Miracles & Magic

Society Religion & Philosophy
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Re: Miracles & Magic

How is it disrespect

Its just testing out a claim in a widely accepted hadeeth

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Re: Miracles & Magic

How? It's a suicide pill. For those who believe that suicide is a sin (regardless of religion) will find it to be a disrespect or ungratefulness for the gift of life that Allah has given them. And you don't even have to be a supporter of the hadith or a Muslim to see it as such. Nor does it have to be confined to a cyanide pill, the stance can include various actions that are detrimental/injurious to the body.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

so if a poison is named “suicide pill”, this date remedy will become ineffective? where did you find this caveat? :confused:

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It is not funny. No one can say about any medicine that it would cure with guarantee, and that means, only idiot would get sick deliberately to test a medicine.

Anyhow, you are right in one thing and that is, it is possible to test Ajwa dates to know what it has, and probably test much have got done. Still, one cannot completely unveil all secrets behind effectiveness of something.

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Possibly Ajwa date would cure victim of suicide pill … so why don’t you try for the sake of science. I would be waiting for your reply after you finish your scientific experiment. :slight_smile:

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In the Bible the Devil tempts Jesus (AS) by asking him to jump off a high place since nothing will happen to him as it is foretold the Messiah will be protected, but Jesus (AS) replies by saying that it is also foretold that we should not try to test God … I.e. We should not create situations where God has to deliver on a prophesy, because that test is a form of disbelief. The reason for the protection is because of the devotion … And devoted people will not create situations where they are subjecting themselves willingly in danger unless it is a for a great religious purpose.

Matthew 4:1-11 - Jesus Is Tested in the Wilderness - Bible Gateway

4 Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted[a] by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’**”

**5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6 “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[c]”
7 Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[d]”**

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

Respected Khalid ibn Walid (RA) had drunk poison and survived … And did this to avoid battle and win territory.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Peace brother psyah, as far as I understand from the quran, islam is about proof and proving not make beliefs. It is deen not mazhab. Before you or anyone else could accuse anyone of deviation from islam one needs to prove what true islam is. You will agree that true islam is in the quran and people who can tell from the quran what true islam is, are those who ponder over the quran not fall in trap of make beliefs. Make beliefs are anti islam because by having those beliefs you oppose the quran.

We should follow message of Allah as delivered by his final messenger not make beliefs spread by ignorant and foolish people who claim the title of ulema and are treated as ulema by ignorant following. Anyone who has any information and can make sense of it is an aalim to the degree one is and one can and anyone else is simply put an intruder and an imposter who claims to be what one is not. Such people can be easily exposed through exchange of ideas because they talk nonsense ie without any solid foundation. The question is, what is solid foundation?

The whole argument between the messengers of Allah and their opponents rested on proof and proving. Even the final messenger was told to say to his opponents that if you think this quran is wrong then get some other book that you can prove is better than the quran and I will follow that.

The simple test therefore for mullahs' ignorance is to ask them to define proof and prove the quran word of Allah according to their definition. If they cannot, that proves them ignorant and make beliefs inventors and spreaders. If we read the quran and see what is said about mullahs of bani israel that should start ringing alarm bells. Our time mullahs are worse than bani israel. Why do you think there are so many sects? It is because mullahs are busy telling everyone who is right and who is wrong by way of finger pointing and drawing lots rather than proof and proving. The confusion these foolish people have created is main reason for so many divisions among muslim ummah. What you need to realise is the fact that islam is based upon entire quran not just a verse from here and a verse from there. Since islam is based upon entire quran and quran needs interpretation and when people are going to interpret it opinions are going to differ. So all opinion are always on the table for discussion not because there is a problem with the quran but because there are problems with people ie people need time and information and sense of making sense of information and no two people are exactly the same when it comes to knowing things for sure unless they have had similar life experiences.

Quran is a fixed text, fixed context, fixed message. People are the ones born ignorant and allowed time to grow and develop biologically, psychologically and sociologically. As a child grows from his birth he keeps learning and builds his life experience and that helps him understand things he need to understand as he goes along. This is why the quran cannot be understood by people who ignore self awareness and awareness of universal realities because then you have nothing to help you make sense of things all around you. If you have no sense of what you see and hear then you have no sense of anything at all let alone sense of message of Allah.

