Peace all

I basically agree with what mquran said but there is one little thing to which I?d like to add a slightly different view.
It?s a little bit off topic, maybe, but still worth sharing.

mquran To me, the zinaa punishment is essentially about lewd behaviour in public. It simply disrupts public peace and the members of the public shouldnt have to carry a gadget in order to be protected from this.

In essence, right.

But I don?t think that the zinaa punishment is about lewd behaviour in public. I used to think that as well for some time.
But I am quite sure now that it is explicitely about adultery observed in public. The difference being that someone needs to be committed to someone else to be able to perform it.
This brings in other dimensions.

Immoral acts in public are, imho, dealt with in 4/15 and 4/16.
4/15 talking about a single woman found guilty, 4/16 about a couple (the grammatical form can include all kinds of variently gendered couples, I?d say).
However, in essence what mquran says still applies because the issue of four witnesses is clearly mentioned here as well.

The context of zinaa in chapter 24 clearly includes the word muhSanaat (in 24/4) and the word azwaajahum (in 24/6).
That?s where I see the difference to general lewdness in public.

The difference is an ethical one
Sura 24 brings in the issue of an individual (the rightful partner) whose rights and maybe also feelings were hurt through the behaviour.
This asks for a higher punishment than the one just for public lewdness.
You can not treat lewdness done by a committed person in the same way as lewdness done by a "free" person.

Still, to become a relevant crime in the face of law there needs to be observation in public. And since chapter 24 clearly elaborates on not spying it is clear that cameras etc. don?t count here.

bye,

Leyla

Peace all

Warner, good point against polyandry.

However, let?s also not forget that 4/24 excludes ma malakat aymanukum from those muhSanat women who are forbidden to be married.
It says illa ma malakat aymanukum!

I don?t want to get into interpreting this term here. There have been numerous idead on that posted and voiced on free minds, some on which I agree and some on which i don?t agree.

But in effect I would say that 4/24 shows that there are in practice indeed some muhSanat nisaa who could have multiple husbands when these muhSanat nisaa are part of ma malakat aymanukum!

I am willing to be corrected, though.

regards,

Leyla

Peace

Hate certainly is problematic .... but the question of good and bad does not find an answer in a love/hate dichotomy, I think.

Love can equally lead you to horrible things. You can easily corrupt your own principles when you love the wrong person.
Very easily.

Or even worse, some people love things .... love of money tends to be much more dangerous than hate of it, I?d say.

Likewise, I think hating the deeds of guys like Hitler, Bin Laden, child molesters who killed several little girls is a sign of a sane mind.

Loving and hating the right persons and things is the question. When you e.g. love Hitler but hate blacks then you?re in big trouble.

All passions and feelings can become dangerous when they become an idol for us, shirk. This is as true for love as it is for hate or fear or courage or whatever .... .

Regards,

Leyla

Peace

However the religious/scriptural methods of determining 'ultimate consequences' are sometimes 'unscientific',unrealistic,arbitrary,illogical, and are largely based upon 'faith' or even 'blind' faith...

You really think so?
I tend to disagree very much.

When e.g you look at al-qur'?n 50/30 you see hell revealing its character as an everconsuming, always hungry and never satisfied entity.
I would say that it is highly logical that people who devote all their life to satisfiyng their selfish hungers and to consummation will - when the subjectivity of this life ends and they face objective truth - end up in an everconsuming and hungering state as well.

Has few to do with blind faith, just is what is observable in everday reality for us.
People who give themselves to selfish desires tend to fall into them more and more, making this state firmer with every day.

Now you will probably say that not every selfdescribed atheist is someone who only lives for selfish desires.
I would agree.
But not everyone who puts on thelabel of atheist really is a denyer of divine truth. Just as not everyone putting on the label of muslim is a confirmer of divine truth.
Labels can sometimes be misleading here.

