Ask Me Anything: Muslim Edition

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How do you see the US effecting Islam in the generations to come? Where I’m from, there has been a huge increase in the Muslim population in the last 20 years, especially in the last 10. These all seem to me to be moderate Muslims. Will this growth have a tempering effect on the more extreme sects of Islam in Middle East?

Also, is there, in any substantial block of Middle Eastern Muslims (for example, those who lean towards Wahhabism) a sense that there is such a thing as a “Western” Muslim?
 
Crown Prince Riyadh of Saudi Arabia has actually been making some interesting statements along these lines by urging for tolerance and taking a hard line stance against radicalist elements. I’ve read some articles by various Islamic scholars on the issue, but I will have to look them up for you. Within the last 10 years, there have been an increasing number of younger people who have started pushing back regarding traditionalist ideals about the role of Islam in the state, so I expect to see a lot of improvement within my lifetime.
 
Ok. I don’t know anything about your religion except the fear and hate it has for infidels which they say is us. How can you stay in a religion that is full of that?
 
In Islamic scholarship, the originals would have been identical in message to the Koran. So, the Torah and the Gospels as they exist can therefor not be identical to the original Torah and Gospel. Since the Gospel revealed to Jesus would necessarily have been vastly different from the four gospels of the Bible, since it would not have been a testament of the life and works of Jesus but a divine revelation to Jesus prior to his ministry, obviously the Biblical gospels are not the same thing even if they contain elements of the Message. There is some historical indication that something close to the pure Gospel might have still been in existence and circulation in the Christian communities of the Arabian peninsula shortly before the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), as were a number of other now lost books that are known through reference by other sources. Even the four Biblical gospels drew from each other and other unknown texts such as the Q source. Maybe the Q source was the pure Gospel of Jesus, who knows? That’s sort of outside my field of study, but I’ll see if I can find some English texts on the subject.
 
Hey, making your points is completely fair, but how about you do it less rudely? She’s been very friendly and forthcoming. There’s no need for you to take that tone.
 
I think, globally, the modernist, moderate Muslims are slowly gaining ground and I expect that within my lifetime the Middle East will be a much more moderate place than it currently is. Muslims my age and younger overwhelmingly tend to be in favor of modernist approaches to Islam and in favor of secular government. So, on the whole, I think we’re on a good trajectory. It’s going to take decades to see practical results as the older generations die off and are replaced by people from my generation, but I think we’ll get there. My only worry is that continued warfare and political interference from Western countries in the Middle East that stirs up old bitter resentments about colonialism is going to spoil it by creating more poverty and trauma, which leads inevitably to more young people falling victim to radicalism.

“Westernization” gets a bad rap with Muslims in most of the world. To be Western tends to be associated with libertine behavior that is destructive on both the individual, family, and state level because of the perceived decadence and hypocrisy of the culture. I think that both Western and Eastern cultures have their problems and good points, for the record, it’s just sort of the common theme in culturally Muslim countries. So, I think there are a lot of places in the Muslim world where you can find modernist, moderate Muslims that are more amenable to some Western ideas without being necessarily “Western”. Jordan, where I grew up, is getting there in some ways. Turkey for a very long time was very secular, although it’s less so now. My mom and grandparents lived in a part of Syria that was relatively progressive. Sufi Muslims in particular tend to be very tolerant and modernist and while some of their theology is really strange, I think that Sufism has a lot of potential to be a bridge between cultures.
 
If you acknowledge you don’t know anything about Islam, why are you so confident it is “full of hate” for infidels?
 
Your right, except for the confident part. All I hear, read, and see about Islam is hate. So educate me, why are u a faithful Muslim? And wat keeps u in that religion?
 
