A letter on Islamism
A dozen writers to have put their names to a statement in a French weekly paper warning against Islamic "totalitarianism".
It starts off with:
"After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new global threat: Islamism."
Sandmonkey adds an important point: “Not Islamic, Islamists. There is a difference”
Most of the signers have had direct experiences with the subject:
Salman Rushdie: Indian-born British writer with fatwa issued ordering his execution for The Satanic Verses
Ayaan Hirsi Ali: Somali-born Dutch MP
Taslima Nasreen: Exiled Bangladeshi writer, with fatwa issued ordering her execution
Bernard-Henri Levy: French philosopher
Chahla Chafiq: Iranian writer exiled in France
Caroline Fourest: French writer
Irshad Manji: Ugandan refugee and writer living in Canada
Mehdi Mozaffari: Iranian academic exiled in Denmark
Maryam Namazie: Iranian writer living in Britain
Antoine Sfeir: Director of French review examining Middle East
Ibn Warraq: US academic of Indian/Pakistani origin
Philippe Val: Director of Charlie Hebdo
Here is the body of the text:
After having overcome fascism, Nazism, and Stalinism, the world now faces a new totalitarian global threat: Islamism.
We, writers, journalists, intellectuals, call for resistance to religious totalitarianism and for the promotion of freedom, equal opportunity and secular values for all.
The recent events, which occurred after the publication of drawings of Muhammed in European newspapers, have revealed the necessity of the struggle for these universal values. This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats.
Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people.
We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions. We refuse to renounce our critical spirit out of fear of being accused of "Islamophobia", an unfortunate concept which confuses criticism of Islam as a religion with stigmatization of its believers.
We plead for the universality of freedom of expression, so that a critical spirit may be exercised on all continents, against all abuses and all dogmas.
We appeal to democrats and free spirits of all countries that our century should be one of Enlightenment, not of obscurantism.
Now for my Muslim readers the question; would you sign this? Will you actually make the break and commit in writing your name to this text? Read it well.
-Karim Elsahy
I do find some of the signers offensive. The reactions of some of our fellow Muslims, however, leave us with little justification to address things like that. (Comment this)
Karim, you SHOULD find the text offensive as it removes the identity of Islam by secularising it and pushes a form of reformation that will basically clean Islam of absolutly any use.
Read this. (Comment this)
I wouldn't sign this because the people that signed it (at least those I know about among them) are parasites on the topic to start with. I don't necessarily disagree with the overall message but I wouldn't put my name beside Irshad, the "anonymous" Ib Warraq, or Ayaan Hirsi Ali!
These people don't even understand Islam to start with (Ibn Warraq does, but is a serial lier on the subject like Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald) .
Sigh...... (Comment this)
Ibn Warraq is an idiot & irshad manji had some good points but what exactly do you people find offensive??
I dont care who signed it as long as the text is ok.
Its as if one has to oppose something just because of the signatories not because of the ideas included.
abdul rahman
where do you get that Islam is a political ideology? thats crap, you are obviously a fanatic who doesnt understand Islam at all, you probably think Islam can be applied to economics, science, medicine, technology!
to say that Islam is a " complete political ideology " proves you dont really know much about anything.
complete??! complete how?
1-What are the rules to choose a leader?
2-what are the specific duties for a leader & what is not his duty?........for accountability reasons.
3-If the leader sways from his duties, who has the right to challenge him or to put him right?
4-is that leadership by divine choice?
5-Is it obligatory for the leader to confer with others in matters of War, peace & other issues??
6- where are the explicit quranic verses that speak of all this? note please that the shura notion mentioned in the Quran,as you might use it, was exclusively describing a small group of arab companions, it didnt imply any political obligation. & how about some historic examples too as who & when & where were those rules ever applied. (Comment this)
this or you didnt read the deceleration to start with..if this is the case, I apologise for the readers for wasting their time on this!! (Comment this)
ALIENKAIN: To answer your question I will first inform you that Islamic law is taken from three sources, Quran, Sunnah (actions and sayings of the prophet) and finally the Ijmaa al-Sahaba.
1-What are the rules to choose a leader?
There are three methods:
i)The way Abu Baker became the first caliph after the prophet Muhammad (voted by the majority of the Muslims)
ii)The way Omar became the second caliph (through Abu Baker's recommendation)
iii)The way Uthman became the third caliph (voting by a group of Islamic scholars)
The Muslims are not allowed for more than 3 days without a caliph. After the 3 days anyone with enough power and trust from the Muslims who comes up to lead the caliphate SHOULD be given the pledge by ALL Muslims.
2-what are the specific duties for a leader & what is not his duty?........for accountability reasons.
This is quite a vague and general question. I don't know what to say so I'll mention a few Islamic laws to be enforced by the caliph:
The prophet said that water, shrubs and fire-based fuels (coal, oil, etc.) are to be owned by the ummah (ie, the whole community). In thus saying, no one person has the right to take private ownership of it and thus it will be under governmental control.
The prophet said that all sons of Adam should have "food on their plate, shelter over their heads, and clothes on their backs". These are the basic requierments all citizens must be proveded with.
In times of famine, punishment on theft will be abolished. Unlike what we saw happeneing in the US after hurricane Katrina, where the US army starts shooting at "looters", the caliphate will not punish a theif in times where the people's basic needs are not being meet.[Omari legislation]
The prophet also said as for capital punishment:
"Avoid the execution of punishment by doubt".
Another governmental policy will be land management. According to Islam, a large land that is not cultivated for three consecutive years (taking into circumstances the environment, eg. droughts) will be taken away from its owner and given to anyone else who is willing to cultivate it.
Another governmental policy is taxation. In the caliphate, there is only one tax for Muslims and for non-Muslims. The tax on Muslims is called zakaat and on non-Muslims is called jizyah, it is placed due to the fact that they are exempted from joining in the army. I would also like to point out that the tax is exempted from people who are not able to afford it. [Omari legislation]
I can go on, but if you're looking for something specific, then please tell me. On the other hand, you can check out the Islamic constitution and other information about the caliphate's governmental, economic, political policies.
3-If the leader sways from his duties, who has the right to challenge him or to put him right?
The Muslims:
And let there arise amongst you a group, inviting to all that is good (Islam), enjoining al-Marouf (good) and forbidding al-Munkar evil); and those are the ones whom are the successful.
[TMQ 3:104]
Allah's Messenger (Sallallaahu Alayhi Wasallam)
said: "The master of martyrs is Hamzah, and (equal to him) a man who stood up to an unjust ruler, commanded him (to do good) and forbade him (against evil) so (the ruler) killed him."
4-is that leadership by divine choice?
No. I already described how he is chosen in the answer of your first question. The Caliphate is not a theocracy in the sense that the Caliph is a representative of God on Earth like Papist Europe was. That is even blasphemous in Islam to have a representative of God on Earth. The Caliph is a representative of the Muslims.
5-Is it obligatory for the leader to confer with others in matters of War, peace & other issues??
Again, no. There are advisors to the caliph but in the end, his decision is final as long as it's not outside the bounds of Islam.
ANONYMOUS:
"Not to sign anything just because there are signatories you dont approve of is basically a huge mistake & shows a degree of unjustified hollow pride."
The text speaks for itself. The Muslims who agree with the text and are disturbed by the signitures really should get a wake up call. They are obviously in denial that the text completely agrees with such enemies of Islam as some of those who signed it obviously are. Karim and AhmedT, akhi, you're not doing Islam a favour by supporting any form of reformation. If the text doesn't make you realise it, the people who signed it should. (Comment this)
1- I'm having a heart attack I cant anwser this (esp the 3 days bit)
2-So islam is about communism??? (umm..what about "wa lkom roaos amwaleko" "every one is entitled to his capital")??
3-nothing to complain about...
4-Fair enough
5-The heart attack is coming back....dont u think that 4 and 5 contradict just a bit!!!
I would like to end this with a very famous muslim prayer: "Allahoma la toa'7ezna be ma fa3lla el sofha' mena"..which translates to "Oh Allah, please dont punish us for what the fools among us did"...get it? "the fools among us" (Comment this)
I am against any sort of hate or bin Ladinist, Wahabi terrorism and nonsense, however the problem I have with the text is the following statements:
"This struggle will not be won by arms, but in the ideological field. It is not a clash of civilisations nor an antagonism of West and East that we are witnessing, but a global struggle that confronts democrats and theocrats."
So the war against Islamic extremism is between democrats and theocrats. In other words, a Muslim is either a theocratic bin Ladinist who is out to get the world or a democratic Muslim. Democratic Muslim? Why Toman? Why can't we be just Muslims? What is a "Democratic Muslim"? Can you give me a definition of that? Is it a Muslim that supports democratic laws? Which are what? A Muslim by definition is a man that follows the Quran and Sunnah. Democracy states that man is the one who legislates where Islam states that the Quran and Sunnah legislates and whatever we cannot find in there we carry out our own ijtihad to conclude different issues. In Democracy, a legislation will pass when enough people vote for it (legalise weed?). In Islam a legislation will pass if it agrees with Quran. I am speaking general Islamic priniciples that are basic to our foundations as Muslims. We do support voting and free expression, but don't call that as Democracy because democracy is not limited to those flowers and butterflies. Democracy is a system of free un-regulated market, a system where leadership is defined by whoever has the most money. If you can addord the campaign, then no matter if you're incompetent, you will still be one of the few who could get a seat at leadership of a democratic country. A TV program I saw basically says it beautfuly, the White House is basically for sale.
