Okay Sorry for the late reply?I did post on AT and was still here~ but sometimes I just need to stay away for a while and spend time in OT and other areas while I let myself relax; )
For these I?m simply going to address the first few?because once the pattern of what happens becomes obvious?well its obvious
By the way, you took a few ?shots? at Islamic Theology which I will refute.
?fight for Allah?
Here is a bigger chunk of that entire section.
YUSUFALI: Fight in the cause of Allah
those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.
YUSUFALI: And slay them wherever ye catch them,
and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there;
but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.
YUSUFALI:
But if they cease, Allah is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful.
YUSUFALI: And fight them on until there is no more Tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah;
but if they cease, Let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression.
YUSUFALI: The prohibited month for the prohibited month,- and so for all things prohibited,- there is the law of equality.
If then any one transgresses the prohibition against you, Transgress ye likewise against him. But fear Allah, and know that Allah is with those who restrain themselves.
YUSUFALI: And spend of your substance in the cause of Allah, and make not your own hands contribute to (your) destruction; but do good;
for Allah loveth those who do good
There is actually an even relating to this, that would be considered essential to the full understanding of this. However, Let us look at is as it is: a generic passage. Why do I say this? Because the terrorists who use this don?t look at the historical context and events of the time as it occurred.
If you read carefully it boils down to this:
respond with proportional force IF force is used against you. Simply no more, simply no less. This is what is repeated OVER and OVER again in the Quran, and is one of the most important messages (the most important message being that God is a SINGLE omnipotent force. Multiple Gods, or any idea based on that such as the trinity is explicity rejected).
Is this message realistic, is this message practical? Of course! This is what people follow, this is what people act. When Bin Laden bombed the WTC, we jumped into Afghanistan to grab his arse (but for other reasons we haven?t
)
From a Christian standpoint one should always believe ?turn the other cheek??the message that Jesus states in the Bible
is simply impractial and not a realistic message to live by in any means. No ?Christian Country? (proclaimed informally by elements of the population, or made official by the rulers) has ever followed these laws. They have been in line with more Islamic laws to respond with force. What they do though, is go beyond the dictated bounds: They will respond with overwhelming force of a thousand times magnitude, they will not just neutralize a threat but go and kill women and children and destroy all their livelihood?they will transgress the bounds set by God. We talk today about the ?rules of engagement? when the guideline has already existed.
Does this mean ?Muslim Countries? have followed these rules? NO! Very few countries even follow these rules because ?The state supercedes all?.
That and once cannot blame the doctorine of Christianity and Islam for the actions of countries that use the two religions simply as an easy way to rally people and support the nation. However ? the Islamic point of view is a much more realistic and practical method than the seemingly myopic Christian view.
When I was doing a google search for the Ayah so I could paste it here, I found this after writing what I wrote, which is interestingly enough very similar and addresses a further ?often claimed quotation? of the inherent terrorist aspects of Islam
http://islam.about.com/od/terrorism/f/terrorism_verse.htm
The Qur'an commands Muslims to stick up for themselves in a defensive battle -- i.e. if an enemy army attacks, then Muslims are to fight against that army until they stop their aggression. All of the verses that speak about fighting/war in the Qur'an are in this context.
There are some specific verses that are very often "snipped" out of context, either by those trying to malign the faith, or by misguided Muslims themselves who wish to justify their aggressive tactics.
For example, one verse (in its snipped version) reads: "slay them wherever you catch them" (Qur'an 2:191). But who is this referring to? Who are "they" that this verse discusses? The preceding and following verses give the correct context:
"Fight in the cause of God those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for God loves not transgressors. And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith. But if they cease, God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful. And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevails justice and faith in God; but if they cease, let there be no hostility except to those who practise oppression" (2:190-193).
It is clear from the context that these verses are discussing a defensive war, when a Muslim community is attacked without reason, oppressed and prevented from practicing their faith. In these circumstances, permission is given to fight back -- but even then Muslims are instructed not to transgress limits, and to cease fighting as soon as the attacker gives up. Even in these circumstances, Muslim are only to fight directly against those who are attacking them, not innocent bystanders or non-combatants.
Another similar verse can be found in chapter 9, verse 5 -- which in its snipped, out of context version could read: "fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)." Again, the preceding and following verses give the context.
