When/How/What Made Islam Materialized Into a Backward, Dogmatic Cult?

runninglikezebras

Hi Armanaziz,

My answers in-line

Salam runninglikezebras.

Well said. But I'm not sure if it was the Caliphs themselves who wanted to be the middlemen - or the ignorant followers imagined/wished them to be on post facto basis after their demise. (BTW, Any reason you did not mention Ali?)

I don't know what was the case. I dont blame anyone in what happened historically. Both the explanations can be valid. I did not leave out Ali on purpose. He just slipped my mind. The two mentioned Qaliphs are responsible for the current codex of Quran we still know today and the other one for establishing the islamic calendar. They popped up during my study on different Quranic topics. I don't know much about Ali. The caliphs don't interest me very much.

I believe you and I had earlier disagreement over whether our intellect and morality is our obligation to God. When you say, "God alone has authority." the immediate question that Mullah's will ask you is whose interpretation of God's words do you accept? Clearly some level of translation and interpretation is needed to follow the verses of Qur'an, right?

For me the answer always has been - we have to uphold our God-gifted intellect and morality and based on that premise we should accept the best translation and interpretation of Qur'an to understand what God wants us to do with respect to our time and society.

Looking back at earlier generations is of minimum help because situations change. What they did was for them and what we did is for us and we will not be asked what they used to do. We will only be asked whether we made the best use of our intellect and our sense of right and wrong in the path shown by the messengers - that's all.

For example, in matters relating to polygamy or legitimate age of marriage - we cannot take what our predecessors did as the benchmark. We have to seek what is the best interpretation of Qur'an on this matters given the realities and necessities of our time. Similalrly when it comes to cutting off "hands" of thiefs - it is of no use to investigate whether our earlier generations cut off real hands or figurative hand (i.e. ability of stealing); rather we should investigate what is the appropriate interpretation FOR US. Once again, what they did was for them, and what we do is for us.

That is why I do not believe the verses of Qur'an have any fixed "interpretation" - I believe they are living "signs" meant to guide us under all changing circumstances.

Well, that 's my answer to "whose interpretation?" - If you have a different answer - I'd like to know.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

I don't necessarily disagree with what you say. Yes, use your reason and common sense when trying to understand Quran. I don't need to repeat what Quran says about this. Where we differ is, I think there is no just form of morality outside the moral rules set out by God. As humans we can establish our own moral code, maybe entirely based on rational thought. That doesnt mean that human moral code cant be unrightful and unjust. Human systems are open to corruption, error, mistake, ignorance etc. Only Gods system is perfect.

The correct interpretation is not in our control. Not even by being totally rational (which leaves out emotional intelligence). The only way interpretation is guaranteed is by guidance of God. In a 1-1 relationship with God, your interpretation of Quran is a barometer. Like a thermometer will rise when you have fever, falling without Gods guidance will lead to misinterpreting Quran. No outsider can help you in this. I strongly believe this is the case.

Peace

Armanaziz

The correct interpretation is not in our control. Not even by being totally rational (which leaves out emotional intelligence). The only way interpretation is guaranteed is by guidance of God. In a 1-1 relationship with God, your interpretation of Quran is a barometer. Like a thermometer will rise when you have fever, falling without Gods guidance will lead to misinterpreting Quran. No outsider can help you in this. I strongly believe this is the case.

Salam runninglikezebras.

This thermometer - barometer stuff is a bit over my head. "God's guidance" is fine... but how do you recognize which guidance is God's?

Let us take a very specific example - say, legal age of marriage. The best clue that Qur'an gives is probably in 46 - test the orphans till they mature for marriage and then hand them over their wealth. This clearly implies age of marriage is the same age where one is fit to accept his own financial responsibility.

Now the question is exactly which age is this? 9 years, 11 years, 13 yeras, 18 years, 21 years? Qur'an does not say that. So, we do not have a hard-coded rule on this topic.

Now different people can claim different ways they see God's guidance

A traditionalist may say my forefather assumed that the age is 9 years - so that is what God guides me to do. His anchor is the "traditions" of scholars / caliphs / salafs etc.
Some hardcore "Quranist" may say we must source all answers from Qur'an. God hints ""Forty (40)" years as the age of maturity in 4615 so it must be the age, although there is no direct logical connection between 4615 and age of marriage. His anchor point is - the answer must be sourced from Qur'an.
I believe my intellect and conscience tells me it is upto every society to determine what is the mandated "minimum age" and whatever age my society (i.e. state) dictates, I need to accept that as God's guidance as the minimum age. If my state sets the bar too low (per my intellect), I'll still apply my best judgement to decide whether my children are able to independently handle financial affairs before I consider them fit for marriage.

So, you can see, I am anchoring upon my intelligence and my conscience to differentiate God's guidance vs. false guidance.

From your response I could not understand what your anchor point is. If you are suggesting we don't need to have an anchor point, if we have faith in Allah, Allah will guide us - then again I'd say Allah will guide us by making us "feel" which is the right path. and this "feeling" of what is right is nothing but our intellect and conscience.

And following our intellect and conscience as God's guidance with utmost faith is the straight route to seek Allah.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

Man_of_Faith

Salaam,

Yes. Islam is not a religion but a spiritual concept. If you perceive it that way you need to go all the way though and ditch superstitious rituals.

As for the Bible, you are right that it is hadith all the way basically because it is reports of events from real people. However, the writings you find to be Gospels in it are actually related to the truth even though they are not always understood properly and with the risk of bias and insertions. Also several instances in the so-called 'Old Testament' contains true narrations instead of sectarian conjecture and may help a person understand the whole picture. I agree that it is often mere nonsense though, but you cannot compare it with utter nonsense like Bukhari and company.

And you gave a reference to a part called 'Revelation'. Does that relate to the events of Jesus? No.

