If you have time, please read read also whatever sections of the Hadith interest you. If you need to catch up on blog points, you may comment on additional Qur'an or Hadith passages for extra credit. Please address each Qur'an or Hadith passage you talk about as a separate comment.
I guess one reason why the Islamic faith became a world religion is because of the gospel give them guidance and light. Some people want guidance in the life and how to live their life and how to treat others. Another reason would be to show kindness to parents and kindred, to orphans, helpless neighbors and etc. To treat your parents with respect even in their old age because it was them who nursed you when you were a baby. How to treat women that are widows related to you or marrying him and forcing him before marriage is consummated. I guess how to treat people in general.
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ReplyDeleteWhat I think: Islam is in so many aspects so close to Christianity. I find a lot of truths in what I’ve read so far in the Qur’an, but right after these “truths” are revealed then it takes a turn in the exact opposite direction. I’ve always heard that the best lies are based on truth and this is what I think about this religion: that it’s based on truth but actually a whole lie. Once I got halfway through reading point 5a I had a sudden realization: Satan is the father of lies. He wants to deceive us so that he can keep man from coming to God:
ReplyDeleteThe Bible is God-inspired, written by many, many authors over a long period of time and everything that’s written is always repeated and confirmed throughout the Book. The Qur’an is written by one “prophet of god.” Why would supposedly the same god write one book with many authors with a ton of evidence and confirmations suddenly decide to change his way and write a new book- one written by only one author that completely contradicts the first? At this stage of my knowledge of Islam, I really think that Satan was actually the one that Muhammed thinks was God speaking to him. Satan is a clever being, has been around since the beginning, knows a ton about men and the laws of the universe and is able to make things look like magic to easily trick men into believing that he could actually be god and is stronger than God (a quick example I use often: if I was to travel back in time with a flashlight and show it to people, they’d think it was magic because they didn’t understand it- just the same as todays “magic”). It seems to me that the “god” that Muslims think is Allah is not the same God as the Christian God, rather Satan. Satan just wants to deceive men and the closer it looks like the truth the easier it is to believe. - Another saying: ‘the bigger the lie the easier it is to believe it.’
So what I’ve concluded so far is that it’s really easy to be deceived, especially when it sounds like the truth. This is why I think that Islam spread so quickly to become a world religion- it sounds a lot like Christianity, but in fact it is the opposite.
It seems to me that Islam had a head start as a world religion because of its claim to have the same god as Judaism and Christianity. Since the Jews had long been dispersed and Christians were scattered worldwide as well, there was a sort of foundation on which to build. On p. 291, Novak talks about this continuity and recognition of Islam's predecessors. Some of the teachings and basic forms of rituals are so similar that it seems easy for Christians and Jews to follow them. I agree with Aleya, though, that one man's teachings, which contradict already existing, long standing consistent Scriptures, should be discarded as deceptive and dangerous. 1 John 4 & 5 and 2 Peter 1 emphasize that God Himself testified on the Mount of Transfiguration that Jesus is His Son, sent to be the Savior of the world, and Peter and John were eyewitnesses (along with James) who heard God's audible testimony. (John the Baptist also heard God say the same when Jesus was baptized.) If anyone denies that Jesus is the Son of God, he is calling God a liar and does not belong to God (1 Jn 5:10-11; 4:14-15). John identifies this as the spirit of antichrist.
ReplyDeleteNovak tried to present Islam as such a mild religion with reasonable punishments, but Bukhari 8,82,794 (Punishment of disbelievers) is not consistent with this. This is in regard to some who had converted to Islam and then left it. The Prophets order that their hands and legs be cut off, their eyes be branded with a hot iron, and then that they be left to bleed to death.
ReplyDeleteIn Muslim book 16 there is more clarity that Jews are considered infidels whose testimony (even if there are 50 who testify) is not valid (see #4120, for example). In #4813 of that book, a Jew is condemned by Muhammed to have his head crushed between two stones on the testimony of one woman (even though the testimony of two women is required to equal the witness of one Muslim man).
ReplyDeleteMalik :: Book 48 : Hadith 48.7.15 has kind of a strange one. Here is the command I have heard of before but thought must be a joke, that one must put the right shoe on before the left, and remove the left shoe before the right. There is no explanation here nor in the ones around it as to why. It seems fairly random, anyway.
ReplyDeleteOne thing to observe here that I find more interesting is that the reporting of what Muhammed said came to the writer through five other people, so it is being accepted even though reported 6th-hand, so to speak. This sounds about as reliable as the game of telephone.