The Quran and the Prophet
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understanding the Quran is not enough. muslim means "submitter". so u will have to submit to the Quran to be a good muslim.
we submit to God by submitting to His commands in the Quran. we obey Him by Obeying the messenger. and the messenger delivered the Quran.This point I missed. A muslim is he who submits to Allah. Submission to Allah means accepting the entire Quran as Allahs message and applying it in entire real life activities.
Now in order to be muslim one need to read and understand the Quran. Otherwise how can one apply it in life?
Is it not correct that the Quran should be treated as the prime and first source of knowledge required to prosper in life as a Muslim? I am not denying other possible sources, like rational thinking, listening to heart and consciousness, natural sciences, history etc.
However you have the Quran, and you know its the last update. How come you don?t read that then? I mean if you need to ask....
It?s a pretty nice and strong appeal from rational point. I am reading the Quran. But I am having some problem with it that I wish to discuss with you all.
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Peace prashnt-kumar, all,
Quran very often invites us to look to at the book of nature and get a good sight of creation!
Many think that Quran means to think about it , so they go thinking while sitting in a room!! !Going through book of creation by walking in it and watching it, affects one,s heart. it elevates the level of consciousness. It creates a sense of AWE. The reason that two of the prayers are placed close to sun rise and sun set is to get aware of the mightyness of creation and its rythm. It elevates the belief into faith.
peace,
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Peace and greetings to alpha97 and all.
The Quran invites us to look at the Book of Nature. Does it imply that we should look into the Book of Nature, putting aside the Quran, for all the universal laws that govern human life and its destiny?
The Quran invites us to look into the Book of History too. It does not, too, imply that we should put aside the Quran and look into the Book of History to find out there from all necessary universal laws that determine our future.
And we shall follow the laws we come up with the Book of Nature and the Book of History and we shall consider our discoveries as the final. Or we may follow those laws with a skeptical attitude for future rectification. Is this it you want to say?
From your argument I see that you look at the Book of Nature because the Quran said so. So you actually took the Quran as the primary source. It may also have a different implication as mentioned below.
I may put forward an argument from the Book of Nature to prove a law of the Quran while the Quran is my prime source. I can also do the contrary. I may take the Book of Nature as the primary source and put forward an argument from the Quran to justify this.
Are you putting the argument from the Quran to prove that the Book of Nature is to be taken as the prime source where from we shall derive all the universal laws? And the Quran shall be ignored or rejected if we get at a law from the Book of Nature that contradicts the law of Quran.
We do not put our students straight in the labs to discover the universal laws by themselves when the laws are already discovered and discussed. There are good reasons for it. If I get the laws in the Quran, why shall I wait for the scientists to discover the laws and take the risk of falling into errors of the scientists?
My question was not whether Quran asked us to look into the Book of Nature. My question is regarding the priority between the two Books. Which is to get the priority? Do you think that all the ontological truths and laws that govern human life and its destiny has been discovered successfully by the readers of the Book of Nature? Do you think that it has been possible by the intellect and logic?
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peace.
understanding the Quran is not enough. muslim means "submitter". so u will have to submit to the Quran to be a good muslim.
we submit to God by submitting to His commands in the Quran. we obey Him by Obeying the messenger. and the messenger delivered the Quran.This point I missed. A muslim is he who submits to Allah. Submission to Allah means accepting the entire Quran as Allahs message and applying it in entire real life activities.
exactly.
Now in order to be muslim one need to read and understand the Quran. Otherwise how can one apply it in life?
true.
Is it not correct that the Quran should be treated as the prime and first source of knowledge required to prosper in life as a Muslim? I am not denying other possible sources, like rational thinking, listening to heart and consciousness, natural sciences, history etc.
very true . the Quran is the Criterion/Furqan for judging all other info .
peace.
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We do not put our students straight in the labs to discover the universal laws by themselves when the laws are already discovered and discussed. There are good reasons for it. If I get the laws in the Quran, why shall I wait for the scientists to discover the laws and take the risk of falling into errors of the scientists?
exactly . u might find these links helpful
http//rationalreality.50webs.com/soc.htm
http//www.geocities.com/justiceparadigm/peace.
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peace Prashant
About what you said, the only way we can find the truth is through experience. That's the only way we can truly learn. By nature, that's how we learn, but books like the quran make it EASIER for us by giving us laws that we can verify and follow. We don't have to discover them for ourselves.
