Here I have raised the question as regard comprehensiveness of Islam as a God appointed perfect way of life. I am trying to help people become aware of the fact that such a claim by Muslims is absurd because it makes no sense whatsoever. Nonetheless to promote their this make belief, Muslims have been doing all they can and have been successful in gaining many converts even in Europe and America. They are very proud to present these people as mark of their success and as proof of truth of their faith, Islam. I on the other hand am trying to understand, what went wrong that these people converted to Islam the while people like myself have left Islam after realizing the truth about Islam. To answer the question I have raised above, one has to look at how Islam evolved. The idea is that if Islam was truly revealed by a perfect God, it ought to be perfect right from the day one needing no further improvements. Because Islam has been improved upon on daily basis right from the days of the prophet, gives evidence to the suspicion that Islam was never revealed by any God whatsoever but was created by people themselves. This is not just my claim, one has to examine the Islamic claims and the related source materials.
According to my understanding of the Islamic source material, it does not have anything comprehensive in it never mind everything for all and forever. As an ideology, Islam has been improved upon. As a political, social, cultural or economic system, structure or practice Islam has been improved upon, so when was Islam perfect, complete or comprehensive for all times to come? The very basic source of Islam is the Quran. The question is, is the Quran complete, perfect and comprehensive about anything even today? Please examine the Quran and see what you yourself find. The Quranic text we have today, is the one that was authorized by the then 3rd Caliph of Islam, who burned all the existing copies of the Quran that differed with his version of the Quranic text. Does that sound anything like perfect revelation preserved perfectly? By the way, this is not my claim but what is clearly stated in Islamic sources that were prepared by Muslims themselves. I am saying this just in case you think, well, enemies of Islam have to say such bad things about Islam, do they not? It took Allah 23 years to complete the revelation of the Quran to the prophet yet it had to be sorted out by Uthman, can you imagine the incompetence of Allah the almighty and competence of Uthman an ordinary human being?
The 2nd point is that if The Quran was sufficient as divine guidance, why there was developed the literature called Hadith? The development of Hadith literature is evidence of the fact that the Quran on its own was found insufficient as guidance by the muslims themselves. Regardless, Hadith is another most fundamental source of Islamic faith 2nd only to the Quran. The Hadith collections were written down more than a couple of centuries after the death of the prophet. Not only that but people who collected these reports rejected many folds more than they accepted. So much for the claim that Islam is a perfect religion. One can surely see that Islamic sources have a history and if they have a history that only shows their gradual development with time and not a sudden revelation by some God.
The question is, why these fundamental sources were developed this way if they were allegedly revealed word of God? This question becomes yet more forceful if looked at in context of another Muslim claim, which is that Allah created Adam and Eve and to Adam he revealed the very first message for guidance and that since then Allah never left people without his perfect guidance etc etc etc … Imagine a people being taught perfect knowledge right from the day one and yet they do not learn, progress or prosper even as good as their enemies? Does that make any sense to anyone? Are we human really like that, that we never learn no matter how hard someone tries to teach us the good things about life? Are we so uninterested in knowing about the world in which we are born and die? Do we never raise questions as to where did all this come from? Are such religious claims then true?
The fact is, we spend billions of dollars on education, research and exploration and that we are very curious about our universe. So the religious claims about humans that they are totally ignorant and evil are not true, for we ourselves and our actions contradict them. We are always busy trying to find better and better ways of doing better and better things to minimize pain and suffering in our world and to get rid of death and destruction that animals inflict on each other, including humans as is obvious if we realize things about our food chain and warfare between ourselves. Had we been guided through perfect guidance, it would not have taken us so many generation to be where we are today in respect of our development and progress. The time we took to be where we are today shows that we never had any message from any God to guide us rather we have been learning by our own experimentation from our own mistakes and taking corrective measures if we realized that we were doing something wrong or in a wrong sort of way.
So in the light of facts such as I have mentioned here, Islam being the comprehensive way of life from Allah is a false claim by Muslims. Islam was not revealed by any God but was developed by people themselves as the evidence clearly suggests if we study Islamic sources which show gradual development of this religion by humans themselves.
In time of Muhammad, he being the chief himself and present amongst people, decided all matters as he went along and thought fit attributing them to his imaginary Allah as a messenger of this Allah. There was therefore no need for any other source than the alleged divine revelation to himself ie The Quran. However, after the death of Muhammad, when such problem arose which were not addressed by Muhammad as the Quran, due to later developments need arose for people to have another source besides the Quran to answer their questions to maintain the false claim to give the false impression that Islam is a comprehensive way of life and so has all the answers to all the questions for everyone for ever, therefore the idea of Hadith was developed. Just as the Quran could not be continued to develop due to death of the prophet and had to be finalised, there came a time when the Hadith text also became stable and finalised. Thus due to yet further developments when even the Hadith failed to address problems that arose due to changing nature of our world and the circumstances of Muslims therein, there arose need for yet another source, ie the Fiqh, just to continue the notion that Islam has the answer to everything for ever.
At each step because measures were taken by ordinary people after the prophet, they decided things differently and that resulted into permanent divides between Muslims in form of sectarianism that continues to date. Thus one can see how Islam turned out to be what we see today ie a gradually developed religion that was never comprehensive in any way even during the time of the prophet himself hence the theory of continuation of the revelation over 23 years and the story of collections of Ahadith over a few centuries.
In fact, let us look at our own setup as regard education. When it comes to educating our kids in our schools, we try to teach them all they need to know (provided we know it ourselves) but let them learn at their own pace. However, Islam never had comprehensive teaching nor people ever learned it at once. This is why Muslims always fought over what Islam exactly was and is and the fighting continues. Such comprehensive is Islam as a religion. Do I need say more?
Please note that my idea is to help people know what Islamic sources are, where to find them online and how to look at them to know what Islam really is and what Muslims really are. Once we are armed with such knowledge, we are then in a better position to examine Islam for ourselves as well as help our other (Muslim and non-Muslim) friends to know Islam for what it really is and so that they can then make up their own minds about it properly. Moreover it would help us discuss Islam methodically.
Islamic sources are of such importance to Muslims that many of those who claim to believe in them would not hesitate killing or dying for them. Islam is a very dangerous cult or a peaceful religion, would only become obvious once we look at it in a few different ways. The most important is the Muslim belief that the Quran is the perfect divine revelation that has been preserved perfectly and we have the task of proving otherwise despite the fact that Muslims have failed to prove what they claim about the Quran.
To continue this explanation I would raise another question ie what is Fiqh? The importance of understanding Fiqh will soon be obvious if one bears with me.
The word fiqh=comprehension or understanding but it is extensively used to represent understanding of islamic jurisprudence ie fiqh al shari al islamiah which means body of knowledge or understanding relating islamic laws or in short SHARIAH.