Thraxed~ If your goal is to make Islam look bad, I would like to congratulate you because you are doing a very good job. You seem unable to even comprehend or understand the posts made, yet are quick to insult each one. I was going to explain what you are not understanding with mine, but then I realized it is really not worth my time or the wear and tear on my keyboard.
Imad, It seems like that verse can be interpreted in different ways. I like the interpretation that you have pointed out much more than the alternative. Thank you for taking the time to explain what you believe.
Our Beloved Prophet always stressed the need for education. He said, “To obtain knowledge travel into China if necessary.†He had also stressed many times to use Common Sense, Judgment and intuition to solve problems when their solutions cannot be found in the Holy Quran. Muslim countries have to come out of the Middle Ages mentality. There has to be more exposure to other cultures, more education, so that my people may prosper. I hope the Internet would be the medium to bring Change...
I will assume that the reader have at least a little info about hadith (hadeeth), if not here is a site that will give you some info about it. I add to the above that Hadith is created by man to let me say record the life of the prophet pbuh in details, so it can be an example for other Muslims who come after, its should be taken carefully by Muslims, the general and well known rule that when a certain hadith, contradicts Quran, then its faulty, if it does not contradict Quran, it does not mean that it is right, the person should look at the sources, if the hadith been repeated by many different sources close to the prophet pbuh like his companions, family, then this gives the hadith a good quality, scholars like Bukhari and Muslim and others made huge efforts to collect hadiths and combine them in books, they had different opinions and they used different methods while collecting, studying and combining hadith, and removing fabricated ones, you can find a certain Hadith in Bukhari book but not in Muslim book and other books, in my opinion, the accurate ones are the ones found in both hadith books Bukhari's and Muslim's, if they are found in other books too then it will add to the hadith quality. its important to know that the main source of teaching for a Muslim is Quran, if a Muslim did not find about a certain issue in Quran then he looks in Hadith, with being careful for the reasons above, if it was not found in hadith then the Muslim can ask scholars who can give an answer based on similar issues in Quran and Hadith, or the Muslim can decide for himself using his common sense and what he learned from Quran and Hadith, with that said, and back to the hadith quoted at the top which says: I found 2 versions of this hadith in Bukhari book for the same narrator: In Muslim's book I found it different but for the same narrator: looking for omens, I found the following hadith in both books so the second hadith has more quality since same repeated in both Bukhari's and Muslim's books, while the first have two different versions in Bukhari, and another third version in Muslim's. looking for horses, I found the following hadith in both books: there is more hadith in both books that forbid bad omens, and in some cases its considered as shirk ( set up partners with GOD in worship ) which is a great sin in Islam. back to the two versions of the same narrator in Bukhari's book, why there are two different versions? and which one is the correct one? Kevin Abdullah Karim did a good study about this specific hadith you can find it here
Appreciate your post a lot, it is informative and concise. But is there a justification in the Quran that just because of a few cartoons, there are riots, burning of cars and even death threats? My apologies for saying this, because a lot of times gauharjk and a few helpful members have been pointing out the contradictions of our views on Islam compared to what was written. But I still see the never ending rioting over a few cartoons and the violence involved. IMHO it seemed to be a case of WYSINWUG. Maybe you can offer us some insights into what is actually going on inside the Muslim community. Is the rioters mainstream? If not where are the mainstream Muslims? I don't see them coming up and making a stance. Given the number of Muslim bashing threads and posts, I do not hope that this post is seen as one. I am just perplexed as to why such a peaceful religion can breed such violence everywhere. Personally I know a lot of Muslims, they are law abiding, friendly and very pious, they managed to preserve their identity and culture whereby a lot of others have more or less subscribed to the USA way of living due to the influence of the western media.
Do you remember about 6 months ago or so when the president of Iran was declaring dogs un-islamic and confiscating iranian pets? That motivated me to learn more about hadith. I love all animals, and especially dogs. That is mainly my experience with hadith. I read horrible hadith passages saying that angels can never enter the same room as dogs, that G-d will not hear your prayers, that you should kill black dogs, etc. With that said, I did read your post. If I understand correctly, I think you are saying that the hadith is out of context and the prophet does not actually believe in omens. I still don't understand that if he doesn't believe in omens, why did he even utter those words? Why did he pick a house, a woman, and a horse? Why didn't he choose other words?
