The Baha'i Studies Listserv On Fri, Oct 22, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Susan Maneck <[email protected]> wrote: > I suppose it is arguably relevant since the >> Bahais come out of the Shia side and obviously adopt many of their >> positions. My main goal was to just point out that your initial >> description of the Umayyads followed the Shia perspective, and I >> wanted to give a contrasting view. > > Yes, it was from a Shi'ite perspective but also from a historical one. > As you said, the Sunni position is not that these things didn't happen > but that we should not judge Muawiyyih so harshly because he was a > Companion.
I wouldn't characterize it quite that way. Your initial objection was that the Sunni position was too much of a constraint for a historian but there is no denial or softening of objective reality involved. >> And the part which I don't think you are seeing is that a physical >> /objective / dare-i-say-historical description of past events is >> different from statements about their spiritual state or station. > > Granted, and as a historian one doesn't say that Umayyads are the > Beast of Revelation because that is a theological and not a historical > statement. However, the description I gave of what Muawiyyih did and > its consequences *was* historical and fairly objective. If you are talking about his physical actions, sure. If you are making statements about his sincerity, piety, inner states, no. __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-534840-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
