How I ended up worshiping Allah alone
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peace SOA,
Welcome to the forum. We are all students here )
Your observations are astute. Vast majority of Muslims do not realise most of what they follow is actually not from The Quran, and often goes against what it says. Also, you are right that depending on the family/sect you are born into can determine whom/what you follow, and this is ridiculous. Unfortunately, most Muslims do not realise this. And you are not the first to liken Traditional Hadith to the Hadith of Jesus (i.e. The Bible), Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan did the same.
As a side note, as you study Traditional Hadith, you quickly come to realise how flawed they are from almost every angle.
You may find these links helpful
http//mypercept.co.uk/articles/Rethinking_Tradition_Modern_Islamic_Thought.htm
http//ahadithstudies.wordpress.com -
Hello Student of Allah,
Just a couple of questions
From my study of the Bible I already knew the kind of trouble you get into when you start taking religious teachings unauthorized by the messenger
So I take it you reject the Bible as a false religious text?
....I was baffled by how my fellow muslims were following double standards, they reject the authors of Bible based on the lack of authority (since Jesus did not guide them), but very comfortably accept the Hadiths, which suffer from the same problem as the Bible does.
I'm not sure I follow, what "problem" does the Bible share with hadith literature? The former claims to be the word of God; the latter, although perhaps given some "divine" status, does not.
Thanks
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I was baffled by how my fellow muslims were following double standards, they reject the authors of Bible based on the lack of authority (since Jesus did not guide them), but very comfortably accept the Hadiths, which suffer from the same problem as the Bible does. Its only a matter of which family you are born into, your family determines which historians you believe are accurate about the saying of Muhammad. What shocked me even more was that they agreed that collections such as so called Sahih-Bukhari and Sahih-Muslim did not necessary agree between them in the contents, to make matter worse, they even contradicted their own collections.
Yup.. that's called the power of 'indoctrination' by the 'organized superstition institution'...
"Lies told often enough and continuously, it shall becomes the truth"..They reject the bible not because they have read the bible and/or think about the bible..
yet because they were told to do so.. by the 'organized superstition institution'.
They accept the 'hadith' not because they have read the hadith and/or think about the hadith..
yet because they were told to do so.. by the 'organized superstition institution'.The same case are happening in people on the other groups belonging to an 'organized superstition institution'.
welcome Student Of Allah..
Think clearly.. think brightly and think CRITICALLY...
Because not everything that you hear or read is true...Salam / Peace
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Peace be upon all of you ,
Thanks Abdul hadi, wakas and M m khan for the helpful teachings,
@Hoppean
You asked So I take it you reject the Bible as a false religious text?To me Bible as I can find a version now in the market is not really a true religious text. The reason I say that is because I can comprehend this as religious only if I look at it from a historical point of view. It is just a historical document by multiple authors who I cant be sure about. A look into the vast amount of manuscripts available for only the New Testament alone proves this point, they all are not the same . I must say that I have soft corners for many Bible passages, some words that are attributed to Jesus (pbuh), i find them to be cool.
And the problem about Bible and Hadith literature
Well, it really depends on how you set your rules. What I was saying there was, when we muslims speak against the Bible and question its authenticity and specially its authority, we tend to forget that if we apply the same judgement criteria on the "SAHIH" hadiths , they look more like surveyed islamic history. We point fingers at a Christian in a debate and laugh because he actually believes that the book from Bible that he is talking about is inspired to the author by Allah. BUT, we seem to be readily accepting Bukhari/Muslim/AnySimilarHistorian as DIVINELY INSPIRED (not directly, but in our subconscious mind ).TAKE NO OFFENCE AS YOU READ THE LINES BELOW (The are play of sarcasm and irony)
The worst thing probably is, when we depend on hadith, we forget one of our very BIGGEST of claims, "Qur'an is the final message from Allah, and Muhammad the last prophet" . The reason I say that we forget it , is because, if Islam is really about following these "SAHIH" hadiths, Allah must have lied when he declared that he completed his favour on us and chose Islam as our religion. The final messenger kind of failed even more than Allah did, both God and his final messenger left the entire task for many historians to complete centuries later and make many errors and finally end up dividing the religion of unity into sects.
As for me, truth stands clear from error, the best of hadith for me is the Qur'an. When someone I know is shocked to know that I dont follow their hadith compilations, I simply say "I obey Allah, and his messenger. Therefore, I follow Allah's command which is the 'sunnah' of messenger " .
Even after reciting so many times the word "Qul" in the Qur'an, I wonder why people dont picture the scenario. We dont need to go to those historians to know what Allah made the messeger say, whatever he was supposed to say is the message , it is the Qur'an
( Allah forgive me, why am I writing so much without structural consistency )
May Allah guide us all ---
--- Student Of Allah
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I read the bible first in a language that I understand whereas the Koran was something that I was taught to mindlessly recite in a language that I don't speak or understand (being nonarabic).
