The difference between us and sunnis/shias
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Thanks for the post guys, many good points were brought up.
I agree that no culture is better or worse than another culture, but I do believe that some cultures may be more open to religious interpretation than others. As another posts mentions, sunnis do believe in religious interpretation, but, say in Saudi Arabia, that authority is left for the most part to the clerics.
Anyway yesterday a funny thing happened at my local mosque. After salat, we have a nice literal ritual of reading some hadith. The hadith that was read claimed that Muslim men were not permitted to raise hands and say salam to women passing, as this could lead to temptation and sin. The hadith also mentioned that Muhammed (PBUH), did in fact do this-he said salam to women passing by, but the explanation given was funny. The hadith compiler (whoever he was) claimed that Muhammed was sinless, so this was okay for him, but not advisable for normal-lay men. brickwall That is the problem with hadith. Let us assume that this hadith is authentic. Muhammed said salam to women passing by-that is a normal, everyday behavior for all of us. However, some scholar who was around 1200 years ago believes that Muhammed did this because_____, and we can/cannot do this because __________. It is just this scholar's interpretation! It is not God's word; it is not Muhammed's word; for the most part it isn't even logical!
A few brothers as my masjid disagreed with this hadith. They read the hadith, and questioned it. However, the moment they walked out of the door-they behaved opposite to what they were preaching. There was a pretty messed up American women begging for money (she looked like a prostitute-druggie). The first thing the brother did was to tell her to get out of the men's section of the mosque. brickwall One second you advocate for women's rights, and literally the next second you tell women to get out of your face?? I mean the brother could have asked her nicely to move, and then to talk to her-like a human being, and ask her what she wanted. Fortunately, another brother who likes to do social work took care of her.
The world that we live in....
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I live with a Sunni. I wake up every morning to a confessed Sunni and it has posed no problems at all. This is because Sunnis come in several different flavors. Her family are devout religious but her dad has always 'shown a way' rather than preaching to his children and thus his daughters are now religious and wears the hijabb out of love of God and respect their dad's example. I have the utmost respect for this man, there is no doubt that he reads the Quran and use some hadith for spice (in that order). He has never told his children any of the strange or messenger offending hadith and I think this is because he ignores them and pretend they are not there. So their relationship with hadith seems to be limited to the method of prayer and a few other bells and whistles. Ofcourse there is the whole mecca, hajj thing, but I will have to view this man on his actions, as judging his faith is reserved for someone else and to me he is an exemplary human being and an inspiration. If the women start talking gossip he either leaves the room or tells them kindly to continue with the "woman news" when he has left. He spend a part of each late evening reading and reciting the Quran. He is always polite and freindly and you can tell it is genuine. There may be some theological subjects we disagree on like Mecca, but we both know that God knows the truth and we will both be informed so heated debate is pointless and respectless. In fact, I wish I was more like this Sunni man as a person, but in time perhaps it will rub off a little on me. Im told he 'grew with it' and used to have a short temper
Unfortunally his kind is rare. I know of a few other families like this, friends of my father in law obviously. But my other run ins with sunnis has not been as good. Friendly until you start asking the wrong questions. He accepted my marriage proposal to his daughter knowing that I was not a Sunni, his criterion was that I believed in God and the messengers. That was it. If his daughter thought I was good enough for her, and I believed in God, then I was good enough for him. How many devout Sunnis (tho whole ball of vax, the long beard the arabian clothes and funny hat) in their 60's do you know of who would do like that?
But the reason im telling you this story is because I think it is important not to create a "them and us" situation, because as people on the street there are many sunnis closer to our point of view than the dominant salafi/wahabi one. Which btw. he loathes with a passion and often talks about the vises of. And confronting these undecided sunnis with hard words, and telling them that their family and traditions are crackpot, is certain to push some of them further into the cult...
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Jibreel, thank you for your post and your story.
I agree with you that there are many sunnis who are like us. In fact, I used to be one, as are many in my community back home (composed of many 1st and 2nd generation immigrants). Unfortunately, I now attend college where most of the Muslims (about 80% of the masjid's population are international students) follow the Wahabi version of Islam or some other version they learned back home. I have to deal with them everyday, I even live with a Wahabi, and it is exhausting. That is why I started this thread... basically as a coping mechanism. I hope you don't mind.
