The difference between us and sunnis/shias

Ahmad_Bilal

Peace,

Many Sunnis believe in the freedom of interpreting their religion as well, and so do many Shiites; this is not unique to "God Aloners". Also, who is the "us"/"they" you're referring to? Many of the so-called "Qur'aan Aloners" on here are no different than Sunnis and Shias. They claim that the Sunnis and Shias are misguided because they use the hadiyth and sunna writings, while Sunnis and Shias say the opposite of them. In reality, both views are wrong...

The Qur'aan condemns sectarian ideologies within Al Islaam. Sectarian ideologies are built on separation and critical judgement of opposing groups. As soon as "God Aloners" began pointing fingers at the sects of Islaam, claiming that their followers are not "real Muslims", they became a sect themselves, since they claim to be the only guided ones. This makes them just like the other sectarian groups of Islaam, which are rejected by Allah...

The main difference between the "Qur'aan Aloners", the "Sunnis", and the "Shias" is that they have different means of interpreting the scripture. Each group interprets the scripture in light of their own understanding. All of the groups, including the Sunnis and Shias, claim to serve Allah alone, ascribing no partners to Him. All claim to be the "real Muslims", all claim that Muhammad is the prophet and messenger of Allah (most say that he is the final prophet), all claim that they follow the Qur'aan in truthfulness, and all claim that the other groups are misguided. Therefore, all of them are sectarian.

Allah is the best judge,

Ahmad

palestina

Peace,

Many Sunnis believe in the freedom of interpreting their religion as well, and so do many Shiites; this is not unique to "God Aloners". Also, who is the "us"/"they" you're referring to? Many of the so-called "Qur'aan Aloners" on here are no different than Sunnis and Shias. They claim that the Sunnis and Shias are misguided because they use the hadiyth and sunna writings, while Sunnis and Shias say the opposite of them. In reality, both views are wrong...

The Qur'aan condemns sectarian ideologies within Al Islaam. Sectarian ideologies are built on separation and critical judgement of opposing groups. As soon as "God Aloners" began pointing fingers at the sects of Islaam, claiming that their followers are not "real Muslims", they became a sect themselves, since they claim to be the only guided ones. This makes them just like the other sectarian groups of Islaam, which are rejected by Allah...

The main difference between the "Qur'aan Aloners", the "Sunnis", and the "Shias" is that they have different means of interpreting the scripture. Each group interprets the scripture in light of their own understanding. All of the groups, including the Sunnis and Shias, claim to serve Allah alone, ascribing no partners to Him. All claim to be the "real Muslims", all claim that Muhammad is the prophet and messenger of Allah (most say that he is the final prophet), all claim that they follow the Qur'aan in truthfulness, and all claim that the other groups are misguided. Therefore, all of them are sectarian.

Allah is the best judge,

Ahmad

Well said bro... each to his own, and lets not be quick to judge others. Leave that to God eh?

hope4

Peace,

Many Sunnis believe in the freedom of interpreting their religion as well, and so do many Shiites; this is not unique to "God Aloners". Also, who is the "us"/"they" you're referring to? Many of the so-called "Qur'aan Aloners" on here are no different than Sunnis and Shias. They claim that the Sunnis and Shias are misguided because they use the hadiyth and sunna writings, while Sunnis and Shias say the opposite of them. In reality, both views are wrong...

The Qur'aan condemns sectarian ideologies within Al Islaam. Sectarian ideologies are built on separation and critical judgement of opposing groups. As soon as "God Aloners" began pointing fingers at the sects of Islaam, claiming that their followers are not "real Muslims", they became a sect themselves, since they claim to be the only guided ones. This makes them just like the other sectarian groups of Islaam, which are rejected by Allah...

The main difference between the "Qur'aan Aloners", the "Sunnis", and the "Shias" is that they have different means of interpreting the scripture. Each group interprets the scripture in light of their own understanding. All of the groups, including the Sunnis and Shias, claim to serve Allah alone, ascribing no partners to Him. All claim to be the "real Muslims", all claim that Muhammad is the prophet and messenger of Allah (most say that he is the final prophet), all claim that they follow the Qur'aan in truthfulness, and all claim that the other groups are misguided. Therefore, all of them are sectarian.

Allah is the best judge,

Ahmad

Well said. I was once told, do not point your finger at someone doing something wrong as you have three fingers pointing back at you.

Peace

Hope

Jafar

Well said. I was once told, do not point your finger at someone doing something wrong as you have three fingers pointing back at you.

Peace

Hope

Agree... 'self-corrections' and 'self-criticism' is defintely the thing that's very lacking in Sunni/Shia world today.
They always point their finger to someone else, especially the Jews, The Christians, the western world and of course the secular.

