Problem in the Muslim world
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What makes a thinker a 'muslim thinker' please?
A Muslim thinker (on Islam) is one who thinks on the basis (as it is his belief) that the Quran is the collection of the revelations from God, who created mankind and the universe and decrees His creation?s destiny, to His last prophet named Muhammad ibn Abdullah, who lived in Mecca and then in Medina during about 570 to 630 AD.
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A Muslim thinker (on Islam) is one who thinks on the basis (as it is his belief) that the Quran is the collection of the revelations from God, who created mankind and the universe and decrees His creation?s destiny, to His last prophet named Muhammad ibn Abdullah, who lived in Mecca and then in Medina during about 570 to 630 AD.
In this way, you've isolated Islam to the Muhammadan-inspired civilisation which is unjustified in the Quranic sense. Shouldn't Maimonides be an Islamic thinker since he accepted Moses as a Prophet and commented on the Torah?
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I don?t think that Maimonides (1135 to 1204 AD) who lived in Cairo having finished his study at Cordova is a Muslim thinker. He is a Jewish philosopher and clergy and physician. He himself did not consider him an Islamic or a Muslim thinker. Did he?
If Maimonides can be a Muslim without Quran and Muhammad, I should similarly be accepted as a Muslim without Torah and Moses. Likewise, I do not think that it shall be any problem for me if I try to be a Muslim like Muhammad and the followers of Muhammad. If Jews can remain Muslim by rejecting Jesus, the Christians can remain Muslim by rejecting Muhammad, We the Muhammad-inspired-civilization-holders can remain Muslim too with rejecting the Jews and the Christians. If Jews and Christians can remain Muslim by considering Muhammad an imposter and the Quran a book with false claim of a Book from God, we can also remain Muslim by considering the Jews and the Christians not Muslim. So I can stick to my definition of Islamic Thinker. And it should not be a harmful thing for me to go only to such Islamic thinkers.
What Quranic sense am I unjustified in? Is it by a part of the Quran or by the whole of the Quran?
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I don?t think that Maimonides (1135 to 1204 AD) who lived in Cairo having finished his study at Cordova is a Muslim thinker. He is a Jewish philosopher and clergy and physician. He himself did not consider him an Islamic or a Muslim thinker. Did he?
I'm not saying he called himself that. I'm saying that his principles were very much one God and if he didn't come to the conclusion that al-quraan was from Allah, then he is a muslim for following what he could.
If Maimonides can be a Muslim without Quran and Muhammad, I should similarly be accepted as a Muslim without Torah and Moses.
Agreed.
Likewise, I do not think that it shall be any problem for me if I try to be a Muslim like Muhammad and the followers of Muhammad. If Jews can remain Muslim by rejecting Jesus, the Christians can remain Muslim by rejecting Muhammad, We the Muhammad-inspired-civilization-holders can remain Muslim too with rejecting the Jews and the Christians. If Jews and Christians can remain Muslim by considering Muhammad an imposter and the Quran a book with false claim of a Book from God, we can also remain Muslim by considering the Jews and the Christians not Muslim. So I can stick to my definition of Islamic Thinker. And it should not be a harmful thing for me to go only to such Islamic thinkers.
Well, you can of course consider the Muhammadan-civilisationists to be 'islamic thinkers' but that creates a semantic space known as 'non-islamic thinkers'. Who fits that bill ? Why Jews and Christians if we don't know how much inspiration (not revelation but inspiration) came to them?
What Quranic sense am I unjustified in? Is it by a part of the Quran or by the whole of the Quran?
Al-quraan doesn't support the Muhammadan-inspired Pan-Arab civilisation to be the 'muslim civilisation'. Any civilisation which follows the scripture is Muslim.
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Parshant Kumar is making more sense than you MQuran. Why you always wanted to make the things complicated? Did the Qur'an say to follow taurat or Injeel or Zubor? Did the Qur'an say to follow Prophet Musa (Peace be upon him)? Qur'an clearly say to follow what Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was following.
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Peace to all
Actually I agree with mquran. To be a Muslim means you are submitting to One God. That makes Abraham, Moses, Jesus, etc etc all Muslims. Taking it to the next level then, any who have followed in submission to the one God would also be considered Muslim. There are Christians today who believe Jesus was not divine in any sense and follow his teachings only, but pray to one God. I consider them Muslim! - perhaps more Muslim than those who claim to be muslim today. So the fact that Maimonides was a Jewish philosopher does not exclude him from perhaps being a Submitter to the one God.
Peace -
KGB Parshant Kumar is making more sense than you MQuran.
Possibly that's because you two are in agreement.
Why you always wanted to make the things complicated?
Actually, this makes things much simpler Anyone who submits to God for salaam is a Muslim.
Did the Qur'an say to follow taurat or Injeel or Zubor?
