Re: Miracles & Magic
Dear brother psyah, you are very right that we are looking at two very different concepts of islam as I already explained if you read my earlier posts. You as I understand from your posts are heavily influenced by mazhabi interpretation of the quran and I am influenced by deeni interpretation of the quran about which perhaps you are not even aware. The reason I already explained in my other posts.
Regardless, for you belief in miracles is so important that every event is a miracle for you even if there is alternative rational explanation for it but for me it is very much against the very purpose of the revelation of the quran. My point is that every event must be explained rationally save where such explanation is not possible at all. In that context there are only two things that we cannot explain other than direct act of God. a) creation of the universe and b) divine revelation. You are tying everything together without distinction and that is what I do not accept. In my view creation necessarily has a creator and even though we cannot link evidently these two we are forced by reason alone to accept this idea. Likewise if the creator has created the world then he must have reason for it therefore unless he tells us why he created us we could not know and that makes revelation a necessity. This is why these two things should not be mixed with a load of other so called miracles. If you must then you must have such a reason that makes them absolute necessity. If you cannot then you cannot convince me to accept idea of random miracles.
As for the person of the prophets, I do not accept that any other person was more suitable for that mission in their time. In that context you are right that our messenger was the best man of his time and comparatively this ummah is best of the ummahs. However, evolution stands true for human development and I do not agree that that our prophet was illiterate. He was best of people in his time means he was above all others in every good way ie he was most knowledgeable even before revelation. What revelation did was make him even higher than he was. It is something like a child is clever and then education makes him even more clever and bright.
Things you are coming up with, to me seem mullahs stuff. Let me try and explain how it came about. You see when muslims became ignorant because they became swamped by converts whom they could not educate at the rate they converted. Since these people came from pagans, jews, christians, parsies etc etc instead of islam their old make beliefs became adopted into muslims over a period of time. When later people debated their make beliefs with muslims, they told make belief stories about their religious figure heads eg christians told muslims jesus was God so he could do amazing things which your prophet could not. Instead of challenging false beliefs of others rationally as per teachings of the quran, muslims too start making up stories about their prophet as well to show that he was greater than jesus for example.
The quran as you know is nothing more than a khatam drood book for getting the forgiveness for the dead among us, this is how people became totally ignorant about the message in the quran. In the quran Allah gives example of jews as donkeys carrying the books, this ummah is doing the very same thing if we really think about it. The quran demands of its readers serious pondering and reflection over its text for getting its message and doing what it says for accomplishing its set goals but we shut our eyes and start from bismillah and end at wannaas. Not knowing much in between.
This is why discussions and debates keep going on and on without any conclusions because we do not want to get rid of our make beliefs that stand in the way of decisive arguments. All this is due to lack of information and skill for making sense of things. The only answer to that is people should become more and more informed and more and more skilful in putting that information together in a sensible way that will help them get out of this situation.
It was proper understanding of the message and its deliverance that our nabi was able to establish divine kingdom within 23 years of his life. For last so many centuries we have been going but only downhill. All because we have not bothered to study the quran for its purpose. We have been living by way of life imposed upon us by others than Allah. So results of our make belief based actions speak for themselves, what more can I say. If we will carry on like this then things are not going to get better but worse.
As for your mentioning of parwez, he was a great scholar of quranic study. Being from among such backward people he rose much higher than anyone could expect. Even so many years after him show me any scholar his level. This does not mean he understood everything and did everything properly but he tried his best and made a huge difference for coming generations. Creation of pakistan had three fronts british raj, hindu revenge and nationalist mullahs. Find out who single handedly delivered knock-out blow. You will be surprised that it was miraz ghaalib who raised concern for muslim ummah after demise of mughal empire in india. Sir syed paid attention to this and worked hard for educating muslims to realise gravity of situation. It was due to struggle of sir syed that there came about people like iqbal and jinnah and parwez.
Mullahs were busy with their nonsense fatwas as usual because they felt threaten by alighar movement.
iqbal and jinnah (by parwez on ptv)
Qyam e Pakistan Aur Allama Iqbal By Allama Parwez - YouTube
TEHRIKE PAKISTAN KI HAQIQI JANG
TEHRIKE PAKISTAN KI HAQIQI JANG - YouTube
ISLAM KAY MUQABIL ISLAM
QURAN AUR SCIENCE
QURAN AUR SCIENCE - YouTube
regards and all the best.