I've spent several weeks reading about Mormons.


Very interesting. Very far fetched. They believe that God is not eternal. They believe that God is actually a man who lived a Godly life and his reward is that he can is God of our planet. They believe that God is from planet Kolub. They think that if they are good Mormons that they too will be Gods of their own planet.


Very odd. I cannot comprehend how people believe it.

The word salafi or "early Muslim" in traditional Islamic scholarship means someone who died within the first four hundred years after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), including scholars such as Abu Hanifa, Malik, Shafi'i, and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Anyone who died after this is one of the khalaf or "latter-day Muslims".


The term "Salafi" was revived as a slogan and movement, among latter-day Muslims, by the followers of Muhammad Abduh (the student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani) some thirteen centuries after the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), approximately a hundred years ago. Like similar movements that have historically appeared in Islam, its basic claim was that the religion had not been properly understood by anyone since the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and the early Muslims--and themselves.


In terms of ideals, the movement advocated a return to a shari'a-minded orthodoxy that would purify Islam from unwarranted accretions, the criteria for judging which would be the Qur'an and hadith. Now, these ideals are noble, and I don't think anyone would disagree with their importance. The only points of disagreement are how these objectives are to be defined, and how the program is to be carried out. It is difficult in a few words to properly deal with all the aspects of the movement and the issues involved, but I hope to publish a fuller treatment later this year, insha'Allah, in a collection of essays called "The Re-Formers of Islam".


As for its validity, one may note that the Salafi approach is an interpretation of the texts of the Qur'an and sunna, or rather a body of interpretation, and as such, those who advance its claims are subject to the same rigorous criteria of the Islamic sciences as anyone else who makes interpretive claims about the Qur'an and sunna; namely, they must show:


1. that their interpretations are acceptable in terms of Arabic language;


2. that they have exhaustive mastery of all the primary texts that relate to each question, and


3. that they have full familiarity of the methodology of usul al-fiqh or "fundamentals of jurisprudence" needed to comprehensively join between all the primary texts.


Only when one has these qualifications can one legitimately produce a valid interpretive claim about the texts, which is called ijtihad or "deduction of shari'a" from the primary sources. Without these qualifications, the most one can legitimately claim is to reproduce such an interpretive claim from someone who definitely has these qualifications; namely, one of those unanimously recognized by the Umma as such since the times of the true salaf, at their forefront the mujtahid Imams of the four madhhabs or "schools of jurisprudence".


As for scholars today who do not have the qualifications of a mujtahid, it is not clear to me why they should be considered mujtahids by default, such as when it is said that someone is "the greatest living scholar of the sunna" any more than we could qualify a school-child on the playground as a physicist by saying, "He is the greatest physicist on the playground". Claims to Islamic knowledge do not come about by default. Slogans about "following the Qur'an and sunna" sound good in theory, but in practice it comes down to a question of scholarship, and who will sort out for the Muslim the thousands of shari'a questions that arise in his life. One eventually realizes that one has to choose between following the ijtihad of a real mujtahid, or the ijtihad of some or another "movement leader", whose qualifications may simply be a matter of reputation, something which is often made and circulated among people without a grasp of the issues.


What comes to many peoples minds these days when one says "Salafis" is bearded young men arguing about din. The basic hope of these youthful reformers seems to be that argument and conflict will eventually wear down any resistance or disagreement to their positions, which will thus result in purifying Islam. Here, I think education, on all sides, could do much to improve the situation.


The reality of the case is that the mujtahid Imams, those whose task it was to deduce the Islamic shari'a from the Qur'an and hadith, were in agreement about most rulings; while those they disagreed about, they had good reason to, whether because the Arabic could be understood in more than one way, or because the particular Qur'an or hadith text admitted of qualifications given in other texts (some of them acceptable for reasons of legal methodology to one mujtahid but not another), and so forth.


Because of the lack of hard information in English, the legitimacy of scholarly difference on shari'a rulings is often lost sight of among Muslims in the West. For example, the work Fiqh al-sunna by the author Sayyid Sabiq, recently translated into English, presents hadith evidences for rulings corresponding to about 95 percent of those of the Shafi'i school. Which is a welcome contribution, but by no means a "final word" about these rulings, for each of the four schools has a large literature of hadith evidences, and not just the Shafi'i school reflected by Sabiq's work. The Maliki school has the Mudawwana of Imam Malik, for example, and the Hanafi school has the Sharh ma'ani al-athar [Explanation of meanings of hadith] and Sharh mushkil al-athar [Explanation of problematic hadiths], both by the great hadith Imam Abu Jafar al-Tahawi, the latter work of which has recently been published in sixteen volumes by Mu'assasa al-Risala in Beirut. Whoever has not read these and does not know what is in them is condemned to be ignorant of the hadith evidence for a great many Hanafi positions.


