Thanks

Thanks for your additions on that QHS page for Characteristics [1] and welcome to the site. --Axius (talk | contribs) 15:51, 17 August 2014 (PDT)

For your edit here, there's probably some others on that page that could also quality for what Allah thinks e.g.:

For the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who reject Him: They will not believe.

So I guess the other 'Allah' ones could be moved to the new section or, have all of them in one big section like we had before. Not sure which one is the best. --Axius (talk | contribs) 19:03, 18 August 2014 (PDT)

If these existing sections were renamed "Allah thinks...." they would lose much of their impact and they would be IMO pretty inaccurate. In Islam, Allah is the law. If he thinks something, then it simply is. So, to Muslims in general, it's not simply "Allah thinks Non-Muslims are the Worst of Creatures," it is literally "Non-Muslims are the Worst of Creatures". --Sahab (talk) 13:48, 20 August 2014 (PDT)

I agree with Sahab, but we do also write for non-Muslims who do not understand that "what Allah thinks" is equal to "it is". A line to explain this would help. Non-Muslims will look for the literal text. I will work on this. —Preceding unsigned comment added by PW. Jansen (talk • contribs) (Remember to sign your comments)

Ok we wont do it then. I'm also thinking its difficult to decide what the difference is for the verses where Allah thinks and where its the other case so yes, just keep it like that. Could you re-adjust the verses to flow with the rest of the content? --Axius (talk | contribs) 19:41, 20 August 2014 (PDT)

Leap year

All I understood is that altering months of a calendar is forbidden. That is the Ramadan calendar. Which calendar is used for agriculture, the 365 days one? Is the gap of 10 or 11 days because of that leap year day (Feb 29)? Saggy (talk) 06:24, 20 August 2014 (PDT)

hi PW. Jansen, regarding this I'll reply here for continuity. Is there a Quranic verse for the calender issue? That could be used in the Scientific errors in the Quran article. In any case there could be a separate article on this. There could be information from Wikipedia lunar year and/or Islamic calendar (History section). --Axius (talk | contribs) 07:36, 20 August 2014 (PDT)

Thanks, I am not that familiar with the Wiki communication features so something may be rather inefficient. The Koranic verse here is 9:37: Verily the transposing (of a prohibited month) is an addition to Unbelief: the Unbelievers are led to wrong thereby: for they make it lawful one year, and forbidden another year, in order to adjust the number of months forbidden by Allah and make such forbidden ones lawful. The evil of their course seems pleasing to them. But Allah guideth not those who reject Faith.
Traditionally the Arab added a month every so many years to synchronize sun and moon calendar. This a rather coarse way but sun and moon calendar don't get out of synch completely like is the case now. see: http://islam.about.com/cs/calendar/a/hijrah_calendar.htm for the current one. For the older one e.g. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20837003?uid=3737536&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21104072781421 (PW. Jansen)

I read the link. So the old Arab calendar was replaced by a strict lunar calendar hence there is shortfall of 10 or 11 days from the 365-day year. Now can you clarify the error you found? Are you saying that a leap year situation should have been considered? And when, while creating this lunar calendar? Saggy (talk) 02:39, 21 August 2014 (PDT)

Hi, My point is that Muhammad does not understand what it is for, and now the Muslims have to use two calendars, one for Ramadan (the lunar calendar imposed by Muhammad) and one for agriculture ( the solar calendar). Quote from PDF:Calendars are basically of two types: lunar or non-lunar. Lunar calendars have months based on the cycle of the phases of the moon (the synodic month, ca. 29.53 days). Twelve lunar months will total an average of about 354 days and are thus roughly 11 days shorter than the true solar (tropical or sidereal) year of 365.2422 days. Most of the nations of the ancient world used lunisolar calendars, where the difference between the lunar and the solar year is compensated by periodically intercalating a thirteenth month. Non-lunar calendars are based on notional "months" with a fixed number of days and make no attempt to keep pace with the phases of the moon. Link: https://cmes.uchicago.edu/sites/cmes.uchicago.edu/files/uploads/Middle%20Eastern%20Calendars.pdf

"Pray to Muhammad"

Hi Jansen. I've removed the "Pray to Muhammad" section you added to "Qur'an, Hadith and Scholars:Islamic Theology". There were several problems:

1. The page is about Islamic theology, not Allah. Your comment about "One wonders, who answers Allah's prayers," shifts the focus from Muslim beliefs onto Allah's characteristics.

2. There is a big difference between "sending blessings" onto someone and praying to someone. A quick Google search brings up some interesting stuff, e.g. [2]. Without reading anything about it, it is common sense to most, even outside an Islamic perspective, that being "blessed by God/gods" does not equate to being prayed to by God/gods. I've also heard this argument before. In fact others have tried to add it here and there in the past and it has always been removed. It is not an accurate criticism of Allah/Islam so does not belong here.

3. Even if we accepted the argument, we would not word it in the way you did. We try to approach things in a professional manner, so the sarcastic tone is not welcome.

I'm not on here very often now, but if you have any questions, I'll gladly answer them when I can. Thanks. --Sahab (talk) 21:26, 20 August 2014 (PDT)

Okay I get it. I was confused by a Dutch translation which said literally "prayers of blessing" and I thought it depended on the translation. The verse is (IMHO) relevant because explains why Muslims refer to prophet Muhammad with pbuh.