Can you judge or decide anything sensibly without drawing from your own life experiences so far? No, you cannot. This is why by putting the quran directly in conflict with real world realities through false or make belief based interpretations you are proving the quran false. So if anyone was aalim of the quran, he could not be this stupid. So those who claim to be aalim of the quran yet have no sense they are falsely claiming to be aalim of the quran. The main point in the quran is do not follow even your own ancestors if they are running after false beliefs ie make beliefs. So how can such people be ulema who are not based upon proof and proving and are they more caring for us than our own parents and relatives? If it was only mater of following people blindly then ancestor following could not have been condemned such forcefully in the quran repeatedly. If parents are not to be followed then why the ulema a people you do not even know as much as you know your own parents? So one can see very clearly that blind faith is condemned by the quran.

I hope this makes my position very clear for you and people you claim to be ulema of deen. As for yourself, do you know what proof is? If you do please explain. So that I could see where you are coming from and so that I could clarify my position further for your proper understanding of things.

my regards and best wishes.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Peace Mughal1

I follow the people who brought us the Qur'an and who forwarded the message of RasoolAllah (SAW)

If you eliminate these people then you will be unable to show the Qur'an or Hadith as authentic ... It so happens that the people who brought us the Qur'an and Sunnah also brought us our belief system ... My beliefs are in sync with the beliefs of various transmitters of the Qur'an and Sunnah though the ages ... You however are not in a position to make that claim.

You are on one hand accepting the Qur'anic text as true (knowing we received that text from the scholars) and on the other hand you reject the meaning and understanding that was passed down with the text and apply your own. If you are true then you should be able to show where and by whom the understandings differed from who you consider to be correct and then identify the chain of transmission of the understandings you have in an unbroken chain going back to RasoolAllah (SAW). You will not be able to do that ... Your persuasion is a modernistic reinterpretation and eliminates major aspects of muttawatir narrations if you study the transmission chains of your belief system you will find proof that it is in fact a deviation from the core beliefs of the accredited narrators of Qur'an and Hadith ... not the other way round.

It is for this reason the true proof of belief is found in the beliefs of those who gave us the scripture because they did not just inherit the Word they inherited the teaching behind it. Pondering over the Qur'an does not lead to truth ... pondering over creation leads to verification of the teachings in The Qur'an ... and the Qur'an is not created.

The word "make-belief" stems from the idea that the belief is a new one and not part of the original message. I can demonstrate the belief in miracles is from the original message ... but you can't - rather you think that "make-belief" means "false fantasies" - and neither can we ascribe falsehood to the Salaf nor to the respective students and their students or else the whole basis of the Qur'an being muttawatir will be compromised ...

When you pick you pick up a mushaf (documented Qur'an) and read it believing it to be the very Word of God as delivered by RasoolAllah (SAW) you are also trusting all those people who are in that chain to bring it to us ... yet you deny the same people in their understanding.

You may just be studying the text ... but the people I follow study the text and study the people who studied the text through history ...

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Dear brother psyah, you are right that I accept the quranic text true, I also accept that people who passed the quran down to us have also passed down the text faithfully. The questions are why do I do that and why I am right in doing that?

It is because there are parallel evidences that prove what I accept. For example, I take past generations of humanity as postmen for the later generations because they passed down the later generations human accumulated information and the way of making sense of it also. Each generation also discovered some information itself and passed it down along with information from their ancestors. This is a fact that none of us humans can deny. The case is same with muslim generations or generation of other communities.

Since we are capable of making sense of information we have received and are able to judge it and decide about it therefore we can cross examine information passed down to us whether it is sound or defective etc etc.

Humanity is divided into many groups on various basis and each group is accusing all others for falsehood or manipulation and distortion of information. This raises the need for having a concrete criterion that could help us see truth from falsehood.

Since muslims are also divided therefore we cannot trust 100% anyone of the sects when it comes to manipulation and distortion of islamic information therefore we must look for ways of getting to the truth.

This is where comes in proof and proving. We can prove the quranic text we have today is exactly the same as it was revealed because we have people who have committed quran to their memory. They did not learn the quran from the written text. The proof is that had they learned it from writing then they ought to have various pronunciations of various words the way they were written in the quran and the way the words were pronounced in various tribes of arabia. This becomes obvious from roots of words and their pronunciations. How? Because same word has more than one root in written arabic.