"Like all totalitarianisms, Islamism is nurtured by fears and frustrations. The hate preachers bet on these feelings in order to form battalions destined to impose a liberticidal and unegalitarian world. But we clearly and firmly state: nothing, not even despair, justifies the choice of obscurantism, totalitarianism and hatred. Islamism is a reactionary ideology which kills equality, freedom and secularism wherever it is present. Its success can only lead to a world of domination: man's domination of woman, the Islamists' domination of all the others. To counter this, we must assure universal rights to oppressed or discriminated people."
Not Islamic extremism. No, ISLAMISM. So like I said above, you're either a supporter of the West (ie, a democratic Muslim, a moderate Muslim, a Muslim who is only a Muslim inside the mosque) or an extremist who is out to kill.
"We reject « cultural relativism », which consists in accepting that men and women of Muslim culture should be deprived of the right to equality, freedom and secular values in the name of respect for cultures and traditions."
That basically is it. Secularism. This whole test is in support of secularism which by definition is the seperation fo religion from state. Islam is a poltical system. Walahi ya Toman you cannot have Islam in a secular system without ignoring half of the Quran and Sunnah, no, maybe even more hata. (Comment this)
"1- I'm having a heart attack I cant anwser this (esp the 3 days bit)"
Well you didn't answer anything. After the death of the prophet by 3 days Abu Baker was chosen, then before the death of Omar, Omar said that the council which is to choose the next caliph has 3 days to choose.
"2-So islam is about communism??? (umm..what about "wa lkom roaos amwaleko" "every one is entitled to his capital")??"
What? Who said anything communism? I mentioned a few government regulations in Islam. You are allowed to own your own business. I really cannot see where the hell did you get Communism from all this?
"5-The heart attack is coming back....dont u think that 4 and 5 contradict just a bit!!!"
What are you talking about ya sheikh??? 4 is about choosing the caliph, 5 is about how a caliph makes his decision.
"I would like to end this with a very famous muslim prayer: "Allahoma la toa'7ezna be ma fa3lla el sofha' mena"..which translates to "Oh Allah, please dont punish us for what the fools among us did"...get it? "the fools among us""
Allah yesam7ak. (Comment this)
I am commenting about the number 5 point again only for the sake of logic...if (4) the caliph is choosen by the muslims then how come that he (5) dont answer to them???
I know this is beyond you, but it for the rest of ppl to ponder.
And for the 3 days deadline Omar gave to the council...who said that it became an islamic rule?...as far as I am concerned it is not in Quran or Sunna...so it ijthad as u like to put it...even by Omar...plus there could have been specific reasons at the time for this...plz dont take text as an idol without putting it into context... (Comment this)
Two hadiths and don't open your mouth when it comes to deen when you apparently don't know anything about it.
"The best of your Imams are those whom you love and they love you, who pray for you and you pray for them; and the worst of your Imams are those whom you hate and they hate you and you curse them and they curse you." The Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him) was asked: "Would we not declare war on them (face them with the swords)?" He said: "No, as long as they establish salat among you."
Narrated Umm Salamah, r.a. the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him)said: In the near future there will be Amirs (rulers) and you will like their good deeds and dislike their bad deeds. One who sees through their bad deeds (and tries to prevent their repetition by his hand or through his speech), is absolved from blame, but one who hates their bad deeds (in the heart of his heart, being unable to prevent their recurrence by his hand or his tongue), is (also) safe (so far as God"s wrath is concerned). But one who approves of their bad deeds and imitates them is spiritually ruined.
People asked (the Prophet): Shouldn't we fight against them? He replied: No, as long as they say their salat. (Sahih Muslim 4569)
And as you are a "logic" man, you would obviously realise that by salat, the prophet does not mean praying at home. He means Islam and this is what all the scholars agreed upon. In point 3 that I answered, I showed that yes, in Islam the ruler is accountable to the people, BUT ONLY ONCE HE STARTS RULING OUTSIDE OF ISLAM.
I will give you a small example that you might understand. The issue of divorce was disagreed upon between Omar and Abu Baker. I will not go into the details of the disagreement, but basically, both points are Islamic and disagreements within Islam (and not to reach the point of kufr) is acceptable. When Abu Baker was ruler, the issue of divorce that he believed in was the law and Omar had to obey it. When Omar became the Khaleefa, he changed the law and made it to what he believes in. He was forced to obey the Khaleefah when Abu Baker was the ruler even though he disagreed. But as long as it's not a law from outside of Islam, both opinions are considered Islamic, then they have to obey the khaleefah.
"And for the 3 days deadline Omar gave to the council...who said that it became an islamic rule?...as far as I am concerned it is not in Quran or Sunna...so it ijthad as u like to put it...even by Omar..."
A woman asked the Prophet who to come back to for help should the Prophet not be there (i.e. if the Prophet had died). The Prophet stated Abu Bakr.
The Prophet said, "Follow the best successors after me: Abu Bakr and Umar."
If you have an opinion about a matter, fair enough. But unless you're claiming to be wiser and more Islamically knowledged than Abu Baker and Umar whome the prophet himself praised, don't oppose their opinion.
"plus there could have been specific reasons at the time for this...plz dont take text as an idol without putting it into context..."
You're claiming that there are specific reasons and time and so one. Then tell me, what is the exact context and why shouldn't we apply it now? If this is your claim, support it. Tell me why. If you can't then let the people more knowledged than you reach an opinion and follow it until you can actually reach an opposing opinion that has an actual basis. (Comment this)
It appears many of your readers don't get that. (Comment this)
Nothing in the Quran says about ijmaa el sahaba, simply because they did not unite in many things, except for something that im sure you would hate to know about.
The companions agreed on not documenting the sayings of the prophet, abu bakr had burned as many as 500 one night with the aid of his daughter Aisha, omar collected them from residents in the madina & burned them too, yet you still think the sunnah is a source of islamic laws! let me tell you how misinformed you are, you cannot declare anything in the Sunnah as law or mandatory even because theonly source of it is the Quran, sayings are not a source of islamic jurisprudence, the majority of the sayings are not trusted yet are commonly used.
Now, you say 3 ways to choosea leader? where in the QURAN i said does itmention these 3 ways? you are talkin about what the cmpanions each chose as they thought fit not what they thought was religious, simply because there was no Quranic verse to deal with it, so much for complete Political ideology huh?
Omari legislation?? are you joking or so blind? where does it say in thw quran that Omar can legislate? what omar did was his own brilliant interpretatin of religion that YOU & your fellow fanatics cannot fathom till today, the quran verse doesnt mention famine or hunger, it simply says to cut off the hands of thieves, buit omar didnt take it , like you would, literally, he understood that it meant professional thieves not petty amatuers, thats why he didnt cut off their hands, but since you brought it up, what about another Omar legislation, he simply cancelled A QURANIC LAW decalring it out of date, obsolete, the Prophet did it & abu bakr too, yet omar said it was no longer valid ( & rightfuly too) in the case of giving money to non muslims, Mo2alfah qolobehm. what do you say about it when omar has no right in your line of thinking to cancel a divine law?
Duties of the leader wasnt easy so you had to talk ambigious stuff that dosnt say much in the end, & waht the prophet again said does not constitute ISLAMIC LAW,you said ISLAM is a complete political ideology, i am saying where is it? You say hadith, sorry..the hadiths contains so much contradictory stories in the same event that one cannot logically conclude that God left his rules in these conflicting stories that were only documented after more than 2 centuries when arabs had already falsified most of it, including bukhari which is as flawed as the ideology of the guy himself.
Where abouts in which Quranic surah did you derive this land law?? You cannot add to ISlam laws that odinary men devised & say this is what God decreed.
3- so when the leader sways from his way, MUSLIMS are to put him right, which muslims may i ask?? what were the reasons behind this verse to begin with??( asbab el nezoul)
as i know those verse you quoted, i can only think of Othamn ibn affan, who refused to hand over a criminal, his advisor, to the muslims who took over the madina, even when the companions present advised othman to hand him over as there was suffieicent evidence against him, he refused , the muslims gave othman 3 choices which he refused all of them & simply said " Here is the book of God, if you find anything that says you can try me or depose me, then show me" knowing there was nothing in it that dictated such a manner. So much for the complete theory.
So the khalifa represents muslims, has advisors but isnt bound by their counsel, in other words they are decorative, as long as hsi decisions are in the boundaries of islam,how fascinating!
