Saturday, October 29
Ramadaniyat
Yesterday, while I was visiting my parents for fotoor, I got into a conversation with my father about the diversity of Quran interpretations and how this issue became, since the death of the prophet, the main reason for the collapse of the Islamic institution. Moslems got divided into sects and each sect divided into organized entities. Each would interpret Quran to the benefit of his entity; Ikhwan, Wahabiya, Alawiya, Ithna3ashariya, etc. And if that looks innocent enough on the outside on the slogan of freedom to practice one’s faith, it sure created hatred and prejudice movements, most of which are imbedded and waiting for a sudden outburst of disgusting languages or even physical assaults. And these people are supposedly following the same religion and the same prophet!Since the beginning of the month of Ramadan, I started watching three TV series; althahir baibers, Nizar Qabani and Molook Altawaef. But by the middle of the month I ended watching only Molook Altawaif. So our discussion (me and my dad) drifted to the waste of the Islamic empire on the hands of its greedy rulers. And I told him that watching that series reminded me how much yesterday is like today; history is repeating itself, Almorabitoon for example were no different than the fanatic organizations of today although historians polished them with sheer vibrancy. And we both agreed that the end of this nation is on the hands of its rulers and how much they allow the misuse of religion to dominate its policy.
Anyway, by the end of our conversation my dad threw at me an anecdote before going to take his usual after fotoor nap. And I thought I’d share it with you because as funny as it may seem, unfortunately; it manifests our situation today:
He said: there was this mullah who preached in the Mosque and a lot of people followed him. And although he was poor himself that he barely made his living, he managed to distribute money almost constantly on the poor who attended his mosque. This raised a lot of suspicion and some nosy people set to follow him to see where is he getting all this money from. They found out that he stole from the rich and distributed it all on the poor. When he was brought to court, he explained that he is applying the preaching of Islam to win heaven. When the judge demanded an explanation he said” Quran says that God grants a reward worth of 10 times for one good deed ( wa nati bil 7asanah 3ashr amthaliha) and God had also promised that to each misconduct there will be a punishment equivalent to it ( wa nati bel sayiah mithliha), so if you do a simple Arithmetic calculation here you’ll see that by my conduct I’m gaining nine rewards each time I steal, and that Grants me heaven.
Now you will say that this is our fate, and what can we do about it?
The answer is to think, use your heads and don’t allow anyone to lead you like goatherds lead goats.
Religion should be separated from politics; it should remain where it belongs, in the heart of man and his sacred bond to God; the Great. The Merciful. The Love.
Name::AyyA
From::Kuwait
I AM WHO I AM AS I ARRIVE AT YOUR DOOR WHETHER I COME OR I GO IS NOT UP TO ME FOR I HAVE LOST SIGHT OF ALL DESIRE "Walled Garden of Truth",Hakim Sanai
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14 Comments:
Loved the anecdote :)
Meshari, the Quraan was recorded during the prophet's life time, but not his deeds or words, which circulated orally for decades until people started writing them down, and collecting them.
Within this span of time, many things happened, dissent and political strife ran rampant among muslims, consequently some words or deeds were fabricated and ascribed to the Prophet [PBUH], and the only way to measure their accuracy is, as you said, to take a time machine and go back in history to check for ourselves, which as we all know, is in the realm of the impossible.
You asked Ayya to go back in history to see if she would listen to the Prophet's teachings, so let's assume that you took the same machine, and went back, only to discover that many things you regarded as sunna, were actually not - what would you do then? And how would you feel about discovering that what you have told people as sunna was, infact, a fabrication?
There is a thin line between what is sunna (tradition) and what centuries of prejudice and partisanship have forged as sunna.
I think this is what Ayya was trying to point out in her recent religion -related posts. "3adel lo mo 3adel?"
In short, I'm hungry :(
shosho
Thanks sweetie, I couldn’t have said it any better
Mishari
I’m not sure if I understood your question, but let me assume that you mean that I am to imagine myself one of the new converters to Islam and I am preached by the rasool directly, and you are comparing tradition we have inherited from him in his seerah to his direct preaching. If that is the case then allow me to ask you; where did you come up with the idea that those traditions that we inherited are the direct preaching of the prophet? Did you check them yourself to see how contradictory they are in the same volume, written and collected by the same source? Or you just inherited your beliefs from your parents and are satisfied with them?