Actually it does. All nabiyeen judged by at-tauraat (5/44) and al-muttaqeen are supposed to take lessons from al-injeel (5/46)
Did the Qur'an say to follow Prophet Musa (Peace be upon him)?
Heck yes. For God's sake, the guy's story is mentioned in 31 chapters! Why do you think that is?
Qur'an clearly say to follow what Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him) was following.
Right, which if you take Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) to be the first recepient of al-quraan is al-quraan itself (10/15)
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JankrenAre you guys talking about 'Muslim' as in one who claims to embrace the religion called Islam or 'Muslim' in the literal meaning which is one who surrenders (to God)?
To me, calling what is known as 'islam' in the world (which you can read about by finding books with pictures of people doing the ritual prayer, the hajj etc) as 'islam' is nothing short of racism. Al-islaam as proposed by al-quraan is simply following the way of Ibrahim.
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Peace mquran and others.
I'm not saying he called himself that. I'm saying that his principles were very much one God and if he didn't come to the conclusion that al-quraan was from Allah, then he is a muslim for following what he could.
That is a matter which belongs to Allah and Mimonides; it is not between me and Maimonides. I can not sacrifice my conviction that Muhammad was indeed the last prophet of God to compensate Maimonide?s failure. My conviction leads me to proceed with Quran and Muhammad. If the Jews and the Christians themselves refrain from calling themselves Muslims, I can not impose Islam and Muslimness upon them, nor do I have any means to know whether they are Muslims or not. I can only consider the claims of those who claim to be.
Well, you can of course consider the Muhammadan-civilisationists to be 'islamic thinkers' but that creates a semantic space known as 'non-islamic thinkers'. Who fits that bill ? Why Jews and Christians if we don't know how much inspiration (not revelation but inspiration) came to them?
It is not I who made the semantic. The Jews call them Jews and the Christians call them Christian. The names ?Jew? and ?Christian? are created by themselves. They love to identify themselves by it. They do not call them ?islamic?. My labeling them ?islamic? shall be tyrannical on my part. So it is they who create the semantic.
Anybody can get such inspiration, a scientist, an artist, a poet or even the President of America.
Al-quraan doesn't support the Muhammadan-inspired Pan-Arab civilisation to be the 'muslim civilisation'. Any civilisation which follows the scripture is Muslim.
You are right. We make civilization. Muslims are responsible to make civilization on the basis of Quran. You are right. But what about Islam as Ideology? It can not be formed without Quran and Muhammad if the Quran is from God and Muhammad is His last prophet.
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PrashantThat is a matter which belongs to Allah and Mimonides; it is not between me and Maimonides. I can not sacrifice my conviction that Muhammad was indeed the last prophet of God to compensate Maimonide?s failure. My conviction leads me to proceed with Quran and Muhammad. If the Jews and the Christians themselves refrain from calling themselves Muslims, I can not impose Islam and Muslimness upon them, nor do I have any means to know whether they are Muslims or not. I can only consider the claims of those who claim to be.
Prashant, I'm not asking you to sacrifice anything. What I'm saying is, when you labelled Parwez, Shariati , Iqbal etc as 'muslim thinkers', where does this leave the others?
It's not about what they CALL themselves, Prashant. It's about how we interact with them relative to who they are as per al-quraan.
In my view Anyone who is focussed upon the growth of humankind is a brother in ad-deen (9/11).
It is not I who made the semantic. The Jews call them Jews and the Christians call them Christian. The names ?Jew? and ?Christian? are created by themselves. They love to identify themselves by it. They do not call them ?islamic?. My labeling them ?islamic? shall be tyrannical on my part. So it is they who create the semantic.
Anybody can get such inspiration, a scientist, an artist, a poet or even the President of America
Ok, but from a relationship point of view, they are brothers in ad-deen as long as they fulfil the criteria I mentioned above.
You are right. We make civilization. Muslims are responsible to make civilization on the basis of Quran. You are right. But what about Islam as Ideology? It can not be formed without Quran and Muhammad if the Quran is from God and Muhammad is His last prophet.
Why not?
If I did everything as al-quraan commanded yet I'd never read it, would God judge me a kafir?
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Peace
If I may interject again, Islam (the way of life, the straight path to God) has been around since the time of Adam. They all were commanded to perform ZAKAT, SALAT, submit to only one God and condone the good and forbid the bad. The idea that there are 3 monotheistic religions is a creation of man, not God. Mankind altered the message of the torah, altered the message of injeel, etc and thus altered God's Unchanging Way (Islam) to make it 'judaism' (following the tribe of Judah) and 'christianity' (following the Roman empire's tall tales of 'christ' and 'islam' (following bukhari and company). Quran as a final message did come down at the time of the Prophet Mohamed but, to say Islam and its message (quran) only came down to man when the Prophet Mohamed was around, would be a misunderstanding.I also think, if we are speaking from a quranic perspective, there are many who call themselves Christians, Jews etc who lead a very Muslim way of life i.e. follow the percepts of quran - even if they don't know it. Therefore, while they may call themselves any label, God will take them as ones who submitted (sallamo) to Him i.e. Muslim.