As for Matthew and the raised saints. Well it seems to me a literal exaggeration or a misinterpretation. Those Gospel testimonies are written by ordinary people who followed Jesus and their original material was likely written in Hebrew/Aramaic.

You have to turn Quran right in interpretation before you can turn down other sources. It does not always make sense. How about praying birds or that GOD will come in waves with the angels at the end of days. One should not throw a stone in a house of glass (a saying).

I find overall that the Gospel testimonies in the Bible to be valid source of information. However I agree they are not the best available. I prefer "The Gospel according to the Hebrews" and Gospel of Marcion. The latter was deemed heretical by the Greco-Roman clergy, possibly for a reason. "Marcion's" testimony is loosely based on Matthew but lacks many nonsensical parts.

As for the wider picture of the sayings of Jesus, they are true. Jesus did talk about no separation between the Rabb and a man but rather a symbiotic relationship. Quran confirms it, if you interpret it as intended by the author. This is the reason Jesus became heavily persecuted and finally executed by the clergy, i.e. because he made heretical and blasphemous utterances in their opinion.

Also the utterances and parables given by the person in the Gospels are very sophisticated and show they come from an intelligent and witted person. You see they tried to find a way against him, but because he spoke in parables instead they both had problems to understand what he said and the parable made it difficult for them to use it as evidence.

However, the majority of what he says makes perfect sense, if you can understand his parables and the philosophical message.

I do not compare Quran, on equal level, with the Bible either because it is a grand prophecy and has been a very reliable source so far. However there are scenes in Quran that are very similar to that of the Gospel testimonies in the Bible and in 5116 Jesus clarifies what he said and that he did not any separation between his soul and that of The Rabb (although the traditional interpretation is completely off).

And as for that I said they were fictitious in your view was because of what you yourself wrote. If they did not exist then they are obviously fictitious characters. Otherwise what kind of logic should we apply? This means I did not put words in your mouth but just clarified what you meant. If you did mean something else you may elaborate, because to me it seemed like Moses, Jesus etc never existed.

Salaam

reel

The problem predates Bukhari, it started with the caliphs Uthman, Umar etc. They have no authority in theology. Their power is only political but still they started messing with Islam (predating the birth of Bukhari). Once the people accepted these political figures as religious middle-men to God things went wrong. Ultimately leading to the sectarianism in Islam, who still to this day fight over who is the caliph appointed by God. The answer is simple none. God alone has authority.

I am not fully knowledgeable about all the caliphs. But yes, I totally agree that the problem predates Mr Bukhari. When researching on him, I came to know that he was from the school of Hanbali. Now this Ahmad ibn Hanbal was imprisoned twice in Iraq because Mutazilas called his views too extreme for Islam. My view matches yours. But the way I see it is that a group of political figures wanted the power. With the help of false theologists, they were able to get it. Mr Bukhari put the "last" nail in the coffin since he along with his mates made the hadith books which Muslims now blindly follow to make sure they remain backward.

Look at some of the hadiths
Anas bin Malik said?I heard the Messenger of Allah (&#65018 say ?My nation will not unite on misguidance, so if you see them differing, follow the great majority.?? (Sunan ibn Majah Vol1 Book 36 Hadith 3950)

The Holy Prophet (S) said One who interprets the Qur?an according to personal opinion1 he makes his place in fire (Hell).

One who interprets the Qur?an according to his view,2 even though it may be right, yet he has committed a sin

The extreme side effect of this is available here http//www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?103780-Ignorance-of-those-who-self-interpret-the-Quran-and-Ahadith

Devil probably couldn't change Quran, yet he was successful in taking people away from it.

Is not a fallacy at all... who said that "The Pattern" has ended???
It's infact a RECURRING pattern..

You can observe similar pattern in the Soviet Union, North Korea, (for example)...

Interesting to note
Declare a nation to be democratic/ Religious/Islam/Christian/Socialist/Facist/Communist << put any label here >> > declare the government to be holy>

The true objective is to declare the "Ruler" (and his family / mates / cronies / fellow tribe / gang member) as holy..
And for that they require an ideology / religion / belief system to be enforced within the society..

I haven't seen that in today's USA though... there are still great portion of people who still opted to maintained their sanity and not considering their own ruler / government / religion / ideology to be holy and/or unquestionable..
Although things might change in the very near future..

Not exactly. Read our law of freedom of speech. You can criticize everything here, but if you write to cause a revolution you will be arrested. Also think about the number of people who joined army to fight against Saddam because he had wmd. Many of them are now dead or crippled, but they have come to know that the entire war was based on lies told by our darling Bush. But as I said earlier, it was just one example.

Using your logic, we see that family is worse than a cult for a child. Note that a family is usually based on dictatorship. A child has no power, but to obey his parents because of fear of being punished. He cannot beat a kid when his natural instinct tells him this is the right thing. He cannot go to play whenever he likes. He cannot eat sand. He cannot break his toys. He is always under the parents' constitutions of what is right and wrong. As for parents, they are required to carry on with the dictatorship by the society. Otherwise, they risk losing their child.....in most of western countries.

Similarly, traditional love and marriage are a cult, for they tell the man and woman to remain faithful to each other. They live in fear that if they cheat they would be abandoned and at the same time lose a portion of their hard earned wealth. Society says marriage is holy!

School and college are also a cult hmm. No matter where we are, we are required to obey a ruler called the teacher, professor, principal or dean They expect us to do annoying homework and hard tests. They don't allow us to cheat (how bad) when the homework and tests seem too impossible for our intellect. If we are caught cheating we are expelled or given F &. They can do this because they are holy? We cannot argue with them, for we wont be listened at all. But the sad thing is that if we don't go to school or college we don't get the so called "respectable jobs". Just talk to some students and see how their health declines when they study for nights -[. There are also those who commit suicide when they don't get the academic reward for their hard work. So yeah the holy teacher, professor, principal and dean cause death too.

