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I'm making the initial thread, but I know there are at least a couple other Muslims on SA and probably more, so if anyone else wants to jump in and answer questions or make comments please do. This was inspired by the GBS Learn About Islam thread since I figured a lot of people might not want to wade through the cuck posts. To avoid saying "I think" all the time, I'll just state that views here that I state are how I view Islam and the duties of being a Muslim and are not intended to be an example of The Perfect Muslim in any way, shape, or form. Anyhow. I converted to Islam in 10th grade after studying it for about a year on my own. While my mother's family is Mormon and my dad's is Southern Baptist, my sister and I were raised entirely without religion. Not atheists, but a general sense of it being personal and whatever we decided was our belief was fine so long as it wasn't harmful. I started studying Islam after reading the book The Source by James Michener and then started getting deeper and deeper into it. I'm now 32 so it's been about 16 years and as with most things in life, my faith has evolved and changed. I am a very liberal Muslim, and my understanding of the religion is somewhat more fluid than, say, Wahhabism. There are a large number of sects and schools within Islam itself and the specifics of belief will often vary widely between them, it goes much deeper than Sunni/Shi'a. I tend to be most in tune with the Mu'tazila school of thought, which emphasizes the importance of free will and the use of reasoning and logic even when studying religious matters, among other things. I'm not sure what to say or not to say about my own personal beliefs so I suppose if anyone has questions about specifics I'll answer. In the meantime, a brief rundown on the bare-bones basics of Islam, most of which I'm taking from things I've written for another site. If you want a less bare approach that's still approachable, try Wikipedia. That is not a snide comment, they really do have fairly thorough rundowns of the schools of thoughts, aspects of the theology of Islam and other areas of interest. ------ PILLARS In Islam there are five primary obligations that a believer has, the Five Pillars:
Those are the five things set down specifically that Muslims Have To Do. It says so in the Qur'an, that is the end of it. HADITH Into that, though, are added the Hadith (things Muhammad is supposed to have said or done) and the Sunnah (practices that were established by Muhammad/his followers that have been passed down, I won't address these directly but they serve roughly the same purpose in Islam). The Qur'an is much less story-like than the Torah and the Bible; not in the sense of being truer or falser but in the sense that it isn't laid out like a history or a narrative. Rather, it's a series of verbal revelations received by Muhammad from Allah, via the angel Jibra'il over a period of twenty or so years. For a very long time it was remembered orally, it's generally believed by scholars that the Qur'an was never written down until after Muhammad's death, when his followers became concerned with the dwindling number of people left alive who had memorized the Qur'an in its entirety. Where the Qur'an is a recitation directly from Allah, the Hadith are more like parables, though even that isn't an entirely correct term. Essentially, they're quotes and actions that purport to be from Muhammad as heard by his wives, followers, children and others who were in his presence, and passed down throughout the history of Islam. Some of them are quite charming, like the stories about Muezza, Muhammad's cat: quote:When the call to prayers was heard, Muezza was asleep on one of the sleeves of the Prophet’s robes. The Prophet wanted to wear the robe to go to prayers. Rather than disturb Muezza, Muhammad cut off the sleeve to leave Muezza in peace. He then stroked the cat seven times, which, it is said, granted Muezza seven lives and the ability to land on his feet at all times. And then you have the ones like this: quote:The Prophet said, "I looked at Paradise and saw that the majority of its residents were the poor; and I looked at the (Hell) Fire and saw that the majority of its residents were women." There is no one consensus among Islam as a whole as to which Hadith are genuine and which aren't. There are many that most (if not all) branches hold in common, but similarly there are Sunni Hadith that Shi'a don't regard as true and vice-versa. As early as 820 C.E. or so, Islamic scholars and clerics were already challenging them as a valid source for guidance and disparaging those who followed them so closely as to seem like they'd abandoned the Qur'an for the Hadith. Syed Ahmad Kahn was a scholar and modernist who stated in regards to the Hadith that "it is difficult enough to judge the character of living people, let alone long dead." There are some Qur'anic purists who state that the Qur'an is the only book relayed by Allah and so the Hadith are more or less invalid, basing their views on Qur'anic verses like this: quote:Say, "If the sea were ink for writing the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord were exhausted, even if We brought the like of it as a supplement." Essentially, they believe that the Qur'an is the perfect word of Allah so why is everyone putting so much belief into hearsay. They are not, to my knowledge, the majority view. I tend to side with them for the most part in regards to the Hadith. ETC? Trying to put too much will be exhaustive but I don't want to make this too scarce. A lot of the differences in various forms of Islam are cultural more than anything else, and I'll answer what I can about what I know. If anyone has questions about Islam, being a Muslim, being a liberal American Muslim, Islamic history or theology, ask away and I (or anyone else who wanders in) will try to answer. EDIT: Edited the next day to add a brief explanation of the sunnah. EDIT THE SECOND: I'm adding a book list at the bottom of this post with books I think of that people might find interesting or informative BOOKS OF NOTE The Qur'an (Duh. There are a lot of translations out there and if you're really interested in Islam (not even from a spiritual but just historical/modern history standpoint) I recommend reading multiple translations in whatever language you're comfortable with. The most well-known is probably Yusuf Ali's The Holy Qur'an: Text, Translation and Commentary. The Noble Qur'an: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English as translated by Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley is the modern version I use most often.) Hadith As Scripture: Discussions On The Authority Of Prophetic Traditions In Islam by Aisha Y. Musa Shi'i Islam: An Introduction by Najam Haider (An overview of Shi'a Islam. I'm not sure of a corresponding book for Sunni) Essential Sufism edited by Robert Frager and James Fadiman Al-Ghazali's Path to Sufism: His Deliverance from Error by al-Ghazali The Marvels of the Heart: Science of the Spirit by al-Ghazali and Hamza Yusuf The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks (there are questions about how much Barks has shifted his translations to keep their poetry, but Rumi's works really convey the heart of Sufism more than any other, to me) Love is the Wine: Talks of a Sufi Master in America by Muzaffer Ozak Mystical Dimensions of Islam by Annemarie Schimmel (Probably the best overall introduction to Sufism available in English) Tendai fucked around with this message at 16:24 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 21:47
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Fizzil posted:Any communities where you live, i'm just curious about progressive mosques, i know another american who converted and his biggest complaint where the mosques he went to were pretty much ethnic enclaves and it felt like he couldn't get involved much. AdorableStar posted:What does Islam think about Abraham?
