Ask Me Anything: Muslim Edition

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Hi Shazirah another question if you don’t mind.

From an Islamic point of view
I understand that after prophet Muhammad a good true Muslim would be someone who follows his teachings about Allah.
But were there any good true Muslims prior to Muhammad?
Was Issa (Jesus) and Mary good true Muslims?
Were there any other good true Muslims in Jesus times?
Imagine oneself living in the time of Jesus, how does one become a good true Muslim?
Many thanks.
 
Well, to be a Muslim means that one is fully submitted to God. So, in a sense, a truly devoted Christian or a truly devoted Jew who does their utmost to follow the will of God even if they may be ignorant or misled of the full truth of the Koran, could be considered a true Muslim in the purest sense of the word. Jesus would have been a true Muslim because he received the Message of God directly and submitted to God’s will to bring it to his people. Mary also because she willingly submitted to being the vessel of the miracle through which Jesus came into the world. Although we typically only call people who have accepted the truth of the Koran and the fully revealed word of God Muslims, there are likely many Muslims in history and in the world now who are spiritually true Muslims and don’t realize it.
 
What distinguishes Levantine Muslim from others?
What are the features of Levantine Muslim ?
Palestinians, Syrians, Lebanese belong in this group, right?
If there is a possible Renaissance in the Islamic world, is it possible?
and in what part of the Muslim world is it possible?
As far as I know there are States where secularism and Islam are combined in co-existance.
 
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Will there be a quiz or final exam at the end of this thread? And how many college credits might we receive?
 
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Agree that Islam is a religion unknown to many.
I have heard that the Palestinians are a very talented Diaspora. Successful in both business and education. Probably the same can be said about the Lebanese and Syrians. I wonder whether these are representative of people of the same group.
The issue of the dynamic trend of modern Islamic society towards theocracy or secularism is also quite interesting.
 
Unfortunately, there is a tragedy of refugees in the world today. My country has also experienced the tragedy of war and has had to deal with the problem of several million refugees. Unfortunately, in some Eastern European countries, the treatment of refugees is not always the same. Among people, refugees are sometimes perceived as savages, and their cultural level is, for some reason, imagined as Gypsies of past centuries. This stereotype and feeds the hostility and fear towards middle Eastern immigrants.
But it is interesting that for example when exploring the Palestinian Diaspora in the West, these people are among successful students and entrepreneurs. Therefore, I was interested in the term “levantin Muslims”. For some reason it seemed that the Palestinians are more genetically related to the Israelites, despite the difference in religion, but about the Lebanese and Syrians I do not know.
Syrians who emigrate are not always authentic Syrians, but the Lebanese community abroad is also quite successful both in business and in other spheres of human activity.
Reflections on this topic can be clear about stereotypes in the understanding of emigrants and their contribution in the life of a new society, and also in the transformation processes in their society.
 
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Athanasiy said:
In the Christendom world, the manifestation of anti-Semitism is condemned, for in the last century there was a tragedy that claimed the lives of millions of Jews.

Is Islamic anti-Semitism forever? Is it an existential necessity, or are there mechanisms by which it will be eliminated over time?
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With all your respect, your assumptions behind these statements and questions…i don’t even know where to begin.
Hence i’ll try my best to point out some historical facts: which i hope i’ve got right but happy to be corrected.

Shazirah has given a good answer but perhaps a few more details will help.

As Shazirah has mentioned, two points are important to bear in mind:
  1. the Koran respects People of the Book (Jews and Christians).
  2. time and time again we often see that the politics often comes first before religion in history.
When Jerusalem was taken over by Muslims (or more correctly the Rashidun caliphate) , they allowed Jews to enter Jerusalem, which they have been forbidden by the Byzantine Christians (?since the expulsion by the Romans after the second Jewish revolt?). The Muslims did not destroy any churches. they didn’t allow new churches to be built - fair enough. This is until the Crusaders took over and once again they expelled the Jews. And i’m sure you’re aware there was a big massacre by the Crusaders. Then Saladin took over Jerusalem (and didn’t massacre). and again Jews could return to Jerusalem.

