One thing to note is that with Islam and the Quran, even amongst native arab speakers there are variations in the translations of a verse. This has to do with several things, not the least of which is that arabic now is different than arabic then. Another very important mitigating factor in the translation and understanding of a verse in the Quran is the circumstance in which it was revealed.
In the case of the verse you're referring to, about marrying slave women Quran, chapter 4, verse 24... another translation can be found that says :
[4:24] Also prohibited are the women who are already married, unless they flee their disbelieving husbands who are at war with you. These are GOD's commandments to you. All other categories are permitted for you in marriage, so long as you pay them their due dowries. You shall maintain your morality, by not committing adultery. Thus, whoever you like among them, you shall pay them the dowry decreed for them. You commit no error by mutually agreeing to any adjustments to the dowry. GOD is Omniscient, Most Wise.
In this case, it appears this verse was revealed as a result of a woman who captured as a slave during war, converts to Islam and wants to marry again but her husband, being a alive and well in enemy lands for obvious reasons can't or wont grant her a divorce. Furthermore, by marrying the woman she's gained the rights and respect that a wife has. And to marry her you need permission as such, from her and her guardians. Any child she bears while married is also free.
The same wikipedia article you linked notes:
Fornication (sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to each other) is regarded as an offence. Muhammad gave exemplary punishment to owners of brothels that were operated using their slave-women for such pleasures.
Of course a backwards Muslim looking for justification for a quick screw or something much worse will look to this verse and other translations and find what he's looking for, just as a person looking to vilify Islam, the Quran and Mohammad will do the same. That's the problem, a limited interpretation. The same ideology that allowed for limited interpretations that have prevented Christians from getting divorces, contraceptives, allowed for the crusades and the inquisition, prohibited a proper burial if they committed suicide and many other stupid backwards prohibitions. It took Christianity nearly two millenia to get to where it is now, and it still has a internal strife. Jewdaism has its own many conservative laws which most would look upon as archaic (or even Islamic?) as seen in their ultra-orthodox communities and they've had considerably longer to come to grips with a changing world and the changing nature of human rights.
Give muslims the benefit of another 600 years and I'm sure they'll come around?:P
Just reiterating my original point, it was a framework from which muslims became better people, and for a great long while were considerably more civilized and cultured than the west, but a neoconservative movement picked up at some point (read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd-al-Wahhab ) and retarded the natural advancement of human rights. Part of it was in response to a rising colonial power to the west, part of it was due to divisive domestic politics... If anything the US and the modern civilized world should consider what happened to the great Islamic empire as a warning of what can happen when progress is shunned and fundamentalism is exalted.
umm, scales being unequal and all that jazz, you're still a bigot. mohammad didn't rape and slaughter thousands. he was elevated to the leader of his tribe as he gained more followers, and in a effort to protect him and his followers he lead muslims in war.
its true that there was slavery in arabia at the time of mohammad, roughly 650 AD (i hear there was slavery in the US till not too long ago)... the religion brought rules and fair treatment of slaves to the a region that even the arabs now call a region plagued by 'jahilia' (ignorance). if you read the quran instead of spouted off charged sound bites, you'd know that the quran OK's the practice of slavery in one line, and in the next line says "but it is best if you set them free". repeatedly in the quran it talks about freeing a slave (the punishment for manslaughter, the cost of remarrying your wife, the cost of breaking your vow) and prohibits both the abuse of slaves and the sources of slaves to just prisoners of war.
personally i find the fact that this book, revealed in the 7th century to a people who called themselves 'ignorant', just set up a system for the ethical treatment of slaves and prisoners of war in one deft move impressive. it also set the framework for abolitionism in the middle east a full 12 centuries before abe lincoln. the practice of slavery is now antiquated, and disgusting universally, and that includes the 1.2billion muslims in this world.
regarding this supposed order to kill anyone who disagreed with them...? what? also in the quran, chapter 2, verse 256. "there is no compulsion in religion". and again throughout the quran it talks about people who refuse to believe, and it tells the believers to ignore them, that god has made them this way and that god will judge them fairly.
the quran was actually very very liberal a book in its time and in many ways still is.
the problem with islam today is two-fold:
a) the majority of muslims suffer from a lack of education and are as a result easily swayyed and cowed and tricked by eloquent bastards who preach hatred (there's 1.2 billion of them, and they're not all cheerfully educated in the west, and of the ones educated in the west there are two types, the type who stays in the west and tries to live a comfortable good life and the type who'll go back to their third world home and preach of the evils of the west, think harvard educated redneck bigot)
and b) that a muslims have a hard time seeing reading between the lines of the qur'an. the qur'an again and again asks muslims to be better human beings, to let god judge, to be kind and save life ("if you save a life its as though you've saved all of humanity, and if you take a life its as though you've slaughtered all of humanity") and instead read the surface of the qur'an, which for example sets the punishment for a wayward wife as a light, beating that leaves no marks, in a time when wayward wives were killed and buried by the next morning.
the quran set up a lot of rules for being a good muslim in 7th century arabia, and those should be a framework for being a good muslim in our connected 21st century. like the constitution of the US, which itself had rules to govern slaves, but the framework has been built upon and changed, always mindful of its original intent.