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Sep 23, 2015 04:14
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AdorableStar posted:Does this mean that the Jewish (Also Christian?) god Yahweh and Allah are the same? Because IIRC that Yahweh was the one who got Abraham to start doing things from his regular life. From what I know the majority of Muslims would say "yes, it refers to the same being." When you look at it deeper -- the idea of a triune god in Christianity among other things -- it becomes slightly more complex and there's a lot of room for doubt. Islam lacks the center that most Christian denominations have, be it Catholics with the Pope, Mormons with the Quorum etc, so there's a lot more room for these kind of arguments to take root and remain unsettled for lack of a settling authority that's followed by a vast majority on at least some level as in the case of the Pope. Tendai fucked around with this message at 05:40 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 05:37
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thrakkorzog posted:So how does Taqiya work? It has come up on the campaign trail. Jeza posted:I feel like I can comprehend people being born and raised into a culture and religion and not ever leaving it. But I must admit to finding it pretty difficult to understand a person who consciously rejects one form of organised religion in favour of another in anything other than a purely spiritual way. I think a lot of it plays into my personal situation. I was born a dwarf and then started having really severe stress-related panic attacks when I was a teenager, both of which leave you looking for some kind of certainty in the world. That being said, it wasn't a simple thing I adopted on a whim, it came after I'd read multiple translations of the Qur'an and Bible, as well as texts from a whole lot of other religions. I can't speak for people who go from one to the other, just about my perspective of going from none (but not anti-) to being Muslim. Personally I think all mythologies have their good points and bad points, and for every one of them you can just about justify doing anything depending on how you read it, good or bad. I started reading about it more because I was a history nerd than any real search, and just happened to stumble on what felt right to me. What are you considering "the Islamic story?" here? It really can vary depending on what imam you follow or what school of thought you believe is correct or what culture you're from. In brief: I believe that the Qur'an is an inspired book but not necessarily meant to be taken literally, and that it was relayed to Muhammad from Allah (see the Shahada). I believe that Allah exists though I can't say what form because who the gently caress am I with my tiny little primate brain to be totally certain of that? Figuring out that answer for yourself and finding your own path to Allah (in the general sense, not trying to convert anyone here) is a huge part of life; in that I probably identify more with Sufi mysticism than mainstream Islam. I pray three times a day in consistency with what I think the Qur'an says, I fast during Ramadan when health allows, and someday I would like to go on the Hajj but as a single, disabled American woman I don't know how likely it is and in any case don't have anything near the money for it as of yet. I believe in the concept of wadat al-wujud (the oneness of Allah with creation, more poetically "the unity of being") rather than wadat ash-shuhud, the idea that Allah and what we know as existing are separate things. This particular debate is a huge part of Sufi metaphysics. I believe that ihsan (the struggle to become perfect in worship or faith by overcoming all doubts) is really one of the goals in life and that it includes doing good deeds and treating others well because you can't reach real serenity while being a dick. Sufism is, like Buddhism (and probably like most other "mystical" religious forms out there) about the journey and its manzil, the milestones along the spiritual path. I'm not sure how to perfectly answer what you asked so if there's something I muddled let me know. PT6A posted:Do you think that people who were raised Muslim in the context of a Muslim-majority culture have more leeway with regard to straying from orthodoxy than converts do? It amazes me, for example, that historically Muslim communities in Europe and Central Asia basically allow alcohol, but it's strictly forbidden in a lot of other Muslim communities. Do you feel like you'd catch more poo poo for something like that compared to, for example, a Bosnian muslim? How would you feel about it personally? That IS something that I've seen as well -- I've known a whole lot more zealous converts than I have zealous people who were born and raised in it, but I think that particular phenomenon is true for any religion or at least I've read about it in terms of Christianity as well. I have gotten much more poo poo about being "too Sufi and not Muslim" or about my beliefs on alcohol/drugs from rear end in a top hat zealous converts than people who were raised in it, who are generally more curious and laid-back. Admittedly, the Muslims I've known who were born/raised in it in Muslim-dominant countries were from places like Turkey where there's a whole lot more secular influence than say, Iran. But from the stories I've heard and read, drinking is a huge part of life in the gulf states if you're wealthy and male. I'm mostly thinking about Saudi Arabia here and the other gulf states where oil wealth has created such a bloated upper class. My personal views on alcohol are that it's okay but as with anything that messes with perception you should be aware of when and how much you use it. Al-Baqara 219 in the Qu'ran states about wine and gambling that "In them is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit." Qur'anically speaking, leaving out the hadith and sunnah, I believe that it's okay but you're not going to live the best life that way. Another surah, An-Nisa 43, advises that people should "Approach not prayers with a mind befogged, until ye can understand all that ye say," which I think applies to regular life as well. It just seems logical to me. Being piss drunk or constantly high is no way to get poo poo done. Moderation is key. I smoke marijuana now and then because it gives me a break from the constant background level of anxiety that I have, but I am scrupulously loving careful not to do it before prayer or anything like that and also that I don't let it get out of hand but that's... practical life tips, more than anything else. So basically my personal belief is "It's not specifically forbidden in the Qur'an but the Qur'an (and general life experience) says that you'll probably be a better person if you use it moderately or ideally not at all so work on that." EDIT: Actually this blog post explains it well and includes more verses than I remembered, also goes into the actual Arabic use of the term "forbidden" so more in-depth than what I talked about. The author also makes a comment in the response area that made me start thinking: "The Hadith did to Islam what the First Council of Nicaea did to Christianity." Tendai fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 15:19
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There are a number of fairly good ones out there these days, but my own preferred translation is The Noble Qur'an: A New Rendering of Its Meaning in English translated by Abdalhaqq and Aisha Bewley. The translation by Yusuf Ali is probably one of if not the most well known English translations, I also have that and I think it was the first one I read. It's probably somewhat daunting to a lot of people but I really do recommend reading more than one translation side by side if you're really interested. Like compare the Bewley translation with Interpretation of the Meanings of the Noble Qur'an that was translated by Muhammad Muhsin Khan and Muhammad Taqi-ud-Din al-Hilali and is the version that the Saudi government officially promotes. Tendai fucked around with this message at 21:12 on Sep 23, 2015 |
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Sep 23, 2015 21:09
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Huh, interesting. I really had no idea about there being a particular "set-up" for it in Shi'a practice because of the historical persecution before thrakkorzog mentioned it, thank you for getting into it a bit deeper. History and stuff like that is more than welcome in the thread so please do bring up anything if you find it of interest.
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Sep 24, 2015 03:03
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Kaislioc posted:Forgive me if this comes off as completely misinformed. When I first converted in uhhh 1998 or 1999, what I read online and in the books I got said that "The Qur'an when translated into something other than the original Arabic cannot be called the Qur'an but only an interpretation or translation thereof" and that seemed to be more or less the standard line. In searching tonight looking for more about that argument, it seems from the search results that that may no longer be the case. I find a reference to the argument in the preface of a translation done in 1997 talking about how the general belief is that "the Quran is only the Quran if it is in Arabic." To be honest, I'm surprised that I'm pulling up as little as I am in searches. Maybe it's not a hotly-debated topic anymore or maybe I'm not using the right terms. I actually kind of agree with it only in the sense that any translated work is going to lose meaning because there is no perfect translation between languages. Like one word that I saw pointed out in a vaguely related search result, sabr. It can be translated as "patience." Or "endurance." But really it's more like "continuing to try even when the odds look slim. It's like an active form of patience." So neither "patience" nor "endurance" work perfectly or carry all the necessary connotations but the "well it's sort of like this and this" isn't a manageable way to translate anything. So the best way to get the meaning is to learn the language. Failing that, comparing multiple translations and reading opinions is the way to go. I do not know a lot of Arabic aside from having memorized what I guess you could call Standard Muslim Stuff (parts of the Qur'an for prayer, phrases, that sort of thing). It's something I'd like to learn but something that takes a lot of commitment to learning; I'd love to get in on a summer intensive somewhere but those tend to cost more money than I have and more time than I can take from work. Tendai fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Sep 24, 2015 |
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Sep 24, 2015 06:39
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This is gonna be a long post so SORRY IN ADVANCE.Quovak posted:Is there a Muslim analogue to the (far from universal) Christian ideas of spiritual warfare, demon possession, etc? More generally, could you talk about the role of Satan in Islam? Judaism (especially Job) seems to place him more neutrally as the prosecutor in God's courtroom, while Christianity tends to elevate him to God's adversary. How do you feel about those interpretations? quote:Behold! We said to the angels: “Prostrate unto Adam”: They prostrated except Iblis (Satan): He said, “Shall I prostrate to one whom Thou didst create from clay?” He said: “Seest Thou? This is the one whom Thou hast honoured above me! If Thou wilt but respite me to the Day of Judgment, I will surely bring his descendants under my sway – all but a few!” (17:61&62) And weirdly, Allah gave it to him. quote:Iblis (Satan) said: “O my Lord! Give me then respite till the Day the dead are raised.” Allah said: “Respite is granted thee till the Day of the Time appointed.” (15:36) However, Allah limited him to persuasion, not action, in trying to get mankind to turn bad. Still, the fact that it is specifically mentioned that he asked and Allah gave has always struck me as odd. In any case, Islam views temptation and that sort of thing as coming from inside the person rather than an outside force -- Satan is just there to nudge people along, so to speak, rather than put the idea in their head. It all comes back to a much more internal struggle which is how I've tended to interpret the idea of Satan as a whole; rather than being an actual being, to me it refers to the things around me (and in my own head) that exert a negative influence and encourage the negative traits in myself. The exchanges between Allah and Satan are actually kind of fun to read for me because Allah puts a punk bitch in his place  quote:Allah said: “Get thee down from this: it is not for thee to be arrogant here: get out, for thou art of the meanest (of creatures)." If that's not the Classical Arabic version of "motherfucker, you aren't poo poo, now get the gently caress outta my face" I don't know what is. So the answer to your question about the role is that it's not quite either one of the things that Christianity or Judaism believe, but has elements from them. Satan is not an all-powerful figure, just one that can exploit already-existing weaknesses. But he also isn't a neutral figure, he's an rear end in a top hat who wants to see mankind fail simply out of spite. Quovak posted:Do you wear a hijab? What do you think about those who do (if you don't) or don't (if you do)? Quovak posted:Since you identify as more liberal, but still have a strong connection to the religion, could you share your thoughts about things like Everybody Draw Muhammad Day? Quovak posted:Finally, could you talk about what you imagine the value of the Hajj is, and what you would expect to get out of it? I don't mean that to sound snide! I remember a thread from a few years ago about the Hajj, and the OP's glowing review of it and its spiritual value has stuck with me, so I'm curious to hear another take from somebody who hasn't done it yet. Then there's the spiritual side. The act of setting out on a pilgrimage has been a huge part of most religions because it implies effort, time, money and a certain devotion to ones faith; basically a way of physically demonstrating it to ones creator (as well as other people but that shouldn't ideally be the focus). For me the Hajj is something that I would do when I finally reached the point where I felt like I had answered all the questions I had for and about Allah, the capstone to my study so to speak. What I would expect to get out of it for lack of a better term is a sense of serenity and nearness to Allah. (Baron I am going to answer your question too but it's been like half an hour and my breakfast is cold so, in a bit)
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Sep 24, 2015 15:00
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Okay welp turns out my cat wants to be a poo poo and not let me eat anyhow so here goes.Baron Porkface posted:Is there more sophistication to the Hidden Imam other than "guy turns invisible and also immortal; you'll have to take our handful of servants' word for it."