Likewise written copies of the quran were copied from the written copies of the quran. How do we know? Because some letters are missed in the quranic text that are supposed to be parts of the words written in the quran. If you dictated to me to write the quranic text from dictation then I would have written it the way you dictated and the way words were written in general without missing any letters in the words. Since a certain letter is missing in all copies of the quran in places it is very strong evidence that quranic copies were not written down from dictation out of memory. The people who copied the copies of the quran had the written copies of the quran in front of them to copy it from. We have many copies of the quran available throughout the world from different times and places to prove these points.

Therefore my conclusion that what we are told by our muslim ancestors is correct and true when it comes to actual text of the quran.

As for meaning of the quranic text, that too can be found out whether what we are told is true or false, how?By knowing the criterion for proof and proving as I have explained in my above post.

Again we not only have text of the quran intact but concepts attached to the roots of words as well. By looking through text and looking through meanings of words and trying to see how these fit together in light of our wide and deep life experiences we can come up with an explanation of the quranic text that purposefully makes perfect sense.

So our ancestors are right where their explanations fit the context and wrong where they have deviated from that. So we accept what seems right and we reject what seems wrong and that is what we are supposed to do. The same should be done by our future generations ie they should never follow us blindly rather they should go back to original sources and make proper sense of islam from them and take what fits that from us and reject our nonsense.

Ulema of islam are those people who follow this criterion not mullahs who mislead people by promoting blind faith so that they could secure their own place in positions of authority over ignorant and foolish masses whom thye deliberately kept ignorant and foolish by teaching them their nonsense. The quran teaches mankind that man is brother of man neither his master nor his slave. This teaching was distorted by kings through mullahs. They had plenty of human being as their slaves and worst they justified all their stupidity in the name of Allah and his rasool.

That is islam of mullahs which cannot be defended by anyone and nor should anyone try to do that. Islam is in the quran and we have records of proper followers of that islam. It is because there is a clear cut criterion so anyone can pick and choose information from all the sources available and accept what fits the solid criterion and reject all else.

I hope this explains many things for many people who are confused about many such things.

regards and all the best.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

dr israr ahmed
Quran and Iron sent down to implement justice - Monasticism trick of Satan 057 HADEED 025 027 - YouTube

dr tahir al qadri
Islamic Economy Amanat & Niabat just for Preaching? - YouTube

Ayatullah Aqeel ul Gharavi
Ayatullah Aqeel ul Gharavi exclusive interview on DUNYA TV - YouTube

dr iqbal
Iqbal Speech - YouTube

jinnah
Jinnah ka Pakistan: Ideology Islam - YouTube
Quaid e Azam: The Last Will - YouTube

maulana ishaq

ghamdi

parwez
Jo Na Manga Woh Mila Aor Jo Manga na Mila by Allama Ghulam Ahmed Parwez part 01 of 11 - YouTube

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Re: Miracles & Magic

If you accept the narrations of the Qur'an as true then you should also accept the belief of miracles as true as they are both widely transmitted and there is no room to deny it. Show me where any of the scholars through history denied miracles and the basis for the denial. You will find mere splinter groups scattered throughout and the orthodoxy do not tolerate those insinuations.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Magic is defined as some unusual occurrence for which you don't see (or are unaware of) the cause. The magic you're referring to, technically Sihr, also falls into this, i.e. requiring a cause but is more specifically categorized as an unusual or supernatural occurrence achieved with the help of shayateen/jinns through actions that would please them. Among other things, this involves shirk and kufr.

Miracles on the other hand, are supernatural occurrences that have no hidden cause behind them apart from divine decree.

During the incident in Musa (AS) time, when he faced off against the magicians, the magicians knew immediately what he was doing was beyond magic and they believed in him right away.

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Dear psyah, the quran is message of Allah for mankind. The problem is, mankind need to find out the message for themselves as individuals because we all are born at different times in different places under different sets of circumstances. Being in different situations we take different ways to make sense of life in this world. However, to be on the right path proof and proving is the only way that can lead us there. Just because you believe something without proof does not make it true. This is why proof based interpretation of the quran is the way to go. This is why all wrong interpretations of the quran must be rejected in favour of proper interpretation of it. The question is what is criterion for proper interpretation of the quran? It is looking into the quranic text in light of real world realities to begin with and in light of those realities historical facts. What does that mean? It means interpreting the quran in such a way that we do not introduce contradictions within its narrative or statement. It is testimony of Allah and a testimony which is not consistent within itself is false. This does not mean we correct mistakes in the quranic text through our interpretations because mistakes in any false statement cannot be corrected let alone in a book that is of size of the quran. The rule here is that since it is possible to interpret the quran free of contradictions then anyone who interprets it in such a way that introduces contradictions in it is interpreting it wrongly. Not only that but this book has a purpose to serve so interpreting it in a way that makes no sense is also a false interpretation.

