Peace Arnold
Thanks so much for taking the time to write your reply to me. I appreciate that, and found your comments really interesting... Especially intrigued by the link to the Quantum Physics theories about the afterlife!

So would you say that it's a possibility that the reality that we are aware of NOW, could well be our own heaven or hell that we are currently living as a direct result of what we did in a past life? It would stand to reason that when you are having a "bad patch" in your life that it is a punishment for something.
Maybe in a past "world" and "life" we had the chance to read the Qur'an (or similar guide book) and then we lived our "lives" and died, were resurrected and then came to Earth as we know it... but that might be considered a bit of an unfair trick, if you had taken the test, passed with distinction, and then found out your reward was yet another test...?!

And do you think we WOULD remember the past life, or that we would NOT remember it? In the example you gave at the beginning, it implies we do die and come back as something else; we just don't realise it (eg if you have training, the part of you that didn't know what you have just learnt "dies" and is replaced by the part of you that knows the knew bit of info)

I can't honestly say I have ever remembered any of my past lives, (though I know some people claim to) but maybe it is an explanation for things like de'ja vu or certain dreams...? Or maybe this is getting far fetched?!

Interesting topic though! Would be happy to discuss further!

I read recently that the 7 pairs refers to the 14 arabic initials used at the beginning of some of the chapters of the Qur'an.

try this link It is a bit spooky, and I'm not sure how reliable the maths is, and where the original numbers came from, but it looks like a lot of hard work went into it and the poor guy's calculator must have been working overtime trying to figure it all out... He seems to be confident of the outcome and has a lot of Qur'anic "evidence" to back up the maths so it's worth looking at in more detail... if you like maths!! ) )

http//www.submission.org/suras/app25.html

Salaam Aleykum

or we could ask the administrator of the site to add an extra section to the "member profile" and each person can have their own "more about me and my beliefs section"
just a suggestion

Me
I believe the Qur'an is God's word, and I worship God alone, obey his instructions as best I can, and submit to his will as best I can.
I don't trust the Ahadith, and like to use reason and logic. God gave me my own eyes, ears, heart and brain and I am not afraid to use them.
When in doubt, check the Qur'an out!

This spooked me when I read it! I am a new Muslim. I converted or reverted (not sure which to say, both are

understood?) about 6 weeks ago. The reason? I found out some things mentioned in the Qur'an which satisfied my

belief that the book was authentic... Maybe I was naive at first because there were probably loads of issues I

should have checked before going ahead and confirming that I wanted to become a practising Muslim. But the

reason I took my "Shahada" 4 weeks ago was because in principle I liked the idea that the Qur'an was sent to

us devinely as a guidebook for us to refer to, to help us to make the right decisions about how to live a good

life. (And at the time I wanted to live a good life anyway so that once I died I could be happy knowing I

lived a good life, and leaving a legacy behind for my children and people who knew me, so they could say "She

was a good lady. She was kind, gentle, patient, had a good sense of humour, was a good listener, was honest and honourable, took time out to help you etc... all the nice things you would want to be remembered for. My

reason for wanting to live a good life was for respect in this lifetme. I never even gave a thought to the

"hereafter" or heaven. I'd always thought that no-one knew for sure about Heaven and Hell or whether we are

re-incarnated, and that it wasn't for us to know or worry about because when we die we will find out.

I do tend to have a habit of jumping in head first especially with big important issues, because I am a big

believer in going with my gut instinct, and it seemed like the right path to follow!

So as you can imagine, it has been a bit of a shock finding out so many undesirable and impractical and

unreasonble and illogical things about my new religion, which have left me with uneasy feelings in my stomach.

Especially given that what attracted me to it in the first place was the whole sentiment behind the whole God

loves us/Islam/Peace/Charity/Kindness/Community thing.

Things that made me wonder was the "ritualistic" ways I had been shown to pray, and the very superstitious

manners that my new muslim sisters were trying to teach me to get into the habit of eg repeating Subahan Allah

100 times, not being able to pray whilst menstruating, having to perform wudu because of a pin prick / a

cracked lip / passing gas. Everything I did seemed to be in need of correction and I was walking on eggshells

the whole time for fear of saying something wrong or offensive or disrespectful or "Not how the Prophet(pbuh) did it"

So it gradually dawned on me that something was wrong because everytime I was told a new rule, I asked which

chapter of the Qur'an it was in, and was told ... "Ohh, well, errr, I don't know but it must be in there

because the Prophet did it...."
And then I tried to be brave enough to challenge some of these beliefs at a Study Cirlce that I'd been invited

to, and was shot down, given the reason that the Qur'an is not complete without the "Hadiths and Sunnah", and

that the Qur'an is like the seed of a tree and the Hadiths and Sunnah are the trunk and the branches.