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Sep 24, 2015 15:14
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To start out with if you're looking for more of a historical rundown or a list of schools or anything I would check the Wikipedia article; again said with no shitheady "just google it" intention because it's actually a pretty decent rundown. If you want to get even deeper, al-Bauniyyah's "The Principles of Sufism" as translated by Homerin is probably a good book. Second, this is a difficult topic to discuss. Not because it's emotional or anything, but it's really hard to simplify and explain things without then having to explain more things. I'm going to do my best! Anyhow. Sufism is properly called ta'sawwuf, the term "sufi" and related terms came from Orientalists who wanted the sexy, mystical side of Islam without the pain in the rear end poo poo like having to believe it and tried as hard as they could to separate the two. However since that's the general term used in English I will be sticking with it. There are generally two kinds of Sufism. One is about as real as the people who claim to study the Kabbalah without having to mess around with all that silly Jewish nonsense, the other is simply esoteric, mystical side of Islam. I will be referring to the latter obviously. As with other groups in Islam, the various Sufi groups tend to believe that they are the ones who hold the true form of Islam; at the same time, they are generally still identified as Shi'a or Sunni. Mostly the latter with some exceptions for the Ismaili Shi'a and various other groups. Within Sufi thought itself, things get even more divided up into various schools or orders (tariqahs). Both are used fairly interchangeably in English. The most well-known order in the west is probably the Mevlevi order in Turkey, the "whirling dervishes." They descend from Rumi, who people might also know through the translation of his poetry. The "flavor" of Sufi orders generally depends on where they originated. There are a lot of them so I can't really give detailed info on all of them and also I don't know about all of them so there's that. Some orders go back centuries, some are the last hundred years, and they range in viewpoints on all kinds of topics. The "what is Sufi" is... agh this is where it gets hard. It's the outer vs. the inner. If Sharia is meant to guide the outer life, Sufi practices are meant to focus on the inner. And now we get into what I mentioned with one thing leading to five more explanations because I have to explain batin and zaher. Batin translates as "inside" and refers on a small scale to the hidden meaning in the Qur'an and on a larger scale to the inner reality or inner meaning behind everything -- all of existence. In Sufi traditions, batin also refers to the inner self. The batin of a man is "the complex of emotions which stir his soul," according to 13th century scholar Ibn Taymiyyah. The opposite of batin is zaher, which refers to the evident meaning or the literal world. The obvious things like the physical world that we take at face value as existing are zaher. Sufi philosophy is overwhelmingly focused on the batin while at the same time being focused on ihsan, attaining the perfect worship. The closest analogue I can think of is the state of being a buddha, reaching that kind of perfect balance but even that I'm not sure if it has the right connotations. Ihsan is one of three parts to Islam, the other two being islam and iman. Islam in this sense refers to the things one SHOULD do. Iman refers to WHY one should do them. Ihsan, "perfection," refers to the intention behind doing them. Traditional Islamic theologians focus much more on iman than ihsan and that's one of the things that separate Sufi scholars. The state of reaching ihsan is not only spiritual however, it also refers to being a muhsin, a person who does good (literally, what is beautiful). So it's also about how you deal with those around you and not just your inner parts. Gratefulness, charity, civility, all play their parts. Anyone who claims to be a muhsin and is a raging shitlord is not. Actually anyone who claims to be one probably isn't anyhow, as ego is not really smiled upon. Needless to say I am not even loving close, but it's all about the journey and the discovery and getting as close as one can. So getting back to your actual question, that is the main difference. Ultra-conservative Muslims may drat all people who are part of any Sufi order or teaching (I'm not aware of any that do, even the traditionalists are okay with at least some of the most traditional orders to my knowledge. Could be wrong though), but generally the reaction is going to depend on which order you're talking about and who you're talking to. The liberal Chishti are generally going to be frowned upon by more people than, I don't know, the Mevlevi or Alevi. I hope that even remotely answers your question without just giving too much knowledge. And thank you! Eid Mubarak, you magnificent sons of bitches.
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Sep 24, 2015 22:11
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I am off to bed and then out of town for a day and a half or so but will answer all the questions just posted and any others when I get back (didn't want you to think I was ignoring you)
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Sep 25, 2015 08:03
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Hi sorry I lied and have a couple hours before I have to go, so here goes.hobbez posted:Are you familiar with Sam Harris? If so, what are your perspectives on his views? Is his characterization of the state of Islam relatively accurate in your estimation? I recently read Reza Aslan's book Zealot and have been reading up on his rivalry with Harris, so I came here to seek some further perspective. Do you find Aslan to be as unbiased and scholarly in his discussions of Christianity and Islam as he says he is? I am hitting you with a lot of questions, but it's a topic of interest to me at the moment. I also don't see what the gently caress he wants to have happen, exactly. I had the same problem with the FEMEN protesters in France a week or two back who went into the Islamic conference topless and busted onto the stage. "Thing is bad" is all well and good, and while I don't expect any one person to magically fix the problem, simply standing around and saying "thing is bad" gets absolutely nothing loving done. Does he want Islam to be more progressive? Cool, I do too, and I'm working on that as much as I can, while he seems to just bitch about it. Does he want Islam to be destroyed? That is a stupid and unrealistic goal. This isn't even a problem with criticism of Islam or of religion as a whole, it's just something that bugs me about anyone who shouts the sky is falling but doesn't pause to see if they can help fix it. Maajid Nawaz, who he's writing Islam and the Future of Tolerance with, is one person who's actually offering suggestions as to how to curb radical jihadism and things of that sort. I have a lot more respect for someone like that than someone like Harris who just seems to be complaining. I haven't read Zealot but I have read Reza Aslan's book No God But God and enjoyed it; it's a really good look at the modern, liberal Muslim take on our own history and such. However, I agree with some critics that at times he took his own interpretations of feelings and things that he thinks historical people would have felt a little too far for the sake of readability. Overall though, especially to readers who aren't Muslim and don't have much knowledge about Islamic history, it's a book I'd recommend because it's generally accurate and also interesting to read, whereas a lot of books on religious history are boring as poo poo. I kind of wandered a little in that response so I hope it's not too rambling and that it makes sense. waitwhatno posted:What's the view of Christianity and Jews in Islam? Why do Jews get preferential treatment, but Christians don't? quote:"And argue not with the People of the Scripture unless it be in (a way) that is better, save with such of them as do wrong; and say: We believe in that which hath been revealed unto us and revealed unto you; our God and your God is One, and unto Him we surrender." (29:46) quote:"Those who believe (Muslims), and those who follow the Jewish (scriptures), and the Christians and the Sabians,- any who believe in God and the Last Day, and work righteousness, shall have their reward with their Lord; on them shall be no fear, nor shall they grieve." (2:62) (As an aside, the Sabians are still as far as I know kind of a historical mystery as to who exactly they were) But anyhow, you see what I mean about the Qur'an. As far as I can think of there's no scripturally-mandated difference between Judaism and Christianity; I'll look like a dumbass if I'm wrong I imagine but I genuinely can't call anything to mind. As for your second question, the answer is kind of an interesting one. There are a few groups, mostly confined to Africa and specifically Nigeria I think. I don't know much about them but I know they're kind of off the beaten path from both religions in terms of writing new scripture and things so I'm really not sure. Other than that I can't think of any. Din-i-ilahi is like this but it was Islam and Hinduism and was more a political effort by the Mughal emperors in India during the 16th century to get people to stop hating each other for being different religions by just making one new one that merged the major ones in the area. Tendai fucked around with this message at 15:54 on Sep 25, 2015 |
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Sep 25, 2015 15:47
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Flagrant Abuse posted:I asked this in the GBS thread but never got a reply, so: Tell me about Ibadis and Ahmadiyyas, the sects everyone always forgets about. The Ahmadiyya came from India at some point during the British colonizing it, 1800s sometime I think. A guy claimed to be the mahdi/messiah and unlike most groups where someone claims to be the messiah (in any religion), they didn't splinter after he died. If I remember right, they're more closely aligned in terms of beliefs with the Shi'a rather than the Sunni, but generally orthodox Muslim schools consider them to not be Muslims. I'm not sure if they're still centered in India or if they spread, I know that they were really one of the first Muslim groups to have a big presence in the UK. This is one of those areas where I probably should know more than I do, sorry  Mathematics posted:[Edit] Never mind, sorry. I need to be a little bit careful about what I say on the internet regarding this topic due to my geographical situation.
