Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti

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- billy
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Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti
OP - October 16, 2012, 09:47 PM

I am reading the book "Twenty Three Years: A Study Of The Prophetic Career Of Mohammad" by an Iranian writer called Ali Dashti, and its remarkable.

A little about his background:

Quote
In the book, 23 Years, Dashti chooses reason over blind faith:

"Belief can blunt human reason and common sense, even in learned scholars. What is needed is more impartial study."

Dashti strongly denied the miracles ascribed to Muhammad by the Islamic tradition and rejected the Muslim view that the Quran is the word of God himself. Instead, he favors thorough and skeptical examination of all orthodox belief systems. Dashti argues that the Quran contains nothing new in the sense of ideas not already expressed by others. All the moral precepts of the Quran are self-evident and generally acknowledged.

The stories in it are taken in identical or slightly modified forms from the lore of the Jews and the Christians, whose rabbis and monks Muhammad had met and consulted on his journeys to Syria, and from memories conserved by the descendants of the peoples of Ad and Thamud.

Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had already conceived in earlier centuries and many places.

"Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Moses, and Jesus had said similar things. Many of the duties and rites of Islam are continuous practices which the pagan Arabs had adopted from the Jews."

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

Dashti was born in 1896 and died after the revolution in 1982. He was arrested and incarcerated and beaten up by Khomeini's men and died soon after.

This book 23 Years was published anonymously around 1974 in Beirut.

He was a religious scholar who became a free thinker and he writes with a clarity that is rare even today. To have published this book even in the 1970's was to have taken a huge risk for his personal safety.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
- billy
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Re: Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti
Reply #1 - October 16, 2012, 09:59 PM

Dashti praises Mohammad in certain ways. He admires aspects of his religious calling in the Meccan period of his life, as he tried to preach Islam. He admires what he achieved as a man, in terms of subduing people, and as an empire builder.

But he doesn't look away or try to deny what happened in the Medinan period like whitewashers of Muhammad (not just Muslims, but people like Karen Armstrong) do.

Many details of the sheer horror of Muhammad's Medinan phase. The more you contemplate it, the more convinced I am that the death taboo against normal critique or scrutiny of Mo & the Quran is in significant part to try and cover up and deny the truth of the shocking violence and horror of Muhammad's reign in Medina.

Just a couple of details I hadn't read before by now, I will write more later.

* After the men and boys of the Banu Qorayza were beheaded, a Jewish woman, the wife of one of the leaders, was also beheaded. But this is the spooky detail:

"She was friendly with A'esha, with whom she sat and talked until the time came for her to go to her death. When her name was called out, she walked smilingly and cheerfully to the execution ground. Her offence was throwing a stone during the blockade of the Banu Qorayza's street. "A'esha said of her, "I have never met a more beautiful, good-tempered, and kind-hearted woman. When she rose to walk to the execution ground and I told her that they would certainly kill her, she answered with a smile that staying alive did not matter to her."

* Mohammad ordered the killing of two slave girls of a man called Abdollah ol-Khatal who he disliked - the reason: because they had sung satirical songs about him, which enraged him. Their names were Fartana and Qariba.

"we can smell traitors and country haters"

Quote from: arX on May 01, 2011, 03:33 AM
God is Love.
Love is Blind. Stevie Wonder is blind. Therefore, Stevie Wonder is God.
- yeezevee
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Re: Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti
Reply #2 - October 16, 2012, 10:20 PM

Quote
In the book, 23 Years, Dashti chooses reason over blind faith: "Belief can blunt human reason and common sense, even in learned scholars. What is needed is more impartial study."

Dashti strongly denied the miracles ascribed to Muhammad by the Islamic tradition and rejected the Muslim view that the Quran is the word of God himself. Instead, he favors thorough and skeptical examination of all orthodox belief systems. Dashti argues that the Quran contains nothing new in the sense of ideas not already expressed by others. All the moral precepts of the Quran are self-evident and generally acknowledged.

The stories in it are taken in identical or slightly modified forms from the lore of the Jews and the Christians, whose rabbis and monks Muhammad had met and consulted on his journeys to Syria, and from memories conserved by the descendants of the peoples of Ad and Thamud.

Muhammad reiterated principles which mankind had already conceived in earlier centuries and many places.

"Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Moses, and Jesus had said similar things. Many of the duties and rites of Islam are continuous practices which the pagan Arabs had adopted from the Jews."

and that book Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti can be read or downloaded from...

http://www.scribd.com/doc/1018147/23-years-al-Dashti

http://ali-dashti-23-years.tripod.com/

and that book can be purchased from Amazon

Do not let silence become your legacy.. Question everything
I renounced my faith to become a kafir,
the beloved betrayed me and turned in to a Muslim
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Re: Twenty Three Years by Ali Dashti
Reply #3 - October 17, 2012, 12:14 AM

Quote from: billy on October 16, 2012, 09:47 PM
Dashti was born in 1896 and died after the revolution in 1982. He was arrested and incarcerated and beaten up by Khomeini's men and died soon after.

Beating an 86 year old man to death. Very stylish. Go the Islamic Revolution.

Devious, treacherous, murderous, neanderthal, sub-human of the West.
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