For example, the only way a person would know that taking drugs is bad for them is if they take drugs. Then, that person writes down in a book that taking drugs is bad for you so that his sons and daughters can benefit from his experience. All they have to do is verify his laws using external knowledge. If they can't do that, then it's back to finding the laws the hard way. The hard way is in some way also the easy way, because you really know the answer. -
Peace and greetings to phoenix1 and all.
From the Quran I have got the following ideas regarding Islam and the Quran.
Islam is a science. Islam is the science of nature comprising all worlds including the phenomenological world where we live as a part of it. Human beings are endowed with the capability to distort the universe including themselves. If they adopt this course, it will lead them to agony, humiliation and deformation in the future which they will not be able to escape. Human beings are vested with the responsibility to evolve themselves and the universe in accordance with the true nature ordained by Allah, which will lead them towards peace, honor, beauty and harmony.
So in one sense, the source of the religion named Islam is the nature upon which Allah created man and the worlds.
Human intellect is endowed with the capability to find out the laws of the phenomenological world. But the ontological truths and the laws that determine the endless future of human beings are not within the grasp of his intellect to discover with sufficient certainty. Allah disclosed these ontological truths and the laws to man through his prophets. The prophets receive such messages without any error or doubt. Such messages are not a result of their own endeavor like a scientist discovering a law of nature. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) was the last in the line of prophethood. The Quran contains the messages from Allah received by Muhammad. It discloses to man the ontological truths and the laws of man?s true nature.
So in the ultimate sense, the source of Islam is Allah, the creator, the evolver of the worlds and of mankind, and the designer of the laws by which He creates and evolves.
In this sense, the Quran contains a subset of the laws of nature. But the distinction of these laws is that it can not be discovered by human intellect with certainty. And therefore, the Quran and Prophet Muhammad are described as the mercy of Allah to the worlds.
If this is true, the Quran is not one of the many useful books, rather it is THE BOOK without which we can not do; and the prophet is not one of the many useful leaders, rather he is THE GUIDE without whom we can not do.
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Peace parshant-kumar and all,
Two key-words here
Primary source and Law. Your preassumption is that one should look for a primary source to search for LAWS. and once he has extracted these laws and follows them , then he is guided. This mechanism will give you a certain BIAS leading to a certain interpretation from QURAN.My emphasis differs from this. I believe in a different mechanism which leads to guidance.
I believe that till the torch of FAITH is not ignited in one,s heart, there is no BOOK or LAW that can guide . (2-2)
The most repeated subject in QURAN are NOT the LAWS or instructions. they are about
The IGNITION of HEART.
It is about attaining FAITH of HIS PRESENCE.
It is about attaining faith of THE DAY OF RESURRECTION and the status of our SOULS.
It is about GROWING our FORGIVENESS, JUSTICE, COMPASSION and WISDOM.Tools that Quran offers for this are
PRAYERS to become thankfull and positive about existence and humbling our SOULS.
REMEMBRANCE of HIS beautiful attributes to generate them in our SOUL.
Practicing Compassion, justice and forgiveness toward others.Once one reaches this state of FAITH IN HIS HEART, ONE do not need to worry about the source or law or..... THEY WILL COME UNTO him/her.
peace,
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Peace alpha97 and all.
it will probably take a couple of days to say something in response to what you have said.
Sorry for the inconveniance.
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Peace phoenix1 and alpha97,very good understandings. I feel that no matter what book you read(the quran or nature.),if you dont use your god-given natural morality and intelligence it will be of only minor benefit. I dont believe that the quran necessarily explains or teaches things to us that we cannot learn from alternative sources. The criterian is not the quran(the quran is a tool of knowledge.),the criterion is your own conscience/heart,and how you use your heart/conscience with the knowledge you seek,and come across..
Peace all. -
Peace,
Yes, enquirer, that is for a part true what you say, but it took the western philosophers 2000 years to come up with even the little basis, that was already in the Quran for 1400 years. Womens right to vote, alimony with divorce, social welfare, the obligation to investigate nature through science, democracy and so on. So what you say is partly untrue, it took 2000 years of violence before people acknwoledged the basic truths in life, that they already could have found in the Quran, which some also did. The declaration of independence was put up by Freemasons who were directly refering to the basic rights inside the Quran, these statements can be found in history that they copied partly the Quranic rights. You say book of nature, but what you should say is, the human history of 3000 years. Because the exact ways of how to use your concience and instinct of freedom takes trail and error before you get the right way of applying these given concience. The Quran already gives a push and advise of where to find the best ways of applying these 'instincts'.
