Reddit comments from September 2025

The Dahrīs are well accounted for and discussed quite a bit.

"One who believes in the eternity of matter, and asserts that the duration of this world is from eternity, and denies the Day of Resurrection and Judgement; an Atheist (Ghiyasu ‘l-I-ghat, in loco.)" https://www.juancole.com/library/dictionary-of-islam-hughes/dahri

I am just adding that instead of being agnostic, it seems likely that some denied God altogether based on this Verse. I don't think it's a big leap at all. I'm not suggesting that there was a large atheistic trend, but there were enough Dahris that the Quran decided to deal with them in several places and respond to someone postulating that there isn't a Creator.

Additionally, if we take an atheist to be someone that doesn't believe in God, not neccesarily someone that postulates that God doesn't exist, that essentially describes the Dahris.

Even if we were going to say that there isn't sufficient evidence of atheists, that would not prove that atheists did not exist. It would just mean that there isn't enough evidence to draw a conclusion either way.

I'm aware that there are sects of Judaism, including until today, that do not hold a belief in the Afterlife.

You're right that there is more evidence in the Quran as pertains to disbelief in an Afterlife than outright disbelief in God.

My threshhold for documentary evidence of a particular strain of religious thinking is admittedly relatively low here because I'm looking at Qurayshi religion from a syncretic lens. We wouldn't neccesarily expect adherants of syncretic religion to extensively document their views the way followers of organized bookish religions do and we would also expect to see a plethora of extremely different or mutually exclusive views.

Perhaps an allusion that you don't find clear is not enough of a threshhold to convince you that there were some contemporaries of the Quran that did not believe in God, and that's fine. I agree that it isn't something we can be certain about. However, I also agree with the scholars that have concluded that Dahrīs existed and were essentially proto-atheists.

Why would people produce epic poetry about someone else's history? There are epic poems and great works in Islamicate civilization, as you noted (the Shahnameh, Concordance of the Birds, Yusuf-e-Zulaykha, the Mathnawi, etc). But why would we expect to see one produced about another culture?

I think it's also important to note much of the long form poetry of the middle Islamic period were designed as teaching tools for the traditional sciences.

This reads like Hany Atchan levels of revisionism. What's the actual methodology you're using to understand the verse here? We know what traditional Islamic methods are. We know what secular academic methods are. What system are you using?

Good rule

Ash'arites are heavily influenced by the Mu'tazilah and the Islamic philosophers like ibn Sina. Check Laura Hassan's Book "Asharism Encounters Avicennism". Ghazali is one of the main synthesizers of Asharism with ibn Sina's works.

The modern twelver Shi'a actually teach Mu'tazilah theological tracts in their seminaries.

Shi'i Doctrine, Mu'tazili Theology https://share.google/ZJdukJMwItLPxDsOz

Al-Sharif al-Murtada and shaykh al-Mufid were not only contemporaneous with the Mutazilah they directly studied under and took from the Mutazilah greats like Qadi Abd al-Jabbar.

Do you think it's possible to construct a more historical accurate mus'haf with regards to spelling? If these changes are so widely documented?

What is the place of traditionalist texts that purport to canonize the spelling like Shatibi's Atrab al-Qasa'id when contrasted with manuscript research?

How difficult would it be to share your research so far online? Would love to see it.

Please do. Would be very useful.

Beget is a synonym for sire, which refers to the carnal act. The Quran refers to Christians taking Jesus as God Himself yet never makes an explicit reference to begetting, siring, or the carnal act.

If a person is of lower status but due to effort some rules are bent and they are allowed to move in the social circles of higher status people, then a command is issued to the higher status people, to which they all oblige, but the one lower status person whose rank is an exception refuses - how do you think the commander in such a circumstance would behave?

What is the evidence that Christian marriages in 7th century Arabia were seen as monogamous?

The way that some traditionalist exegetes reconcile the command to angels for Iblis is essentially:

1. Jinn are lesser creatures than angels
2. Iblis was an exceptional Jinn who was given an honorary status
3. This honorary status allowed him to worship among the angels (and be considered at their level)
4. When Allah commanded the angels, Iblis was included in that commanded because he was given that status.
5. If Adam was greater than the angels, and Iblis is less than the angels, then Adam is greater than Iblis
6. Therefore Iblis action was extremely arrogant as he was of a lower status yet enjoying angelic privileges when it suited him, yet refused to follow angelic commands

It's worth noting that other early exegetes actually considered jinn to be a tribe of angels and that's how they reconciled it.