The quran itself tells us that if the quran was not from Allah people would have found many contradictions within itself. Now if we look at any interpretation of the quran, we will come across a lot of contradictions because the people who have been interpreting the quran did not pay enough attention to the rule of interpretation which they knew because they told us the rule. The situation is something like we have a mathematical expression and the formula to solve it. However when each of us solves it many of us end up making mistakes here and there. It is good that we have original expression and the formula so we can see where the mistakes was made by anyone, so we can try and solve the problem ourselves. Just because our passed generations made mistakes does not mean we can do nothing about it. We muslims are in a unique position to do that. Allah did not leave us in dark that is why his message leads mankind into light. This is why we must not stick to our ancestors interpretation of the quran where they have made serious mistakes.

The second rule of interpretation is that the quranic text must not contradict self evident facts or real world realities and it does not and yet if anyone interprets it in a way that we see a lot of contradictions between what is attributed to quran as its message and what the real world realities are then such an interpretation is obviously false. Again that is because we can show the correct interpretation of the text. This is why the quran cannot be based upon make belief interpretations. Within this context then we can depend upon historical facts. Here we will have to pick and choose because hadith reports and history narratives are not free of mistakes in their texts and also we are told by our ancestors that many of the hadith reports may well be false because they may have been invented by vested interest parties. This can be proven so, how? Let say a report said to be hadith tells us we should be obedient to our kings, what do you think about it? Such a report is either false or has been misinterpreted because in the quran there is no concept of kings and subjects, rulers and ruled, masters and slaves etc. It is because Allah alone has the right to rule in this universe and no man is fit to be a king be he a prophet of Allah according to the quran itself. This is why to interpret the quran we cannot depend on anything but the quran itself and self evident facts because they are before our own eyes and we can verify them. History is stories and if those stories make sense within this context then fine otherwise they cannot be used for interpretation of the quran because true message could be masked by false interpretations to some degree though not completely.

Coming to make belief miracles this idea is against the quranic teaching as I have explained it above so to believe in ideas against the quran is not islam. However, to rise to that level of thinking takes time and very hard study of the message of the quran so if anyone attributed anything unislamic to islam then that is just lack of study on part of those who take that assumption as true. It is not possible to prove miracles and that is proof in itself that such a beliefs is only a make belief. I explained this in detail in a thread wherein you were discussing khatme nabuwwat. If people still want to continue believing in wrong things after clear explanations that is up to them. It will remain the case till we have managed to educate each other to the level of thinking that is needed for proper understanding of the message of the quran.

So if you or I feel comfortable with our baseless beliefs then so be it because alternative is only possible if we will educate ourselves out of our ignorance and nonsense. others can only try and educate us but if we do not wish to learn then we will stay the way we are. However we will have to continue facing the consequences because staying ignorant is not without its costs.

The main thing you and others need to realise is the difference between evidence and proof. I asked earlier please tell me what is meant by proof in your view and what is meant by evidence? It is important because unless people know what proof and evidence is and how it works things are not going to make sense. So if we must continue this discussion then please let me know your views on evidence and proof so that I could see where you are coming from.

May Allah bless us all with information about all we need to know and give us ability to make proper sense of it.

regards and all the best.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

You are still using the term proof when all you are really arguing for is the force fitting of the scripture in our normal daily lives context. You are not giving any room for the proof of eye-witness accounts of the past. When they witnessed miracles and passed that message on through the ages we are obliged to believe in them ... However, due to your over emphasis on your normal experiences you personally cannot validate or verify past miracles and hence you conclude they are make-belief ... I am not blindly believing in miracles ... I am trusting a solid referential system of narrative works which gives us confidence that the miracles we believe in did happen. The fact they do not happen today is because today we do not have people or the circumstance for them to happen ... but if we study the lives of pious people and look closely we do actually see lots of karamaat happening - but we need to be open and seek out such people and events. Modernity and the over indulgence of illusion in media and entertainment coupled with huge leaps of technological progress is behaving as a barrier to the modern mind in SEEING miracles that do happen.

Do you not consider the Qur'an a miracle that it was received by Sayyiduna Muhammad (SAW) through the Angel Gabriel? I mean what way of verifying that do you have? How do you rationally explain the Revelation itself?

