Again, the Qur'an speaks to my doubts and diffuses them with honesty yet in suchna soft manner.

6116 And if you obey most of those on the earth they will lead you
away from the path of God; that is because they follow conjecture,
and that is because they only guess

Randomly found the verse online. Seemingly random that is.

Thank you all so, much! It is wonderful to feel supported by other like minded believers.

Not only that, but I can take comfort in knowing there is only one God. Knowing that fundamental truth, I can stop worrying about the contradictions in Christian doctrine as well as the Bible.
Canwil2082, I am glad that I am not the only one who questioned.

My prayers go out to you all.

Peace.

Does this mean that it is not a good translation? All I need to know is if it is good compared to some of the more mainstream ones.

Brother, I find it very sad that you are leaving Islam. '( I am sorry that it didn't work out for you. I hope that God will continue to guide you and maybe bring you back to the truth of Islam. I also hope that things work out for you in your life and that you do find something that works for you.

No point in pushing my beliefs on you or being mean to you if you do not return to Islam. It's your choice, and I respect your honesty about it. Although, you and I see things differently.

Peace!

I saw a video by this guy a while back, I dont think it was this one, but on the same subject. I found his logic and reasoning to be fallacious.

Would you please care to explain? I like to hear people's points on things. Thank you.

Peace.

I appreciate it Wakas, but I need to know what times of the year to fast. That is all.

Salam,

Just to make clear, the 2 verses have been physically deleted from the latest printed copy of the book (the PDF you refer to is probably from the first edition when they were still there).

I have a first edition with the "italics" and prefer it was done that way.

Thank you Layth for letting me know that. I am still going to purchase it when I can. But at least I have the pdf file. Doesn't bother me too much since those two verses on their own didn't seem too significant and I can always look back at the pdf file or my other translation for those two verses.

I appreciate your honesty.

Peace.

Assalaamu Aleykum!

Ok, I have put it into much consideration, and have decided to go with the Reformist Translation. I have the PDF downloaded, and so far have no difficulty in reading it compared to the Yusuf Ali translation. I will be buying it, or talking to my mom about working it off, on Amazon as soon as I can.

One thing I do like is that, although the translator(s) believe in Code 19, they didn't remove the two verses in chapter 9. Instead, they put them in italics. I appreciate that they did this, as I am not a believer in Code 19. However, I am a believer in Qur'an only, and am glad that this translation was written in light of that. Of course I'll keep my current copy of the Yusuf Ali translation handy so I can do comparisons to help me get a broader idea of the meanings in the Qur'an.

Thanks all for the help!

May God's peace and guidance be with us all.

Ok, never mind. I forgot all about the search function, as usual. I found my answer. Thanks!

And no, this verse doesnt support the haddiths and sunnahs.

Peace from God to all, InshaAllah!

?(We sent them) with Clear Signs and Books of dark prophecies; and We have sent down unto (thee) the Message; that thou mayest explain clearly to men what is sent for them, and that they may give thought.?

Welcome brother Tyler.

May Allah make it easy for your journey, God Willing.

(I didn't even post my story of how I became a Submitter -to Allah alone- and what my family said to me, which is interesting)

Enjoy it.

Salam.

I'm sorry, but I must ask you to tell me your story. I find these personal stories very fascinating. Have since I took an interest in other religions while I was still a Christian.

Please tell us! Or at least me.

Peace be unto you

May peace and guidance from God be given to all of us.

I appreciate, and thank you, all for participating and giving me some ideas to work with. Although, everyone's theories sound very convincing, I am still having trouble understanding it all. So, I have respectfully decided to continue observing the contact prayers five times every day just to be on the safe side. The extra prayers never hurt. And I now understand that if I am in a position in which prostrating and what not is difficult for me, say at the mall or with friends who are not Muslim (outside of my house that is), or in a public area in a place in which Muslims are looked upon in a negative light (my mom told me that if I openly admit to being Muslim, I'm liable to be shot in the front yard), I can pray while walking or sitting down. So now I have no excuses for missing them.

Thanks everyone for lending a hand in attempts to help me understand better. I now have a broader view of my fellow brothers and sisters.

Peace be unto you all!

If obligatory prayers are 2 (dawn,evening), then which of these 2 is the Friday (Congregational) prayer in Ch.62 ?

629 O you who believe, when the Congregational Prayer (Salat Al-Jumu`ah) is announced on Friday, you shall hasten to the commemoration of GOD, and drop all business. This is better for you, if you only knew.

it cant be dawn prayer since there's no business activity before dawn.

6210 Once the prayer is completed, you may spread through the land to seek GOD's bounties, and continue to remember GOD frequently, that you may succeed.

and it cant be evening prayer since seeking GOD's bounties in darkness is not convenient

peace

So you subscribe to the idea of three? Which makes sense with the verses you provided. However, Friday prayer is not optional for all of us. I cannot make it to a mosque on Fridays because there isn't one local and I do not have my license yet, although I am working on it. Even if I did, I wouldn't attend a mosque that teach anything other than the Qur'an, for obvious reasons.

