re: #450 CuriousLurker

Sorry for the slow response, but I’m in the middle of work. I’m going to put something right out on the table.

Do you remember this Page? I went to the trouble of finding examples for you and even scanning pages of my English-Arabic dictionary in an effort to try to explain things to you in good faith about how Muslims see things. You brushed it off pretty much dismissing all Muslim scholars in favor of Goldziher by saying that—in your non-Mulsim opinion—he “beat the pants off of any recent Grand Imam of Al-Azhar”

What that meant to me was that you, as a non-Muslim, didn’t really give a damn who Muslims might listen to or what they might think WRT their own religion. Maybe that’s not what you meant. Maybe it is. Either way it ended further dialog.

I still don’t get what your problem is. When I want to know something about Islam, I refer to the scholars who have studied the issue. Preferably those doing so with scholarly standards and not a religious agenda – and yes, Goldziher is coryphaeus of scholars of Islam and in that regard beats the pants off any religious authority of Islam (a judgement which, btw, does not depend on my non-muslim opinion but is predicated on a simple acknowledgement of the primacy of academia in epistemic matters – it has nothing to do with “being” Muslim, something Goldziher has written about extensively, btw).

And when I want to know Muslims, I will talk to Muslims. But those are two different things.

Do you remember this one, where I gave up? Did you even realize that I said “You win,” not becuase you convinced me of anything, but because I desperately wanted to extricate myself from a debate had become so doggedly drawn out that I’d lost all interest in the subject?

No idea how I should have realized that. I usually choose to err on the side of caution but maintain awareness of my own guesswork being just that.

You’re obviously an intelligent person, but not everyone enjoys 9-hour debates (like you & Obdi had recently), and sometimes your tone is abrasive—like with the Saudi women Pages—which also puts some people off and kills conversation.

That’s okay.

It’s a free country and you’re obviously free to interact with people here however you please as long as it’s within the rules, but if you’re truly interested in learning new things, you might want to reconsider your approach to people as one size doesn’t fit all when dealing with so many different personalities.

It’s a free internet. I am learning a lot.