Challenge to MF - Beliefs & Opinions

[salim]

These 5 fundamentals of Islam may be a little different than 5 pillars of sunni islam, but I think 5 fundamentals make more sense and cover most of the aspect of once life.

What do you guys think
5 fundamentals of Islam or 5 pillars of Sunni Islam.

[Thai]

Universal Truth = Right Intention, leading to Right action that promotes the betterment of God's creations

or

Golden Rule of Confucious

What one does not wish for oneself, one aught not to do to anyone else, what one recognizes as desirable for oneself, one aught to be willing to grant to others.

or

Self-improvement (with "self" meaning nafs, soul,spirit)

[Muslim First]

These 5 fundamentals of Islam may be a little different than 5 pillars of sunni islam

5 Pillers are of Islam not Sunni or shia and they are

Shahada
Prayers
Fast
Hajj
Zakat

Consult any book on Islam.

Ismailis can say and believe whatever they want to. As far as I am concerned they have taken themselve out of Islam by rejection traditional SAlat, Swam and Hajj.

Take care my friend.

[Muslim First]

One way to unite all Muslim Umma is to ask them follow the 5 fundamental is Islam

Let us accept 5 originals unconditionally then we can work on your 5
Muslim Umma is one who accepts 5 original ones. Those who do not accept original 5 are not part of Umma so there is no need to unite with them. I will accept them as same manner I accept Christians and Jews or people of any other religion.

[anajmi]

You are a Sunni.

How about being compassionate, merciful, just, kindliness, tahseen, jihad (as in continual effort at improvement), looking after family, elderly parents, orphans etc.

Quoting 'pillars' like bigots, you reduce Islam to mere ritual.

A Muslim is one who submits to God and serves him.

How does one submit to God?? I know, as per your interpretations, find a teacher of baatin and taawil who will tell you exactly what you want to hear and then submit to him like the Ismailis have done!!

A muslim is one who submits to God by ways and means that are defined by God in the word of God and not by some fake teacher.

The 5 pillars were not created out of thin air. They are the essence of submitting to God. Bowing down in front of HIM, undertaking a perilous journey for HIM, fasting for HIM, donating your wealth for HIM, and professing your faith in HIM. If you refuse to do any of these then it doesn't matter what your teacher tells you, you haven't submitted to God!!

How about being compassionate, merciful, just, kindliness, tahseen, jihad (as in continual effort at improvement), looking after family, elderly parents, orphans etc.

You are talking like a bigot. Following the five pillars doesn't make doing any of the above any more difficult than a man's own "nafs" does. These qualities make you a good human and the five pillars make you a good muslim. And Allah has made it clear in the quran. Good deeds without faith are no good (unless ofcourse you find a good teacher of taawil and baatin). Faith is sumitting to God and submitting to God can only be achieved through the 5 pillars.

[Muslim First]

Salim

Let us not have stupid arguments.

Islam was religion of Prophet Muhammad SAW. It was revealed to him. Nocompanion added anything to it.

When Hz Ali RA took over Khilafat he had 6 years to undo what previous 3 had done (If they had added anything). He did not.

Fatemeid ruled Mecca and Medina for period of time and they did not change anything. Same prayers were doen whrn they took over and same prayers were done when their period ended and same prayers are done today.

(PS I am not using my spell check so excuse errors)

[Muslim First]

Br. Anajmi

AS
and Ramadan Kareem

Do you know what Baboon is talking about in his post of "August 29, 2008 06:22 PM"

Is he smoking some bad Jungle leaves?

Wasalaam

[Muslim First]

They are the essence of submitting to God. Bowing down in front of HIM, undertaking a perilous journey for HIM, fasting for HIM, donating your wealth for HIM, and professing your faith in HIM. If you refuse to do any of these then it doesn't matter what your teacher tells you, you haven't submitted to God!!

My God I like it.

[pardesi]

.... If you refuse to do any of these then it doesn't matter what your teacher tells you, you haven't submitted to God!!

You could do all these and still be a munafiq-e-deen, am I right?

On the other hand you could not go to hajj and still be a muslim! You could not fast, yet there are alternatives allowed by Allah. So you could still be a muslim (one who submits) if you are not able to perform the above two rituals. Ismailis are never told not to fast by the Imamat institution, they are never told to not take the journey to Mecca. I fast as much as I can and I intend to continue this practice, inshallah. My own brother and his wife go to umrah every so often. I prefer to spend that money on helping others around me but inshallah I will make that trip when I have discharged my duties and if I could not then I am sure Allah will not scold me for not doing so.

