What is meant by being a Muslim?

[asad]

@ Asad and Aftaab - A genuine, straight-from-the-heart query to the 2 of you...

Why are you guys still hanging around here? Looking for converts? why not preach other Muslims to first be better human being first and then preach us to be better Muslims???

I would being a good human being is more important than being a good Muslim

Who needs convert when we have Syedna doing all the work, he sends more people out of Bohrism than other sects can ever try.

I am still attached to the cult because of my family. The day they also see the light or Syedna makes them see the light as he did with me, i will be done with Bohrism.

You are already a good human you just need to learn what being a good Muslim is.

[Aftaab]

@ Asad and Aftaab - A genuine, straight-from-the-heart query to the 2 of you...

Why are you guys still hanging around here? Looking for converts? why not preach other Muslims to first be better human being first and then preach us to be better Muslims???

I would being a good human being is more important than being a good Muslim

Who needs convert when we have Syedna doing all the work, he sends more people out of Bohrism than other sects can ever try.

I am still attached to the cult because of my family. The day they also see the light or Syedna makes them see the light as he did with me, i will be done with Bohrism.

You are already a good human you just need to learn what being a good Muslim is.

Zinger just need to drop his double standards and hypocrisy and he might be able to call him self Muslim one day.

[zinger]

@ Asad and Aftaab - A genuine, straight-from-the-heart query to the 2 of you...

Why are you guys still hanging around here? Looking for converts? why not preach other Muslims to first be better human being first and then preach us to be better Muslims???

I would being a good human being is more important than being a good Muslim

Who needs convert when we have Syedna doing all the work, he sends more people out of Bohrism than other sects can ever try.

I am still attached to the cult because of my family. The day they also see the light or Syedna makes them see the light as he did with me, i will be done with Bohrism.

You are already a good human you just need to learn what being a good Muslim is.

May that day come soon so that you do not have to lead a life separate from the rest of your family

[Gulaame Islaam]

Mr Zinger's question about how many people really follow the teachings of Al Quraan is a good one and raises another question. And that is "What really is the purpose of following a religion?"
In my mind there are two aspects of any religion: The philosophy of the religion is one. And the institution of religion is another. The overall purpose of religion is to help us live this life we have been plunged into, without any choice on our part, with happiness, both individually and in community, for this life is not always easy to live happily. The philosophy of the religion helps us find happiness individually and the institution teaches us how to live peacefully with others and make others happy.
Therefore to follow the dictates of Al Quraan is for my own advantage as well as for the advantage of the people I live with. But when the leaders of any group forget those guidelines of the religious teachings, on which the group is based on, then there arises a lack of faith in the leadership and a lack of trust.
For example, and to follow Al Quraan again; in Surat Al Fatiha The Prophet says Praise be to god for all that He has Created in other words see how wonderful the universe it. In Al Kawthar He says God has created for us a life of abundance which implies (to my understanding) appreciate what life has to offer. For me individually this reminds me every morning I wake up to marvel and be greateful for being alive and look forward to all that life has to offer to me. And then in Al Huzamah he says "Woe unto every slandered and defamer, who ammasses wealth and who thinks his wealth will make him live forever. He will live in a Fire in his heart" and so on.
I need say no more but it seems that in our community more and more importance is given to the rich, and the middle and the lower classes are considered less important. For example I can buy the Sheikh and Mulla status if I pay the right amount of money; whether I know Al Quraan is not important. I could be very educated and learned but if I am poor I would not be able to buy that status. We have come to worship money more than God.

That is all for now.

[ghulam muhammed]

1. We pray Namaaz

2. We do Roza

3. We go for Hajj

4. We believe in Allah

5. We beileve in Prophet Mohammad (SAW)

6. Our Kalama is La Illaha Illalah Mohamaadan Rasullallah

7. We say Inna Illahe Wa Illahe Rajeoon when someone dies

8. We try (the majority of us) to live as good human beings

9. We do kurbaani on Bakri Idd

10. Everything we do, we start with "Bismillah Er Rahman, Nir Rahim"



you asked for 5, i gave you 10.

Every muslim sect does all of the above including the Taliban !!

[seeker110]

1. We pray 2 rakats for dai.

2. We do roza for Dai's sehat.

3. We go for haj if Dai and his henchmen collect their dues, first.( Reza, safai chithi )

4.We believe Dai talks to Allah through a patch (Imam).

