question about Islam and knowing God

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trdchubi said:
In other words, your allah has a reputation of striking fear among his slaves. Where is the love, to be more précised, unconditional love from your allah?.
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The only instance where we see unconditional love from allah is when muhammad lied about the idols to the quaryish tribesmen in Ishaq 166 to save his own skin and allah loved him so much that it forgave him for it. The next was when muhammad jumped in fright at the eclipse thinking it was his judgement day and he too was forgiven for his cowardice because allah thought muhammad was only human…and what happened to the men who went to scout out Canaan with Joshua and came back in fear because they saw giants? They were cursed by Yahweh God.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com

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Monica4316 said:
… Are Muslims encouraged to have both hope and fear during prayer? what if at times, there was only hope, would that be wrong?
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Ibn al-Qayyim, the famous 13th Century Sunni jurist, said this about hope and fear in faith:

“The heart is like a bird. Love is its head, and its two wings are hope and fear.”

If we ask ourselves which is more important, the head of a bird or its wings, we would have to answer that certainly its head is more important. The bird would die instantly without its head, but it would still be alive if it lost its wings, just completely helpless and defenseless. Love should come first; then hope and fear follow in perfect balance with each other.

This balance between hope and fear should be a general, overall balance. In some situations, hope should predominate over fear and in others fear should predominate over hope. However, love should always take precedence over both.
 
hamba2han said:
Ibn al-Qayyim, the famous 13th Century Sunni jurist, said this about hope and fear in faith:

“The heart is like a bird. Love is its head, and its two wings are hope and fear.”

If we ask ourselves which is more important, the head of a bird or its wings, we would have to answer that certainly its head is more important. The bird would die instantly without its head, but it would still be alive if it lost its wings, just completely helpless and defenseless. Love should come first; then hope and fear follow in perfect balance with each other.

This balance between hope and fear should be a general, overall balance. In some situations, hope should predominate over fear and in others fear should predominate over hope. However, love should always take precedence over both.
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Hamba, if there was love, muhammad would not have slaughtered his enemies. If there was love, muhammad would have given up his desires for zayed’s wife and let her remain with him. If there was love…muhammad would not have attacked Mecca.

Please don’t insult love. Love is not blind. An evil man who talks about love is like a vulture trying to lure out a chick from its mother’s wings.

muslimsopenyoureyes.blogspot.com

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Interesting discussion…

I’d say the fear Christians have for God is
  1. fear of offending Him
  2. “fear” as in awe, or reverence
however we are also taught that “perfect love casts out fear” so we should not feel lots of fear/worry hell or damnation, but hope in Christ who is our Savior. 🙂

God bless
 
dzheremi said:
I appreciate the frankness of your response, elwill. It is also a near-perfect illustration of what I meant by a “flat” relationship: There are two sides, and you hope to navigate them. Things are black, or they are white. You go to paradise, or you go to hell. We Christians also have those thoughts and ideas, but there is more to the kinds of hope and fear (and other emotions!) that you find in Christianity. I guess you could say that we also have “black and white”, but as only two colors in a wide spectrum. 🙂
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in your view it’s flat relationship , but i don’t see it like that
i think that the perfect relationship is this one which suppoerted by actions .
when you love God , you will obey him practically
and if you ignores God , you will keep saying by your tonque that you love him
and if you hates God , you will disbelieve in him

God sent his prophets to humankind to warn them from punishments and to give them glad tiding , each according to seeds .
we balanced our relation with God by fearing him and loving him , the two emotions aside
and you said , the bible teach the same as long as i know

anyway , if our relation with God is surface , so tell me how it differ than yours ?
 
“The heart is like a bird. Love is its head, and its two wings are hope and fear.”

This is explaining about the feelings of hope and fear in one’s heart.

In the overall scheme of things however, it is best that one’s head should always rule over one’s heart
 
Elwill, we also believe that love for God is shown through our obedience to Him. 🙂 but simple obedience is not necessarily perfect love, it might be imperfect if it’s mixed with fear of hell…for example, if we obey God because we want to avoid hell. That is not as perfect…

one aspect of love that (I’d say) motivates Christians to obey God is wanting to be with Him. Our ultimate goal is union with God and we get this in the Eucharist in a way, but it will only fully happen in Heaven. That is what Heaven is to us, being immersed in His love forever. Sometimes the reason people try to avoid sin is because they fear losing Him.

I don’t know how this relates to Islam but just putting it out there…
 
dzheremi said:
Hi Monica,

Apologies in advance for cutting so much of your post. I want to respond to more of it, but for some reason the “quote” button (and every other button) on this board’s interface has not been working for me for a while, so it is a bit daunting to quote successive blocks of text.