Present day affairs are so much different than the days of the companions, boundaris of ISlam is so vague & foggy that i dont think you know what you are saying.
but let me ask you a few things:
1- what about a leader who wages war on other muslims because he felt like it & went against his closest advisors counsel?? ( hint: Abu Bakr)
2- What about a leader who assigns his relatives & close ones in sensitive & critical positions & they abuse their powers & he is handed evidence of their corruption but continues to protect them none the less? ( hint: Othman)
3- what about a leader who upon dispatching his governors in other land, advises them to speak as little as possible of the prophet? ( hint: all 4 companions)
4- what about that the most authenticated hadith, the only one recited by more than 60 companions, was actually ordering muslims not to write anything he (mohamed) has said other than the Quran?
5- The sahaba as you say, differed in 4 times (not 3) the way they were chosen as leader,why?? does that constitute ISlam?
6- does the behaviour of the caliphates or companion constitute Islamic law or islamic legislation?
7- what about Ali going to war with 2 other close companions aided by the prophets wife aisha? & please dont mention abdulah ibn saba2,[ its a more grievous insult to them to cite a fictitious guy as the reason they went to war]
8-what verse or hadith compelled them to fight eachother ?
9- Can you give examples of the SHURA council functioning throughout the companion leadership history, Ummayad & Abassid dynasties?
You havent answered much you know, if there is such a political ideology thats complete, then you dont know much of it, do you?
(Comment this)
Fa, aw3zeny ya sheikh!
One sign of an extremist: he take extreme cases, assume they're the norm, and rational from there. The hadith you said about taking arms against a ruler is valid. And I dont expect the prophet to say anything other than that because perserving civil peace is of paramount importance. But y r u only considering the extreme case of taking arms agains the ruler (which i disapprove of..like you do)...if there is room for arguing with him, and calling him to mind his wrong ways ("fa eza a'7tat fa sawbony" "if i was wrong, correct me" from Abu Bakr's acceptance speech)..if this way is through a parliment, majles sha3b, majles umma, whatever...what is wrong with that...did u expect the prophet pbuh to come 1400 yrs ago and say "u shall have a 444 member parliment, elected from 27 governrates......"!!
religion is a challenging thing, (and hence rewarding) becasue it offers guidelines, and leaves it to the followers to decide how would they manage to live with in those guidelines...in our context those guideline are counseling, electing ruler, respecting the ruler's decisons (ie respecting the majority which elected him), and coorecting the ruler if he is proven wrong (i.e. holding him accountable while IN office)
As for Omar issue...no doubt he is one of the greatest Muslims, but a woman once corrected him while he was on podium (when he ruled that a certain limit should be placed on dawrys), and he acknowledged it at once, and started crying because he would have taken the punishment of this decision from Allah. So, you know even Omar ruled wrongly once...which I think is a way for God to tell us that we're all humans after all!
Please if you'd like to reply, do so in a calm tone, and plz dont start assuming that I do, or dont know anything about Islam. I'm not assuming anything against you! (Comment this)
It is not ISLAM that needs reformation, but Muslims need it desperately. They need to understand what is ISLAM & what is Islamic thought & the difference between them. Islam is more of ethics & a philosophy for life thats Divinical, spiritual,guiding & unflawed.
islamic thought isnt divinical, its human ideas with all its contradictions & flaws.
(Comment this)
you dont really understand the Quran do you? to say in a secular world you will have to lave out half the quran & sunah. let me clarify one thing, the Quran has over 6000 verses, only 200 approx deal with rules & laws. so what do you man by half the quran?? dont you think thats a far exaggerated statement?
what sunnah are you talking about? Muslims lived from the death of the prophet(12,11 hegra till 250 Hegra) without any book on sunnah. & when Bukhari came to compile his book, it is a well known fact that he chose about 5000 from over 250,000 sayings at least, some sources say it was 400,000 & others 550,000, what do you think about it? & even half those whic bukhari chose are flawed & inconsistent & illogical too.
Moslim, Bukhari's prodigy, deleted some sayings bukhari had included, & he added more from what bkhari deleted, they must have made faults & mistakes, they are human after all & not aided by Divine associates like Gabriel, dont you think?
(Comment this)
To everyone else please continue to show Abd ul-Rahman the respect he has shown so far; try not to let this debate slip into sarcastic retorts. (Comment this)
Abd ul-Rahman Hilmi,
You said “Islam is a challenge … unlike other religions that have nothing more than stories and basic general rules.”
Keep in mind that other people feel the same about their own religions.
-------------
You said “Unlike what we saw happeneing in the US after hurricane Katrina, where the US army starts shooting at "looters", the caliphate will not punish a theif in times where the people's basic needs are not being meet”
The looters were not stealing food, water, or medicine. They were stealing stereos, computers, plasma TVs, and designer sneakers. As you saw by the videos, most of the thieves were very well fed.
-----------------
You said “Democracy is a system of free un-regulated market, a system where leadership is defined by whoever has the most money. If you can addord the campaign, then no matter if you're incompetent, you will still be one of the few who could get a seat at leadership of a democratic country”
Wrong. The previous governor of California was removed because of incompetence. Many public officials have resigned when their ineptitude came to the fore. In fact, the mayor of Washington DC spent some time in jail because of gross misbehavior. Like any job, you cannot predict how someone will do, but modern societies don’t care for incompetence and bad politicians get the heave-ho more often than not.
Hope this clears up your misconceptions.
(Comment this)
Is that considered out of the boundaries of Islam?
what do muslims do to him then?
(Comment this)
Honestly, you sound like a classic "I read a couple of Fiiqh books, and I think I'm a Faqeeh now" kind of guy. You're logic at deducing the "3 Day Rule" has no basis since its not based on any followed methods as outlined in "Osool El-Fiqh" (the standard of Islamic Jurisprudence).
"Ijma3 El-Sa7aba" is not a method of deducing Fiqh, let alone you can't even get a single shred of evidence to support that the Sa7aba had "Ijma3" (unanimity) on this alleged 3 day rule. Let me refresh your memory; the source of Jurisprudence are
1 - Quran
2 - Sunnah
3 - Ijma3 Al3olama'2 (unanimity of scholars across timelines and geographies)
4 - Al-Qyas (logically deducing Islamic rulings from similar cases, i.e. giving pot the same status as alcohol)
5 - Al-3orf (more or less, common sense which does not contradict an undoubted Islamic rule)
Islamic Sharee'a has 5 fundamental goals; 5 fundamental things it aspires to preserve:
1 - Preservation of Religious Belief (i.e. create the environment in which believers can adhere to the fundamental demands of the religion; and by fundamental I mean an environment where they are free intellectually, free from fear, free from hunger, etc)
2 - Preservation of Life.
3 - Preservation of the "mind" (i.e. create an environment where people utilize their intellectual capabilities, think freely, and contribute to the promotion of civilization in general)
4 - Preservation of human siblings (I'm sorry, those of you who know what I mean or can correct me please do, I found it very hard to translate, but in arabic "7efz Al-Nasl)
5 - Preservation of Capital.
Every Islamic law or ruling revolves around those 5 axis one way or another. When the companions chose Abu Bakr, or when Abu Bakr nominated Omar, or when the scholars of the time nominated Othman, this didn't mean that its a ruling that everyone else had to follow (i.e. is limited to these 3 options). The fact that they did it in a certain way doesn't exclude the possibility of another approach (i.e. general elections of a party, platform, etc ). All it means is that they did something that was in accordance with establishing the general goals of Sharia not that because they did it they sealed the fate of everyone else in their adopted options!
Abd ul-Rahman,
I will take this further only if you start citing references or sound Fiqh arguments (I warn you that this is almost a second major for me so be very careful :-) ). I am not attempting to intimidate you or anything, I just won't allow spewing personal opinions as "God's doctrine".
For the sake of completeness you can refer to the following books to validate what I wrote here (as samples):
Al-Resla (Al-Imam Alshaf3y)
I3lam El-Mowaq3een (Ibn Quyim Aljawzyia)
If you don't have an appetite for classic books refer to the very well written :
Fiqh Aldawla Fil Islam (Youssef ElQaradawi)
Al-Islam wal-Democratia (Fahmy Howadi)..
I'm almost falling asleep so excuse any spelling errors ! (Comment this)
A lot of Califs did drink Alcohol especially in the Abassi erra and what followed.
During this era Islamic Fiqh took a dramatic turn in an attempt to create a docile Muslim world which has no political aspirations whatsoever! (I''m not saying the former was a precursor to the latter, I'm just stating a fact).
For any Muslim out there, open any Fiqh book you have (Fiqh Al-Sunna maybe?) and flip through the pages, count how many pages are dedicated to Fiqh-Al3ebadat (Fiqh related to acts of worship) and how many are dedicated to elements of the faith that address politics or anything related to the means by which we can creat better living standards for Muslims!
its usually a 90%/10% split. There is a very good reason for how it evolved in this particular way. (I'll leave it for you imagination for now :-) ); but I'll give you an example.
The Prophet (PBUH), his companions, and everyone that followed for 200 years washed their face as part of the ablution required for Prayer; they read the Verse in the Quran that asks them to do so and did it..Simple, right?
During the Abbasi era, Fiqh and scholars in general, started to debate these very basic issues to the extent that some Fiqh books state 62 conditions a face has to satisfy to be called a face ! (stop laughing, I'm serious :-D). Well, why? Simply because there was a very strong political will to get the Muslim population down these rat holes, because, simply, someone who's thinking about satisfying the 62 conditions of a "face" probably has no time to think about politics, or anything that may result in disturbing the "peace"; of the rulers of course!
