Dialogue with Muslims

[john78]

It is a shame how Islamic Terrorists have bastardized this religion , yet one thing i never knew about was this word " jihad" and this concept that some forms of violence for those that do not follow the rules of faith of this religion is punishable and acceptable.

then it seems that only those in the Middle East / Europe / actually every where else but America embrace this idea of " jihad " to some degree.

So i am curious as to how Muslims in the Middle East view the Muslims in America…

and I don’t understand how if this jihad is truely apart of Islam , why… how can anyone link Love with violence and hate ? two very conflicting things in a religion which i do not think i can ever understand of how anyone would want to be apart of it.

now more and more are trying to become educated and trying to wrap their heads around this religion…

I wouldn’t mind having this type of dialog with a Muslim, if one were open minded and willing to engage to help one become more informed.

 

[MartinJordan]

I just remembered that a friend of mine, had an Muslim lady acquaintance who used to debate with him on our respective faiths.

It came to a point when my friend finding that this Muslim lady was getting hot under the collar, whenever he was stating the Catholic beliefs, gave her the cold shoulder, but as a parting word confidently told her to come to the Novena.

That was 2 years ago. She is now a Baptised Catholic and very active in Church.

Sometimes the cold shoulder treatment maybe the best way or asking the intercession of our Blessed Mother shall have God do his miracle:extrahappy:

MJ

 

[starryheart]

I just remembered that a friend of mine, had an Muslim lady acquaintance who used to debate with him on our respective faiths.

It came to a point when my friend finding that this Muslim lady was getting hot under the collar, whenever he was stating the Catholic beliefs, gave her the cold shoulder, but as a parting word confidently told her to come to the Novena.

That was 2 years ago. She is now a Baptised Catholic and very active in Church.

Sometimes the cold shoulder treatment maybe the best way or asking the intercession of our Blessed Mother shall have God do his miracle:extrahappy:

MJ

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

Don’t even begin talking about the trinity till you are sure they understand it.

Most Muslims will confuse trinatarian doctrine with Modalism while acting as if they understand the trinity.

 

[MartinJordan]

Don’t even begin talking about the trinity till you are sure they understand it.

Most Muslims will confuse trinatarian doctrine with Modalism while acting as if they understand the trinity.

The Trinity is way too deep for Muslims. However, I would like to recommend Matthew 22: 35-40 to start with…

And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. - Douay Reims Bible

MJ

 

[IgnatianPhilo]

The Trinity is way too deep for Muslims. However, I would like to recommend Matthew 22: 35-40 to start with…

And one of them, a doctor of the law, asking him, tempting him: Master, which is the greatest commandment in the law? Jesus said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments dependeth the whole law and the prophets. - Douay Reims Bible

MJ

The trinity at its most basic form isnt hard to understand. There is nothing illogical or incomprehensible as to the doctrine itself. But I find Muslims despite being confronted when they make a strawman attack against it (IE, So was Jesus praying to himself in the garden, lulz) they simply don’t want to recognise it out of a despereate need to believe in the quranic account about Christian beliefs.

 

[MartinJordan]

The trinity at its most basic form isnt hard to understand. There is nothing illogical or incomprehensible as to the doctrine itself. But I find Muslims despite being confronted when they make a strawman attack against it (IE, So was Jesus praying to himself in the garden, lulz) they simply don’t want to recognise it out of a despereate need to believe in the quranic account about Christian beliefs.

That’s odd for them to look at a Bible verse of Jesus’ words when it states he’s talking to his Father and then say Jesus praying to himself. Im not getting the correlation here.

MJ

 

[Bakmoon]

Thanks to European colonialism and Ottoman reformism.

There are precedents for it being abolished without colonialism. I believe the Mughal Emperor of India by the name of Ackbar the Great abolished the Jizya tax during his reign, for example.