For which interpretation?

You can find the second interpretation in Ibn Kathir's Bidayah wa Nihayah.

Most traditional exegesis is based on inter-Quranic analysis, then hadith, then Sira, then Judeo-Christian traditions. I'm not sure which of those categories constitute "evidence" nor do I think academia can really lay a claim to authoritative interpretation. Exegesis is more of a literary and religious endeavor since you rarely have historical "facts" from the perspective of HCM.

The idea that historical consciousness started around the Renaissance is an extremely Euro-centric approach. Regardless of accuracy, there's no doubt that other civilizations preceded them in this.

The first part of the verse mentions bani Israel directly.

Al-Ma'idah 5:32

"*Because of that, We decreed upon the Children of Israel* that whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption [done] in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely.

And Our messengers had certainly come to them with clear proofs. Then indeed many of them, [even] after that, throughout the land, were transgressors."

Are you looking for direct quotes from the Bible in the Quran or Talmud or are you just looking for something that seems to be referencing or directly discussing something we find in the Tanakh/New Testament?

...Scorsese? Tarantino? Bong Joon Ho? David Fincher? Wes Anderson? Danny Boyle? Spielberg? Ridley Scott?

I understand if Ari Aster is your favorite current living filmmaker but so far his best movie was Hereditary. Midsommar, Beau is Afraid, and Eddington were each more poorly received than the last by critics & the public alike. He definitely has not demonstrated himself to be the most talented filmmaker on the planet.

I don't see what's unique about Eddington at all. It's a depiction of the exact kinds of things actually happening at that time and since. It's more like an exaggerated depiction of real life than a standalone narrative or commentary.

I don't think it's a bad movie but it was not as well received around the board as Hereditary. I see Ari Aster in the same vein as Jordan Peele. A brilliant filmmaker with real talent who had an initial pent up story they had to get out and who is now struggling to recreate that lightning in a bottle.

We could contrast them with Robert Eggars who has had a very consistent style since day one and is just repeatedly iterating on the same approach.

Peele and Aster are much more dynamic for better & worse.

Beau is Afraid was an absolute mess of too many ideas each executed poorly and Eddington was totally uninspired. If anything Eggars is the more consistently successful director from an artistic perspective.

Nosferatu has been his highest box office hit although you're correct The Witch is still best received. I think Eggars almost went that really experimental route with The Lighthouse and then over-corrected with a movie that was designed to be a commercial hit (The Northman). I think now he's honed in on something in the middle, which is what The Witch was originally, a compromise between what the studio would let him make and his artistic vision.

That's a different direction from Aster. Aster made an initial hit that was also commercially successful. Then he maintained that style a second time for a slightly less successful movie. Beau is Afraid is a different style altogether. Eddington is yet again another style. Eggars always has the, "extremely historically accurate mythology" angle he is going for. I don't know what consistent approach we can say Aster has other than his own idiosyncratic creativity.

I personally think Hereditary is a better movie than anything Eggars has made to be honest.

I would like to see Aster go back to his initial style of unconventional horror. I don't like his foray into epics and I didn't like his foray into political commentary. Unfortunately it seems that A24 is enabling him to have full license to make these strange projects. I hope he proves me wrong

They are very different indeed although they operate in the same space. I do think even Beau is Afraid had a lot of interesting components and some real depth that isn't discussed. But the overall aesthetic value was not there. I think Eddington had neither.

It's never been a better time to be a horror fan I'll tell you that much.

Is the fact that pleasure is being derived adding an intangible disgust component to the determination here? And is it because others who are also perverse could derive pleasure from witnessing or simulating the crime?

Most murderers are not motivated by gratuity and there's typically no pleasure to be derived from witnessing a murder. But rapists or pedophiles are motivated to harm people because the harm is pleasurable to them, and they often record these actions to share with other demented people. Furthermore, these crimes tend to require a kind of vulnerability that murder does not, so the victims tend to be the most sympathetic.

