I don’t know the answers to those questions. I don’t think anyone does. Do you think God communicates with ants? Or let me rephrase this. What makes us us? Does God individually communicate with our organs, or cells, or atoms? What it is God communicates with? Our brain? Our soul? What is soul? Who has a soul? Do little insects have souls? How does God communicate with them? What is it God communicates with? Keep going deeper and you realize, you don’t really exist. We disappear into nothingness. Nothingness is everything. Is there where God is?
“Allah the Almighty has laid down religious duties, so do not neglect them. He has set boundaries, so do not over step them. He has prohibited some things so do not violate them. He was silent about some things out of compassion for you, not forgetfulness, so do not seek after them” [Darqutni, Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, & Hakim].
This hadith always answers that question for me. Allah didn’t tell us everything because He knew we couldn’t handle it. He was and is protecting us. Its similar to what parents do. They love us and want to protect us. So the areas in our faith where minimum information is available is out of mercy for us.
Slavery wasn’t banned outright but a system was brought about which encouraged the freedom of slaves and which was a means to eventually end slavery all together. It wasn’t banned outright because maybe such an ancient tradition being thrown out overnight would have been difficult. Allah knows best. There are plenty of lectures on this subject by better scholars and teachers who can explain it better than me.
Does God communicate with ants? With animals? Trees? The very world we live in? Yes. I believe He does. Animals submit to Allah and they only act in a way He allowed them to. Does God communicate with us? Our bodies? Yes I believe He does. Our very hearts beat because He gives them permission to do so. When He can create a creation so detailed and intricate such as the human being by only saying “Be!” Then why is it unbelievable that he communicates with our very bodies? Our cells and organs? What is a soul? This question was asked to the messengers who came before and only Allah truly knows exactly what the soul is. We only know what He deemed to tell us.
And they ask you, [O Muhammad], about the soul (Rûh). Say, “The soul (Rûh) is of the affair of my Lord. And mankind have not been given of knowledge except a little.” - Qur’an 17:85
He tells us He created us with souls every living creature so yes I do believe in the soul. When you think deeper I actually come up with the opposite conclusion. We do indeed exist and we exist by the Grace of Allah. Allah is everywhere. If He is everywhere then there is no nothingness. What you are talking about is philosophy. Philosophy doesn’t give you answers because it doesn’t have them.
The inheritance law makes sense to me because a man is supposed to take care of women and hence needs more. If there are no men to financially support a woman, the state takes care of her. So that’s not too bad but it’s hard to grapple with the slavery part esp the part where women and children of the non believers are taken as slaves.
No I get your point but the other thing is Islam is the final updated version. According to Muslims and as stated in Qur’an. So although the prophets were the best teachers for their time after Muhammed pbuh those other guidelines are now invalid.
Rape is a crime and marrying the rapist has no basis in religion.
The other issue is about weight of witnesses not victim/accused. So no a male criminal doesn’t hold double the weight of the female victim. In fact the rule about witnesses refers to financial stuff from what I recall.
Oh yes a discussion between Atheists and Muslim always ends well? Why not just live and let live eh? You don’t believe in God? Great. Go about your day. You believe in God? Good. Go make me a sammich.
Finally you say something correct about religion. The double value is regarding financial transactions. And unlike the western system the accused is not a witness to his own crime in Islamic Jurisprudence.
Balthier most muslims don’t support what you mentioned and these are not part of our faith actually. Sex slave is not as how we define this crime today. They were actually concubines and they need to be willing. Reference Mariah the Coptic Christian story and how Raaulullah even ended up with her and how he treated her. No one would define her as a sex slave.
Beheadings and stonings - IV potassium wasn’t invented yet. Corporal punishment exists in Texas and many other states - are they barbaric?
Polygamy - so many rules on this that any sane person would choose monogamy. Designed to push people towards monogamy but allow for polyamory . With legal obligations. Are polyamorous groups in the US backward? Many liberals don’t think so and all evidence suggests that full 360 consent is required, woman can always file for divorce and guy runs risk of punishment for adultery if he has done too much peeking at other women while married in order to get the 2nd wife. Slippery slope.
Sorry balthier I think your beliefs are totally compatible with Islam.
Don’t get too much into what the caliphs did with their lives. They aren’t prophets and will be same to the same judgement as the rest of us so to use that well they had concubines and lots of them etc that’s between them and Allah. You don’t know the that those women were totally willing to be in that set up and the wives were ok with it, or not. And I know this will offend Shias but there is no evidence in the Quran that Ali or any of the caliphs were infallible - actually there is evidence they were scared to say too much lest muslims make it dogma. Ali R and Aisha R were leading iopposing armies in the battle of the camel - id be curious to see how judgement day goes for all the senseless lives lost in muslims clashing with muslims and lives being lost and how Allah judges such wars and military decisions.