Peace -
Peace mquran and others.
Iqbal, Maududi, Parwez and Shariati etc. belong to the Muslim community, they thought on the basis of Quran. They may be labeled as Muslim Thinkers. You probably agree with this.
But what about others like Maimonides, Spinoza, Descartes, Kant, Goethe, Tolstoy, Rabindranath, Gandhi, Newton, Einstein etc? Are they my brothers in ?deen?? I do not think so, or more clearly, I do not care about it. I see this aspect from different angle. I believe in two different streams of knowledge that spring from two different sources. One is revelation from Allah (Quran). The other is human experience and intellect (Philosophy and Science). Muslims require both of the two streams. Here lies the value of Maimonides etc. To benefit from the second source I do not need to recognize clearly who belongs to ?deen? and who not. We shall probably differ in the definition or meaning or implication of ?deen?. But that is a different issue.
If I did everything as al-quraan commanded yet I'd never read it, would God judge me a kafir?
I am not the attorney of God, brother. My problem is related with the limitations of my knowledge system and the possible principles of sociology and behaviorism when I communicate and associate/disassociate from other individuals or groups to promote the movement of Muhammad.
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S2SThe idea that there are 3 monotheistic religions is a creation of man, not God. Mankind altered the message of the torah, altered the message of injeel, etc and thus altered God's Unchanging Way (Islam) to make it 'judaism' (following the tribe of Judah) and 'christianity' (following the Roman empire's tall tales of 'christ' and 'islam' (following bukhari and company).
Another person freed from the tyranny of the tri-religion myth. Congratulations, soul2squeeze.
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PrashantIqbal, Maududi, Parwez and Shariati etc. belong to the Muslim community, they thought on the basis of Quran. They may be labeled as Muslim Thinkers. You probably agree with this.
Prashant, did you know that among themselves, christians refer to themselves as 'believers'. Does this mean that when we study al-quraan, whenever it uses the word 'mu'min', we should think of people who think Jesus is God?
Iqbal, Maududi, Parwez and Shariati did think with the Quraan in the background and foreground but what does that prove?
Iqbal Nubuwwat is so perfected that it obliterated itself.
Maududi Women should remain in purdah in the home
Parwez Islam needs a state to function.
Shariati The hajj rituals are an enactment of prophetic stories.
All these things are contradictory to the Quraan.
To me, the 'muslim community' is a socio-culturo-pan-ethnic group. Whether it has anything to do with Al-Islaam from Al-Quraan is not a matter of necessity. Indeed, at the moment, 'the west' has a closer affinity with al-quraan than they.
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The judgment of relation between a thinker and Quran is not very easy affair. Thinkers make mistakes. Mistakes may be taken as correct interpretation or exposition of Quran. One thinker may be competent in jurisprudence, but he may not have the capability of explaining the philosophical contents of some verses of the Quran. The philosopher type theoretician of Islam may not be capable of explaining some verses that deal with cosmological propositions available in the Quran which a physicist may explain in better way. Iqbal etc. are Muslim thinkers in different spheres of Islamic ideology. It is not impossible that Maududi is insufficient when spiritualism is concerned, Parwez may be unacceptable if he totally rejects the need of history when problems of implementation of Quran is concerned etc. and etc. But nonetheless they are Muslim thinkers.
It is also possible to define Islam in some fashion where Marx becomes a Muslim thinker and Iqbal becomes Deviant Mushreek. So the primary definitions of deen, iman, islam, wilayyah are most important things here. Probably we two will differ here with wide gap.
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Iqbal Nubuwwat is so perfected that it obliterated itself.
Maududi Women should remain in purdah in the home
Parwez Islam needs a state to function.So ?muslims? should keep on waiting for more prophets... Their women should remain in bikini even at outdoors, 'muslims' should give up States, and surrender their freedom to west and keep on leaving as ?better muslim? under their rule... I don?t understand...
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So ?muslims? should keep on waiting for more prophets...
I withdraw that point, if I may as its too controversial and will divert us. Iqbal also said that 'laa ilaha illallah' without 'muhammadar rasulullah' is an ibleesian tawheed (see 'hadith and sunnah ideals and realities). This is certainly against al-quraan.
Their women should remain in bikini even at outdoors,
Is it just bikinis or burkas? Over here, clothing stores sell other fashions too
'muslims' should give up States, and surrender their freedom to west and keep on leaving as ?better muslim? under their rule... I don?t understand...
The concept of the state is not in al-quraan but why does that entail surrendering of power to others? Al-quraan speaks about acquirement of power (24/55 for example) but that doesnt necessitate a state mechanism.
My point is, these 4 guys have gone against al-quraan. Nothing except racist tendencies keeps them being called 'muslim scholars'.