5.We believe in Prophet, because Imam Hussain is related to him.

6. Our kalma is Mola ni dua. Mola ni khushi.

7. We say lanat to mola na dushman without finding out the reasons.

8. Our collection system forces people to lie and cheat. Specially in masjid. Making them bad human beings.

9. Our mola kills for fun, and calls it hunting. Opposite of qurbani.

10.Everything we do defies common sense, logic and morals.

[zinger]

1. We pray Namaaz

2. We do Roza

3. We go for Hajj

4. We believe in Allah

5. We beileve in Prophet Mohammad (SAW)

6. Our Kalama is La Illaha Illalah Mohamaadan Rasullallah

7. We say Inna Illahe Wa Illahe Rajeoon when someone dies

8. We try (the majority of us) to live as good human beings

9. We do kurbaani on Bakri Idd

10. Everything we do, we start with "Bismillah Er Rahman, Nir Rahim"



you asked for 5, i gave you 10.

Every muslim sect does all of the above including the Taliban !!

GM saab, surprised at your dishonesty

You didnt bother to paste my entire post.

I wrote:
1. We pray Namaaz
2. We do Roza
3. We go for Hajj
4. We believe in Allah
5. We beileve in Prophet Mohammad (SAW)
6. Our Kalama is La Illaha Illalah Mohamaadan Rasullallah
7. We say Inna Illahe Wa Illahe Rajeoon when someone dies
8. We try (the majority of us) to live as good human beings
9. We do kurbaani on Bakri Idd
10. Everything we do, we start with "Bismillah Er Rahman, Nir Rahim"

you asked for 5, i gave you 10.

You are now welcome to add you "alleged interpretations" of these and add 2 and 2 and come up with 5.

All the best.

Read the second last line. I had pre-empted someone to come up with exactly what you did, add their "alleged interpretations", but i honestly never expected it to be you

Next time, be honest enough to paste the whole post

[Gulaame Islaam]

Mr seeker 110 hit the nail on the head. We have been led to worship our Dai and his family in stead of focussing our prayers on God. Yet the Prophet repeatedly tells us to worship no one but God. By any definition this shift translates into a cult. The sad thing is that there cannot be any questions raised about this. If you question why have we replaced God for the Dai, you are most like going to be forced to leave the community, which means you break your relationship with your friends and even with your family in some cases, let alone with your identity and your past. On top of this, the membership comes with a high price tag; You cannot ask why you have to pay more money for this and that and what the money is used for.
Perhaps I should not raise these objections; afterall I am not participating in the community anymore. Now I belong to no community. Why should I cry about all that is going on? However, I feel that there are many friends and relatives of mine who feel the stress of being a Bohora today but are afraid of speaking, for fear of losing the shelter and the social life the community provides. These are especially the middle and lower classes who cannot integrate with the larger world in the countries they live in. As long as people keep quiet, no change can happen and the injustices will continue. The only hope lies in the new generation who hopefully will learn from their encounter with other religions.

[Gulaame Islaam]

I totally agree with Mr Zinger that we do wonderful things as Mulims; all the 10 on his list and many more. I love to do all these and always have. However it was not until I was in my late 30s that I ralised exactly what these observances really meant and how they would improve my life if I deeply thought about them.
I would like to start with the last one first. "We start every act with saying "bismillahir rahman nir Rahim" which means "I am doing this in the name of God who is merciful". In other words we are always concious of God's presence around us. So that we are careful about what we think, what we say, what we listen to and pay attention to, how we treat God's people and Creation, for we feel God is watching and wants us to do the right thing. We treat evrything reverantially with love and respect. We also say "god the merciful and benevolent" ; By this we are realising how generous God is to us, for giving us life and all that we have come to own and enjoy. We are greatful to God and content with all that we have. This creates in us joy and humility and to take it to the next step we realise everything came from and belongs to God and therefore we should share these things with the poor and the needy for they are God's children too.
Do we feel this way in the midst of our Masjid? Do we feel this collectively in the mosque or are we made to feel afraid and inferior to our leaders?

