Have to question this Michael. Islam is as much a political system as a religion. It governs all aspects of life including political life. Islam and "secular pluralistic" do not go together. This would mean Islam accepts the laws of Man over the laws of Allah.
Translation & Muslims
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Have to question this Michael. Islam is as much a political system as a religion. It governs all aspects of life including political life. Islam and "secular pluralistic" do not go together. This would mean Islam accepts the laws of Man over the laws of Allah.
I already answered the first one in the post from where it is quoted.
As to the second? I don't know. Why is every issue about Muslims splashed across the media? Why does beating to death and torture of gays in Alabama not occupy national attention to the same extent as the situation with gays in Iran? Why do people care more about a rape case victim in Saudi Arabia than 70,000 people incarcerated by the US without trial or charge, kept in secret prisons and tortured with impunity?
Thats a question you have to ask yourself.
In the West, there is a secular quote about morality: Never do something you wouldn't want to see on the evening news. Why are there so many Muslim issues?
Because what happened in Alabama is exceedingly rare and it isn't denied and it isn't state sponsored. Because Iran denies it has gays. Because we think the death penalty, lashes or any punishment for being gay is wrong. Does Islam think gays should be punished or killed?
Do you think the original punishment was proper? In the West we don't like punishing victims. We see this as very unusual and weird and wonder if it represents Islam as a whole. Does it?
Why are there so many Christian ones? Have you addressed the genocide of natives? Apologised for slavery? Made reparation for colonisation? For the atomic bombs? For Vietnam, Nicaragua, Phillipines, Greece, Africa, Asia, America?
Are you following the Bible? If not, why not? How do you decide which part is the "okay to be overlooked" word of God?
If you think any punishment for being gay is wrong, why are gays not treated equally? And its not a rare happening, its mostly an ignored demographic.
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Alabama_government_site_classifies_environmental_activists_0527.html
Do you think other countries should have a right to decide what legal system America follows? e.g. Should Saudi Arabia impose an international action on the US incareration of people without charge or trial?
Does Gitmo represent Christianity? Does the Holocaust? Is that what you personally stand for as a Christian?
Why does none of this get splashed across the media?
SAM, I do understand your views. But this thread is about Islam and I wish to understand Islam better. I am not here to defend anything. But you seem hesitant to ever answer a quesiton about Islam. Why is that?
Let me try a couple of others.
Does Islam view Christians who worship the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as committing Shirk?
Sura 9:30 says in part: "The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah". I frankly don't know much about the Jews but I thought they worshiped God only. Who or what is Uzair? Do some or all Jews worship Uzair?
Let me try a couple of others.
Does Islam view Christians who worship the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) as committing Shirk?
Sura 9:30 says in part: "The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah". I frankly don't know much about the Jews but I thought they worshiped God only. Who or what is Uzair? Do some or all Jews worship Uzair?
If you know even a little bit about Islam, you would know that it does not ascribe divinity to Christ. So making idols of Jesus and Mary and worshipping them (who were human beings) is shirk in Islam
Uzair is Arabic for Ezra, so I would guess it refers to the book of Ezra
Yes but the Qur'an also has some generous things to say about the people who believe in the Gospel. I believe you quoted one such verse early in this conversation. When the Qur'an refers to the Gospel, it is referring to the Injeel?
So is there something in Esra the Jews worship?
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According to the Quran (the Injeel was the Gospel of Christ, not the history of Christ), Jesus was rescued as all prophets under God are (and possibly, died of old age.)
More:
http://islam.about.com/cs/jesus/f/jesus_quran.htm
Not all Christians worship Christ, though most of the gnostics converted to Islam.
The Injeel is the Gospel of Christ.
I believe that Ezra was worshipped in some parts of Yemen, but I haven't delved into it. Anyway, even if it was present, all devout Jews have abandoned all such heresy in the present and reverted to faith.
OK thanks, I'll look through it. Since it contains the Gosples only, it wouldn't contain, say, John's book of Revelations right?
I am curious because frequently the Qur'an will say something like "...who believe in Allah and the Last Day". I'd like your opinion on this. When I look at Christian creeds I rarely see any mention of the end-of-times prophesy. Most Christians don't know much about it. This aspect seems to have less importance to Christians than to Muslims. Is the end-of-times prophesy more critical to Muslim beliefs?