At the end of the Reconquista, the Spanish required Jews to leave (but not allowed to take their property out) or be converted to Christians. [similar to the first phase of Nazi Germany where Jews had to leave without their property) Again as per Point 2 above, I don’t see this as Christians persecuting Jews, but simply the state trying to gain power over the Jews who were rich. In fact it was the Ottoman Bayezid who offered protection to the Jews leaving Spain, and he even go so far as punishing those who refuse to accept Jewish refugees.

and then we have the tragedy that claimed lives of millions of Jews in the last century. Who perpetrated this? Not Muslims! Who has to pay for the consequences of all these Jewish refugees? Muslims!!
The Americans had a policy of immigration and they took a pitiful number of Jewish refugees. Same with Britain. So what does the West do? allow Zionists to displace local Palestinians and then set up a country in its place!
I’m not here to argue who’s right or not and about who should inherit the Holy Land etc, I’m simply trying to ask for some empathy and see it from the Arab/Muslim perspective.
I mean if you are living in the USA, how would you feel if there is this sudden influx of Muslims so that their proportion goes from <5% to 30%, and then they advocate for an Islamic state within USA, the UN then says let’s partition USA. and then the Muslims take over almost the entire country in a war. How would you feel?
I don’t think the bitterness regarding Jews and the West has most to do with religion, it contributes, yes, but the major issue is geopolitics.

(continued)
 
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So It is definitely not an existential necessity, your so called “Islamic anti-Semitism”. So my guess of how an Arab would answer the question what will stop this bitterness? easy, just move all the Jews out of Israel and give the land back to the Palestinians.

so for most of the centuries, anti-semitism has been practiced by Christians (when Christians were not even persecuted by the Jews), Yes there are mad caliphs who were anti-Semitic and anti-Christian but there are also examples I cited above which is just the opposite. Only in the last century have we seen this extreme bitterness, sparked by a understandable cause – displacing Palestinians out of Palestine and creation of Israel.

so to accuse Muslims of being anti-Semitic, when it was the West who was responsible for the Holocaust and then leave the aftermath problem of Jewish refugees to be dealt with by Palestinians rather than the West, to be honest, is a bit ironic to say the least.
 
From wikipedia Bayezid II - Wikipedia

In July 1492, the new state of Spain expelled its Jewish and Muslim populations as part of the Spanish Inquisition. Bayezid II sent out the Ottoman Navy under the command of admiral Kemal Reis to Spain in 1492 in order to evacuate them safely to Ottoman lands. He sent out proclamations throughout the empire that the refugees were to be welcomed.[17] He granted the refugees the permission to settle in the Ottoman Empire and become Ottoman citizens. He ridiculed the conduct of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile in expelling a class of people so useful to their subjects. “You venture to call Ferdinand a wise ruler,” he said to his courtiers, “he who has impoverished his own country and enriched mine!”[18] Bayezid addressed a firman to all the governors of his European provinces, ordering them not only to refrain from repelling the Spanish refugees, but to give them a friendly and welcome reception.[18] He threatened with death all those who treated the Jews harshly or refused them admission into the empire. Moses Capsali, who probably helped to arouse the sultan’s friendship for the Jews, was most energetic in his assistance to the exiles. He made a tour of the communities and was instrumental in imposing a tax upon the rich, to ransom the Jewish victims of the persecution.

Crimean Tatar khan, Mengli Giray at the court of the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II.
The Muslims and Jews of al-Andalus (Iberia) contributed much to the rising power of the Ottoman Empire by introducing new ideas, methods and craftsmanship. The first printing press in Constantinople was established by the Sephardic Jews in 1493. It is reported that under Bayezid’s reign, Jews enjoyed a period of cultural flourishing, with the presence of such scholars as the Talmudist and scientist Mordecai Comtino; astronomer and poet Solomon ben Elijah Sharbiṭ ha-Zahab; Shabbethai ben Malkiel Cohen, and the liturgical poet Menahem Tamar.
 
Levantine Muslims include Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians, and other ethnic groups traditionally inhabiting the Levant region. Levantine Muslims are culturally distinct from the southern and eastern Arabian states, and African and South Asian Muslims are even more distinct and tend to have syncretized more with pre-existing cultural ideas and practices.