And as porus mentioned and I quote:

"How about being compassionate, merciful, just, kindliness, tahseen, jihad (as in continual effort at improvement), looking after family, elderly parents, orphans etc.

Quoting 'pillars' like bigots, you reduce Islam to mere ritual.

A Muslim is one who submits to God and serves him"

How true!

[porus]

“Surely those who believe; and those who are Jewish, and the Sabians, and the Nazarenes, whomever of them believes in God and the Last Day and does good work; then they will have nothing to fear nor will they grieve.” (Qur’an 5:69)

All who submit to God are Muslims. Quran does not mention 'pillars' of Islam. And they have been thought up by various sects to define differences among them, primarily, in terms of rituals, as if rituals is all there is to Islam. Sunnis have five, Ithna-asharis have ten, Bohras have seven.

If God recognized as Muslims only those who followed their respective pillars, then 5:69 would not be in the Quran.

[pardesi]

Too bad this argument started so close to Ramadan. You know what happens in Ramadan = The resident mullahs go into hibernation. I don't expect this discussion going further than Monday.

[anajmi]

The interpretation of 5:69 as stated by porus is faulty. The Jewish, and the Sabians, and the Nazarenes referred to over here are those who believe in Allah. The quran talks a lot about the beliefs of the jews and the christians. It would be prudent not to overlook those aspects.

Besides, here is verse 3:85

003.085
YUSUFALI: If anyone desires a religion other than Islam (submission to Allah), never will it be accepted of him; and in the Hereafter He will be in the ranks of those who have lost (All spiritual good).
PICKTHAL: And whoso seeketh as religion other than the Surrender (to Allah) it will not be accepted from him, and he will be a loser in the Hereafter.
SHAKIR: And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers.

One other thing, the people participating on this board belong to none of those categories. A Muslim shouldn't pretend to be a jew or a christian or a nazarene to hide behind this ayah in order to skip fulfilling the Islamic obligations required by Allah in the quran!!

[anajmi]

jew or a christian or a nazarene

should've said "jew or a sabian or a nazarene".

[Thai]

Surah 3, verse 67-68

Abraham was not a jew nor yet a christian, but he was upright, and he bowed his will to Allah's, (which is Islam) and he joined not Gods with Allah.

Without doubt, among men, The nearest of Kin to Abraham, are those who follow him, as are also this prophet and those who believe: and Allah is the protector of those who have faith.

I think this means that to Allah, "labels" such as Jew, Christian, Buddhist...etc does not matter, what matters is the intention of submitting to Allah's will. Allah has sent different Prophets, messengers, teachers to different peoples and they have been given guidance as to how to "submit to Allah's will".

Surah 3 verse 52,
When Jesus found unbelief on their part, He said: "Who will be my helpers to (the work of) Allah?" Said the disciples:"We are Allah's helpers, we believe in Allah and bear witness that we are muslims"

[Thai]

Originally posted by porus:
How about being compassionate, merciful, just, kindliness, tahseen, jihad (as in continual effort at improvement), looking after family, elderly parents, orphans etc.

Ramzaan is an good time to start practicing many of the qualities/values mentioned above.

By doing good deeds, we strengthen our spirit and the stronger our spirit becomes, the easier it is to repel temptations. In buddhism, one tries to reach a closeness to the divine (nirvana) by fighting egoic temptations (atman) through meditations (Zen). In Islam, when we pray, we forget our "selves" (ego)and put Allah before us. Then in Ramazaan, we again fight ego through fasting, by empathizing with the poor and the hungry. This way, once again we put Allah before "self" or ego. Every day we practice the values of empathy, compassion, surrender, we strengthen our spirit and become better human beings.

[Thai]

Lao Tzu --a chineese sage said

Since before time and space were, Tao is.
It is beyond "is" and "is not"
How do I know this is true?
I look inside myself and see.

Maybe being "muslim" is a matter of heart? Somewhere, the Quran says that the planets and the stars bow to Allah's will---So one could say, they are "muslim". --the whole universe is muslim!