I now see the biggest problem we have in the word is ethics >(. This is the reason why we have so many cults.

peace

Jafar

Not exactly. Read our law of freedom of speech. You can criticize everything here, but if you write to cause a revolution you will be arrested. Also think about the number of people who joined army to fight against Saddam because he had wmd. Many of them are now dead or crippled, but they have come to know that the entire war was based on lies told by our darling Bush. But as I said earlier, it was just one example.

I said portion of the people still maintain their sanity.. portion..
It means there are other portion of the people that opted to lose their sanity...

But let me "prophesied" the downfall of a nation named U.S.A.

Triggered by some problems, the "conservatives" finally took over.
And it will bring the entire nation to a spiraling downfall towards "Backward and Dogmatic" Nation..

Similar case has happened to the "Abbasid Caliphate" in the past..

Using your logic, we see that family is worse than a cult for a child. Note that a family is usually based on dictatorship. A child has no power, but to obey his parents because of fear of being punished. He cannot beat a kid when his natural instinct tells him this is the right thing. He cannot go to play whenever he likes. He cannot eat sand. He cannot break his toys. He is always under the parents' constitutions of what is right and wrong. As for parents, they are required to carry on with the dictatorship by the society. Otherwise, they risk losing their child.....in most of western countries.

Not all families worked in the same manner..

But.. when "The parent" imposed a 'set of dogma' to the child, (or husband to the wife(s), or wife to the husband(s)) then yes.. the family is in a state of occultic / religious environment.

Similarly, traditional love and marriage are a cult, for they tell the man and woman to remain faithful to each other. They live in fear that if they cheat they would be abandoned and at the same time lose a portion of their hard earned wealth. Society says marriage is holy!

I don't get your point here... where's the "Dogma" in the "traditional love and marriage"?

Marriage is similar to "Business Arrangement / Contract".. when one party decided that the arrangement is not working they can end the arrangement / contract as defined in the clause.

When a party do not agree to the clause as defined in the arrangement / contract, then they will not sign it.

School and college are also a cult hmm. No matter where we are, we are required to obey a ruler called the teacher, professor, principal or dean They expect us to do annoying homework and hard tests. They don't allow us to cheat (how bad) when the homework and tests seem too impossible for our intellect. If we are caught cheating we are expelled or given F &. They can do this because they are holy? We cannot argue with them, for we wont be listened at all. But the sad thing is that if we don't go to school or college we don't get the so called "respectable jobs". Just talk to some students and see how their health declines when they study for nights -[. There are also those who commit suicide when they don't get the academic reward for their hard work. So yeah the holy teacher, professor, principal and dean cause death too.

Some schools and colleges are "Occultic"/"Religious" while some others are not...

I've witnessed some professor who vigorously promoted "Critical Thinking", some notable example the professor stood in front of the class telling / teaching blatant lies and asked the class to pinpoint / detect the 'lies' / 'inaccuracies' within his lecture in his class. He will then reward those 'critical' student who dare to 'stand up' and are able to detect the inaccuracies in his teachings and 'argue his case' to him. Plus if the student are able to provide a better explanation / than the professor the student will get additional grade.

And no.. such professor is not in the US...

But in general manner, there's always an option to leave / dropped out from any school / colleges when any parties (teachers, staff, student) doesn't agree with the 'arrangement' or 'culture' of the school / colleges.
And find another suitable school / colleges..

The school / colleges will become "Truly Occultic" or "Truly Religious" when they imposed a DEATH PENALTY to the apostate who dare to leave the school / colleges.
In similar manner as "Apostasy Law" being imposed within most (not all) of organized religion.

runninglikezebras

Salam runninglikezebras.

This thermometer - barometer stuff is a bit over my head. "God's guidance" is fine... but how do you recognize which guidance is God's?

Let us take a very specific example - say, legal age of marriage. The best clue that Qur'an gives is probably in 46 - test the orphans till they mature for marriage and then hand them over their wealth. This clearly implies age of marriage is the same age where one is fit to accept his own financial responsibility.

Now the question is exactly which age is this? 9 years, 11 years, 13 yeras, 18 years, 21 years? Qur'an does not say that. So, we do not have a hard-coded rule on this topic.

Now different people can claim different ways they see God's guidance

A traditionalist may say my forefather assumed that the age is 9 years - so that is what God guides me to do. His anchor is the "traditions" of scholars / caliphs / salafs etc.
Some hardcore "Quranist" may say we must source all answers from Qur'an. God hints ""Forty (40)" years as the age of maturity in 4615 so it must be the age, although there is no direct logical connection between 4615 and age of marriage. His anchor point is - the answer must be sourced from Qur'an.
I believe my intellect and conscience tells me it is upto every society to determine what is the mandated "minimum age" and whatever age my society (i.e. state) dictates, I need to accept that as God's guidance as the minimum age. If my state sets the bar too low (per my intellect), I'll still apply my best judgement to decide whether my children are able to independently handle financial affairs before I consider them fit for marriage.

So, you can see, I am anchoring upon my intelligence and my conscience to differentiate God's guidance vs. false guidance.

From your response I could not understand what your anchor point is. If you are suggesting we don't need to have an anchor point, if we have faith in Allah, Allah will guide us - then again I'd say Allah will guide us by making us "feel" which is the right path. and this "feeling" of what is right is nothing but our intellect and conscience.

And following our intellect and conscience as God's guidance with utmost faith is the straight route to seek Allah.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

Hello Armanaziz,

I totally get what you are saying. But in my experience intellect and rational thinking are not a safeguard against straying away from Gods system. Let me illustrate this with a mundane example you are driving in your car on the highway. The car in front of you crashes horribly. You feel it's your duty to aid the person that crashed, so you pull over to help him. To serve the example there are two approaches to try to aid this person that crashed.