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Sep 27, 2015 02:30
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Flagrant Abuse posted:A more substantial question: What's the process for officially converting? Is it just "say so on the census," or is there a test, or do you talk with an imam, or what? Religious conversion in general from one faith to another (instead of just to a different branch of the same faith) is very interesting to me. 1) Say the shahada 2) Congratulations  As far as I know, that is the case for pretty much every major Muslim sect. If I'm wrong I hope someone corrects me. It's often a smart thing to talk with an imam just to get more knowledge but I converted without it because there were none (small Alaskan fishing towns are not noted for their vibrant Islamic cultural life) and it isn't by any means required. As for being a PRACTICING Muslim after that, that's when you get into the five pillars and the like. But as for a formal conversion process, that's it. If you're asking me, personally? I'm cool. Every Baha'i person I've ever met (admittedly that number is like, four) has been chill as hell and really cool. One of my favorite elementary school teachers was Baha'i. My view on other religions (and on my own) is "as long as you're not hurting anyone else because of it, believe whatever you want." Tendai fucked around with this message at 07:11 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 07:07
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PT6A posted:This has always been my understanding too, but I'm curious if there are any groups that require more than that (such as saying the shahada in front of the community or an imam... theoretically, that shouldn't be an issue. One specific issue that I've always been curious about is: for immigration purposes, and for visiting Mecca and Medina, how does Saudi Arabia judge one's muslimness? Is it just a matter of declaring that you're a Muslim, or do they want a reference from an imam or something like that?  https://saudiembassy.net/services/hajj_requirements.aspx Edit: A NOTARIZED letter from the necessary male relative. For fucks sake. Tendai fucked around with this message at 07:35 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 07:30
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PT6A posted:In your opinion, do you feel like "Saudi Arabia is loving crazy" is a sufficient excuse to not do the Hajj? Obviously it's a matter of personal conscience, but given the disasters that have happened this year, and in other years, and the fact that Saudi Arabia observes a particularly hard-line version of Islam as compared to many of the Muslims in the rest of the world, I think I'd still have reservations about going there even if I were an observant Muslim. I actually am not sure if there's any kind of automatic lineage. Like I believe in Judaism anyone born of a Jewish mother is automatically considered a Jew by most groups? The general consensus that I'm seeing online seems to be "either you say the Shahada or you're raised in it in which case you'll have said the Shahada multiple times anyhow." It reconciles for me in the way that it says; there should be no compulsion. If someone comes to Islam it should be of their own free will, and people who try to ignore that make me a mix of angry and sad, I don't think there's a good one-word way to describe it. As much as I get angry about what groups like ISIS and ultra-conservatives do, I'm sad in the same amount because what they do colors all of us and takes something that I consider to be an integral part of my life and shits on it. Tendai fucked around with this message at 07:56 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 07:52
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Per posted:Related to the Hajj, as I understand it wahhabism doesn't consider Shias to be True Muslims. Why then are they allowed into Mecca?
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Sep 27, 2015 17:41
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Let's talk about Rumi, since in the course of going through some books today I stumbled across some of the translations I have and remembered why he drew me into studying Sufism in the first place. Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (Also translated as Jellaludin and about fifty other ways, the Rumi is the important part) was a 13th century Islamic scholar/poet/mystic/jurist/Sufi. He's known primarily for two things: Being the founder of the Mevlevi Sufi order (the whirling dervishes) and writing poetry. He started out as a scholar/jurist but when he met the dervish Shams-e Tabrizi, he embraced a more ascetic, mystical search. Shams was killed four or five years after they met, possibly by Rumi's own son, and Rumi grieved intensely. From that came the Diwan-e Shams-e Tabrizi, one of if not the most famous books of Islamic poetry. Rumi himself died about thirty years after, give or take five years. His poetry and writings have influenced not just Mevlevi but Sufi thought as a whole in parts, particularly his works that touch on the concept of tawhid. --- A brief explanation break: Tawhid is hard to explain but it's kind of monotheism+++ and the single nature of Allah. Similar to the Jewish concept of Yahweh and Christian Unitarianism. But it implies sort of more than that in a way; Allah is an absolute in everything that exists or doesn't exist. In Sufism tawhid encompasses the search for purification and unity, it ties into what I mentioned previously about ihsan and batin/zaher. --- Rumi's poetry is overwhelmingly about his attempt to reconnect with Allah on a deep level and they are often, simply, love poetry. As are his poems focused on Shams. The following are translated by Coleman Barks: quote:Don't go anywhere without me. quote:A moment of happiness, And finally, a line that is particularly pointed: quote:If you're not building rooms where wisdom can be freely spoken, you're building a prison. Tendai fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Sep 27, 2015 |
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Sep 27, 2015 18:35
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I haven't seen that but now I'm going to track it down so thank you!
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Sep 28, 2015 04:58
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Per posted:I get that part, I'm just wondering why the Saudi state lets them into Mecca/Medina in the first place. I mean, typically they don't want non-Muslims there, and if the Wahhabi clerics say Shias aren't muslims... Shbobdb posted:It's more of a beautiful coming together of Muslims from all over the world. Plus, walking through the desert is loving brutal and it takes a particular kind of rear end in a top hat to start a fight when they are that exhausted. waitwhatno posted:This is a great thread, thanks for all the answers! Well, "how much is known" depends on who you listen to. Historically-speaking there are some basics that Muslim and non-Muslim historians tend to agree on, like the details of his life and things like that. As for his personal views, that's where the hadith and sunna come in. And there are enough of both of them that if you look at them as a whole, they'll contradict each other and you can kind of pick and choose. The earliest biography of him was written around 800 CE, and the general feeling that I'm seeing among historians is that books like it are generally pretty decent for historical detail but when it gets religious... depends on who's writing it. He's only mentioned four or so times in the Qur'an but it is not a narrative history in nearly the same way that the Bible is so... So the answer is no one really knows, but most sects and schools of thought think they know and what they think depends on which hadith they view as legitimate. I can't even really say what I personally think of him because my religion does not in any way cancel out my history background so I'm not going to base that poo poo on stories that often have a VERY clear motive in presenting what they think is The Right Kind of Islam. Religiously I've always seen him as someone exceedingly human; there is nothing divine about Muhammad. In the hadith, even if I don't pay much mind to them, it's clear that he's a person and not a super-being -- he laughs with his wives, he gets mad at them, he gets irritated at his followers, he loves his cat. One of my favorite examples of this is when he is first receiving revelations and he runs to his first wife, Khadija, who was older than him and more or less supporting him (she is the example of an independent, strong Muslim woman) freaking the gently caress out like I imagine anyone would. She covers him with a blanket and basically tells him "hey, it's gonna be okay" and is generally an incredibly strong, supportive figure. It just, to me, illustrates the humanity of Muhammad. He was loving terrified so he ran to his wife. It's the most basically human thing to me. Khadija is actually an interesting figure in a lot of ways. She ran her own trading company and was a successful woman in her own right, and when they got married it was her who proposed and not him. Muhammad didn't marry any other wives until after Khadija died, they had been married for about 25 years. She was really the lynchpin of early Islam; she ransomed early Muslims from other groups, fed the community and was all-around a pretty incredible woman. So when extremists scream about women needing to be in the home... yeah. The first Muslim woman was an independent, intelligent businesswoman who Muhammad respected deeply so shut the gently caress up. The last question you have is a pretty big topic so I'll probably just cover the basics. The history of early Islam is really pretty fascinating even to someone like me, whose historical studies background is in Russia and North Korea. Muhammad's revelations came in the last 20 years or so of his life so this wasn't a birth-to-death thing. Early Muslims did not have an easy time, you might have seen the Hijra mentioned. That's the journey Muhammad and the early Muslims made to get away from Mecca (which was not Muslim-controlled) where they were in mortal danger. They traveled to Medina, which is another holy site in Islam for that reason. Medina is kind of where Islam uhhh... formalized. Things got set down. Probably because they had a moment to relax because no one was trying to kill them. Again, here is another way where the extremists gently caress it up (in my opinion). The first multi-religious Islamic state was set up in Medina and had a constitution that explicitly included them all in foreign policy and other government. Copying from Wikipedia, these are the specific rights it guarantees non-Muslims: quote:The security of God is equal for all groups. In terms of other reforms, I know it made some changes in slavery (made it less harsh and also made it more difficult for a non-slave to become a slave), and a lot of them for women (how much is debated, but I haven't found a historian who simply denies it yet), and children. Women really benefited in inheritance law and children, it's interesting, benefited from the rejection of what early Muslims saw as the Judeo-Christian idea that they're the property of their father. When it was founded, Islam was a remarkably progressive philosophy, kind of like how early Christianity was with its acceptance of "dirty" people like prostitutes and slaves. Christianity has been rather better, as a whole, at adapting to the modern world however, which is probably as much political and historical as anything else. I don't think you can ever study religion without studying actual, un-biased history or you're just getting half the story. I don't know if I've answered enough or if I've touched on what you're interested in -- early Islam and reforms are a pretty huge topic and I am not in any way a scholar of Muslim history. If there's something you wanted to know about that I missed just let me know! EDIT flakeloaf posted:Shia Muslims make up about 40% of the population. You don't tell a group that size that they can't obey a pivotal fard without generating inconvenient amounts of instability. I don't pretend to understand the interplay between the Wahabis and the House of Saud, but I imagine the royal family has enough pull to stop the clerics from making their lives difficult by doing something so drastic. Tendai fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Sep 28, 2015 |
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Sep 28, 2015 15:04
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That is true. Add that to the history of the Middle East and you do get a fairly explosive (ha) result.