Peace
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Peace arnoldyasin. Your analysis does not cover christianity,hinduism,taoism,confucism,ancient indigenous religions or buddhism which came well before the quran,and established morals and social rights before muhammed. Why just state 'western philosophers'? What about eastern philosophers? And since the quran has been revealed can you honestly say that morality and social justice are applied in 'muslim countries' or that the quran inspires beautiful morality?(eg saudi arabia and the taliban claim they follow the quran.)
Your conscience can use these scriptures to apply good morals,but the scriptures themselves are useless without using your conscience.
I feel your analysis is very biased and flawed. You seem to think the quran was the only book that brought peace or benefit to man,while ignoring the bible,torah,bhagvad gita,pali canon and some of the good works of earlier religions and philosophies. The quran is not 'superman'.
Peace all. -
peace all
agree with Enquirer here. The quran wasn't the only book that preached peace and justice. If morality was limited to those people who read the quran, then there would be very little good people on earth. The quran's a great book, but what's more important than the quran is NATURE, or God's creation. We can put everything against nature to find out whether it's true or not. The quran and everyother book or saying has to go through the same process.
The scriptures provide us with hypothesis, we need to test them.
If there's no scripture, we have to come up with our own hypothesis.And prashant, can you give me an example of one of those ontological truths that the quran contains?
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Hello all
let's cut it short and put Allah in the equation, yes the Quran must be believed in to have a chance to prosper in the JD
other than that, forget it
now this is what Allah says
but you also heard what the humans say in this very thread
now it is up to you to follow Allah or follow the pals opinions
if you want to see where Allah said that, I can show you later
Peace
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Peace enquirer,
Don't get me wrong, i agree totaly with your post, things can only benefit us when it is used by our concience, otherwise it are empty letters. But you got me wrong i think, i never claimed superiority of the Quran, i just meant that a lot of western thinking only came after trial and error of 2000 years, and these people had concience like you and me. Also the Book of Nature cannot give us social understanding, if that was true, then we must allow our children to kill the weaker one, don't take care of our wounded or weak and so on, have a dominant person ruling us only because he is the strongest, animals use these technics because in their society it works with survival. We on the other hand, CAN take care of our weaker fellow-species and so on. What i only meant was that the Quran already gave those answers we looked for so long, and would have caused to take away so much violence. But is see i have to clear some things up to you, nowhere in the muslim countries do they follow the Quran and use their logic and concience, they are ruled by blind clergy men who will never accept information from outside 'muslim' people. This happened around 1000BC and locked away all logic and freethinking, by chaining the Quran to certain men's understanding, and just now we are starting to free the Quran from those chains. Before that, the muslim states were beautifull examples of freethinking and human-rights.
"The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is Muslim Spain. (Robert Briffaul-The making of Humanity.)"
"The Arabian prophet Muhammed is the founder of a revolution unparalled in history. He founded a poltical state that will ultimately embrace the entire planet. The law of that government will rest on justice and kindness. His teachings revolve around human equality, mutual cooperation and universal brotherhood.(Raymond Lerouge-Life of Mohamet)"
These were achieved truly be what you said, by using our concience and freethinking, applying the laws of the Quran. This is locked away by the clergy in the middle ages, that is why muslim countries are not muslim, they are sunni or shi'a, big big difference. What i tried to say with my post is, that to form already a concience, to allow that concience to work for you, it has to be shaped, let free. Because even though everybody has a concience, this concience is killed in a lot of societies by the way they think. It was killed by man-made dogma's that ruled both religious clergy and tirannical kings. Your concience must be allowed to work for you, this mostly can only be done in an already free enviroment, or by something that pushes you to use your concience. In a lot of traditions around the world, concience is not allowed, because the traditions of society are more important.
For example, in some Americain-native tribes, concience ruled them, so they had peacefull and balanced-with-nature societies. In South-Amerika they sacrificed humans to their man-made gods, plucking out hearts, so concience in these societies was reformed, re-programmed to their traditions, or was just shut off. Concience has to be allowed to rule you. Your concience is formed through your society and your character, and must be allowed to run its natural program otherwise it is re-programmed to the societies ideas. Like in the military, concience is shut off or turned down low, but when these men come back in the open western society, their concience comes back, and then they're haunted by their deeds they performed. Like with the vietnam-vets. This is what i tried to say, concience must be allowed in your enviroment to run its natural-program, otherwise it is re-programmed or shut off. The Quran brought the 6th century people back to their natural-concience, and gave advise about government and human-rights, which took some philosophers 2000 years to produce. Now to see what you mentioned in your answer
Quote
Your analysis does not cover christianity,hinduism,taoism,confucism,ancient indigenous religions or buddhism which came well before the quranand established morals and social rights before muhammed. Why just state 'western philosophers'?Firstly, there is no country in the western world, that has got his political ideas from these religions. In christianity, the woman is not equal to the man, that is why women's right to vote only came in the 1920's. The Quran gave that right already in 600. The Gospel influenced some decision makers on a small small scale, and nowhere were the Oldtestament rules applied except in households and church. They even used the Oldtestament only to justify wars and witchburning, and most importantly slavery was justified by the Oldtestament. Their was and is no Christian-state that applied the mentality of Jesus of peace, they only used it to justify wrong things for the people. So this one falls off when it comes down to the things you were talking about in your using concience, because concience and freethinking was not allowed in these Christain-states. They even condemned scientists and philosophers for hundreds of years, applying the Oldtestament.