Just trying to understand why these two things, which most legal systems determine to be equally bad, invoke different feelings of repulsion.

- said by Ali Shukri Amin

It's fascinating that many serial killers were also serial rapists.

How did it go

What's your x/10?

Thanks. Was getting worried I'd have to switch my tickets 😅

Planning to transfer my tickets to One Battle After Another next week. Thanks for your sacrifices soldier

I couldn't ever fix this.

The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale -- then the lie passed into history and became truth. 'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.' And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. 'Reality control', they called it: in Newspeak, 'doublethink'

May God enlighten her path

Lawrence Krauss & Richard Dawkins

This guy has some of the silliest psuedo intellectual content I've ever seen. Genuinely hard to watch

GameSpot had a PSP MGS Portable Ops competition

Enderal

Waraqah?

A very fascinating take to say the least. I think the problem with this interpretation is that Allah clearly intended for Ibrahim to intepret the ru'ya as he did, and reconiliation of the Wahi with the Aql seems forced on this story.

We also lose the rich insights that come from Ibrahim intending to sacrifice his son, such as discussions around the teleological suspension of the ethical and the necesity of submitting everything to Allah even when we cannot justify it with our limited intellect.

Ibn Arabi had an amazing talent for taking the Islamic tradition and inverting it in a way that breathes fresh air. A great perspective even if I don't find it convincing

The modern conceptualization of race only goes back 400 years to the discovery of the New World, so it's extremely easy to fall into anachronisms here. Ibn Taymiyyah also considered many black people Arab, because elsewhere he defines Arabs as anyone who knows Arabic or has been adopted (wilayah) into an Arab tribe.

Is it still "racism" if ibn Taymiyyah considers Bilal ibn Abi Rabah to be a superior Arab despite the fact that he was African?

We need to be a bit more critical here.

I've never seen a scholar with a firm grasp on traditional Islamic studies and traditional rabbinic studies. That would be fascinating.

A very confidently incorrect comment. You misunderstood my argument then continued to backproject a modern conceptualization of race. I never claimed that discrimination only started with colonialism or that in-group bias did not exist, or…

Do you think ibn Taymiyyah was unaware of the Ayat and hadith you quoted? Furthermore you do realize ibn Taymiyyah was not an ethnic Arab?

What is happening here is ibn Taymiyyah is affirming the tradition which is based in part on a highly scrutinized hadith that suggests the Arabs are the chosen people of Allah in this era like bani Israel was chosen. In order to make this argument without referring to that hadith, the logic of rasulAllah being chosen out of his clan out of his tribe out of the Arabs is extrapolated further to all of humanity.

Does this mean ibn Taymiyyah believed that Arabs should be afforded some special societal privilege? There is no evidence of this at all. Did he look down on non-Arab scholarship in his field? Again no evidence of this. Did he make disparaging statements about other ethnicities? No.

So where are we getting the idea that ibn Taymiyyah is rejecting these Ayat and hadith or that he is advocating for any kind of discrimination? Whether racial or broadly?

With a few other scholars and certain the general populace in certain times throughout history, you can definitely find anti-black sentiment or discriminatory leanings. But to try to attribute it to ibn Taymiyyah would require much more evidence that does not exist.

Ibn Taymiyyah is trying to reconcile what seem to be two facially contradictory concepts: 1. That superiority is solely based on righteousness 2. That the Arabs are the best The first concept is attested to with much clearer evidence.…

You're assuming one thing cannot have subdivisions and is entirely homogenous which is a pretty ridiculous proposition. A singular entity can theoretically contain infinite complexities and contradictions.

It's not an assumption of an external world because someone assumes that both of the poles are within the same thing. You're creating a scenario where it's impossible to have a single mind hallucinating all of reality by forcing this perspective of the individual solipsist to lead to what you think is a self-contradictory outcome.

This doesn't actually deal with the problem of solipsism at all. It's more of a gotcha and the logic doesn't follow. Saying that prioritizing the individual mind over what seems to be an external world necesitates that an external world exists is untrue because in a solipsistic view the beliefs of the individual and the divisions are all irrelevant. It is a highly complex individual mind and the individual is experiencing the projections of their own mind. This doesn't necesitate a separated reality only their perception of it.

