Welcome to our forum. sun

I saw part I. bravo

Meet Islamic fundamentalist AL qaeda spokesperson Yahiye Gadahn

http//i.l.cnn.net/cnn/2008/WORLD/meast/01/06/gadahn.tape/art.gadahn.afp.gi.jpg

http//www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8VXPMdYGlQ

Yahiye's real name is Adam Pearlman, a nice Jewish boy and grandson of
Carl Pearlman, who was on the Board of Directors of the Anti-Defamation League.

That's interesting....

Mr. Guest seems to be on a mission claiming the free-minds.org is a sect.

That fftopic. I say again that if you have nothing left to contribute to this thread, please leave this thread, and go back to your free-minds.org is a sect thread! I hate to say it but the last thing I care about in this world is that you think free-minds.org is a sect.

I repeat again that I would not like to debate on this thread with you, and neither do the other posters... All that was left on this thread was college students sharing stories.

I guess the best strategy left now is to ignore your posts.

Peace,

I am providing some observation and thoughts on your post.

You opted to criticize others (shias/sunnis) without first explaining your positions/understanding adequately. And this is not very intelligent thing to do. A good post would have included the rationale behind your stated position.

Who is ?us??

You alone,
Free-minds.org,
All members of free-minds.org,
Some members of free-minds.org,
Acceptance of all the religious position advocated by this web site,
Acceptance of some religious position advocated by this web site,
And so on

In fact ?us? is guilty of the very thing you are accusing the sunnis of

If you read the threads, posts, articles and other documents on this web site very carefully you will find the followings in majority of them

1. In the name of Quran alone, this web site produces modern hadith that contradicts Quran, God?s physical laws, and the innermost thoughts of righteous persons

2. If you read these modern hadith carefully you will note that authors are either ill prepared, did not conduct sufficient research (your post being a case), do not adhere to God?s law, contradicts their position from thread to thread, not knowledgeable, etc.?..

3. The sunnis hadith you are condemning is equivalent to hadith produced by free-minds.org via the use of selective classic Arabic dictionary meaning. No difference, you are replacing sunnis hadith with the classic dictionary. Note that the dictionary is not infallible

4. Some on this site will advocate that you cannot breakfast fast at sunset, yet they will not define what night is. Any definition other than the sunset will be a contradiction. Let them produce the definition of night if they speak the truth

5. One hadith will say you will have to fast in the summer time in violation of God?s law/guidance. This hadith makes Bukhari look real good you know

6. Some moderator will proclaim themselves as good people; as if they don?t need to earn respect from other. This is a blatant violation of human decency

7. If you present different views (although consistent with the Quran), some moderator will threaten you with throwing you out of the forum. They don?t have the decency to withdraw themselves from the dispute and let a third party settle the dispute. They do not honor the conflict of interest concepts. What bothers me the most is the tolerance of other moderators and the administrators when they are aware of such situations. This is like many good police officers getting bad name for few bad ones. This is not acceptable in God?s system unless the moderator in question invoke the curse of God on them for any unjustly act

8. Another problematic thing is the title ?wise one? assigned by the web site to some members, where do they get the authority to call someone wise one when they are not. Just read their posts. One cannot call themselves worshipper of God alone and exhibits such behavior. You can?t have your cake and eat it too

9. Another hadith is the unjustifiable use of Joseph?s plan (to keep his brother in Egypt via the cup steal plot) to generalized the punishment of thief. Yet, they are the one who advocates that if the God did not specifically say such and such thing in the Quran you can imply it. Be aware, they will prohibit you of doing something but they will use it when it suits their purpose

Here is an example of how the use of classic Arabic dictionary can lead many people astray.

4912 - O you who believe, you shall avoid much suspicion, for some suspicion is sinful. And do not spy on one another, nor shall you backbite. Would any of you enjoy eating the flesh of his dead brother? You certainly would hate this. You shall observe God. God is Redeemer, Merciful.

This is the translation of ?us? that allows for suspicion which violate the God given fundamental right of an innocent human i.e. human dignity. This translation allows for illegal search and many other corruptions in the system. Such system cannot be God?s system period.

Contrast the above translation with the below translation which does not violate human dignity nor does it allow corrupted system.

4912 - O you who believe, you shall avoid any suspicion, for even a little bit of suspicion is sinful. You shall not spy on one another, nor shall you backbite one another; this is as abominable as eating the flesh of your dead brother. You certainly abhor this. You shall observe GOD. GOD is Redeemer, Most Merciful.

Which one does your innermost tells you to accept? The distinction is very clear God vs. satan (my opinion of course).

I recommend you to read the following thread of belH. This is one of the best threads on this site.

Free-Minds.org is another Sect...like Suni and Shia Sects.

Thank you for your highly enlightening post Guest. You bring much insight and knowledge to this thread. yeah

You also seem to have an exceeding large amount of time on your hands (or you type really fast), and seem to be relieving a large amount of suppressed feelings on this thread. What you have criticized about "us" and "them" has long been beaten dead voodoo. If you had read through the thread, you would find that I wrote the title in a period of anger and frustration. I have already posted that many times throughout the thread, the last being... earlier this week? Then you seem to rant about your criticism of free-minds.org... if you don't like it so much, why don't you leave or start your own forum with people that share the same views as you?

I honestly have not been following the free-minds.org is a sect thread, and have no interest in doing so. I belong to no sect, and am currently forming my own views about religion, the Quran, and the Sunna as we speak.

So I will ask you to please come down...this thread is currently just a place where a college student is sharing stories about his encounters with sunnis on the web...

If you have nothing to contribute, please leave.

welcome San to the forum.

