Ask Me Anything: Muslim Edition

  • Thread starter Thread starter shazirah
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I like to think of myself as a Sushi, since I have a Shia father and Sunni mother. I tend to favor Sunni theology, but I also accept some of the Shia hadith as valid and I’ve had religious education in both schools. On the whole, though, I think that there is much more that unites as Muslims than separates us and I prefer to focus on those things.

I believe that ultimately Allah accepts the earnest attempt to do His will and People of the Book worship the same God as we do. So, I think given the merciful nature of God that a Christian who has mistaken theology, but honestly seeks to follow God and be righteous will be saved.
 
shazirah said:
As a linguist, I’m generally in favor of preserving linguistic diversity as much as possible.
Click to expand...
I’m sure as a linguist you would know what the historical trend in languages are and usually how languages change. As much as I love languages and its diversity, linguisitic diversity is likely to decrease and not increase as time goes on when there are plenty of interaction between groups of people.
 
shazirah said:
believe that ultimately Allah accepts the earnest attempt to do His will and People of the Book worship the same God as we do. So, I think given the merciful nature of God that a Christian who has mistaken theology, but honestly seeks to follow God and be righteous will be saved.
Click to expand...
Very good, for that is essentially the same as us Catholic Christians believe about Muslims.

We believe we are all (Jews, Christians, and Muslims) the children of Adam and Abraham, and both Muslims and Christians worship the One Eternal God.

We believe that Muslims who sincerely do his will, and live a good and decent life, in spite of holding mistaken beliefs about the Trinitarian Nature of God and the mission of Jesus, can and do enter Heaven every single day.

It’s interesting to see how charitable our religions treat each other and recognize the fact that overall we have more in common than not.

And just know - any Catholic who tries to demonize you or your religion or claim you don’t worship the same Allah which we worship - such a one is confused and teaching in direct contradiction to what our Faith teaches us.

And that’s not to say that I don’t think Islam has some mistaken beliefs (I do) or wish that all Muslims would become Catholics (I do) - it’s just having the charity to recognize the good in them as human beings and have respect for their deeply held beliefs and belief in the unsearchable mercies of God.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, i know, but one can hope. I just think it’s sad that so many languages are dying out over time from the pressures . People being able to communicate more fluidly is a definite plus, but there’s something special about small languages to me. Probably because I also toy with constructed languages as a hobby, so all the weird little quirks and dialects in the Middle East are imagination fodder. lol
 
tgGodsway said:
Elohim was and is a universal word for God, Not that there are other gods. But the plurality of God’s speech is not explained away or dismissed. Whatever Jewish scholarship you are siting here, is a hard sell.
Click to expand...
In fact one does not need to be a Hebrew scholar to study this. As there are good Concordances like Strong’s.
so one can simply look up how elohim has been translated in ALL the occurences in the bible.
eg http://biblehub.com/hebrew/elohim_430.htm

one can see in gen 23:6, and gen 30:8, elohim doesn’t seem to mean “God” at all.
there are also other debatable passages such as Joshua 22:22 depending on how you translate it. (KJV translate it as “gods”) – this needs a bit of Hebrew scholarship but the above two examples…well it’s fairly clear.
Happy to be corrected.
 
Found another one.
Deut 5 verse 7
When God said you shall have no other gods.
The word for “gods” is elohim.
I’m sure this does not refer to Yahweh.
 
tgGodsway said:
But the plurality of God’s speech is not explained away or dismissed. Whatever Jewish scholarship you are siting here, is a hard sell. The English translation to the word US is equivalent to it’s Hebrew counter-part. God was speaking in a plural form without a doubt.
Click to expand...
She has already answered your question. It’s called pluralis excellentiae. Even just reading the Wikipedia article one should realise this grammatical form also occurs in other words not just Elohim.

I don’t think Hebrew grammar proves the plurality of God but I also don’t think it disproves it either.
I do find it interesting that this pluralis excellentiae exists at all. Why did God allow this grammatical device to develop at all? would be my Christian response.
But I would find it hard pressed to find anyone Seriously arguing for your position. But as Shazirah said I’ll be extremely interested in your evidence and open to another view should they be convincing.
 
Yes, according to Catholic religion the main purpose of marriage is like this “offspring is the most essential thing in marriage, secondly fidelity, and thirdly [the] sacrament”. Hence, it makes no sense to get married and to beget children in heaven.