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Sep 28, 2015 15:44
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Flagrant Abuse posted:What's your opinion on the "72 virgins" thing? Do you think it's an accurate translation, or do you hold the view that it's supposed to be read as "72 pure people" or "72 of a particular kind of grape" as some scholars believe?* My personal take on it is that it's an effort to put the idea of Paradise into a way people of that time could understand. Not just one woman to gently caress (or grape to eat or pure person to hang out with) but a fuckton of them, right? I don't imagine it's anywhere near what the reality of what happens after death is (whatever that might be), but it's hard to introduce a new way to people by saying "Hey, you know death? Well... after that, it's pretty fuckin' cool. I can't really describe it to you or anything because you can't understand it. But it's pretty fuckin' cool." That is not going to win out against constant boning.
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Sep 28, 2015 23:01
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Lassitude posted:Given how dating/romance usually work over in the West, is it difficult to date given the stipulations about unwed girls being alone with males who aren't relatives? I inquired in a previous thread about Islam and what I heard was that the modus operandi for Muslims is usually to have potential wives/husbands arranged by family and chaperoned. What do you do as someone whose family is not Muslim? Seriously though! I haven't ever bothered much with that. The prohibition on that is more or less hadith-based. The Qur'an demands modesty and that sort of thing but the prohibitions on women being alone with men who aren't in the "you can't marry these dudes" category is pretty soundly based in the hadith unless I'm forgetting a verse somewhere. This is the closest I can really get to the idea that I remember offhand and even looking up topics in a couple areas, in terms of the Qur'an: "...and when you ask women for an article, ask for it from behind a curtain; this is a purer way for your hearts and theirs." (33:53) Fairly ambiguous, at least in the English translations I've read. In actuality it hasn't been an issue for a couple reasons, one of which it's pretty hard to date as a dwarf in a society that doesn't find cripples sexy (not that I know of any that do, but you get what I mean). I've had some relationships but none of them have lasted, a few due to my poor self-esteem at the time, a few due to normal "it just didn't work out" reasons, and the last one due to his having seven cats and no ambition. I trust myself not to get all stir-crazy and start fuckin' any dude who hands me anything. I'm of the mind that self-control is better than prohibition and that things like that are directed more towards people who can't manage it, same as I feel about alcohol and drugs. TheHoosier posted:How do you feel about the Nation of Islam and deification of Wallie Fard? I've always thought the history of NoI to be very interesting, especially with their disappearing leader and his subsequent ascension to Allah status, which i'm sure can't sit well with other Muslims.
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Sep 29, 2015 00:39
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The cat's asleep! It's time for a post! Let’s talk a little bit more about tawhid (and by extension Islamic/Sufi metaphysics) since it’s possibly the most important defining concept in Islam and deserves more of the brief definition and mention I made of it. At its most basic meaning, tawhid refers to the absolute monotheism of Islam. La ilaha illa-llahu, there is no God but God, is the first part of the Shahadah, the declaration that makes a person a Muslim. It is the spiritual foundation of the entire faith. There is no divine or semi-divine figure like Christ, there is no one who shares the attributes of Allah. I can’t think of any Islamic school or sect that specifically doesn’t believe in that but otherwise practices Islam in every other way. So on a basic level, tawhid is the concept of Islamic monotheism. Get deeper than that, however, and you start to get into questions of existence and philosophy, which is where it gets fun if you’re a big dork like me. On a larger scale it refers to the sense of Allah being absolute and uninfluenced by existence. And now we get to touch on metaphysics and philosophy. Metaphysics in Islam is concerned in a large way with the argument of essence vs. existence. Most if not all metaphysics are in some way related to this, but it’s a particular focus in Islam. If you’ve studied philosophy, the concepts are probably familiar to you because Plato and other influential philosophers dealt with them. Essence in this case refers to the properties or attributes that make a thing what it is. The example I’m about to use is hugely simple and not technically true (you could take all of them away) but I think it kind of shows what I mean in a way that’s easy to understand: A bird is a bird because it has wings, feathers and a beak. If you take those away, it is no longer a bird. Thus, the essence of a bird and what makes it “bird” is the wings, feathers and beak. Like I said, it’s not perfect but it gets the point across. Existence is somewhat simpler. It means things (there is probably a better word than “things” but I can’t think of it just now) that exist without requiring the presence of something else. Okay, maybe that’s not simpler. In the sentence “I saw a statue over there,” it’s the statue over there that’s the focus of existence. The fact that you’re looking at it is not causing it to stand there, it would be standing there if you weren’t there. Probably an imperfect example but it gets the idea across. Islamic metaphysics deals with how we perceive the existence and essence of Allah, basically. In mainstream Islam, it is generally (to my knowledge) held that Allah is separate from His creation. Essence before existence, basically. Allah is Allah and would be Allah even if what we know as existing didn’t exist. Sufi metaphysics (depending on the school) tends to view it as more a matter of essence with existence; they’re tied together and one cannot separate Allah from creation. You may remember me mentioning wadat al-wujud and wadat ash-shuhud in an earlier post. These concepts tie directly into the Sufi (again, to what amount depends on the school and other variations, this will go without saying from here on) concept of tawhid. There are two major lines of thought. Wadat al-wujud is most poetically translated as “unity of being.” Depending on who you ask, either Ibn Arabi or Ibn Sabin was the father of the idea of wahdat al-wujud. From what I remember, Ibn Sabin tends to be viewed as the creator by those looking at history/proof, while Ibn Arabi gets mentioned in Islamic texts. The idea of wadat al-wujud is that everything that is, is a part of the divine reality. Allah is everywhere, simply. The creator cannot be distinguished from the creation because they are one thing, and anything else does not exist. The concept is based in Qur’anic verses like this one: quote:And to Allah belongs the east and the west. So wherever you turn, there is the Face of Allah. Indeed, Allah is all-Encompassing and Knowing. (2:115) Does this sound suspiciously…. liberal?  Plenty of other Islamic scholars think so. That’s where wadat ash-shuhud comes in. Ahmed Sirhindi was probably the most influential scholar in terms of defining the concept. It basically states that perceived unity between Allah and His creation is false, something that appears to be true only in the mind of the person who believes it. To followers of this concept, the concept of wadat al-wujud comes perilously close to sounding like pantheism. Allah is one, but not one with creation. On a simpler level, it can also be put like this: Wadat al-wujud holds that all existence derives from Allah, who is the only thing that possesses the state of Being, and thus everything in existence is in some small way part of the divine reality. Wadat ash-shuhud holds that Allah is not an actual part of what we consider existence, but a separate thing entirely. I wandered off a bit but I imagine you can see the connection to tawhid and how within Islam the concept differs between the various sects and schools. To be honest, I didn't end up where I intended to at the start but if I write much more it's gonna get ridiculous. At least I gave an idea of some of the complexities behind what is the fundamental idea behind Islamic divinity, I hope.
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Sep 29, 2015 16:31
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BattyKiara posted:Why are women placed at the back of mosques? If genders need to be separate during prayers, why not but men on the right and women on the left of a dividing screen or something? BattyKiara posted:I get that Islam doesn't allow paintings, but what about music? Or other types or art. Is there such a thing as Islamic art to show the glory of Allah? Islamic art goes back to the start of Islam. The kind of art people in the west are probably most familiar with is calligraphy and architectural work, particularly in formerly-Muslim parts of Spain. Calligraphy in particular is also used as a sort of spiritual exercise as well; a bit like how Russian ikon painters were/are believed to be merely the hand through which God works to make a holy image. Doing beautiful art of the 99 names of Allah, for example, is a pretty common theme. It's meant to show both devotion and to beautify the names of Allah. Other Islamic art includes painting, weaving, ceramics, glass, metalwork -- just about every medium available. There is a traditional prohibition among many people against depicting animate beings. I think a similar one exists in some forms of Judaism as well; it's basically seen as being a possibility for idol-worship so it's safest not to. This view is not unanimous. It tends to be the view of the more conservative groups. But there is also a pretty rich history of depicting humans in Islamic art and painting, especially from the Ottomans and Persians. The Persians particularly loved huge books of illustrated poetry. Here's one example from around 1500:  Even better, that big dude in the middle is Muhammad. ...  So the people who scream about people drawing Muhammad are ignoring the artistic history of their own religion, aside from just being assholes for hurting people for drawing something. Music is another area that's kind of like this. Conservatives say no, others say yes. The Qur'an talks about Allah giving the Psalms to David, and they're songs. My agreement has always come down firmly on the side of "music is good." I don't listen to it when I pray but that, like being totally sober during prayer, is more a matter of focus and respect. EDIT tl;dr: HEY GAL posted:it's difficult to overstate how much these guys love calligraphy
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Sep 29, 2015 17:27
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I'm ashamed to admit that I thought the prohibition was more wide-spread than it is, based on that article. Probably because no one's out there doing extreme poo poo to, I don't know, force people to draw Muhammad or whatever the opposite of assholes blowing them up for doing so is. Like I said, I'm not a member of any local community, but generally the Sufi are a bit more tolerant of that kind of thing. Music is actually used as a devotional tool in more than one sect. One of my go-to albums for writing is Thunder of Swords by Muhammed Celalettin Yüksel. Sufi trance, basically, with inspiration from Rumi and the like. It may not be to everyone's taste but check it out if you're interested, pretty cheap on Amazon mp3.