The true denier of divine truth reveals himself in his non existent confidences and how from that his actions flow, I?d say.
Someone with no confidence in any eternal value and responsibility of good constructive deeds will also only act good in an arbitrary way.
That makes his few good deeds quite meaningless, unfortunately.

Regards,

Leyla

Peace

Regarding the issue of NDE (allthough the rest of the thread is highly interesting as well...)

There is a big problem with so called scientific deconstructions of Near Death Experiences.
The general idea of all these deconstructions is that NDEs are hallucinations caused through hormonal and/or neurological processes by whatever (physiological/psychological) reasons.
There have been interesting experiments regarding this and many interesting theories.
There actually are several different scientific explanations for NDEs!

However, when you come to think of it, all our perceptions could in the end be deconstructed as just simply caused by hormonal or neurological processes in our brain. Because, that?s what all our perceptions are in the end.
When I see this computer in fron of me, this is measurable in my brain and if I had just a hallucination of it the brain processes would not be that different.

So, who is the one to decide which of our perceptions are real and which are only based on brain hallucinations?
The truth is that all are both, to a certain extent.
Either one has to become a total nihilist with regards to all perceptions, explaining them away as just brain processes, or one tries to take all human experiences as relevant
(as long as they don?t lead people to nonsense, I?d say, but that?s a subjective judgement).

I never had a NDE so I can?t really judge here.
But I once met someone who claimed to have had one and that this was a very very vital experiences to him that totally changed his life and turned him into a better person with more positive values.
Who am I to tell that person that this very very vital experience that totally changed his life was just a hallucination?
I have to respect that to him that experience was real just as much as to me writing on my computer now seems real.

Regards,

Leyla

Peace

KGB
Mquran has summed up very well what I would have said.
I couldn?t put it in better words.
My question regarding zakaat was an example of exactly this!

Regarding me and Arabs, I should maybe tell you that it was at first hand Middle Eastern culture which made me become interested in Islam in my early youth and then made me investigate further, that I?ve visited Arab countries, that I even have distant Arab inlaws (palestinian sunnis) in my family and that I love Arab cuisine (just had koshari yesterday). I definitely do not hate Arabs.

Still the development of Arab sunni culture and the arab/muslim synthesis was one of the biggest traps for al-isl?m, unfortunately, mainly through the process that mquran just described.
And still I have personally heard the already cited racist statements by sunni Arabs and have seen some of those people tread me in very rude ways.

There is more in this world than just black an white, brother.

Regarding your other words, I would again suggest to you to read other posts by me before making quick assumptions about my motives and inclinations. Thank you.

Yes, the qur'?n in Arabic language as we have it today is the perfect and selfconsistent word of Allah.
Again, I repeat for you
Never did I say on this thread or elsewhere that the qur'?n was recodified.

Regards,

Leyla

Peace Ahmed

SOOOORRRRYYYYYY ..... BIG EXCUSE!

I first did a superficial read and thought the post was from you, then I saw that it was from KGB and put his name in my post but unfortunately didn?t realize that I had to edit my post to delete your name from it.

The whole post was an answer to KGB!

Sorry again.
Now, THAT was a bad assumption and quick judgement done by me!
I am just at the moment really disturbed by the lack of politeness by some in this forum and became quick to judge myself.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.

Regards,

Leyla

Peace

KGB
I didn?t say that that qur'?n was recodified. I said that Arab language was recodified.
Please see the difference!
The big big difference!

And what do you know about my sincerety towards western governments? Please read some of my previous posts on FM before putting me in an imagined group!

Ahmed
I don?t hate Arabs.
And I will never understand why you always come up with such fast judgements about others without even knowing them.
You know that I won?t discuss on a basis like that anymore.
I will leave any discussion based on prerequisites like that!!

I didn?t even talk about the "Arab people" but clearly said "especially sunni Arabs", and you come up with judgements like that.
And my notes were based on very clear experiences that personally happened to me and not just on stories I heard.

Question Do you think that when people think that the word zakaat means giving a specific amount of money this is not a manipulated and recodified meaning?