Ogdisciple said:
Your right, except for the confident part. All I hear, read, and see about Islam is hate. So educate me, why are u a faithful Muslim? And wat keeps u in that religion?
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Maybe what you hear, read, and see isn’t representative of Islam as a whole?
 
shazirah said:
In Islamic scholarship, the originals would have been identical in message to the Koran. So, the Torah and the Gospels as they exist can therefor not be identical to the original Torah and Gospel. Since the Gospel revealed to Jesus would necessarily have been vastly different from the four gospels of the Bible, since it would not have been a testament of the life and works of Jesus but a divine revelation to Jesus prior to his ministry, obviously the Biblical gospels are not the same thing even if they contain elements of the Message. There is some historical indication that something close to the pure Gospel might have still been in existence and circulation in the Christian communities of the Arabian peninsula shortly before the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), as were a number of other now lost books that are known through reference by other sources. Even the four Biblical gospels drew from each other and other unknown texts such as the Q source. Maybe the Q source was the pure Gospel of Jesus, who knows? That’s sort of outside my field of study, but I’ll see if I can find some English texts on the subject
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Permit me to rephrase the first two sentences as follows to help my understanding:

“The message of the Quran has remained unchanged from the beginning. Since the message of the Torah and Gospels were identical to that of the Quran some time in the past, but are no longer identical at present, the Torah and Gospels must have been corrupted”. Did I rephrase it right?

All I can say is that this is a very tortuous and unscholarly way for Islamic scholars to come up with the claim that the Torah and the Gospel have been corrupted. The fact that there are historical references to some earlier versions does not mean that the contents of those earlier versions are different from the current versions. Islamic scholars base their belief on the phrase: “the originals would have been identical”, which is not the same as basing their belief on the phrase: “the originals were identical”…these two phrases have profoundly different meanings and implications.

I do not understand how the Quran can be used as a reference in checking the corruptedness of the Torah and the Gospel since they predate the Koran.
 
I hope so. I would like to see people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her family be able to live a life outside of body guards for the rest of her life. There is talk about the religion needing a reformation the way christianty has gone through.
 
Do you and moslems think all the people in the world are kafir or godless, except the moslems?
Why do moslems use the products from “kafir” people like cellular phone, aircrafts, cars, weapons etc ?
Why do moslems from the middle east take refuge to “kafir” land and not to moslem countries like Saudi Arabia?
 
There are sinners, broken people, and people who twist the commandments of God to suit their own heartless agendas in every religion, including Christianity. There are wonderful, peaceful, faithful people in every religion, including Islam. Unfortunately, the media likes to show us violence and rage, especially about people who are different from us. That’s why I think it’s important for people to actually talk to each other like we’re doing now.

When you say that you never read, hear, or see anything about Islam but hate, it’s good to keep in mind that somewhere in the world there is a person who has seen nothing of Christians but rage, hate, and oppression. Not because Christianity is a hateful religion, but because the media that surrounds that person shows them nothing but American pastors threatening to burn the Koran and people on the street saying that the US should just glass over the Middle East with nuclear weapons, French women being arrested for wearing hijab, and jokes about rubbing pork blood on bullets to shoot Muslim men with. In some cases, like the people I worked with in Iraq, they’ve actually experienced hardship at the hands of Christian foreigners. That’s not what Christianity is about, but that person likely doesn’t have any appreciable contact with Christians aside from what they see and read in the media. Likewise, most people who only see angry Muslims on TV or read about them don’t usually have a lot of contact with actual, real life Muslims or Islamic communities.

Having moved to the US shortly before 9/11 and having not really grown up around many Christians before that, it would have been extremely easy for me to have developed a really awful picture of Christians. Like, seriously, Texas was not the place to be as a Muslim girl starting to wear a hijab for the first time in the early Naughts. I was out in the yard one day and a guy with a Jesus fish bumper sticker screamed at me to get the towel off my head and threw a beer bottle at me from a moving car. But, my parents and my grandfather taught me to protect myself, but also to look past people’s bad behavior and have compassion anyway.
Behind every bad action there is a person who is hurting or afraid or twisted from the circumstances of their life and you don’t always know their situation. The same is true of people who have fallen into radical Islam. I worked in Iraq with radicalized minors for a little while when I was right out of college. My impression is that it has extremely little to do with religion and everything to do with feelings of social alienation, mental illness, violence, and trauma.

Islam teaches that Allah commands us to be merciful as He is merciful, and to have compassion for all other beings, not just Muslims. We’re command to help the poor, the sick, the old, the orphans, and the suffering, and to be just for God knows the best and worst of our actions and judges us accordingly. Some people do better at heeding that than others. So, not much different than Christians, really.
 
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Someone who actually studies such things more closely would probably be able to give you a better answer, it’s been a very long time since I attended religious school. I’ll bring it up with my grandfather and see if he can give a more scholarly response.
 