We have the Quran and at the end of the day that’s what we should go by when asking questions. Even the Hadith are just written recordings of what people passed down in oral tradition so how much accuracy is present and how reflective Hadith are of the actual Sunnah of Muhammad SAW is always something to keep in mind. Even the Hadith have gradings - strong vs weak.
And then there is the history. One can’t interpret a verse without valid historical events.
A lot of this has to be pieced together from available historical evidence in historical writings and Hadith to put context into play for the verses so just taking a verse at face value can be misleading.
Doesn’t mean the whole religion is made up by a crazy person in 580 AD.
It has no basis in Islam. It has basis in another religion : namely judeochristian beliefs. It’s a verse in old or New Testament I forget but gets heavily debated in religion class and modern day evangelists are just silent about it because it’s so embarrassing. It’s probably a corruption to the actual religious text originally revealed.
I agree with the capital punishment part. Regarding, concubines, they did not have to be willing. The Muslims lost the battle of Uhud because The Prophet (SW) had forbidden the archers to leave the hill no matter what but they saw the women of the non believers fleeing and said the war booty shall be out of our hands. They ran to capture them . The Muslims could have won that war but because of the war booty issue did not. I don’t think fleeing women would consent to have sex.
Rehanah was also a loundi of the holy prophet ( SW) and not his wife. Most historians have consensus upon that.
In Sahih Bukhari 3:47:765, hazrat Maimoona told the holy Prophet (SW) that she had freed a female slave and he replied that she would have got more reward by giving her to to one her maternal uncles.
It is also agreed upon by Muslim scholars that sex can be had with these slaves without their consent. Anyways, baring a few, how many women would be willing to have sex with the people who killed their husbands, fathers and brothers.
Some companions asked the Prophet (SW) if it was ok for them to do coitus interuptus ( to prevent pregnancy) with the female slaves and he said it was better not to because the soul which Allah has destined to come I the world will come. Hadith from Sahih Bukhari.
However, it must be remembers that if a female slave bore a child she could become free after the death of the master including the child.
Also marrying slaves is looked down upon in the Quran , ( 4:25) it says if you can’t afford to marry free believing women then marry those believing women whom your right hand possesses.
Slaves are not permitted to own land or engage in business except as an agent for their master.
So, it is permitted to have female sex slaves but these have to be non believing women captured in war only. Regarding consent, a slave has no consent.
There is no nothingness or infinity infront of God , its mentioned in quran God has finite measure of every thing.
Talking about a beginning its mentioned in quran heavens and earth was ask to come about. they came willingly. So perhaps God is rab of subatomic things too.
God use word zara(arabic translation is atom) OR any thing smaller then that…
Also its mentioned in quran that he is rab of stars etc etc…
Ants do talk to each other mentioned in quran, recently discovered that they do.
When you talk about communication, our communication would be different then communication between God and an atom. How ever interestingly only other thing mentioned , who gets direct inspiration from God is bee… again… its mentioned in quran.. about female bee working.. bee navigation.. etc… all stays valid even after recent discoveries about bees.
Do a quick search how food production is possible without bees. Also before machine times, was it possible humanity to come where it came with out bees ??
Funny how every thing just came about…iron came from space(in quran it mentioned it was nazaled)
Its just too many coincident which facilitated humans to thrive… With out God its just too funny.
Your other post: yeah God send 124000 messengers, for every nation and every time.
Problem is those messages were not meant to be kept.
(none of those religion claimed(including christianity or hinduism) to be final word of God)
What their followers do around it, its their business.
So the last message was meant to be kept… any doubt its not kept in original form ???
..but what is a living creature? What separates us from everything else? Where do we begin and end? Do single cell organisms have souls? Does that mean every cell has a soul? How does every soul get judged? If God is everywhere as you and I both agree, then why one thing is haram and not the other? Why one human being is better than another? Too many inconsistencies begin to emerge the moment we start to define what God is. Therefore, I don’t. We make it too human, which is laughable because in reality you are incapable of knowing what God wants and end up following a person’s experience. Which is not bad but stop attributing those qualities to God. I don’t know what this force is and we sure as hell are not capable of understanding it. If someone tells me they spoke to God or felt the force, I would believe them but I would not take his experience and apply it to myself. I will go seek my own if I am compelled to do so. If the force/God is everywhere then I will find it too… If God is everywhere then it probably doesn’t play favorites with its creation. That goes against Islam because to be a muslim you must accept Muhammad was the chosen one and the last messenger. That in itself leaves no hope for the rest of the humanity if one wants to find God’s presence in their own way. When a person feels the force, he feels it for himself and it is a message for him not the rest of the humanity.
