Islam supports religious freedom than Catholic

[TheProphet]

**In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful! **

Dear Brother R.Gonzales and all brothers in faith,
You wrote :

while islam gives allowance for differring in minor jurisprudential issues, muslims are prohibited from splitting from the main group of ahl as-sunnah and from splitting into groups or sects. however, this prohibition will not stop everyone from doing so—just as is the case with christianity and every other world religion. so don’t pretend that your faith is some sort of exception to the rule that is reality.

Please do not forget our Christian brothers and sisters who misled by Paul when handed down Prophet Jesus (Allah be pleased with him)’ message. You, a Muslim brother, I hope you understand their situation about the centralization of the church. We, in Islam, are together, except Ahmadiyya and Shia, the most misled Muslims in the world. And do not you forget that Allah dislike people who misled his divine message. Such acts are strictly forbidden in Islam with strict punishment. Hellfire awaits blasphemers like them.

 

[discipleofJesus]

Forgot to mention that the bold, underline, and italics emphasis in my quote from

‘Question #34770: There is no compulsion to accept Islam’
63.175.194.25/index.php?ln=eng&ds=qa&lv=browse&QR=34770&dgn=4

is mine

 

[Darrel]

r.gonzales:

no, they’re not moving away from it. they’ve already moved away from it, which is why you see many muslims being oppressed by other muslims as well as non-muslims, why you see corrupt muslim governments in power, and why you see muslim extremists being able to run a muck the way they currently are. what is needed is a return to islam and its tenets, where life, wealth, and people’s rights and honours are preserved and protected.

This thread is about religious freedom. People will run amuck with religious freedom. If God left Islam with no leadership besides the book then it will obviously be subject to twisting and tweaking. In fact with just the book, the only thing that can hold Islam together is either the threat of death/punishment or a total Islamic liberal revolution. I suspect that at some point a leader will emerge on the liberal side of things and reverse the logic of literal Islamic law enforcement. I spoke to a guy from Pakistan recently, hes a perfect example of American Islam. He respects everyones religious freedom and his best friend is a Jewish fella. He’s a nice guy and I enjoy his liberal attitude twords Islam.

r.gonzales:

islam’s authority is Allah’s book and the prophet’s sunnah. these things have been preserved and interpreted by those who received them. what is upon the muslims is to hear and obey—something they are not doing and haven’t been doing for quite some time. actually, christianity as a whole is just as splintered, if not more so, than islam despite your centralised catholic church leadership.

while islam gives allowance for differring in minor jurisprudential issues, muslims are prohibited from splitting from the main group of ahl as-sunnah and from splitting into groups or sects. however, this prohibition will not stop everyone from doing so—just as is the case with christianity and every other world religion. so don’t pretend that your faith is some sort of exception to the rule that is reality.

I agree that Christianity is splintered, this is why I compared the protestant Church to Islam. But the CC is under 1 leader with a billion plus Catholics. I don’t quite understand what you think I am pretending about here, could you please clarify? I’m not quite a mind reader when it comes to type written text.

-D

 

[r.gonzales]

discipleofJesus:

I recall you stated you are a Salafi Muslim on another thread? Am I correct?

yes, you are correct.

discipleofJesus:

I also recall that you linked to this Salafi Muslim website before as a reference islam-qa.com/

my linking that site was due to a specific fatwa and what was mentioned in it that was in accordance with the truth. i wouldn’t exactly call that website itself a “salafi” website, although it does contain a lot of salafi material. that’s the first thing. secondly, perhaps you missed the portion of my post that explicitly stated that the issue of who the jizyah is taken from one that is differred upon by scholars. the correct opinion is determined by examining the proofs and evidences available on the issue. it’s clear you don’t understand much about islam, let alone how to handle differences of opinion in jurisprudential issues.

abdur-rahmaan bin naasir as-sa’dee states in his exegesis, taiseer al-kareem ar-rahmaan (also known as tafseer as-sa’dee), explaining verse 9:29:
the majority, those who say that the jizyah is not taken except from the people of the Book (jews and christians), concluded [so] through this verse, because Alh did not mention taking the jizyah except from them. as for others, He did not mention except fighting them until they accept islam. the magians join with the people of the Book and their settling in the lands of the muslims, because the prophet–may Allah send greetings and peace upon him–took the jizyah from the magians of hajr, then the chief of the believers, umar, took it from the magians of persia. it is said that the jizyah is taken from the rest of the muslims from the people of the Book and other than them, because this verse was revealed after the completion of fighting the polytheist arabs and the commencement with fighting the people of the Book and similar to them. so this limitation becomes a notification of the reality (of the time), not an understanding for it. and what indicates this is that the magians had the jizyah taken from them while they are not the people of the Book and because it has been frequently repeated from the muslims–from the companions ad whoever was after them–that they would call whoever they fought to one of three: either islam, or payment of the jizyah or the sword, from serveral groups, kitabi (jewish or christian) or others.
there is more discussion available on this in the various books of islamic jurisprudence, such as ar-rawdah an-nadiyyah.

