Who Will Give Up Criticizing Other Sects ?

[Average Bohra]

Porus,

In Arabic if one were to ask a pregnant woman if she knows the sex of her child, would the Arabic word for "sex" exist in that statement ? For example, you can ask the same question with "do you know if it is a boy or a girl", some of the nuances are cultural. What would be the literal Arabic to English translation of such an inquiring ?

Just curious....

[porus]

Originally posted by Average Bohra:
Porus,

In Arabic if one were to ask a pregnant woman if she knows the sex of her child, would the Arabic word for "sex" exist in that statement ? For example, you can ask the same question with "do you know if it is a boy or a girl", some of the nuances are cultural. What would be the literal Arabic to English translation of such an inquiring ?

Just curious....

AB,

The word for sex/gender in Arabic is "jins". It is eminently possible to use this word to ask a woman if she knows what sex is the child she is carrying.

One way would be;

"hal taarifin madha jins tifl al ladhi tahmili?"

Literally, "Do you know what sex is the baby you are carrying?"

Or, more colloquially

"madha tahmili? walad aw bint?"

"What is it? Boy or Girl?"

[accountability]

porous: thankyou, very good explaination. I do agree with you, that god knows about the child more than just sex. But my contention is, while god proclaims to know single handedly about the jins and future of the child, and also only he knows, when the clouds will bring rain. He may have been refering to, then capability of humans. It is for sure, 1n 7th century AD, people could not know the sex of the child.

Having said that, god has not forbidden us to strive for the knowledge he possecsses. So we now know, what is in the womb. We also know when clouds will bring rain.

This also raises one intresting point, in the above context, are we wise enough to just limit ourselves to literary meanings of the divine message, and broaden our horizon.

[accountability]

please read " not broaden our horizon".

[Muslim First]

.
From:
Tafheem ul Qur'an
(13:8)
Allah knows what every female bears in her womb: He is fully aware of what is taking shape in the womb and also what decrease or increase occurs therein. *17 Everything has its fixed measure with Him.

*17 when amplified the verse will mean: Allah remains fully aware of all the developments that take place in the child while in its mother's womb and He watches over the decrease or increase in each of its limbs, and its potentialities, capabilities and powers.

(31:34)
Allah alone has the knowledge of the Hour: He alone sends down the rain and He alone knows what is taking shape in the wombs of the mothers. No living being knows what he will earn the next day, nor does anybody know in what land he will die. Allah alone is All-knowing, All-Aware. *63

*63 This verse is, in fact an answer to the disbelievers' question as to when the Hour of Resurrection will come, which they asked when they heard the Holy Prophet mention it and the promise of the Hereafter, again and again. The Qur'an has answered this sometimes by citing the question and sometimes without citing it, because the addressees knew what they were asking. This is one of those verses which answer the question without citing the question itself.
The first sentence: 'AIIah alone has the knowledge of the Hour", is the real answer to the question. The four sentences that follow constitute the argument to support it. The argument means this: "O man. you do not have the knowledge even about those things with which you are most closely and intimately concerned in life. How then can it be possible for you to know as to when will the whole world cane to an end? Your prosperity and adversity mainly depend on the rain. But its control and regulation is entirely in the hand of Allah. He sends down the rain whenever and wherever and in whatever measure He pleases and withholds it whenever he pleases. You do not at aII know how much of the rain will fall at a particular place at a particular time and which land will remain without it, and which land will be adversely affected in spite of it. Your wives conceive by your own sperm-drop, which perpetuates your race in the future, but you do not know what is taking shape in their wombs, and in what form and with what good or evil it will emerge. You do not even know what you are going to meet with the next day A sudden accident can change your destiny; but you are unaware of it even a minute before its occurence. You do not know where your present life will eventually cane to an end. AIlah has kept all this information with Himself alone; and has not given you any knowledge of any of these. You actually desire that you should have the knowledge of each of these things so that you may make necessary preparations beforehand, but you have no other course open to you than to depend only on Allah's decree and disposal in these matters. Likewise, about the end of the world also there is no alternative but to rely on Allah's decree and decision. The knowledge of this also has neither been given to anybody, nor can it be given." Here, another thing also should be understood well, and it is this: This verse dces not give a list of the unseen and hidden things, which are known to no one but Allah. Here only some of the most apparent things have been pointed out only to serve as an illustration. These are the things with which man is most deeply and intimately concerned, yet he is unaware of them. From this it would be wrong to conclude that these are the only five unseen and hidden things which are known to no one but AIIah. As a matter of fact, ghaib applies to every such thing which is hidden from the creation but is in the knowledge of Allah, and such things are countless and limitless. (For a detailed discussion of this, see An-Naml: 65 and the E.N.'s thereof).