That my friend is one of the reasons Mr. Abd ul-Rahman and millions of other Muslims have very strange opinions when it comes to politics in Islam. There is a clear and present vacuum in this area in Islamic literature.
Why am I writing this? I have no idea. I'm just probably very sleep deprived :-)
(Comment this)
So you're one of the Quranyyeen, huh? You disbelive in anything and everything except the Quran. OK then tell me, do you pray? Do you believe in prayer? How about Hajj? You are ordered in the Quran to pray and to perform hajj, do you do it? I don't think so, because you simply cannot do it without knowing how and the Quran doesn't tell us how. What are you going to do? Stop praying? But then you'll disobey the Quran? Maybe when you pray you do it your own way and when you perform hajj, do that your own way. But then again, does the Quran say that you are allowed to pray in anyway you want?
Say: Obey Allah and the Messenger; but if they turn back, then surely Allah does not love the unbelievers. (3:32)
O you who believe! obey Allah and obey the Messenger, and do not make your deeds of no effect. (47:33)
Say: Obey Allah and obey the Messenger; but if you turn back, then on him rests that which is imposed on him and on you rests that which is imposed on you; and if you obey him, you are on the right way; and nothing rests on the Messenger but clear delivering (of the message). (24:54)
This as compared to what? Why does Allah so frequently says "..and obey the messenger" most of the times after he says "Obey Allah..."? How can you obey one and disobey the other? You want to tell me that I am taking it out of context? That these verses were directed only to the companions of the prophet? How would that work exactly? How would the companions possibly obey Allah and not obey the prophet? Does that even work? Certainly not! If the prophet said something to one of the sahaba, does the sahaba go and look into what has been revealed from the Quran to know if he is suppose to follow the prophet or not? Does he? Or is he forced to follow what the prophet said whether it is in the Quran or not? Answer that. And in no time in history was there an Islamic law applicable for a group or for a time and then discarded later on. There is no such thing as a law only for the companions to follow and now after they all died along with the prophet, we don't have to follow those laws.
"The companions agreed on not documenting the sayings of the prophet, abu bakr had burned as many as 500 one night with the aid of his daughter Aisha, omar collected them from residents in the madina & burned them too, yet you still think the sunnah is a source of islamic laws!"
Do you even know why they were burned? It was not for a reason written in the Quran, but for a reason said by the prophet himself (ie, surprise surprise, they were obeying a hadith). The prophet was heard saying several times not to write down the hadiths, but only speak of them. In other words I can understand your argument if you're saying that we're not allowed to write the hadiths. However where do you conclude that we're not allowed to obey them? The fact that Abu Baker and Omar burned hadith books is in due action of obey a saying of the prophet and not something ordered in the Quran.
"let me tell you how misinformed you are, you cannot declare anything in the Sunnah as law or mandatory even because theonly source of it is the Quran, sayings are not a source of islamic jurisprudence, the majority of the sayings are not trusted yet are commonly used."
There are different levels of hadiths. The whole point of leveling the hadiths into sahih, mutawatir, daeef, I have a small booklet that labels about 30 different types of hadiths each according to it's authenticity. If someone came to you and told you your car is on fire, you would first consider, 'is this person trust worthy?' if you know him to be a joker you'll probably laugh it off. But if you know him to be a serious and truthful man, you will take it into acknowledgment. Now if 3, 4 or even 10 people came to you from different places and told you the same thing, then certainly it is true. This is how hadiths are collected. Each hadith collecter, Bukhari, Muslim and the others, have different requierments and strictness in testing who to trust and who not to. This is why, as to my knowledge, Bukhari has a smaller collection than Muslim, simply because Bukhari has a stricter requierments.
No one is putting Hadith in the level of the Quran. That is certainly haram. However it is equally haram to disregard all the hadiths, because then you can't even obey alot of things the Quran tells you to (as I showed earlier).
"Now, you say 3 ways to choosea leader? where in the QURAN i said does itmention these 3 ways? you are talkin about what the cmpanions each chose as they thought fit not what they thought was religious, simply because there was no Quranic verse to deal with it, so much for complete Political ideology huh?"
Islam, as far as I have proven to you in the above, is not only restricted to the Quran. Islam includes the Quran, Sunnah and ijmaa al sahaba plus our ijtihad (qyaas). With that, yes, Islam IS a complete political ideology.
"you are talkin about what the cmpanions each chose as they thought fit not what they thought was religious, simply because there was no Quranic verse to deal with it, so much for complete Political ideology huh?
Omari legislation?? are you joking or so blind? where does it say in thw quran that Omar can legislate? what omar did was his own brilliant interpretatin of religion that YOU & your fellow fanatics cannot fathom till today..."
That's an example of ijtihad on the part of Omar.
"he quran verse doesnt mention famine or hunger, it simply says to cut off the hands of thieves, buit omar didnt take it , like you would, literally, he understood that it meant professional thieves not petty amatuers, thats why he didnt cut off their hands"
subhanallah! Do you bring interpretation off the top of your head and say "that's what happened"? How can you even say that? Because it agrees with you? Well let me tell you that you're wrong and as for me, I will prove why.
The first example of where this law was applied was in the case of a child servant who stole a she-camel from his master. His master caught him and took him to Umar and Umar said "have I not known that you pay this child a very low wage and keep his family hungry I would have cut his hand." but instead he placed a fine on the man.
The second example is during a famine in Medinah, Umar again completely stopped any punishment on theft due to a conclusion he reached using the verse:
"Whosoever is forced to transgress the laws without violating the laws, then there is no sin against him"
"what about another Omar legislation, he simply cancelled A QURANIC LAW decalring it out of date, obsolete, the Prophet did it & abu bakr too, yet omar said it was no longer valid ( & rightfuly too) in the case of giving money to non muslims, Mo2alfah qolobehm. what do you say about it when omar has no right in your line of thinking to cancel a divine law?"
So are you a Quranyee or a Shia? The "hadith" that mentions this story is from a shia collection that is flawed through its chain.
So no, that never happened.
"Duties of the leader wasnt easy so you had to talk ambigious stuff that dosnt say much in the end, & waht the prophet again said does not constitute ISLAMIC LAW,you said ISLAM is a complete political ideology, i am saying where is it? You say hadith, sorry..the hadiths contains so much contradictory stories in the same event that one cannot logically conclude that God left his rules in these conflicting stories that were only documented after more than 2 centuries when arabs had already falsified most of it, including bukhari which is as flawed as the ideology of the guy himself."
I already said why you simply cannot follow the Quran without the hadith. I have never said they come at the same level, however you cannot falsify all the hadiths. And as I said earlier as well, you cannot even obey the Quran without the hadith, you cannot pray, you cannot give zakaat, you cannot do hajj, you cannot do alot of things that the Quran tells you to do but the hadith tells you how.
"Where abouts in which Quranic surah did you derive this land law?? You cannot add to ISlam laws that odinary men devised & say this is what God decreed."
The example of Omar's theft legislation is an example of his ijtihad. This was ijtihad through the Quran. You can also do it through the sahih hadith.
"3- so when the leader sways from his way, MUSLIMS are to put him right, which muslims may i ask?? what were the reasons behind this verse to begin with??( asbab el nezoul)"
Any Muslim, however it is also permissable to have only a group instead of the whole Muslim population. The group, I suppose is best taken form as the Shura. However, it doesn't have to.
"as i know those verse you quoted, i can only think of Othamn ibn affan, who refused to hand over a criminal, his advisor, to the muslims who took over the madina, even when the companions present advised othman to hand him over as there was suffieicent evidence against him, he refused , the muslims gave othman 3 choices which he refused all of them & simply said " Here is the book of God, if you find anything that says you can try me or depose me, then show me" knowing there was nothing in it that dictated such a manner. So much for the complete theory."
Actually, the reason why Uthman refused to step down was because the prophet told him:
"Perhaps God will clothe you with a shirt, Uthman. and if the people want you to take it off, do not take it off for them."
"Present day affairs are so much different than the days of the companions, boundaris of ISlam is so vague & foggy that i dont think you know what you are saying."
What changed? Give me one example of something that changed and thus Islam is no longer applicable. Tell how does time dictate what is right and what is wrong.
"1- what about a leader who wages war on other muslims because he felt like it & went against his closest advisors counsel?? ( hint: Abu Bakr)"
Abu Bakr was fighting murtadoon and liers who claimed to be prophets after Muhammad (s).
"2- What about a leader who assigns his relatives & close ones in sensitive & critical positions & they abuse their powers & he is handed evidence of their corruption but continues to protect them none the less? ( hint: Othman)"
Uthman agreed to remove the governer of Egypt and replace him by the son of Abu Baker. The letter given to the Egyptian army by the slave was not written by Uthman.
"3- what about a leader who upon dispatching his governors in other land, advises them to speak as little as possible of the prophet? ( hint: all 4 companions)"
I have no idea what you're talking about. Some other shia hadith probably?
