Did you expect them to say something like this?:

"The evil Americans have killed our leader, throwing our organizational plans into chaos. Oh woe is us, what will we do?" :D

Hardly. It's an old tactic used by armies and movements throughout history to conceal the problems the loss of a commander will cause.

Maybe it is just a typo, and the real meaning is one virgin of age 72 :lol:

However, the 72 huris probably are a misinterpretation. Sura 55, verse 72 reads like this: "72 Fair ones, close-guarded in pavilions ", the translation varies, the Arabic word for huri could mean the contrast between black and whhite, big-eyed, or even refer to "beautiful girl". Here it is translated as "fair ones". So, the 72 actually derives from the verse-number, where as the text reference may be to huris in general. Different quran translation differ in their explaantion of what a huri is. Some translations explicitly describe them as virgins that has not been touched neither by heavenly creatures/dschinns nor human man, others insisct that a huri is a sex-less creature, to be understood as a servant only, instead of an object of lust. Usually, that is my impression, interpretations that are more tame on such sensible issues and the querstion of violance are used to missionize us infidels and make Islam appear top be more freindly and harmless, whereas the more "hardcore" translations cirulate among "insiders", escpeically hardcore understood with regard to violance and intolerance.

But consider this: each day, for all eternity, at the end of the day you have to ask 72 times "Hi, how was your day?", and then listening to 72 different endless sermons that usually tend to pour out of a girl's mouth whenever you ask her how she is - isn't that another form of psychological torture? Seen that way, I really hope he gets his 72 huris, sexless or not. :lol:

Sure it does. He's one terrorist that won't ever cut some poor b***tards head off again.

My understanding of hūr, other spelling houris, is a little wider in it’s meanings to what you have described Skybird. Hūr implies the following three broad ideas within different Suras of the Qu’ran. It implies truth and goodwill. Secondly it implies beauty, specifically of ones eyes, where the intense white of the eye-balls stands out brightly against the intense black darkness of the pupil, and thus in doing so giving the appearance of lustre and intense feeling. In other words it is the complete opposite to dullness or for want of expression. This second meaning is expanded in sūrah 55, āyah 72 to refer to very fair women created from Allāh, not from offspring of Adam, and they have the eye features I described above. Thirdly and finally hūr implies purity. It is speculated that possibly the word hawāriyūn, as applied to the first Disciples of Isa (Jesus), is connected with this root.

Now to the important summation of Sūrah 55 (Chapter 55), Ar-Rahmān (The Most Gracious). This is in part a Medinan dated sūrah but the greater parts of it are mostly early Meccan. Sūrah 55 is the sixth of the series of seven dealing with Revelation. It highlights God’s wonders in this world, describes the end of the world, and paints an evocative picture of Paradise (Heaven). Hellfire (Hell) is also briefly contrasted in āyahs (verses) 43-4, with the joys that await the righteous. The whole sūrah is strongly characterised by the refrain ‘Then which of your Lord’s blessings do you both deny?’ Throughout this refrain in sūrah 55 it implies that whilst things are created in pairs, there is an underlying unity, through the Creator, and in the favours upon which He bestows.

There is quite simply no mention of ‘72 virgins’ as suggested by Skybird. The figure 72 is simply the āyah number and that is it. The numbers have absolutely no context or meaning except to arrange and structure the Qu’ran. The pavilions reference adds dignity to their status similar to the description from sūrah 55, āyah 58 ‘Like unto rubies and coral.’ Hopefully this helps to clarify a little since this was brought up. :know:

*shifty eyes* :rotfl:

Killing one cockroach, doesnt make a pest infestation go away ;)
Need to bust out a can of Raid or a holiday fogger and get em all.

I agree with the summary of the content of sura 55.

I refer to ongoing linguist debates on the translation of the original Arab word that here for the purpose of this thread I simply translated as huris. You are right about the reference to the colour contrast in an eye, for example, what I simplified as black-white (which also is a rarely used understanding). In the context of sura 55, the translation of truth and goodwill, like you gave, is disputed (it is not only given in other verses, as you said).