I'm so glad that I am still in touch with my own logic and reason that has convinced me to challenge this,

and was glad to come across this site, which has been tremendously helpful in showing me which parts of the

Qur'an show that God's word is full, complete and perfect and needs no correction or addition or in some cases blatant fabrication from the chinese whispers of scholars, known as the Hadith and Sunnah.

It is very worrying that this is what children are having pumped into them at schools and Mosques etc. Were it not for my confident faith in God, the one and only, and firm belief that I am not an Idol Worshipper (And I worship God not the Qur'an), and that he will forgive me for being almost guided off the straight path, I would be terribly afraid that the (for want of a better word) "phoney" "Shahada" that I took (La il aha il allah, with Muhammed ur rasul ullah on the end) may have been my one way ticket to Hell...

I'm still very confused about which way to face when praying... should it be towards Jerusalem? And also what are the prayer times? Sunrise, noon and Sundown? Or Sunrise, sundown and then once before bed?

Please can you help? Also are there any girls here who wear a headscarf?

Peace 99percentcow (?)
Welcome to the forum. )

Thanks )

Peace
Hope this helps... I'm copying out the explanation from my trusty Qur'an (translated and explained by Muhammed Asad) Regarding 478 and 479...
There is no contradiction between this statement and the preceding statement that "all is from God". In the world view of the Qur'an, God is the ultimte source of all happening consequently, all good that comes to man and all evil that befalls him flows, in the last resort from God's will. However, not everything that man regards as evil fortune is really, in it's final effect, evil, - for it may well be that you hate a thing the while it is good for you, and it may well be that you love a thing while it is bad for you and God knows, whereas you do not know. (2216) Thus many an apparent evil may sometimes be no more than a trial and a God Willed means of spiritual growth through suffering, and need not necessarily be the result of a wrong choice or wrong deed on the part of the person thus afflicted. Itis therefore obvious that the evil, or evil fortune of which this verse speaks has a restricted connotation, in as much as it refers to evil in the moral sense of the word that is to say, to suffering resulting from the actions or the behaviour of the person concerned, and this in accordance with the natural law of cause and affect which God has decreed for all his creation, and which the Qur'an describes as the way of God (sunnat Allah) For all such suffering, man has only himself to blame, since "God does not wrong anyone by as much as an atom's weight" (440)
Hope that helps
Peace

i was at a safari park yesterday, and a petting zoo a few days before. Whilst I was there I couldn't help but be amazed by all the different types of animals, their differences, their brilliant colours, textures, patterns and behaviours.

I couldn't help but stare in amazement at God's creations. Reading about how endangered some of these species are whilst watching the lions and tigers caused me to shed a tear...

And it made me wonder. Do these animals go to heaven when they die? I wonder if they believe in or know about their creator? And do they have the ability to choose between right and wrong, or do they use instinct alone? So are animals born Muslims? Instinct Alone Muslims?

Whilst in the monkey section, I had a brief conversation with one of the Safari Park rangers, who was telling me about monkeys. I asked if they might come and jump on me. She said they might do, but if they did it would be only to steal something... eg sunglasses or a dummy, or things out of pockets...

Does that mean the monkeys are thieves and have sinned? Or are they safe because they don't know that it is wrong to steal? I have been told all children under the age of 10 automatically go to heaven because they are not able to distinguish between right and wrong.

And if this is the case, can we argue that we too as humans can use our inbuilt instinct to know the difference between right and wrong (that develops as we grow older) combined with our intellectual ability, and our logic and reason... which would mean that the Qur'an, although useful and helpful and re-assuring) could be viewed as unnecessary, though incredibly useful.

This analogy may help communicate my point you can take an exam without reading the study guide before hand, but if you do read the study guide first and learn the answers, you will do much better in the exam. However, if the pass mark is only 50% you may still have a chance to pass using no study guide, only common sense, instinct, logic and reason...