There must be some more progressive mosques around. If not how about Unitarian or UU churches. I’m a Biblical Unitarian; but I also commune with a UU church as well as attend a mainstream non-demoninational modern Protestant church.
Islam is Islam,progressive in itself,suitable for all times,all places,all poeple according to their needs and understanding.There is not such thing as progressive or liberate Islam,but a lot of misconceptions and misunderstanding and ignorance as well.-
Thou shall not be a perpetrator, thou shall not a victim and thou shall not be a bystander.
In this case the perpetrators are these religious extremist criminals, the victims are innocent non-Muslims and innocent Muslims and the bystanders are some of these so-called dawah carriers and the some Muslims who quote hadith wrongly at the wrong times to defend criminals (which defeats the purpose of fair justice in Islam).
Criminals are criminals, we should report these criminals to the law enforcement authorities regardless of which group the criminals claim to represent. Criminals are criminals.
As a Muslim convert myself I understand this problem with being told by some to give up my heritage. I am European myself and have heard this from others before, however, the common pattern is that those who hold this belief tend to be South Asian. It seems to be a mentality of their own culture, in many cases there are those among them who are self loathing, and will adopt names like Quraishi as they’d rather pretend they have Arab ancestry than accept their genuine heritage. I haven’t had this problem from Muslims of other communities. In fact I have been told to uphold my heritage and embrace it as much as possible. I feel that a major South Asian presence in the UK has influenced this mentality among other members of the Muslim communities. So I feel this issue comes from a toxic culture of self loathing, rather than anything that has to do with Islam. After all, Bosnians and Albanians who are European had no problem reconciling being European with adapting Islam.
As for those who have no problem associating with criminals, I say this as someone who has dealt with the police and even government. I have been approached to work undercover against certain people of interest and was even borderline threatened for not doing so. It’s for reasons like this I don’t trust police and may be inclined to give someone I’ve come to know very well the benefit of the doubt if they’re being charged with certain crimes (unless they obviously admit to it or have expressed views condoning said crimes). This doesn’t meant that I’ll hang out with anyone, I mean this in the sense of if it’s someone I’ve come to know quite well before he ended up getting charged of said act. I feel some of those brothers may have had the same problems with police and secret government agents trying to blackmail them, or threaten them, and for that reason they too may be inclined to give certain people the benefit of the doubt. Allah Alam. I can’t say this is the case with all criminals, but maybe for some.
That’s what I’ve been telling Paul. The “us/them” mentality is present in every ideology, christianity, judaism, marxism, capitalism/communism, feminism, …etc. The question is what does it imply in that specific ideology. In Islam at least it CERTAINLY does not imply being unjust or unmerciful even to non-Muslims, much less that one doesn’t report a guy who wants to kill innocent souls (which is just assisting the guy in his highly haram act).
I do agree that his experience with those guys brought a psychological toll on him, and I would assume that it would definitely do the same if it happened to me, but please don’t go and blame the religion due to it.
This is a problem when we get our deen of Islam from people who do not have any ijaza (authority) with an unbroken isnad (chain of authority) all the way to RasulAllah (saw.).
It is like learning neurosurgery from someone who barely knows how to read or write, (and then complaining that the patient died during an “attempted surgery”.)
Merely knowing English does not make one a neurosurgeon; similarly, merely knowing Arabic does not make one an authority on the deen of Islam.
Get your deen of Islam from someone who has an ijaza, backed by an isnad reaching all the way to RasulAllah (saw.)
Just compare the many translations to get the gist of the meaning if you don’t know Arabic…try to get concordances so you can put all verses speaking on an issue together to see how Qur’an speaks about it in total and read in context.
That will be more coherent approach before allowing His voice to be garbled up and distorted.
There must be some more progressive mosques around. If not how about Unitarian or UU churches. I’m a Biblical Unitarian; but I also commune with a UU church as well as attend a mainstream non-demoninational modern Protestant church.
