General Issues / Questions

Thanks idolfree, I'll be waiting ) Apologies to hrg137881 for somewhat changing the subjet. Maa salama, Elke

Where were you told this manner of greeting? And why are you inconsistent with it? Inconsistency? It is hurried response of you, brother! I said I donot know which means I pray for unlike your greeting that sounds like your granting peace.

peace be upon you idolfree, Peace be upon you, Since the material world is an illusion, I would say there is really nothing but Mind. But that may be too much right now. you love opening doors to other discussions don't you? lol prepare for the oncoming whirlwind

Heavens and earth are created to pay the just recompense for the action of the people. Good for good deeds; and bad for bad deeds. It is not natural disaster; but what the people earned through their own hands, as per the decree passed before hand by the almighty. 064.011 No kind of calamity can occur, except by the leave of Allah and if any one believes in Allah, - guides his heart for Allah knows all things. 064.012 So obey Allah, and obey His Messenger but if ye turn back, the duty of Our Messenger is but to proclaim clearly and openly. Regarding the messengers who we are to follow are from among men and malayikas, as follows 002.097 Say (O Pepople!) Whoever is an enemy to Gabriel - for he brings down the to thy heart by Allah's will, a confirmation of what went before, and guidance and glad tidings for those who believe,- 002.098 Whoever is an enemy to Allah and His angels and messengers, to Gabriel and Michael,- Lo! Allah is an enemy to those who reject Faith.

Peace be upon you Taj, You reminded me of something. Did you know that birds never fly over Al Ka3bah? Do you have any articles on that? Assuming this is 100% true, what would be the reason? good or bad? Sign or warning(which is a sign too)?

Salaam all (and a special one to Ansar who needs it lol ) asdfjk wrote I don't particularly like it when you share a prayer space and the women have to stand at the back. Why should we stand at the back ? On the contrary, we could even lead prayer. Elke

Thanks everyone for your help!

Greetings, I have no intention of converting to Bahism, but I am just wondering, say I convert and the founders of that faith were wrong (i.e. they recieved no divine inspiration from God). Then, would I punished for it? As far as I know, there's no verse in the Quran that says if you believe in a false messenger, God will put you in hell (of course, we should use our brains, but even so...) In fact, there's a verse that says God will condem the false messengers "And who is more wicked than one who invents lies about God, or says ?It has been inspired to me,? when We did not inspire anything to him; or who says ?I will bring down the same as what God has sent down.? And if you could only see the wicked at the moments of death when the Angels have their arms opened ?Bring yourselves out, today you will be given the severest punishment for what you used to say about God without truth, and you used to be arrogant towards His revelations.? (Quran 693) No body can convert you unless you accept it. You make the choice for yourself. So you will be judged for your deeds. It doesnt matter who is giving you the message. Everyone is responsible for their own act. So there is no loophole in God's system to put the blame on other. peace

God blessings on everyone, Beatnik said I obviously dont believe Jesus is alive, etc, but the man has a point in that people are quick to blame God for bad things, when God makes it clear that any bad thing that happens is our own fault) Yes beatnik everything bad that happens to us God sends on us because of our own faults (whether these faults be states of mind alone or mistaken beliefs accompanied by mistaken actions). I perfectly agree with you. The Dark Age of Islam and of any culture is in that fatalism that you mentioned. When we just accept the bad things and don't try to improve ourselves and our attraction to God's grace then we will be truly stuck. "Bad things" are things that happen to encourage us to look deeper, to be more godly, to change our mistaken views for the better. The people of Thailand are demonstrating the right thing to do, in that many of them have poured out from their homes to help and aid those who have been affected by the disaster. They are reaching out to help the masaakin, that is the miskeen(the miserable, the pitiful). The disaster if anything has helped to bring the godliness out in all these Thais. God bless them! May he improve their conditions and advance their progress! Godbless, Anwar