Any Hadith that contradicts the Holy Quran is wrong. In Islam, there are 4 Sunni imams, who have recorded hadith for their respective followers. Most of the hadith are common, but there are many contradictions in their respective hadiths too. The Iranians are Shia, and they may have their own Imams. Their hadith are also different. So there is little credibility in such hadith which contradict the Quran. Actually, the Prophet had forbade the followers from recording any hadith. All the hadith that we see today were written many decades, even in some cases, a century after the Prophet passed away. So most of the hadith come from people, whose parents and grandparents had overheard the Prophet saying those words, and those words were passed down through generations, mostly memorized, not in written form. Some of them are false and inaccurate. The Holy Quran is the Word of God. Any hadith that contradicts the Holy Quran, is wrong. The Taliban does not represent true Islam. They are tribals, fighting against each other's clans. Islam is bigger than these petty warlords. Islam is a way of Life.
The clerics in Iran do not believe their cruelty to dogs contradicts the Quran. Yet, here is a muslim website that explains that the hadith contradicts the Quran. In the Islam religion there seems to be many different sects and different sets of beliefs. I was looking up more information tonight on the statement about the woman, house, and horse. I found a Sunni forum where they themselves were disagreeing as to whether the hadith was weak or not. One guy was accusing the other of having shia viewpoints, I take it that is an insult. It is not any different with the Christians. You have the catholics, methodist, baptist, presbyterian, mormon, etc. They all believe different versions of the "truth". With the Christians though, it is less confusing because I have been around them all my life. Actually I am happy being an agnostic, but I have a curious mind and just like to know what other people believe. I should probably get more website stuff done though.
You are so right, a lot of what people assume to be Muslim behavior is more cultural. Does everyone forget how few rights woman had anywhere 100 years ago - http://www.umd.umich.edu/casl/hum/eng/classes/434/geweb/PROPERTY.htm If you would like to know what rights an Islamic woman enjoy: http://www.themodernreligion.com/women/w_rights_summary.htm
I need to read more about that. I remember hearing something about that, but I don't know if I need to place a notice on my blog or not. Adsense is not a big money maker for me, I get about 25 cents a day. I actually have a regular full time job but the economy is not so good. I am trying to earn extra money on the internet. I am going to start selling on Ebay as well, and have a lot of things to list today. Going to try to stay off DP today, but it is so addicting. Thanks for that list, and I agree with you that much of it is probably cultural. Although sometimes it is hard to remember that, like when I read about the misdeeds of the "religious police" or the "virtue police". They are so cruel to women in the name of religion. Anyway, hope you all have a great day!
A bad mix, police powers with theology...I have relayed it here before, but it seems relevant: My professor on Middle Eastern Political Economy, Yahya Sadowski, is (or was - this was over 20 years ago, now, that he relayed it to us at Berkeley) married to a Saudi woman (I believe she was Saudi - please forgive a lapse of memory, if wrong). He told then of being in their home, when one day the "virtue police" busted through the doors to their home and beat the living crap out of him, believing him to be a "corrupting" American up to no good with a (Saudi) woman. Her screams protesting that he was her husband finally reached home, and Sadowski was spared. But holy *&^%....... Good brief article, by the way, by Sadowski, currently teaching at the American University in Beirut. Excerpt: http://www.brookings.edu/articles/1996/summer_islamicworld_sadowski.aspx
Hi Paul, I don't believe I ever heard you tell that story before. That is horrible, but it certainly sounds like something they would do. The virtue police seem to be lacking in virtue big time. They have dirty minds as well. Like the American woman who was kidnapped by the "virtue police" for sitting with her co-workers at Starbucks. In their medieval minds, they cannot even fathom that a women could possibly be friends with a man without it being sexual (not that it would justify kidnapping her in any case). They must take her away and humiliate her, because that is the righteous thing to do! Idiots. I'm surprised they didn't also beat up your professors wife as well.