"4- what about that the most authenticated hadith, the only one recited by more than 60 companions, was actually ordering muslims not to write anything he (mohamed) has said other than the Quran?"
wasn't it you who called me blind? You know where to apply judgment through reasoning and you reason through what is open for reasoning in Islam. The prophet specifically said in several of those ahadeeth that it is permissable to orally mention the hadith, but not to write them down. Can you give me a reason? If hadiths were haram to follow at the time of the prophet (which doesn't make sense because you can't disobey the prophet, as I said above, if the prophet tells you to do something, you're going to do it and you wont tell him to wait until you find something of it in the Quran) then why would he say it is permissable to speak of them? because he knew the hadiths are not going to be trust worthy in the future? If that was the case he would have ordered the companions to write them down as that would secure them better than oral transmission. No, the only reason the prophet said that you can speak of them and not write them is because the Quran, which they were writing, is still raw in its revelation. People could easily mix up this with that as the Quran was not compiled together but written in seperate peices at the time.
Now use reason to come to judgment. IT IS PERMISSIBLE IN ISLAM TO USE YOUR HEAD, I don't see why you're against it. Now the Quran is compiled and completed. We have it as we know it all and there is no danger on the Quran in writing the hadith. This is reasoning, this is ijtihaad. A low level of ijtihad as it is quite obvious, but still. It's a fair judgment that is allowed in Islam.
"5- The sahaba as you say, differed in 4 times (not 3) the way they were chosen as leader,why?? does that constitute ISlam?"
Yes. It is permissible in those three times. The fourth time is through assassination. I didn't mention it as I don't consider it a "method" per se. Assassination is in an extreme case where the ruler strayed from Islam. As the hadiths I mentioned earlier, you are only allowed to wage war on the khaleefah if he stopped ruling from Islam. By no means, however, am I saying Uthman ruled by anything except Islam, he was murdered and inshallah his murderers will be punished.
"6- does the behaviour of the caliphates or companion constitute Islamic law or islamic legislation?"
I said it before and I'll say it again, Islamic law comes from Quran, Sunnah and ijtihad. Ijtihad could be in the form of ijmaa al sahaba or qyas of the Muslims.
"7- what about Ali going to war with 2 other close companions aided by the prophets wife aisha? & please dont mention abdulah ibn saba2,[ its a more grievous insult to them to cite a fictitious guy as the reason they went to war]"
It don't see where Islamic law fits in. Are you asking if it is permissable to fight another Muslim?
The prophet said:
"If someone comes to you when you are united over one man and wants to break your strength and divide your unity, kill him."
He also said:
"If a bay'ah is taken for two Khalifahs, kill the latter one."
"8-what verse or hadith compelled them to fight eachother ?"
I stated them above. There is a hadith, which I cannot remember the exact words, but basically says that fitna is worse than death. The Muslims being united is very very important that if there is a threat of fitna than it is permissable to kill the one who is trying to divide the Muslims. Even if he was a Muslim himself.
"9- Can you give examples of the SHURA council functioning throughout the companion leadership history, Ummayad & Abassid dynasties?"
the Shura is an advisory council, the Khaleefah is not forced in any way to obey them. However at the same time, the Shura is an advice given to the khaleefah. It could take the form of a council or it could take the form of simply an advisor to the khaleefah. Either way, any advice made to the khaleefah is considered a shura and then it is up to the khaleefah to take it or not.
"You havent answered much you know, if there is such a political ideology thats complete, then you dont know much of it, do you?"
I answered what you asked and walah I feel like I'm wasting my time. You're questions are vague and very general that the answer could be absolutly anything. Unless you want me to quote to you a whole book I don't know where to start. I gave you links where you could make your own research and even gave you a link to the whole constitution. What is exactly that I didn't answer?
TOMANBEY:
"First of all, cool down plz."
In the first post you directed to me, you said I was strange. I didn't take offence from that as I thought it's an opinion. I replied to you and said nothing against you. in your second post you called me a funney man and again I ignored that and said it's an opinion. At the end of that post you called me a fool, and I replied to it saying "Allah yesam7ak".
By the third post you gave an argument and followed it by: "I know this is beyond you, but it for the rest of ppl to ponder."
It was only then that I thought, you turned this argument dirty, I will only discuss with you the way you discuss with me. So don't ask me to calm down. If you keep a respectful argument, I will likewise keep a respectful argument. Correct yourself first.
"But y r u only considering the extreme case of taking arms agains the ruler (which i disapprove of..like you do)...if there is room for arguing with him, and calling him to mind his wrong ways ("fa eza a'7tat fa sawbony" "if i was wrong, correct me" from Abu Bakr's acceptance speech)..if this way is through a parliment, majles sha3b, majles umma, whatever...what is wrong with that..."
Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a militant party. Why do you automatically assume that any Islamic party must be militant? The Hizb aims to extablish the khilafah the way the prophet established it. The prophet never raised a sword against Quraish until he established the khilafah in Madinah. This was even though he was told and adviced several times on fighting the kufaar, but he refused. This was even though the Muslims were being tortured and beaten and even sanctions were put on them. The battles only started after the khilafah. We are not militants, nor are we out to get you and everyone who disagrees with us. On the other hand, we do not get involved in a system to change the system. This just does not work. Take Algeria for example. The Islamic party there won with a huge majority in the elections (I think it was back in the 70s), but the army then stepped in and cancelled the elections. Majles al Shaab? Are you serious? You actually believe that you can bring positive change under a tyrant's regime? Those majalis and parliments in the Arab and Muslim world are just there to make the people think that their opinions are actually heard. You can never use a system to change it. Neither can you simply remove a ruler to change the system. When Sadaat was killed Mubarak came. Did anything change? The whole system should be removed.
"religion is a challenging thing, (and hence rewarding) becasue it offers guidelines, and leaves it to the followers to decide how would they manage to live with in those guidelines...in our context those guideline are counseling, electing ruler, respecting the ruler's decisons (ie respecting the majority which elected him), and coorecting the ruler if he is proven wrong (i.e. holding him accountable while IN office)"
I agree! This is what ijtihaad is. You look into an issue that troubles you and try to find an Islamic answer that solves the problem and is not outside Islam. Purely as that.
"As for Omar issue...no doubt he is one of the greatest Muslims, but a woman once corrected him while he was on podium (when he ruled that a certain limit should be placed on dawrys), and he acknowledged it at once, and started crying because he would have taken the punishment of this decision from Allah. So, you know even Omar ruled wrongly once...which I think is a way for God to tell us that we're all humans after all!"
Fair enough. I gave examples of Omar's rule and if ijtihad is done that proves something Omar did could be changed in the khilafah, then marhaba feek. There is absolutly no harm in that as long as it does not go against the Quran and Sunnah. Omar's legislations are from Omar's ijtihaad. If anyone can prove Omar wrong from within the Quran and Sunnah then fair enough.
ALIEN KEIN:
"you dont really understand the Quran do you? to say in a secular world you will have to lave out half the quran & sunah. let me clarify one thing, the Quran has over 6000 verses, only 200 approx deal with rules & laws. so what do you man by half the quran?? dont you think thats a far exaggerated statement?"
Walahi if it was one verse it's haram to take it away.
"what sunnah are you talking about? Muslims lived from the death of the prophet(12,11 hegra till 250 Hegra) without any book on sunnah."
Did they pray? Did they do hajj? It is not an issue whether they have it in the form of a book, scripts or hata CDs. The issue is that they did follow it.
"& when Bukhari came to compile his book, it is a well known fact that he chose about 5000 from over 250,000 sayings at least, some sources say it was 400,000 & others 550,000, what do you think about it?"
I have already said that earlier. He has much stricter lines on who and what to believe, that is why he is the one people mostly use as his ahadeeth are based on hard tests of trustworthyness.
"& even half those whic bukhari chose are flawed & inconsistent & illogical too."
You think so? I just saw a pink elephant fly by my window. I can't prove it to you nor can I show you any examples, but hey, because I said it, it must be true.
"Moslim, Bukhari's prodigy, deleted some sayings bukhari had included, & he added more from what bkhari deleted, they must have made faults & mistakes, they are human after all & not aided by Divine associates like Gabriel, dont you think?"
Like I said, each one collected ahadeeth according to his own tests on it's trustworthyness. Muslim was not as strict as Bukhari so I'd imagine he would have compiled more than Bukhari. However, all the ahadeeth had been levelled on their credibility. it's credibility comes on the basis of it's chain, how many people actually heard it, does go against the Quran, does it go against most other ahadeeth alot other people heard, are the people in the chain who claim to have heard it trustworthy, etc. There were alot of tests and those that were finally chosen where put on different levels of credibility.
"What about a leader who likes drinking wine??
Is that considered out of the boundaries of Islam?
what do muslims do to him then?"
I think I spoke about it in an earlier post. Whatever you do in the privacy of your own home is not punishable as long as you don't effect anyone else. So if this leader comes out to the public drunk, then yes, he is punishable. However, to be a khaleefah you have to have requierments. Yes, alot of these requierments have been ignored after the khulafaa al rashideen, but that's history and not doctorine.