Thank you for contributing and insightful post. Many new members come through here, but I get excited when people begin to post intelligent comments that show some wisdom.

I realize that the title of this thread is a little vague, and that it is pointless to pick at differences. I started this thread to cope with the initial negative encounters I had with the Sunni's in my community. However, since then, our relations have improved drastically. I found, like you said, that it was pointless to constantly pick at the behaviors and idiosyncracies among most sunni people. It just provokes argument and leads to nothing but animostiy and hurt feelings. I have also found that it is best to not discuss contraversial religious topics unless someone asks you first and shows general interest in learning about your opinion/arguments but that is another story in itself.

By the way, I like your writing style... are you a college student?

Thank you Ahmed Bilal

San, I do agree with your point. It would be wonderful to eloquently read, understand, and implement God's orders in the way they were revealed, and like you said who knows... we may find out why God revealed the Quran in Arabic soon....

In conjunction with the last post, I really hate it when people glorify Arabic. I was asking my Saudi room mate if he knew anything about writing left to right vs right to left. I said that Hindi is written left to right and that most of the living languages aside from Hebrew that are written right to left descend from the Arabic script (Farsi, Urdu, ect), and that the number of languages that are written left to right outnumber the languages written right to left.

How does all of this stuff tie in with the discussion

My room mate Well Arabic is the language of the Quran, and.....

brickwall Well Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas so......? (my roommate doesn't even know what the Vedas is lol......)

I hate that. Sometimes when you show people translations they begin to cringe or act funny.

It is a novel conept we must try to actually read and UNDERSTAND Allah's word without relying on someone to do it for us.

Jibreel, thank you for your post and your story.

I agree with you that there are many sunnis who are like us. In fact, I used to be one, as are many in my community back home (composed of many 1st and 2nd generation immigrants). Unfortunately, I now attend college where most of the Muslims (about 80% of the masjid's population are international students) follow the Wahabi version of Islam or some other version they learned back home. I have to deal with them everyday, I even live with a Wahabi, and it is exhausting. That is why I started this thread... basically as a coping mechanism. I hope you don't mind.

My intention is not to create differences.

Thanks for the post guys, many good points were brought up.

I agree that no culture is better or worse than another culture, but I do believe that some cultures may be more open to religious interpretation than others. As another posts mentions, sunnis do believe in religious interpretation, but, say in Saudi Arabia, that authority is left for the most part to the clerics.

Anyway yesterday a funny thing happened at my local mosque. After salat, we have a nice literal ritual of reading some hadith. The hadith that was read claimed that Muslim men were not permitted to raise hands and say salam to women passing, as this could lead to temptation and sin. The hadith also mentioned that Muhammed (PBUH), did in fact do this-he said salam to women passing by, but the explanation given was funny. The hadith compiler (whoever he was) claimed that Muhammed was sinless, so this was okay for him, but not advisable for normal-lay men. brickwall That is the problem with hadith. Let us assume that this hadith is authentic. Muhammed said salam to women passing by-that is a normal, everyday behavior for all of us. However, some scholar who was around 1200 years ago believes that Muhammed did this because_____, and we can/cannot do this because __________. It is just this scholar's interpretation! It is not God's word; it is not Muhammed's word; for the most part it isn't even logical!

A few brothers as my masjid disagreed with this hadith. They read the hadith, and questioned it. However, the moment they walked out of the door-they behaved opposite to what they were preaching. There was a pretty messed up American women begging for money (she looked like a prostitute-druggie). The first thing the brother did was to tell her to get out of the men's section of the mosque. brickwall One second you advocate for women's rights, and literally the next second you tell women to get out of your face?? I mean the brother could have asked her nicely to move, and then to talk to her-like a human being, and ask her what she wanted. Fortunately, another brother who likes to do social work took care of her.

The world that we live in....

Edip, great article. I would also be interested in reading about your trip to China and London. I will look for them on your website.

As the post mentions above, keep up the great work!

welcome Amm!

I know how you feel. I, too, was annoyed when people were obsessing about rewards, good deeds, and what not. I try to do everything good for the sake of Allah, and I have faith in him as he is The Most Just. I don't do good because I get a specific reward of this day of this month because some cleric said this, unless of course he is backed by Quranic evidence.

I do wonder what the quran has to say about this...

doesn't Saudi claim the Quran is its constitution.

My Saudi room mate again As my facebook status says "I am sick of hyperconservatives."

His culture is just SOOO different than mine, and I am not even 100% American. I still have a strong Indian presence with the language (I speak Hindi), food, customs, pop culture, geographic knowledge, regular cultural knowledge, history, ect...

I guess our Indian culture is pretty much in harmony with American culture, as opposed to Saudi. Would you guys agree?

Try to ask your questions in the right forum sections, for the sake of organization. As for the credentials of the people here, in my opinion, they vary widely. We have people who have translated the entire Quran here like Edip and Layth, we have people with PhDs in science, pastors, students, teens, pilots, ect. peace

We are quite a diverse group, and we welcome you to the forum.

This happened to me once when I was a kid. I was at a local supermarket buying candy with coins with my sister. We were counting coins to pay, when we realized we did not have enough. The guy beyond us overheard and gave me and my sister a dollar, so we could buy the extra candy. However, when I came back home my mother freaked out and threw away the candy. '(

It is true that the electromagnetic forces are stronger than gravity. I learned this in physics last month. )

Nice post Reverend John. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Peace,
Atheists and the Authors of Lies (e.g., Hadith Writers) are the two sides of one Coin

Atheists are one extreme and wahabi sunnis are the other extreme. We are neither.