I think we are on the verge of a breakthrough in the Muslim world. Many Muslim majority countries are beginning to embrace modernist ideas and come out of the medievalist interpretations of Islam. If the Saudis can break out of Wahhabism in the next few decades, then I have high hopes for the rest of the region. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was another revolution in Iran within my lifetime, given the opinions of many of the younger Iranians I’ve talked to.
 
If you make it all the way through the thread, you become an honorary rafeeq and receive the customary secret decoder pin and invitation to go for chai and hummus with yours truly, but you have to come to Dallas to collect it. 😃
 
haha…sounds like a plan.

Thanks for your big heart and sharing your considerable base of knowledge on CAF. ❤️
 
@shazirah, what do you make of Quran 5:51
“O you who believe! do not take the Jews and the Christians for friends; they are friends of each other; and whoever amongst you takes them for a friend, then surely he is one of them; surely Allah does not guide the unjust people.”
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What is the correct interpretation of this verse? Do you have any Christian or Jewish friends? What does it mean to be friends?

Should a Muslim think all Christians and Jews are unjust?
 
The actual word there is better translated as “allies” rather than “friends”. Awliya is another Arabic word that doesn’t have a precise translation in English. It implies a custodial relationship - like, sometimes the King of Saudi Arabia is referred to as the Custodian of the Grand Mosque and it’s the same concept. It’s someone that is entirely and implicitly trusted and who acts as a protector or helper to the speaker.

We’re certainly allowed to have non-Muslim friends. The verse also has to be understood in the historic context. Islam faced a great deal of antagonism from outside forces in the beginning and so this speaks more towards being careful of who you trust and ensuring that you form bonds only with people who have your best interest at heart and aren’t likely to betray you as Islamic forces were betrayed later at the Battle of the Trench. We don’t live in the same cultural or political climate that existed in the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him), and so we don’t need to be as cautious of non-Muslims in most places and situations. One could read it in the same way that Christians are exhorted to not be unequally yoked.
 
Iran and Saudi Arabia are some kind of measure for the Muslim world?
The changes that could happen in Iran are a “secular revolution”?
 
Saudi Arabia currently controls Mecca, so they do have quite a bit of clout in the Islamic world. They and Iran are also two of the most conservatively religious states, so a sea change in their political and ideological landscape would likely set the scene for other majority Muslim states to follow suit. Part of Islamic modernism is the idea of some separation between religious life and governance, allowing religion to have a place in public life while the legal system remains secular.
 
Thank you shazirah for your reply, you know a lot more about Islam than I do. I didn’t know what the original arabic is because I don’t really know arabic either. I looked up awliya and it pretty much says what you said, but it seems it can be friend in the typical sense. Awliya - SufiWiki
shazirah said:
The verse also has to be understood in the historic context.
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Would it be okay to generalize the whole Quran and the hadiths, and say that some things no longer apply in the literal sense any longer because the historical situation is different? And if things were to return to the a similar situation, then it would reapply?
 
Awliyah is sometimes interpreted as “friend”, but the better translation is ally, guardian, or custodian and it wasn’t understood in terms of the modern Western version of friendship in classical Arabic. Sufism has a slightly different take on the concept since they have a stronger tradition of saints, related to the concept of Awliyah. Muslim saints are Awliyah to God. This is sometimes translated as “Friend of God”, but again the context of the word “friend” doesn’t match the modern concept of friendship in the same way that the Catholic definition of a Saint is not the same as the colloquial usage of the word saint. A Wali, the singular of the same word, is a guardian or protector. For instance, my father is my Wali in terms of sharia law, which means that he is responsible for providing moral guidance, protection, and oversight in matters of marriage, etc. A Wali to God is someone who lives virtuously and defends the faithful and God’s commandments - essentially aiding bodily God’s role in the Wali relationship He has with everyone.

So, the spirit of the commandment is more like “Don’t enter into an intimate partnership or relationship with someone who does not share your moral duties or concerns or who consorts with people who wish you ill, because they may not be able to carry out their part of the bargain and you’ll get hurt” not “Don’t hang out with Christians and Jews”.

The Koran speaks to both historical events and in the spirit of general moral principles. The historical context is no longer valid for us, although situations may arise that are similar to that in Mohammed’s time (peace be upon him) and indeed some people believe they will as as the judgement approaches. However, the moral and ethical principles are always valid.
 
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