The rational approach

You pull over. You inform the police/ambulance about what happened by calling them. You try to warn upcoming traffic for the car that crashed to prevent other/more cars from crashing into it. By the time you did these things the driver of the crashed car may have already died before you even check up on him.

The emotional approach

You ignore all those things stated above and run straight to the victim trying to see if that person is okay and needs first aid. Risking upcoming traffic will not notice the accident, crash into it and yourself and risking first aid services will be too late to the scene because you didn't call them immediately.

Which ones of these is right? Which one is wrong? It's hard to tell. Most likely a balanced approach is best.

In my opinion this guidance from God does not only work through our intellect. I don't fully understand how this guidance works so I cant properly explain it. But I do believe there is more to it then only the mind and our conscience. To me it's not unlikely God guides us even by the events we encounter in life. The challenges/hardships we face in life are always an opportunity to get closer to God.

Personally I've always been a very rational person and logical thinking has always been my stronghold, my fortress. But it has it's limits and drawbacks. Rationalizing everything can make you a cold-hearted person. Sometimes empathy and good deeds are more required over logical arguments over whats right and wrong. I feel I overestimated the value of intellect for way too long and I feel it's my task to change this into more focus on warm-hearted acts instead of wasting time on intellectual debates. In a sense, let go of my ego.

Peace

runninglikezebras

Hi reel,

I am not fully knowledgeable about all the caliphs. But yes, I totally agree that the problem predates Mr Bukhari. When researching on him, I came to know that he was from the school of Hanbali. Now this Ahmad ibn Hanbal was imprisoned twice in Iraq because Mutazilas called his views too extreme for Islam. My view matches yours. But the way I see it is that a group of political figures wanted the power. With the help of false theologists, they were able to get it. Mr Bukhari put the "last" nail in the coffin since he along with his mates made the hadith books which Muslims now blindly follow to make sure they remain backward.

Look at some of the hadiths
Anas bin Malik said?I heard the Messenger of Allah (&#65018 say ?My nation will not unite on misguidance, so if you see them differing, follow the great majority.?? (Sunan ibn Majah Vol1 Book 36 Hadith 3950)

The Holy Prophet (S) said One who interprets the Qur?an according to personal opinion1 he makes his place in fire (Hell).

One who interprets the Qur?an according to his view,2 even though it may be right, yet he has committed a sin

The extreme side effect of this is available here http//www.sunniforum.com/forum/showthread.php?103780-Ignorance-of-those-who-self-interpret-the-Quran-and-Ahadith

True. But if you were to hypothetically remove both Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Bukhari out of Islamic history, I'm convinced people would still be choosing to follow human leaders they attribute power to instead of one God. Quran constantly reminds of our tendency towards this practice. It was bound to happen, predicted to happen, it will always happen. We can't change this. We can only try not to get involved in empowering such worldly authorities when it comes down to our practice of submission to God. From what I know of the Mutazila, the movement was pretty academic. Like today's universities they were islands for an elite and ivory towers. Back in the day, there was this same divide between the intellectuals studying sciences and philosophy from a Quranic perspective and the common people who were mostly illiterate. The influence of figures such as Hanbal and Bukhari was way more strong on the common people. We see this same phenomenon today with populism whos leaders often are citing popular lies or distortions of the truth. They are incorrect but the political power of them is often bigger than any rational, intellectual proof for the average joe. I don't think this tendency will ever change it's intrinsic to the hearts of those who abandoned God. I can't point to an exact moment of time for when it went wrong. Clearly the acceptance of a first caliph after the death of Muhammad tells us many inside that community were already grasping onto the human person of Muhammad more then God alone. In that sense I think the problem is timeless.

Devil probably couldn't change Quran, yet he was successful in taking people away from it.

I concur. Remarkable isn't it? Quran is protected. It didn't prevent the Shaytan to mess with everything outside that which is protected/guided by God. It should remind us that nothing - no culture, no life is guaranteed of protection while not submitting to God.

ps from a political point of view I'm an anarchist as I feel this is the only system that is compatible with Islam. Where I live I'm forced to vote by law. But I refuse to do so. This could get me in legal trouble but I refuse to empower a system that is inherently corrupt and evil.

Peace

Armanaziz

Hello Armanaziz,

I totally get what you are saying. But in my experience intellect and rational thinking are not a safeguard against straying away from Gods system. Let me illustrate this with a mundane example you are driving in your car on the highway. The car in front of you crashes horribly. You feel it's your duty to aid the person that crashed, so you pull over to help him. To serve the example there are two approaches to try to aid this person that crashed.

The rational approach

You pull over. You inform the police/ambulance about what happened by calling them. You try to warn upcoming traffic for the car that crashed to prevent other/more cars from crashing into it. By the time you did these things the driver of the crashed car may have already died before you even check up on him.

The emotional approach

You ignore all those things stated above and run straight to the victim trying to see if that person is okay and needs first aid. Risking upcoming traffic will not notice the accident, crash into it and yourself and risking first aid services will be too late to the scene because you didn't call them immediately.

Which ones of these is right? Which one is wrong? It's hard to tell. Most likely a balanced approach is best.

In my opinion this guidance from God does not only work through our intellect. I don't fully understand how this guidance works so I cant properly explain it. But I do believe there is more to it then only the mind and our conscience. To me it's not unlikely God guides us even by the events we encounter in life. The challenges/hardships we face in life are always an opportunity to get closer to God.