It’s okay if there is marriage in heaven according to your religion, I do not want to argue about that…but I want an explanation how about if a married woman enters heaven would she get into relations and holy pleasure with houris beside her husband?
 
From my understanding, it’s not necessarily true that earthly marriages will persist in heaven. So, if Jamaal Doe is my husband on earth, he won’t necessarily be my husband in heaven unless we share an affinity so great that we choose that - God wouldn’t force a loving couple that wished to spend eternity with each other apart. But, if that’s not the case, then one might draw their spouses from the houris instead. So, it’s a choice. The details vary from school to school. Personally, when I marry, I hope to marry someone that I love so much that eternity in Paradise would not quite be Paradise without them.
 
The problem here is that people make things harder than they really are. I don’t buy-in to the argument given. I believe the O.T. is also the word of God, and God really did say, "let Us make man in OUR image and after OUR likeness.
 
Lol one may as well just simply believe the bible was written in English. That would be simple life.
 
Ratio 1, as mentioned earlier, I have no issue with the word Elohim, it is a universal or almost secular word. I wasn’t disputing this word. However, the statements I made to shazirah about how God spoke to himself in a plural form is only evidence the NT alone develops in regard to the concept of the Trinity.
 
Last edited:
tgGodsway said:
and God really did say, "let Us make man in OUR image and after OUR likeness.
Click to expand...
To be exact, God said:
ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו

and my point is that ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם בצלמנו כדמותנו does not prove or disprove a triune God.
so keep quoting “let Us make man in OUR image and after OUR likeness” does not really help.
 
Again, ratio1, if you had bothered to follow my dialog with Shazirah, I said that the O.T. does not outright reveal a triune God, but does speak in plurality in several cases, suggesting that God Himself is not a solitary unit, per se’ but a composite unit. Only the N.T. reveals a more specific tri-unity.

Deut. 6:4 is an example of what I’m talking about: “Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the LORD is ONE.” The Hebrew word translated one, is in a composite form, not solid.

This is another example of how the O.T. only hints of something the N.T. fully reveals.

So, all this other stuff you’re talking about is irrelevant in my view.
 
Last edited:
I have some questions. I apologize if these have been asked and answered. The thread is getting longer that I may have missed them. I am still a bit confused by the concept of houris. Are these houris human souls? Where do they come from? Earthly human souls that have died and gone to Heaven? Or created new (never had bodies on earth)? Or something else altogether? I mean, logistically, if they are other earthly human souls, then they would be of a finite number (i.e. it is possible that an houri belong to multiple human souls and if we go to Heaven, we would have houris and we would be an houri for others as well).

Thank you for answering. It has been quite educational. God bless.
 
More about the marriage in Paradise, do they have the possibility of producing children?
 
There are a couple of schools of thought on houris, but the less well-accepted opinion that we will essentially be each others houris in heaven was largely a medieval idea and I don’t really know off the top of my head of any group that holds that as a solid tenant now. The majority consensus is that houris are spiritual beings, separate from angels, jinn, or humans. They’re sometimes referred to as being a representation of the good deeds and pure intentions of Muslim people, so imagine being able to meet a construct of every nice thing you ever did for someone. The Koran refers to them as beings of light, pure companions of ethereal beauty.
More about the marriage in Paradise, do they have the possibility of producing children?
Click to expand...
We don’t really know, as God hasn’t seen fit to tell us. Maybe, but the most logical conclusion would be probably not since there would be no more need for the construction of physical bodies and souls are created by God, so there would be no means or need for childbearing.
 
In Christianity , marriages are made in heaven, and cannot christianin to have one wife for sex, another for procreation. It is also not free for a Christian to have several wives or to live with a concubine. What is the doctrine of marriage for the follower of Islam?
 
Shazirah,

God bless you and let his face shine upon you. First I would like to compliment you on your courage attempting this task, your fortitude in the carry through, and the aplomb with which you have handled it. It is a noble task and one that needs to be done more frequently in many venues and which you have been doing admirably, especialy when one considers your age (I am assuming you are 20 something).

I had originally been meaning to ask some very pointed, aggresive questions. From my reading of the Quran and what I have heard on the media (taken with a grain of salt) Islam has two states of operation; The House of Submission (for Believers and those who pay the Dhimmi tax), and the House of War (everyone else). From what I see, there is no perminant peace allowed with the House of War. Muslims can make temporary truces which can be broken without warning at any time, but no perminant peace.

This is a problem for me but from what you write and what I read between the lines, this is not necessarily so. I would approciate your comments.

Patrick
AMDG
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top