I am curious because frequently the Qur'an will say something like "...who believe in Allah and the Last Day". I'd like your opinion on this. When I look at Christian creeds I rarely see any mention of the end-of-times prophesy. Most Christians don't know much about it. This aspect seems to have less importance to Christians than to Muslims. Is the end-of-times prophesy more critical to Muslim beliefs?
OK that helps me understand. When 9:30 says "The Jews call ‘Uzair a son of Allah", those Jews would be guilty of shirk too. However today none worship Ezra, so the Jews of today are not guilty of shirk?
I think you will find the yaum-al Qiyamat (Last Day or literally Day of Resurrction) in Islam mirrors the aharit ha-yamim in Judaism.
As to what it means:
In the Quran, there is only this
All the rest is just speculation.
I think anyone who recognises the difference between an idol and God cannot be accused of shirk.
Agreed!
From what I've read I would agree they mirror each other.
But the end-of-times beliefs between Shiite and Sunni are different yes? Many Shiites believe the Mahdi will return to earth one day as savior. The Sunni believe something else?
This is an absurdity. How can a negative answer be provided when the evidence - and history - answers in the affirmative? How can Michael's interpretation of the evidence be called insecurity in his own faith?
Why? A person cannot simply be agnostic? You know, it's strange, but ever since my return I don't have that old chauvinism for the nonadherents. I see it around, though: and that's the funny part.
Again, you dissemble. It isn't about differentiation, but the language in which it's done. Sam's "no bigotry inherent" is like her saying that one really should "call a spade a spade", "just because it's so". It's absurd. Unbeliever is marginally acceptable; kuffar - another term Sam likes a lot - is not. This is a reasonable rule. Similarly, I don't say "Mohammedan", although this, too, is accurate.
I think the evidence illustrates this becomes true in the majority. And barring humanitarian Reformation - unlikely at best - this won't really change.
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I have stated this elsewhere but it bears repeating here:
Another point where people know little about Islam is that there is a great deal of religious plurality within Islamic thought.
e.g. there are four Madhabs in Islam, which represent four schools of thought, embracing social, political and legal diversity. The dominant one is the Hanafi, but even within the Hanafi, there is a wide variety, from the Wahabis of Saudi Arabia to the Sufis of India. I know very little about the other madhabs but they are out there. To give some perspective the Shias (prominent in Iraq and Iran) form around 6-8% of all Muslims and even they have different sects within them. So viewing the Islamic world as one large mass of people is inconsistent with the range of beliefs within the religion.
What makes Islam appear as one belief is the fact that except for some newly arisen taqfiri sects (like the Wahabis), who insist that anyone not following their way are not "true" Muslims, there has never been any argument within Islam about the "right" way to follow it. On the assumption that all humans have limited understanding and knowledge and cannot decide what is the right way, all ways of following Islam have been given equal status and left to the individual community. Even the Sunni-Shia divide, largely political in nature, was eliminated when the al-Azhar university (teh premier Islamic studies university in the world) recognised that Shite Islam and Sunni Islam are all under one God and included it in the university syllabus.
This has had both positive and negative effects. On the positive side, it has allowed for diversity to flourish within the religion and live side by side and made it easy for people to move within the religion from one kind of thinking to another, this has also helped the religion to adapt.
The negative point here is that since there is no agreement on what is the right way to do it, people have adopted extreme interpretations (like Abdul Wahab, who decided a hundred years ago that all women should wear black from tip to toe) and were backed by inscrupulous leaders who exploited these changes (Wahab would be just a blip in the history books without Saud).
So yes, there have been plenty of discussions, plenty of Fiqh is out there, lots of Islamic thought from the very conservative to the very liberal. What we do not have is a central authority to say, this is right, or this is wrong. This has unfortunately become the purview of politicians. So you have Ataturk banning the hijab in Turkey, Saud enforcing it in KSA, and both are neither right nor wrong.
So to answer your question, there is no Sunni belief or Shia belief. Not all Sunnis share one belief, not all Shias share one belief.
But yes, in general, there is some belief in a Mahdi etc which the ithna' ashara believe in.
For me, this is a deal breaker
I don't get excited about stuff that is not mentioned in the Quran.