This is related to your post in other thread, as the question is not related to that thread thus the new thread
I want to ask
What is your view of history ? how do you regard historical records ? how do you analyse them ? please explain (with example, if possible)
Question number 2
An example of historical record :
I read about Alexander the great and his great military conquests. Few of them were in india and particularly one in which he fought a relatively tough battle angainst Raja Pouras, in Punjab. Although Alexander won the battle but he was impressed by the bravery of Raja Pouras and gave him his area back.
Now I being the native of this area like believe this story, call it my bias or whatever. But again I do not like the historical suggestion about his sexual orientation, again call it my bias. But I can not reject them as they are historical records and people have done some hefty reasearch on them.
Now please enlighten me that in order to refute them and prove them null and void what should be the line of action for anyone.
I tend to be a skeptic. So I lean towards âHistory is written by the victorâ and am often even tempted to believe Henry Fordâs âHistory is more or less bunkâ. Thus for something to be accepted it has to have gone through rigorous scrutiny by experts in the field and still remain open to critique and revision based upon new discoveries.. That I believe is the scientific process.
Truth is always relative. Find YOUR truth. There is research on both sides of the aisle.. For every historian willing to accept the homosexuality theories there may be many others who dispute it. Itâs all in what YOU as an individual are willing to accept after having read both point of views.
Youâd have to be able to provide counter arguments OR punch holes in their theories. It involves spending the time which is at times proportional to the time spent by the âopposingâ side in establishing their theory. If theirs is a âweakâ argument, it wouldnât take much to refute it. If itâs strong and has some basis, uâd have to work just as hard to try and find counterevidence.
BUT the important point in all this is not the fact that he was gay or not, Itâs that we are able to discuss this aspect of his life freely and entertain any new discoveries and theories along the way. THAT is how IMO History should be treated. Open to discussion, not a sealed shut verdict.
Due to my intellectual limitatation I can better understand, if you give some easy examples to explain which âtypeâ of history (historical records) is more authentic in your view.
In my view if the same historical events are recorded by two or more un-related historirians OR groups with different political affiliations and they give similar accounts then I would be more inclined to accept its authenticity
Example : Crusades, WW1, WW2 etc
Now I want to extend my earlier example âŚ
I am spektic of Alexanderâs greatness ⌠I want to bileave his adventures in india were factual ⌠but I dont think he conquered much of the world before reaching India, May have lost some battles before reaching India. It looks fairy tale to me that he conquered so much land in so little time and lost no battle Historical records may have been fabricated or Fantasies added by greeks or Mecedonians ? just like their mythologies
***At the time of Alexander 300 BC, there was only one large empire between his forces and India, the rest was simply desert and maybe some small city states, so when he defeated the Persian Emperor the rest was easy until He reached what is called Punjab today, it was down hill for Alexander from then on⌠***
ones supported by more empirical evidence.. I mean weâre talking history when the witnesses are all dead.. Look around and uâd find people bungling with the truth in the PRESENT! How many Iraqis do u think have died in the US invasion? You still cannot get everyone to agree to a figure and itâs happening right under our nose! 100 years from now which figure do you think has a higher chance of surviving? Iâm sure you do see the tremendous influence of who gets to write history.
They very well could have been. Iâm afraid I have little interest in Alexander and his conquests and/or his sexual orientation so I wouldnât be able to offer more than you on this example, but as a principle of judging historical records; the more evidence we have regarding his âconquestsâ, e.g currency excavated later bearing his mark in regions he passed through etc. would all be more conclusive proof of his âvictoriesâ than minute details of his heroic adventures and/or sketched out battle scenes⌠which are always more fiction than history IMHO.
I guess you are right here :k: we dont see agreed upon statistic or reports in the present day, with all modern technology and advancement in science , so how can we accept the same from past.I wonder why History as a subject is given so much importance, so much that it is imposed as a fact. sometime closed for debate or inquiry, for instance HolocaustâŚBut at the other hand some theories based on historical as well as âexcavatedâ proof might always remain theories because there is hardly any motivation behind them for recognition.
ExamplesâŚ
I understand that those so called âhistorical factsâ are recognised because they had strong political movement behind them, and the theories might always remain theoriesâŚ
And if somehow they conflicts with established mainstream history ( politically motivated ) then it is rejected bluntly, and condemned for ever, leaving no space for further investigation
Historical records are man-made and therefore per definition subject to mistakes (consciously or unconsciously) and are subject to cultural, political, social influences. The more detail a historical record holds, the more subjective it becomes.
For example, noone will disagree that Pakistan and India have fought several wars against each other, but with respect to who caused/started/ led to the war, there will be much disagreement, especially from both sides against each other......and both sides will bring forward 'solid' proof to strengthen their point: therefore, with respect to this point there won't be a single truth: for the pakistanis the truth is that indians started it and vice versa.
NeScio: So do you consider hadeeth and sunnah as a source of guidance or not?? Do you consider Quran as a source of guidance or not???
Do you only believe in Quran or do you also believe in the authenticities of ahaadeeth and sunnah as well... or you just REJECT the ahadeeth altogether????
On numerous occasions I have answered a similar query already. I feel that the answer to the question is already present in my original statements. Still, I have on several instances tried to elaborate on it moreâŚhowever, in vain! Every time it seems that either my elaboration/explanation is insufficient or very poorly written, or that you are not able to or do not want to understand it.