Problem is that the original word from Arabic was massively effected by the introduction of diacritic punctuation to written Arabic in the three centuries after Muhammad. Estimations on how much of Koran's content, as it was actual at a given time (since there were so many Koran versions in different regions), has massively been changed in content due to badly done transportation of word meaning from one word version to the new one, range from 25-75%. Part of the contradictions of Koran's statements may come from that problem. Linguists agree inn only one thing: the koran today is impossible to be the one that first was collected, too much local interpretation, arbitrary changes, and effects by introduction of pucntuation have taken place. Another problem, of course, was that it is impossible due to the historical sequence by which today'S Arabaic language developed, that the early Koran versions existed completely in Arabic, it is very likely that they had been dicated, and later written down in Syrian or Aramaic dialects. Linguists say that because of that translation process into Arabic, even more twistings and errors in transportation of word meanings must have taken place.

In the end the important note in my reply was this: there is no thing like the 72 huris in paradise. It is a popular misperception, coming from bad reading. Nevertheless it is a misperception that is not only popular amongst infidels, but Muslims as well, as I repeatedly witnessed myself. Queer! :)

I do not evaluate this language stuff myself. I follow achademical linguistic analysis only, as far as I remember - I think it is very important to explain how the Koran formed up and became what it is today, nevertheless this linguistic stuff is very boring, for my taste. The thing on the 72 huris I just remembered because it is such a popular issue.

I have the benefit of being able to read/recite the Qu'ran every day in Arabic which makes a huge difference over the days way back when I first started reading english translations, the worst of which was an Oxford publication. However Classic Arabic is a different story and in the future down the track I hope to master this language with plenty of patience. I have actually found learning arabic much easier than when I was a teen at school learning Japanese.

Japanese? Now I'm impressed. That's the one thing my teacher and mentor back then - a Japanese - failed to successfully train me in :lol: Back then I simply had no interest, later I had the interest, but he was gone, and I was busy with different stuff. Can sound very masculine, or awufully "squeeky", depending on who is speaking, imo. Toshiro Mifune in Japanese original is like Orson Wells in English.

Oh i agree but in the meantime there's no sense stopping killing them individually when one finds them.

For an interesting discussion on the word "houris" and this subject, read Virgins? What virgins? by Ibn Warraq, Islamic apostle author of numerous books.

Skybird, do you have a copy of Christoph Luxenberg's book mentioned in the Guardian article, Die Syro-Aramaische Lesart des Koran? Just curious.

I recognize "hur"/"chur" as meaning white, from the Scroll of Esther 1:6:

[There were spreads of] white <"hur">, fine cotton, .....................

The Hebrew word for white is "lavan". Therefore "hur" in the Scroll of Esther is most likely of Persian/Babylonian origin, as the story of Esther takes place during Israel's first exile in those areas and many words were added to the Hebrew vocabulary. And Syriac is Aramaic, the adopted language of the exiled Jews at the time, spoken then throughout the region.

No, but the name rings a distant bell. It is possible that his work had been mentioned or given excerpts from in some other book. But I cannot precisely remember it right now. I had several books that payed attention to deal with the linguistical aspects of the emergence of the Koran, and it's changes in the first three centuries. However, since it is no profession of mine, I tend to forget things after a while when I am not constantly updating my memory. The thought that the Koran may derive from a comment to christian liturgies is not unknown to me, however. I think I mentioned that episode and linguistical problems briefly in my spectacular and famous :-j History of Islam.

Man, what is it with religious fervour?

You have (supposedly) the works of "god", taken through a Human conduit [prophet], after that person dies it get's written down by someone else, later on re-written, re-written again to reflect the times, re-interprited by clergy and spoon fed to the faithful in a way that fit's the times those people lived in, changing as life and times change, and having some believe that it has to be taken literally as the direct "words" of god?
Discounting the fact that humans put it down in words and they've been changed to fit different circumstances.

It's irritating I tell you,

Thank god I'm an Atheist!

As for Al Zaqawi, you reap what you sow and good riddance. The less oxygen he and those like him take up the better

I'm wondering whether their decomposition weakens the ozone layer.:hmm:

I am attheist, too, nevertheless I describe myself as a highly religous man with roots in Chan and Christian mystic. I even think one has to leave theism behind in order to be truely religious. Because I think religion (religare=sich zurückbesinnen auf, sich rückverbinden mit) is about immediate, direct, living experience of the Absolute. Believing in idols and theological studies can only distract from that. That's why Chan/Zen originally refused written records/traditions (although that is almost forgotten in modern time). There is nothing to teach, and there is nothing that could be taught :) We do not need to get anywhere. We are already there. but since we have written ourtselöves a ticket and see it in our hand, we believe we need to travel.