[Gulaame Islaam]

Now let us examin the meaning behind the qurbani of a lamb, goat or camel during Idd al Adha (festivall of sacrifice):
Sacrificing means giving up of something that is very important to us. During Idd we sacrifice our animal to God; 1/3 we consume, 1/3 we give to friends and 1/3 we give to the poor. It symbolises the way we aught to live our life throughout the year. The prophet calls upon us to sacrifice our selves and our possessions for the use of not only ourselves but for the service of all gods creation.
We, Bohoras, do this partly by giving our dues to the jamat. The problem is we do not see it spread out to the poor amongst us. In fact the poor are forced to give to the Jamaat of the little they may have saved. On the other hand we see our leaders travelling all over the world in High class and expecting the community, including the poor, to pay for their expensive travels. This is clearly not fair and certainly not Islaamic. We will sacrifice for God and the world et large but not for the pleasure travels of our spiritual leaders.

[Gulaame Islaam]

Let us now examin the point no 8 - The majority of Bohoras are good human beings. Yes, I totally agree. In fact we are too good. We avoid violence, we take good care of our families and parents; we love children and old people and respect old age. We do not place and forget our old people in cold nursing homes. We are gentle and loving people. We are good hard working citizens of whichever country we are living in.
Where we go wrong is when we are afraid to raise questions when questions should be raised. We are afraid of authority even when we know that the people in authority are doing injustice. This is partly because a few rich, egotistical and arrogant amongst us have taken hold of our respective communities and grabbed power over us. They rule with their strong authority gained by their riches; and the religious authority, whom they feed handsomely, has given them full power to shut down the silent majority. As a result the majority is living in fear of a few. But people are not blind. I am sure many would like to join me here but they are afraid.
Although some of us lived in fear of the opressive dictatorships of our countries, we found an even worse situation in our religion when religion was supposed to assist us find peace in our difficult lives.

[Gulaame Islaam]

Now we come to "inna lillahe wa inna ilaihe ragiuun". Mr Ginger says we are being muslims when we say this when someone dies. That is true; as muslims we recite this. But why are we encouraged to say this?
The line means " from God we came and to God we go back." It calls on us to remember where we came from, who we really are, what we are made of. If we do, then it consoles us in our grief, for death is part of life, it is normal and expected."We are alive in death" someone wrote.
Who are we? Another way of saying the same thing is "from dust we came and to dust we go". In modern cosmology we are literally star dust which originated billions of years ago at Big Bang. Each particle in us originated then. The forces of nature put us all together, or you can say God put us together, and that is the magic of life. That is why we say Allaho akber; God is great. Alhamdolllah; Praise be to God for all that He has created. And then La Ilaha Illallah; There is no God but Allah. There is only one God, for all creation is one. I am made of the same dust as you are made of, with slight variation. The same force created us all. There is no difference between us. So I am who I am because of God. How can I be proud of who I am? I can only be thankful to God for who I am. But our human mind forgets that. Our Ego takes over; ego is another word for Shaitaan in my mind. It make us think we are better than others or we deserve more than others etc. It creates separation between people and justifies oppression and injustice. This happens when we have forgotten who we really are and where we came from and who put us together. This happens when we have forgotten God!

[Gulaame Islaam]

Now ther' s one thing that requires clarification. It is perhaps of the utmost importance to understand. In Islaam we are encouraged to be selfless and share our possessions and resources with others. These are not commands or orders we are given to follow, or else. No, far from it. God is not watching all the time; He is not a person who will punish us . No; these are only a guidance for us; because Islaam is really a recipe for happiness. In fact all the worlds major philosophies tell us that the best way to be happy is by paying less attention to ourselves and do good deeds for others. Islaam is an intense and a comprehensive method of training us to orient our focus on ourselves and the world in a way that will yield much peace of mind and happiness to us.

[Gulaame Islaam]

The next line is number 6 on Mr zinger's list. He says we are muslims because we proclaim "La Ilaha Illallah, Muhammedun Rasulullah". Yes we do. It means we believe Allah is the Only God we worship and Muhammed is His Prophet. What this implies is that the Prophet is not God; we do not worship him though we regard the book he brought to us, Al Quraan as the word of God. So if we begin to worship someone or something other than God we cannot call ourselves Muslim by definition. However in our community of Bohras, I am beginning to feel that we have started worshipping the person of Dai and his family, and if you take a liberal meaning of "worshippin", we have become worshippers of money; for the richer you are, the more prestige and power you have over the rest.