This verse was revealed during a historical period when the small Muslim community had entered into treaties with neighboring tribes (Jewish, Christian, and pagan). Several of the pagan tribes had violated the terms of their treaty, secretly aiding an enemy attack against the Muslim community. The verse directly before this one instructs the Muslims to continue to honor treaties with anyone who has not since betrayed them, because fulfilling agreements is considered a righteous action. Then the verse continues, that those who have violated the terms of the treaty have declared war, so fight them... (as quoted above).
Directly after this permission to fight, the same verse continues, "but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them... for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful." The subsequent verses instruct the Muslims to grant asylum to any member of the pagan tribe/army who asks for it, and again reminds that "as long as these stand true to you, stand ye true to them: for God loves the righteous."
Any verse that is quoted out of context misses the whole point of the message of the Qur'an. Nowhere in the Qur'an can be found support for indiscriminate slaughter, the killing of non-combatants, or murder of innocent persons in 'payback' for another people's alleged crimes.
The Islamic teachings on this subject can be summed up in the following verses (Qur'an 60:7-8):
"It may be that God will grant love (and friendship) between you and those whom ye (now) hold as enemies. For God has power (over all things), and God is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.
God does not forbid you, with regard to those who fight you not for (your) faith nor drive you out of your homes, from dealing kindly and justly with them: for God loves those who are just."
Now using that as a base, you can go and read the others in their context. Maybe do a google to find out more information: places like ?prophet of doom? aren?t the best places for accurate information simply because they are interested in just one presentation of Islam: and that is posing it as a demonic religion as much as possible. It is places like these that take things out of context, and in more than one instance people have quoted parts from the Quran that simply don?t exist or go through ?interesting? translations. If you look back in my history there was an instance where I grabbed three different translations (as well as my own ability to speak Arabic?which isn?t perfect since I?m fluent in colloquial Arabic rather than classical Arabic) which were still different in a few key ways than what was posted.
Sorry if I didn?t go through each one?but I hope talking about the first in detail is enough to allow you to go and see the others for yourself.
Just delete those verse's from the Quran and everything is fine..see..it's easy....nothing left for the 'extremists' to latch onto...
I?ll discuss this more with yllus further below?but this comes from my OWN interpretation.
NOW- you gotta take way the incentive for these extremists..which is kinda hard because In Islam, there is no guarantee of salvation except in one instance, dying in Jihad. Jihad is the struggle, the battle against those who would oppose Islam are what Islam stands for. Please consider the following verses
Then, he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) heavy, 7 Will be in a life of good pleasure and satisfaction. 8 But he whose balance (of good deeds) will be (found) light,- 9 Will have his home in a (bottomless) Pit. (Surah 101:6-9)
In Islam, there is no assurance that the Muslim will be forgiven of his sins. As you can see, the Quran teaches a system of works righteousness. Therefore, no Muslim can ever know whether or not he has done enough good in order to please Allah. This is a burden that many Muslims do not like to bear.
If we can see that the Islamic system of salvation based upon works cannot guarantee salvation, but fighting in jihad can, and we could see why Muslims terrorists would be eager to die (and take others with them) for the cause of their religion. It is the only way they can be guaranteed paradise. It is this fundamental principle in Islam that encourages terrorism.,(<----Only to the extremists of course)
Here is where I pointedly disagree with you?.not based on the fact that are stated, but on your interpretation of them.
Almost nothing in this world is guaranteed. Right now, although HIGHLY improbable, I could have an anyuerism and rupture a vein in my circle of willis in my head because of the lack of support to the blood vessel. Will that happen? Most likely not. But anything is possible with the power of God ?Good? or ?Bad?
Side Note: God is Allah in Arabic. The reason why some Muslims use Allah in English is not because that is the ?name? of God?rather it comes from a desire to glorify and emphasize his singularity. In Arabic, every word desires from a verb~ thus you can have singular and plural forms of your word. The word ?allah? doesn?t derive from any verb?the closest would be something like ?ee-lah? which is more like ?lord?. The word Allah cannot be made ?plural? because it simply doesn?t exist. Therefore often you will see ?Allah? used in English to emphasize the singularity of God?since in English God can easily be made plural as Gods.