Yes, most of the enclosed comment is accurate. (By the way, the damage is to the "hair cells in cochlea", there are no "Cilia" in the cochlea.)
I'd like to mention a few caveats, though. Bone conduction is more efficient than air conduction and consequently can be heard at far less intensity than air conduction. Technically, one can use bone conduction headphones at lower volume setting, and thus "attenuate" the sound one is exposed to and presumably reduce hearing loss, in theory.
On the other hand, we have known for decades that bone conduction can also cause noise induced hearing loss. That's why Jack hammer operators, and persons firing high recoil weapons, have severe hearing loss despite wearing ear muffs and ear plugs. The vibration along the arms causes the hearing loss despite ear protection! Don't operate Jack Hammers while firing high power weapons!
The idea behind this device is to allow one to hear the sound through the headphones as well as ambient sound at normal levels. Thus reducing the risk of missing vital ambient sounds during biking, jogging or even driving. Although, California law doesn't have a provision for bone conduction headphones being legal while driving yet.
The problem with conventional "ear buds" that come with ipod and the like is that they present a concentrated loud sound very close to the ear drum while reducing the ambient sound perception. This in turn makes the operator increase the volume for better fidelity sound quality.
Theoretically, these bone conduction headphones may allow the operator to use lower volume setting with better high fidelity (i.e. reduce hair cell injury) and still hear the vital ambient sounds. I have not used the device in question. I look forward to using one soon and may be I could run some study on its safety and efficacy.... It's a novel idea that's been around for a long time and finally has been put into commercial use.
work in ear nose and throat doctors office. the doc was seriously excited about the audio bone headphones i saw on giz a few weeks back. evidently bone conduction is a lot less harmful to the ears than earbuds. http://www.audioboneheadphones.com/
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One thing to note is that with Islam and the Quran, even amongst native arab speakers there are variations in the translations of a verse. This has to do with several things, not the least of which is that arabic now is different than arabic then. Another very important mitigating factor in the translation and understanding of a verse in the Quran is the circumstance in which it was revealed.
In the case of the verse you're referring to, about marrying slave women Quran, chapter 4, verse 24... another translation can be found that says :
[4:24] Also prohibited are the women who are already married, unless they flee their disbelieving husbands who are at war with you. These are GOD's commandments to you. All other categories are permitted for you in marriage, so long as you pay them their due dowries. You shall maintain your morality, by not committing adultery. Thus, whoever you like among them, you shall pay them the dowry decreed for them. You commit no error by mutually agreeing to any adjustments to the dowry. GOD is Omniscient, Most Wise.
In this case, it appears this verse was revealed as a result of a woman who captured as a slave during war, converts to Islam and wants to marry again but her husband, being a alive and well in enemy lands for obvious reasons can't or wont grant her a divorce. Furthermore, by marrying the woman she's gained the rights and respect that a wife has. And to marry her you need permission as such, from her and her guardians. Any child she bears while married is also free.
The same wikipedia article you linked notes:
Fornication (sexual intercourse between a man and a woman who are not married to each other) is regarded as an offence. Muhammad gave exemplary punishment to owners of brothels that were operated using their slave-women for such pleasures.
Of course a backwards Muslim looking for justification for a quick screw or something much worse will look to this verse and other translations and find what he's looking for, just as a person looking to vilify Islam, the Quran and Mohammad will do the same. That's the problem, a limited interpretation. The same ideology that allowed for limited interpretations that have prevented Christians from getting divorces, contraceptives, allowed for the crusades and the inquisition, prohibited a proper burial if they committed suicide and many other stupid backwards prohibitions. It took Christianity nearly two millenia to get to where it is now, and it still has a internal strife. Jewdaism has its own many conservative laws which most would look upon as archaic (or even Islamic?) as seen in their ultra-orthodox communities and they've had considerably longer to come to grips with a changing world and the changing nature of human rights.
