Gave "The Message" to a Hindu friend. He converted.
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A friend of my mine in my MBA college got very curious about ghosts and jinns, and asked me if I could give him the Koran to read. He wanted to know more about angels and jinns.
I gave him The Message (pdf file) as it was very simple to follow, and had no footnotes or commentaries which may have confused him....he's totally new to Islam/Christianity/Judaism.
He had never read it before. When he was nearly halfway through it, he told me that something about the way the Koran is written makes him feel that it's the truth.
And then a few days back, to my surprise, he said he wanted to pray. Now he just does not want to miss any of his prayers! I showed him the article on Salat on this website with that nice illustration about the 3 times of prayer. In prayer, I would just recite the first chapter in English and he would repeat after me. We would do this twice...2 units...and that's it. He can now do the prayers on his own.
I had really not expected that he would convert. I can say that he has greater faith in the Koran than I do. What surprises me is that he chose to believe in the Koran merely by reading it once....he barely knows anything about the 19-code...or some of the scientific stuff mentioned in the Koran. I want to keep him away from the controversial stuff....as he's just begun his journey of Koran alone.
I asked him once what made him choose another faith. He told me that what hit him the most was the way Koran talked about idols...how they can neither do anything for themselves, nor for others. He was also influenced by the way the Koran talks about people simply following the ways of their forefathers and not questioning them.
Sometimes it's really insightful when you get a fresh perspective on the Koran from someone who's never read it, and opens the book with an open mind.
All said...I do have an urgent question to ask Layth, or the Progressive Muslims. I want to order "The Message" from an Indian online store (infibeam.com) but I want to know how different it is from the current PDF. Are there major differences that may confuse a new reader?
Because I remember that the word Salat has had quite a few changes - contact...communion...bond etc...and finally contact prayers. If it's quite recent, I'll go ahead and place the order. Sometimes, I want to give the Koran to a friend, and I prefer giving them The Message because of it's simplicity and Quran-alone approach....not everyone is comfortable reading from a PDF. I want to keep a copy for myself as well.
And by the way, what happened to the 19.org forum? I was a member there by the username Elijah....had posted a lot of stuff a long time back which I'm quite nostalgic about yay
Joined this forum just today...
God bless.....
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Nice!
But which is that "The Message"? Whose translation of the Qur'an?
Thanx -
Thank you for the info and thank you for the link.
peace
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Peace all.
The Message is a Koran translation by Progressive Muslims. You can download it here
http//free-minds.org/sites/default/files/quran.pdf
But the title of this translation isn't "The Message", is it...? ???
I think, the linked translation is basically the translation of brother Layth. I bought it as hard-cover and didn't notive any differences to the PDF-Version.
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Peace all.
But the title of this translation isn't "The Message", is it...? ???
I think, the linked translation is basically the translation of brother Layth. I bought it as hard-cover and didn't notive any differences to the PDF-Version.
Peace Timur,
I think you can help me as you have bought the translation! handshake
You are right about the title...I guess they changed the title recently...because I remember it was titled "The Message" earlier...even the Amazon link here says the same thing http//tinyurl.com/lmudzck
But what is confusing me is that there are TWO books on Amazon...one has a publication date of Jan 2008 and the other has a date of February 2008! Check out the other book here http//tinyurl.com/mncuzm9
Brother Timur I just wanted to ask you a few things,
- What is the publication date of the translation you have?
- Where did you buy it from?
- Can you give me the hardcover book's ISBN number?
- Is Salat translated as "contact prayer" in the hardcover you have?
I will place an order for the book right away if the book is pretty much the same as the online PDF. I've always wanted to have a book form of the PDF.
Thanks for the help...
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Actually, I'm confused between these two books here on the Indian store. One is paperback and the other is hardcover...but the hardcover is 484 pages and the paperback is 451 pages (or so it mentions on the site).....they can't be the same books in that case.
But ISBN numbers of both the books match with what is at Amazon...and on Amazon they are both listed to have 484 pages. brickwall
http//www.infibeam.com/Books/info/monotheist-group/message-translation-glorious-qur/9780979671524.html?trackId=india_bookstore
http//www.infibeam.com/Books/info/Monotheist-Group/The-Message-A-Pure-and-Literal-Translation/097967154X.html?trackId=india_bookstore
Any help would be really appreciated.... yay