Regards,

Leyla

Peace

Zainab, I wouldn?t call it discreet racism. Sometimes it is very obvious racism.
Arabs, especially Sunni Arabs, often put themselves in a position that reminds me very much of the "chosen people" rhetorics elsewhere.
Of course, they would never put it in these words because that would compare them to Jews.
But the idea is basically the same.
Arab land is sacred because Makka is there, Arab language is sacred because it decends from the language of the qur'?n (through a long historical process of recodifying and manipulating .... ), etc. etc.
Of course, these statements are easy to make when you yourself are an Arab ..... .

I still agree that learning Arabic is important when one considers oneself a student of the qur'?n.

I?d like to ad though, for everyone scared away by this statement

To understand the qur'?n one does not need to know the full corpus of classical Arabic.
Fortunately the qur'?n uses a very precise vocabulary and a very precise grammar.
The vocabulary is very very deep in meaning and conveying concepts (which modern Arab language has lost to a large extent) but comparably limited in size.

Personally, I made learning qur'?nic Arabic an ever proceeding process. I started with learning the script years ago. And when you?ve managed that and read the qur'?n on a very regular basis you will, after some time, recognize reappearing words and reappearing grammatical structures.
Then, just automatically, you already have a good basis.
To expand this you can just sit down with a good collection of qur'?nic words and additional grammar from time to time.
And after some more time this will help you recognize more words and more grammatical forms when reading.
The most important thing is getting the basics and then reading regularly does the rest. Never put too much pressure on you. )

It works pretty well autodidactically and over the weeks, over the months, over the years new knowledge just flows to you.

When one wants to get deeper into the language one may then later broaden that by learning about linguistic structures, roots etc.
I actually once took some very few university semesters of Arabic linguistic studies - partly given by native speakers - to broaden my understanding here.
That was helpful for me but it may not be needed for everyone.

Just read, read , read ..... )

Regards,

Leyla

Peace soul2squeeze, peace all

What people fail to see is the difference between a general use of knowledge and a knowledge relevant in the d?n.
This is what Ahmed lacked to see and made him start mocking my position again.
I do use historical knowledge, it has its place.
But it does not change my d?n in any way.
What if history is revised?
That happens all the time.

Scienes are just a useful social convention. I do use the convention that the earth travels around the sun.
But I only believe that because clever people told me so. I haven?t done the experiments of Kepler, Galilei, Kopernikus myself. I haven?t travelled to the outer space.
And maybe in some centuries some scientist will claim the opposit again, we don?t know. In the Middle Ages people also thought their social conventions were true, just like we do now.

So, one has to make a distinction
A is just a social convention, useful knowledge a times but not relevant to the d?n,
B is al-qur'?n, 100% relevant to the d?n.

I refer to social conventions about the man Muhammad when it is not relevant for my conviction and practice in the d?n.
When it is relevant to the d?n I only refer to what is found in al-qur'?n.

Regards,

Leyla

P.S.
Just to answer the most important, but then I?m gone
Yes, I follow qur'?n 4/135 and I believe in Muhammad as he is presented in the qur'?n. But nowhere does the qur'?n tell me that this was a man in 7th century Arabis.
PEACE

Peace Ahmed

I did once discuss the same issue with you, as far as I recall.
I already saw the same questions and would not give other answers now.
You also discussed the same questions with the same answers with mquran and others.
You know my answers here and I don?t need to repeat them over and over to you.
This leads to nothing, only that we will start with a not so nice language again.
You know that.

Call this running away, if you like. I don?t care. Believe me (assume? have conviction?), this is not the case.
I just simply feel very strong at the moment where this is going.

Peace peace peace,

Leyla

Ahmed of course I think the same way regarding The Quran and message since i was a teen

Just wanted to repeat that one. It was too good to leave it unnoticed.
Hope you don?t mind, Ahmed?

