Introduction,
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Peace to all,
I am a middle aged bussiness man working in the field of Fuel gas piping in Dubai (Indian origin) I was brought up in a christian environment where we were only the muslim family in the whole 5 sqm area. My father put we three brothers under sunni muslim(salafi/Wahabi/mujahid) to read and understand quran and the religion. So I followed the prayers and other traditions and thought we were progressive muslims(and true muslims!) as we were bit different fro other realtives since they used to go to the tombs of the saints. We used to have constant arguments with christian friends regarding the bible being corrupted( referred from Ahmedh deedat leaflets and later Zakir Naik's videos). In due course I asked the same question if the book of God(bible) could get corrupted how come we could follow these hadiths which are man made and that too after 1400 years after Prophet Mohamad. I asked this question to my friends who used to debate between each other on issues in sunnahs "on how many rakas to pray for taraweeh, whether to put hand on chest or stomach, or about the language of friday sermon "etc. They all quote hadiths in arabic and explain the meanings and used to have heated arguments but they unite against me when i say why i cant we leave hadiths and follow only quran in which we dont have any arguments. They say" My knowledge about the relgion is very basic and doesnt even owe a reply"- and the popular question they asked me was how do I pray without hadiths or sunah.
Then I got deep into business and used to pray whenever I feel gulty or in need of God not bothered too much in relegious studies and even i used to make my own rule books that suited me to defend my conscience regarding wordly matters(good and bad). SThen i made huge loss in business and somebody told me to pray thahajjud. I did these prayers daily without fail aboot 11 rakkahs after getting up in the night(when god come to the nearest sky and replies the prayers)Still i was going worse to worse in the businees when the timing was all good for the business in the middle east.
Then i got attached with tableeq jamaat when they came and invited to the near by masjid. Slowly I got to their system to live as per sahabis followed the relegion. They taught me how to eat , how to brush, how to walk etc,I put up a long beard, cut my long hairs (Honeslty they did not compel me any thing- but since i was there to learn their school of thoughts and live with them i have to be in their uniform- sincerely I was attracted to their humbleness and dedication to spread relegion -dawwah)I followed all their sunnahs(I wanted to stay in top when i meet Allah without missing any sunnahs-lots of lots of reward for each sunnahs) to the extend i started carrying "miswak" a kind of twig to brush before every prayers. I practised maximum sunnahs possible - i took out all the photpgraphs, pictures and stopped watching films , musics etc. I used to pray around 50 to 56 rakkahs a day and limbs used to swell. So my friends and relatives advised me dont be so hard on the relegion be moderate dont follow too much of sunnahs. I said i dont want to leave even a single act even it is small in the relgion which would bring me rewards for me in the life after. To reply them how important is to follow sunnah and hadith of prophet mohammad i started searching the hadiths in web. The search is web took me first to submission.org and then to other sites discussing quran only subjects ( which are mostly banned in U.A.E). I used to ask God's help to guide me in right path and took a u-turn to get out of all the traditions and dedicated my time to follow and understand quran instead of spending time in learning how many rewards i would get on cleaning the teeth with twig and which side to sleep and take ablution every time i loose wudu'. Now life is much simple . eeman is also strong as i am relying only on the supreme power and not any more on mortals or any silly traditions.
i have not shown my clean face without beard (My wife and mom really hated me for that long beard and were so happy to see my face again"to my "sunni colleagues" and they are very anxious where i got dissappeared not even gone to pray a single taraweeh in the masjid.
I am really glad to see free views and thought in this forum without any external pressure which invoke our thoughts and help guide get the right faith. Sorry for my long introduction and first time i am joining any of these forums and i dont know how to use the emotional icons even.(I am getting old)
since most of the messages i read in this site are really from intelligent young people i may not be able to offer you much instead i could learn lot from you.
May God bless you all.
abdu -
Peace abdu,
May God Bless you too and welcome.
We all have a lot to learn. I also find myself trying to avoid Sunnis but I never had a "long beard". I did shave my stubble though.Funnily enough after we stopped going to the mosque my brother actually didn't shave his beard but keeps it just for aesthetics. I might grow a beard too but right now I think its too thin and looks unhealthy.
Emoticons are easy just click on them when posting ;D >
Then you can click "preview" before you post to see if they show up correctly.
I am really happy to see so many new people join free-minds (so much that I haven't even welcomed all of you so - welcome welcome to everyone who joined in the last few weeks if you are reading this)
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Salaamun brother Abdu,
welcome
I am happy to see you here...
Whatever you need help, simply ask Allah, He is the all Listerner and all Knower to answer your prayers. Believe me, its that easy. I have experience a lot by myself Alhamdulillah.
May Allah help you in all your lawful needs.
Regards,
mmKhan -
Salaam Abdu and welcome aboard
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope you will learn, and you will definitely contribute even by just asking questions and making others think about a response.
And do not forget to read the forum rules. It's free-minds, but with discipline
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=8177.0 -
Salaam Abdu and welcome aboard
Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope you will learn, and you will definitely contribute even by just asking questions and making others think about a response.
And do not forget to read the forum rules. It's free-minds, but with discipline
http//free-minds.org/forum/index.php?topic=8177.0Peace to you samia,
Thank you very much for keeping and maintaining this site and for reminding me about the forum rules. I haven't gone through that yet. You are absolutely right it should be with discipline.
abdu