Re: Islam promoting thought and false accusations: Att. Ummm
Peace yet again ummm
The Qur’an is obviously comprehensive enough to be understood by all people, which is the reason why all people, in their many variations are Muslims, professing to the Qur’an as the word of God.
What is not fair is to assert the contrary, that it is suitable only to desert people. This is an emotional and totally unsubstantiated argument. The fact that many non-desert people are accepting Islam today proves that it is not only applicable and relevant today but also to the non-desert Arabs.
As for parables, it states within the Qur’an exactly what you are doing. That is right it talks about you. Let me show you:
Surah 3 verse 7 He (Allah (SWT)) it is Who has sent down to you the Book; in it are verses fundamental; they are the foundation of the book: others are Mutashabihat. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the Mutashabihat seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows their true reality except Allah. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: ‘We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:’ and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding.
This verse is guiding us to concentrate on those things that are tangible. If we see a topic related to something that we cannot possibly ascertain in this life, then we should not debate over it, rather we should ponder over those aspects around that topic that are within our grasp. The Qur’an cannot be disproved in it’s verses that are of parable nature however, in those areas where the context is not such a parable, then bring it to the fore and we can discuss.
More can be taken up on this topic later.
In order to debate facts we need to know where you got the facts from whether your facts agree with ours and whether your analysis of those facts is valid based on the full set of facts that surround the facts in question. It is far more credible that you can quote authentic Muslim sites to combat the Islamic/Qur’anic concepts rather than take what open deceivers are propagating in the name of disclosure.
I have answered this. The sun sets in a place is the concept in the minds eye of the person whom the narrative is talking about, not Allah (SWT).
In Islam God is incomparable, but not unknowable. We know about God only what He has revealed about Himself. However, to even begin bringing humanistic argumentation in to play to determine God is wilful deception because we must be prepared to argue about God based on the understanding there is about God from authentic scriptural references.
Suppose – hypothetical
Own big bang – we don’t even know how to get all the energy in one place to create the big bang.
Suppose immortality … we cannot entertain that thought for many reasons, but I’ll play along.
Your argument is misplaced. I’ll explain that in a minute. But I have a better analogy. Let’s say you are a parent and you clothe your child, take him to bed and feed him every day. You always take care of him, but your child not only denies that you are his parent, but also ignores you and denies that you exist. Will you carry on feeding, clothing, and caring for this child in the same way?
This is a better analogy because we are not God so we cannot begin to entertain thoughts like that, however, we can be parents and we do realise that there is an injustice if we do not worship God. That injustice is not to God but to our own selves, because it is our sense of fairness that we will harm.
Now here is why your argument is misplaced. God does not create a universe and sits back proud of his achievement. He is at all time Sustaining us in our existence. Without Him we would cease to exist. Without His permission we would fail to raise a finger or even an eyebrow in protest to how tyrannical we think He is (SWT). No .. Rather He is The Most Patient and The Most Merciful and The Majestic in how He nourishes us all the time and gives us time to choose and live in this world at ease an in comfort. Then how many of the bounties of God shall we deny? We love our parents dearly as they love us, but God gave us them also. All comforts in this world whether you believe in Him or not come from Him. This is the belief of the Muslim and now using this belief recreate the scenario you have given and re-ask the question.
Mountains are demonstrated scientifically to prevent shocks from earthquakes penetrating large distances, by absorbing the shocks themselves. Whether this is evolutionary chance or not is debatable, such an amazing fluke hey? But God tells us before we knew that they did this, in His Book 1400 years ago. We are still not the wiser regarding the splitting of the moon. But as a Muslim I believe in all of the Qur’an.
It does use scientifically correct language in my opinion. The failure is that we cannot understand much of it yet and when we do we realise very quickly that it not only solves the riddles but does more emphatically than we tried to do it ourselves. Embryology is one such area.
As I said only Allah (SWT) knows. It is part of the Qur’an and we accept it, but the people who will grasp the Qur’an are the people of understanding.
However here is the way I have understood the verses about the stars.
Firstly, you need to understand that the verse is part of the Chapter, which is titled Dominion, which is a man given name to the chapter. The theme of the chapter is about the Dominion of God and how He is Powerful over all things. This verse is a gem really and there is plenty of meaning behind it.
I need to stress that the nearest heaven according to my understanding is the limit of the sky to space. It is the boundary of our atmosphere – The mesosphere to be precise. This is the place where meteoroids will be burnt up and when the ceramic tiles come in to use on the shuttle during re-entry. The truly amazing thing regarding this verse is the TRUTH in the idea that shooting stars are part of the lowest part of the heavens. In addition to this, another TRUTH is that these lights have been referred to as ‘adornments’, which is a fact. Every Disney film with a night scene or a romantic evening is made into a magical moment when a shooting star passes by. When we see them in real life we gaze in amazement and interest. They are by far the most beautiful heavenly bodies for the naked eye sought for by many. So why tell us about these TRUTHS? It is obvious … to reflect the Power of God and Bounties of God and Knowledge of God all in one verse. All of these types of lights, which are part of the lowest heaven, are used to drive away devils, which has another point of insight. This insight is a reminder that we do not know everything from observation alone. And we are told this specific information possibly because God Knows that we will learn about and understand shooting stars, dismissing them as random events. You will therefore notice that they are not random events. They occur in batches and stop and then reoccur. There is nothing in the phenomenon of meteoroid activity that can negate the elemental of warding away devils. If you concentrate on the devil part of this verse you may miss the more important parts which inform about the scientific aspects. And such is the nature of this verse.
Consequently, in Surah 85 there is mention “By the heaven holding the big stars” this heaven is the one that is responsible for what we see as the big stars in the sky, i.e. sun, planets and the non-deep sky stars making up the nodes on constellations. This heaven layer is our local galactic region. The path of the sun travels through them through the various ages.
This is the type of lie that needs to be stopped. The Qur’an does promote thinking. It time and again raises the status of those people who reflect, those people of understanding. People cannot be reflectors or understanding without being thinkers. So what you say is a lie and what you give needs to be proven otherwise retracted.
Obviously I feel I am a thinker I profess to that the Qur’an is the Word of God and I also believe you have not done enough of thinking yourself.
There is no mistake in the Qur’an no matter how trivial a matter. But I agree take up a matter of faith for it is more important than things about shooting stars. Some people ask that such few words in the Qur’an but what was the need to put this shooting star verse in. Well to those people I would like to lure them to this verse, with a related meaning and connotation:
Surah 2 verse 26
Verily, Allah is not ashamed to set forth a parable even of a mosquito or so much more (insignificant or significant) than it. And as for those who believe, they know that it is the Truth from their Lord, but as for those disbelieve, they say: “What did Allah intend by this parable?” By it He misleads many and many He guides thereby. And He misleads thereby only those who are rebellious.