[Thai]

In Israel, A Clash Over Who Is a Jew
Ultra-Orthodox Contest Conversions

By Griff Witte
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, August 30, 2008;

ASHDOD, Israel -- Yael converted to Judaism in 1992, and for the next 15 years she lived in Israel, celebrating the major holidays and teaching her children about the Jewish faith.

But when she and her husband sought a divorce last year, she said, the ultra-Orthodox rabbis in charge of the process had some questions. Among them: Did Yael observe the Sabbath? Did she obey the prohibition on sex during and after menstruation?

Dissatisfied with the answers, the rabbis nullified her conversion. Yael did not need a divorce, they ruled, because she had never been married. She had never been married because she had never been Jewish. And because she had never been Jewish, her children were not, either.

"I was in shock. I couldn't believe it," said Yael, 43, who would allow only her Hebrew name to be published out of privacy concerns. Blond, blue-eyed and athletic-looking, Yael is baffled by the ordeal. "My kids grew up Jewish," she said. "They don't know anything else."

Yael's personal trauma has become a cause for Israeli soul-searching over what it means to be Jewish, a term that carries both religious and ethnic dimensions. The case has set off a roiling debate between those who see themselves as saving Judaism and those whose first priority is to safeguard the Jewish state.

On one side are ultra-Orthodox leaders who are using their long-standing dominance of Israel's rabbinical court system -- which has authority over marriages, divorces and conversions -- to tighten restrictions governing who can become Jewish. They see themselves as defending the religious purity of a people who, according to their interpretation of Jewish law, need to live apart from other groups.

Those on the other side are much more concerned with demographics: They believe that at a time when the number of Arabs living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is poised to surpass the number of Jews, Israel needs all the converts it can get. This group includes secular Jews, but it is led by the religious Zionists, who form the core of the settlement movement in the occupied territories and who feel it is their duty to populate the biblical land of Israel.

The stakes have escalated since Yael's conversion was tossed out: When she appealed to the High Rabbinical Court of Israel, it not only upheld the original decision but also threw into doubt the legality of thousands of other conversions.

"There is a cultural war going on between various segments of Jewish society," said Benjamin Ish-Shalom, chairman of the Joint Institute for Jewish Studies. A trim man with a philosophical bearing who relishes any discussion of Judaism, he helps administer a government-funded education program for Israelis who need help getting through the rigorous process of conversion.

Over the past two decades, Israel has admitted hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, over the objections of ultra-Orthodox leaders who spoke out against allowing non-Jews to enter the country. Many of the immigrants lacked the paperwork to prove their Jewish ancestry. Others had fathers or grandparents who were Jewish, but did not qualify as Jewish themselves because Judaism is passed down through mothers. Until now, ultra-Orthodox leaders have not acted as forcefully to invalidate immigrant conversions.

Problems...problems...

[Africawala0000]

MFr

Ismailis can say and believe whatever they want to. As far as I am concerned they have taken themselve out of Islam by rejection traditional SAlat, Swam and Hajj.

And what is traditional salat? We have been over this many times and never received an answer from you. Out of 73 sects of Islam, who says the traditional salat? Don't tell me the Fatimid prayed the same way the Prophet did. You do not know anything about Fatimids, so do not pretend to be knowledgeable. Don't challenge me!

Maherally, your brand of Islam is a cult. Islam means peace, that was the religion of all mankind except of AbdalWahab. Your curses at Ismailis and their Imam, tells me you have no peace in your life. You are not a Muslim.Abraham was not a Jew, he was a Muslim. He was promised Imams from his progeny. Read Sura Baqara. So where are the Imams?

Either Allah S.W.T. lied to Abraham or your cult is without Imam by choice, because the Prophet of Islam had said, "One who dies without knowing his Imam, will die a death of Jahaliya". You never responded before, may be now you will respond, who is your Imam?

They are the essence of submitting to God. Bowing down in front of HIM, undertaking a perilous journey for HIM, fasting for HIM, donating your wealth for HIM, and professing your faith in HIM. If you refuse to do any of these then it doesn't matter what your teacher tells you, you haven't submitted to God!!

"And donating your wealth for God." And where does your wahabis money go? To suicide bombers, diamond studded cars, etc. and they call themselves Muslims. You can educate your tramps who cannot write English to begin with. They interpret Islam just the way you do and make mockery of themselves.