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Sep 29, 2015 17:43
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P-Mack posted:I was reading a paper about Hui (Chinese Muslim) ceremonies, and it mentioned a ceremony where they recite the entire Qur'an- by having 30 people each read a different chapter simultaneously and getting it done in half an hour. Is that commonly done in other parts of the world? Sounds pretty chill. BattyKiara posted:Thank you for interesting replies. But I was thinking more of if there is an Islamic version of things like psalms, plain song, or gregorian chant. You do not have to be a believer to admire the incredible art produced through church history. I've done a thread called ask me about being a dwarf and I'm relatively sure I answered questions about pooping so there is no such thing as too personal in A/T. And yes! The way my knees and hips all go together makes it impossible for me to kneel without pitching forward unless I hold onto something, much less do the proscribed prostration etc etc etc. This, amusingly enough, actually kept me from doing my conversion for about six months. I really kind of worried that if I couldn't do that it wouldn't count (I was sixteen, we're all dumb at sixteen). The thing that changed my mind was a picture in a news magazine or a book made by one of them (Time Life or somesuch) of what I think was a Hamas member praying. Maybe PLO. It's been 15+ years since I saw it. Something like that in any case. And he had been injured and couldn't kneel and they talked about him praying in a squatting position and that's when it drove into my head that duh, it's the intent and not the form. It's not like Allah doesn't know I'm a dwarf, and I'm fairly sure that hurling forward to concuss myself against the floor is less ideal than sitting or squatting to pray. You wouldn't skip a prayer in that case, you'd just guess and go with it. It's fairly easy to tell at least a general direction based on the sun if you don't know it already, isn't it? I don't have one of the special compasses or anything (I've even seen a gaudy, loving god-awful gold one aimed at people with more money than taste) so I approximate because I know where I am and where Mecca is, globally speaking. Tendai fucked around with this message at 00:21 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 00:13
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Fizzil posted:Hey thanks alot for this thread by the way, and yeah sorry about not finding out earlier that the intent is what counts, in general though "ina aldeen yusr wa lais usr" which can be translated as "religion is to be taken with ease and not difficulty" i think is the rule, if you face difficulty in practicing it then you're just creating unnecessary hardship on yourself when it should be taken with ease, although conservatives tend to translate this, or some people twist it into "oh hey if i bust my bones the rewards are better" which is wrong Fizzil posted:With regards to gender prayers, whats best if mosques were partitioned equally, it happens where i live but its not always equal. The women to the back thing is usually when there isn't a partition. There was a public prayer were women prayed in front of men during the protests in egypt in 2011 so i'm not really sure if a rule or just something cultural. As far as I can tell it's all pretty much based on interpretations of the hadith and sunna, and maybe a very liberal interpretation of 33:53. Very, very liberal. EDIT: If people are interested in more specifically Islamic music, there are a number of Sufi varieties. Qawwali, ayin (from the Mevlevi) and gazals are the ones that spring to mind, but I know there are more. Gazals are just Sufi as gently caress (to put it in a less than classy manner) because they deal with loss and love and beauty and connection. Tendai fucked around with this message at 03:21 on Sep 30, 2015 |
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Sep 30, 2015 03:15
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Being unemployed means my mornings have started to consist of getting up, feeding the cat, staring blankly at a screen for fifteen minutes and then writing a post about Islam because I have nothing but time and my brain is desperate for stimulation. So here we go again! Today we will be talking about... The two parts of faith This will be short and probably not as exciting as other bits if you're the kind of nerd like me who considers reading things like that exciting in the first place. Anyhow. There are two parts to the concept of faith in Muslim theology, sabr and shukr. Faith in Islam is not, at the deeper theological levels, simply a matter of believing. There's the implication of also being a good Muslim, for lack of a better term. I don't like that one because it has implications and arguments attached but it'll work. Islam is really focused on action and how one interacts with the world, not unlike the Christian concept that some denominations hold about man not being saved through faith alone but also works. Faith is an attribute not only about belief, but qualities a person possesses. Sabr I think I mentioned sabr earlier in this thread as I talked about translations. Yes, I did: Sabr can be translated as "patience." Or "endurance." But really it's more like "continuing to try even when the odds look slim. It's like an active form of patience." Obviously this is a quality that other people cultivate, too, not just Muslims. But it's a side of Islam that doesn't get a lot of press, possibly because people trying to be patient and tranquil is boring or more likely because people blowing poo poo up makes more of an impression. Anyhow, various Muslim scholars over the years have listed various aspects of sabr. Some of them apply them to Islam only and some apply them to interactions with the world as a whole. Here's a couple: quote:Khwajah abd Allah al-Ansari: "Sabr means restraining the self from complaint about hidden anguish." As with many sort of hard-to-define concepts like this in Islam, sabr plays a huge part in Sufi thought. One of the best write-ups I've found of how explicitely important it is to the Sufi mindset is from the same site I got the above quotes: quote:As long as a person feels inner anguish over the misfortunes and hardships of life, his ma'rifah (gnosis) of God remains deficient. When a person achieves contentment (rida) and satisfaction at the misfortunes and adverse conditions, his soul reaches a higher station of nearness to God. Sufi thought holds that sabr is an integral part of reaching the state of rida, it ties in to what I mentioned before about ihsan and that kind of thing. All of the attitudes encompassed within the idea (patience, resilience, endurance, resolve) are qualities that every muhsin attains and perfects. In the wider sense of Islam, it's used to refer to things like avoiding temptation, keeping up with the rules of Islam and that kind of thing. One of the hadith that I think is a good example of using them as a parable of sorts is the one where Muhammad says "Strange is the affair of the the believer, verily all his affairs are good for him. If something pleasing befalls him he thanks Allah and it becomes better for him. And if something harmful befalls him he is patient (sabr) and it becomes better for him." Every crisis is an opportunity, essentially. The next part of faith in Islam that I'll talk about is... Shukr If sabr is best translated in one word as "patience," shukr is best translated in one word as "gratitude." But again, here we find the whole thing about how a one-word translation for a concept this complex isn't going to cut it. But it's a good start. Obviously, gratitude to Allah is the most standard definition here, as shown through prayer and other forms of worship. But interestingly it can also be applied to Allah. My understanding of that is a little hazy but when used in that sense it seems to be referring to the response of Allah to creation? I'm not sure. This is a deeper area of Sufi/Muslim thought than I'd gotten into and one that I'll now be trying to find more about. On a wider level, particularly in Sufi thought, shukr is applied to the way one lives and interacts with the world around them. A "good Muslim" (agh that term) is somebody who not only thanks Allah for what's around them, but also the people through whom it's been introduced to them. It's more than just saying "thank you" though, it's about living your life in a state of gratitude through the trials that afflict everyone, whether they do or don't follow Islam. Like ibn Ishaq said, "There is no one that is not tested with health and prosperity to measure how thankful (shukr) he is." That quote illustrates how it ties in with sabr, how in Islamic thought gratitude and patience are closely tied together. The focus on this is one of the reasons that Muslims seem to say things like "Glory to God" and such so often in comparison to the average, say, Christian that one meets in the west. But scholars and religious sources are extremely clear that people who apply the theory only to Allah and not to everything are not doing it right. There's a really common proverb that says "he who does not thank his fellow man shows ingratitude towards Allah." If you've been reading what I've been writing in this thread, the connection to Sufi thought is probably painfully loving obvious by now. A muhsin, the person who has reached that state of what could be called Islamic buddhahood, is somebody who is constantly grateful. Not in a slavish sort of way, though. I think the best way I can put it is kind of being filled with wonder and delight at the whole of existence and thankful that you get to be a part of it and thankful to Allah for making you a part of it. There's an implied happiness in it in the schools of Sufi thought I'm familiar with that's really lovely. I remember reading a Bloom County comic way back in the day that discussed a someone who commented that the very fact of our existence should leave us in a state of perpetual awe. Considering my faulty memory and the passage of time, I might be remembering that entirely incorrectly, but the message remains the same. For me, that idea is essentially what shukr is when not an active thing. ~ Anyhow, this has been today's rambling post on Islamic theology and I hope at least one person found it interesting 
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Sep 30, 2015 15:38
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Flagrant Abuse posted:I think it sounds like a better word for sabr might be perseverance?