I have posted sometime back a personal experience, and although it was addressed under Rumor, but I think it’s valid here. It shows you how much each person perceives information, and then in his mind he filters this information according to his understanding and he delivers this information with the unintentional filtering. The case with 7adeath is even more sever, because the information we received today had gone through more than one filtering ( 3an folan, 3an folan, 3an folan, ……) not to mention that it was gathered 200 years after the death of the prophet, so how much do you think the percentage of accuracy is valid in any single 7adeath? And why should we consider normal people to be idle? Where is your percentage of human error here? Here I’m not even considering political reasons behind which some 7adeaths were deliberately modified, or even recreated. And the Islamic history is full of that, you can check that for yourself.
Let me give you one example:
There are only two 7adaths about 7ijab only mentioned in Dawood. Both referenced to Aisha, yet pay attention to how much one contradicts the other:
رُوى عن عائشة عن النبى أنه قال: { لايحل لامرأة تؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر إذا عركت ( بلغت ) أن تظهر إلا وجهها ويديها إلى هاهنا } وقبض على نصف الذراع.
ورُوى عن أبى داود عن عائشة أن أسماء بنت أبى بكر دخلت على رسول الله فقال لها :{ يا أسماء إن المرأة إذا بلغت المحيض لم يصلح أن يُرى فيها إلا هذا, وأشار إلى وجهه وكفيه}.
1- In the first 7adeath we spot the word (la ya7il) which means it’s 7aram, while in the second 7adeath it says ( lam yaslh) which means it’s not proper, and the difference here is enormous if you are talking about tashree3.
2- In the first 7adeath the address is made to the elbow while the second 7adeath addresses the palms.
And examples like this are so many in tradition.
Mcarabian
The reason most converted to Islam at the times of the prophet in my opinion were different according to each stage. At one stage it was a promise to the poor and to the slaves for a better life. At another stage it was by force either physical (elfitoo7at) or financial since the ones who did not convert were forced to pay jizya. At other stages it was politics especially after fat7 Mecca.There were other sincere believers who converted to Islam because they were seeking truths that they could not find in their previous beliefs, no doubt about that, and that is also a part of human search which does exist until today when we see Christians for example converting to Islam or even Buddhism. But I don’t see how reciting Quran could have grabbed the masses on those days although I myself am moved by the verses, but not because of what they contain, more because of the tranquil effect it has on me since it is associated with the supreme. It brings back nice vibrations I got while visiting holy places. Just like a song that brings good memories and you tend to relive those moment. Mind you, for me, every holy place I visit whether a mosque, Elka3ba or a church, they all have the same effect on my soul. It’s the positive pure vibrations of the people around who come collectively to worship God.
WAW, in less than four minutes you were able to read, comprehend and comment on my reply to Mishari? You did confuse me with your comment, but one look at your blog explained it all, 3ala el3emoom thank you.
Interesting topic Ayya :)
But I’d like to rephrase something you said above. I think that history isn’t repeating it self, but that’s life. I mean when any country/civilization/state/empire/era .. etc start, it starts as a childish/primitive initiative then it morphs into its youthfulness and then it grows up and dies…
Later it gets old and another one conquers/ruin/prevail. That what happened in Spain. First the Phoenici, the roman then the Visigoths then the Muslims and only in 1492 the Spaniards ruled their land for the first time in their history.
Regarding Al-Moravids (Al-Murabiteen), at their end they settled in Al-Andalus, and ib Tashfeen’s son & grandson ruled after him & in spain not in Al-Maghrib … so Al-Moravids lost their spirit, they turned into a sort of another Andalusian kingdom. That paved the way for another religious movement to burst in North Western Africa (Bilad Al-Maghrib) Al-Mohads (Al-Muwahhideen).
Al-Mohads started in Al-Maghrib and ended with the same fate (as Al-Moravids) in Al-Andalus.
Long story short, those are the dynamics of history … it doesn’t repeat itself … but it’s us HUMANS who repeat our actions to be beaten (or whatever) by others.
Muslim divisions was far more severe in its first Millineum that now, there’s a book by Al-Shihristani called (al-milal wa al-nihal الملل و النحل) and it includes scores of muslim sect/schools/divisions …
Finally, I totally agree with you … people must live & let live
thank you for this enlightening topic.
Thanks for the info idip, it was really educational :)
My dear, we do not solve our problems by dwelling into where the source came from, and who is more worthy to follow. Once we start doing that, then we are mixing religion with politics. The fact remains that these preaching by the time it reached us, it already became a folklore. And the original preaching was lost right after the prophet’s death.
