Those mysterious left-handers!
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Salaam,
Throughout the centuries and cross cultures, we find that mankind has always favored the "right hand". Well, from a biological/psychological viewpoint it makes sense The majority of humans are what we call "right-handed" and mankind has a tendency to not like idealogies, entities, and physicalities that characterize a minority. Also, man tends to approach the unusual, the unknown, or the misunderstood with caution or fear and, simultaneously, associate the unusual, the unknown, and the misunderstood with what we call "bad" and "evil".
So, it is no surprize that left handed persons have a bad rep in many societies. Most of us are well aware of the negative stereotypes left handed persons get in the practiced religions of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
However, is there any validity within the Word for the fear of left handed persons? Why do various Scriptures specify the Right hand often, and usually omit left hand (except unfavorably). Could statements such as " your right hand possesses" be symbolic of some difference between the right and left hand?
Also, does anyone know what modern science has to say about the cause and effect of being "right brained"? Maybe the answer lies between the unsolved mysteries of the Qur'an and the mystery of modern neuroscience.
Just a thought...
Alhamdulillah!
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Salaam Salikah,
This is not an answer to your question, however I thought I would share a minor point on the subject.
It turns out that before the invention of 'toilet paper' by the chinese some hundreds of years ago... people used to wash with their left hand (Actually this still happens in many cultures). For hygene purposes, they would do everything else with their right hand. Therefore if you were 'naturally left-handed', it would be frowned upon, being that you're using the "wrong hand" for other activities including eating. Some people would then force a child to learn to use the "right hand". wink The language also plays into it, as you can see. Just a side note, in swahili the word for right hand is 'mkono wa kulia'... literally translated it means - the hand that feeds/to eat with.
'On the other hand'... I discovered early that my 2nd born son is left-handed... I am happy that I am no longer of the mind, or the superstitions that that is a bad thing.
Peace!
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Peace be upon you all,
right and left hand are only SYMBOLIC, not to be taken literal, just like Noahs flood, the splitting of the sea, the turning of sticks to snakes, etc.
Right inplies UNIFICATION and left inplies seperation, BOTH are needed in life(balance). But MOST of us are too much to the left (seperators). Yes, the right side of the brain unifies and the left side seperates. We see pictures/vision and metaphors with the right side of the brain, which is why we have so many metaphors and are given stories to create a mental PICTURE. This is why ancients wrote herioglyphics, because they were appealing to the right brian.
Do not take it literally that the right and left hand are good and bad (the right brain actually controls the left side of the body, so it would be the right handers who were bad if we take it literally anyway)
We see the metaphor of white abd black as pure and unpure, and this is how white supremacy was promoted, because they convinced the people to take it literally, they HID the true meaning from the uneducated.
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peace, Idolfree
I do agree that the tendency for mankind to attribute allegorical symbolisms to literal connotations have indeed caused much confusion when it comes to interpretation. I suppose this comes from the fact that the mind has difficulties differentiating between that which is "allegorical" and that which is "literal".
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Peace be upon you Salikah,
I do agree that the tendency for mankind to attribute allegorical symbolisms to literal connotations have indeed caused much confusion when it comes to interpretation.
Thats not what I said, I said the opposite, that information that is sent in a metaphorical story is taken literal, ad THAT is the problem. The God states inthis reading(quran) that He does NOT shy from giving similitudes.
I suppose this comes from the fact that the mind has difficulties differentiating between that which is "allegorical" and that which is "literal".
"Easy" and "difficult" are relative, its all about how sincere you are searching. What is "easy" to one person is "difficult" to another. Things in themselves are not "easy" and "difficult".
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Thats not what I said, I said the opposite, that information that is sent in a metaphorical story is taken literal, ad THAT is the problem. The God states inthis reading(quran) that He does NOT shy from giving similitudes.
Opps...I actually meant what you said. I should have switched "allegorical" and "literal" to convey my correct thought.
Sorry roll
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Peace be upon you Salikah,
No problem D Our goal is to make the message CLEAR, so we have to remove any inconsistencies. D
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Peace be upon you Salikah,
hmmmm....I don't think the message will ever be CLEAR. It wasn't suppose to be. Its not part of the Divine plan. We should, however, continue to strive for clarity, however.
How can you strive for clarity of something that is not clear?
Of course it is clear, but only for those who have purified thier NAFS, otherwise it will be unclear.
Clear and unclear are relative states, like hot and cold.
Are you not familiar with the verses regarding the clear message?
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Peace be upon you Salikah,
How can you strive for clarity of something that is not clear?
Of course it is clear, but only for those who have purified thier NAFS, otherwise it will be unclear.
Clear and unclear are relative states, like hot and cold.
Are you not familiar with the verses regarding the clear message?
Salaam Idolfree1,
You took what I said out of the context of our conversation.
My use of the word clear has nothing to do with the actual Word and everything to do with man's fallibility (particularly in regards to interpretation and writing/thought accuracy). Pardon me if I am mistaken, but wasn't that the context you were speaking in when you said "Our goal is to make the message CLEAR, so we have to remove any inconsistencies."?
If this was not your intended connotation, then I apologize. However, I assumed that you take the Qur'an to be 100% complete and clear. And since you are directing me to the ayat that refer to this fact, I am now assuming that you already know that the message is clear and the fault is in men.
To that end, me saying that the message will never be clear has multiple meanings that I will not go into at this time (partly because it is off topic). However, I, by no means, was referring to the actual Message. However, it is my personal opinion that "muslims" should strive for individual clarity to better understand the relationship between nafs, Allah, and the Universe, and placement therein (which explains my second sentence). Basically, the goal may be to make the message CLEAR, but the action that one does is to "strive" for a clear message.
Regardless of your path on this Earth-whether you strive for clarity or not-true Clarity will be revealed once returned to Reality. No one will be able to escape it. No one is exempt from it.
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Salam Zenje the using the left hand for washing after urinating or deficating is a very very old African tradition going as far back as Egypt...that same narration of the Chinese also exists in African oral tradition...although some have been replaced by Sunni Hadiths.
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Salaam Omari )
Exactly, people today still use those traditions, as did I not many years ago. The only problem with sunnis, is they attribute that to the prophet's saying, hence to God. Some individuals take it as far as making it look like a 'sin' by using or being left handed. roll
Peace!
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Peace idolfree,
You said that right hand left hand in scripture should not be taken literally and also went on to say that for the 'miracles', splitting of sea, sticks turining into snakes etc.
Why do you say that? If these were symbolic then how would they be signs and miracles and proofs? If they didn't occur they wouldn't be so amazing, unexplainable miracles and phenomena are signs to you. The jews know of many signs and phenomena, why do you consider these to be simply symbolic and not neccesserily literal, please add some clarification.
Nural
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Just a small scientific contribution...
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Only humans, among animals, have a greater proportion of right-handed individuals. Apes, birds etc. usually have a balanced proportion of left and right handed individuals.
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The bias for right-handedness might be a consequence of the imbalance in human brain evolution and usage--our more intensive use of the left brain hemisphere (which controls the right hand side of our body) causes righthandedness.
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Recently, a study discovered that lefthandedness are more prevalent in societies with higher number of violence and murder. The researchers concluded that lefthanded individuals might have an opportunity in physical fights (able to strike the weaker part of righthanded enemies).
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