Secondly, Hinduism never ruled a state, it was only the religion of its people. But when you talk about the Vedanta's, as the real followers were called of the Veda's. Hinduism only formed around 1000AD, and brought the class-separation, so people were condemned for ever to be outkasts. Richness or wealth could not be honestly gathered, because the class-rules only allowed people to be born in a certain class, to be the wealthy class. So this made sure a large group of people were condemned to be slaves for ever, when they are born in the lower classes. But when you talk about the Vedanta-rule of 1000BC, yes, these were powerfull rulers, were science and philosophy flourished because of the Veda's, Bhagada-vita and Upanishads. There were no class-differences then, and their lands were peaceful and strong. I love these books, but the only one that has rules to search through science and also gives advise about goverment rules are the Veda's, the Upanishads are mostly priests's ideas like the Jewish Talmud, worked out thoughts from the Veda's. The Bhagada-vits contains no social advises or pushes people to study nature and science, it is a Book of individual thinking and understanding of God.
But the Veda's were from a time were kings ruled, and thus talks in that way, and cannot be applied now in our democratic times. But indeed these people that followed the Veda's and allowed freethinking and concience, but this concience was pushed to use, by the knowledge given in the Veda's, as the Veda's were the Book of God of those times. But these understandings haven't influenced our free western world that allows concience. I applied to our times, that is why i didn't mention the Veda's. Also if you want to buy a good translation, i recommend the translation of Devi Chand, a monotheistic Vedanta.Toaism is also a good example, as it ruled the old Chinese nations. It was applied together with Confuciasm to rule the state. Concience and freethinking was allowed, till it also was killed by traditions. But also these didn't give real social rights, as the original scriptures were over time altered. As Toaism and Confucism allow slavery and see women as slaves to men. So again the original scriptures were the Books of God in those times, their 'Qurans', but when they had altered it, it lost all their social power.
Like with the Bible. In the old state of Judea, there was a lot of freedom, but still every time, the freedom of women were taken away and slavery was allowed by some rulers, as they didn't listen to commands given in the Oldtestament"Don't enslave people, as you were ones slaves". Like the Quran tells us, there were only a small group of rulers in Judea who apllied these social rules, because they believed in them and also had access to the real revelations, as we are stuck with the alterd copies. That allowed slavery and opression of women, and took away concience, as people were re-programmed by their clergy.
Also we don't know the real teachings of Budhha, we only have the table scraps. Most of the philosophy of Buddhism that involves human-rights, come from the Greek-philosophy schools. Even re-incarnation was not original from Buddha's teachings but came from a Greek-philosophy of the Stoicins. But yes, Buddha original teachings must have been beautifull, as again he was their messenger of God in those times. But in the Buddhistic teachings is concience one of the main rules, that is true, and only Tibet and Butal are ruled by it.
This is what i meant, concience must be allowed and pushed to flourish. This is what the Quran did for the first Muslims, this was past to Europe, and they developed it further into the freedom rights we have now. And the Muslim countries fell back into man-made rules and dogma's were concience isn't allowed. They don't follow the Quran. So sorry if you mistook me, i agree with your post, i only meant, that as much concience must be used to understand the holy Teachings, firstly it is the concience that must be allowed to use. You think like you do, because you live in a society were it is allowed and encouraged. This is exactly what the Quran did, it allowed all the Arabs in those times to drop their fake concience and let their real concience rule them, the Quran gave it back to them.
This is also what sparked the European concience to rule them, instead of allowing the unequality that ruled them for 1000's of years. The influence that the original muslims had on them through the Quran. I never dismissed other Teachings, i only believe most can't help society anymore because they are totaly changed and lost their equality of humans and pure divine social rights. Only the teachings like the Native-Americans and the Veda's come close to good social concience, that can be compared with the Quran.Concience can only work, if it is formed and pushed in the right way. It must be allowed, to work for you. We must read the Quran as much with our natural concience as much as we must allow the Quran to push in the right direction of our natural concience, it works both ways.