Islam has no such distinction as between an Old and New Covenant, so this comparison is not an apt one. Further, the `ulama’, or Islamic scholars, have never issued en masse a fatwa repudiating the jizya as no longer relevant, so it can always be reinstituted (a Coptic lady mentioned to me that there’s been talk of doing so in Egypt as of late).

It also must be noted that when viewed in the context of wider Islamic Jurisprudence, the requirement that Muslims pay one fortieth of their wealth as charity (Zakat) was actually conducted as a tax beginning in the early days of the Rashidun Caliphate, and non-Muslims were exempt from military service, so the Jizya was originally to make up for this loss of income and for the loss of the Caliphate which would otherwise be the result of having non-Muslims in the Caliphate.

Interesting. Muhammad wouldn’t have wished to antagonize the pagans in the city at the same time as he was warding off threats from elsewhere, though. And there aren’t any non-Muslims left in present-day Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam–or for that matter on the rest of the Arabian peninsula, apart from a small, and shrinking, Jewish community in Yemen.

Then I will use another point to illustrate. After Muhammad conquered Mecca, he only had ten people executed, and granted blanket amnesty on everyone in the city, which was mostly pagan.

Now to bring up a counterpoint. Where does it say in the Qur’an or the Hadith that all Pagans must be slaughered?

 

[odile53]

Working nowadays in the health care field, I encounter many Muslims, predominately among the physicians, but there are also a few nurses and other allied professionals. While we usually are job-focused in our conversations, friendships have developed.

I was particularly touched by the fact that so many Muslim colleagues showed up to my late father’s funeral, both the viewing at the funeral home and the Mass and burial, or sent cards (including a couple of Mass cards,) and homemade casseroles. Actually, more of them showed up or were of support to my family than the far more numerous Catholic and Protestant colleagues I have. In defense of my Christian colleagues, my father died on December 21 several years ago, and the funeral was on the 23rd, so I can understand why they might not have been able to make the time.

A couple of years ago, a disturbed psychiatric patient stole one of the doctor’s pocket copy of the Koran and attempted to flush it down the toilet. I’m of the belief that even erroneous sacred writings should not be desecrated. I put on gloves, fished it out, and managed to dry it off in my office and then returned it to the doctor. He was touched by my handling of the incident, and told me that he would remember me in his daily prayers. I asked him to please address those to “God,” since we both believe in the God of Abraham, and with tears in his eyes, he agreed to do that.

Despite the activities of some extremists, and I’d like to point out that there are not a few Christian extremists who have no problem in expressing their misguided perception of the faith through violence, the Muslims I have encountered are decent religious people who are interested only in living their lives out in productive, peaceful ways. And I’d like to point out that we might not be able to evangelize globally, but we can forge friendships locally. And a mutual respect and decency may just pique some Muslim person’s interest in what we as Christians have to offer in terms of our faith.

“Just saying.”

 

[Kouyate42]

Being on the other side of this, it’s likely I shouldn’t post here, but here goes anyway.

It must be said that some of the most productive dialogue between faiths within my local area has been because there is a common emphasis on similarities rather than highlighting differences, and it is these similarities which build bridges.

Certainly there are a number of issues upon which Islam and Catholicism are united: the high esteem of Mary as a servant of Allah, the sincere worship of God, acceptance of God’s will in matters which may seem difficult for us, the Tawrah (Torah) as previous valid revelation, modesty, the assurance of believers that they will get to Jannah (Heaven), the punishment and forgiveness of sin, Hell…and these are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

If you build on familiarity, as opposed to merely pushing a certain worldview on someone, that is far more likely to be constructive.

 

[emarc]

As Christians we have to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Great teaching. But when your neighbor straps himself w/ explosives w/ evil intentions, what will you do?
Here’s an extract from the writings of an ex-muslim who saw the light, Sujit Das ( faithfreedom.org/articles/op-ed/how-muslims-defend-the-flaws-of-islam/ ).
This could also help prepare anybody who wishes to have a dialogue w/ Muslims.