Either way, because of this I do not feel the obligation to once again answer your questions. More so because I donât want to get into any argument -with you or anyone else- which then often results in me being called all kinds of names.
For example, noone will disagree that Pakistan and India have fought several wars against each other,
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I 'd say It is not probable, but possible that someone might refuse to believe this ....ok ... few centuries later. But tthat would depend if both or either country remains intact and become a reasonably popular choice of research one.
Afterall, people refues to beleive in holocaust all the time and some even are ready to go to jail for this.
So there can be a case where actuall 'facts' were recorded as history but later generation (or authorities ) start casting doubts at those facts or outwordly denying them ( For instance : The Philedelphia Experiment ) And then people start treating them as fabricated stories
[quote]
but with respect to who caused/started/ led to the war, there will be much disagreement, especially from both sides against each other......and both sides will bring forward 'solid' proof to strengthen their point: therefore, with respect to this point there won't be a single truth: for the pakistanis the truth is that indians started it and vice versa.
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Often there is hardly any 'solid proof' in historical records, mostly there are attributed stories or vague evidence like graves or excavated stuff.
But more importantly there is pollitical motivation behind every majore established historic event or record.
Two examples from Islmaic history :
Events at Karbala, Masacare prophet's descendents by ruling forces ~ 70 hijri
Few decades later....
Seize at Mecca, Madina; Masacare of thousands of muslims, destruction of Kaba, at the hands of Hajaj bin yousef
No matter how authentic both are, but By any comparison the former is more extensively documented / more popular event then the later one.
But as oppossed to the second one, any new investigation into the first incident will be rejected, opposed and condemned. but you will see no qualms expressed if one want to further investigate the the second incidnet.
The reason is all political.
Before we even go researching the authenticity, we can perform a critical evluation. If we can only ponder and find inconsistencies, we'll be able to eliminate a huge chunk of history without a lot of effort.
say if u're able to place Alexander (u like this example, I'd rather we stop beating around the bush and come out in the open with the real discussion pertinent to this forum... the hadith saga) at a certain place and time with enough conviction, it automatically rules out all other accounts of him being elsewhere.
Not only does this help in determining his bearings, but also tells us which historians to trust with future info about Alexander.. the ones who get all the stuff about him right or the ones who have only a few facts but pass on more heresay and fiction. And I'll not stop there.. I'd just throw out the 'facts' passed on by these dubious historians cuz now they're not trustworthy anymore.. even if they've passed on a few facts.. they are unreliable.
The problem with this is that in the end u're left with like a handful of pages of just 'facts' about Alexander and they are not juicy anymore.. u can't make movies about them or sell thousands of books or dazzle people with the glory of the era etc.
There's an industry that thrives on inaccurate history. And people will always always go for the flowery, the verbose, the fairytale, the drama over bare facts.
^ ah! but u now know that u have, by chosing the method of elimination of doubtful records, and records from doubtful researchers, atleast a book which contains only facts....
it might not be juicy and no movies can be made out of it, but atleast u know that the book contains facts....
and for those seeking religious guidance, the facts and not the movie industry shud be the real concern....
Enough conviction for whom ? It is quite relative⌠You see enough conviction does not translate into enough recognition. Take the case in this thread for reference.
(PArdon me for bombarding you with examples, but thats a way ordinary people like me understand difficult issues like this :flower1: )
Apparently, Historian did a poor job here. and in later centuries scholars covered their behind, quite diligently :lajawab:
and on top of that no one bothered to point out that simple loophole for thousands of years ! and after this discovery I cast doubts at the reported ages of other important personalities
Mr. Anwar Qureshi !
Would you like to comment on the issue discussed in the above refered thread ?
But it is human nature which demand juicy details. If you are too honest for a historian, and dont fullfill the public demand, then some other story teller might do it for them.
If Shahzada Saleem & Anarkali is popular fiction and historian speak on top of their lungs that nothing of that sort happened⌠even then people believe this story to be historical fact.
^ code_red, forget the ages, just remember a more reliable thing that khadija (ra) died in the 10th year after the prophethoodâŚ
so, the prophet (saw) was around 50 when she died, and going by the popular saying, khadija (ra) was 15 years older, hence she died at an age of 65âŚ
and here is your answer for the age at which women can still give birthâŚ
also see thisâŚ
We must always back historians and never question thier ability to fall, even if we if we have to pose our sacred personalities as world record holder.
We have (atleast ) two versions of history in Islam. Both are politically motivated.
^ just because a woman give birth at an age which is out of norm, u dump the whole history????
thats not very wise....
and btw khadija (ra)'s age is something which both versions of islamic hostory (as u put it) agree upon....
atleast i've not seen much argument over this issue....
glad we agree⌠in principle at least.. cuz this knowledge leads me to reject the entire corpse of hadith and for you to still dogmatically cling to it⌠despite knowing better.
agreed.. note my use of the words. Nothing is absolute.. or a fact.. itâs just that weâre âsufficiently convincedâ to accept them as such.
no denying that.. Only NeScio found the right answer.. (no surprises there). When in such doubt, and faced with such inconsistencies, itâs wise to just drop the whole issue and leave it as an indefinite, noting that whoever then builds up on this is also conjecturing and has no solid proof..
Hence the basis of my belief⌠with apologies to Henry Ford.. . Islamic History is more or less bunk.
***
