Can anyone help/advise me on this deeply spiritual text?

[tinam7]

What does that signify?

[GenSec]

What does that signify?

It means anyone and everyone who wants to reply here can enjoy my golden rule for this thread:

Free speech is fine - as long as everyone feels able to hold differing opinions and can contribute them without hassle from those who chose to disagree.

I never make an orphan of a thread: i always aknowledge myself as its guardian, lol.

[GenSec]

This thread has lain dormant for a while, but this post is very relevant here.

A Muslim acquaintance recently made me aware that the Islamic Koran is not enough to understand Islamic teachings, and kindly began enlightening me about the Hadith.
The Hadith are a collection of accounts detailing sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad by his followers. The Hadith lay the groundwork for much of Sharia law. For instance, why women should wear the Hijab, and punishments for various crimes are stipulated. In my own experience the Hadith are a mixed bag.... there are instances of wise words and kindness by the Prophet Muhammad (even towards animals), but there are also stories of people being stoned to death and having their limbs cut off. Adulterers, thieves, apostates (those who seek to leave Islam) etc. However, as i have said in previous posts on this thread - none of it is any worse than accounts contained in the Jewish Torah and Christian Old Testament. Islam is not some alien faith to Judaism and Christianity... it is very much a 3rd member of the Abrahamic club.

Muslims recognise that the Hadith are not perfect: they accept that some accounts are fraudulent, added in at a later date, etc. Therefore different interpretations of the Hadith have arisen within Islam, and a number of schools of thought. However, there is no major animosity between them.

Hence, my Islamic acquaintance made me realise, the Koran and Islam cannot be understood without also studying the Hadith.

Why should we care? Because Islam is the 2nd largest faith in the world. It is also growing faster worldwide than Christianity. One day it will replace Christianity as the number 1 faith worldwide as far as numbers are concerned. In my country, over the last decade 100,000 white Britons have converted to Islam. The number of white converts year on year is rising and steadily replacing Christian conversions. So, Islam can neither be dismissed as the preserve of immigrants or an ethnic group... it is fast becoming a fixed religion in Western societies with roots here.

For me, Islam is easier to accept as a faith. Because in Christianity, 2 concepts must be accepted: 1. there is a God, and 2. Jesus is his "Son". Muslims on the other hand simply ask you to believe in God and worship only him (Allah is not another name for God, it is just the Arabic word - even Arab Christians call him Allah and this is also the word contained in their Bibles). Jesus on the other hand is a great prophet, and nothing more. Furthermore, as others have said here, Jesus was not aiming to create a new religion: he was simply trying to enlighten the Jews, of which he was a member. Christianity as a new faith was not his aim. He was one of a long line of prophets sent by god to reveal His divine will to man. The problem is that man has corrupted the teachings of these prophets to suit his own selfish agenda. Furthermore, the Bible has been so corrupted through translation and fraudelent doctoring by later people that Islam accepts the many contradictions and innacuracies contained within it. Hence many athiestic criticisms of the Bible are mirrored by Muslim scholars. All of this was why God spoke to the prophet Muhammad and revealed to him the Koran - the last prophet, and the last of the holy books. With which to unite Jew, Christian and Muslim in the (correct) worship of one God, as one community.

Jews and Christians are seen as erring brothers. Their faith is based on holy books and earlier prophets sent by God, but they have many errors and innaccuracies. Islam is the final expression of God's word, as embodied in the Koran. But Muslims accept that the Bible and Jewish Torah are holy. Because of this, during the Middle Ages in Muslim nations such as the Ottoman Empire Christians and Jews were spared persecution and allowed to live in peace within the borders of Islam. The were called 'dhimmi'.  They could run their own communities, keep their places of worship, and even be ruled by their own laws, not those is Islamic Sharia. All they had to promise was to recognise the Islamic state and pay an extra tax. Apart from this, they were left alone. So, we must also escape the myth that Islam seeks to destroy or persecute all other faiths. Muhammad himself said that the "people of the book" (Christians and Jews) were to be left alone to worship what they worship. During the same period we should remember that for centuries European Christian nations evicted Muslims from conquered areas, forced them to convert or killed them. And Jews endured a life so bad (with pogroms that came and went with frequency) that many preferred to emigrate to Muslim states.