Personally I've always been a very rational person and logical thinking has always been my stronghold, my fortress. But it has it's limits and drawbacks. Rationalizing everything can make you a cold-hearted person. Sometimes empathy and good deeds are more required over logical arguments over whats right and wrong. I feel I overestimated the value of intellect for way too long and I feel it's my task to change this into more focus on warm-hearted acts instead of wasting time on intellectual debates. In a sense, let go of my ego.

Peace

Salam runninglikezebras.

Thanks for carrying on this discussion because I believe this is one of the fundamental issues we need to understand.
I hope the discussion is mutually beneficial.

Going back to your example ? of the car crash ? I do not believe our intellect and conscience will lead us to a fixed set of actions. For different people these will act differently and that is perfectly alright. Each of us are different and hence God?s guidance will also be different for each of us. And for each there will also be a strong ?urge? to keep away from trouble (was-wasil khannas). But we all should be able to distinguish between the voice of our selfish mind (i.e. ?stay out of trouble?), verses what our conscience is demanding us to do. You are right that for some people the immediate next step set out by conscience will be to call 911 ? for others the call of conscience will be to investigate upon the victims first and for many it would be something in between ? but none-the-less we must have the ?faith? in our conscience and intellect and do what feels ?right? at the moment not what feels ?convenient?. That is what I mean by ?faith in our God gifted sense of right and wrong?. The stronger is a person?s ?faith? (Iman) the more likely is the person would be inclined to do what is ?right? rather than what is ?convenient?.

I?d still like to hear your view on the specific example relating to taking guidance from Qur?an. What would be your take on ?Minimum age for marriage?, and why?

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

runninglikezebras

Peace,

1734 and 6152 ashuddah = maturity

Armanaziz

Peace,

1734 and 6152 ashuddah = maturity

Salam

"Maturity" is alright, but how do you judge when a person is mature? At what age? And how do you decide?
Sorry for pushing... but it seemed to me - by giving just verse references you are bypassing my key question - what should be our anchoring point to come up with practical guidelines/rulings based on the generic instructions of Qur'an.

For centuries we have been using the so called hadith literature as the anchoring point - and that wrong anchoring has been the reason which "Made Islam Materialized Into a Backward, Dogmatic Cult". My humble proposition is our intelligence and morality should be the anchoring point - even if it means taking an updated/ changed guideline/ruling than what our predecessors did. This doesn't necessarily mean we are implying our predecessors were wrong - their actions are for them and ours is for us.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

Islamo-Aleikum

For centuries we have been using the so called hadith literature as the anchoring point - and that wrong anchoring has been the reason which "Made Islam Materialized Into a Backward, Dogmatic Cult".
It definitely is an aspect of it, but it's not the central point. What materialized Islam was not by a thing, but by someone, either drastic change or gradual through times, right now, I'm focusing on what caused this materialization.

To be honest, Ahadith were not a cause, they are simply historical records of Muhammad, since these were recorded thousand years ago, there were different methodologies. The problem today is that Muslims use the words of Muhammad as an authority rather than what them as a secondary source to sufficiently support a more established claim. Muslims "canonize" Ahadith instead of "authenticate" Ahadith, they did it back then and they do it now. We need to throw away the canonization method.

However, I think this happened after Bukhari. The four schools of Islam, Hanbali was started by a terrorist. The Crusades were one reason that Islam became influenced to emphasize its Judaic and Christian roots by proselytizing people into accepting Islam by emphasizing it has Jesus, Moses and Abraham as its prophets.

N00B

From what I know, there are many factors that cause to materialize Islam into dogmatic cult. Islam's phase got degraded down because of the close of ijtihad, Crusade, and colonialism issues.
This problem increased more during the 70s and 80s, when Saudi Arabia sent Wahhabi missionaries and booklets to other countries with Muslim communites, Islamists powers in Muslim majority countries (like Iran's 1979 revolution), Sharia implementation in Malaysia etc.
In my opinion, Islam is in the similar situation today like Christianity was during the Middle Ages. Hopefully, there is a bright future, but first, the ijtihad needs to be open.

reel

I said portion of the people still maintain their sanity.. portion..
It means there are other portion of the people that opted to lose their sanity...

Every country has some portions of people who maintain their sanity. But when some decide to lose sanity the sane people suffer also. I am always against wars, but this doesn't mean my government is not using my tax money to finance them while ruining the economy for which I may lose employment.

But let me "prophesied" the downfall of a nation named U.S.A.

Triggered by some problems, the "conservatives" finally took over.
And it will bring the entire nation to a spiraling downfall towards "Backward and Dogmatic" Nation..

Actually, before 9/11, some poor people in Midwest and Mideast of US used to think that immigrants still came here by boat. They didn't know what plane exactly did. And yes, they weren't conservative. The number of illegitimate kids they reproduced said so. Now I guess to us that would be backward?
Obama is liberal, but he is quite dogmatic and to some, he is taking the country backward -\

Not all families worked in the same manner..

But.. when "The parent" imposed a 'set of dogma' to the child, (or husband to the wife(s), or wife to the husband(s)) then yes.. the family is in a state of occultic / religious environment.

I don't get your point here... where's the "Dogma" in the "traditional love and marriage"?

Marriage is similar to "Business Arrangement / Contract".. when one party decided that the arrangement is not working they can end the arrangement / contract as defined in the clause.

And the dogma is faithfulness You shall love me and only me. You shall obey me and only me.

Unfortunately, it isn't wrong if we take stds and crimes into consideration.
Even in business partnership, faithfulness is taken as most important. Otherwise, trade secret will no more remain a secret.

I've witnessed some professor who vigorously promoted "Critical Thinking", some notable example the professor stood in front of the class telling / teaching blatant lies and asked the class to pinpoint / detect the 'lies' / 'inaccuracies' within his lecture in his class. He will then reward those 'critical' student who dare to 'stand up' and are able to detect the inaccuracies in his teachings and 'argue his case' to him. Plus if the student are able to provide a better explanation / than the professor the student will get additional grade.
And no.. such professor is not in the US...