Darrel:

If God left Islam with no leadership besides the book then it will obviously be subject to twisting and tweaking.

what you don’t seem to understand–or perhaps are ignorant about–is that there is a leadership structure in islam. it just isn’t found in the current day due to what went on in the not so distant past with the muslim empire being split up and annexed during the british and french colonial and imperial expansion. the closest thing we find to a proper leadership structure in islam is found in saudi arabia, where the rulers work together with the county’s religous scholars to help regulate and govern the people. in islam, however, the muslims are required to live under one authority, the khilaafah (successorship) where there is a single khaleefah (caliph/successor) who serves as the leader; not a bunch of different countries, each being ruled by a king or president or prime minister, like we have today.

Darrel:

I agree that Christianity is splintered, this is why I compared the protestant Church to Islam.

and your comparison is invalid. we’re talking about a religion here, not one sect or schism from a religion. you want to compare islam to christianity, compare the two religions as whole entities, not a whole compared to a fragment.

 

[Darrel]

r.gonzales:

what you don’t seem to understand–or perhaps are ignorant about–is that there is a leadership structure in islam. it just isn’t found in the current day due to what went on in the not so distant past with the muslim empire being split up and annexed during the british and french colonial and imperial expansion. the closest thing we find to a proper leadership structure in islam is found in saudi arabia, where the rulers work together with the county’s religous scholars to help regulate and govern the people. in islam, however, the muslims are required to live under one authority, the khilaafah (successorship) where there is a single khaleefah (caliph/successor) who serves as the leader; not a bunch of different countries, each being ruled by a king or president or prime minister, like we have today.

So the Saudi government is close to a proper Islamic leadership structure? Staying on topic I would ask if you feel I could be a practicing Catholic there without harrassment and in relative safety and comfort?

r.gonzales:

and your comparison is invalid. we’re talking about a religion here, not one sect or schism from a religion. you want to compare islam to christianity, compare the two religions as whole entities, not a whole compared to a fragment.

I see,

I feel the comparison is valid with regards to the protestant church because there only defining unity is the bible (the book is there leader). I find it difficult if not unrealistic to compare the CC to Islam since the CC is a monarchy with one true leader being the vicar of Christ. Does this clear it up for you? With regards to religious freedom in general I can compare all of Christianity to Islam by saying that Christianity imitates God by allowing free will to choose or not choose God without threat of any kind. Islam seems quite distant from any freewill teaching in my observations thusfar.

-D

 

[Yeshuamysavior]

the fact is, islam cannot coexist with its neighbors, for example, in the Phillippines, the Islamic island of mindanao has been at war with the predominantly Catholic country, in Sudan, Christians had been slaughtered and sold into slavery, in Kashmir, Hindus and Muslims have been fighting for generations, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which most people blame for the “Jihad” against America and the West. The recent riots in France. These are just examples of “Islamists Extremists” intolerance with respect to other religions.

 

[Lance]

r.gonzales,

Let’s say that we both live in Saudi Arabia and the monarch decides to let the population decide if Christians, Jews, Buhdist and all other religions can practice their religions openly. By this I mean Christians could have Churches- just as you have mosques in America, we could openly wear a cross- just as you can wear a burka(sp) or any thing else that shows you are Muslim in America, we could celebrate our holidays openly- just as you celebrate Ramadan in America, we could visit Mecca- just as you can visit The Vatican, how would you personally vote?

 

[JoeyWarren]

Has anyone actually read the Koran?

I plan to after I finish my Apologetic studies.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

r.gonzales:

and your comparison is invalid. we’re talking about a religion here, not one sect or schism from a religion. you want to compare islam to christianity, compare the two religions as whole entities, not a whole compared to a fragment.

