Channel 4 Islam week

panda100

Thought this might intrest a few people.......On Monday (14th July) channel 4 begin a week of programmes on Islam.
It starts on Monday night with a documentary called 'The qur'an',which has got rave reviews. It helps debunk a lot of myths outh there on this holy book. http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/quran.html

The week then continues with 'The seven wonders of the muslim world' which presents Islam as its practisced and lived.
http://www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/can_you_believe_it/debates/7wonders.html?intcmp=docpage_box3

wes

Thanks for that. Some interesting stuff there.

the_new_mr

Thanks for the heads up. Looks MEGA interesting but, unfortunately, I won't be able to see any of these as I'm not currently living in a channel 4 zone.

Hopefully someone will YouTube them or something

O'Morris

the_new_mr wrote: »

Hopefully someone will YouTube them or something

You'll be able to view them for free, you just need to download 4oD from the channel 4 site and register. Most channel 4 programmes are free to view for thirty days after being broadcast.

the_new_mr

Thanks for the tip but unfortunately that doesn't work for me. I tried to do it for Make Me a Muslim that came on some last year but it seems you can only use 4oD if you have an IP address in England or Ireland (essentially, anywhere you can get channel 4 on your tv).

Rb

Watched "The Qur'an" tonight, very interesting programme.

Interesting to see Muslims criticizing other Muslims (in particular the Saudis and their wacko interpretation of the script).

hivizman

the_new_mr wrote: »

Thanks for the tip but unfortunately that doesn't work for me. I tried to do it for Make Me a Muslim that came on some last year but it seems you can only use 4oD if you have an IP address in England or Ireland (essentially, anywhere you can get channel 4 on your tv).

Just back this morning from Australia so I missed the documentary last night. Couldn't get 4oD to work, but I was able to watch the documentary on the Channel 4 catch-up site here. Apparently this will be available until next Monday.

An interesting and wide-ranging documentary, with several themes that we have recently covered in threads in this forum being addressed. I'd completely missed the "syro-aramaic" line of text-critical interpretation that was mentioned in the documentary, though I wasn't surprised that issues such as veiling and female genital mutilation popped up.

Jannah

Rb wrote: »

Interesting to see Muslims criticizing other Muslims (in particular the Saudis and their wacko interpretation of the script).

YES! I always thought that it was kind of an unspoken rule that Muslims should agree with the rules that are made in Saudi, seeing at it is the birth place of Islam (kind of like how Catholics are supposed to agree with the decisions made in the Vatican).

They stuck in a couple of weirdos, though, in particular the dude who was ranting about how 'special' female cicumcision is and that it is the true mark of a Muslim woman's purity- what the hell?? There was a really brilliant guy from London talking too, who was pretty much the rock of sense and, in my opinion, was one of the few people shown who REALLY understood the 'real' Islam.

hivizman

The London guy is called Ajmal Masroor. He's a journalist and broadcaster who also leads the Friday prayers at various mosques. He tried (unsuccessfully) to become a Liberal Democrat candidate for the London Assembly earlier this year, and there's an informative website about him. Among other things, he's a spokesperson for the Islamic Society of Britain (ISB).

However, he seems to have caused some controversy a couple of years ago, when the Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPACUK) said:

It seems our Muslim leaders are as ready, to stab the Ummah in the back for their own egos, as they ever were.

However these “snakes” come no lower than Ajmal Masroor of the ISB. He has a proven track record of betraying the Palestinian cause. Yet due to his slippery tongue and charm, few men and women have held him accountable for his evil acts.

There's a discussion of the Channel 4 documentary on the MPACUK website, which certainly brings out the old adage "you can't please all of the people all of the time".

Jannah

Oooh some really good links there- thanks Hivizman! Thats the fellow- I thought he was brilliant, very well spoken and down to earth. I think the really serious Imans with the big beards who are really serious and freaking people out about the Day Of Judgment and whatnot tend to scare the bejesus out of a lot of people and it was refreshing to have a young fellow with more liberal views. Haha, it seems he's fairly outspoken too- I liiiike it! Controvery is what makes the world go round!

Rev Hellfire

It certainly was an interesting (and for me a little enlightening) programme.
But one of the more disturbing issues raised by it was the 'translations' offered of the Koran where additions are added to suit a particular world view.
I would have though that Muslims would have found that a particularly worrying development.

hivizman

The big difference between Islam and Christianity is that, whereas Christians almost always read the Bible in translation (and there are various translations approved by different churches), Muslims believe that only the original Arabic version of the Qur'an is authoritative: in this form it is literally the word of God. Any translation cannot, it is claimed, capture all the nuances and subtleties of the original Arabic: it can be at best only an interpretation. Because Qur'anic Arabic is an elliptical language - it "often deliberately omits intermediate thought-clauses in order to express the final stage of an idea as pithily and concisely as is possible within the limitations of a human language", to quote from the Foreword to Muhammad Asad's translation The Message of the Qur'an - it is necessary for translators to fill in the gaps in the original Arabic text in order for the translation to make sense of the meaning of the Arabic. Any translation runs the risk of distorting the underlying meaning of the original, and this is particularly a problem when the original is written in a highly poetic style. The problem is made worse by the need to expand the more elliptical passages.