Are you sure? We don't graduate from college (at least in California)without taking critical thinking class where we are taught to catch lies in many different ways. And yep, questions based on true or false are pretty universal. We still get them in masters classes.

But in general manner, there's always an option to leave / dropped out from any school / colleges when any parties (teachers, staff, student) doesn't agree with the 'arrangement' or 'culture' of the school / colleges.
And find another suitable school / colleges..

Only when the father is extremely rich or the student is overly irresponsible. Education is expensive. We take loans for it. Hence, it isn't easy to just get out of a college no matter how crappy it turns out to be....

The school / colleges will become "Truly Occultic" or "Truly Religious" when they imposed a DEATH PENALTY to the apostate who dare to leave the school / colleges.

Being expelled from college is not different from death penalty here in US. It stays in the record and that affects getting in a new college and sometimes future employment.

I understand that media spends a lot of time on ?holy wars? these days. But if we just unplug ourselves from the matrix we will notice that religion is one of the many tools used by national leaders to ?manipulate? their people.
As we have seen, socialeconomic and government systems like communism, dictatorship and democracy are other tools. False flags are another way to get people to wage wars. They have been here for a very long long time. Even Julias Ceaser used it.
In the end, its people waging wars on people. When it comes to religion, it?s the people who create doctrines to make it happen and not Allah.
Bible has a say according to which Jesus instructed his people to kill even women and children.
Hadith books say kill the ex muslims.
Now who exactly wrote those books to remix religions? People!
I do admit that some real verses in Bible and Quran are violent. But that is only if we read them without knowing the reasons of why they came. Some people are quite quick to point out that Allah destroyed polytheists and thus he is merciless violent creator. What they do not ask is ?why?? did he do it? I guess its because the research for some is pretty boring. But here are some things found in the history of polytheists
said, "If you take a god other than me, I will surely place you among those imprisoned." 2629
They said, "If you do not desist, O Noah, you will surely be of those who are stoned." 26116

Now who went around killing ex polytheists? Who did the stonning?
We also have a verse that says that polytheists buried their baby daughters alive.

And how about the latest ones?
http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satanic_ritual_abuse
http//vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/children-describe-satanic-ritual-abuse-sacrifice-video/ (from 2015)

I'm convinced people would still be choosing to follow human leaders they attribute power to instead of one God.

I agree. I regret it, but unfortunately, we have been taught to not completely criticize it apparently because not all societies have the exact amount of knowledge. A little difficult for me to sometimes stick to it especially online. "Internet" allows so much to research on. But let me refute myself by using what you said above.

Plenty of Muslim families out there have access to Internet connection. But some maybe highly orthodox. Take the case of Sunnis. They are brought up in an environment where they are told they need to follow Sunnah and hadith books to acquire the ticket to heaven. Probably, they wish to be good Muslims. But they are "conditioned" to believe that personal interpretation of Quran is forbidden just as I showed earlier. Majority go with the idea that Quran should only be recited". There is no need to personally try to understand it because scholars and hadith books are there to do this job.

Now here is the problem, the idea of following "Quran only" is not available in majority of the Islamic books read in schools. So in a way, not all sunnis have the access to it to ponder on whether they are doing the right thing by following a bunch of human leaders. They may go online, but again, for Islamic queries they would visit only sites that match their mentality like sunniforum.com, ummah.com, etc.

If doubts are too strong, they ask questions on certain sites like http//www.onislam.net/english/ask-about-islam.html
Unfortunately, here their "exalted" scholars lie like crazy in their answers. People blindly believe them because these same fake scholars give a twisted version of Quran verses that tell us to reason and follow not what we don't know about.

We can only try not to get involved in empowering such worldly authorities when it comes down to our practice of submission to God.

This is what we need to make mainstream now. Empowering is the only way to go.

From what I know of the Mutazila, the movement was pretty academic. Like today's universities they were islands for an elite and ivory towers. Back in the day, there was this same divide between the intellectuals studying sciences and philosophy from a Quranic perspective and the common people who were mostly illiterate.

I don't think all Mutazilas were part of elite society. They brought the Islamic golden age. It isn't possible without the help of the majority. But again, this explains what happens when "God only" movement is made mainstream. People have access to it. Hence, they try to get out of blind faith.

The time when people wanted to follow Quran by using brain
-Caliph al-Mansur?s new city of Baghdad was built with one all-enterprising goal in mind to stand unrivalled, the greatest city of the mediaeval world. The city grew rapidly after its inception its military strength, economic power, booming trade, cultural and intellectual dominance and dizzying wealth establishing it as the centre of an empire stretching from across the East and into North Africa. It is one of the tragedies of ancient history that nothing stands today from Baghdad?s early Abbasid period. However, 9th century geographer and historian Al Y?qubi described the early Baghdadas a city ?with no equal on earth, either in the Orient or the Occident,? being ?the most expensive city in area, in importance, in prosperity,? and that ?no one is better educated than their scholars.?

-Caliph al-Mamun was also himself an adept in the branches of knowledge taught at the House of Wisdom, including medicine, philosophy and astrology, and often visited the scholars there to discuss their research.
http//theculturetrip.com/middle-east/iraq/articles/iraq-s-golden-age-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-house-of-wisdom/

Advancement Competition during that time

Arab scholars made spectacular advances in surgery. In fact, the Arabs already used a number ofstupefiants as a form of anaesthesia opium poppy, mandrake, Indian hemp, belladonna, hyosciamine, etc... They invented the anaesthesic sponge a sponge was dipped into a mixture of all of these substances and was allowed to dry in the sun. To anaesthetize a patient, the sponge was dipped in water and placed over the patient's nose and the patient fell asleep immediately. Bellows or a so-called Irish shower (warm water then cold water) were used to waken the patient. According to the books on Arab Medicine, such as the Continens of Razes, each hospital had its own surgeon. Amongst the scholars interested in surgery, Ali Abbas described, for the first time, the capillaries, in his book Regis Liber . Abn Al Qoff also wrote a book on surgery entitled The Column of Surgery . Belcassis is the most famous and best known surgeon in the West.