AHMEDT:
"Honestly, you sound like a classic "I read a couple of Fiiqh books, and I think I'm a Faqeeh now" kind of guy. You're logic at deducing the "3 Day Rule" has no basis since its not based on any followed methods as outlined in "Osool El-Fiqh" (the standard of Islamic Jurisprudence).
"Ijma3 El-Sa7aba" is not a method of deducing Fiqh, let alone you can't even get a single shred of evidence to support that the Sa7aba had "Ijma3" (unanimity) on this alleged 3 day rule."
I can understand that the fact that after the prophet's (s) death by only three days a bay3a has been made to Abu Baker could be only by chance and has no real significance. However, Before Omar died, he gathered the eminnent sahaba and told them they had three days to choose a khaleefah after his death, after which, if they did not reach a decision the dissident of them would be killed. None of the sahaba are reported to have disagreed with him. This IS an example of ijma3.
"Let me refresh your memory; the source of Jurisprudence are
1 - Quran
2 - Sunnah
3 - Ijma3 Al3olama'2 (unanimity of scholars across timelines and geographies)
4 - Al-Qyas (logically deducing Islamic rulings from similar cases, i.e. giving pot the same status as alcohol)
5 - Al-3orf (more or less, common sense which does not contradict an undoubted Islamic rule)"
Agreed.
"Islamic Sharee'a has 5 fundamental goals; 5 fundamental things it aspires to preserve:
....
..."
Again agreed.
"Every Islamic law or ruling revolves around those 5 axis one way or another. When the companions chose Abu Bakr, or when Abu Bakr nominated Omar, or when the scholars of the time nominated Othman, this didn't mean that its a ruling that everyone else had to follow (i.e. is limited to these 3 options). The fact that they did it in a certain way doesn't exclude the possibility of another approach (i.e. general elections of a party, platform, etc ). All it means is that they did something that was in accordance with establishing the general goals of Sharia not that because they did it they sealed the fate of everyone else in their adopted options!"
Tell me what other methods are there to get a ruler. We agreed that Muslims elected Abu Baker, that's one. Abu Baker nominated Omar; that's two. And a council of sahaba (today we could use scholars instead) elected Uthman; that's three. Tell me, is there anything else?
About your post to Alienkein, we and even you agreed, are not restricted to those books. You yourself said that Islamic jurisprudence could come from (and I quote):
"3 - Ijma3 Al3olama'2 (unanimity of scholars across timelines and geographies)
4 - Al-Qyas (logically deducing Islamic rulings from similar cases, i.e. giving pot the same status as alcohol)
5 - Al-3orf (more or less, common sense which does not contradict an undoubted Islamic rule)"
As long as our ijtihad is within the Quran and Sunnah then we are able to deduce political Islam. We are able to dedue law and order, societal and even economic and foriegn policies. (Comment this)
Did the prophet pbuh establish khilafa??
now for you who dont understand arabic, khilafa is translated to succession (i.e. succession to the prophet pbuh)..so how can he establish khilafa in madina? how does that work? (Comment this)
1- [ The issue is that they did follow it.]
yes they followed SOME of it, but most of the sayings we have today were made up after the prophets death & were made up by Ummayad scholars.
To suggest that Muslims followed the sunnah strictly is rubbish! They lived their lives just like we do today & there are abundance of incidents in Sunnah books to overwhelm you.
2- [believe, that is why he is the one people mostly use as his ahadeeth are based on hard tests of trustworthyness]
More RUBBISH. BUKHARI like everyone else, had an ideology, he dismissed anyone who sided with ALI or had the least affection for him. regardless whether it was correct or not. The strict lines you talk about were made up by modern scholars to fool people like you. Most of Bukharis book depend largely on Abu Hurayra, who was absolutely insignificant during the Prophets life & enjoyed wealth at the hands of Muawiyah,not to mention his spats with other closer companions who scolded him for citing wrong hadiths, even Aisha refuted many of them. Bukhari was a normal human being, he made mistakes in that book based on biased ideology not your strict rules.
3- Rules of an authentic hadith, you have to have at least 3 levels that have heard it from the prophet, & each level has to contain a minimum number of companions who were present who relayed it to another big group of followers at the same time & so on...when you read a saying that goes like.. A from B from C from D from X....who said, the prophet said..then this is not an authentic saying. It is no legitimate source of jurisprudence.
4-The Pink Elephant remark shows how blinded & idiotic you are. you didnt even read Bukhari or muslim to see the inconsistencies in it yet you have the audacity to pretend you understand when you dont,& stand on moral high ground. why dont you answer anything with logic?
5- Credibility ?? many of those credible hadith reciters were discredited by others, in which case the trustworthiness of the person should have removed him from that so caled credible list.
Sayings are not quran, they are likely to be forgotton & words replaced by other words which gave a different meaning, but what credible about ABu Hurayra,Abu Hurayra who is the most common one with sayings leading to him admitted these 2 TRUSTWORTHY incidents
A- Omar beat him with his stick for talking about the prophet, till he shut up & only started to do it again when omar died because as he said, He wouldnt dare.
B- Omar sent him on a mission to Bahrain & upon his return, he HID money he made there (illegaly ofcourse)& when Omar questioned him , he lied about the amount he made in Bahrain, said it was 12000 Dirhams, which Omar confiscated half of it, when he had already hidden 24000 dirhams, what credibility exactly is this & what strict rules i wonder??
5- there is only one source for Islamic law & that is the QURAN, the rest you mentioned are not divine but tainted & really are a nuiscance. Again, the companions hardly agreed on anything, not even in the way they chose their succsesors, each caliph had his own way of doing things, not one did like the other even in punishments & assigning rulers.
you say ignored after the khulafaa al rashideen? really? what about if i told you Omar drank wine & was well known as his favourite drink? He didnt get drunk but sunnah books talk about him drinking it, ( read Anas Ibn Malik book'AL Mawte2').
Oh, while you are at it, Abdullah Ibn Massoud drank wine too & has his own strict way of brewing it which he took from the Iraqis, which is why Imam Abu Hanifa allowed wine drinking on 2 conditions.
I guess you belive that Silk isnt to be worn by men & yet you had 2 of the closest companions wearing silk robes, why? because they had an itch!!!! you see many rukles were never absolute as you may belive.
6- Muslims DID NOT elect Abu bakr. That is NONSENSE. Abu bAkr with the aid of omar & saad ibn abu waqqas went to the house where the Madinites were electing a leader, from amongst them, & busted the party, they engaged in discussion that nearly turned violent with the admission of Omar himself & ALL islamic history books written by arabs. That is why many battles were waged with the tribes hat didnt recognise abu bakr, because they werent even consulted!
The only time it succeeded was when othman was elected, chosen Abdel Rahman ibn Awf, who later regretted it! But then it wasnt regularised , was it?
What politics are you talkin about then?? Howe can you state what a caliph did as divinical & a Godly order??
You talk about Ijtihad? what about the saying, La ijtihad ma3 nass? are you with or against it?
You leave many things unanswered, & most of your replies show a lack of historic understanding, You mix history with Gods law, dont you realise that there isnt this complete political ideology in ISLAM? Dont you realise that what omar or abu bakr do isnt ISLAM, & many things he prophet did wasnt Godly either, it was his own interpretation, method & own strive. But you wont understand this, (Comment this)
What I never understood in the logic of the Muslim argument is how someone can make that argument then fall back on Hadeth for the MAJORITY of the doctrine (yes; majority). (Comment this)
I will not sign it for 2 reasons
1. Many people may be confused by the term islamism and may think it means Islam. So the wrong message will be conveyed.
2. This confusion is going to be further fostered when reading the names of some of those who signed it. And it is for this reason that I will not put my name with these names. (Comment this)
Salman Rushdie offended muslims - it's quite sickening to observe his current lifestyle.
These people can not say anything good for islam. I am concerned that their tongue and values are there to only offend muslims.
Abd ul-Rahman looks at islam in a very sophisticated way, and surprisingly having answers to issues raised.
I dont know how any one can accept secularism as a way of life for a muslim? How can a muslim give obedience to his creator and yet hold to secularism as a value - they actually contradict if you consider islam to be deep.
Please dont get me wrong i am not from the dark ages, as you can seem from participation in this forum - i can embrace technology quite well.
Regards
(Comment this)
It is indeed. And his current lifestyle is of course the result of death threats by a Muslim cleric.
Following the fatwa there were demonstrations and protests by Muslims all over the world. None of those protested against the death threat. All of those demonstrated against Rushdie.
I am sickened by his current lifestyle too. (Comment this)
"I'll try to get over your firm believe that killing is the automatic fail-over mechanism to resolve any dispute (plz read through ur last post)..."
As this is probably the fifth time you throw a general statment about me being violent and I already replied to it, unless you give me some particular quote that I said which would imply this I'm just going to ignore these parts of your posts from now on.
"but I have one very fundamental, yet simple question about a "fact" that you mentioned:
Did the prophet pbuh establish khilafa??"
