For the first time a radical "islamist" says something relatively correct
-
Interesting. I never knew about that. I've read a few books by him, that's all.
"No muslims will tell you there are other gods and no Muslim builds idols yet they are still accused of shirk."
There are many verses, but that's one off the top of my head.
"This is the problem where there can not be dialogue. Its one thing when a Muslim can discuss with another about issues, its another when one speaks as if he is a believer while the other is practicing shirk. I am afraid the same thing that happened to the wahhabis can happen to the Quranist. Extremism turns inwards."
Yes, that's a huge problem. Nowhere in the Quran does it give us authority to excommunicate anyone. However, tawassul like this lin is clearly shirk. Does the dead man hear your prayer? Can he intercede? I'm surprised you're clinging onto this, when you know full well that God is all-powerful, omni-present and all-hearing. There is no need to turn to anyone else. God does not need proxies. I would have given you a hadith that showed this example quite well if I could remember where I saw it.
"Whats scares me is that the wahhabis have manged to downgrade that word shirk that it has become so easy to accuse the Muslims of that, even though nobody in the world believes Muslims worship idols or practice shirk except the Muslims themselves. The whole world recognizes Islam is a monotheist religion, except the Muslims. So sad."
No, a few people, Christians, atheists, Jews, have observed the circumambulation of the Ka'bah to be a pagan practice.
The fact that the rotation around the ka'abah was a pagan practice is not disputed, its the shirk I am talking about.
Reza Aslan in "No god but God"
There were no priests and no pagan scriptures in pre-Islamic Arabia, but that does not mean the gods remained silent. They regularly revealed themselves through the ecstatic utterances of a group of cultic officials known as the Kahins. The Kahins were poets who functioned primarily as soothsayers and who, for a fee, would fall into a trance in which they would reveal divine messages through rhyming couplets. Poets already had an important role in pre-Islamic society as bards, tribal historians, social commentators, dispensers of moral philosophy, and, on occasion, administrators of justice. But the Kahins represented a more spiritual function of the poet. Emerging from every social and economic stratum, and including a number of women, the Kahins interpreted dreams, cleared up crimes, found lost animals, settled disputes, and expounded upon ethics. As with their Pythian counterparts at Delphi, however, the Kahins' oracles were vague and deliberately imprecise; it was the supplicant's responsibility to figure out what the gods actually meant.
Although considered the link between humanity and the divine, the Kahins did not communicate directly with the gods but rather accessed them through the Jinn and other spirits who were such an integral part of the Jahiliyyah religious experience. Even so, neither the Kahins, nor anyone else for that matter, had access to Allah. In fact, the god who had created the heavens and the earth, who had fashioned human beings in his own image, was the only god in the whole of the Hijaz not represented by an idol in the Kaaba. Although called "the King of the Gods" and "the Lord of the House," Allah was not the central deity in the Kaaba. That honor belonged to Hubal, the Syrian god who had been brought to Mecca centuries before the rise of Islam.
Despite Allah's minimal role in the religious cult of pre-Islamic Arabia, his eminent position in the Arab pantheon is a clear indication of just how far paganism in the Arabian Peninsula had evolved from its simple animistic roots. Perhaps the most striking example of this development can be seen in the processional chant that tradition claims the pilgrims sang as they approached the KaabaHere I am, O Allah, here I am.
You have no partner,
Except such a partner as you have.
You possess him and all that is his.This remarkable proclamation, with its obvious resemblance to the Muslim profession of faith-"There is no god but God"-may reveal the earliest traces in pre-Islamic Arabia of what the German philologist Max Muller termed henotheism the belief in a single High God, without necessarily rejecting the existence of other, subordinate gods. The earliest evidence of henotheism in Arabia can be traced back to a tribe called the Amir, who lived near modern-day Yemen in the second century B.C.E., and who worshipped a High God they called dhu-Samawi, "The Lord of the Heavens." While the details of the Amirs' religion have been lost to history, most scholars are convinced that by the sixth century C.E., henotheism had become the standard belief of the vast majority of sedentary Arabs, who not only accepted Allah as their High God, but insisted that he was the same god as Yahweh, the god of the Jews.
-
This is my point, there are no idols in Mecca. Nobody said that he visits an idol in Mecca but somehow there are some people who believe there are idols in Mecca. You asked about the wahhabi bogey man. Well other than the wahhabis who else used to say Muslims are practicing shirk?
http//img300.imageshack.us/img300/7017/6hajraswadlc7.jpg
Isn't that an idol or something? I can't see the use of that in mecca
-
It is highly beneficial to mankind.
-
For a while there was discussion on the manner of sleeping. Perhaps it is indicated the best and appropriate way of lying on the bed here in this verse
003.191
YUSUFALI Men who celebrate the praises of Allah, standing, sitting, and lying down on their sides, and contemplate the (wonders of) creation in the heavens and the earth, (With the thought) "Our Lord! not for naught Hast Thou created (all) this! Glory to Thee! Give us salvation from the penalty of the Fire.
PICKTHAL Such as remember Allah, standing, sitting, and reclining, and consider the creation of the heavens and the earth, (and say) Our Lord! Thou createdst not this in vain. Glory be to Thee! Preserve us from the doom of Fire.
SHAKIR Those who remember Allah standing and sitting and lying on their sides and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth Our Lord! Thou hast not created this in vain! Glory be to Thee; save us then from the chastisement of the fire
Rashad Khalifa They remember Gof while standing, sitting and on their sides?.
. -
The day comprises these days of about 24 hours. These are the positions one takes during these hours. And sleep is a strange thing, when it overepowers, man could be standing, sitting or lying in whatever manner. Sleep brings rest to the body, and perhaps it need not be used for developing some muscles particularly with bad intentions of attracting others.
-
Attention administrators of the Forum,
I find that in the heat of discussions, even vulgarity is being overlooked. When there is a topic on sex, one may use the names of the genitalia, but to resemble physical things with woman's and man's private pars should not be used in a discussion about some building, practice,even ritual, , whether you like that or hate nothwithstanding.
It is a Forum. Hundreds of guests visit it daily. Please, everyone should try to make it a place worth visiting. Free minds doesn't mean that we may roam about its forum nude and naked. Let us try that the guests find here only knowledge. Kindly scan all the topics, and delete nudity, nudity is not only in pictures, it is also in words. Thanks.
-
That's interesting! I thought you maintained that "hajj" came to us through transmitted practice confused
Yes it did, but it was also a practice done by the pagans. They had idols inside the ka'ba and they used to gather for pilgrimage there. The practice left by Ibrahim became distorted and in time it became a pagan gathering after paganism became dominant in Arabia. The3 idols were smashed after Islam entered Mecca.
-
Yes it did, but it was also a practice done by the pagans. They had idols inside the ka'ba and they used to gather for pilgrimage there. The practice left by Ibrahim became distorted and in time it became a pagan gathering after paganism became dominant in Arabia. The3 idols were smashed after Islam entered Mecca.
So the point of focus were a bunch of idols inside the Ka'bah as opposed to the whole cube itself? confused indeed.