Peace be upon you Someone, "Ma malakat Aymanuhum" does not contain "hand" in it. "yamin" can mean "oath" like in 589. Sometimes, it's not the right time to tell your family or your mate's family, that you are willing to get in marriage, due to social and financial requirements. So I believe that "Ma malakat Aymanuhum" refers to the mate to whom one has made an oath of fidelity and engagement, surely it doesn't replace a marriage but it's the way that the "male-female" relation works. Even if we look at a simple relation "boy friend- girl friend", there is some oath involved in it. I believe that this is a way to encourage mariage and licit relations without fears. Please note that in the case of fornication, there should be at least 4 witnesses for the judgement of 100 lashes each. But if the couple is taking seriously their oaths and situation, they won't have intercourses in presence of 4 persons, not even 1. And the door to mariage will always be open, to write it down so each one knows his rights and obligations, without forgetting the rights of the children. And as anything else, some people would take advantage of such a mercy from the god to cause mischief to women, but the women also has to take their time before accepting someone's oath and going further in the relation. Good food for thought. I need to reflect more on this.

Peace be upon you, I think there is a verse in this reading that states that hypocrisy is worse, because when one says they have faith in the God, they are looked to by others who want to have faith in the God. So they actually are "examples", while an atheist just rejects. It is my opinion that many atheists are not really rejectors, they just reject the common misunderstanding of the God as some OBJECT in the skies, I also reject that misunderstanding.

Peace be upon you, I am going to read over this brothers website then give my opinion on this. However, I already see an error because he is trying to state that the only way to "salvation" is through this reading(quran), and we already are told in this very reading(quran) that those who have faith in the God, ending time, and live righteously, will have thier reward with thier Lord. Certainly a prophet would be aware of that.

Salaam, Well why not!? All women who do awful things so lesbians must be included. Peace Sis Majidah salam everyone . does verse 415 is about female homosexuals ? 415 As for those of your women who are guilty of lewdness, call to witness four of you against them. And if they testify (to the truth of the allegation) then confine them to the houses until death take them or (until) Allah appoint for them a way . what do you think .please tell me. salam.

-- 5922-24 --

It claims that Allah takes souls of believers before they burn, drown or death strikes them. This doesn't make any sense. How can someone die before burning? I dont know where that quote is from but it sounds like wishful thinking to me, everyone has to experience death and submit to God's laws of physics among other things. What can be debated is what it feels like upon death, when the soul is met by angels or put into some kind of storage area, a good way to picture it is like in the film The Matrix, the white construct, a place nowhere. Believers might have a better time than disblievers for sure, but I'm pretty sure everyone feels pain depending on what kind of experience they're subjected to. Then what about judgement day? are we just going to be told where we are going to or go straight to it? Depending on how you lived, I'm sure the period between death and judgement day is either pleasurable or not, in some storage area or construct outside of space and time as we know it. Those verses might be alluding to the fact that believers will feel God's light, etc, we cant take some of these verses literally otherwise you might come to the conclusion God is tangible like a human being or something, we have to always remember we cannot perceive God but God perceives all. As for judgement day, everyone will be lined up, in three sections. One section will have the best believers, the other will have the not-so-amazing believers, and the last will have the ones who will go to hell. I cant remember where the verses explaining this is, but its written somewhere. This ayat proves that disbelievers won't believe anything until they are raised up for judgement day. I've seen a few verses that say they'll still be disbelievers after they die too. Maybe the most cynical among them will think they're a victim of a sadistic reality TV show or something, so dumb that they dont comprehend they're actually in hell. Though maybe my imagination is running too wild...