you do not have to apologize as I did not see anything bad in your post, in fact your questions are valid, and I will try to answer them: what you mentioned as "just few cartoons" most Muslims did not see it the same way you did, but they saw in it an attack, in two ways, first was by painting them all as terrorists. the second by making a pictorial representation of the prophet which is forbidden in Islam. without going in much details about why its forbidden, it was seen as a direct attack to Islam, and when under attack, Muslims do not turn their right cheek and do not wait to be put on the cross as the west might expect them to do. this also been seen as a part of an organized campaign against Islam, added to: the continuous attacks against Al-Aqsa Mosque by the digging works that weakened the foundations of this Mosque under the excuse of looking for the old Jewish temple Afghanistan and Iraq wars and the killing of hundreds of thousands under the excuse of "fighting terror", then weapons of mass destruction, then liberty for Iraqi people G. Bush mentioning of a crusader war the pope quote and more.. in the above examples Muslims reacted, in some places and unfortunately in a violent way, but I and I m sure other Muslims wonder: why it appears like only the violent actions done by Muslim are seen by the west? and not the calls to calm and act in responsible way, I mean, there are 1.3 billion Muslims, if 1000 acted in a violent way, then all western media concentrate on them and soon there is a general thinking in west that all Muslims are violent and hate peace?! despite that there might have been 1 million Muslims asking people to calm and be responsible? then the cartoons under the excuse of "freedom of speech" again I think they saw in it a part of an organized campaign against Islam, and in Islam, anger is not permissible except for Islamic reasons. this does not mean that anger should be violent source personally, I decided to boycott all Danish products, I did not participate in violent actions, or demonstrations, many others did the same. there have been so many scholars, and politicians speaking and asking Muslims to act in a responsible way and do not act in a violent way, sadly, some Muslims attacked Churches and Embassy's, of course such actions are un-Islamic, but lets not forget those other Muslims who were protecting these Churches and Embassy's against these attacks, risking their lives sometimes. finally, movies that shows a negative image of Arabs are something very old in American movies, till its been said by many that the Arabs are the bad guys in American cinema industry, never heard about Arabs ( mostly are Muslims ) making riots over any of these movies.
Hi Rebecca. One of the things I appreciated about Prof. Sadowski's series was the occasional nugget, gleaned from his work in the field, literally. The above was one, and something else that astounds me to this day - and indicative of how our foreign policy has been so woefully shortsighted, over much of "The American Century" - is that during the Iranian crisis, there apparently wasn't a single person available in the State Department who could translate farsi. So - through Mossadegh, through the Shah, no one on hand, and the flurry of messages coming in were therefore unfathomable. We literally were scrambling around haplessly trying to come up with a coherent appraisal as to what was actually taking place. I found that remarkably telling, and tragic, for how little attention we paid to a significant part of the world. Imad, I agree with much of your post. I abhor derogatory slams on anyone's faith or way of life. That said, I think we need to be clear on a couple of things. We need to distinguish that this is a matter of speech. The "attack" was an image. No violence on the person of muslims, anywhere. To respond with violence, or the threat of violence, is something the west finds repugnant; it cuts across the grain of what we at least promulgate as one of our highest ideals, the right to think as you would, and say what you would accordingly. An equivalent example must be something like Robert Mapplethorpe's Piss Christ. It raises the ire of a good many Christians (and atheists, such as myself, for different reasons). But no one had the right to raise a mass call for his death over the image, and in fact no one did. The other aspect of this is that unfortunately the violent protests are, by definition, the public face of the reaction to many in the west. 1000 people bearing placards "death to the west" or "we will cut off your heads" are more salient to the public mind than the many Muslim folks who quietly decry such a morally untenable response to the cartoons. I have said it before - if we saw a mass march for peace, along the lines of "Violence is Not My Islam," I think you'd find a very different audience among the western peoples who find both the cartoons and the violent response as something to be deplored.
Appreciate your post once again, at least I can see the other perspective, on the side of the Muslims. It is unfortunate that all these including the mistakes that Bush did was grouped as an organized campaign against Muslims. IMHO it is more of individual cases rather than of any organized campaigns.
as Kevin Abdullah Karim explained in his study, the reason the prophet pbuh mentioned these 3 was because he was talking about the people of Jahileeyah (before Islam) and because as a teacher, he wanted to correct this wrong idea, he did not choose these 3, but he been referring to a saying people of jahileeyah used to say, for them it was like a proverb. source
Allright, thanks. I have another question. For each thing that you tell me I go out and research it deeper on the internet. I was researching about bad luck, omens, superstition and ended up becoming very interested in jinns. I knew a little beforehand about Muslims believing in jinns. Then I found this article on Wiki and was curious if you agreed with it... Do Muslims believe in some kind of parallel universe?