Is Islam Cool with Me?: The Law of Abrogation

 Freedom of Speech - Norman Rockwell

Scott Sturman

Is Islam cool with me?  I mean, is it the Religion of Peace or am I hosed, because I don’t see things quite that way?
---W.R. Priskna

Mr. Priskna echoes many of the concerns of Westerners.  One one hand he hears the religion is all accepting and benevolent, while on the other non believers either convert or die.  Which of these two diametrically opposed views are true?  Understanding the Law of Abrogation helps settle the matter in a logical, clear-minded fashion.

The lessons of the Qur’an, listed in its suras or chapters, are contradictory, and for the outsider it is difficult to determine which ones take precedence.  Unlike the Bible which is written chronologically, the Qur’an is ordered by the size of the chapter with the longest first and the shortest last.  The tone and commandments of the suras vary to such an extent that at times it seems implausible they are part of the same book.

The Qur’an by definition is perfect in all respects, since all of its suras are the product of Mohammed’s divine and direct revelation from Allah.  The dilemma of conflicting messages, which must be all correct, is impossible to resolve and requires Muslim scholars to invoke the Law of Abrogation.  Abrogation is the process by which one sura takes precedence over another, and for the most part suras which were written later supersede earlier ones.

Among the believers it is heretical to suppose Muhammed matched the suras to correlate with his power at the time they were revealed.  All of the suras are the word of Allah, so his only Prophet simply relayed the message to the faithful.  Nevertheless, Western scholars make the following observations:  When Mohammed lived in Mecca from 610 - 622 A.D., he had few followers and was politically and militarily weak.  Suras from this period of Islam were conciliatory and inclined to compromise.  From 623 - 626 A.D. Mohammed returned to Medina and fought a series of defensive campaigns against old adversaries.  Consequently, the text of the Qur’an takes on a more aggressive posture as Mohammed’s power waxed.  From 626 A.D. until his death in 632 A.D., Mohammed’s armies embarked on vigorous, proselytizing campaigns meant to forcibly subdue all non believers.  Suras generated from this period tend to be written in an aggressive tone consistent with Islam’s growing militancy.

Since the Qur’an’s text does not follow a timeline, the sunna, the rules of life demonstrated by Mohammed, and the hadith, accounts of the Prophet’s life as told by others, are used to mark the time each sura was added to the Qur’an.  Logically, chapters added later to the Qur’an which conflict with earlier entries must abrogate or cancel them.  Otherwise, in order to keep the Qur’an perfect, Allah through his intermediary Mohammed, would not add flawed chapters.  Previous suras which were no longer valid or perfect could be abrogated by newer faultless ones.  These later sublime additions necessarily supersede their progenitors.

The Qur’an and its supportive literature are written is a style which allow clerics to interpret it flexibly, and this interpretation can be adapted to fit the political needs of the Muslim community.  In this regard the Qur’an is used as a taqiyya-like document which means one thing, but according to the mullahs quite another.  Enemies or outsiders are left uncertain as to what is the true meaning and what is not.  Just as Sir Richard Burton used taqiyya to conceal his identity from the Arabs during his 1853 haji to Mecca, religious scholars interpret the Qur’an to dissimulate true intent from non believers. 

Sura 3:20 states “there is no compulsion in religion” and insures non Muslims of Islam’s peaceful intent.  Sura 9:5, either the last or penultimate of Mohammed’s revelations, is the only chapter which does not begin with the incantation, “in the name of God, most benevolent, ever-merciful.”  It abrogates the earlier verses extolling peace, tolerance, and forgiveness and commands the faithful to “slay the idolaters,” to fight the non believer, and establish God’s kingdom on earth.  So which of these two unambiguous but contradictory proclamations takes precedence?  Priority rests with the more perfect of the two–Allah’s sura revealed to Mohammed at a later date.

So there you have it, Mr. Priskna.

Saving Billions

Mt. Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

Scott Sturman

fliesinyoureyes.com

“Bureaucracy is the art of making the possible impossible.”

Javier Pascual Salced

Here I go again using personal experience to plant grave doubts in my mind about the promised savings from the Obama health care initiative. According to experts $500 billion in savings can be expected with implementation of electronic record keeping. If it sounds too good to be true then .....

Government agencies save money by reducing the number of employees, cutting salaries, or spending less for more product, but in reality this rarely happens. Government saves money by saving time, ostensibly so employees are free to work on other tasks. If this process sounds nebulous, it is an understatement. How does one compute time savings for public sector employees?

W.R. Priskna addressed this issue in an essay written for Flies in Your Eyes on November 13, 2009 entitled “Saving Millions.”

http://flies-talesoftheblue.blogspot.com/2009/11/priskna-ive-important-job-for-you.html

He recounts how his ideas “saved” thousands of dollars for his Air Force unit by moving the desks in his office every three months, so they were closer to the latrine. This required less time for the pilots to relieve themselves and return to their desks, allowing them to do more paperwork. As a result, Priskna was lauded for his efforts by his commander. There was also a plan to save time by redesigning the Air Force flight suit, but I'll let you read the story.

A major burden with medical record keeping is the volume of paperwork and electronic documentation, both of which have more in common with a legal document than a medical record. Much of the documentation required of health care workers is completed for the purpose of defending potential law suits and is never read again unless legal action ensues. It is an horrendous waste of time and money and begs the question why tort reform was not considered as a way to reduce medical costs. One could make the argument that excessive documentation rations health care in an insidious manner. At every level in the system the process of delivering services is delayed and made unnecessarily complicated which invariably directs more effort into fulfilling clerical needs and less towards patient care.

Some of the operating rooms in which I work use electronic record keeping and others do not. In the venues which use electronic charting the nurses assigned to the room spend a large portion of their time entering data into the computer – the most time consuming part of the process. In fact in many cases it is difficult for them to keep up with their clerical responsibilities, and they are forced to complete charting between cases – time when they normally would be preparing for the next patient. In hospitals where conventional record keeping is the norm, the nursing staff usually is able to care for their patients and complete the paperwork in the allotted time. In both cases, however, it is tempting and relatively easy for hospital administrations to add more superfluous documentation requirements to appease inspectors and purportedly enhance safety.

To hear electronic record keeping described as a seamless system of total medical conductivity where billions of dollars are saved may sound plausible to the lay public, but the promised rewards will never materialize. Bureaucracies do not work this way. A government sponsored system will be expensive to implement, time savings will be off set by larger amounts of data entry, and it will perpetuate a record keeping system which is devised more for legal protection than patient care. How much closer should I move my desk toward the bathroom?