This doesn't solve solipsism per se although I do agree that cogito ergo sum is tenuous at best and so did Decartes with the evil demon thought experiment. I think this actually makes the solipsistic problem even worse because the person cannot be sure of the reliability or even existence of their own mind.

Solipsism is about inconclusiveness of evidence not a positive assertion of lack of existence.

Muslims looking on in pasture raised halal 👀

Tell it Talal Asad

I guess you forgot about ibn Sina, ibn Rushd, al-Ghazali, al-Farabi, ibn Taymiyyah, etc.

All predatory animals hunt prey of other species. If you're suggesting it's unethical for humans to slaughter and eat meat if they don't have to, I'd ask: why?

What makes killing animals unethical?

It's not agreed socially to be unethical. There's no consequentialist harm to humans. Most religions don't consider it unethical.

What makes it objectively morally objectionable to kill animals?

If we're arguing life has a value, what gives life that value?

What does the law have to do with ethics? Legal systems are rarely ever ethical systems. I'm asking you why killing animals is unethical not legal or illegal.

Part of tasawuff is to leave off from discussions that are not beneficial. Narrating stories with no chain, no reference, no way to validate them to make quick gotcha fiqh points is just sickening your heart.

Albani style Salafi fiqh is objectively wrong akhi. Even if I disagree with OPs approach, fiqh should definitely be studied through a madh'hab. May Allah forgive shaykh al-Albani but this was a huge mistake he made.

If you studied a single book of usul al-dalil or usul al-fiqh you would realize what's wrong and silly about what you said. The only way a person could conclude that they can just use Quran & hadith to derive rulings without going back to a consistent madh'hab is not understanding how fiqh works in the first place. I can't give you a course in Reddit comments.

A madh'hab is a systematic interpretative approach. That's it. When X issue arises in Quran & Sunnah, we take Y approach. If you don't have a systematic interpretative approach, you will sometimes use Y approach and sometimes Z approach. What that means is your fiqh becomes self contradictory and falsifies itself.

Bukhari didn't follow another mujtahid because he was himself mujtahid mutlaq.

Ahl al-Hadith in the subcontinent, Shawkani, San'ani, Muqbil - none of them are evidence.

Mohammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab and all of his followers were Hanabila. Ibn Taymiyyah was a mujtahid that still stuck to Hanbali madh'hab on most issues.

You cannot find a single worthwhile scholar of fiqh that thinks you just do ijtihad from hadith without some kind of usul. It's just objectively wrong.

Imam Abu Ja'far al-Tahawi wrote sharh Mushkil al-Athar and Sharh Ma'ani al-Athar to demonstrate the strength of the Hanafi madh'hab in a way that Shawafi'/Hanbalis can understand. You are just unfamiliar with fiqh.

If you were to read the works of al-Tahawi you would make tawbah from these silly positions. Please stop.

Imam Ahmad's usul is preserved in his madh'dhab. The usul and fiqhi ahkam of Bukhari are not well preserved and a lot of literature has been written TRYING to extract it from his sahih. Shawkani did not have consistent usul.

Athari is an aqidah school not a fiqh approach.

So what you are saying is you are a quasi-Hanbali that is bashing the idea of madh'hab and other madhahib because you haven't taken the time to actually understand fiqh.

MIAW was a Hanbali

Are you using chatgpt to respond to me?

I'm not responding to AI slop sorry

I have read every Salafi argument in the book and I can recite them to you back and forth. You have not studied basic usul al-fiqh. I'm not sure you have any formal Islamic studies at all let alone know Arabic.

Without using the internet or your GPTs please explain to me how you handle an 'illa that could contain mafhum mukhalaf and why.

Your argument is basically, "I'm right because I'm more ignorant."

Ibn Taymiyyah was a brilliant theologian and philosopher who revived the views of the early Hanabila after the madh'hab coalesced around the tafwidi views of ibn Qudama. He was able to construct a theory of language which took the nearly tajsimi views of some of the early Hanabila and justified them, presenting them as not only rational but as THE correct Aqidah on the issue of Sifat.