Miracle as a concept does not contradict the Qur'an - whenever the Qur'an uses the term Ayah (sign) it refers to a miraculous happening or thing.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Dear brother psyah, as for the quranic interpretation I am simply explaining the framework within which the quran needs to be interpreted. If we did not confine the quranic interpretation within a set framework then anyone will be free to take the text to mean anything and that would cause a lot of problems as I already explained and we find in our tafaseer books.

As for the miracles, it will help if you could explain words proof and evidence as to what do you think they mean. I am asking this because then I will have better idea how to explain for you the concerns you raise. It is because to me proof and proving is main concern. It is because if we can prove existence of God and revelation and creation then you will come to see that we do not need miracles that you have explained.

In general we use rational arguments to prove existence of God and if we can prove existence of God through rational explanation then why do we need miracles to prove revelation from God when it too can be explained through rational interpretation? You see if something can be explained very clearly then why do we need to take other ways which lead nowhere other than confusion? This is why I am asking for your explanation as to what do you think proof and proving is all about? Does proof necessarily need evidence or does it not?

regards and all the best.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Peace brother Mughal1

The tafsir are confined by the ahadith and are in context to other verses. It is erroneous to claim that tafsir have been taken out of context ... rather you should be pointing the finger of blame towards those people who decide to interpret the Qur'an through their own rational faculties instead of resorting to the works of past scholars.

Proof eliminates all other possibilities from being true through some process of deduction.
Evidence suggests that something could be true by showing a relationship.

Verification of a claim is to evaluate the evidence or proof oneself to arrive at the same conclusions.

If something is not verifiable it is not correct to say that the matter is false also if there are reports regarding something let's say a miracle of someone not being burned in fire - then the multitude of reports, the consistency between them the reliability and trustworthiness of the people narrating them lends favour towards the matter being true. It is evidence - it can be considered authentic although not verified it is trusted.

You are asserting that only verifiable evidence should be accepted in which case we must either wholesale reject certain ideas in Islam - such as Adam (AS) being sent to Earth from a heavenly existence and in other cases reinterpreting concepts as metaphor when the people of the past themselves did not do that.

Coming back to my question - We believe the Angel Gabriel brought the Qur'an to Muhammad (SAW) over 23 years ... Is it not a miracle that an unlettered man came blazing with such a heavy laden Word - the likes of which was impossible to reproduce? Is such a thing verifiable? No it is not - it happened in the past and today we have a Text ... Where did it come from? Allah (SWT) and through the Angel Gabriel (AS) ... and in to the breast of Muhammad (SAW) ... Do you believe that to be true? If so - you believe in miracles.

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Thank you dear brother psyah for your kind reply, let us take your first point that the quranic interpretation is confined by hadith. Does it not pose the very same problem as the quranic interpretation? In my view it does, why? Because before we could confine quran through hadith, do we not need to ensure that hadith is authentic? How do we ensure the hadith is authentic or not?

1)Any hadith has to be sound as far as its isnaad are concerned ie the people reporting information must be authentic. How can we ensure that people who are telling the story are authentic? We have no way of ensuring that anyone who is telling us anything about the prophet is a genuine person. At most may be a few of his friends will tell us a person is genuine but a lot more will be telling us he is not. Here reporters who will want to accept reports will chose to report only those who are in their favour and ignore the rest. So rijaal records do not reflect true history of islam. We must not forget that people who reported things for us were living in times when islam was no longer ruling and muslims were divided into many factions. I rather not go into detail but the picture of those times should be clear. It is because ummah became a divided thing so anyone reported anything and people accepted some reports and rejected others that they did not like. This shows the weakness of hadith reports. Now reflect on the criterion I explained for understanding the quranic text. I explained that there are external evidences which prove the quranic text which we have has been reported properly. In case of hadith we can only rely on people who do not trust each other. So the quranic transmission is more authentic than the hadith transmission. Therefore it will make no sense why should we bend a stronger piece of information according to weaker pieces of information. However if we base the weaker information on the stronger piece of information then whatever agrees with most authentic information can be accepted genuine without any problem.

This situation is like we are trying to read a text through glasses that are out of focus when we really do not need to wear glasses because we can see things clearly without glasses.