Most ‘moderate’ Muslims in the West claim that the Jihadis are Islamic Extremists who have hijacked Islam. Yet, from history, we see this claim as totally false. Most Islamic countries now were at one time Christian/Catholic countries. The Crusades stemmed from Islamic aggression in these areas against Christian pilgrims in formerly Christian regions. The Crusades were totally defensive wars. Are there not sects in Islam?

 

[Ortho]

shockerfan:

You can say Islam is tolerant, but in practice it is extremely intolerant. (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Pakistan are all examples) Words are cheap my friend…you need to back up your statements with examples of your own.

OK. I lived in Saudi Arabia for many years and there were many Christian services which the authorities knew about. Every year they would bust one or two groups, then let the folks go unless they gave them a hard time. Those who gave them a hard time were deported. This satisfied the Muttawa, and let the cops say they were enforcing the law. It’s a big sham.

However, thousands of other Christian services were tacitly allowed. Christians could not publicly advertise services, but they very effectively did so within their own communities.

There are 500,000 Filipono workers in the country, and most are Catholic. they have their own priests, hold mass, sacraments, etc. As long as they do it within their own community, and don’t try to convert Muslims, there is no problem.

The big no-no is attempting to convert a Muslim. That is usually informally handled with a warning. If the warning doesn’t work, they are deported.

We can label things as freedom, tolerant, or intolerant. However, t’s best to know the full story so we don’t have to gues at labels.

Bahrain and the Emirates have open Christian churches. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and there are open Christian Churches. Same in Turkey.

I have personally attended the services in these countries.

 

[Ortho]

Wolseley:

Various historians place the number of deaths under various Catholic inquisitions in the vicinity of 3,000 to 4,000 over the course of approximately 300 years. The number varies since there is no way to ascertain the exact numbers. By comparison, however, 800 executions a year were carried out in the early post-Reformation period in England, where Catholic inquisitions never operated at all. The burning of alleged witches was practically unknown in Catholic countries, but quite common in Protestant countries, such as England, where 30,000 people were burned at the stake for supposed witchcraft; in Germany, the number was 100,000.

It’s clear by the tone of the article that the author has an agenda against the Catholic Church, but with numbers like those above, maybe he’d be better off to take after the Protestants. (After all, you have the Peasant’s Rebellion from 1524 to 1526, the Thirty Years War from 1618 to 1648, the Irish Conquest under Cromwell in 1649, the English persecutions under Henry VIII after 1534 and Elizabeth I after 1558, and the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, and in all of those, the Protestants killed a lot more people than all Catholic Inquisitions combined.) I admire his zeal, but it is misplaced.

Whereupon follows a repetition of the laundry list of horrors, trotted out verbatim from the Black Legend ever since the English pamphleteers invented it back in the 16th century.

Most of it is embellished and inflated, a good part of it is pure fabrication; but to refute it all would require, as the author of this article so whimsically puts it, a whole other article. Or two, or three.

In a nutshell, I would only advise that if this type of thing is where you’re getting your factual information from, be advised that it’s about as accurate as the “news articles” in the latest edition of The Star, where you have headlines like “Gigantic Outer Space Centipede Weds Two-Headed Elvis Clone in Raelian Ceremony! Details Inside!”

How many wer killed when the Catholic Crusaders slaughtered the population of Jerusalem?

 

[Ortho]

Darrel:

I agree,

This is the whole point in a nutshell. The people are moving away from Islam and it’s tenets as you say. So what is the eventual outcome of this in time? Islam has no leader to unify anything, so a total implosion of Islamic ruled states is inevitable in the due course of time. Unlike the CC which has a leadership structure given from God, Islam simply splinters like the protestant church. Eventualy a large percentage of Islamic states will become liberal and cast away the laws of Islam. They won’t tolerate the sort of nonsense that comes from the Iranian president of late for example.

-D

Well, we haven’t seen that happen in 1,400 years. Now there are a billion Muslims, and they show little sign of reducing their numbers.

We might ask how Muslims retained their identity without a central leader. They have shown they don’t need one. I’d say that is a sign of strength. Nor have they had the kind of split Christianity saw in the reformation, and Christianity had a central leader.

I agree that Muslim countries will become more liberal. Just contrast Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. Indonesia is far more liberal. It’s possible for Muslim nations to become more liberal and also retain their Islamic identity.

 

[Ortho]

shockerfan:

Who in Islam has the authority to state just what the definitive teachings and beliefs are? Who is the arbitor of disagreements within Islam?