In the bible, there are passages that are almost word for word the same as in the Koran. There are parts of the bible that are indeed from God as it is made clear in the Koran that God sent previous scriptures before. One way that satan (frankly the best way) leads people astray is to mix truth with falsehood. This is what happened with the Bible. The current day bible is clearly not the original as the original scripture was not in english. Just in translation, I am sure there have been changes with loss of meaning, etc even when the translator did all his best. I learned that from reading various translations of the Koran in the same language as well as in different languages. Bible is basically an account of what others heard Jesus supposedly say and do which was recorded and was supposedly authenticated and held to be true (hadith of Jesus). I see contradictions in the bible where Jesus refers himself as son of man when people worship him as son of God. the bible is a mixture of truth and falsehood. word of God mixed in with words of men.
with the koran, satan couldn't mix falsehood and truth. God himself said He will protect it. and so next best thing to do in order to lead people astray away from the God's guidance, causing division, disharmony, and such is to come with 'hadiths" recorded by bukhari and such.
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I read the bible first in a language that I understand whereas the Koran was something that I was taught to mindlessly recite in a language that I don't speak or understand (being nonarabic).
In the bible, there are passages that are almost word for word the same as in the Koran. There are parts of the bible that are indeed from God as it is made clear in the Koran that God sent previous scriptures before. One way that satan (frankly the best way) leads people astray is to mix truth with falsehood. This is what happened with the Bible. The current day bible is clearly not the original as the original scripture was not in english. Just in translation, I am sure there have been changes with loss of meaning, etc even when the translator did all his best. I learned that from reading various translations of the Koran in the same language as well as in different languages. Bible is basically an account of what others heard Jesus supposedly say and do which was recorded and was supposedly authenticated and held to be true (hadith of Jesus). I see contradictions in the bible where Jesus refers himself as son of man when people worship him as son of God. the bible is a mixture of truth and falsehood. word of God mixed in with words of men.
with the koran, satan couldn't mix falsehood and truth. God himself said He will protect it. and so next best thing to do in order to lead people astray away from the God's guidance, causing division, disharmony, and such is to come with 'hadiths" recorded by bukhari and such.
Salam Justamuslim ,
looks like we have very similar thoughts on the subject. Even though my study of religions of the world started after 2007, i was dragged into the field in early 2006 when people started telling me that the guitar I play is haram . I asked for justification, till date, no justification brickwallI was watching a program where Sheikh Yusuf Estes explains why it is forbidden in islam to be involved in music.He tells about a story where in a mosque, there were people that were playing nasheed (songs about Allah) and the time for Asr prayer came, still those people were playing. Yusuf Estes and his friends had to wait for them to finish it and finally after some time they finished their concert and they could pray to Allah. After telling this story to the audience, he concludes that music is haram because those otherwise good people are going away from their religious duty because of this, and the story shows how music affects your brain and keeps you away from sincere duty .
I dont think I need to tell any person about how grossly he drew his conclusion from whatever happened in that mosque with the nasheed music. If I am allowed to think for myself, the first ones who I would hold accountable are Yusuf Estes and his friends, because they clearly understood it was the time for prayer, yet, inside of a mosque, they were waiting for musicians to finish first ????? That is a mosque, not a concert hall, why or how can you wait for people to finish their music show first ??? The problem is with you, not with music. Playing by the same rules, almost everything can be shown to be detrimental to faith, for example, a sportsman who does not stop playing and come for prayer, a business man who doesn't pause his business and come for prayer, a student who does not pause his studies and come for prayer, you can keep making a huge list but it doesnt show that sports,studies and business all are haram, does it ???
May Peace, Blessing and Mercy of Allah be on all of us-------------------- Student of Allah
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Hello Student of Allah,
Thanks for the reply.
To me Bible as I can find a version now in the market is not really a true religious text. The reason I say that is because I can comprehend this as religious only if I look at it from a historical point of view. It is just a historical document by multiple authors who I cant be sure about. A look into the vast amount of manuscripts available for only the New Testament alone proves this point, they all are not the same .
If I understand your argument correctly, then you are saying that you reject the bible because there are textual variants in the NT manuscripts; and this leads you to "doubt" the authorship.
My question is this Cannot the same be said of the Quran? In other words, could not a Christian reject the Quran based on textual variations in the manuscripts? If your answer is that those variations are not meaningful, then why is a Christian not justified in answering your objections to the bible in the same manner?
In other words, if you accept the Quran, and all the textual variations that have come down through history; why do you reject the Bible on the same grounds? Should we not have a consistent standard? I honestly do not see how textual criticism can be a valid basis for deciding whether to believe the Bible is inspired, or not.
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In other words, if you accept the Quran, and all the textual variations that have come down through history; why do you reject the Bible on the same grounds? Should we not have a consistent standard? I honestly do not see how textual criticism can be a valid basis for deciding whether to believe the Bible is inspired, or not.
Nice thought!! Fully agree with you...