For Ibn Katheer's tafseer on 13.8 See

Allah is All-Knower of Al-Ghayb (Unseen)
.

[anajmi]

accty,

There is no ayah in the quran which says that Allah alone knows the sex of the child. There is no ayah in the quran which states that only Allah knows when the clouds will bring rain. The ayah that you referred to, says no such thing.

[accountability]

Porous: why are we afraid to say, what is there.

[accountability]

anajmi: ramadan mubarak to you all. I am fasting from yesterday.

[anajmi]

accty,

Why are you fasting? According to you, fasting is a pointless excercise. Just the act is not going to be accepted without the faith behind it.

And yeah, there is no ayah in the quran which says that Allah alone knows the sex of the child. There is no ayah in the quran which states that only Allah knows when the clouds will bring rain. The ayah that you referred to, says no such thing.

Let me post the ayah one more time, from your own link.

"Verily the knowledge of the Hour is with Allah (alone). It is He who sends down Rain, and He who knows what is in the wombs…." [Al-Qur’an 31:34]

And running behind porus is like running behind the devil on the day of judgment. The result will be the same.

[anajmi]

Ramadan mubarak to you too.

[accountability]

why am i fasting. to tell you the truth, i dont know. but i do. usually my wife asks me to advise my son to fast and pray. I can not advise him, if i myself is not performing these acts.

morever, i do not have problem with religion, I do believe in god. But i am curious, and my curiosity makes me to ask questions. I am not ready to take, that god, who is the ultimate creator, will be upset if we start asking questions. first i think, you do not have the grasp of the religion.

explain it to me, from where did you get all these attributes.

God will be angry,
he will punish you,
he will be happy,
he will be pleased,
he is kind,

all these are human qualities, you are implying these to an absolute creator. Like porous said, god is almighty, he can do and make happen anything anytime. so there is no cause for him to have above attributes.

you have actually limited yourself to those self proclaimed religious interpretors and translators, who may know the language, but have no grasp of reality behind it.

analyze yourself in the context of your previous posts. when i posted that god says, that he is the only one who knows the sex of child in womb, i did not say, it is the translation of an ayah. i rather took its meaning, and the ayah in refrence does mean that.

because you have a mindset, now you are insisting on me to produce an ayah with the word sex. You are not ready to imagine or realize, that what you have been knowing may not be the same. in my previous post i gave a very logical explaination for that. when fourteen hundred years ago, god sent down the ayah, people did not have knowledge to find out the sex of the child in the womb. so at that time it was with him only. but he did not prevent us from knowing what he knows, now we have the knowledge.

what is wrong with it. But your cylindrical and tunnel perception is not allowing you to accept it.

according to your perception, no question should be asked. but that is not the way to understand anything.

[anajmi]

accty,

Seriously, my friend, a person who is deceiving his son into believing something he himself does not, is not a good example of character.

As far as you other doubts are concerned, trying to explain anything to you is a task more difficult than a dumb person trying to communicate with a blind person in sign language. I don't think I am upto the task.

[porus]

accountability,

When we do not have knowledge about some thing, we say God knows.

But God is not content with our acknowledgement of his omniscience. He must continually tell us that he is more knowledgeable than humans. He need no do that because we have already acknowledged God's infinite knowledge. He just does not want any one to forget.

To emphasise his omniscience, God chooses examples of things that humans lack knowledge about and insists that he alone knows it. However, since God's last message was a long time ago, examples are of things about which humans now have some knowledge.

Of course, we do not have any evidence that God is actually omniscient. If he had said that the first child of Fatima would be a boy before Hasan was born, we might be really impressed. No technology was then available for humans to know that.

God would have made even better impression if he had talked about electromagnetic induction, newton's laws or a laser's population inversion. But he chose examples that could be understood in 7th century Arabia.