There are four main school within Islam. The central teaching authority of Sunni Islam is in Cairo at Al Azhar University. It’s been around since before the European universities were founded. The scholars there issue guidance.

They don’t have the same authority as the pope, but it is taken very seriously.

In each country there is an Ulema council that settles issues for that country. They take their cue from Al Azhar.

Rulings are not imposed in Islam as we see in the West. It is more a task of influencing, concensus, and convincing.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Ortho:

Bahrain and the Emirates have open Christian churches. Indonesia is the largest Muslim country and there are open Christian Churches. Same in Turkey.

The majority population in the Emirates is non-citizen Western immigrants due to their 0% income tax rate. In Indonesia we have seen many terrorist attacks against Christians and on the Christian islands and Hindu islands there. In Turkey, we have the slaughter of Armenians and Greeks where secular authorities encouraged the pogrom against Christians. In Turkey, promotions for government and most other jobs are reserved for the Muslim population no matter their claim to being ‘secular’.

Even in those ‘liberal’ Islamic countries that are ruled by Sharia, Christians and other so-called ‘people of the Book’ pay more taxes to be able to worship ‘freely’.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Ortho:

How many wer killed when the Catholic Crusaders slaughtered the population of Jerusalem?

And how many Catholics were slaughtered on pilgrimages to the Holy Land by the ‘peaceful’ Muslims?

 

[Ortho]

Semper Fi:

The majority population in the Emirates is non-citizen Western immigrants due to their 0% income tax rate. In Indonesia we have seen many terrorist attacks against Christians and on the Christian islands and Hindu islands there. In Turkey, we have the slaughter of Armenians and Greeks where secular authorities encouraged the pogrom against Christians. In Turkey, promotions for government and most other jobs are reserved for the Muslim population no matter their claim to being ‘secular’.

Even in those ‘liberal’ Islamic countries that are ruled by Sharia, Christians pay more taxes to be able to worship ‘freely’.

Actually the largest ethnic population in the Emirates after Arabs is Indian. The Indians control the economy, and the Arabs control the government.

The Indonesian islands you refer to have had a standoff between Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years.

Also note that Islam was not imposed by war in Indonesia.

Government positions in Turkey are mostly reserved for Muslims. The situation in each country is different, and it is somewhat silly to try to force labels of tolerant and intolerant. Ignorance of Islam and Islamic countries is widespread in the US. It’s best to simply learn what is going on in each of the different Islamic populations. There are vast cultural differences.

 

[Ortho]

Semper Fi:

The majority population in the Emirates is non-citizen Western immigrants due to their 0% income tax rate. In Indonesia we have seen many terrorist attacks against Christians and on the Christian islands and Hindu islands there. In Turkey, we have the slaughter of Armenians and Greeks where secular authorities encouraged the pogrom against Christians. In Turkey, promotions for government and most other jobs are reserved for the Muslim population no matter their claim to being ‘secular’.

Even in those ‘liberal’ Islamic countries that are ruled by Sharia, Christians and other so-called ‘people of the Book’ pay more taxes to be able to worship ‘freely’.

I paid zero taxes for all the years I lived in Islamic countries. There are six million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia. They pay zero tax.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Ortho:

Actually the largest ethnic population in the Emirates after Arabs is Indian. The Indians control the economy, and the Arabs control the government.

The Indonesian islands you refer to have had a standoff between Christians and Muslims for hundreds of years.

Also note that Islam was not imposed by war in Indonesia.

Government positions in Turkey are mostly reserved for Muslims. The situation in each country is different, and it is somewhat silly to try to force labels of tolerant and intolerant. Ignorance of Islam and Islamic countries is widespread in the US. It’s best to simply learn what is going on in each of the different Islamic populations. There are vast cultural differences.

Maybe you are correct about the Emirates, but in Dubai the majority population is Western (I have been there).

Let’s also remember that Turkey used to be a Christian country as well, and Islam was spread there by the sword.

 

[Semper_Fi_1]

Ortho:

I paid zero taxes for all the years I lived in Islamic countries. There are six million foreign workers in Saudi Arabia. They pay zero tax.

If you are a citizen of these countries and Christian, you will pay a tax.

 

[Ortho]

Semper Fi:

And how many Catholics were slaughtered on pilgrimages to the Holy Land by the ‘peaceful’ Muslims?

Thousands.