Yeah, definitely. I was really crossing my fingers with the Arab Spring, but cultures change at a slow pace. I don’t think anyone should have to live in fear because of what they believe or don’t believe. So, here’s hoping for reform sooner rather than later.
 
In Christianity, God forgives all sin if we come to Him in repentance, even if we become atheists, satanists, murderers of fellow Christians, etc. and then see the error of our ways, ask Him for Mercy, and return to Him. In Islam, this is not the case. That person, even if He is really sorry for what he did and recants it totally, will not be forgiven by God and will actually be executed under Islamic justice. That is not the definition of mercy. My question would be is what is your take on this fellows response?
 
J_the_Centrist said:
Every church, well almost every church but those churches aren’t 20 centuries old, has changed to fit the times and seasons but the Orthodox have not.
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True in most areas. But in the US, many Orthodox women do not wear headcovering in church. This was not true 100 years ago.
 
Kafir is an Arabic term that essentially means “non-believer”, so by definition anyone who is not a Muslim is a kafir. It doesn’t mean that they’re godless, just that they’re not Muslim. There are more specific terms for people who are atheists, non-monotheists, and People of the Book. Although, lately it’s a word that we don’t really use much in polite conversation in deference to the feelings of people who have heard ISIS jerks throwing it around in a derogatory fashion, so at least in Western countries it’s rare to hear it now outside of specific religious discussions.

As for products, there’s no reason not to use those products. Kafir are not by definition unclean or anything and we can live and trade with them and engage in a peaceful society without it being against Islam. It’s just a non-issue.

Sometimes when refugees from places like Syria seek refuge elsewhere, they’re looking to get as far away from the conflict as possible or they may want to go where they have friends, a familiar religious community, or just somewhere that they can regain stability. The Middle East is kind of a squirrels nest right now and so a glut of refugees going into other neighboring countries can cause a tremendous strain on resources in countries that don’t have the best economies and political situations right now anyway. Water resources in some Middle Eastern countries can get really contentious and adding a few million refugees will make it a bad situation for everyone. It makes more sense to spread people out for security and humanitarian reasons, and there’s nothing bad about living among people of other religions. Syria, for instance, is a pretty diverse country, you have Jews, Christians, Muslims, and all kinds of ethnoreligious groups all living on top of each other. So, Syrians don’t necessarily have religion at the top of their list when trying to get their family somewhere safe. For instance, a guy that my family is trying to matchmake me with right now (lol) came here as a refugee with his sister because literally every other member of their family was killed in an airstrike and he at least knows the language and already has friends and business contacts here. There are all kinds of reasons.
 
There’s a whole discussion on apostasy in Islam up above somewhere, but the short answer is, not all Muslims believe that someone who apostasizes is unforgiveable and execution in the early Islamic era was only reserved for people who have harmed others or become violent traitors to the Islamic state. We don’t have a rightly guided Islamic state anymore, so that part of the law is considered by many scholars to be moot since there is neither a state to commit major apostasy against nor anyone to fairly judge the case. The fact that there are places that still practices it as part of their political law is contentious even among Muslims and it’s my opinion that it’s a method of political control instead of religious belief. Also, there are several hadith in which people apostatized and nothing was done to them. In fact, one early Muslim soldier killed a man who had apostatized but then recanted, and was soundly rebuked for it by the Prophet (peace be upon him).

Personally, at that point it’s between the individual and Allah. Allah tells us that He is perfectly merciful. If we believe that, then whatever transpires between the individual and God is in the spirit of perfect mercy. Beyond that we can’t really know. Also, Islam is a huge religion and, just like there are differences between what Protestants and Catholics believe, there are big differences between the major schools of Islamic jurisprudence and theology. So, you can find people who are hardline classicalists and you can find people like me who are staunch modernists, just as you can still find Christians who think Wiccans and gay people should be killed because the Old Testament says so and Christians who think that’s appalling.
 
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Does the Koran teach why God created man?

Below are the teachings of the Catholic faith:
356 Of all visible creatures only man is “able to know and love his creator”.219 He is “the only creature on earth that God has willed for its own sake”,220 and he alone is called to share, by knowledge and love, in God’s own life. It was for this end that he was created, and this is the fundamental reason for his dignity:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm
 
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