It is one thing to question the argument put forward by a scholar of Islam, but muslims seem too prone to turn against individual scholars and try to negate their views through directly questioning their right to give religious guidance.
I’ve experienced this before when I posted fatwas issued by a scholar who’s views I generally hold to, and who has a very wide following in the arab world, only to have a Gupshup member directly question why I would listen to the man.
Another case arose I just saw now. Sadiyah often posts from a site that is the outlet for Q&A fatwas by a scholar in Saudi Arabia, Sheikh Saalih Al-Munajjid, who is also a very widely followed scholar in the arab world.
While I was trying to understand more about the man, I came across a web page that tries to discredit him as a source of religious guidance. But the manner in which it is done is despicable - rather than try and argue against the logic and reason of his fatwas, they get personal and try and say that he is not a trustworthy source.
Why do some amongst us sink this low rather than argue with religious reason and logic, an intellectual rebuttal of religious views?
A better example might be that of two scholars who Sharaabi and I briefly discussed last night. The two scholars gave contradicting fatwas: one would consider that the other was declaring what is haraam to be halaal, and the other would consider the first to be declaring what is halaal to be haraam. Yet despite that difference, they did remain friends and did not display enmity to each other.
Maddy, sometimes when people see others following a 'logic' that is totally wack (according to them anyway) they try to go against the source rather than the logic. Maybe because (1) either they can't refute it (2) they think it is too stupid to even be argued.
None the less I think there is a little too much influence on listening to someone being "Sheikh Al-Hajj Al-Kabira" whereas someone relatively unknown can make a sound argument against the Sheikh only to be shot down by saying "You are not a scholar, how can you go against Sheikh falana dhimkana?" which really defeats the purpose of a 'discussion'
This only happens when har airaa gheraa nathu kheraa starts making his/her own size of Islam by interpreting it after reading few ayahs from Quran without knowing:
The background of it
The ahaadeeth related to the topic at hand
The understanding of the Prophet:saw: and his companions about the ayah.
The knowledge of All the ayaahs related to the topic in the Quran along with their background, context, and traditions from the Sunnah.
^ I doubt you need to have that much background knowledge, because the Quran itself says that you can understand it without the help of anyone else's knowledge...
If you were to study the hadith, history, the Prophet, etc - you could spend your whole lifetime studying all that.
So...then does that mean, out of all of us guppies, you AQ are the only one who can comment and explain these ayahs to us, and we are too stupid to understand without your help?
Egoistic attitudes of people like AQ is exactly what that above link reeks of.
actually there are numerous places where Quran says that Prophet:saw: is the one who teaches us Quran through Tazkiya and he is the one who has an example of Quran. We understand Quran only through him and him alone. And I can brings so many references from Quran itself if you wish to read.
3:164 Certainly Allah conferred a benefit upon the believers when He raised among them a Messenger from among themselves, reciting to them His communications and purifying them, and teaching them the Book and the wisdom, although before that they were surely in manifest error.
Maddy let me say this to you, do you know that one of the most important criteria used to judge if a person can be trusted as a truthful source for hadith is his character. This has been ingrained into the muslim scholars to discredit the character/personlaity rather than the logic. Hence my stance on questioning every hadith and try to coroborate the message with Quran.
Umm where those footnotes/explaination come from ? umm are they part of Quran or they are referenced from some hadiath or something ? I do not understand you, all the time you say ’ Oh, Quran is so easily understandable… blah blah blah, and then in a minute you chagne your stance by saying, well there are ‘footnotes’.
My point is merely, that with all the resources available, you don't have to be some 10-year madrassah student to understand what the Quran says...to basically not belittle the knowledge of others for that stems from trying to satisfy one's ego...something I see a LOT in this forum, unfortunately - and those kids know who they are.
Kaleem - I disagree there - I think questioning the validity of what someone says based on their character is extrememly important, and its logical. The logic is that if someone is telling you something, but you've known them to lie about something else, then what proof do you have that they are not lying to you?
AQ: It comes back down to the history. The prophet's explanations are very important, but one wonders why he never had them recorded the way the Quranic versus were recorded, and why certain Qurans were burned because of personal notation made in them (ex. Ali's (R) copy of the Quran). If you absolutely NEEDED these extra sources to understand the Quran, then the Prophet would have made sure to make a separate recording of them, and I'm sure Abu Bakr would have made sure to write down all the hadith at the same time the first paper copy of the Quran was being compiled.
But that didn't happen, did it? Please asnwer my question, regarding WHO is able to understand the Quran.
PCG, my point is that too much weight was given to the character of the person instead of the message, for example, the hadith (Ghareeb in my estimation) where Hazrat Aisha (r) alledgedly spoke about taking a bath together with Prophet:saw:. Now dont get me wrong, may be it did happen (bath)…but I doubt that this will be something that she will share with the rest of the world. We need to look at the message not just the character.
