Questions, internal criticism and change

[Aftab]

How can a society be beyond questions, criticism and change? And I ask this to the main stream bohras who are achievers and educated. Even the prophet a.s welcomed questions. Moula ali said to ask him every thing before his death, so that you may get your answers. To those who have attended any institutions of learning would attest to questioning as being the essence of learning and progress.

Then, why, after our sermons, there is no Q&A period. This happens every where but unfortunately not in the Bohras. Let us start at the very top. Why does syedna not invite questions after his sermons? And if you content that he is the "ILM na darya", he would welcome this at every opportunity.

Try an akward question (according to thier interpretation, no quetion is akward - the only exception being the one that has not been asked) and you will see a reign of terror - cursing, baraat and so on.

We the reformist are tired of asking - no reply. Just curses, barats and brutal beatings. Is this keepig up with our islamic traditions. Chithiwallas, what will awaken you - perhaps death.

[SBM]

Yes you are allowed to ask questions but only in SABAKS and the best part is that they will never answer those questions because(they do not have the answers)according to them it is BATINI Ilm and we will not be able to understand the Batin.

[S. Insaf]

Dear Aftab,
As stated earlier when I was schooling at Saboo Siddiq Technical institute at Byculla Bombay and had not joined the Reform movement openly, late Sayedna Taher Saifuddin Saheb used to call me at Saifee Mahal every day, and that continued for 20 days. Then he went to Pakistan in 1964, returned and died at Matheran. He used to say "look in eyes" and then narrate the stories of our Imams, Dais and terrible fate of Bohras who him. The moment I asked him any question he would change the topic without arguing or replying my question.
Late Sayedna thus had demolished the democratic culture of Bohra Community to get together, raise questions, discuss and then come to a mutual consent. The democratic character of “Shoora” in Islam was thus abolished by him in order to dictate rather than guide the society. The same thing still prevail among us.
Reasons could be the deviations introduced by him in religious beliefs and prctices by him and his authoritarian functioning in order to do anti-Islamic and anti-religion things and not get caught. Practice taking compulsory Misaq for Dai, making 'Raza' compulsory for performing Nikah, burial, namaz and Hajj and calling "mukhalif" any one who wants to say or suggest some thing and then declaring "Barat" against such person are not found anywhere in the history of Imams or 50 Dais prior to him.

[Sajid Zafar]

Questions need answers, answers require knowledge. Knowledge requires effort. And this is what not tolerated by the present priesthood for two main reasons:

First – Priesthood prefers to spread the darkness of ignorance rather the light of knowledge. In this way their purpose is best served.

Second - If knowledge is spread people will ask more questions, which eventually will require more answers. How can priesthood and their goons will afford to spend time when busy in minting money from gullible sheep.

So it is intertwined. Forget that you will see any change either in attitude or behavior even current priesthood is replaced. So called your shafiq bawa will leave behind his shafiq son to let the ordeal go on.

[africawalla]

I thought the thread was about not allowed to ask questions, as Oma said you are allowed to ask questions in SABAK , unfortunately the knowledge base is very limited to get appropriate answers , may be we should be talking more about enhancing the knowledge base of the Amils/Mullas (understanding the real world) , all this Batin talk seems to be not the accepted answer.

[Aarif]

may be we should be talking more about enhancing the knowledge base of the Amils/Mullas

If we are going to enhance the knowledge base of the Amils/Mullas then we do not need to call them Amils/Mullas. We will be Amils/Mullas since we will have more knowledge then them

Also, for a moment if we agree to what you are saying then how do we achieve this GRT goal?

As usual expecting an answer from you... I know its fruitless to expect an answer from you but then what's the harm in trying

[Sajid Zafar]

In 1984, when I was an undergraduate engineering student, a question answer session was arranged by the local jamat in Barkat-e-Haidry, Karachi. Shezada Aliwaqar, Ali Asghar Bhai sahib (probably brother of Syedna) granted his auspices to the occasion to answer the qualified questions. The modus oprendi was to write the question on piece of paper with name and surname and hand it over to organizers.

I asked the following question:

“As being Muslim, we believe Kaba is god’s house on earth and performing hajj is mandatory on Muslim man and women if they can afford it. Among Hajj rituals, once ritual is to circumvent Kaba (TAWAFS) with chanting Lab Baik slogans. But Kaba itself is a masonry building, made of stone blocks, mortar and wood. How this ritual of Hajj is different from Hindu ritual of praying before their gods / goddesses. Hindus also make their ideals from stones and believe that these mere represent their gods / goddesses and are not actual gods?”