[Gulaame Islaam]

Next we come the top of Mr Gingers list ; Muslims observe fasting and pray 5 times a day. And we bohras certainly do that though praying 3 times is also accepted. To me these are the crowning glory of Islaam for I have not come across fasting for a month and praying 3 to five times daily in any other common spiritual practice.
Nothing compares to the joy of living in a muslim country during the month of Ramadhaan. But the question we need to ask is "Why fast?" There are many reasons, but the fundamental reason is to learn self descipline and control and to experience the hunger of the poor. One is encouraged to not only avoid consumption of food and water but also the indulgence in physical and mental pleasures. Avoid negative ill intentioned thoughts, anger, ill feelings to others , exploitation of others, and sensual pleasures. It is a time to reflect and focus on God and and indulge in lofty thoughts of what is life and what is our purpose in life?; it is a time to read and understand The Quraan and be charitable. It is a time of intense traning in becoming an improved Godly human being so that the following year we are even better servants of God on our journey to heaven, so to speak; Essentially to bring more peace of mind and happiness in our hearts and share it with the rest of the world.
The 3 to 5 times a day of praying is similarly a wonderfully delightful practice; to take a break from the business of the chaotic world we live in and spend a few minutes of quiet meditation in company of fellow spirits and do "dhikre', a remembrance of God and our role in the world as His servants. I have spent a few days at a Catholic abbey where monks live. They work in the fields all day but several times a day they take a break and gather to chant in praise of God. Our practice is very similar to that but a little better! because it allows us to continue our daily worldly lives with our families and friends and strangers and at the same time live a spiritual life of a monk.
However if we fast during Ramadhaan and we pray everyday but repeatedly fail to learn to take good care of the poor and the needy and continue to abuse our power and exploit others, we are not being good Muslims.

[Aftaab]

Brother FMHASSANALI

I agree with all your points, but at one place I would like to correct you, when you say ALLAH is not a person then it is correct but when u say he is not watching u all the time then that is wrong, ALLAH is present every were, and in QURAAN ALLAH says we are present near you even more then your jugular veins, so it shows ALLAH is all the time aware of our action and he is kind of watching every aspect of our life.

[Gulaame Islaam]

yes Aftaab; I agree and remain corrected.

[Gulaame Islaam]

Now I wish to complete the list of the pillars of Islaam that Mr zinger started, for his list is exactly that, viz : salaat, zakaat, soume, haj and jihaad. We Bohras have 2 more on the list, Walaayat and Tahaarat. I have talked about salaat- prayers, zakaat- taxes, soum- fasting, and jihaad- self examination and self purification and I touched on the festival of sacrifice that happens at the time of Haj. Tahaarat means cleanliness. A muslim is encouraged to stay clean. And this cleanliness is not just the physical cleanliness of the body and our world, places of living and working and praying, but also cleanliness of the mind. We are encouraged to have clean thoughts, speak clean words, listen to clean language and thoughts, eat clean foods, read clean books, watch clean movies these days, and do clean work. Speaking ill of people who do not look like us or do not believe the same ideas as us is being unislaamic. Earning a livelihood by cheating others is not clean. Filling your treasuries by threatening the meek and poor living under your spell is not clean.

[pheonix]

I am sorry. TO CREATE HATRED IS NOT, I repeat, NOT, MY GOAL EVER. Please pardon my mistake above. Hatred does not get us anywhere. There is only one way to bring about everlasting change and that is to understand and make other people understand.

A classic Freudian slip

[Gulaame Islaam]

Dear Mr pheonix;
I am very sorry to have hurt your feelings. It's not my intention.

[Gulaame Islaam]

Now is the time to talk about what probably is the most important "pillar" of "walaayat" which means "love". To the Sufi Muslims , the only goal in life is to come to love God; to the Hindu, the purpuse of life is to unite with God; to Isa Nabi, love is the only way to relate to others; in our own time Gandhiji taught to learn to love everyone including our enemies. To me love is a vast ocean of peace and joy. If we love god then we love evreything God does; God creates , maintains and destroys so that if we love God we must love and care for everything God created, and we must accept whatever God does that causes destruction and death and illness. If we learn to love God, we learn to let go, we submit to Nature's ways; we become Muslims.

So if you love your friends and family and your community would you not do your best to help them and care for them? Would you ever force them to pay fees they cannot afford to pay?; would you ask for dues to build structures of concreate and gold which they do not need, when they are having a hard time making ends meet?