I'm not sure who was responsible for the insertion of references to Jews and Christians in the translation of Surah Al-Fatihah shown on the Channel 4 documentary - the two English translations with extensive notes that I usually refer to (Abdullah Yusuf Ali's The Meaning of the Holy Qur'an and Muhammad Asad's The Message of the Qur'an) don't do so in their notes on the Surah. The official Saudi Arabian Government website http://quran.al-islam.com uses the Yusuf Ali translation, and does not include the references to Jews and Christians. Another English language version of the Qur'an published in Saudi Arabia, the Saheeh International translation, which is downloadable, also does not refer to Jews and Christians.

However, there is long-standing authority for the association of verse 7 of Surah Al-Fatihah (". . . those whose (portion) is not wrath, and who go not astray") with Jews and Christians. One of the leading commentaries on the Qur'an is the 14th century Tafsir Ibn Kathir, which includes the following passage on this verse:

[H]elp us avoid the path of those who were led astray, who lost the true knowledge and, as a result, are wandering in misguidance, unable to find the correct path. Allah asserted that the two paths He described here are both misguided when He repeated the negation 'not'. These two paths are the paths of the Christians and Jews, a fact that the believer should beware of so that he avoids them. The path of the believers is knowledge of the truth and abiding by it. In comparison, the Jews abandoned practicing the religion, while the Christians lost the true knowledge. This is why 'anger' descended upon the Jews, while being described as 'led astray' is more appropriate of the Christians. Those who know, but avoid implementing the truth, deserve the anger, unlike those who are ignorant. The Christians want to seek the true knowledge, but are unable to find it because they did not seek it from its proper resources.

I came across an interesting critical review of translations of the Qur'an into English here, which makes the point that translations "that are funded by Saudi Arabia often insert political annotation".

Sorry that this post has become a bit scholarly.

Rev Hellfire

Nice link there hivizman.

hivizman

I should have read the article on translations of the Qur'an more carefully. It specifically mentions that the Hilali/Muhsin Khan translation refers to the Jews and Christians in interpolations in verse 7 of Surah Al-Fatihah. This was the translation shown on the Channel 4 documentary.

This translation is downloadable from the Islamhouse website, but it's a 30MB file.

the_new_mr

Finally got round to watching the Quran there last week. Very well made show with a lot of interesting points made.

I think the idea of the Syriac, although interesting, doesn't have very much ground to stand on since it's mentioned very clearly in a number of places in the Quran that it is in Arabic.

Surat Yusef:2
"behold, We have bestowed it from on high as a discourse in the Arabic tongue, so that you might encompass it with your reason."

Surat Fussilat:44
"Now if We had willed this [divine writ] to be a discourse in a non-Arabic tongue, they [who now reject it] would surely have said, “Why is it that its messages have not been spelled out clearly? Why - [a message in] a non-Arabic tongue, and [its bearer] an Arab?” Say: “Unto all who have attained to faith, this [divine writ] is a guidance and a source of health; but as for those who will not believe - in their ears is deafness, and so it remains obscure to them: they are [like people who are] being called from too far away."

So, the argument made about the hijab and how it's actually meant to be belt tightening is a little weak in my honest (though humble) opinion. The khimar (cloak/hood/veil) is a very well known piece of clothing and it's unlikely that it's misunderstood in this way.

However, the Quranic verse that refers to it (verse 31 of Sural Al-Noor) mentions that the khimar should be drawn over the bosoms. In complete isolation, one could argue that this is not clear whether the khimar itself should be covering the head as well or just be draped around the neck and then over the chest. It all comes back to the definition of khimar and the hadith that mentions that only the face and hands should be apparent (and its authenticity) and whether the Prophet was pointing to the face or the head in general. Still, who am I to say so? I'm not saying that hijab (in the most common form we know today) is not as it should be. I think it's quite a complicated matter actually and I certainly have no authority on it and I'm still of the opinion that the most commonly known form present today is the intended form but Allahu 3lam (God knows best = only God knows for sure).

One thing I did like about the program actually was that the makers of the program seemed to grasp the true meaning (and spirit) of the Quran in terms of peace and tolerance. Channel 4 documentaries are usually objective and fair in this way.

As for the Jews/Christians thing discussed above, I don't see why the interpretation of the final verse of Surat Al-Fatiha should necessarily be that. When I pray to God and recite verse 7 of Surat Al-Fatiha (and I say it at least 19 times a day), I ask Him that we don't earn His anger (and we may do that as Muslims) and that we don't go astray (and we can do that as Muslims too).

What were the other shows during the Islam week?

By the way hivizman, where do you read your copy of the Mohamed Asad translation? Do you have a printed copy and, if so, do you know where I could get one?

hivizman

the_new_mr wrote: »

By the way hivizman, where do you read your copy of the Mohamed Asad translation? Do you have a printed copy and, if so, do you know where I could get one?

Hi, been away owing to family illness.

I was in London recently and visited the branch of Waterstones in Gower Street (it used to be Dillons, the London University bookshop). I was able to buy the Asad version there. They had two formats in stock, a single-volume hardback version and a six-volume paperback version. I bought the hardback but rather wish now I'd bought the six-volume version as the hardback weighs in at 3.6kg. Still, it's beautifully printed and presented and very clear to read, unlike the Yusuf Ali pocket-sized version, which strains the eyes even under a good light.