Re: Shi'ahs
I do.
I don’t know very much about Islam so I don’t know if I can consider myself a Muslim or not. As a young’n all I was taught first by my Mullah was to chant the Koran from scripture and that was in Arabic so I didn’t understand what I was chanting because I didn’t understand Arabic, same way I was taught the 6 Kalmas and the 2 declarations of Iman by heart without understanding their meaning, and a few other rituals and practices without going into details on what they meant such as Wuzu and Namaz.
I knew we’re meant to pray to an invisible God who we can’t comprehend or picturise in our heads because he is too great for that and I had a vague idea that he sent a holy man to guide us to him called Muhammad but that’s it, I hadn’t the faintest clue about the early history of Islam or that there was other religious sources besides the Koran in Islam.
When I got the Internet I got curious and searched for stuff on Islam and was fascinated and read sites by Sunnis, Shi’ahs, Sufis and all sorts and got some sort of limited spiritual satisfaction from all of them but then I decided I wanted to find the ultimate truthful version of Islam because they all contradicted so much but I was left quite confused because each one claims to be on the truth and there’s so many sects and sub sects, Sunnis, Shi’ahs, Sufis, Zaidis (Fivers), Ismailis (Seveners), Ithna-Asharis (Twelvers), Taqlidi Sunnis vs. Salafi Sunnis, Ash’ari vs. Maturidi vs. Murji’ah vs. Mu’tazili etc. etc. and each one claims to be on Haq and says the others are all on Baatil or partially on Baatil.
"Who cares” has to be the most idiotic response ever, you must be a true ignorant especially if you consider yourself Muslim, so many times when questions like this pop up Mullahs who are probably not comfortable in their beliefs and can not be arsed to think outside their comfort zones will try brushing the question under the carpet with “oh who cares, let’s concentrate on our own actions and improve our own piety, Allah will judge everyone else including the early Muslims”, that sort of response can only come from a true ignorant, the dedication to Islam of these early Muslims effects our piety because they are suppose to be our teachers and our sources for interpreting the Koran and narrators of the Prophetic tradition, how do we know which ones we should follow and whether we’re on the right track if we don’t judge them and just blindly follow whatever our mommy daddy taught us and what the Mualavi read from Ashraf Ali Thanvis works? With their being so many sects phat chance of us being born into a family which practices the right kind.