And it is He Who has made you (Khala'if) generations coming after generations, replacing each other on the earth (6:165)
And makes you (Khulafa') inheritors of the earth (27:62)
And if it were Our will, We would have (destroyed you (mankind all, and) made angels to replace you Yakhlufun) on the earth. (43: 60)
Then after them succeeded an (evil) generation (Khalf) (7:169)
The above verses prove that a Khaleefah by definition does not necessarilly mean a successor to the prophet.
Al Qurtubi defined the khalifah as person who judges disputes that occur between people, forbidding them from injustice and sin. This is also in tafsir ibn Katheer of the chapter al Bakara where he tries to explain the verse "...I am going to place in the earth a khalif..."(2:30).
However your definition of the Khaleefah is not necessarily wrong. It does mean successor in Arabic, that's true. But I was refering to a "person who judges disputes that occur between people, forbidding them from injustice and sin".
Now that I answered your question, I want to just make a small comment. What exactly does it matter? A "fundemental question"??? Let us assume I was wrong and that the only definition of a khaleefah is that a successor of the prophet. Then what? I would apologise, tell you to that the prophet established the first Islamic State (instead of the first Khilafah) and then Abu Baker was the first khaleefah who took over ruling the state from the prophet. What exactly does that change? Does the system change? Does my argument change? The reason why I'm annoyed is that you obviously, are just desperatly trying to look for something to argue about, even if it was a terminology issue that will not change anything in the argument what so ever. Akhi, why do you just have to disagree?
ALIENKEIN:
"1- [ The issue is that they did follow it.]
yes they followed SOME of it, but most of the sayings we have today were made up after the prophets death & were made up by Ummayad scholars.
To suggest that Muslims followed the sunnah strictly is rubbish! They lived their lives just like we do today & there are abundance of incidents in Sunnah books to overwhelm you."
Oh ok, so now your argument changed from "we're not allowed to follow any of it" to "we're allowed to follow some of it". Ok, tell me, who or what determines what we follow and what we ignore? If according to you alot of it is made up by people with agendas and that even most of the sahih of Bukhari is rubbish, then who is to tell what we follow? Who told the sahaba that you yourself admitted to have followed some, which are correct and which are not? It seems you didn't think this through did you? You're just making this up as you go along.
Oh and I never said we follow the sunnah strictly. I even specifically mentioned in my previous post that the Hadith does not come to the level of the Quran. However, to completely ignore it is haram as it complements the Quran.
"2-More RUBBISH. BUKHARI like everyone else, had an ideology, he dismissed anyone who sided with ALI or had the least affection for him. regardless whether it was correct or not. The strict lines you talk about were made up by modern scholars to fool people like you. Most of Bukharis book depend largely on Abu Hurayra, who was absolutely insignificant during the Prophets life & enjoyed wealth at the hands of Muawiyah,not to mention his spats with other closer companions who scolded him for citing wrong hadiths, even Aisha refuted many of them. Bukhari was a normal human being, he made mistakes in that book based on biased ideology not your strict rules."
OK, now I'm quite sure you're a shia. Look, I have nothing against shia, but I really don't have the time to try and change people's mathaheb. I came here expecting to argue on why Islam does not work with secularism and is certainly better than democracy, not as a religion teacher. I even mentioned that to karim in an email.
If however you're not a shia nor a Quranyy, then please site your evidence on where you got those stories from.
"3- Rules of an authentic hadith, you have to have at least 3 levels that have heard it from the prophet, & each level has to contain a minimum number of companions who were present who relayed it to another big group of followers at the same time & so on...when you read a saying that goes like.. A from B from C from D from X....who said, the prophet said..then this is not an authentic saying. It is no legitimate source of jurisprudence."
And yet again I'm going to repeat myself. If someone came to you and told you your house is on fire, you would have your doubts about what he says. However, if as you travel other people told you the same thing then it is absolutly impossible that they're all lying. If someone told you that he heard it from X and when you ask X he tells you he heard it from Y and when you ask Y he tells you he heard it from a sahaba (which are dead) then you will still have doubts on whether it's true. However, if A, heard the same thing from B who heard the same thing from C who also heard it from a sahaba, then it's more likely to be true. If you have alot of people professing to have heard something from different sahabas then this is even much more likely to be true. There could be many types of chains and all of the hadiths they bring are judged (among other things) on how the chain looks like and if there are other chains with the same recitation (whether of word or of meaning).
The burning house example is certainly true to everyone. However, you have a problem accepting the method to learn the authenticity of a speech when it comes to hadith. I think it is YOU that should get down your high horse and actually be willing to discuss and learn rather than argue and be so pathetically stubborn.
"4-The Pink Elephant remark shows how blinded & idiotic you are. you didnt even read Bukhari or muslim to see the inconsistencies in it yet you have the audacity to pretend you understand when you dont,& stand on moral high ground. why dont you answer anything with logic?"
Why in god's name should i take your words as truth? You through judgments and opinions left right and center and expect me to believe them even though you provide no proof or sources for your arguments. Logic? You're not arguing with logic. I gave my opinion and I provided ahadeeth and ayaat throughout and you keep on insisting that I should believe you when you provide none. Absolutly nothing have you provided since we started this argument to prove your point. You said contradictions and bias and showed me nothing. So until then, just like Tomanbey who calls me a terrorist without saying why, I'm going to ignore your opinion until you give it a proof, any form of proof. You're words on their own are as useful to me as a pig's snorting.
"5- Credibility ?? many of those credible hadith reciters were discredited by others, in which case the trustworthiness of the person should have removed him from that so caled credible list."
For example....? Or do you want me to again to take you for your word?
"Sayings are not quran, they are likely to be forgotton & words replaced by other words which gave a different meaning,"
I never said they were in the level of the Quran. I specifically said several times that they are not. However, that does not remove the credibility of the mutawatir and sahih of them and our need to follow, if not all, then several of them in order to carry out basics of Islam, like prayer, like zakat, like marriage, like hajj, etc.
"A- Omar beat him with his stick for talking about the prophet, till he shut up & only started to do it again when omar died because as he said, He wouldnt dare."
Who is feeding you this information? Because surely you didn't read it off a book for if you did you would have read the whole story. Surely someone else is telling you half truths and you're just repeating them here. Although it is not my duty to teach you about Islam and I even said this to Kareem in an email that we are not preachers nor a charity organisation, I will make an exception for now.
Omar beat Abu Hurayra for teaching hadiths because Abu Hurayra was teaching it to new Muslims and to children before teaching them the Quran. Omar used to even say "Get busy with the Qur'aan; it is Allah's words", the hadith should not come first, it should be taught later.
"B- Omar sent him on a mission to Bahrain & upon his return, he HID money he made there (illegaly ofcourse)& when Omar questioned him , he lied about the amount he made in Bahrain, said it was 12000 Dirhams, which Omar confiscated half of it, when he had already hidden 24000 dirhams, what credibility exactly is this & what strict rules i wonder??"
Again, it is obvious that someone is telling you half truths or probably your getting your information from websites that specialise in attacking Islam. because this again is only half truth. Abu Hurayra was appointed as waaly Bahrain and one day Omar called him to his court and Abu Hurayra came. Omar told him that he has been informed that Abu Hurayra has horses that cost more than he could possibly afford as per his income. So Omar assumed that Abu Hurayra was steeling from the money of the Muslims. Abu Hurayra insisted that these horses were from breeding and gifts but Omar refused to believe him at first. He later beat Abu Hurayra on his back and striped away his authority in Bahrain. Abu Hurayra however prayed that Allah forgive Omar. HOWEVER, later on Omar called Abu Hurayra again and offered the wilaya of Bahrain to Abu Hurayra again. Abu Hurayra refused and when Omar asked why, Abu Hurairah said, "So that my honor would not be at stake, my money would not be taken, and my back would not be beaten." He added, "I'm afraid I would judge without knowledge or speak without patience."
"5- there is only one source for Islamic law & that is the QURAN, the rest you mentioned are not divine but tainted & really are a nuiscance."
Again this is an opinion. What you provided for proof for this opinion in this and previous posts I have answered.
"Again, the companions hardly agreed on anything, not even in the way they chose their succsesors, each caliph had his own way of doing things, not one did like the other even in punishments & assigning rulers."
In what they differed it shows what is mutaa7 for a Muslim to do. The fact that each caliph (of the khulafaah al rashideen) is because neither of these methods is haram and they are all permissable. I think I gave an example once before about Abu Baker and Omar's disagreement about divorce. Neither Abu Baker nor Omar was doing haram because they did to the uttmost of their knowledge in Islam. The fact that one differed from the other does not make one of them haraam. The issue was not clear cut in Islam, however, that certainly doesn't direct us automatically to the conclusion that everything is vague in Islam and we can't follow anything in the hadith. That's jumping from one extreme to the other.
If there is an issue that is not clear cut, we do our ijtihaad (if we are capable and of scholarly knowledge) or follow the ijtihaad of someone else that we trust. we do not just disregard the whole of the sunnah.
"you say ignored after the khulafaa al rashideen? really? what about if i told you Omar drank wine & was well known as his favourite drink? He didnt get drunk but sunnah books talk about him drinking it, ( read Anas Ibn Malik book'AL Mawte2')."