Salam / Peace

Zees

Peace,

Many Sunnis believe in the freedom of interpreting their religion as well, and so do many Shiites; this is not unique to "God Aloners". Also, who is the "us"/"they" you're referring to? Many of the so-called "Qur'aan Aloners" on here are no different than Sunnis and Shias. They claim that the Sunnis and Shias are misguided because they use the hadiyth and sunna writings, while Sunnis and Shias say the opposite of them. In reality, both views are wrong...

The Qur'aan condemns sectarian ideologies within Al Islaam. Sectarian ideologies are built on separation and critical judgement of opposing groups. As soon as "God Aloners" began pointing fingers at the sects of Islaam, claiming that their followers are not "real Muslims", they became a sect themselves, since they claim to be the only guided ones. This makes them just like the other sectarian groups of Islaam, which are rejected by Allah...

The main difference between the "Qur'aan Aloners", the "Sunnis", and the "Shias" is that they have different means of interpreting the scripture. Each group interprets the scripture in light of their own understanding. All of the groups, including the Sunnis and Shias, claim to serve Allah alone, ascribing no partners to Him. All claim to be the "real Muslims", all claim that Muhammad is the prophet and messenger of Allah (most say that he is the final prophet), all claim that they follow the Qur'aan in truthfulness, and all claim that the other groups are misguided. Therefore, all of them are sectarian.

Allah is the best judge,

Ahmad

The shites or shias believe that interpretation is only the right of their infallible imam and they themselves cannot understand the intricacies of the Quran. It is only the divinely guided imam that can dare to interpret the Quran and the shia masses are only obliged to follow(Blindly). Whereas the original or the earliest sunnis believe that interpretation can be done by anyone who has the knowledge to do so. This was the dividing point between them. The sunnis were the people of independent reasoning whereas the shias were the people of blind following. The rallying cry of the earlier shias was that while the sunnis have to commit to ijtihad(independent reasoning) and ijma(consensus of community) we rely solely on our divinely guided imam to tell us what God commands us to do. That was another story that one of the imams of the shias(Ismaili Imam to be exact) simply declared that the Quran was time bound and was no more required to be followed in effect meaning from now on to follow whatever he(imam) says. Anyway the shias also claim (as i read in a book by Reza Aslan) that the infallible imams are intermediaries between man and god and that no one can go to heaven without their approval. Only one thing missing here in my belief are stone idols of their imams.

Sunnis committed the mistake of making an interpretation of the earliest times binding upon them believing it was the words of the prophet(at the behest of Imam shafi who erroneously thought of sunnah as an ideal concept {meaning what the prophet said or did} as opposed to a living process of interpretation) which eventually lead to the closing of the gates of Ijtihad(independent reasoning). I believe if the gates of ijtihad could be opened once again this mistake(of making hadith obligatory) could be undone. See any view of the reformists that have come in Islam to date. All the reformists (that have come to date in Islam) have said the same thing "open the damn gates of Ijtihad" but i guess no one cares or is listening for that matter. I hope someone does listen sooner or later because if not we may very well have to make the choice that the West made which was to divorce religion from ones life altogether. Secularism was a natural response to the blind following of the Vatican city and its excesses and the West finally got its reformation and renaissance which was full of knowledge but of-course devoid of God. I truly hope we do not have to make the same choice and that someone out there will be brave enough to think of a way to open the gates of Ijtihad(independent reasoning) and undo the mistakes of the past.

SarahY

Do you think it is as simple (or difficult) as ijtihad?

Sunni?s acknowledge the theory of ijtihad provided you follow a scholar or get ijaza from one. So either way you?re linked back to the 4 schools of thought.

I think some people do ijtihad in their own time however when they hear rulings from imams, fatwas from sheikhs, hadiths from bukhari their thinking gets skewed so they don?t progress.

I don?t understand why sunni?s limited themselves to the 4 imams at least shia?s have marja?s with alive scholars today, yet they?re still faulty.
It?s easy to find faults but hard to find solutions, how would you think you could ?revive? ijtihad in the way your thinking?

I?d really like to know more about imam shafi and his role on hadith. know of any books/ site i could read?

I think part of the problem is people not knowing history. People will always blind follow because it?s easy and it is accepted. I think if you can get people to read history it might get them thinking because they?re too scared to read their own book of belief as they might misinterpret it so history might help i think. Though you can lead a horse to water but you can?t make it drink.

I doubt religion will be divorced all together, how hopeful is the individual? and what efforts do they make? Suggestions isn?t enough unfortunately, proactive action is important. That's why it's good to find like minded people so you can work as a team, project by project.

You gotta remember as well, religion is something people are really emotional about, so if you tend to threaten their beliefs, no one will even consider the argument.

Zees

Do you think it is as simple (or difficult) as ijtihad?

