Re: Yoga and Islam
First, let me apologize if I came off as confrontational. I didn’t mean to.
As for people in sports using yoga, here you go:
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/playoffs2008/news/story?id=3816419
And comparing yoga to HGH or steroids is hardly appropriate. Yoga, like I said is just exercise (like lifting weights) to improve your physical performance. HGH adds additional hormones to help your recover and build muscle faster. I say additional because doing a heavy set of squats or sprints will also naturally increase HGH production in your body for a few hours.
I’m assuming most of the players in the article above are christian and do not believe in Hinduism, yet they practice it for physical benefits.
There is a physical and spiritual aspect to yoga. That’s the point I was making. My grandfather was pretty scholarly and I skimmed through a book on yoga describing not only the physical exercises but the spirituality behind it; what yogis believe the spirit is made of, elements of the body, things like that. Do I believe that stuff? No. I actually don’t even practice yoga.
Again, if you practice the spiritual, religious aspect of yoga, then yeah it’s probably not Islamic. If you just do some of the exercises, I don’t see the problem. But if you’re really religious then you might. I actually just googled this topic and even on some websites, (supposed) Islamic experts also say that if you do it just for the exercise they don’t see the harm in it.
I mean, what if a certain stretch after exercising is too close to a yoga pose? Did you just commit sin? Doesn’t that sound a little ridiculous to you?