Peace be to you Kestrel.

And peace to you too Layth.

Well, from what I have been reading here on the forums, it appears that two daily prayers would make sense. But, somehow I feel obligated to do all five non-the-less. But I will keep a stronger focus on the two.

Anyone else like to state their opinions on this matter?

Peace

Peace realitykid,

I would say the Edip-Layth translation is my first preference as it ditches the Old English (which confuses me sometimes), and for the fact that I know it sought to correct many of the major errors that the translations before it had (with well-explained reason). It does leave out the last two verses of chapter 9 however as Edip Yuksel is a believer of the Code 19 theory, which I don't believe in, but I just read them from The Monotheist Group's translation or Muhammad Asad's (which although has many traditional interpretations, I find is quite concise otherwise).

May peace be with you.

Ok, thank you. That's exactly I was looking for. Sorry, but I do not know Arabic right now. Only English. I appreciate it. I don't believe in the Code 19 theory either.

I understand that no translation is perfect. But, from your experience, which English translation(s) do you prefer?

Hi all, new to this forum, but have been stalking the threads for a while now.

I grew up, like many of us, in a Sunni family. Born in Pakistan, we arrived in England when I was just a toddler and had the experience of trying to mesh two, seemingly opposing, cultures together to try and find some sort of medium that we could live comfortably in.

Growing up, if you had asked me what Islam meant to me, I would have answered quickly and proudly Islam is five namaz's (sp?) a day. And fasting during Ramadan.

That's all the faith was to me growing up. A series of practices and traditions, looped together to form a religion. Growing up though, through my teens and now about to turn twenty, I felt a niggle in the back of my brain.

This niggle was a need for spiritual release. Without going all hippy on you guys, I basically felt little/no connection with Allah through salah anymore. I would rush it as fast as I could, words tumbling out of my mouth in barely understandable mutters. Stand, hands on knees, prostrate. Stand. Rinse and repeat.

It was depressing. I became - forgive the melodrama - but somewhat self-loathing. After every rushed prayer, after every rehearsed du'a, that lasted a meagre seconds, I hated myself a little bit more every time.

At 19 I became increasingly interested in Sufi music and I grew jealous of their spirituality, their connection with the divine that I lacked. The poetry, the qawali. Just beautiful. I needed more.

Then I came upon this forum. I read through for hours, page after page, thread after thread until my eyes were bleary and I could not stand to read another page-long post. But everything clicked. Everything made sense. Literally everything. Prayer, fasting, charity, peace, love, war, marriage, divorce. It all came together. This was the religion of common sense, of peace, of love, of spirituality, of fear of God, of forward-thinking that I longed.

And here it was, locked away in the confines of this little forum, championed by a handful of people like yourselves.

But I became scared. I became a coward. For about a year, I held on to dogma and tradition like ivy. These things became my safety net. I was scared of letting them go. What if something terrible happened? What if I was wrong and this whole thing was a lie?

Well my friends, I'm still battling with that. I know it will be a long and difficult road, but it will be worth it in the end inshaAllah. But the main reason for writing this long and verbose thread (forgive me, I'm a literature student and it's 5am) is to say a big thank you.

You guys have quite honestly shaken me awake from a dream. These forums are all wonderfully open-minded and argued with multiple sources and Quranic verses that have all made my transition far easier than it would have been otherwise. So thanks. God bless us all inshaAllah.

Apologies again for the length and sorry if it's boring - I needed to get it out!

Cheers guys.

Welcome, Tyler Durden, to Free-Minds.org! Are you a Fight Club fan? Lol. I thought that it was a good movie. A little too "adult" in some areas though.

Anyway, I hope that you will find this forum helpful. I too am a new comer. However, I registered almost as soon as I found it. I had been trying to find a community of people who thought like me.

I also hope that God will use this forum to help bring you to the truth of Islam, whatever that may be. I pray that He will lead us all into the truth about Islam. And I believe He is reminding us about His power, glory, mercy, and forgiveness every day as He leads us into a life of peace in worshiping Him alone and taking to heart the message that He gave us through Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and all the prophets before him (peace be upon them all), and a away from a life of man made rules and ideologies.

Feel free to ask any questions and we will strive to answer them the best we can. But don't forget that it's God who does the guiding. We can only do so much.

And I wasn't saying that the Prophet (pbuh) didn't know how to read and/or write. I was simply stating that I didn't know, nor did I particularly care too much. No disrespect to Muhammad or anyone else was intended.

Everything you just said, is pretty much the point I was trying to get at.

As a last second note the above post was in no way intended to attack Pure Islam. Only radical Islam, and also give some of us here a chance to know what happened and ask God to give her healing, peace, and guidance to true Islam.