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Sep 30, 2015 18:34
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Oh cool, thank you! I didn't know about the differences in prayer that the Ibadis observe, or about the end of al-Fatihah. Or anything about their presence in the UAE! My knowledge of Islamic theology is probably a lot better than my knowledge of how it's practiced in places, unfortunately. I've always wondered about women in mosques, since it's not required of them anywhere that I know of I was always kind of curious how many actually did. Though I imagine it varies by place/economics/culture/etc etc like everything does. So Shi'a and Sunni are really that separated in day to day life? Wow. I think my experiences are somewhat colored by having met far more people through the internet because of where I've lived; the message boards and such I'd go to in 2000 and around then tended to have some of both and everyone was, at least, very good at pretending to be civil and not showing if they thought anyone else was a filthy heretic. Thank you again, it was really cool to get that insight.
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Oct 1, 2015 02:22
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anchorpunch posted:Aisha, married her when she was six, slept with her when she was 9. Then stuff like approval of slavery or murdering of scoffers, misogyny etc.... Sure all religions have questionable aspects, but how do you, especially as you are a convert, deal with your prophets most obvious shortcomings? I've always viewed Muhammad as intensely human; it's like the story I mentioned about him being poo poo-scared as the revelations started and running to Khadija all freaked the gently caress out. The reaction is so incredibly human because let's be honest, if I started hearing voices from on high I'd probably run to my mom all "I think I'm going loving crazy." Muhammad was the recipient of revelations but that doesn't make him any less human or any less prone to doing things that I think are wrong. The problem is the mindset that we as Muslims have to remain at the point of marrying nine year old girls to consolidate power and alliances, or wage violent war like we're being hounded like the early Muslims were in Mecca, solely to try to spread religion and get power. It goes against the Qur'an at its most basic, one of the most famous lines is "there shall be no compulsion in religion" from 2:256. It comes down to this idea for me: If Allah showed Himself to not be afraid of making changes that bettered society, why are we so scared of it? If something is kinder, if something is better to people, if something more fully embraces the welcoming side of Islam that is so rarely shown especially in the West, if something allows us to more perfectly show Allah's mercy to ourselves and those around us, it should be encouraged and not denied simply because "Muhammad did it like this." A lot of this comes down to the Qur'anist viewpoint (which is further separated into literalism vs. other interpretations) vs. the Hadith and Sunna, and the question that even scholars back in the 820s had about whether people were clinging too close to Muhammad's practices and not close enough to what the Qur'an said. cebrail posted:The problem with that argumentation is that it treats Muhammad like any other human being of his time. The question is why, of all the billions of people who have lived on this planet, someone chooses to follow the teachings of this exact one guy (which they do in 2015, not 700) when he did not live what you would consider a morally justifiable life. ashgromnies posted:You're doing a thing where you're expecting there to be an objective definition of a "morally justifiable life".
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Oct 1, 2015 14:40
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cebrail posted:Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Sunna seems to be a pretty central part of Islam to me? If it's not part of your belief then my question obviously doesn't apply to you. quote:A man came to the Prophet and said, ‘O Messenger of God! Who among the people is the most worthy of my good companionship? The Prophet said: Your mother. The man said, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man further asked, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your mother. The man asked again, ‘Then who?’ The Prophet said: Then your father. (as relayed by al-Bukhari) Or Muhammad was just a proto-goon making the world's earliest "your mom" joke. There's even something that corresponds more or less to the "golden rule" idea: quote:"None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself." Others are used to oppress women, do violence to people, and keep Islam in the metaphorical dark ages. Like any parables, which are again as close as I can think of to them in the other Abrahamic religions, they can be used to justify almost anything. Even more so when you're looking at them in translation. For me it comes down to Allah being perfect, but humanity not being perfect. That's not a bad thing, it's one of our charms and like I've mentioned before, the journey to try to reach that perfection or connection with Allah is essentially the main part of many Sufi practices. I don't think there's a nefarious purpose behind the hadith and sunna but I do think they're the actions of humans, relayed by humans, many if not all of whom had reasons for backing their positions up with stories about the practices and sayings of Muhammad and the early Muslims. In short, they can have good lessons and good points, but should not be treated as infallible religious dogma because they are the actions of people who are by definition not perfect. EDIT: A few more often-ignored-by-extremists hadith/sunna that I've always liked: quote:"The most complete of the believers in faith, is the one with the best character. And the best of you are those who are best to their women." quote:Aishah reported that she accompanied the Prophet in a travel when she was still slim. The Prophet told people to move forward and then he asked Aishah to race with him. They had a race and Aishah won. quote:"A person who goes in search of knowledge, he is in the path of God and he remains so till he returns." quote:"Facilitate things to people, do not make it hard for them; give them good tidings and do not make them run away." quote:"If you see a disputing, arrogant, and bigoted person, bear in mind that they are utterly lost." --- AND another edit because I just thought of this and people in here know things and might have the answer: In Islam, the search for knowledge is an obligation according to many scholars. It's pointed out in the Qur'an, it's pointed out in the hadith, it's basically a pretty unshakable tenet of the faith. In a lot of writings about it there's the implication that one isn't truly faithful unless they're trying to seek knowledge, and somebody who is, is seen as being a fuller practitioner of the faith: "A person setting forth for the acquisition of knowledge is like the one who struggles in the way of Allah." So my question is, is that onus applied in Christianity and Judaism as well? Obviously knowledge is a good thing, but the explicit nature of "learn about things and know things, shitlords, or you're not being as good a Muslim as you should" in Islam isn't something I remember from reading the Bible or what I've read about Judaism. I'm curious as to whether it's considered as essential a part of being a "good" member of the religion as it is in Islam. Tendai fucked around with this message at 15:21 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 15:03
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BattyKiara posted:Thank you for excellent replies. I've wanted to ask a few of these before, but whenever I ask muslims in real life they answer with some version of "You plan to convert, right? BattyKiara posted:On to my new questions! Hadith. Can you translate them to modern day? Say there was a hadith going something like "The Prophet told his friend so-and-so to let his wife keep her camel so she had a way to visit her aging grandfather". Could someone use this to argue that muslim women should be allowed a car since cars fill the roles of camels today? (I totally made up this example, hope that is OK) The problem remains the same as it is everywhere -- there are so many of them, and there are so many ways to interpret them in terms of the literal translation and then the larger meaning. So how it's applied to modern life depends on your branch of Islam, your sect, your culture, your personal views, and all that kind of thing. BattyKiara posted:Food. I know some animals are absolutely forbidden, like pigs. But what about animals no one in Arabia knew about in the 600s? Reindeer, kangaroo, bison, etc. Are they automatically legal food since they are not specifically forbidden? At least if they are correctly slaughtered? I follow roughly this idea, this is a simplification but it'll give you the basics: "Don't eat reptiles/amphibians, carnivores like lions or hawks, canines, primates, pigs or carrion-eaters. If you aren't sure, try to figure it out." None of those were particularly hard to give up at 15 or 16, I grew up in an Alaskan fishing town and we ate a lot of seafood more than meat. And I'm not particularly interested in eating lions or gorillas. The only thing I can really think that I kind of miss are bacon/lettuce/tomato sandwiches on home-made sourdough bread. While I can find decent halal pepperoni, I have yet to find anything that has the same bacony-ness in that sandwich. Here is a list of halal/haram foods according to the Hanafi school for an example of how incredibly specific it can be. They don't allow shellfish, others say just about anything from the sea is okay so long as it doesn't fit into a specifically-haram category. Then the arguing about how to interpret the category starts. This thread has made me realize that at times Islam is less a religion and more a very sustained argument Fizzil posted:You aren't wrong, Muhammed is referred to as a Messenger as opposed to prophet (rasul vs nabi) its an interesting point because you arent supposed to emulate him but rather follow the message that is delivered. Tendai fucked around with this message at 18:43 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 18:39
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No? Then why do you want to know? 
" I can see where they are coming from, but it makes it easier to simply not ask.