2)the hadith matan or reported text or story must also be complete and purposeful. We do not have that in case of hadith reports. After reading a particular hadith we cannot necessarily arrive at any safe conclusion because the reported text does not necessarily have have a context. This is why there are many hadith reports that seem to contradict each other. This being the case we are forced to use our own explanations to fill the gaps to show that hadith are ok. Despite this many reports are still rejected and declared weak even though we are not sure whether they are truly false and weak or not. So there is qute a bit of confusion. Then we have hadith reports which contradict self evident facts or historical facts, so all this leaves us in a big confusion if we solely rely of hadith reports. Again such a problem does not arise if we confine hadith text to quranic base rather than quranic text to hadith base.

So you can see why I accept the idea of quran alone being the foundation of islam but any hadith or historical fact that does not go agaist the quran is authentic. This way we have islam and the other way we have no islam at all. So it is very, very wrong idea to put hadith or history on par with the quran.

Those people made serious mistakes who placed hadith and history on equal footing with the quran. If they did it deliberately they were enemies of Allah and his messenger but if they did it out of ignorance then we should leave their case with Allah but we should not follow their nonsense. They not only placed hadith on par with the quran but treated it even above the quran by telling us hadith can abrogate the quran. Again I rather not go into detail. The idea that quran can abrogate the quran or that the quran can be abrogated by the hadith seems a conspiracy against islam by ignorant malukityati mullahs. If we take it as ignorance then it does not explain the works by such people which show they were not that ignorant but trying to do something deliberately against the messages of Allah and rasool.

Now even if we accept hadith reports, we still need to make sense of of them by using our own heads and because both the quran and the hadith use words and words have multiple concepts attached to them therefore they have various meaning so we still need to come up with context to confine the meanings. So we end up choosing meanings all by ourselves. If quran is to be confined by hadith and hadith by first generation of ummah and then that by second generation of ummah and that by third generation of ummah and that by forth and so on and on then this will create a huge library of information which is beyond any single person to go through in his life time so what purpose could it all serve that way? if this is how the quran meant to be understood then why the quran was not revealed with all information in itself? At least the whole information would have been authentic.

So you can see that your way of understanding the quran is in fact no way of understanding the quran at all. This way we can carry on reading each and every book ever written by anyone and at the end of the day we will still not know what the message of God is for mankind.

The whole point of studying things is to get to some conclusion not die confused and still searching. This is why the concept of deen has to be reasonably simple. After all all messenger were able to convey the message of Allah to their people and within their life times they managed to come up with supporters. Even the final messenger took 23 years to bring about an islamic state. The reason we have failed as his followers is because we left islam that was taught by the quran and started following our molvi sahibaan who were placed upon us by our rulers for their own ends. You want us to continue doing that so I suggest dear brother that you think over things.

The picture mullahs have painted of islam is totally wrong and people here and there do know this and try to tell others but because we have become trapped in mullahs make beliefs we fear looking at things from any other angle.

Islam is taken as three main concepts a)mazhab b)deen and mazhab and c)deen. Although most of the ummah is mazhabi muslim but there is very strong presence of deeno mazhab concept but deeni concept of islam is least known concept. The reason is most people are illiterate, uneducated and ignorant therefore mazhab is wide spread. As people are becoming a bit educated they are turning to deeno mazhab concept but those who are educated at higher level and think deeper and wider accept islam as a deen only concept. As deeni concept of islam spreads the world will gradually change but it is long way away.

What is the difference between these concepts? Mazhab is all about make beliefs and rituals. In this concept good people are thought to be those who believe in fixed creed as invented by mullahs and carry out some rituals eg poooja paat to please God and save themselves from his punishments. Their concepts about God are very wrong and even stupid. For example, a muslim thinking about Allah as if he is a tyrant even though the quran begins with Allah is kind and merciful. So how low can you get in your thinking level to think about Allah in such a way.

Deeno mazhab concept is based on both ideas ie the quran is a program, constitution and law as well as book of make beliefs and rituals.

Deen concept is all about the quran being a book of Allah as a proof from Allah for mankind as well as a program from Allah for mankind to carry out therefore they are to organise according to its constitution and regulate themselves according to its laws in order to fulfil the goals set by Allah. This is why the commands for tableegh and jihaad. The first goal is establishment of islam as a way of life throughout the world. What does that mean? It means Allah wants people to bring about a proper human community which manages its human population and provided resources so that humanity develops and grows. This is why the quran commands and emphasises learning, compassion, unity or brotherhood, peace, progress and prosperity etc etc of mankind on one hand and forbids divisions, instability and war or cruelty, injustice, oppression and suppression, rivalry and animosity etc etc on the other. This is all for living in this world so that world becomes a place wherein divine kingdom is established wherein people could live blissful and dignified lives. A very clear message indeed wherein there is no place for make beliefs and related useless rituals that waste time of people without any end results.