Give muslims the benefit of another 600 years and I'm sure they'll come around? :P
Just reiterating my original point, it was a framework from which muslims became better people, and for a great long while were considerably more civilized and cultured than the west, but a neoconservative movement picked up at some point (read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammad_ibn_Abd-al-Wahhab ) and retarded the natural advancement of human rights. Part of it was in response to a rising colonial power to the west, part of it was due to divisive domestic politics... If anything the US and the modern civilized world should consider what happened to the great Islamic empire as a warning of what can happen when progress is shunned and fundamentalism is exalted.
umm, scales being unequal and all that jazz, you're still a bigot. mohammad didn't rape and slaughter thousands. he was elevated to the leader of his tribe as he gained more followers, and in a effort to protect him and his followers he lead muslims in war.
its true that there was slavery in arabia at the time of mohammad, roughly 650 AD (i hear there was slavery in the US till not too long ago)... the religion brought rules and fair treatment of slaves to the a region that even the arabs now call a region plagued by 'jahilia' (ignorance). if you read the quran instead of spouted off charged sound bites, you'd know that the quran OK's the practice of slavery in one line, and in the next line says "but it is best if you set them free". repeatedly in the quran it talks about freeing a slave (the punishment for manslaughter, the cost of remarrying your wife, the cost of breaking your vow) and prohibits both the abuse of slaves and the sources of slaves to just prisoners of war.
personally i find the fact that this book, revealed in the 7th century to a people who called themselves 'ignorant', just set up a system for the ethical treatment of slaves and prisoners of war in one deft move impressive. it also set the framework for abolitionism in the middle east a full 12 centuries before abe lincoln. the practice of slavery is now antiquated, and disgusting universally, and that includes the 1.2billion muslims in this world.
regarding this supposed order to kill anyone who disagreed with them...? what? also in the quran, chapter 2, verse 256. "there is no compulsion in religion". and again throughout the quran it talks about people who refuse to believe, and it tells the believers to ignore them, that god has made them this way and that god will judge them fairly.
the quran was actually very very liberal a book in its time and in many ways still is.
the problem with islam today is two-fold:
a) the majority of muslims suffer from a lack of education and are as a result easily swayyed and cowed and tricked by eloquent bastards who preach hatred (there's 1.2 billion of them, and they're not all cheerfully educated in the west, and of the ones educated in the west there are two types, the type who stays in the west and tries to live a comfortable good life and the type who'll go back to their third world home and preach of the evils of the west, think harvard educated redneck bigot)
and b) that a muslims have a hard time seeing reading between the lines of the qur'an. the qur'an again and again asks muslims to be better human beings, to let god judge, to be kind and save life ("if you save a life its as though you've saved all of humanity, and if you take a life its as though you've slaughtered all of humanity") and instead read the surface of the qur'an, which for example sets the punishment for a wayward wife as a light, beating that leaves no marks, in a time when wayward wives were killed and buried by the next morning.
the quran set up a lot of rules for being a good muslim in 7th century arabia, and those should be a framework for being a good muslim in our connected 21st century. like the constitution of the US, which itself had rules to govern slaves, but the framework has been built upon and changed, always mindful of its original intent.
copy/pasting the docs reply:
Yes, most of the enclosed comment is accurate. (By the way, the damage is to the "hair cells in cochlea", there are no "Cilia" in the cochlea.)
I'd like to mention a few caveats, though. Bone conduction is more efficient than air conduction and consequently can be heard at far less intensity than air conduction. Technically, one can use bone conduction headphones at lower volume setting, and thus "attenuate" the sound one is exposed to and presumably reduce hearing loss, in theory.
On the other hand, we have known for decades that bone conduction can also cause noise induced hearing loss. That's why Jack hammer operators, and persons firing high recoil weapons, have severe hearing loss despite wearing ear muffs and ear plugs. The vibration along the arms causes the hearing loss despite ear protection! Don't operate Jack Hammers while firing high power weapons!
The idea behind this device is to allow one to hear the sound through the headphones as well as ambient sound at normal levels. Thus reducing the risk of missing vital ambient sounds during biking, jogging or even driving. Although, California law doesn't have a provision for bone conduction headphones being legal while driving yet.
The problem with conventional "ear buds" that come with ipod and the like is that they present a concentrated loud sound very close to the ear drum while reducing the ambient sound perception. This in turn makes the operator increase the volume for better fidelity sound quality.
Theoretically, these bone conduction headphones may allow the operator to use lower volume setting with better high fidelity (i.e. reduce hair cell injury) and still hear the vital ambient sounds. I have not used the device in question. I look forward to using one soon and may be I could run some study on its safety and efficacy.... It's a novel idea that's been around for a long time and finally has been put into commercial use.
work in ear nose and throat doctors office. the doc was seriously excited about the audio bone headphones i saw on giz a few weeks back. evidently bone conduction is a lot less harmful to the ears than earbuds. http://www.audioboneheadphones.com/