After hearing the question Ali Asghar Bhai sahib infuriated and called me on stage and delivered a long speech that my EMAN is NAQIS (incomplete) and I should give misak again. By the meantime he refrained from answering my question. Needless to mention, the next day my mother was called by Haidry Amil and manhandled by jamat’s goons. Amil demanded her to give allegiance one more time. She had to go through this ordeal because of her son.

One can not stop curious human mind from asking questions. This whole theory behind Zaheri and Batini Elm is to misguide common folks and extruded purposely. A religion can not be considered natural unless it is satisfies the human mind.

[Above Average Bohra]

Sajid,

Did you ever get your question answered by anyone or are you still looking for an answer?

[Sajid Zafar]

Thanks. Well I never got a clear answer though I asked couple of Sunni Ulemas including Moulana Moneeb-ur-Rehman who happened to be our Islamiat teacher at the engineering university (he is the current chairman of Roetat Hilal Committee in Pakistan to sight moon).

[Above Average Bohra]

Sajid,

What do you think would be a clear answer? or what kind of an answer were you expecting to assure you that you were not doing idol worshipping when you were performing Hajj?

[Above Average Bohra]

This is probably the wrong thread for this discussion. If you want to discuss it further, we can start a new thread.

[mumin]

here is a question. we are told there are 124,000nabis. i ask can the very learned name half of these nabis.

[accountability]

Above Average Bohra

I would like to know the answer too.

I had put the same question to no of people (including syed mohammed razi) no one answered.

well, the answer was, we do not worship kaaba, but allah only. By doing tawaf we are merely confirming our allegience to allah.

[Alislam]

Kaaba is not worshipped and is not akin to idol.
During the days of prophet and even later times people used to stand on top of it and give Azaan during prayer times.

No one would do so in case of an idol.

Moreover, kaaba is central for all muslims so that they have unity in praying in a direction, otherwise there would be chaos when different people praying in different directions.

[Above Average Bohra]

accty,

In order to answer your question I need to ask you the same question that I asked Sajid.

What do you think would be a clear answer? or what kind of an answer were you expecting to assure you that you were not doing idol worshipping when you were performing Hajj?

If you think that performance of tawaaf is the same as idol worshipping then no answer is going to prove good enough. If you just want to know why we do tawaaf then that can be answered.

mumin,

Now say, I give you those names, will you then ask me where I got those names from or will you just take my word for it?

[Sajid Zafar]

AAB,

I fail to understand the difference between circumventing Kaba vs Hindu prayers with the only difference that Hindus are pagans and Muslims consider themselves the last episode of divine religions (though Ismaili faith is different as they believe Imamat existed before Adam). I am not too sure about starting a new thread, if it will be helpful (in understanding our religious dogma), go ahead and do so.

We believe that Kaba was founded by Adam and reconstructed by Abraham, why Jews and Christians do not share the same belief? Why they don’t commemorate Abraham’s ritual’s like we do on “Eid-ul-Adha”? Though there are few exceptions like Christian don’t accept Hagar as Prophet Abraham’s legitimate wife (the concept of masoom don’t exist in Christianity and Judaism; they believe Lot was seduced by his own daughter, etc.).

[Above Average Bohra]

Sajid,

As I said before, if you think performing tawaaf is the same as idol worship, then no answer is going to be good enough. In your prayers, do you ever say, "O Kaaba, help me"? or "O Kaaba, shifa"? Has anyone ever told you in any Islamic religious gathering that if you ask the Kaaba for anything, the kaaba will hear you and help? Respecting the Kaaba is not the same as worshipping the kaaba. When you visit your parents house, do you respect the sanctity of the house or not? Will you desecrate the house in anyway? or disrespect it? Why? Is the house itself one of your parents?

Let us say someone's parents passed away a long time ago, but their house still exists. Don't the children (the better ones), visit the house once in a while, clean it and pay it some form of respect?

So, in order to classify an act as worship, we first need to understand what worship is.

Now, coming to your next question.

why Jews and Christians do not share the same belief?

The Jews and Christians that shared the same belief became Muslims.

Why they don’t commemorate Abraham’s ritual’s like we do on “Eid-ul-Adha”?

Cause it was made mandatory by the Prophet Muhammad and they don't believe in Prophet Muhammad. There is no ruling by Prophet Moses or Prophet Jesus to commemorate that ritual.

[Sajid Zafar]

Brother AAB(in a good faith):

Thanks for taking pain and writing in detail. I appreciated.

Certainly it makes lot of sense to me. My intent is the faith in the light of wisdom. Not just following blindly.

I am still looking for an answer that why Christians and Jews don't believe in Kaba despite the fact that it was constructed by Prophet Adam (not talking about performing Hajj).

Anyway, thanks one more time.