What happens after people have reached that goal? The next goal is even more interesting. It is about management of the universal resources for the growth and development of humanity. The human race is going to discover a lot more and show its creative abilities yet more to yet higher level. SITARUN SE AAGE JAHAN AUR BHI HEN. Allah has created everything for human kind and given the human kind abilities to be so creative that one day heavens and the earth will be under the feet of mankind ie man has yet to reach that stage whereat his full potential for creativity will manifest itself and man will be humbled by thought of how great creator his creator is who has created such a creature who is as if a mini god.

When man is born he is like a self programming robot. He is supposed to starts learning and doing things till his full potential for creativity becomes obvious to him so that thereby he realises how great creator Allah is. This is why man is given the brain and senses and body.

Allah has created people for his ibaadah and that is what is meant by ibaadah ie to come to know Allah through self effort and hard work with a little help from the creator himself.

The quran based islam has nothing at all to do with what mullahs teach. If anything they teach things so that man become stupid and so that then he could be used and abused by each other ie kings could rule the rest and use them like animals for their own goals. Allah sent message to get man out of slavery of man, how? By telling mankind to live by genuine rule of law not manmade rules of laws. Why not manmade rules of laws? Because powerful people will make laws to suit themselves. For example, kings made laws to suit themselves so that they could use and abuse masses and history is full of stories what happened. Mullahs made laws to suit themsleves and again history is full of stories how mullahs used and abused masses. Today it is money power so money talks and all politicians and mullahs do whatever funding people ask them to do. This is why all laws are made in favour of people who control money.

This is why world is up in arms against quranic teachings because the quran wants people to route out all these ways of life and live instead by the way of life told in the quran. The question is, which mullahs have told us what islamic way of life is? There are tonnes of books written by so many mullahs but all are promoting money based systems. Can they not see that Allah has given mankind everything for free? How much did they pay to Allah to for buying this earth and all that exists on it? Even they themselves are work of Allah, so how can they have right to control anything at all as individuals or as individual groups and countries etc?

Can you therefore see why there is clash between quranic teachings and what people teach each other? Mullahs are trying to sell false concepts of islam to people because that is what their funding authorities want them to do. To keep people divided so that while masses are busy wasting time in debating false beliefs and ritual and fight over them rulers could get away with whatever they want from them.

This is the main trick of magicians ie get people to look at something else the while magician is carrying out his trick so that he is not caught doing it. Rulers, mullahs and money lenders work together to make fool of public through their trick mechanism eg politicians use political tricks, money lenders use economic based mechanism to to trick people and mullahs use religion based mechanisms and tricks. So a person has to have wider and deeper understanding of things to catch them out. The quran catches them all and educates people to stay safe from all this by advising them which way they should live and why. It is now up to people to educate themselves and be safe and secure.

You are asking me to stick to main stream but what if main stream is going in the wrong direction? Why is the quran warning against main stream as well as minority? It is because there is no safety in numbers unless the number is based upon solid foundation. Once I ensure that people are based upon right foundation then I am with them and that will mean great things for great people but so long as I have proof to the contrary then there is no such thing as safety in numbers.

When Allah sent his messengers people were on footsteps of their forefathers and if the messengers followed the rule of safety in numbers then how could they invite them to message of Allah? Not that people did not believe in divine revelations but even those who did they also took wrong turns eg jews and christians and in fact all those people who are not muslims as per quranic teachings because Allah sent his messenger to all nations. So what happened to safety in numbers?

This is why the criterion is important not numbers therefore whatever fits the heavenly set criterion is true and whatever fails is false and we should stay away from it or consequences will be dire as the quran itself warns again and again.

All this explanation does not mean to not listen to various people and points of views but develop the capacity to see what is true and what is false and why then accept what makes sense and leave what makes no sense.

So we should follow what makes sense to us and let others follow what makes sense to them. All we can do is explain our own understanding of things and let people decide to acceptor reject it at their risk.

regards and all the best.

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Peace Mughal1

Most of your post was a stab at the ulema so I deleted it ... the relevant parts to the topic at hand I have left ... And will answer below inshaAllah.

