I have many questions.

[Mahasvapna]

Bismillah:


that was long post indeed ;)


could you please just ask straight questiosns and bring them one by one so we can focus on one topic at the time.


thanks alot.


by the way, are you a Hindu?


Salam


Wael

Namaste,


:lol: Yeah, I have a tendancy to slip into a particular line of thought and stay there until it runs out. My apologies for any bleeding eyes :blink:


My questions are largely conceptual. To come out and paraphrase is easier to understand, but doing so narrows the concept into something much more superficial. If I had the proper cultural experience, I would simply spend time in meditation to answer these questions. As I do not have that context, It's difficult to fit the concept into a framework of words.


Ah, I would say that of all the traditions of wisdom, the hindu tradition is my focus. Mahasvapna is a sanskrit word that means "the great dream." I took it on because it best quantifies my view towards knowledge and structured existence.


After some consideration, here are a few direct questions to start with. They are more conceptually abstract in my mind than they sound.


1. How does Islam quantify the individual connection to Allah, and is it considered dogma or individually specific?


At first glance the answer is simple - obviously any connection to God is going to be personal. However, for instance - in christianity there is a concept that I'm sure you're familiar with of being 'saved'. Well, specificall protestant, I am not catholic and cannot speak for that tradition. It's this concept of "accepting jesus as one's personal lord and saviour." I actually read another thread that involved a discussion on this, but found it to all together be rather a preach-off than a discussion. I'm am basically asking, how does the muslim tradition represent or assure this connection? I'm not religious at all, in terms of tradition, but the connection I have to God is very present and real to me. What is the average Muslim's sense of this?


But, the thing is that I do not want to hear verses from the Qu'ran. Not that I have no respect for the words - I find every holy text to be full of useful wisdom, when one is able to take everything in proper context (and I believe this to be a personal achievment of wisdom beyond the text itself). Rather, I am seeking a personal understanding and view. I know that such a thing can be difficult to convey with words alone - it is experiential and the best way to know it is to feel it.


2. How does the Islamic faith justify the many differences between faiths?


This is also more complicated than the initial look may indicate. This is an age old question of 'If my faith is the only right faith, how can yours be right as well?" With no personal context, of course.


I have long believed, as I mentioned in the short story above, that devotion and the right intent is all one needs to live a good life right on through to the other side. However, obviously there is some problem within Islam - and some other traditions as well - of converting to another faith. I already examined a thread dealing with that particular issue, and perhaps understand it better now. However, how does a Muslim who is truly devout gain the equilibrium of conscience to understand that there can be many paths to Allah, to God? Or is this egalitarian attitude not permissible? What is the message of Islam regarding the judgement of others?


3. what is the Islamic view of sociological taboos such as homosexuality, psychosis, etc.?


This I ask because the individual views of traditions vary soooo greatly that it sometimes astounds me. Some traditions suggest an origin of such things, some simply discard it as a fallacy in human perspective - in other words, they don't really exist, they are simply misguided actions - others actually embrace a spectrum of human experience and assert that these kinds of things are simply parts of the fabric of human nature which express themselves as naturally as creativity or reason.


Finally,


4. What is the Islamic view towards sexuality in general?


I ask this question because I have begun to see a pattern within religious traditions between their views on Sexuality, and their traditions of domestication and domestic life (domestication = the process by and through which we accustom our children and one another to the local sociological structure of communication with others and with the self.)


I will ask about the domestic life of Muslims at another time, though, as I will need to contemplate the proper questions to ask to get at what I am looking for. At the moment I don't know enough about other aspects of the unique elements of Islam to know what to ask.


Namaste,


Mahasvapna