Anyway, I feel like I should clarify what I wrote. I did not mean to write against Cathrine of Siena (though honestly some aspects of her writings do make me uncomfortable). I only meant to write something like “compared to, for instance, the writings of Cathrine of Siena” because they do feature what I would call, for lack of a better way to put it, carnal language. I wanted to make it clear to anyone who read the post that even though I may write about having a satisfying relationship with God, I do not mean that in the carnal fashion that I would not be surprised if some understood it to mean (keeping in mind that one common Muslim objection to the incarnation, based on the Qur’an, is that Jesus Christ cannot be the “Son” of God because God has no consort). I just can’t think of a better way to phrase it, probably because it is very late here and I am very tired.
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Thanks for the clarification 🙂
no probs. The reason I reacted to that is probably because in the past, I just had a negative experience with someone who was criticizing many of the Catholic Saints for the prayers they used, etc, that expressed any intimacy with God. But I see what you’re trying to say. I know St Catherine of Siena’s writings are probably not for everyone (I personally like her, though I haven’t read a lot by her)

God bless
 
Do Muslims ever use their own words to pray to God? (like just talking to God)

do you ever feel God’s presence?

just curious
 
hamba2han said:
“The heart is like a bird. Love is its head, and its two wings are hope and fear.”

This is explaining about the feelings of hope and fear in one’s heart.

In the overall scheme of things however, it is best that one’s head should always rule over one’s heart
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Can you honestly point this out in the quran - this view of bin al-quayyim? Do you consider this as islamic dogma?
 
Monica4316 said:
Thanks for your reply.🙂

I can see something similar in Catholicism, when we say that we have no assurance of salvation but we hope in God’s mercy.

However for us, the fear sort of fades away, and we just hope… what we (should) fear is offending God, not even for the punishment, but because He deserves all our love (perfect contrition). We believe we hurt Him with our sins.

Are Muslims encouraged to have both hope and fear during prayer? what if at times, there was only hope, would that be wrong?

God bless
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it’s not about absolute love or absolute fear , it’s all about consequences of this fear and of this love

If a person has a deep fear of Allah, he will be very meticulous to obey His commands; he will love Him and behaves very respectfully. For example, he will not be self-centered or selfish, but compassionate and caring. He will not give rein to his lower-self or seek his own ends, but he will be forgiving; he will fear Allah and be forgiving to others. For instance forgiveness is a force that fosters love, compassion is a force that fosters love. For the sake of Allah’s approval you take care of your beloved, take pains about what he eats and drinks and about the exercises that person should do. This is all a manifestation of one’s love for Allah. But the person who does not fear Allah becomes self-centered, selfish thinking only of himself; he becomes unforgiving and reacts harshly when his own interests are at stake. For instance such person would be skeptical , unaltruistic; he would be not generous . That is to say, lots of negative attitudes piles up on him. But in the case of fear of Allah, every sort of goodnesscomes upon him; that is to say every sort of goodness that ensure love and beauty fit perfectly on fear of Allah.

Fear + love = respect
 
Monica4316 said:
Interesting discussion…

I’d say the fear Christians have for God is
  1. fear of offending Him
  2. “fear” as in awe, or reverence
however we are also taught that “perfect love casts out fear” so we should not feel lots of fear/worry hell or damnation, but hope in Christ who is our Savior. 🙂

God bless
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Precisely Monica and this perfect love of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane resulted to our salvation. Our God leads by example.

This True God love us so much that He instill in us Faith more than fear. If fear is dominant factor in our relationship with Him then we are serving a tyrant despot.
 
Monica4316 said:
Elwill, we also believe that love for God is shown through our obedience to Him. 🙂 but simple obedience is not necessarily perfect love, it might be imperfect if it’s mixed with fear of hell…for example, if we obey God because we want to avoid hell. That is not as perfect…

one aspect of love that (I’d say) motivates Christians to obey God is wanting to be with Him. Our ultimate goal is union with God and we get this in the Eucharist in a way, but it will only fully happen in Heaven. That is what Heaven is to us, being immersed in His love forever. Sometimes the reason people try to avoid sin is because they fear losing Him.

I don’t know how this relates to Islam but just putting it out there…
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actually , we balanced between fear and love
i think that’s why it seems always that muslims are more devout to their relegion than christians to theirs
 
trdchubi said:
Can you honestly point this out in the quran - this view of bin al-quayyim? Do you consider this as islamic dogma?
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Think of the Qur’an as the map to guide us in our journey through life and think of the Sunnah (this would include the ahadith) of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as the legend by which to correctly read this map.

Only a fool will try to read a map without at the same time referring to the accompanying legend.

And so, by constantly referring to these two invaluable sources of guidance, it is really not difficult at all for Muslims to see that Ibn al-Qayyim thoughts are pretty much in line with the true teachings of Islam.
 
hamba2han said:
Think of the Qur’an as the map to guide us in our journey through life and think of the Sunnah (this would include the ahadith) of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) as the legend by which to correctly read this map.

Only a fool will try to read a map without at the same time referring to the accompanying legend.

And so, by constantly referring to these two invaluable sources of guidance, it is really not difficult at all for Muslims to see that Ibn al-Qayyim thoughts are pretty much in line with the true teachings of Islam.
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Again, can you post any verse from the quran or the hadith that supports bin al-quayyim claims - Love of allah that carries a positive meaning in islam?
 
trdchubi said:
Again, can you post any verse from the quran or the hadith that supports bin al-quayyim claims - Love of allah that carries a positive meaning in islam?
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There are just so many verses in the Qur’an which touches on fear and hope.

We must recognize God’s presence within us and with us. Our hearts will remain restless until they rest in God and as the Qur’an says **“for sure it is in the remembrance of God that the heart finds rest” **(13:28) and according to the saying of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), there is polish for every rust and the polish for the rust of the heart is the remembrance of God.
 
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