You first claim is false - if you had studied the books of the scholars you will see that great effort has been made to preserve hadith - if there was any foul play then they would have hidden the hadith completely but instead they classified them using impartial unbiased methods and so their characters confirmed them - there is no reason to believe they were being biased.

Rijal records do not claim to be representing history - but they claim to be classifying narration. We have the Seerah for history documentation.

Muslims were still ruling and a super power when the hadith were first being documented and there is no evidence to suggest these have been altered.

The idea that we can only trust those hadith where people do not trust each other is ridiculous ...

The Qur'anic transmission is not more authentic than the Sahih hadith - they are equally mutawatir ...

Regarding the matan of hadith - yes - it is true - but only if we are searching for the topic at hand by ourselves - scholars on the other hand have already done the ground work and inherited previous ground work from their teachers ... so the point is mute.

We already have a classification to tell us which hadith are ok or not

We are not required to make SENSE of everything ... if you think that is true then make sense of the Qur'an being revealed by the angel Gabriel (AS) to Muhammad (SAW) ... Make sense of Alif Laam Meem ... You can't and there are many things we simply accept as a matter of faith. This is what submission means

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Re: Miracles & Magic

Brother Mughal1

Please don't beat about the bush ... Explain to me what your thoughts are regarding the Qur'an - how did it come to us? Was it uttered by Sayyiduna Muhammad (SAW)? How did he (SAW) utter it if he was unlettered? Do you believe he (SAW) went to school/tutor and got an education? If you believe it to be Divine Knowledge - the Word of God ... then is that not a miracle? If it is not a miracle then what is special about the Qur'an?

If you believe that Angel Gabriel (AS) brought it to him (SAW) is that not believing in what you proudly term "make-beliefs"?

If the Angel did not bring it ... then what happened exactly?

40

Re: Miracles & Magic

Dear brother psyah, I am making distinction between mullahs and aalims. I am not stabbing at ulema but mullahs and mullaiyat, malaks and malukiyat, sarmaaiydars and sarmayadariyat. Anyone who is part of this game I do not accept such a person is aalim of quran. It seems you are not even aware of this divide. In that case you will not be able to understand where I am coming from. I hope one day you do. That way you will be able to see the difference between two pictures of islam. One coming from rulers, their mullahs and money lenders in form of religions and sectarianism and another genuine islam.

You have totally ignored my distinction between quran and hadith. I did not say the hadith is rubbish but explained how we should take hadith as genuine and why. Your claim about hadith being matwatar is not true because quran as a whole has been there all the time among the ummah in every city. Not so the hadith reports rather muhaddas had to travel to find out who had something to tell about the prophet. Even today you will find many more people haafize quran than haafize haadis. So all evidences point to the fact that the quran is more important than the hadith.

Not only that you will see copies of the quran available even today from the time very close to the time of the prophet but we do not have any single copy of the hadith till after a few centuries. So the quran and hadith are not of equal authenticity. You can claim anything you want but you will not be able to evidence it.

Another point that distinguishes between the quran and hadith is that one is word of Allah through the prophet and then prophet spread it through his followers but the other is word or deed of the prophet which is reported by individuals if they felt like keeping record for personal reasons. Had the prophet told people to keep records of both equally then we would have had both records from the very same time but we do not. Not only this but there are other reasons as well which distinguish between the degree to which each of them is preserved and is important. By making hadith more important or even equally important to the quran people have created problems in the ummah.

Anyone who has studied all this in detail will tell you that. The quran is not disputed even by shia and sunni orthodoxy but each have their own sets of hadith books. All these evidences show that the quran should be treated very differently from the hadith. This is why the quran is the base of islam not hadith.

Right from the start I said that the quran has external evidences that distinguish it from the hadith. Nowhere I said hadith is not important or is rubbish but that it is of secondary importance.

If we reject hadith and history of islam totally then we cannot explain many things about islam so I cannot dare to say throw away hadith just stick to the quran alone. However I am not prepared to accept that hadith is as important as the quran or in some case more important than the quran.

The quran is word of Allah so it has a place value of its own being word of Allah ie the quran is a book of its own category. It will be silly to treat it like words of people. Allah alone is ruler of this universe and man be he a prophet of Allah is still his subject.

My way of looking at things is very different from you so I do not think that we can agree on things but it is good that we are sharing our points of views.
May be things will turn ok in the end when we each learn more and more.

regards and all the best.