the situation here is that one extreme points fingers at the other extreme and calls them wrong and thereby say that they are right.
Fact of the matter is that the oh-so0liberal muslims who do not follow the basic principles of faith are just as wrong as the extremists drippign with the venom of hate.
so who is right, the person who is liberal in the eyes of an ultra right winger, may be conservative in the eyes of a left winger, but in fact is a moderate person who is not leaning to either extreme.
kaleem, there are many other things that islam says, haqooq al ibaad being one of them, how many of the rabid right wingers are willing to satisfy those?
mystical miss, and you seem to be out of a mullah do piaza story. if writers create confusion it does not mean one can not address it and remove the confusion, even if there are people who may not be able to see clearly because they have been indoctrined and cant think rationally.
Pir ji, I just brought up the example of gays because it has been discussed here recently. I agree that it is a never ending cycle...One group will always find fault with the other, but, this problem can be avoided...if we all recognize the basic tenants of Islam and agree upon on them. Some of the examples in Quran are very clear and do not require an alim to provide tafseer. For example, Shirk, pork/bacon/ham being haram, adultery, murder, definition of munafiq, and wrath of ALLAH for gays.
I was only hoping to call upon the liberal muslims to understand that there is no wiggle room in some of the commandments from ALLAH...that is all.
basic principles are one thing, but when people show up with statements with no backing, or interpretations which are human interpretations and not word of god, yet try to force it in your face like it is a basic principle then I have an issue. If people spend more time following the basics rather than playing mujtahids and imams we will be in a much better situation.
While there is no wiggle room to make it more "liberal" the opposite applies as well, there is no wiggle room to make it more "puritanical". There are however things which have different schools fo thought, something as simple as whether shellfish is hallal has differences among scholars, so in that case there is a wiggle room based on which interpretation you are following.
I constantly see delf declared defenders of the faith attack others who are more liberal than them, but I dont see the same occuring for those more puritanical then them. If you want room temmprature water, you dont just say no to ice cold water, but you also say no to scalding hot water.
I beg to differ. Islam is always attacked on GS if it disagrees with a persons own views on the matter. I would like a definition of moderate Islam by using the religion as the basis. I would not like generalized statements saying that Moderate islam is more open minded or more tolerant.
Please show, illustrate in crayon if need be how your definition of Moderate Islam differs in anyway from what Conservative islam.
Again i am not asking for generalized statements. I want concrete examples where Islam is different between moderates and conservatives. Take a hadis that differs or a surah or even a practice that is accepted as islamic and then show how the mere words moderate and conservative make it a different form of Islam.