LOL, your emotional outburst is the very thing I’m calling against in my post and remember that although some of what reached us may contain some truth but it is not all the truth
Ah, OK
You got me confused a bit with your first comment :)
It's so amazing that I've been watching these episodes in amazement and was thinking the same thing...I actually had a conversaiton with my Dad and told him very disapponitingly that it's in our blood...we suffer from this ego power...we hold on to what we want to believe and aim to always be the right ones...we spend energy wanting to be in power..and each of us follows one particular sect and arguing with others who don't...etc..etc...in the end my Dad told me to go read about the other histories and see that they all had the same issues...the catholics, protestants, etc..so in the end...it boils down to sadly humans taking religion into their own hands and forcing it to become political....I'd say it's in everybody's history and possibly will be there in the future too...just screwed up human nature...
Mishari
Apparently you have not read my comments before, because you keep repeating what you have already said about the validity of 7adeath and you are asking why people should lie when I did not mention that to begin with. I asked you to consider human error here especially that the time span between what had happened and what was collected is 200 years. And the links I provided in my last post about the mechanism used in gathering 7adeath would have spared you from elaborating on that. And I’m not comparing 7adeath to Rijaal or whatsoever, the fact that they are all folklore is valid. In fact all religions of today, although they might contain some truths, they are full of bedtime stories that would only make sense to the layman of the old ages. What I’m asking you here is that we live in this century where technology and knowledge is at the tip of our fingers, let’s use it for our benefit and don’t take everything we inherited for granted that’s all.
I hope I made myself clear.
MissCosmoKuwait
Did you see last night’s episode when Almo3tamid shouted at Almorabiteen when they betrayed him by killing his son and taking his daughter as a slave (mind you; Islam had forbidden Moslem women to be taken as slaves)? My God when he said” you Islamists use the excuse of spreading religion for God’s sake when in fact you are aiming for sultanate, your hidden agenda is to rule” I jumped from my seat and almost kissed the TV with teary eyes form the tragedy. I think that was a very strong message, but who is to learn? Everyone else is busy watching girgai3an crap.
And look what the Islamists are doing to our institution; they have control over our financial and political systems as well as our educational system, where would this lead us to? It is scary
And mind you dear this egoism that you mentioned is normal in all communities that submit to a certain ideology; everyone thinks he’s right and others are wrong. Look what harm the Coo Clucks Clan did to their society although they considered themselves as believers and not criminals, they had their own ideology. And Alzargawi group and what they did in killing innocent Moslem people in Iraq also have their own ideology.
Committing to an ideology or a line of thought is harmless if you respect other’s ideologies as well; this is only a trait of civilized people. And religion is dangerous if it exceeded its boundaries.
How true, and let me continue where you stopped:
This self is part of God, therefore virtue becomes a propensity and there would be no need for interpretation.
Don’t know if you agree with me on that but to me it makes sense :)
I know..I know...and if you want to take it a step further...when we think of them ruling Spain..when they actually invaded it...was it on the basis to spread Islam...or was it to spread the arabic language..or was it to just have power..After watching this program..I can't help but think..of Karma...and if the saying is true that History repeats itself...well then it's true...what is happening now...we have reversed roles...but again religion with politics...etc..etc..same thing...it's a sick world!
hello,
while i like the post, i would like to say that 'the collapse of the islamic institution' did not happen .. wa7ed
athnain, the division of the many sects was not a consequence of the 'wrong' or better yet, varied tefaaseer for the qur'aan
that said, i must admit i just skimmed thru the comments (already late for my lec) but still would like to comment on Mishari26's comment
mishari26, while u seem like an understanding fellow and althu i am sure u did not mean it to come out that way.. ur definition of 'el-sennah' implies that all other sects do not have the same 'sources'
having said that, ofcourse each sect has diff sources.. namely 3ilm el7adeeth and 3ilm il rijalat
the problem here though is as follows (this accounts for il math'hab il seny only):
sa7ee7 muslim, and sa7ee7 il bukhaary are (the) two main sources for il a7adeeth
however, saying that every single 7adeeth in both is 'sa7ee7, wala khilaaf 3alayh' causes lots and lots of problems
namely, contradictions (of same events)
or also slight differentiation of the language of the 7adeeth
knowing that even a 7arraka (thama, fat7a, kasir) in Arabic can change, not only the meaning of the word, but the ENTIRE sentence.. i would assume u know where i am going with this
-apologies for typos/incoherence, if ull excuse me ill go now look interested in class-
Miss Cosmo
True
Shady
Smart, happiness is the ultimate goal indeed.
Temetwir
What does you nick stands for?
With all this diversity in one single religion and you still don’t think that it had collapsed? Do you think that we are practicing Islam as it was originated?
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