For those who are unaware.. there ARE textual variations of the Quran... albeit minor.. but there ARE..
Textual variations should not be the criteria to accept/reject whether a 'written material' are truthful / divinely inspired or not..Salam / Peace
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Hello Student of Allah,
Thanks for the reply.
If I understand your argument correctly, then you are saying that you reject the bible because there are textual variants in the NT manuscripts; and this leads you to "doubt" the authorship.
My question is this Cannot the same be said of the Quran? In other words, could not a Christian reject the Quran based on textual variations in the manuscripts? If your answer is that those variations are not meaningful, then why is a Christian not justified in answering your objections to the bible in the same manner?
In other words, if you accept the Quran, and all the textual variations that have come down through history; why do you reject the Bible on the same grounds? Should we not have a consistent standard? I honestly do not see how textual criticism can be a valid basis for deciding whether to believe the Bible is inspired, or not.
Salam brother, to keep the matter simple and plain, as you guys are saying about texts, lets forget it. The main issue however is the hadith style , unauthorized historians giving testimony (actually I cant blame them, because we have compiled them into the Bible not the authors themselves). If you study the Bible, you will find passages that will soften your heart and impress you, those may be are the words that a believer can depend upon. I dont ignore that, as for me, the Bible is a very good source of religious study (not source for my religion). But at the same time, we must not ignore the problems that we face when we compile works of authors into one book specially when their account for the same events dont agree with each other.
I think you already know alot about the issue, yet
An overly simply example can be Paul's letter to his student where he is advising his student to follow the scriptures that the student(Timothy) knew from childhood, and Paul also says that all scriptures are inspired (this is actually what re-enforces faith for my Christian brothers/sisters ). We must also understand the situation of timothy from the timeframe of the situation, when Timothy was young till the date of Paul's letter, much of the New testament was not there , so he could not have possibly meant the current Bible when he said "all scriptures". Paul even speaks about his "last letter" which is not there in the compilation , we must acknowledge this too. Mr. Paul even says things such as "God says this , but I say this " (just examples) . which clearly show that Paul was just trying to put forth his point of view and promote it.
I dont want to go into the many contradictions in the compilation, that isnt my intention, i am just showing you why my rational brain suffers immense torture in that compilation (not all of it though). Jesus says he shall not talk to the people anymore and they clear the scene, and right after that, Jesus probably gives the longest lecture in the book -\ . Things that are red (words of jesus) in the red letter bible are not often in agreement with the black letters (words of others). The theology completely change depending on who you prefer taking your religious teaching from, Jesus or other people.
Lets talk a bit about the new testament story development over time. When we look at the gospels of Mark,Matthew, Luke and John in chronological order, we notice the development of the idea about who Jesus(pbuh) was over time. Starting from early gospels, we notice the change of wordings such as people addressing him as teacher/master/rabi are rephrased as people calling him lord and similar words of higher authority. Not only that, even the way Jesus interacts with his father in heaven also is narrated in fashions that are trying to elevate his status, the Jesus falling onto his face and prayer in later accounts simply looks in the heaven. Do I even need to mention about the confirmation of his death on cross by the spear ?? The story keeps developing and reflecting the beliefs of people in that time frame rather than agreeing with earlier accounts. I think the authors needed to prove that this was the messiah, so they used their pen as much as they could to answer the skeptics about the fulfilled prophecies and to gain acceptance of the mainstream beliefs.
A scholar(dont know if I should call him a scholar) , actually has framed these problems with a very favorite phrase of mine , it goes like this "When we look at the new testament and study it in chronological style, we begin to realize that its not history that is prophesied rather it is prophecy that is being historicised "
Why did I speak so much about all that ?
2 reasons ,
1.I am very much talkative (not well structured though)
2. The Hadiths when studied in similar fashion do remind atleast me of these problems that the Bible face. I read this article about our prophet Muhammad(pbuh) the other day, the link to it is given in this forum by Paradox Uncreated . In this link (http//www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/misc/hazarnazar.htm) you will notice how historians and scholars end up making a god out of a man.Anyways, enough for me for now, would like to hear from you guys about your opinions . And pray for me so that I am always guided by Allah. I have exams ahead in this month . Pray that I can score a 100% in them )
May peace be on you, May Allah be pleased with you
------------------Student of Allah
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christians and mainstream muslims share a lot in common. christians believe that you need jesus for salvation and traditional muslims believe that you need muhammad. christians have declared jesus as son of god and the mainstream muslim have come short of declaring muhammad being son of God. to a traditional muslim, muhammad is in the thoughts from morning to night. traditional muslim without muhammad is a lost soul.
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PEACE,
Boy, you just spoke my mind. Isn't this hypocrisy when one points at the Christians for worshiping someone other than Allah, yet, creating a partner beside Allah in the most diplomatic manner possible.
I pray to Allah to cleanse their hearts and souls and guide them to the straight path that He favors not the path of those who are astray.
May Allah forgive us all
--------------- Student of Allah
