Ask Me Anything: Muslim Edition

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What theological reasoning do persons, who claim to act in God’s name and in accord with the Muslim faith, use to justify the directly intended killing of innocent persons?
 
Hello. What is the overall position of Islam in terms of questions about contraception, abortion, and other topics on human life?
 
What shall you ever do when you are buried under 10 meters of questios from CAF members? That is my question.
 
Thanks for your reply. BTW, Jews are also permitted–indeed required–to eat “forbidden foods” to preserve human life. Another similarity! LOL
 
Interesting that some Muslim scholars teach that hell may not be final. My understanding is that some Protestant scholars teach this as well.
 
One further question. I know that Jews have also been permitted to enter a mosque from the Jewish perspective, since Islam is considered a monotheistic religion according to Jewish belief, whereas at one time, it was forbidden for a Jew to enter a church since Christianity was not regarded as monotheistic. The latter idea has changed, thankfully. What is the Islamic position regarding the entrance of a Muslim into a synagogue and a church, as well as prayer in these holy places?
 
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omgriley said:
Forgive me, but that doesn’t really make sense to me. I can understand the theory that the Gospel’s message has been corrupted (btw, there’s no proof of this) but when we have the actual text of Scripture making claims about the life of Jesus Christ contrary to the claims of the Quoran, how can a Muslim reconcile this? It cannot be disputed that real eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus made claims about him that are rejected by the Quoran
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Not being a religious scholar, that’s a little bit out of my field but the general perspective of many Muslim scholars is that the Biblical Gospels are not true, unadulterated eye-witness accounts. The book and message that was revealed to Jesus by Allah is called the Injil. The Injil is not the four gospels of the Christian bible, but a separate pure text which is the source from which the Gospels draw many of their accounts, but not all. The Injil itself has been lost, but I’ve heard some scholars interpret that it still existed in some Arabian Christian communities during the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him).

The message we draw from Jesus is the same as what was preached by Mohammed (peace be upon him). Jesus came to bring the message and the scripture to the Jews and the populations of the Levant and beyond, and to pave the way for the Messenger of Allah (peace be upon him), just like all of the other prophets before him. God knows that we’re stubborn and we need to hear the same message over and over again for it to get through.
 
Really unsound theological reasoning. But I get your question.

So, there is a school of Islamic thought called Islamism that holds that government and religion should be the same thing just like it was when the Prophet (peace be upon him) was alive. One of the best known schools of this type is Wahhabism, which provides the foundational basis for states like Saudi Arabia and, to the extreme, crazy end of the spectrum, ISIS. Basically, the state has the responsibility to enforce ultraorthodox interpretations of religious law. Most Muslims are not Islamists. Many Muslims would like for their government to interpret practical matters like divorce law and inheritance, etc, in terms of Shariah law as a matter of equity, but leave the religious matters up to individual conscience. So, not quite the total separation of church and state that exists in the West, but not the church as the state either.

So, establishing that, there are two main problem areas where you see various groups acting badly: first, towards non-believers in the style of ISIS and second, towards apostates from Islam. ISIS, being the crazy end of the spectrum, believe that all non-Muslims are out to destroy Muslims and that’s the basis of their Jihad. They believe that they’re protecting the Muslim world in accordance with the will of God by converting or exterminating non-Muslims. There are political reasons for that going back to the treatment of Muslim majority countries by Western countries, but I would still like to underline that it’s a completely insane misinterpretation of the actual teachings of Islam on the level of people actually prosecuting Catholics as cannibals because of the Eucharist.

Regarding the killing of apostates, that’s murkier. It boils down to a key difference in interpretation of the Koran and Islamic history. There are only three instances for when it’s permissible to kill another Muslim: as punishment for murder, as punishment for adultery by a married person, and for what some term apostasy. There’s a subtle difference in how that last stricture can be interpreted linguistically. Some scholars with Islamist leanings interpret it at face value and that’s why some Islamist-oriented countries punish conversion away from Islam with a possible death penalty. Many scholars however interpret this in terms of what was going on in Islam at the time this was said: Islam was a single state and Muslims were engaged in a war with non-Muslims. The term apostate here is thought by many to refer more to someone who leaves Islam and joins the enemies of Islam to fight against Muslims - so, a political traitor basically, not a benign convert.

Basically, evil people will twist anything to make it seem acceptable to continue doing evil.
 
Why did Mohammad order the beheading of 600-900 Jewish prisoners after the Invasion of Banu Qurayza?
 
It really depends on the specific sect and tradition, but historically, Muslims consider a fetus a person in its own right at the time of the quickening, which happens around four months, because the fetus moving is an indication that the fetus now has a soul. Similar to the law of the Torah where if a pregnant woman is struck and miscarries after the quickening, that’s murder, but if it’s before the quickening, it’s not murder. Almost universally, though, Muslims would prefer to avoid an abortion unless the mother’s life is in danger. The preservation of life is very important in Islam. Rape is not considered to be reasonable grounds for an abortion under most interpretations of Islamic law, because the child is guiltless. There are also passages in the Koran that forbid infanticide and the abandonment of children, so abortion is a last resort and must be carried out before the 4th month for it to be ethically sound.

For contraception, it’s generally allowed except by the most ultraconservative scholars.
 
lol If it gets too much, I’ll ask my grandfather over. He’s an imam and delighted to talk to anyone about religion for hours on end, so I’m sure he would love you guys.
 
Some people may start to give you a hard time here on this thread. Asking questions that they don’t exactly want answers to but are just looking for debate, or less savory engagement. Thanks for creating this thread. May it not come back to bite you too much. So far, it seems everyone has been very respectful.

What country are you in if that is not too personal a question?
 
While some ultra traditionalists can’t enter churches and synagogues in which images exist (like, I have a friend who won’t go into a church because most churches have what she would consider graven images), most Muslims can go to any sort of religious gathering that they want except for the purpose of worship. Actually, in some cases we’re encouraged to go for education purposes in order to understand what other religions teach and for funerals and weddings as part of supporting our friends.
 
Because they made a treaty with Muslim forces not to attack them and then broke their treaty shortly after by allying with pagan forces at the Battle of the Trench, and so in Islamic tradition became murderers. After the betrayal, Muslim forces sieged Banu Qurayza and allowed anyone who had refused to betray the Muslims to leave. After that, the Prophet (peace be upon him) elected one of his companions to sit in judgment of the rest, and he ruled that the betrayers should be executed and their property dispersed.
 
Why is contraception allowed in Islam (coitus interruptus) according to most imams?
 
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I’m an American citizen and I live in the US right now, although I travel in the Middle East quite a bit for work since I’m a translator. I lived in Jordan for a long while growing up and I’ve also lived briefly in Iraq.
 
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