Subhan Allah. Why don't you go back to that book you're refering to and reread it again. Check if it was before or after he converted to Islam. I really doubt you even have this book.
And it is pretty good that you reffered to this story as it will further prove my point. Refering to this site. Scroll down until you reach a section titled "Umar and Drinking" and read the short article it has there. Not only does it show that Omar never touched alcohol after Islam, but also that he used ijtihaad WITH THE HELP OF SAHABA to come to a legislation to place a punishment on drinking alcohol.
"Oh, while you are at it, Abdullah Ibn Massoud drank wine too & has his own strict way of brewing it which he took from the Iraqis, which is why Imam Abu Hanifa allowed wine drinking on 2 conditions."
Never heard of Abdullah Ibn Massoud drinking wine nor did I find anything in relation to that. However about Imam Abu Hanifa:
With reference to wine, the classical Arabic Hanafi fiqh text Al-Hidayah states:
It is filth - severe filth, similar to urine.
Deriving benefit from filth is forbidden.
So there goes your Hanafi wine drinking theory.
"I guess you belive that Silk isnt to be worn by men & yet you had 2 of the closest companions wearing silk robes, why? because they had an itch!!!!"
Yes, finally you said some truth. In the case of illness or cases outside your control, you are allowed certain exceptions in Islam.
"6- Muslims DID NOT elect Abu bakr. That is NONSENSE. Abu bAkr with the aid of omar & saad ibn abu waqqas went to the house where the Madinites were electing a leader, from amongst them, & busted the party, they engaged in discussion that nearly turned violent with the admission of Omar himself & ALL islamic history books written by arabs. That is why many battles were waged with the tribes hat didnt recognise abu bakr, because they werent even consulted!"
Again this is nonsense. The Ansaar had a meeting after the death of the prophet to decide who should become the caliph. Naturally they wanted a caliph from amongst themselves but one of them asked, what about the Muhajiroun. So to these, they began arguing that maybe the best solution is to have two caliphs, one for the Ansar and the other for the Muhajiroun. When news of this came to Abu Baker be took with him two sahaba and went to this meeting and convinced them that the Muhajiroun were more rightful to become a caliph and dividing the Muslims into two camps with two caliphs is certainly not the answer. I would go as far as to say that saying that they fought with each other is disgusting twist of the truth as according to records Abu Baker kept on praising the Ansar as the people who gave strength to Islam to try and convince them to give leadership to the Muhajiroun.
"Howe can you state what a caliph did as divinical & a Godly order??"
I never stated that. What the caliphs did was of their own ijtihaad from Islam. And Islam is Quraan first but also Sunnah second. For the third time I will give the divorce argument between Omar and Abu Baker. Omar obeyed the divorce law Abu Baker put down even though Omar disagreed with him. When Omar became khaleefah, he changed the law and placed the one he believed in according to his own ijtihaad. So no, I never said a caliph's legislation is divinical, however it is Islamic to the uttmost of his ijtihaad. At least that is the case for the khulafaah al rashideen.
"You talk about Ijtihad? what about the saying, La ijtihad ma3 nass? are you with or against it?"
I'm sorry but I never heard of this before. Can you tell me what context this is from?
"many things he prophet did wasnt Godly either, it was his own interpretation, method & own strive."
Subhan Allah. I would call on AhmadT, who claim to have a second major in Islam. Akhi Ahmad, you came here and directed a post towards me and I replied to it alhamdullilah. But what confuses me is that you remained silent to this individual. A second major in Islam deserves respect but also puts on you a responsibility, don't you think?
Anyway, in reply to this particular quote Alienkein, I will give you from the Quraan:
053.003 Nor does he say of (his own) Desire.
053.004 It is no less than inspiration sent down to him
Wama yantuku 3an al hawa, 2inahu 2ila wa7yon you7a. (al najm 3-4)
KARIM:
"This is the prime area of mixed interpretation in Islam because as you can see from the above conversation no one can really agree on which of them are legitimate let alone how to interpret them. Many, myself included, do not pay to much attention to them and rely more heavily on our own logic to fill in the gaps.) and its legitimacy."
We do know which are legitamate and which are less legitamate. We have the whole system of judging and levelling which I kept on discussing on and on again. True, there are several less trustworthy than others, but that does not lead us to completely ignore the whole concept of the sunnah or, as I described earlier, we can't even follow the Quran.
As for relying on your logic, that's great. In the Quran we are told several times, li 2ulil 2albaab (for those who think) and verses to the effect of such. We are stressed to use our minds in Islam, however we never do go out of the rules of our deen. We know that God exist and as Muslim we believe in the Quran as the words of Allah. If we can agree on this simple fact then we can use this as a common ground. Therefore if you want to use your logic, use it but within the laws of the Quran (at the very least). However, there are people before you who are scholarly in Islam and wrote several books. Before you can go and prescribe medicine to someone you need to study chemistry and biology and read alot of medical books of people who researched and studied the subject before. In medicine they have their famous scholars and in Islam we have ours. before you can make a fatwa or decide that one thing is right and another is haram or that we should compeletely ignore the sunnah, study what our scholars wrote and what those before you who used their logic within the context of the Quran concluded. No one is saying you HAVE TO stick to their rules. No, if you reached a level of knowledge to disagree and make your own conclusion, then great. Do that. Just like great scientists are refuted by other great scientists, then fair enough, refute the claims of scholarly Muslims through your own ijtihaad and use of knowledge and logic.
"One of the main issues many Muslims have with Christianity is how the Bible was formed and later altered. The most used argument is that the bible is a compilation of stories told decades after the death of Jesus and was later altered severely in the fourth century. It was also translated many, many times to reach English, for example (as any bilingual will tell you a lot is lost in translation from only one language to another, I have never heard an Arabic joke translated into English successfully, let alone from Aramaic through Latin and countless others). A good example of this is the depiction of Moses in much, I believe sixteenth century, art with horns on his head as misinterpreted from the word for halo. The Quran on the other hand is believed to be the direct and unaltered word of god."
The Quran was written down infront of the prophet almost emidiatly after its revelation. The laguage the Quran was revealed in is still alive, still existing and being taught and is still being used as the main language to read it and pray with it.
The Muslims, since the prophet, memorised the Quran by heart with addition to writing it down. When the Quran was finally compiled, it was done using what was written and what hundreds if not thousands of Muslims memorised in common.
Also, Allah himself says in the Quran that he will protect his book from alteration. And as a final point, Allah also says in the Quran that the prophet Muhammad is the final prophet. If this is so, then the message of Islam should live until the day of judgment if no more prophets will come after Muhammad (pbuh) as a reminder and correcter to the people. This is using logic that the Quran should be in perfect position to be a lasting reminder to the people.
"What I never understood in the logic of the Muslim argument is how someone can make that argument then fall back on Hadeth for the MAJORITY of the doctrine (yes; majority)."
The difference is that the Bible is taken as the Christian Quraan. We never placed the hadeeth in the level of the Quraan, I would go as far as to say that putting the hadeeth in the position of the Quraan is haram. The hadeeth is the second source of law where the Quran does not answer a question. If a particular hadeeth contradicts the Quran then we completely scrap that hadeeth. The Quran is above all texts. However, as I said several times before, we do not scrap completely the hadith as it complements the Quraan. (Comment this)
1-i am not shia,I dont sympathise with them either.
What i said is DIRECLTY from Sunnah books.
2- Islam works perfectly with secularism. But you want Islam to dominate politics & issues that it has no relevance with, thus a political directive is Godly & disobeying it or opposing it is an act of heresy or blasphemy.
3- The ONE & ONLY source of LAWS in ISLAM is the QURAN. & nothing else, you cannot impose a law from hadiths as i said before because DOUBT surrounds its origins & its tellers. Stated in SUNNAH BOOKS.
4- Prophet didnt establish khilafa, whomever told you this is taking you for a fool. because if he did, why then is there not one intelligble way to choose the caliph? & forget this rubbish about they must be from QUraysh, you wouldnt find al ansar picking a leader from their midst if that saying was true.
5-are you dense??? what stupid comparison are you having here? I stated what scholars have made up laws to identify authentic hadiths & you go now & want to eliminate it just to keep your precious belief that they are not tainted.
6- your pathetic story about abu bakr election shows how ignorant you are & obviously havent read history books.
go & read about it in
a- al Kamel fel tarikh ...Ibn al Atheer
b- Tarikh al tabari.....al imam al Tabari
c- al khilafa al rashda( al bedayah wal nehaya)..Ibn Katheer
d- Morog al dhahab...Al massoudi
e- Fotouh al boldan ...Al balazry
f- al imama wal seyasa...Ibn Qutayuba al daynouri
These are enough for now, the tip of the iceberg, & if you want to brush them aside, then you are brushing aside some books that were written long before your beloved Bukhari the infallible!
7- Those Quranic verses about the Prophet simply meant that the quran he recited to people IS NOT HIS OWN WORDS, not that everything he says is QUran, would you like me to quote you from the Quran verses that admonished the prophet? does that mean god is admonishing him for saying what he told him to do? or now you