My intention is not to create differences.
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Peace
I am also confused about this issue because problem everywhere is the same.
In addition to Quran
Sunnis/Shia use Ahadiths
Some Quranists use 19
Some Quranists use www.blablabla.com
Some Quranists use incscriptions
Some Quranists use Hadiths ul Lugha i.e dictionaries
No one is using PURE QURAN .
Everyone has his own reasons.
Regard"Everyone has his own reasons" This is the summary of your complaint! REASON, worse OWN reason. It must be nor reason; correct? Well, perhaps it is okay to have reason, but it must be only MY REASON!
You have spilled the beans my dear friend with two words that you have biggest problem
OWN
REASONor
Owning Reason.
or
Not following someone else blindly.
or
Not acting like robots.
or
Believing that each will be responsible for their OWN choice.
I think you summarized the best thing about those who do not follow hadith and sunna. They are FREE people who are not scared of using THEIR OWN (not a fascist mind-controller's) reason.
Let me add one more point
The worst individually made reasoning (own reasoning) is better than the best blind following! One has chance to lead to truth and monotheism, but the other has no chance.
Peace,
Edip -
"Everyone has his own reasons" This is the summary of your complaint! REASON, worse OWN reason. It must be nor reason; correct? Well, perhaps it is okay to have reason, but it must be only MY REASON!
You have spilled the beans my dear friend with two words that you have biggest problem
OWN
REASONor
Owning Reason.
or
Not following someone else blindly.
or
Not acting like robots.
or
Believing that each will be responsible for their OWN choice.
I think you summarized the best thing about those who do not follow hadith and sunna. They are FREE people who are not scared of using THEIR OWN (not a fascist mind-controller's) reason.
Peace,
Edip)
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he reads the Quran
Does he read the quran in arabic without knowing the meaning like most sunnis?
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I hate that. Sometimes when you show people translations they begin to cringe or act funny.
It is a novel conept we must try to actually read and UNDERSTAND Allah's word without relying on someone to do it for us.
bravo you are right.
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Doesn't look that way to me and I know that he both speaks and reads arabic.
But I heared some arabic speakers do not understand the quran. Why is that? or is the source which I got information wrong?
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But I heared some arabic speakers do not understand the quran. Why is that? or is the source which I got information wrong?
I think the translation game is part the reason for that. Insisting that arabic is a magical language that never change while it certainly has...and a lot. He understands it from a street level, but when I look at how this man behaves himself, I am certain that I have more to learn from him than visa versa, atleast as a person. The few theological differences between us are just that and who really knows? The sheer arrogance I have met in the God/Quran alone community can take on the worst of sunnis on their best of days and still come out the bigger more self rightious wanker.
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In conjunction with the last post, I really hate it when people glorify Arabic. I was asking my Saudi room mate if he knew anything about writing left to right vs right to left. I said that Hindi is written left to right and that most of the living languages aside from Hebrew that are written right to left descend from the Arabic script (Farsi, Urdu, ect), and that the number of languages that are written left to right outnumber the languages written right to left.
How does all of this stuff tie in with the discussion
My room mate Well Arabic is the language of the Quran, and.....
brickwall Well Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas so......? (my roommate doesn't even know what the Vedas is lol......)
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I understand exactly what you mean. I usually get the same reaction when I tell people that Hebrew is the language of the Torah, and Aramaic is the language of the Injiyl. People start having ridiculous ideas that God has a certain language and that He can't understand any other ones...
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But I heared some arabic speakers do not understand the quran. Why is that? or is the source which I got information wrong?
You might want to read an introduction on Arabic such as on
http//arabic.tripod.com/Intro.htmIn short, the Arabic as the speakers speak daily today (also their official version) might be (very) different to the Arabic that is used in the Quran (Classical Arabic or Quranic Arabic).