Salam Leyla, Shamsul-arefin, all Just wanted to express that I completly agree with the above posts of Leyla and Shamsul-arefin Sometime after my divorce I started living with a live-in boyfriend and it was a tough moral issue to me. But after research and a lot of reflexion I actually came to the same conclusions ) Bye, Elke

All I can tell you is what GOD said to His malaikai when He infromed them that He was going to place a Khalifa on earth and the mailaka were against. He told the angels that He Knows what we don't know. Again this is sufficient for me. I have nothing but the utmost of faith and trust in GOD and His plan which He is unfolding and has been unfolding right before our very eyes. All Glory is to GOD and only GOD. 7630 Yet, you cannot will it unless you align your free will with the Will of Allah. (Guidance can only be achieved according to Divine Laws (488 )). For, behold, Allah is Knower, Wise. Peace

Peace drfazl, all The wisdom that was bestowed on you by the god's will is very closely related to those means of control that you are condemning. Whoever resists from being unjust and controls himself from becoming emotional for Allah's sake, are rewarded with wisdom from Allah, for their good deeds. Allah's wisdom has no negative effects in it. The more we are patient the more is the deletion of the 'bad' from our knowledge. The control shall have to be upon the mind from being desirous/erroneous. Knowledge follows desires/pride/arrogance/satan. 012.022 When Yusuf attained His manhood, We gave him power and knowledge thus do We reward those who do right Actually, humanity has enough wealth, knowledge and means at its disposition to eradicate famine, illiteracy and most of illness around the globe, by the god's will, or should I say, by the god's knowledge that he bestowed on us (humanity). Do you mean to say that you have enough of everything and therefore you need no more, for Allah has already bestowed upon you everything well in advance? You said about your ability to withstand famine, and control most of the illnesses which Allah sends down upon a people as punishment for their not turning towards Him with their righteousness for the reward/wisdom. For, He had already removed the good from your knowledge and had increased and brought to the fore the bad elements in the knowledge you have earned through literacy/pride. 007.094 , 095 We took up the people in suffering and adversity, in order that they might learn humility. Then We gave them good in the place of evil plight until they became many and said Distress and happiness did indeed befall our fathers. Then We seized them by surprise while they did not perceive. This brings us to the other quality of humans, which is somehow clouded by all the problems going on in the world . "somehow" clouded? There you are lacking the "know-how". Return to the wisdom discarding all your know-how that you earned with your own hands through "literacy and pride-seeking" But personnaly, I doubt that those in control in this world would ever dare to destroy the earth, and thus kill themselves by the same token. America has done it before and doing it now and will do it forever. I hope you are not blind and deaf with the Bush and Blair when the whole world cried "No War!". Even as Hans Blix returned empty handed after weapons inspection, Bush administration said " Even if there is no sign of WMD in iraq, still we will bomb and we do not regret it for we are justified". You seem to be very personal like bush and blair's joint statement that shocked the world. What an arrogance! These are the people of america and england, far astray! You should have your trust in the god's wisdom, he has created everything, and surely he's the one who knows how to deal with his creation. We should not despair of the god's mercy. We are trying to say this to each other in turns I suppose. Either you missed what I have been maintaining all through, - or, have I missed ?

of a democratic country how would you punish a. adulters b. thiefs roll ? Firstly for all thieves you pay it back/work it off. For adulterers I would have different categories. All believers would be punished Islamic way, non-believers would receive no punishment ("There is no compulsion in deen"). Non-believers receiving punishment for this crime (?) would be compelling them to follow the system.

Salam Esimsek, All Elke, please just sit and watch. Watch very carefully, human interactions have not changed as much as we have believed it to change. I don't say that you're not right "in general". I just "hate" it when I hear generalities said as if they were universalities. BTW, there's a verse in coran saying that the ugliest voice is the donkeys voice, which sounds for me like the voice of those always willing to make the decisions for everybody....ok now I'm pushing it lol Man or woman should not have to sell themselves, as I said there should be an equilibrium! I completely agree with you. Equality still is way apart - but I mean in both ways. People should be seen as persons, individuals before being seen as wo- or man. This would make life much easier. It's the ability to say and believe, "I am happy with myself". Yes, agree, but careful of not being too happy with yourself, makes me think of "people walking proudly on earth". I'd rather call it "working on being at peace with yourself". Talk about a lifetime of work... Bye, Elke