Sunni?s acknowledge the theory of ijtihad provided you follow a scholar or get ijaza from one. So either way you?re linked back to the 4 schools of thought.

I think some people do ijtihad in their own time however when they hear rulings from imams, fatwas from sheikhs, hadiths from bukhari their thinking gets skewed so they don?t progress.

I don?t understand why sunni?s limited themselves to the 4 imams at least shia?s have marja?s with alive scholars today, yet they?re still faulty.
It?s easy to find faults but hard to find solutions, how would you think you could ?revive? ijtihad in the way your thinking?

I?d really like to know more about imam shafi and his role on hadith. know of any books/ site i could read?

I think part of the problem is people not knowing history. People will always blind follow because it?s easy and it is accepted. I think if you can get people to read history it might get them thinking because they?re too scared to read their own book of belief as they might misinterpret it so history might help i think. Though you can lead a horse to water but you can?t make it drink.

I doubt religion will be divorced all together, how hopeful is the individual? and what efforts do they make? Suggestions isn?t enough unfortunately, proactive action is important. That's why it's good to find like minded people so you can work as a team, project by project.

You gotta remember as well, religion is something people are really emotional about, so if you tend to threaten their beliefs, no one will even consider the argument.

Reformists firmly believe that the revival of Islam is as simple or difficult as opening the gates of Ijtihad. Ijtihad or independent reasoning is the only way forward for the Muslims. Opening of the gates of Ijtihad will immediately result in two things the first that Muslims will critically evaluate whatever they have received so from their forefathers and correct any mistakes that there forefathers made and secondly they will proactively use independent reasoning in tandem with the Quran to meet the challenges that they face today. That is the beauty of Ijtihad that you do not have to follow any scholar blindly nor do you need ijaza from anyone. Ijtihad or independent reasoning is the way of life for Muslims whereas all the religions of the world follow 'blind following' we are the people of knowledge and through knowledge do we seek out our lord. God himself exhorts mankind in the Quran to witness his creation and that these are signs for people who think.

The closing of the gates of Ijtihad means that Muslims are limited to the four interpreters(schools of thought) and that no new interpretations are allowed. Binding anyone to any interpretation is taqid(blind following) and is wrong. No interpretation whether hadith, or the interpretations of the salaf or the interpretations of the four interpreters is binding on everyone. Interpretation by its very nature is not binding, it is either relevant or not relevant anymore. Interpretations is an ongoing process it never stops as new variables come into our lives we use reasoning in tandem with the Holy Book to solve these problems. Interpretation is a human activity and errors do happen whether academic errors or deliberate errors(committed by the enemies of Islam). Thus previous interpretations can serve as a guide but they must be critically evaluated to remove the errors contained therein. The imams and sheikhs that you talk about believe in taqlid(blind following) and guide you by their knowledge of previous interpretations. They are the relics of the past and do not permit anyone to commit to new interpretations by using reason in tandem with the knowledge of the Quran. They say that whatever there was to know in the Quran has been explained by the previous interpreters. Does that make any sense to you, nor does it make sense to me. Quite a long(and very interesting i might add) story it is as to why the sunnis are limited to the four interpreters and why no new interpretations comes about. Anyhow the limiting to the four interpreters refers to what is called the closing of the gates of Ijtihad. The key lies in learning about the tradition itself and separating the wheat from the chaff.

Shias developed a new system when the twelfth imam went into occultation and that is the marja taqlid today since the old order became obsolete with the twelfth imam went into hiding, went missing or whatever . Suffice to say they broke further into two sects the Akhbaris(living in obscurity nowadays) and the Usulis the former favoring the previous system and the latter taking a lot from their sunni cousins to develop the new system that is prevalent is Iran today. Ijtihad is totally the domain of the sunnis, has always been since the death of the prophet but without a divine imam to guide them they had to resort to extreme measures and they did what(accepted Ijtihad) for which they had condemned the sunnis for centuries. Anyway they use a system which is a mix of 'blind following' and independent reasoning and the results are not good that is all i can say. Anyhow these are two distinct systems that were were followed by the sunnis and shias and their history goes back much further back to the pagans, Jews and Christians. Seek out my previous posts if you want to know more.

If the system of blind following is not abandoned by the Muslims than the choice of secularism becomes a real choice as people naturally desire to have progress in their lives. They would prefer the company of Islam along with progress in their lives but if Islam becomes like Christianity and refuses to go forward than it may very well have to be abandoned like Christianity. Then we will become like them we will say that we are Muslims but will know next to nothing about what Islam is.

Read about what Islamic reformists are saying about our Islam. My personal favorite is Fazlur Rahman Malik. His works are hard to come by. Anyway try to read what all the reformists are saying about the religion of Islam. A quick search on the google will bring out all the names of the reformists and you can than get their works or books.