You forgot a lot of other things here. Allah S.W.T. also said to Obey Allah and Obey the Apostle and the Ulil Amr. You have not obeyed the Apostle, because he said, "I do not ask of you anything save your love of my kith and kin." Prophet also said that your prayers are not accepted unless you love him more than your parents. Prophet also said not to abuse Muslims or judge other's Iman. I can quote Sahi Bukhari, if you wish.

Allah S.W.T. asked for Ushr and Khums and you still pay 2.5% which is not prescribed in the Qur'an but was recommended by the Prophet. So you decided to do as minimum as possible.

So your bowing before God, fasting for him, and taking a perilous journey, etc. are all useless because you are not following Allah S.W.T. and the Prophet, but you are following rituals without sense.

Muslim Umma is one who accepts 5 original ones. Those who do not accept original 5 are not part of Umma so there is no need to unite with them. I will accept them as same manner I accept Christians and Jews or people of any other religion.

Who cares whether you unite with the Umma or not. Umma is better off without you. You are not part of Umma to begin with. You are part of Jahaliya so who cares what you think or what you do.

OH! you call yourself Mostmerciful, and you are acting like God "Iwill accept them as same manner..." Who cares! Do you think your word counts? We are answerable to Allah S.W.T. only and not you, Abu Jahal!

Islam was religion of Prophet Muhammad SAW. It was revealed to him. Nocompanion added anything to it.
When Hz Ali RA took over Khilafat he had 6 years to undo what previous 3 had done (If they had added anything). He did not.

No companion added anything to it? How about the sentence "Prayer is better than sleep?" in the adhan. How about the extra Adhan in Friday prayers?

Qur'an says: to 1. cut thieves hands off; Umar during his time said, "no" because people were doing out of necessity as they were starving; Most Muslim countries today do not cut off thieves hands. So they are not following Qur'an, they are following Umar.
2. Qur'an says, a talaq should be given in 3 sittings, Umar said in one. Today you all are following Umar in this respect also.
3. Qur'an says, Karze Hasana should be also given to non-Muslims who were harassing Muslims, so they do not harass Muslims. Umar said, no more because Muslims were stronger. Today, Karze hasana is not given to non-Muslims harassing Muslims but it is given to Suicide bombers! In other words Muslims are following Umar.

I totally agree with Umar, because he did what was good for the Ummah.

So don't tell me Muslims did not change anything. We went over this before and you did not dispute as you are not disputing you are Maherally. Infact you claim to be Maherally!

You see, Sunnis are not bad people. I have many friends and some of them are disgusted with the way Islam is portrayed these days by their Mullahs and they do not go to Mosque, but they are very good people so when you keep barking at Ismailis I was wondering why? Then when you started putting out Maherally's trash, sorry your trash, I realised who you were. You post the same stories over and over again all over the internet under different names. Like a skunk you stink and finally we realised who you are.! See you on U tube next time!

Africawala

[znanwalla]

"..HE is the LIGHT of the Heavens and the Earth and "unto God belongs the East and the West... wherever ye turn, you will see "HIS face"...!wow ! does God have a face? can someone help me understand what this implies, please ?...God is just NOOR ! No physical attributes ! and God says HE has a Face ! OMG !

Let us look at another ayah now:

" Truly those who swear allegiance unto thee (o ! Muhamad), swear allegiance only unto God.

The HAND of God is above their hands..." (Sura al fath)....wow ! awesome !

So now God says HE also has a Hand... so does this then make the Prophet the "Yadulahi" of his time? and has God deprived mankind of this mercy, after the Prophet ? why would God be so unjust? does God not say ..

" verily God wrongeth not mankind in anything.." (Sura Yunus)..."Verily God wrongeth not even the weight of an atom..." (Sura al Nisa)

Then in Sura Hud God talks about building a ship under HIS eyes and by HIs inspiration and then God says in Sura Ta Ha that He is established on the Throne..." The Beneficient One Who is established on the Throne..."

So are the above not physical attributes? God is Light (Noor) - so why is HE talking about these physical attributes as HIm having a face, and eyes and hands and then saying that the Beneficient One is sitting on the Throne ?

Ofcourse human intellect cannot actually interpret or understand all that the Quran says, as using any conventional terms would lead to conceiving God differently and one may misconceive ! yet they are clear ayats ! Muslims need to understand what the implications are? or did the scribes make a mistake? I doubt ! and God does not say anything without reason !

This is important for Muslims to know ! Thank you Sir !

ZN