Peace
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Peace ab,phoenix,el-aziz,arnoldyasin,alpha97,magi and all.
Firstly ab;those are not allahs views,they are YOUR views. idea
Phoenix;i like your understanding of hypotheses,and verification by nature.(note;we ourselves are nature too. .)
El aziz and magi;I hope your question to magi is answered(i think we might have misunderstood magi,sorry magi oops .),and that others try answer that question too. Excellent question. ! idea
Alpha97;love your pearls of wisdom. !
Finally arnoldyasin;Very good insights and a lot of excellent general points. I feel that in this age of easy access to information we can take the 'best' and most relevent bits of all the different religions,social research,science and philosophies to better ourselves and society. I feel concentrating too much on the quran is not beneficial as it can be a limited,context based and relative view,and may exclude other knowledge/insights which can lead to a greater overall understanding. Also we should truely be open and unbiased and decide with our conscience which parts of the quran are correct and which are not...Otherwise we are just showing critical analysis to other scriptures/knowledge(which is a good thing.) ,while showing bias towards the quran. Do you feel the whole quran is literally sufficient for guidance for all times,if it is read correctly,or can other knowledge be on the same level/rank as the quran? Also why do you say that the message of buddhism etc..is lost/fragmented, while suggesting the qurans message from 1400 years ago is not?
Peace all. -
alpha97 wrote
?Two key-words here
Primary source and Law. Your preassumption is that one should look for a primary source to search for LAWS. and once he has extracted these laws and follows them , then he is guided. This mechanism will give you a certain BIAS leading to a certain interpretation from QURAN.?phoenix1 wrote
?And prashant, can you give me an example of one of those ontological truths that the quran contains??Ontological truths Ontology is a field of philosophy. It has got some meaning there. But I used this word as an antonym of ?phenomenology?. The phenomenological truths are subject of natural science. These truths are the laws (for example Newton?s law) and models (for example the atomic model) in science. On the other hand, what I meant by ontological truths is those statements that describe the facts that are not acquirable by logic or thinking but have logical impact on ones pattern of behavior.
Truth 1 What is beyond this phenomenological world, which is the ultimate source of it? The materialists say, it is matter. The idealists say, it is universal consciousness. The Quran says, it is Allah. The qualities of matter, universal consciousness and Allah are completely different. Matter is blind, universal consciousness is probably a player of futile game. We get descriptions of Allah in the Quran which makes Him different from matter or idealistic consciousness.
Truth 2 What is the nature of the existence of this phenomenological world? Is it dependent on my mind? Or, does it have any objective existence? The Quran says, Allah has created the world in truth and He has not created this out of play or without a purpose.
Truth 3 What is the position of Man in this phenomenological world? Some say, all we are dust in the wind. Some say, we are the king. The Quran says, man is the slave of Allah and His deputy in this world.
Truth 4 What happens with the death of a man? Does he annihilates for ever? Or will he be raised again to live for ever? Some say, he dies for ever with death. Some say, we do not know. The Quran says, he will certainly be raised.
No sound philosophy can stand without answering to these questions. No system of ethics can have a ground unless it replies to these questions. But what ever a philosophy has to say says it on the basis of mere conjecture. I always look into my heart, my consciousness. But they only flutter over the outer shell of phenomenon and never ever succeeded in tearing the skin of phenomenon. I am either to believe in this or that regarding the questions in the above mentioned 4 points. And here is the need for me to have a primary source.
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alpha97 wrote
"The most repeated subject in QURAN are NOT the LAWS or instructions. they are about
The IGNITION of HEART.
It is about attaining FAITH of HIS PRESENCE.
It is about attaining faith of THE DAY OF RESURRECTION and the status of our SOULS.
It is about GROWING our FORGIVENESS, JUSTICE, COMPASSION and WISDOM.Tools that Quran offers for this are
PRAYERS to become thankful and positive about existence and humbling our SOULS.
REMEMBRANCE of HIS beautiful attributes to generate them in our SOUL.
Practicing Compassion, justice and forgiveness toward others."
This is such an wonderful thing that moved me to the bottom. I have been reading voluminous books for some couples of years. But I found nothing like this there. I pondered over your points. Now the Quran is speaking to me in a very different manner. Oh Allah, provide me with guidance, and provide alpha97 with all the best in this world and in the hereafter.