"Presently the debate on Islam is going on at full force on various social networking sites as well as in many ex-Muslim and anti-Islam websites. But truth is not always welcomed wholeheartedly and old beliefs don’t die so easily. Though many sympathizers of Islam (e.g., Karen Armstrong, Edward Said and John Esposito) try to portray a deceptively rosy picture of Islam, the true Muslims show the real face of Islam with their constant readiness to harass, intimidate and assassinate anyone who slights their religion. For this reason Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in Netherlands and his associate Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to live with bodyguards and armoured cars (Ali, 2007, p. xii), the Bangladeshi feminist and secularist Taslima Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994, Egyptian human rights activist Faraj Foda was shot dead in front of his office in Cairo and Nasr Hamid Zayd fled out of Egypt to escape the death penalty and secularist Egyptian Sayyid Mahmoud al-Qimni was forced to recant all his writings (Ahmed, 2006, p. ix). Unfortunately before the outside world would get a chance to read their works these writers were silenced through murder, terrorization and death-threats, and their writings were banned in the Muslim world."
God bless.

 

[Kouyate42]

Terrorism and suicide bombing is not Islamic, no matter how many Qur’an verses fundamentalists twist.

 

[Moro_Rock]

The conservative Muslims do similar. They believe Mohammed was God’s final messenger and he was this holy man and that they must follow the way he behaved to love everyone like he did:shrug:

But it’s good that Muslims like this exist; who don’t force things on people…
MJ

I recently watched a program on EWTN where the Catholic Bishop of Gambia (W.Africa) was interviewed. He is the spiritual Father to apx. forty thousand people which is about 10% of the overall population.
According to him the two groups live together peacefully and Catholics may evangelise but not prosletyse !
When asked how this peacefulness was achieved between the Christians and Muslims Bp. replied that the Gambians are a peace-loving people.

 

[yukonbrad]

As Christians we have to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Great teaching. But when your neighbor straps himself w/ explosives w/ evil intentions, what will you do?
Here’s an extract from the writings of an ex-muslim who saw the light, Sujit Das ( faithfreedom.org/articles/op-ed/how-muslims-defend-the-flaws-of-islam/ ).
This could also help prepare anybody who wishes to have a dialogue w/ Muslims.

"Presently the debate on Islam is going on at full force on various social networking sites as well as in many ex-Muslim and anti-Islam websites. But truth is not always welcomed wholeheartedly and old beliefs don’t die so easily. Though many sympathizers of Islam (e.g., Karen Armstrong, Edward Said and John Esposito) try to portray a deceptively rosy picture of Islam, the true Muslims show the real face of Islam with their constant readiness to harass, intimidate and assassinate anyone who slights their religion. For this reason Theo Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in Netherlands and his associate Ayaan Hirsi Ali had to live with bodyguards and armoured cars (Ali, 2007, p. xii), the Bangladeshi feminist and secularist Taslima Nasrin has been living in exile since 1994, Egyptian human rights activist Faraj Foda was shot dead in front of his office in Cairo and Nasr Hamid Zayd fled out of Egypt to escape the death penalty and secularist Egyptian Sayyid Mahmoud al-Qimni was forced to recant all his writings (Ahmed, 2006, p. ix). Unfortunately before the outside world would get a chance to read their works these writers were silenced through murder, terrorization and death-threats, and their writings were banned in the Muslim world."
God bless.

The depiction of all muslims you paint is very simplistic and niave. By that logic all Catholics from Northern Ireland (myself included - having been born and raised there) are terrorists and members of the IRA. Just as some food for thought a few years back there were 3 female suicide bombers in Israel that garnered world wide attention. None were muslim all were christian - something to consider before labeling a whole group.

 

[WuXiaoXia]

There are a lot of subtleties to Islam that a lot of Muslims will miss and never even give the time of day to contemplate. What some Muslims (or even non-Muslims due to ignorant perpetuation) take for granted are subjects and ideas that should by no means be set in stone in regards to some kind of golden rule.