By the way, to Yaqub i can understand it if "the way" people glorify Arabic might come hate-able to you. However i will add that the Arabic as in the Quran does indeed sound "eloquent". While reciting Quran in Arabic (correctly and beautifully) without observing its meaning can be useless, doing the same while observing the meaning can be a wonderful experience. It is in some way, healing. That's for the peaceful, or 'good news' verses. As for some heavier verses (warnings), the sounds are not only also heavy (sometimes), but more difficult to pronounce as well.
And despite all the difficulties in translating the Arabic Quran to our own languages, i will not neglect the possibility that there might be reasons not yet made clear to us, as to why the Last Revelation is revealed in the Classical/Quranic Arabic.
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Thank you Ahmed Bilal
San, I do agree with your point. It would be wonderful to eloquently read, understand, and implement God's orders in the way they were revealed, and like you said who knows... we may find out why God revealed the Quran in Arabic soon....
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Hi, Yaqub, greetings from a new member here!
As for the original topic, I don't know how "us", "sunnis", and "shias" are grouped, classed or characterized. So i refrain from such perceived groupings.
I grew up in the Sunni tradition myself. However, after all the rages against the (put "suspected" here if you like) "lies" and "conspiracies", i came to pity and worry about those who are still basing their decisions on such mental and psychological tyrannies. Not that their lives have anything to do with mine, but still, you would want your families and friends to be believers in God alone, wouldn't you? Unless made clear to you the rights from the wrongs, you'd still have hope for them to be guided, wouldn't you?
Hate is of no use. Take evil for example. It is useless to hate evil. Stay away from it, yes, of course, just follow God and seek His protection. Why though, we would need to be angry to something that wants our anger, no matter what our anger is directed to? That is simply not peaceful. Wasted, useless, hate is. I came nearer to the conclusion that God's way is perfectly peaceful and of ease and of happiness. No need for all the negative emotions, and even no need to linger on difficulties. The simulation of heavenly life is already beginning when one submits to God entirely. God always remind us to return to Him after we make any fault, that is, in my opinion, so we don't linger on negativity too long. He wants us to quickly return back into peaceful state. Back to 'heaven' again.
That's why i would suggest if they bothered you, be patient. If they don't believe your view (and you got tired of them), leave them. Don't think anything bad about them, not because you "should", but because you would be better off thinking the good things out of them or anything else, for the peace of your own mind.
Instead of talking about the difference between "us" and "them", why don't we talk about what's the similar between "us", for a start. God knows what might bring His believers closer. Anything.
Peace, and may God relieves our hearts from the fires and ashes, and showers us with springs of peace
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welcome San to the forum.
Thank you for contributing and insightful post. Many new members come through here, but I get excited when people begin to post intelligent comments that show some wisdom.
I realize that the title of this thread is a little vague, and that it is pointless to pick at differences. I started this thread to cope with the initial negative encounters I had with the Sunni's in my community. However, since then, our relations have improved drastically. I found, like you said, that it was pointless to constantly pick at the behaviors and idiosyncracies among most sunni people. It just provokes argument and leads to nothing but animostiy and hurt feelings. I have also found that it is best to not discuss contraversial religious topics unless someone asks you first and shows general interest in learning about your opinion/arguments but that is another story in itself.
By the way, I like your writing style... are you a college student?
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Thanks Yaqub, you guessed right, though 'that is another story in itself' ;D
alhamdulillah, that your relations improved drastically since. Your 'let-it-out' topic is proven useful then
Yeah i see the point on that don't-discuss-it-until-you're-asked with those who are uncomfortably different to you. That is a better approach indeed--i've had some uncomfortable experiences in the opposite.
As for the 'insight', i'm a little ashamed for myself... I have not-so-memorable past with hatred/anger myself. So i would describe it as trial-by-fire experience. Now that i have much more reason to forgive, everything becomes easier. I still have issue with one of the basic deeds of reverence to God, as leftovers from the past habits. That's why i need a completely different view, that of God's absolute ease. I left the doctrine that 'religion is difficult'. That, suspiciously, has satanic sign on it--it opposes the view of "ease" in the Quran, for those who follow God and His message. Everything is easy for Him and we are invited to keep asking Him for ease.
And i'm still learning and practicing on this new "easy" view.
Peace,