What I am trying to say is that there is a large fictional element involved when someone comes to the Muslims and says, "No one has understood Islam properly except the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) and early Muslims, and our sheikh". This is not valid, for the enduring works of first-rank Imams of hadith, jurisprudence, Qur'anic exegesis, and other shari'a disciplines impose upon Muslims the obligation to know and understand their work, in the same way that serious comprehension of any other scholarly field obliges one to have studied the works of its major scholars who have dealt with its issues and solved its questions. Without such study, one is doomed to repeat mistakes already made and rebutted in the past.


Most of us have acquaintances among this Umma who hardly acknowledge another scholar on the face of the earth besides the Imam of their madhhab, the Sheikh of their Islam, or some contemporary scholar or other. And this sort of enthusiasm is understandable, even acceptable (at a human level) in a non-scholar. But only to the degree that it does not become ta'assub or bigotry, meaning that one believes onemay put down Muslims who follow other qualified scholars. At that point it is haram, because it is part of the sectarianism (tafarruq) among Muslims that Islam condemns.


When one gains Islamic knowledge and puts fiction aside, one sees that superlatives about particular scholars such as "the greatest" are untenable; that each of the four schools of classical Islamic jurisprudence has had many many luminaries. To imagine that all preceding scholarship should be evaluated in terms of this or that "Great Reformer" is to ready oneself for a big letdown, because intellectually it cannot be supported. I remember once hearing a law student at the University of Chicago say: "I'm not saying that Chicago has everything. Its just that no place else has anything." Nothing justifies transposing this kind of attitude onto our scholarly resources in Islam, whether it is called "Islamic Movement", "Salafism", or something else, and the sooner we leave it behind, the better it will be for our Islamic scholarship, our sense of reality, and for our din.

Salam all


It's really funny and truthful. And there is a nice message at the end.


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7...q=muslim+comedy

Bismillah


As Salam alaikum


My son entered a contest... okay... we entered him in a cute baby contest because the winner gets $10000 scholarship. I could really use that help. :)


If anyone interested in helping could go here: http://www.evenflo.com/tabid/210/photoType.../3/Default.aspx


and vote for him I would greatly appreciate it. :D


If this does not work... go to the evenflo website and vote for stl-053


Voting starts July 1st and you can vote once a day for two weeks if you are really bored.


My family thanks you and little Levi thanks you!


As Salam alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatu

Bismillah:


this is for our non Muslim guets in order for them to get better understanding of what really monotheism is according to Islam.


<b>Tawheed Definition and Categories</b>


Islam believes in ‘Tawheed’ which is not merely monotheism i.e. belief in one unique God, but much more. Tawheed literally means “unification” i.e. “asserting oneness” and is derived from the Arabic verb <i>“Wahhada”</i> which means to unite, unify or consolidate. Tawheed can be divided into 3 categories. (i) Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah (ii) Tawheed al-Asmaa-was-sifaat (iii) Tawheed al-Ibaadah.


<b></b>


a. Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah (maintaining the unity of Lordship)


The first category is ‘Tawheed ar-Ruboobeeyah’. ‘Ruboobeeyah’ is derived from the root verb “Rabb” meaning Lord, Sustainer and Cherisher.


Therefore ‘Tawheed-ar-Ruboobeeyah’ means maintaining the unity of Lordship. This category is based on the fundamental concept that Allah alone caused all things to exist when there was nothing. He created or originated all that exists out of nothing. <b>He alone </b> is the sole Creator, Cherisher, and Sustainer of the complete universe and all between it, without any need from it or for it.


<b>b. Tawheed al-Asmaa was-sifaat (maintaining the unity of Allah’s name and attributes)</b>


The second category is ‘Tawheed al Asmaa was sifaat’ which means maintaining the unity of Allah’s name and attributes. This category is divided into five aspects:


(i) Allah should be referred to as described by Him and His Prophet: Allah must be referred to according to the manner in which He and His prophet have described Him without explaining His names and attributes by giving them meanings other than their obvious meanings.


(ii) Allah must be referred to as He has referred to Himself Allah must be referred to without giving Him any new names or attributes. For example Allah may not be given the name al-Ghaadib (the Angry One), despite the fact that he has said that He gets angry, because neither Allah nor His messenger have used this name.


