And no one is perfect, and we weren't calling you a liar, a liar is someone who lies repeatedly, you didn't make up the verse, you did a mistake, not a lie
I wouldn't dare call you a liar without good cause, and I wouldn't in this situation; I assumed it was a mistake. I apologize if I gave the impression I was accusing you of such a thing. I also could not see surrounding verses with the online tool I was using, so I missed surrounding verses if that was what was intentioned. My bad on that one. Still, looking through them again, not all of the interpretations are very accurate. The jihad one, particularly, though a massive propaganda point by Western imperialists and Terror groups, is not the proper or contextual one. Jihad should be understood in terms of defensive war, similar to martyrdom for defending the ummah from imminent attack; extremist scholars in the pockets of extremist governments twist that by redefining "defensive," and we feed and have fed that by destabilizing the region for political and economic gain. That is the root of extremism; not the religion itself, but the socio-economic state the West has thrown the Middle East into.
Wow. Guys some of your posts to each other are difficult to read. Where is the love and the seeking to understand where each other are coming from?
The problem I have with that is that it tells Muslims themselves what their religion is. It's essentially a white/western/liberal understanding of Islam which has little in common with what the Muslims actually teach and believe. For example are you prepared to go up against an ISIS imam, and tell him that his understanding of Islam is wrong, and yours is right? That would be a faulty strategy, and you may get blown up in the process. You need to just let the people themselves tell you what they believe. Listening to a liberal usually involves twisting of facts to fit a preconceived conclusion.
It's not like I'm making this up as I go. My only goal is to actually understand Islam so that we can, as Christians, bring light to all the world. Throwing lies and misconceptions around won't actually help that.
Oh I know, many well meaning people are exactly the same way. My sole point was to plead that we understand it on its own terms, and not through the lens of liberal academia. In short, Muslims know better than liberals what Islam is. We should believe them when they tell us what they think.
I wonder, why hunt just Islam, why not hunt Judaism, or another religion, why does the media focus on just one religion, well, except for the ultra Orthodox Jews, there has been media on them, but that's litteraly it, I hate it when a religion, especially a minority one, gets a massive misunderstanding just because of stupid extremists who decided it would be fun to hijack planes and ram them in to the twin towers.
I agree that Western academia as a whole doesn't get to define these things, so I'm paying attention to Muslims throughout history and attempting to sift through the mess that is modern Islamic scholarship trying to deduce what Islam apart from materialist interests and hyper-reactionary thought linked to them looks like. Daesh cannot be considered a valid source of Islamic scholarship, because they are so far removed from the historic scholarship, as many of their actions make painfully clear. It's like saying Mormonism is the fullness of Christianity. The Salafi/Wahhabi school of Saudi Arabia is closer to being feasibly Islamic, yet it is a much more recent phenomenon, akin to fundamentalist Baptist churches or even more like Jehovah's Witnesses in terms of their closeness to the Islamic tradition as a whole. We cannot treat Islam and its development as liberal media, both conservative and progressive, tell us to. We must seek to understand its development and history alongside its current state to truly understand what is being dealt with, and if we don't, we open ourselves up to being pawns in a game for political and economic gain. We cannot lie to ourselves about the history of Christianity, its modern state, and its foibles, yet we'd agree that no educated person has an excuse to treat those foibles as indicative of all of Christianity or what Christianity stands for, nor should we tolerate an atheist coming to us and saying the fundamentalist church around the corner gets to define what we believe, so we are as evil as they. Yet, we seek to treat Islam in the same manner, because we were taught to view it that way, not to mention we have no apparent stake in its image. Therefore, I seek to avoid defining Christianity the white western way and instead let the entire ummah past and present pitch in on what exactly Islam is to the best of my ability, and that means recognizing that it is not a monolithic entity, much like Christianity, sadly. It has developments, just as Christianity does, and it has people failing its image and twisting that image for their gain, just as Christianity has been treated presently and historically. Therefore, we must afford it the kind of care as if we were Muslims, not as white western Christians, and when we understand it from that perspective, we can then work against it as Christians.
This I think is the fundamental mistake being made here. You're trying to understand what is the immaculate template of Islamic orthodoxy, and judge "Islam" based on that. But what if no or few Muslims of the day accept that orthodoxy you've discovered? We need to stop being archeologists trying to find out what this immaculate Islam from some era is, and ask ourselves what currently living Muslims of today think and how they view the world. Are you prepared to tell modern Muslims that they're living their religion incorrectly, just because they no longer respect Averroes and Avicenna? And they don't!
My opinion, and this may have already been expressed by others so forgive me if I am repeating, on the ropic of Islam and Muslims is really straightforward. Islam is a false religion that denies Jesus Christ as Lord, God, and Savior. Ergo, it is a damnable and soul destroying lie that we must expose and stand against. My opinion of Muslims is the same as anyone who does not have faith in Christ. They are lost and in need of our love and the truth of the Gospel.
At one point, a similar thing could have been said about Christianity, and it was. Most Muslims don't fall into what we see in the media, but many more are. But are we going to pretend, as many people do, that Daesh or the Salafi represent the best adherence to Islam one can achieve? To do so would be a grave mistake.
Sure, and rightly so. But now they can't... and rightly so. It couldn't have been said about Muslims once, and rightly so. But now it can, and rightly so.
I can basically agree with that. Still, Islam is a complicated problem, and I urge all of us to weigh in all of the peripheral issues surrounding that problem, much like hydra heads.
My grandfather in law and my blood uncle are both muslims, I have learned a lot about Islam through them, and also guys, if you want to look through history, look through the history of arabs in general, not just Islam. My Arabic side of the family are in no way "extreme", in fact they are very peaceful, they pray every day facing Mecca, where Muhammad (pbuh) was born. In order to become a Muslim one must state the shahhada, which is as follows, la illaha illa-llah Muhammadun rasulu-llah, and that is a mouthful so you guys can reaserch the translation, I simply don't feel like writing it down, anyway, they are very tolerant of religion, I mean VERY, there was a time in my life where I lost god and was searching for other religions, and my uncle said " whatever religion you choose, know that everyone will still love you". So I hate it when people talk trash about muslims, I go out of my way to protect them, and not just muslims, my friend was being discriminated against because of his homosexuality, and I helped him get through it and to ignore them, because God's love blocks out all hate.
Is there such a thing as "orthodox" Islam? Salafi, Shia, Sunni and Sufi each have very different views of orthodoxy
Sunni Islam is fairly unified in important matters, including Salafi, Hanafi, most Sufis, and other "schools" that all affirm the same basics while differing in interpretations of jurisprudence of the likes of Jewish Talmudic stuff. Shia is separate in many practices, and would have a different orthodoxy than the others. The Ibadi are the same way, but much, much less common.
Don't forget to remember that the Sufi school is considered mysticism, just like Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism.
Yes, and it isn't a single school, nor is it confined simply to Sunni Islam, but most Sufis are Sunni. Aidan probably knows this, but Baha'u'llah I believe was a Sufi and a Shi'a Muslim if I remember correctly.