He was born in Zahra, a small town near Cordoba, which was built in 936 by the Caliph Abdul Rahmane III to which he gave the name of his beloved. Zahraoui lived in Cordoba, a very flourishing town, with a population of one million Arabs. In this town, there were 59 hospitals and 70 libraries, including that of the Caliph which alone contained 225.000 volumes. The school ofCordoue enjoyed a great scientific reputation which even exceeded that of Baghdad, Toledo and Seville. We know very little about the life of this surgeon, except that he was the personal physician of Abdul Rhamane. His book At-Tasrif was distributed throughout the world. It was an encyclopedia of 30 books treating all of the diseases, from head to foot, as well as a pharmacopoeia.

The 30th book is the most well known, as it is devoted entirely to surgery. It describes the many instruments and techniques invented by its author. It was translated into Latin, Hebrew and even Occitan. A Latin version appearead in 1519 and in 1530. It was re-translated and reprinted on several occasions. It is first book in the History of Medicine which includes very detailed drawings (which vary in number from 175 to 200, in the different manuscripts). Belcassis completed the work of his predecessors by his numerous experiments, operations and inventions. He was no doubt the greatest surgeon of the Middle Ages.
http//www.iiim.org/mscholar8.html

The reason why I call that Quran effect
I don't want to boast about who we are, but I do notice that Muslims who follow Quran only have unusually strong thirst for all kinds of knowledge. They ponder on the impossible a lot more than traditionalists. The reason is that they feel encouraged to do it. No one sets limitations unless the conclusion starts to look idiotic.

When traditionalists try to do the thinking they are halted by stuffs like do not doubt this and that, satan is capturing your mind, it will lead to darkness, etc.

ps from a political point of view I'm an anarchist as I feel this is the only system that is compatible with Islam. Where I live I'm forced to vote by law. But I refuse to do so. This could get me in legal trouble but I refuse to empower a system that is inherently corrupt and evil.

lol, I don't vote either. Having two party system doesn't neccesarily mean they are actually two. They all come from the same group with same evil agenda. My dream A leader who came from among us, the average American. No connection to Yale and Harvard. He thinks for his people and economy. He doesn't go around waging wars. He fights the groupthink set by zionists, etc. But this is not possible in US. No President wishes to die like Kennedy or be trapped in scandal like Nixon and Clinton.
peace

To be honest, Ahadith were not a cause, they are simply historical records of Muhammad, since these were recorded thousand years ago, there were different methodologies.

How do you prove they are historical records of Muhammad?

The problem today is that Muslims use the words of Muhammad as an authority rather than what them as a secondary source to sufficiently support a more established claim.

Does abrogating Quran verse with hadith ring a bell?

Man_of_Faith

There is very little good to be taken from those hadith bukhari and company. Almost the Old Testament in the Bible is more righteous than them.

Salaam

Jafar

It definitely is an aspect of it, but it's not the central point. What materialized Islam was not by a thing, but by someone, either drastic change or gradual through times, right now, I'm focusing on what caused this materialization.
To be honest, Ahadith were not a cause, they are simply historical records of Muhammad, since these were recorded thousand years ago, there were different methodologies. The problem today is that Muslims use the words of Muhammad as an authority rather than what them as a secondary source to sufficiently support a more established claim. Muslims "canonize" Ahadith instead of "authenticate" Ahadith, they did it back then and they do it now. We need to throw away the canonization method.

Every changes happens gradually..

The problem is the mindset of "X is true because Y said is true" usually held by a group of people.
For the sake of discussion, let's named them "The Conservative".

The mindset itself is often referred as "Appeal to Authority" fallacy.
More here http//www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/appeal-to-authority.html

The conflict of "Conservative vs Progressive" happened in all societies all the times.

Conservative always try to resist changes or new ideas while the progressive try propose changes and introduce new ideas.

Few examples
Within Abraham context, Abraham was the "Progressive" trying to introduce new idea, he received stiff resistance from the conservatives who tried to maintain their "Tradition" of honoring idols (X is true because our ancestor said is true).
And he convicted for death by burning by the conservative.

Within Jesus context, Jesus was the "Progressive" trying to introduce new idea, he received stiff resistance from the conservatives who tried to maintain their "Tradition" at all cost.
And he convicted for death by crucifixion by the conservative.

Once the "Conservative" grabbed power, they will turn the society into backward and dogmatic cult, before finally meet it's ultimate fate extinction.

The dogma of Islam such as "Last Revelation" is a mean for the conservative to hold their power and influence within the society, as long as possible. They try to provide answer to every question that arises within the society due to their own dogma of "Islam is the last revelation and a complete religion that governs every aspect of life".

Alas... as time progress, they don't have the answer to every question.
There are things which they just don't know, to save face, they tried to came up with an answer, which then proven to be not true.

And more alas... somebody else outside of their group (The Kuffars) provide different answer to the question. And the answer coming from the Kuffar is proven to be a better answer. Thus to protect their interest, they will say that the answer from the kuffar is not true because the answer is coming from the kuffar.