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cebrail posted:Of course it's fine to say "we like THESE ideas this person had, but not these other ones any more because we've moved beyond that societally" but that, as far as I know, would not be considered Islam by any major religious faction. That last part could be totally wrong, which is why I was asking it in the first place.  Like I commented previously in this thread, Sunni and Shi'a have any number of sunna and hadith that one group will consider valid and another won't, often because they dispute the reliability of this or that narrator. There are something like ten thousand hadith, not even counting the sunna, in Sunni theology alone. Some of these the Shi'a agree on, some they don't. From what I know, Shi'a are more likely to be generally distrustful of them because they have doubts about any collection or recording done by men, who are inherently fallible, being sahih. Sahih is a term I only know of in relation to studying the hadith, I've always seen it translated as "authentic" but it also carries connotations of being honest and other trustworthy characteristics in the sense of referring to the hadith and the people who recorded them and/or passed them down. There are strict Qur'anists who disregard the entirety of the hadith and sunna. The ones I've met have also tended to be pretty strict Qur'anic literalists which doesn't so much jive with how I think, so I don't consider myself an expert on the thought. There is always going to be a difference of opinion, and there isn't a black and white as to how they should be used either. It wasn't long after Muhammad died that Muslim scholars were having doubts about using them as dogma, this isn't a particularly new phenomenon. Like I said before, interpreting them for the passing of time is another area that's pretty much impossible to standardize as "this is what most Muslims believe" because there are too many people interpreting the meaning of too many things. inevitable edit goes below Looking back at my first post, I may have given the impression that I identify more with the strict Qur'anists than I actually do. I'm not a strict purist; rather, I disagree with the use of the hadith/sunna as infallible guides for Proper Muslim Life rather than stories which may or may not have good lessons to them. In my mind is always the thought that Muhammad and the people around him were speaking to people of that time, not this one, and while some ideas are timeless like some of the hadith I posted earlier, other things are not. Tendai fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 23:45
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comaerror posted:Hey there, OP. I don't really have a question, I just thought you'd like to know (if you didn't already) that the first purpose-built mosque in Alaska is nearly complete.
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Oct 2, 2015 04:06
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Amun Khonsu posted:I think we have to remember that the hadith began being written or collected into volumes nearly 200 years later. Naturally even the "Sahih" (Authenticated chain of narration (isnad)) will not be precise and differs from each other in the same volume or even between volumes from other Imams. It is the reason why the Qur'an (words of Allah) is the final authority on an issue and there is consensus (ijtihad) made among the scholars where the Qur'an doesn't directly address an issue of Shariah. Amun Khonsu posted:Im concerned about going anywhere in the middle east atmo. Rather not become cattle for the ISIS slaughter while trying to do something good and decent. I have a family that depends on me.  And I mean, as optimistic as I am about having probably 50-60 years left to live, I'm doubtful that the entirety of the political/religious/economic/etc shitstorm there will be fixed by then.Even if you leave aside the Hadith, even the Qur'an itself explicitly states there is no compulsion in religion. And the first actual Muslim state gave political and other equality to people of other religion, if they're looking at real world examples of how it was lived. Ugh, it just makes me mad on top of how horribly loving depressing it is. Then they destroy historical sites and it's the cherry on the angry cake. Flagrant Abuse posted:The way I've always seen the Hadith is like unofficial tie-in novels to a movie. Some of them might be pretty good, but a lot of them are probably bad and nobody'll really agree whether or not they're canon because the person who wrote the movie is dead. I can't think of an equivalent in Christianity, is there one? Like, Lutherans don't go "Martin Luther did this according to someone who knew him and so we will do this through time eternal." This is not specifically directed at Flagrant Abuse but at anyone who happens to know. I think Jewish law tends to be a bit more like this in terms of arguments about authentication and historicity and applicable meaning but I've only read a couple books where it's more or less mentioned in passing so I could really be not understanding it right.
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Oct 2, 2015 15:45
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I wasn't sure if I should ask general Christianity questions in there since it was focused on one particular type but I think I shall! I never really thought about it until this thread.
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Oct 2, 2015 16:27
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(A preface/disclaimer: I am not a Muslim scholar and do not read Arabic. All my statements are based on readings of multiple translations of the Qur'an and other reading that I've done by people who are scholars/jurists/etc. Also, all the Qur'an translations are from the Yusuf Ali version in this post unless otherwise noted)Positive Optimyst posted:I've been reading the Quran and hadith for several years on and off and have been trying to learn more about Islam. I think that the idea of the death penalty for apostasy is a wrong opinion based almost solely on the hadith and sunna as well as an extremely loose interpretation of certain Qur'anic verses as well as taking them out of what many scholars consider to be their Qur'anic and historical context in the main case that I can think of, talked about below. Is it condemned? Yes, as in every religion that I'm aware about condemns it in one way or another. But the Qur'an very specifically leaves any possible punishment for it up to Allah, not to mankind: quote:Any one who, after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief,- except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in Faith - but such as open their breast to Unbelief, on them is Wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful Penalty. (16:106) The assumption that things like this indicates that humanity should take up Allah's mantle is repugnant. As Fizzil said earlier, even Muhammad is called a messenger rather than the divinely-authoritative word prophet, and that isn't a translation error but a very specific thing that's a difference between two words. The idea that people like ISIS or any other group or person assumes they know just what Allah would do in that situation is beyond offensive to me and to many other Muslims. There are verses that do seem to indicate it but they are without exception (to my knowledge) verses that are interpreted by different people in different ways as to their meaning and intent: quote:They but wish that ye should reject Faith, as they do, and thus be on the same footing (as they): But take not friends from their ranks until they flee in the way of Allah (From what is forbidden). But if they turn renegades, seize them and slay them wherever ye find them; and (in any case) take no friends or helpers from their ranks. (4:80) It seems fairly overt but it's a pretty hotly contested topic. Conservatives who support the idea of death for apostates tend to isolate it and use it as an example of the Qur'an supporting the hadith and sunna. Other scholars, and these are the ones I tend to side with, tend to believe that in context with other verses and the historical association with what's being talked about, the verse is referring not to simple apostates but more specifically to people who leave Islam in order to side with people attacking them, either out of greed or cowardice, and who specifically take up arms against them. And the next verse seems to imply that as well by essentially saying "if they don't fight you, don't fight them.": quote:Except those who join a group between whom and you there is a treaty (of peace), or those who approach you with hearts restraining them from fighting you as well as fighting their own people. If Allah had pleased, He could have given them power over you, and they would have fought you: Therefore if they withdraw from you but fight you not, and (instead) send you (Guarantees of) peace, then Allah Hath opened no way for you (to war against them). (4:90) I am unsure of the nuances of the translation from Arabic to English but my interpretation of this based on the translations I've read and my own study and a whole fuckload of thought is that "withdraw from you" means both ceasing to fight on your side and, as 4:89 specifies, leaving Islam. Most of all, in my eyes, the idea that anyone should be in any way penalized for their own personal choices when it comes to their faith or lack thereof is a conflict with the verse at 2:256, which in every translation I've ever read is essentially the same in stating that religion must be something that comes from the individual and not an outside force: quote:Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things. I actually disagree with the death penalty in its entirety. This was an opinion I held before I converted and it's one that I feel is backed up Islamically-speaking by the multitude of verses that specifically give Allah alone the power of life and death. Much like I talked about above, people presuming to be the tool of Allah's will on Earth is beyond offensive, and to my mind presuming that you have the right to take the life of another is not only a matter of right and wrong but is, for me as a Muslim, a matter of not putting yourself on the same level as the creator you egotistical, grandiose fuckass (not you the person, the general you). We are imperfect. Even Muhammad wasn't perfect. The idea that we'd presume to justify having the institutional power to kill someone like we're all-knowing and all-seeing is ridiculous to me. That went on longer and got me more angried up (not at you but just in a vague, unfocused general sense) than I expected, so I'm sorry for the tl;dr rambling.
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Oct 3, 2015 00:57
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P-Mack posted:Only vaguely related, but the way the media reports on Islam rubs me the wrong way a lot of the time. They'll say things like, "Many Catholics oppose abortion," or "Jews have traditionally been required to avoid shellfish," or "The belief in reincarnation is widespread in Hindu areas," with standard journalistic weasel words. But with Islam it's "Islamic law requires women to wear headscarves," or"portraying Muhammad is blasphemous according to Islam," these very flat declarations portraying a monolithic belief system. This helps create a perception that a "moderate" Muslim is a Muslim who doesn't Muslim as hard as real rule-following Muslims do, as opposed to someone embracing and fully practicing a different but valid interpretation of Islam. It's not just right wing thing. Liberal outlets opposing, say, headscarf bans will operate from the same premise that these things are absolutely the hard and fast Rules of Islam, and differ only in how they feel about accommodating those Rules. They're usually the same ones who say "BUT THE QUR'AN SAYS DEATH TO SO AND SO YOU CAN'T PICK AND CHOOSE" then hand-wave away things like Leviticus talking about killing gays because that's different somehow. Motherfucker, if you're going to say I have to be a literalist, you better be one yourself. I still won't be, but at least you won't be a hypocrite. Tendai fucked around with this message at 02:04 on Oct 3, 2015 |
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Oct 3, 2015 02:01
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