He was also a lesser mujtahid mutlaq in fiqh, who developed his own systematic usul and who departed from the Hanbali madh'hab on many issues.

He was a Sufi who was deeply critical of the practices of Sufis in his era.

Ibn Taymiyyah also conceptualized Tawhid less based on the Sifat of Allah but more based on man's relationship to Allah. He heavily advocated the idea of Tawhid being Rubbibyyah and Uluhiyyah as opposed to, for example, the logically neccesary Attributes.

He was a unique Islamic thinker and a mujtahid with his own views on nearly every issue which he believed to be the truth. Some ulama who prefer the tradition before ibn Taymiyyah see him as heterdox as he certainly contradicted everyone in his time. Others are convinced that his theories represent Islam in its original form only articulated in philosophical language.

I believe he was a creative mujtahid who was convinced of his theories and made many great contributions which should be appreciated.

Salah renders one as a Muslim. Muslim just means "submitter". When you stand, bow, and prostrate that is an act of submission to the One God, which means you have submitted.

Furthermore, Allah can accept the good deeds of any person. And He accepts the prayers/supplications (du'a) of anyone, along with their remembering Him.

Being "Muslim" as a sociological category is not the same as being "Muslim" spiritually. Ideally yes the two should align, when a person decides to submit to the One, they should let others know. But the personal spiritual submission must always come first.

Islam is a guidance to Allah not a barrier. The rules and laws of Islam do not act as prevention from you reaching Allah, they are the ideal and best way to do it. But anyone sincerely seeking Allah will find Him.

Salah renders one as a Muslim. Muslim just means "submitter". When you stand, bow, and prostrate that is an act of submission to the One God, which means you have submitted.

Furthermore, Allah can accept the good deeds of any person. And He accepts the prayers/supplications (du'a) of anyone, along with their remembering Him.

Being "Muslim" as a sociological category is not the same as being "Muslim" spiritually. Ideally yes the two should align, when a person decides to submit to the One, they should let others know. But the personal spiritual submission must always come first.

Islam is a guidance to Allah not a barrier. The rules and laws of Islam do not act as prevention from you reaching Allah, they are the ideal and best way to do it. But anyone sincerely seeking Allah will find Him.

After Stan has come to terms that his genuine best friend of nearly two decades was a spy, it doesn't matter. Philip disarms Stan by telling him that he had a job to do, something Stan can understand. Being a Russian, American, even an intelligence asset for either country is essentially arbitrary. They were humans with genuine human relationships. Stan genuinely loves René, the same way Philip genuinely loves Stan.

The point is that war and intelligence war is dehumanizing but Stan has to choose whether to give in or just accept the person as they appear to be - which is more genuine than their profession.

Elizabeth is a prime example of someone so committed to a dying cause that she nearly entirely sacrifices her humanity over it. While Stan & Philip struggle to hold on to their humanity. Both Stan & Philip quit being intelligence operatives, but their friendship remained until the very last moment.

I think Philip did love Martha and in some ways his relationship with her was more genuine than his relationship with Elizabeth.

I think you're missing the forest for the weeds. The whole point of these relationships in the show is to demonstrate how genuine connections have to penetrate so many layers of deception.

There's no reason why René can't love Stan genuinely irrespective of her being an intelligence asset. Actually, considering how happy their relationship seems to be, it seems more unlikely than not that she does genuinely love him - even if she was hired to be a honeypot.

If Stan discovers that she is a spy not only does that jeopardize her safety, it jeopardizes his, and it ruins his marriage. Which is exactly what happened when Stan discovered that Philip was a spy. Philip and Stan likely still cherish their friendship, but the harsh realities of intelligence warfare mean they will never speak again.

Why would Stan sacrifice this likely genuine connection in pursuit of another lead? His best friends were Russians. His lover was a Russian. His wife may be a Russian. At this point, many of Stan's significant adult relationships were with covert agents. Were they any less meaningful to him?

Zakah, bayt al mal, and waqf handle all of these things.

Society penalizes masculinity so harshly very few will be willing to stand for their values in the face of the consequences.

Is this ever going on sale?

https://www.wolfvsgoat.com/products/long-sleeve-wool-knitted-shawl-collar-sweater?variant=49794587951320

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Congrats and to your health Mauro