Amos Yee has made an extremely provocative video with the intent of hurting the beliefs and sentiments of Muslims. The video is too vulgar to be shared with this post. We would probably get into trouble with the law if we did as well. But snippets from the video can be seen here: http://bit.ly/1VhKTjt.
If Amos had hoped to cause outrage among the Muslim community here with the video, judging from the comments found to the Facebook post, the exact opposite is happening.
They see him for who he is – an attention seeker.
The Muslims here do not view it as an attack from the Chinese majority.They pity the mother and don’t blame her upbringing for his waywardness.
They have reported Amos to the authorities instead of taking matters into their own hands.
And most importantly the Muslim community forgave him.
And since Amos’ performance was so bad in the video, one suggested he should read another ancient text instead. Meanwhile the activists had an update form Amos’ mom.
What a hateful book this is. For those of you who don’t know this is the Quran, the book you probably think is guiding ISIS based on my newsfeed. Although I don’t think most of you have ever read a single passage from this book there sure are a lot of experts in my Facebook list.
Some interesting facts about this book you might not know:
1. It is a religion of Abraham, just like the Bible and Torah.
2. Jesus is a big part of this book, although there is discrepancy on if he is the son of God he is still a pretty kick ass prophet who teaches love and peace.
3. All of the shitty, angry, hateful things you probably think are in this book are all taken out of context from the early part of the religions of Abraham and those same hateful rules are in the Bible and Torah as well.
4. Islam is the only religion that has mandatory giving to those who are less fortunate.
For the sake of this post length I will stop there. I am so tired of being told how hateful the Islamic religion is from ignorant people who really have no idea. Any time you see something that you think is true about the Islamic religion I urge you to find those facts in the book and not from someone who has never read it.
In the book of Genesis Eve brought on sin for all generations to come because she listened to the words of a snake who deceived her. Before you pass judgment based on something you heard, you should look for yourself.
[17:26-29] You shall give the due alms to the relatives, the needy, the poor, and the travelling alien, but do not be excessive, extravagant.
The extravagant are brethren of the devils, and the devil is unappreciative of his Lord. Even if you have to turn away from them, as you pursue the mercy of your Lord, you shall treat them in the nicest manner. You shall not keep your hand stingily tied to your neck, nor shall you foolishly open it up, lest you end up blamed and sorry.
[2:177] Righteousness is not turning your faces towards the east or the west. Righteous are those who believe in GOD, the Last Day, the angels, the scripture, and the prophets; and they give the money, cheerfully, to the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the traveling alien, the beggars, and to free the slaves; and they observe the Contact Prayers (Salat) and give the obligatory charity (Zakat); and they keep their word whenever they make a promise; and they steadfastly persevere in the face of persecution, hardship, and war. These are the truthful; these are the righteous.
It will be interesting to see how many Facebook friends I lose.
A nearly 500-year-old gold coated antique Quran believed to be from the Mughal period has been seized from a gang that was trying to sell it for Rs five crores in Mysuru.
Police in the Mysuru district seized the ancient Quran while a group of 10 persons were trying to sell it near the Hosa Agrahara Railway station in rural Mysuru on Monday. The Superintendent of Police of the Mysuru district Abhinav Khare said that the 10 persons who were trying to sell the ancient copy of the Islamic holy book, have been arrested.
The Quran that was in the possession of the gang and a car they were using have been seized, Mysuru district SP said. A case has been registered at the Saligrama police station under section 25 of the Antiquities and Art Treasures Act 1972 and section 420 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, SP Khare said. “We are investigating the case to ascertain how the gang got hold of the book,” Khare told The Indian Express.
The ten persons who were arrested have been identified as N Nagaraju, 30, V Murali Krishna, 30, and Bhaskar M, 31, all residents of Raichur district, Kallappa Kambala, 54 of Kalburgi, Kanakappa Kambala, 40 of Gadag, Sanath, 27 of Udupi, Ravindra, 33 of Kollur, Vijayendra, 30 of Hosanagar, Prasad, 43 of Sagar and Raghavendra, 30 of Siddapur.
The Mysuru district police said that a team was looking for the gang after police recieved credible information that a group of men were trying to find customer to sell a gold coated Quran. Saligrama police sub-inspector S Gangadhar recieved an information around 8 pm on Monday that five members of the group were in a car near the Hosa Agrahara Railway station and were trying to sell the ancient copy of the Quran. He sent two police constables as decoys and the gang demanded Rs five crore to sell the book. The gang was arrested following the arrival of additonal police forces. Five more members of the gang were arrested from Mysuru city.