Islam is Islam,progressive in itself,suitable for all times,all places,all poeple according to their needs and understanding.There is not such thing as progressive or liberate Islam,but a lot of misconceptions and misunderstanding and ignorance as well.-
Thou shall not be a perpetrator, thou shall not a victim and thou shall not be a bystander.
In this case the perpetrators are these religious extremist criminals, the victims are innocent non-Muslims and innocent Muslims and the bystanders are some of these so-called dawah carriers and the some Muslims who quote hadith wrongly at the wrong times to defend criminals (which defeats the purpose of fair justice in Islam).
Criminals are criminals, we should report these criminals to the law enforcement authorities regardless of which group the criminals claim to represent. Criminals are criminals.
Hi Paul,
As a Muslim convert myself I understand this problem with being told by some to give up my heritage. I am European myself and have heard this from others before, however, the common pattern is that those who hold this belief tend to be South Asian. It seems to be a mentality of their own culture, in many cases there are those among them who are self loathing, and will adopt names like Quraishi as they’d rather pretend they have Arab ancestry than accept their genuine heritage. I haven’t had this problem from Muslims of other communities. In fact I have been told to uphold my heritage and embrace it as much as possible. I feel that a major South Asian presence in the UK has influenced this mentality among other members of the Muslim communities. So I feel this issue comes from a toxic culture of self loathing, rather than anything that has to do with Islam. After all, Bosnians and Albanians who are European had no problem reconciling being European with adapting Islam.
As for those who have no problem associating with criminals, I say this as someone who has dealt with the police and even government. I have been approached to work undercover against certain people of interest and was even borderline threatened for not doing so. It’s for reasons like this I don’t trust police and may be inclined to give someone I’ve come to know very well the benefit of the doubt if they’re being charged with certain crimes (unless they obviously admit to it or have expressed views condoning said crimes). This doesn’t meant that I’ll hang out with anyone, I mean this in the sense of if it’s someone I’ve come to know quite well before he ended up getting charged of said act. I feel some of those brothers may have had the same problems with police and secret government agents trying to blackmail them, or threaten them, and for that reason they too may be inclined to give certain people the benefit of the doubt. Allah Alam. I can’t say this is the case with all criminals, but maybe for some.
Very well-written, thanks for this!
That’s what I’ve been telling Paul. The “us/them” mentality is present in every ideology, christianity, judaism, marxism, capitalism/communism, feminism, …etc. The question is what does it imply in that specific ideology. In Islam at least it CERTAINLY does not imply being unjust or unmerciful even to non-Muslims, much less that one doesn’t report a guy who wants to kill innocent souls (which is just assisting the guy in his highly haram act).
I do agree that his experience with those guys brought a psychological toll on him, and I would assume that it would definitely do the same if it happened to me, but please don’t go and blame the religion due to it.
Navigating the Boundaries of Culture and Religion
Dr Jonathan Brown
https://youtu.be/R9VhS63kpFQ
This is a problem when we get our deen of Islam from people who do not have any ijaza (authority) with an unbroken isnad (chain of authority) all the way to RasulAllah (saw.).
It is like learning neurosurgery from someone who barely knows how to read or write, (and then complaining that the patient died during an “attempted surgery”.)
Merely knowing English does not make one a neurosurgeon; similarly, merely knowing Arabic does not make one an authority on the deen of Islam.
Get your deen of Islam from someone who has an ijaza, backed by an isnad reaching all the way to RasulAllah (saw.)
Paul,
I did not have time to watch the video yet…I will try to…
But why are you so persistent to let people who you find obnoxious in some ways to interpret them Islam?
Do you consider them Prophets of God?
Don’t you realize that there is a whole set of presuppositions creating their methodology in how they interpret Islam?
Why not let the author of the Qur’an speak on His own voice?
Did He ever tell you to read His communications to you through their hermeneutics?
See the following:
https://www.islamawakened.com/
Just compare the many translations to get the gist of the meaning if you don’t know Arabic…try to get concordances so you can put all verses speaking on an issue together to see how Qur’an speaks about it in total and read in context.
That will be more coherent approach before allowing His voice to be garbled up and distorted.