The problem is believe can mean two things. It can refer to a conviction and it can refer to an assumption.
My motherlanguage is also different from English so I am not too firm in that use as well.
But I can assure you
Assuming or believing, whatever word I may use, that a Muhammad Ibn Abdullah did exist has no relevance whatsoever in the d?n for me.
And if it was a social convention t call him Muhammad Ibn Yusuf I would just simply call him that way.
Did you get it, Ahmed?
For me it?s just a social convention, while for you it is faith in something outside of qur'?n!

bye,

leyla

No red hand catch, sorry!
I only call him Muhammad Ibn Abdullah out of social convention.
But this convention has no relevance in the d?n for me.
I could likewise call him Muhammad the Arab or whatever.
The whole historical person has no relevance in the d?n for me, only that maybe probably (!) revelation of al-qur'?n was given to him. Maybe probably, not more.

While I have conviction in al-qur'?n, I do not have conviction of the historical existence of that person.
I only ASSUME that he existed.

So, your last post does not speak much to me.

Sal?m Ahmed

Oh, sorry. Obviously I missed an important development of yours. )
Last time I discussed with you you were the one who got angry when someone says that there is no historical proof for the existence of the man Muhammad.
Sorry for taking for granted that you still think that way!

Regards,

Leyla

Peace Mr.humble

That post wasn?t mine!
You?re confusing me with kestrel.

And it?s Ley-la, not Lay-la.

Regards,

Ley-la

P.S
Ahmed, believing that Muhammad Ibn Abdullah existed as a historical person is also hearsay, to a certain extent.
We will not fully know that one as well.
Though I do believe that he existed.

Peace Ahmed

Partly yes, partly know.
As I said, we will never fuly know the details of his life and, you?re right, every other claim is hearsay.
But of course a certain philosophy does not come from nowhere.

So, studying those pieces of Buddhist philosophy that are deemed (!) as most old and most authentic (not all of Buddhism is) I?d say
Wherever and from whomever that stuff comes, it preaches in most parts a message that is not in contradiction to al-qur'?n and could have come from a nab? or a ras?l.

And, no, those pieces do not include ideas of literal reincarnation, atheism or other parts of later Buddhism.
Additionally, these pieces forbid worship of images and call to the aknowledgement of one truth and to an ethical life.

But, again, we will never fully know .....

We also have a language problem here.
Somehow the English word prophet (and similar words in other western tongues) also means someone who predicst future events, in a very general way.
Terms like soothsayer, clairvoyant etc. are easily mixed up with "prophet".

However, the quranic nab? has a different function. He does indeed also warn of future events but of those of a higher order.
He is one who has news (naba) of al-akhirat and who warns and brings good news to humans, if I recall the relevant verses right.
At the same time, even the word ras?l is quite often translated as "prophet".
Ras?l, though, is just simply one who brings the ris?lah of God, no matter how, I?d say.
He is the one who practices tilaw?t-ul-qur'?n, close following of al-qur'?n.
There are also other related terms, like e.g. mursal.

Well, the gist of this
Nostradamus surely doesn?t qualify as a nab? or ras?l. Especially since he conveyed all his "prophecies" in a coded language, not meant for the public.
Nietzsche and Iqbal maybe got parts of the ris?lah and conveyed these parts to humanity but it seems to me that they didn?t get the whole thing.
And even severely messed up parts of it.
Buddha, on the other hand, could have been a genuine ras?l and/or nab?. From what I have read about his (probably) most authentic words this seems highly possible.
But we will never fully know ....
Lao Tse maybe also was.
But again, we will never fully know ...

Last note
I think messengers and prophets of Allah need to have an active role. I imagine Niezsche, Aristotle and Plato as more sitting in their little room and writing some stuff or sharing it with some few pupils. But not really DOING much ....

Regarding the original question of this thread
Native Americans in their history actually had a lot of guys calling them to have faith in One Highest Truth and leading a more ethical life.
Up until quite recent times.