Islamic states who do persecute them in this day and age, the 20th and 21st centuries, are representative of a recent fundamentalist wave which ignores the classical teachings of the Hadith and Koran, and simply considers all non-Muslims as evil infidels to be wiped out. But, again, this behaviour is not as a result of Islam - just the behaviour of those who hide behind it.

Muslims pray to Mecca and every year they perform the Hajj - a sacred journey to the Kabbah which ever Muslim is encouraged to undertake at least once in their life (to us Westerners it is the huge black square that Muslim crowds walk around in a circle). Why do they do this? Because on this site the Jewish prophet Abraham (who after Muhammad is considered by them the greatest prophet) built a great temple to the Jewish God. Hence, again, we see Jewish, Christian, and Islamic theology and history in a very  historically interwined evolutionary relationship.

Recently i have also been in contact with a very kind Imam of my city's local Mosque (the proper name is Masjid, only Westerners call it a Mosque). I was very kindly invited to attend the Masjid and recieve more reading materials about Islam. This is the holy month of Ramadan right now, where Muslims must abstain from food, drink, and other such things from dawn til dusk. They are also encouraged to be more charitable to others. My local Masjid very recently raised from its members £2000 and donated it to a secular charity for disabled children. So, this idea that Muslims only come to the aid of other Muslims is nonsense.

All religions have their fundamentalists and their good folks.

Apologies if i have rambled a bit today... am rather tired.

Best wishes.

[tawascove]

All I know and this will probably offend some, is that The Koran speaks of we bornagain believers in Christ Jesus as the infidel,and the infidel must be killed. I'll die for Christ. But not becaause a Muslim says so. I'll do it becaause Christ says so. JMO.

[GenSec]

All I know and this will probably offend some, is that The Koran speaks of we bornagain believers in Christ Jesus as the infidel,and the infidel must be killed. I'll die for Christ. But not becaause a Muslim says so. I'll do it becaause Christ says so. JMO.

Certainly the Koran identifies Christians and other faiths as "infidels", but Christians in the Middle Ages behaved no better. Some Christians still don't treat unbelievers with full respect even today. Its a common problem with religion, full stop: not just Islam.

I would dispute your assertion that Islam says Christians must be killed. You will actually find that the Koran identifies Christians and Jews not only as infidels but more specifically as "People of the Book" who worship the same God as they do, descend from the common ancestor Abraham, and posess through the Torah and the Bible earlier forms of religious texts given to man by God. However, over time Christians and Jews have become misguided in their beliefs and their texts corrupted by man to suit his own purposes. As a result Christians and Jews are accorded tolerance in the Koran so long as they do not attack Muslim believers (which is what the Christians broke during the Crusades, invading the Holy Land). Previous to this, the earliest charter of peace between Christianity and Islam was a treaty Muhammad himself made with a Christian convent for nuns, allowing them to continue as before within the rapidly expanding borders of Islam. It bears an impression of his hand as his seal to the agreement. This is not the behaviour of a faith which kills all infidels.

One of the earliest forms of Christianity, Coptic Christianity, has always resided in Egypt and survived existence within successive Islamic empires and nations for millenia. They have 60,000 Egyptian Christian members and are still going strong, and allowed to worship in the churches freely. They have their own version of the Pope, called the Patriach. Again, not the behaviour of a religion which you claim kills all infidels.

In the Ottoman Empire and other Islamic states, from the 15th century right up until the early 20th century, Christians were given the status of Dhimmi and allowed to live according to their own religious law in peace within the Islamic state. They also had recourse to their own courts. Fact. Christian states on the other hand demanded conversion to Christianity, emmigration, or death. For centuries many Jews fled from persecution under Christendom to the Islamic nations. Fact. Many Christians fleeing sectarian persecution in Europe took up service in the Ottoman Muslim government and military. Fact.

The Islam you see on tv is of the fundamentalist sort.... you know, alot like the fundamentalist Christian fringe that blights Christianity and gives it a bad name. All religions have them.

Neither would a Muslim condemn you for believing in Christ. They believe that on the Day of Judgement, he will be there as Christians also believe. However, Muslims believe that Jesus was a great prophet, a man, not the Son of God. Therein lies the difference. Christ is spoken of in the Koran as a great and enlightening man.