[Above Average Bohra]

Bro Sajid,

That the Kaaba was constructed by Adam (as) is something that only the muslims believe. There is no mention of Kaaba being constructed by Adam (as) in the books of the jews or the christians.

[Sajid Zafar]

Br. AAB, Jazakallah:

I did ask this question to my office collegues (a devoted Christian & a devoted Jew) and they came up exactly with the same answer (I have not read comeplete Bible or Torah, only few exceprts here and there). Given this fact, how come almighty god completely forget to mention about his home on earth in Bible and Tora? This eventually leads to another conclusion that the present version of Bible and Torah are not the same books which god gave to his prophets.

[Above Average Bohra]

Bro Sajid,

God chooses what he wants to let you know and at what time. Doesn't mean he forgot anything. If he did, he wouldn't be God. So, either the one that wrote the current Bible and the Torah is not God but a human and the originals are lost (as you pointed out), or, God chose not to mention the Kaaba in the Bible or the Torah.

[Above Average Bohra]

I, however, believe that the current Bible and Torah are not the original ones.

[Sajid Zafar]

Br. AAB:

Thanks for your valuable contribution. Jakallah.

[Above Average Bohra]

You are welcome.

[abcd]

The following part is copied from “ARAB CONSPIRACIES AGAINST ISLAM” by Aidid Safar, which deals how the arabs have twisted the sayings of Quran. Hope this will give some answer to the topics of Kaba.

The Arabs say those who worship God through images or icons are the pagans and idol worshippers. Though quick to condemn and criticise others, the Arab religionists have never considered that they themselves do exactly the same. They also say the followers of other religions are pagans and idol-worshippers when they walk around their stone idols in their temples or around their temples. But they do not pause to realise they are doing the same. The Qur’an tells us that it is not that their eyes that are blind, but their hearts.

Hindus, for example, walk seven times in an anti-clockwise circle around a lingam – or stone idol – at the centre of their temple. And Hindus have been doing this for much longer than the Arabs.

The fallacy of the Arabs’ claim that the word bayta means a house is totally contrary to the concept of serving the Lord of the Universe. Each time a word in the Qur’an is twisted it renders the message absurd. In a further case, they insist bayta means a house and we have what the Arabs themselves call the Forbidden House when they refer to baytil-Harama.56 The question is why they make it a mandatory for everyone to go to a forbidden house.

To conceal the conspiracy they continue to distort the meaning of the word Haram to become sacred. The non-Arab Muslims around the world had never confronted the Arabs with a simple question: how did a rock structure renovated as recently as 2003 become sacred? Which part of the building is actually sacred? They will soon discover it is not the square structure proper that is sacred, but the small black stone (or Hajar aswad) worshiped by their forefathers, that is sacred. The word Hajar aswad used in reference to the black stone is nowhere to be found in the Qur’an. But the Arabs say it is part of Islam. The Arabs have successfully reinstated their true stone deity of black basaltic rock as the focus of worship in Mecca to carry the torch of their forefathers’ religion, a pagan community.

[hc]

http://islamhelpline.com/view_answers.asp?QAID=77

[Sajid Zafar]

ABCD:

We follow what we were taught by the Prophet of Allah. If we start questioning about every single ritual in religion, tell me how it is going to be implemented?

There is a difference between understanding the faith and questioning the legitimacy of the faith and those rituals which are faith based can not be justified with arguments, no matter how much efforts are made.

[Aarif]

We follow what we were taught by the Prophet of Allah. If we start questioning about every single ritual in religion, tell me how it is going to be implemented?

Br. SZ,

Then why did you had this question in first place?

I am sure being a muslim you believe in prophet and his teachings. If he said that one should go around in circles of Kaaba then you should do it without doubting him. And if asking the question is right then also exploring the answers by studying all possibilities is right.

There is a difference between understanding the faith and questioning the legitimacy of the faith

I don't understand how you understand faith??? Faith is faith and there is nothing to understand. It is something that you follow. Like Br. AW follows mozizas of Syedna.

Also if you question the legitimacy of the faith then its obvious that you no longer have faith. Because if you have then you don't ask questions right?

[abcd]

Sajid Zafar
“We follow what we were taught by the Prophet of Allah.”

Do we really? If it is so Muslims would have not been divided like to day. Every body claims that we are following the Prophet. Then who is right!

[Above Average Bohra]

abcd,

That is something that you have to figure out on your own. Besides, Muslims are not as divided as it appears on this board. Muslim division is also not because of aqeeda but because of leadership. Some think Hazrat Ali is supposed to be the leader, some think Hazar Imam is the leader. Praying 5 times a day, fasting, zakat, Hajj, quran are the tenets that the majority believe in, except those that have been misled by their leaders. You won't find a single sect in Islam that says that tawaaf of the kaaba is the same as idol worship.