(iii) Allah is referred to without giving Him the attributes of His creation, In a reference to God, we should strictly abstain from giving him the attributes of those He has created. For instance in the Bible, <b>God is portrayed as repenting for his bad thoughts in the same way as humans do when they realize their errors. This is completely against the principle of Tawheed. God does not repent and He does not commit any mistakes or errors. </b>


The key principle when dealing with Allah’s attributes is given in the Holy Qur’an in Surah Ash-Shurah:


<b>“There is nothing Whatever like unto Him, And He is the One that hears and sees (all things).” </b> [Holy Qur’an 42:11]


Although hearing and seeing are human qualities, when attributed to the divine being they are without <b>comparison</b> in their perfection unlike when associated with humans who require ears, eyes, etc. and who are limited in their sight and hearing.


(iv) Men should not be given any attribute of God: To refer to a human with the attribute of God is also against the principle of Tawheed. For example, referring to a person as one who has no beginning or end (eternal).


(v) Allah’s name cannot be given to his creatures: Some divine names in the indefinite form, like ‘Raoof’ or ‘Raheem’ are permissible names for men as Allah has used them for Prophets; but ‘Ar-Raoof’ (the Most Pious) and Ar-Raheem (the most Merciful) can only be used if prefixed by ‘Abd’ meaning “slave of” or “servant of”. i.e. ‘Abdur-Raoof’ or ‘Abdur-Raheem’. [Holy Qur’an (42:11)]


<b>c. Tawheed al-Ibaadah (maintaining the unity of worship)</b>


(i) Definition and meaning of Ibadaah:


Tawheed al-Ibaadah means maintaining the unity of worship or ‘Ibaadah’. Ibaadah is derived from Arabic word ‘Abd’ meaning slave or servant. Thus Ibaadah means servitude and worship. Salaah is one of the highest forms of Ibaadah i.e. worship but is not the only form. People misunderstand that worship of Almighty God only means ritual prayers <b>but the concept of worship in Islam includes total obedience, submission and servitude. Following the commandments of God and abstaining from things He has forbidden is Ibaadah (worship) and this worship is only due to Allah alone and to no one else. </b>





(ii) All three categories to be followed simultaneously.


Only believing in the first two categories of Tawheed without implementing Tawheed-al-Ibaadah is useless.


The Qur’an gives the examples of “Mushrikeens” (idolaters) of the Prophet’s time who confirmed the first two aspects of Tawheed. It is mentioned in the Holy Qur’an: Say: “Who is it that Sustains you (in life) from the sky and from the earth? Or who is it that Has power over hearing And sight? And who Is it that brings out The living from the dead And the dead from the living? And who is it that rules and regulates all affairs? They will soon say, “Allah”. Say, “Will you not then show piety (to Him)?” [Holy Qur’an 10:31]


A similar example is repeated in Surah Zukhruf of the Holy Qur’an:”If thou ask them, Who Created them, they will certainly say, Allah: <b>how Then are they deluded Away (from the Truth)?” </b> [Holy Qur’an 43:87]


The pagan Meccans knew that Allah was their Creator, Sustainer, Lord and Master. <b>Yet they were not Muslims because they also worshipped other gods besides Allah</b>. Allah categorized them as “Kuffaars” (disbelievers) and “Mushrikeen” (idol worshippers <b>and those who associate partners with God</b>). “And most of them Believe not in Allah without associating (others As partners) with Him!” [Holy Qur’an 12:106]


Thus Tawheed al-Ibaadah i.e. maintaining the unity of worship is the most important aspect of Tawheed. <b>He alone deserves worship and He alone can grant benefit to man for his worship. </b>


Salam


Wael.


Based on Dr Zakir Naik's work.

Salams


Alhamdulilah I have this good friend of mine who has accepted Islam recently. Does she need to remove her tattoos? I understand that you should but only if it's one that is small, for large ones it should be left because removing it is actually going to be harmful. That's what I heard but I'm not sure if it's authentic.


Please help me with a link or something. She's ready to do anything to remove them but I told her to wait.


I want only daleel.


Thank you.

Is a Pilgrimage to Mecca commanded in Islam?


What happens if you don't ever do it?


Is it true that now days because it's so crowded that one must apply to make the pilgrimage?

There are many different variations on the covering that Muslim women wear. Which one is correct?





or





or





or





There seem to be some that think total covering is the only way...the Taliban for example. Others seem more moderate. Is there a right way? What explains the differences?

Hi all!


Look, what cool sites ...............


<b>Since this is your first post and I will "ASSUME THAT U DID NOT READ RULES AND REGULATIONS",
consider this your first warning, second time you will be banned.</b>


Peace

Assalamu 3alaikum


Here is a very good islamic community MashaAllah:


http://s15.invisionfree.com/jaysh_alansar


Wassalam


Abu Layla