SarahY

Hmm well thanks for the thoughts this is something i definitely want to look into.

salam

Meteora

Zees, it is not so much that sunni's make interpretations infallible. It is their misunderstanding and/or twisting of the scripture that forms their religion.

Ijtihad, or intepretation, technically has NEVER ceased in ANY religion other than maybe shiism, if what you said about them is true (since I never really studied shiism), in that they blindly follow an imam, therefore elimating all interpretations because they have a god in front of them.

Sunnism however does this to a degree. Usually when someone (or some random young, sunni muslim discusses whether an issue is haram or halal) gives a fatwa they will say imam so-and-so said so-and-so is haram, therefore it is haram according to the Quran, etc., but I do not think this is the case with most.

I mean, yes, ijtihad is over in the sense there can no more be "sahaba" (whom they blindly believe were actual friends of the prophet even when according to the Quran Muhammad could not tell himself if the people around him were FRIENDS or HYPOCRITES) or "collecters" of hadith to form the religion. Sunni's refer to this as "bid'ah" but the funny thing is they have more "bid'ah" to their religion than any other sect (reason is they have the highest number of fabrications i.e. man-made ahadith).

So yes, ijtihad is over in this case but notice that in here http//www.islamawareness.net/Music/prohibited.html a sunni "brother" (who would AFAIK be still after this article he wrote considered a brother in sunnism) gave his own fatwa (ruling or answer) on the issue of music. Although this is condemned since this not only disagrees with most current quote on quote "scholars of knowledge" who are revered, it also contradicts "scholars" of the past who are revered even more since they are closer to the time of the prophet (which would mean nothing) and this brings me to my next point.

The reason they don't allow new hadith collectors and/or "sahaba" is because they think they are too far off from the time of the prophet, and they think the time when the ahadith + tafsir were collected was the "evalutation" period (even claimed so my an imam I heard lectures of and refuted recently) and this was 200 years something after the prophet's death.

I will conclude by saying the major fault of sunnism is they have a horrendous understanding of the scripture, to the point they think it not only upholds itself but ANOTHER SOURCE (consisting of TWO things, HADITH and SUNNA, even though 456 makes hadith from only one being valid and 362 gives weight only to ONE sunna), and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Quran-aloners may not have an infallible understanding of the Quran (like anyone does) but our understanding is based on all Quranic verses unlike the sunni system that only relies on mistranslations like that of verses such as 597 (and they cite only the latter part since if they are to do so its entirety, their teaching will be exposed as baseless). The other reason is we don't revere human beings (i.e. Ibn Abbass and more so Bukhari) and we don't discard verses like 456 mentioned before, and 6836-39, verses which unsurprisingly has NO tafsir for in sunnism because it's hard to give an interpretation for these without them seeming to make the HADITH (456) and SUNNA (362) look like they're from Satan or something.

However it is obvious that not all "sunni's" (and I quote this for a reason, which I will mention now) are condemned by Allah. I think it is obvious and mostly accepted that it is INTENTIONAL shirk that is a sin and I think the only shirk is the INTENTIONAL shirk. A woman covering her hair or face since she believes inside that it is something God commanded cannot be criticized by a just God. The just God will obviously punish the SOURCE of the deception which according to my knowledge are the early Jews and Christians who did not follow the scriptures of God and introduced teachings that made it's way into all 3 monotheistic religions including Islam http//pressthat.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/hadith-plagiarized-from-the-bible/ and this is way there are many similarities between the corrupted Christianity and Islam, to name 2.

Alen

Peace,
Respectfully.

The biggest difference is this we (Muslims) follow The Quran and they (sunnis) don't.
I mean, i'm not being mean or rude, right, i'm being realistic, okay?
I've seen and heard and also read how they simply don't follow The Quran.
I've been reading this one translation of The Quran, i think by Yusuf Ali, and when i came to

2187 It has been made lawful for you during the night of fasting to approach your women sexually. They are a garment for you and you are a garment for them. God knows that you used to betray your souls so He has accepted your repentance, and forgiven you; now you may approach them and seek what God has written for you. And you may eat and drink until the white thread is distinct from the black thread of dawn; then you shall complete the fast until night; and do not approach them while you are devoted in the temples. These are the boundaries of God, so do not transgress them. It is thus that God clarifies His revelations to the people who they may be righteous.

There was a star where it says until night and on the bottom of the page was explanation it read that although layl means night, according to the practice of the prophet Muhammad, we break the fast at Maghrib.

Who's blind?
I'm not. nope
I mean, do you see? jedi

They break the fast at the time when the sky is blue and not dark or black. If that's not a clear and simple sign that they're ignoring The Message of The Quran, slap me silly. brickwall

God bless you all.
Peace. peace sun

Zees