Where did you get some of this stuff from? An anti Islam website? There are many that pretend to be muslim websites and they aren’t.
There are some good articles you can find on this and I went thru a number of Hadith that support the sexual relationship with a slave is to be under the woman’s consent. I’ll have to dig up that article. Not to mention the clear verse in the Quran that talks about mating only if women are consenting. Rape is not allowed not even with a concubine or POW of war.
The story of Maria exemplified this. She was taken as a POW, and in the caravan ride back home after the battle she expected the Prophet would just take her like anyone does after a battle. He didn’t. She instead heard his sermons and lectures etc and on the caravan ride he treated her with kindness. She got interested in him and then they eventually mated. And you don’t just Mate and move on , you are responsible for that woman like your wife. That’s why the Quran pairs the two in sentences such as your wife AND that which your right hand possesses meaning they are elevated to a level of your wife essentially. You dont hand her off to another man for him to use, you’re responsible for her etc.
I haven’t studied uhud much but maybe the fact that the guys were lusting and not following orders is why they lost. Allah showed he did not like this sort of lust towards females running away from a village about to be taken over.
Yes I don’t think most women would be willing if their husbands etc got killed but if you look at the amount of bloodshed during these battles overall life lost was low in number, compared to traditional warfare at the time. So it’s not like we’re talking millions of sex slaves. If a POW was taken and she was married you couldn’t sleep with her! And like I said there is an element of consent. Haven’t seen any hard evidence that shows a no consenting woman was forced to sleep with a muslim convert and seeing how good natured the Quran and Prophet were in general it’s hard to believe of such cases. I think Islam spread fast and people were actually willing to convert and join in the new movement.
Is there evidence rehana was nonconsenting?
Marrying the slave probably would have been better at the time because freeing a slave meant she is now on her own. Like I said with no resources or skills freeing slaves en masse has its drawbacks. It’s not that Allah doesn’t prefer freedom for slaves. It’s a question of how to do it. You can just free them ie dump them out of your homes onto the road with no source of food, shelter, clothes, etc and just hope they find employment or you can slowly one by one integrate them into the community. For females finding them a husband is probably more humane.
This agreement of sex with slaves without consent is probably the work of nice dodgy scholars who also gave us nonsense like it’s ok to kill Shias and gays and the Hudood ordinance and all kinds of fun stupidity in the name of Islam that if you actually read the Quranic text you will know is actually all haraam behavior. I have read the verse that clearly states a woman must be willing to be with you. Rape is rape and scholars agree on the definitions. Barring property ownership and wages the status of slaves was brought up equal to that of a wife’s. So consent in sexual relations is one of those rights. Consent to the relationship in the first place is a right.
if Allahs ultimate intention was to abolish slavery slowly by integrating slaves as citizens and family members of the new muslims, logic follows the slavery should have been abolished soon. But the fact it took centuries is not Allah’s fault. Like I said you can’t look at what happened after Prophets life as examples. Because they were not infallible the Sahabah or the future muslim dynasties. They had their corruptions and I don’t doubt they kept slaves when they could have been free.
Maria eventually was freed. She bore a son. Any slave bearing a child → immediately freed by default.
If this were the type of sex slave you hear about in newspapers in the US - some creep who kidnaps girl and puts her in his basement and gives her a doggy pot to crap in and feeds her scraps then rapes her daily and she never sees sunlight again - no that’s not the type of “sex slave” we are talkin about. Hence I think term sex slave is totally wrong and concubine is more accurate.
Culture of concubines no longer exists and I don’t think Allah misses it either. Like Allah says in the Quran, lust is a sin. So having concubines in the traditional sense is just manifestation of lust. So no that’s not allowed. Nor is domination or power or humiliation of POW and their people. Hence the loss at Uhud.
But developing a relationship equated to marriage (ok fine no fancy Nikkah paper), and having responsibilities of marriage with the acknowledgement that she is freed and to be then called wife If she bears a kid or converts to Islam is just incentivized conversions and giving women of towns taken in war an alternative to prostitution. Once towns came under muslim control, it’s inhabitants were always free to return to it once peace treaties were signed so not even most women were taken captive. They just resumed their usual lives in their towns except often as muslims rather than nonmuslims.
Otherwise think about it. Every Arab woman outside Makkah and Madina would have practically been taken captive and kept as slaves. That makes no sense.
but the other thing is Islam is the final updated version. According to Muslims and as stated in Qur’an. So although the prophets were the best teachers for their time after Muhammed pbuh those other guidelines are now invalid.