In 35:41, God says that he is holding the earth and heavens so that they do not vanish. He could have been more lucid and elegant if he had just given the Law of Gravitation a center piece in his message.

In 35:40 God asks if mushrikeen have seen the partner they associate with God? I think that is unfair, unless God himself allows himself to be seen, which he doesn't.

Which means;

Specific examples are not important. The idea they illustrate is that God knows what humans don't; and that is important. Of course, there is no evidence that God knows what we do not know. We take that on faith.

Quran is replete with instances which no longer make sense unless metaphor and history are brought to bear on its verses. They are therefore subject to endless interpretation.

[anajmi]

It's a good thing God doesn't ask the advise of disbelievers before coming up with his message. If newton's laws had been mentioned in the quran, you wouldn'tve knows them as newton's laws!! Newton wouldn't ve needed to invent them and consequently, your entire history would've been different and you would've been presenting exactly the same argument for some other scientists' other laws and asking why they weren't mentioned in the quran.

[anajmi]

Of course, we do not have any evidence that God is actually omniscient.

There is a lot of evidence in the quran that God is omniscient. For e.g. God says that the earth is egg shaped. He also says that he has made both plants and animals in pairs. Some other e.g. are that all living things are made out of water. Evaporation of water causing rain. Fingerprints unique for each person, etc etc. None of this information was available 14 centuries ago.

In 35:40 God asks if mushrikeen have seen the partner they associate with God? I think that is unfair, unless God himself allows himself to be seen, which he doesn't.

Actually, it's not unfair because none of these so-called partners have actually required fatih in the unseen. Some examples are Ram, Krishna, Buddha, Ganesh, Shiva, or Laat, Manat, Uzza.

[porus]

God says that the earth is egg shaped.

Oh. Which ayat is that? And is the earth egg-shaped? Does God mention whose egg? From our modern knowledge, earth is like a sphere slighly flattened at the poles. Not at all like a chicken's egg.

He also says that he has made both plants and animals in pairs.

No doubt God made them in pairs. Funny, men did not know about women before the arrival of Quran!!

that all living things are made out of water.

Did God forget Jinn? Unless Satan is classified as non-living, there is at least one creature who is not made of water.

Evaporation of water causing rain.

Which ayat is that? Not the one about clouds causing rain, which everyone knew, but the one about clouds forming from evaporation? By the way, evaporation is the process of water becoming vapour based on temperature and humidity.

Fingerprints unique for each person

Which ayat is that?

Misguided fanatical Muslims betray that they tacitly value secular science more than they value Quran because they seek Quran's validation from science. They do it in the most tortuous way by putting their own spin on ayats. And some of these bigots disparage taawil. No taawil seeks to say Quran can be verified by science.

By the way, does a Hindu say that Ram and Krishna are Allah's partners? Which Ramayana or Mahabharat is that gem from?

And how does enumeration of a few unverified claims become omniscience?

[porus]

He also says that he has made both plants and animals in pairs.

Oh, I just remembered what I learned in school about tiny unisexual living organisms like amoeba.

Clearly, God is not telling us about unisexual plants and animals. Most of these are microscopic; so God decided to hide that knowledge, that is, if he even knew about them. Or perhaps God was cheating man by thinking that he would not invent a microscope. Although, I gather there are some large unisexual animals, visible to the 'naked' eye.

Perhaps there is a way out here for God. These unisexual organisms, we may decide not to classify as plants or animals.

[anajmi]

porus,

It is actually amazing to see a knowledgeable person arguing like a fool. There is so much that I can say but since it will be a waste of time, I won't. A person who can't understand the analogy about the shape of an egg isn't worth arguing with.

[anajmi]

And some of these bigots disparage taawil. No taawil seeks to say Quran can be verified by science.

However, it is ok for these taawilers to ask for evidence regarding God's omniscience. Bigotry would you say? or maybe Hypocrisy!! Sorry, forgot, you are just a disbeliever. My apologies to the taawilers.

[jinx]

Originally posted by porus:

that all living things are made out of water.

Did God forget Jinn? Unless Satan is classified as non-living, there is at least one creature who is not made of water.

Interestingly....there are other entity in the world that doesn't quiet fit the description of living vs non-living

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus

It has been argued extensively whether viruses are living organisms. Most virologists consider them non-living,[1][2][3] as they do not meet all the criteria of the generally accepted definition of life.