Example
"The Salafis reject speculative hypothesis that involves discourse and debate (note which evolve later on to be the core of "Scientific Method" and "Ijtihad&quot Because they consider this process as foreign import from Greek philosophy, alien to the original practice of Islam. Salafis believe that the Qur'an, the Hadith and the consensus (ijma) of approved scholarship (ulama) along with the understanding of the righteous ancestor as being sufficient guidance for the Muslim."

runninglikezebras

Salam

"Maturity" is alright, but how do you judge when a person is mature? At what age? And how do you decide?
Sorry for pushing... but it seemed to me - by giving just verse references you are bypassing my key question - what should be our anchoring point to come up with practical guidelines/rulings based on the generic instructions of Qur'an.

For centuries we have been using the so called hadith literature as the anchoring point - and that wrong anchoring has been the reason which "Made Islam Materialized Into a Backward, Dogmatic Cult". My humble proposition is our intelligence and morality should be the anchoring point - even if it means taking an updated/ changed guideline/ruling than what our predecessors did. This doesn't necessarily mean we are implying our predecessors were wrong - their actions are for them and ours is for us.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

Peace Armanaziz,

I'm not trying to avoid a topic by referring to those verses. Quran is the book I judge by. Where we differ is that I do not think even the logic mind is an anchoring point we can always trust. True intellect is important in helping to understand but it's not perfect. One can be just and righteous without logic mind. One can never be just nor righteous without Gods guidance.

Armanaziz

One can be just and righteous without logic mind.

Salam runninglikezebras.

I disagree with your conclusion above. Not only this conclusion wrong, this conclusion is the very reason why our community left the path of reason and understanding as recommended by Qur'an and started to choose blind faith over it. Except for the clinically insane... human beings have been given the ability to use logic and reason - probably the greatest gift of God to mankind, which sets them apart from the beasts - for using it, not as a mere vanity. If one chooses not to use it, immediately he is following the footsteps of shaitan - he is devoid of God's guidance. One cannot throw away God's gift and hope for God's mercy to fall from the sky.

Here are a few signs for your consideration

2170 And when it is said to them, ?Follow what Allah has sent down?, they say, ?No! We follow what we found on it - our fathers, even though their fathers did not happen to understand anything, and nor were they guided.

... ... ...

650 Say, ?I do not say to you that with me are Allah?s treasures, and nor do I know the unobservable, and nor do I say to you that I am an angel. I do not follow except what is inspired to me.? Say, ?Is the blind level with the one who sees? Then will you not ponder??

... ... ...

822 Indeed the worst of the animals near Allah are the deaf, the dumb ? those who would not understand.

... ... ...

9127 And when is a section sent down, some of them watch the others, ?Do anyone see you?? (And) later they let it go. Allah has let their hearts go because they are a people who do not comprehend.

... ... ...

1042 And among them is one who hears you, but can you make the deaf to listen even while they do not happen to understand?

1043 And among them is one who watches you, but can you guide the blind even while they do not happen to see?

1044 Indeed Allah does not wrong mankind in anyway, on the contrary men wrong their (own) souls.

(My personal translations. emphasis added, cross checking recommended.)

You can replace the word "understand" with "use reason" or "use intellect" in the above verses, because the root arabic word aqalu (&#1615. implies "to understand / to use reason / to use intellect".

Reference http//corpus.quran.com/qurandictionary.jsp?q=Eql#(217019)

I am fully convinced that Qur'an confirms - receiving the guidance of Allah is conditional upon one's sincere use of one's God gifted ability to use reason and understanding (both logical and moral). If you still continue to insist "No - it is not our logic/reason/understanding - it is God's guidance"... then walk blindfolded (or should I say keep running like zebras?) and wish for God to save you from accident. I'll withdraw from the debate and agree to disagree.

May Allah guide us all to the straight route.

Regards,
Arman

Man_of_Faith

Salaam,

I agree with Arman for a change -)

GOD equipped the 'nas' (soul) with both sound logic and reason. Those who suppress that are those who will live a life according to their desires (shaytaan) because they give in to their fleshly beast (jinn) alone instead of the suppressed spirit (nas). The 'nas' needs to be let become elevated and not neglected or we are just mere sophisticated animals (actually very dangerous, think of the atomic bomb, world wars etc). We need to truly be 'human' (nas).

Arman has a good perception, he just needs to figure out some truths about Quranic terminology, but that is okay. We are on the same page.

Salaam

Jafar

Just found another example of

"Anything from the kuffar is not true because it is coming from the kuffar."
And "X is true because Y said X is true"

From another Backward and Dogmatic Cult other than Islam.
Just to show that the same pattern can also be found elsewhere in another "Backward and Dogmatic Cult".
Or to put it in another way; the two things stated above is what turns a group of people into "Backward and Dogmatic Cult".

Yoga leads to Satan, says Northern Ireland priest
http//www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/yoga-leads-to-satan-says-northern-ireland-priest-10061463.html

Pope Francis said 'do not seek spiritual answers in yoga classes'. Yoga is certainly a risk. There's the spiritual health risk.
When you take up those practices from other cultures, which are outside our Christian domain, you don?t know what you are opening yourself up to. The bad spirit can be communicated in a variety of ways. I?m not saying everyone gets it, or that it happens every time, and people may well be doing yoga harmlessly. But there?s always a risk and that?s why the Pope mentioned it and that?s why we talk about that in terms of the danger of the new age movement and the danger of the occult today. That?s the fear."

In 2011, the Vatican?s own chief exorcist, Gabriele Amorth, said that it leads to a belief in Hinduism, and that "all eastern religions are based on false belief in reincarnation". "Practising yoga is Satanic, it leads to evil just like reading Harry Potter", he added.

-- End of Quotation --

So yeah, Yoga is satanic, just like Islam is also satanic and reading Harry Potter is also satanic.
Why? Because my religious authority said so, as he said those things were not originated from our tradition.

Man_of_Faith

Salaam,

Well, Christians believe in reincarnation because they believe Jesus will return. It is self-contradictory.

There are also signs of the mechanism of reincarnation in current psychology research.

Salaan