One good example would be the discussion of the Trinity found within this thread. Most Muslims would say that the Koran rejects the Christian concept of the Trinity. This is only true if one’s understanding of the Trinity in someway denies the singularity and oneness of God. Not all Christians, or most, think this way though. If you look at the Trinitarian doctrine (s) they are quite careful in preserving God’s oneness.

There is one Koranic verse that some would point to saying that Islam negates the Christian concept of the Trinity. That would be the quote, “Those who say, ‘God is the third of three’ have become truth-concealers” (5:73). Anyone with an elementary knowledge of any Christian catechism lets us know that God is not “the third of three.” God is one and three at the same time. As long as he is three God presents himself as three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

There is another Koranic verse that says something similar to what I’ve already quoted. Drawing from the already mentioned verse that I quoted we can get a better understanding of this next one that states:

"The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only the Messenger of God, and His Word that He committed to Mary, and a Spirit from Him. So have faith in God and His messengers, and do not say, “Three.” Refrain; better it is for you. God is only One God. (4:171)

Everyone should notice that the above quote gives Jesus a highly exalted position and states that he has qualities that no other prophet possessed. It also stresses that there is only one God. If faith in Jesus leads to the understanding of three gods then the Koran rejects that. However, most Christians would say that they have faith in only one God, not three (as per the traditional understanding of the Trinity).

I could go on and on but I just wanted to give this one example of a concept within Islam highly misunderstood. In many countries around the world religion is incredibly political and so these subtle readings of the texts are lost much of time. Muslims (and Christians for that matter) feel threatened by other faiths and other ways of life. That often leads to persecution and a shallow reading of the religious text.

 

[dzheremi]

And there aren’t any non-Muslims left in present-day Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam–or for that matter on the rest of the Arabian peninsula, apart from a small, and shrinking, Jewish community in Yemen.

Sorry, Trebor, if it seems like I’m singling you out here (the other things I’d like to say about this topic would make people sad, so I’ll stick to geography), but this isn’t quite true. If you’re talking about Saudi Arabia proper, then you are right, but the Arabian Peninsula includes other countries like Kuwait, UAE, and Qatar where there are churches (I’m not sure about Bahrain or Oman, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there were). They’re not really like “normal” churches, as they aren’t allowed to have crosses on top of them, nor to ring bells, etc., but they are there.

Nativity celebrations at St. Mark Coptic Orthodox Church, Kuwait

Tenth anniversary celebrations at St. Gregory the Illuminator Armenian Orthodox Church, Sharjah, UAE

Other places on the Peninsula, if not exactly “good”, are a heck of a lot better to their religious minorities than Saudi or Yemen are…for now, anyway.

 

[AdamP88]

I have to say that even my experience of one of the more “moderate” Islamic nations, Algeria, has led me to believe that Islam will attempt to stifle other forms of religious worship. This includes using the law and also violence as a form of intimidation.
Algeria has recently made it illegal to practice publicly, any faith other than Islam. Carrying the bible can be an offence.

 

[Bakmoon]

I have to say that even my experience of one of the more “moderate” Islamic nations, Algeria, has led me to believe that Islam will attempt to stifle other forms of religious worship. This includes using the law and also violence as a form of intimidation.
Algeria has recently made it illegal to practice publicly, any faith other than Islam. Carrying the bible can be an offence.

Well then they aren’t being good Muslims because Islam teaches that Christians and Jews should enjoy religious freedom.

 

[AdamP88]

Well then they aren’t being good Muslims because Islam teaches that Christians and Jews should enjoy religious freedom.

Actually the Koran states explicitly that non-believers or infidels should be converted by any means necessary.

It also states that only Muslims will enjoy eternal life in Paradise and everyone else will be condemned to Hell.

 

[robwar]

Terrorism and suicide bombing is not Islamic, no matter how many Qur’an verses fundamentalists twist.

then why do so many murder themselves and others in the name of Islam? No other major religion has so much blood on their hands.