However, you make the level of uncertainty high, as it we Muslims are always struggling to ?keep pace?. In the Quran, like you said, it is a system based on good works where in the end our ?Hassanah? or ?good deed? will be compared with our ?say-ya-ah? or ?bad deeds?. Based on that, we will spend time in ?Jahanem? (Arabic for hell) before we eventually all proceed to ?Jannah? or Heaven. Note that when I say ?we? I mean the entire human race. This is not exclusive to Muslims~ and being Muslim simply adds loads of Hassanahs (insofar as I understand. When I see people teach that only Muslims go to heaven I see that coming form the Christian view that only believers in Christ as God as savior of our ?uncleanable? sins will send us to heaven and nothing else) and avoids a lot of the ?sayyahs? that come with being another religion (Christianity: belief in a triune God?Hinduism: belief in up to 333 million manifestations of God?anything where you worship an Idol).
In fact God makes it easy for us: it isn?t a simple 1:1 scale. In terms of ?ratios?, to do an action earns you hundreds of ?hassanahs?, while a bad action will bring you only a few ?sayyah?. The point is that from an Islamic point of view, god made it very SIMPLE to go to Heaven. He has relatively easy rules (5 Pillars of Islam- praying 5x, donating 2.5% to charity IF YOU ARE ABLE TO [none of this 10% tithing regardless of social status]), God rewards you a lot more than he penalizes you.
Yes you are right that fighting in a Jihad is the only guaranteed method: but pause think for a moment. To truly fight in the name of GOD (NOT in the name of another person, or government, or for anything)
as God outlined is a noble thing~ I would hope you would do that as well.
But when we look back at history?almost every Jihad (or even look at ?Christian Jihads? ie: crusade) was not a fight in the game of God?but to fight for the expansion of a person?s power, or the expansion of some kind of empire. Jihad is a defensive tool, not an offensive one~ and one which has strict limitations
However, let us pause for a moment and take a step back and think of what Muslims have to obtain ?salvation? from. Christianity requires salvation is needed because of Adam and Even and the origins of original sin. A sin that is part of every human, even newborn baby , it is something we cannot remove. Thus we need the sacrifice of Jesus in order to save us. No matter WHAT our actions, unless we believe in Jesus we are bound to head to hell.
When you look at Islam you have to look at it without the Christian glasses. In Islam, ?original sin? simply DOES NOT EXIST. Adam and Eve BOTH ate from the tree (who did first was not specified ? both are treated as equals and this is apparent in the conjugations of the words used here. In English plural is two or more. Arabic splits plural between 2, and THREE or more. In this series God refers to both using the ?two? forms of words so both ate from the tree and both were immediately forgiven) and God immediately FORGAVE them both (as opposed to traditional Christian theology that Even tempted Adam and then banished them ). This is why there is nothing ?to be saved from?. This is why salvation doesn?t exist through the prism of Islam~ our own destinies and fates are determined by ourselves.
And I would take it further and say that blind faith in Jesus implies you can act however you want to?because Jesus will forgive your actions. Some of my friends agree with this totally and feel that regardless of your actions if you believe in Jesus will go to heaven?and some disagree. But I will say more often than not the former is something I hear more (perhaps due to living in Conservative Orange county?).
So would the terrorists have done any differently? Let us say that Christianity was the religion of terrorists: 9/11 would have been justified because they already have ?pure? faith and belief in Jesus as a God ~ thus any of their actions will be forgiven by him.
Do you now see how silly it is to argue that what prods terrorists to their actions are the Quran? Beyond not working within the bounds that God set, terrorists will use ANY religion to justify their actions~ and if they do not use religion they will find something else?but using divine authority to bolster your actions is an attractive proposition
Finally for Hadith:
Hadith were created by man, and compiled by man well after the death of the Prophet Mohammed, and as such should be treated with skepticism. If anything, I allow for massive ?reinterpretation? and revision of the Hadith simply because of the nature in which they came to humans. IF the Hadith and Quran conflict, to any Muslim it should be obvious that the QURAN SUPERCEDES THE HADITH because the Quran is a revalation of God?whereas the hadith
is an attempt to compile the way of life of the prophet but is very prone to errors and mistakes.
Furthermore, there are VERY VERY few Hadith that anyone agree on: Prayer is one of the only ones and it universally accepted by all Muslims. The Quran tells us we need to pray, it explains the importance but the exact mechanism of prayer is not described. This came through Prophet Mohammed as he prayed and people copied him.
But look at the other hadith: all of them fall into ?categories? that describe the ?probability of being accurate?. When dealing with a scale that essentially admits that it can be false, one should take it with a grain of salt and use the Hadith when its good, or convenient.
I?ll continue to what you discussed further on with another post?.
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