Police investigation has revealed that the accused did not inform the archeology department about being in possession of the ancient Quran though it is mandatory while holding any type of antique goods. “This 500 year old holy Quran has a total of 302 sheets and 604 pages. All pages are coated with gold,” Mysuru SP Khare said.
What may be the world’s oldest fragments of the Koran have been found by the University of Birmingham.
Radiocarbon dating found the manuscript to be at least 1,370 years old, making it among the earliest in existence.
The pages of the Muslim holy text had remained unrecognised in the university library for almost a century.
The British Library’s expert on such manuscripts, Dr Muhammad Isa Waley, said this “exciting discovery” would make Muslims “rejoice”.
The manuscript had been kept with a collection of other Middle Eastern books and documents, without being identified as one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the world.
Oldest texts
When a PhD researcher looked more closely at these pages it was decided to carry out a radiocarbon dating test and the results were “startling”.
The university’s director of special collections, Susan Worrall, said researchers had not expected “in our wildest dreams” that it would be so old.
“Finding out we had one of the oldest fragments of the Koran in the whole world has been fantastically exciting.”
The University of Birmingham’s manuscript was in a collection brought back from the Middle East
The tests, carried out by the Oxford University Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, showed that the fragments, written on sheep or goat skin, were among the very oldest surviving texts of the Koran.
These tests provide a range of dates, showing that, with a probability of more than 95%, the parchment was from between 568 and 645.
“They could well take us back to within a few years of the actual founding of Islam,” said David Thomas, the university’s professor of Christianity and Islam.
“According to Muslim tradition, the Prophet Muhammad received the revelations that form the Koran, the scripture of Islam, between the years 610 and 632, the year of his death.”
Prof Thomas says the dating of the Birmingham folios would mean it was quite possible that the person who had written them would have been alive at the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
“The person who actually wrote it could well have known the Prophet Muhammad. He would have seen him probably, he would maybe have heard him preach. He may have known him personally – and that really is quite a thought to conjure with,” he says.
First-hand witness
Prof Thomas says that some of the passages of the Koran were written down on parchment, stone, palm leaves and the shoulder blades of camels – and a final version, collected in book form, was completed in about 650.
Prof Thomas says the writer of this manuscript could have heard the Prophet Muhammad preach
He says that “the parts of the Koran that are written on this parchment can, with a degree of confidence, be dated to less than two decades after Muhammad’s death”.
“These portions must have been in a form that is very close to the form of the Koran read today, supporting the view that the text has undergone little or no alteration and that it can be dated to a point very close to the time it was believed to be revealed.”
Susan Worrall says the university wants to put this internationally significant discovery on public display
The manuscript, written in “Hijazi script”, an early form of written Arabic, becomes one of the oldest known fragments of the Koran.
Because radiocarbon dating creates a range of possible ages, there is a handful of other manuscripts in public and private collections which overlap. So this makes it impossible to say that any is definitively the oldest.
But the latest possible date of the Birmingham discovery – 645 – would put it among the very oldest.
‘Precious survivor’
Dr Waley, curator for such manuscripts at the British Library, said “these two folios, in a beautiful and surprisingly legible Hijazi hand, almost certainly date from the time of the first three caliphs”.
The first three caliphs were leaders in the Muslim community between about 632 and 656.
The fragments of the Koran are still clearly legible
Dr Waley says that under the third caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, copies of the “definitive edition” were distributed.
“The Muslim community was not wealthy enough to stockpile animal skins for decades, and to produce a complete Mushaf, or copy, of the Holy Koran required a great many of them.”
Dr Waley suggests that the manuscript found by Birmingham is a “precious survivor” of a copy from that era or could be even earlier.
“In any case, this – along with the sheer beauty of the content and the surprisingly clear Hijazi script – is news to rejoice Muslim hearts.”
Muhammad Afzal of Birmingham Central Mosque said he was very moved to see the manuscript
The manuscript is part of the Mingana Collection of more than 3,000 Middle Eastern documents gathered in the 1920s by Alphonse Mingana, a Chaldean priest born near Mosul in modern-day Iraq.
He was sponsored to take collecting trips to the Middle East by Edward Cadbury, who was part of the chocolate-making dynasty.
The local Muslim community has already expressed its delight at the discovery in their city and the university says the manuscript will be put on public display.
“When I saw these pages I was very moved. There were tears of joy and emotion in my eyes. And I’m sure people from all over the UK will come to Birmingham to have a glimpse of these pages,” said Muhammad Afzal, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque.
Prof Thomas says it will show people in Birmingham that they have a “treasure that is second to none”.
The Muslims here do not view it as an attack from the Chinese majority.
They pity the mother and don’t blame her upbringing for his waywardness.
Meanwhile the activists had an update form Amos’ mom.
