videos
- Latest
- Feature
- Popular
Articles
The Status of Women in Islam
By: Ayman Samy
Praise be to Allah, His peace and blessing be onto his prophet Mohammed,
Allah created the couple from male and female, one soul, and from one origin, "It is He who created you from one soul and created from it its mate that he might dwell in security with her." (Ar- Room: 21) Eve was decreed to Adam as he found tranquility in her. Speak unconditionally about all means of intimacy, love, respect and appreciation.
As time moves on, generations arose and grew on non-God's law, they did not follow His guidance, did not lighten their lives with what He revealed, then calamities and disasters comes one after another.
The woman has suffered underestimation since the ancient period for even some parents in some religions were asking to be gifted a male birth in their prayers!! And if the information comes with the birth of a female it means the darkness of their face and depression and heartbreak which can't be removed until one buries the newly born girl in dust alive. If she would survive from burring alive then depression remains and she can only live as stored property. She is to be owned rather owning, quarantined in actions, powerless, useless, broken mind, and in some religious laws she is marketable as beasts, or out of piety she can be rent for money to be back after a while.
As a pagan society if a family gets many female births and faced difficulties in subvention, the female births are left in farms till they die of nigh extreme coldness or predators attack without any feeling of remorse from her family. So do not ask a bout education or cultivation as this has never thought of.
In marriage time her family give her the husband she does not accept as a kind of marriage known as "Shighaar", type of marriage that does not include dowry, exchange, and " Al Istebdaa", as one sends his wife to a stranger wishing nobility in offspring, as well as selling some of them and receiving others instead. How much is woman in such societies? It is surprisingly a number of bulls given to the father as a price for his daughter.
How can she live with the man who bought her for some bulls? She must do as a servant, carrying water from river, doing house issues, and probably join trade with her husband. If her husband became mad at her he leaves her hanged for she is neither considered married nor can she marry.
It is bitter life that woman experienced far away from the religion of Allah for one of the mis-leaded in his sleazy law "man is a leader, accordingly he gives orders while woman is a follower so she must obey".
Evil is what they decide.
As this is the status of the majority of wives, how about those who are forced for whoredom? Oh Allah we ask your protection from those who do not attribute to Allah due grandeur
You can imagine woman in one of that communities waiting to be burnt alive. The only crime she committed is nothing but that her husband was died so she must follow him with obedience and satisfying. Six thousand women were burnt within ten tears.
Each of Allah's messengers who were sent was calling people to avoid this oppression for Allah does not like the wrongdoers. However the distorters never stopped pullout woman until the Torah is distorted and until woman was followed with shame which is not contained in the law of Allah. Again you can clearly say the same in the distortion of Bible.
At the beginning of the fifth century the Macon Complex Christians which is venerated by Christians to look at the status of woman, guess what they were searching for? They were collected to search for the fact of woman. Is she a body without spirit? Or having spirit like men? And the decision was that she has soul … Thanks be to Allah for that but then what?
It's not over yet, they confirmed that she owns evil spirit not surviving from torment, except the mother of Jesus; she is the only one that owns survival spirit from the torment of hell fire, so how much and how many woman bore.
Finally Allah allowed the sun if Islam to shine then Earth lightened with the law, light and guidance of Allah.
Look to see males and females of believers, males and females of Muslims, directed themselves to Kabba bowing and prostrating altogether " And their Lord responded to them, "Never will I allow to be lost the work of [any] worker among you, whether male or female; you are of one another (Al-Imran: 195)
Yes both sides have duties with the promise of paradise in return, where men and women are equal The believing men and believing women are allies of one another. They enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong and establish prayer and give zakah, charity, and obey Allah and His Messenger. "Those - Allah will have mercy upon them. Indeed, Allah is Exalted in Might and Wise. Allah has promised the believing men and believing women gardens beneath which rivers flow, wherein they abide eternally, and pleasant dwellings in gardens of perpetual residence; but approval from Allah is greater. It is that which the great attainment is." (At-Tawba: 71, 72)
God is the Great, the low of Allah is all light and good "Does He who created not know, while He is the Subtle, the Acquainted?" (Al-Mulk:14)
The law of Allah equalized between man and his sister, the woman, in a lot of charges and duties. All of you are guardians and are responsible for your subjects, as well as the law of Allah gave complete equalization between woman and her brother, the man, in reward and punishment. "Whoever does a wrong will be recompensed for it, and he will not find besides Allah a protector or a helper. And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed." (An-Nisaa:123,124). Isalm gives woman human, social, economic, and legal rights in this life.
Let's start with some of her rights:
1- The Human Rights
The right to live, before she comes into life she was an embryo in her mother's womb. Islam guarantees her right and prohibits her killing.
Allah forbids killing the soul for both genders whether male or female," And do not kill the soul which Allah has forbidden, except by right" (Al-Israa: 33), so if she comes she can't be killed neither even alive killing."And when the girl [who was] buried alive is asked For what sin she was killed" (At- Takweer: 8, 9)
In addition Islam also commanded good breeding for woman and promised heartfelt reward for that. According to Allah, this reward could be protection of hell fire, obtaining paradise, and to be gathered with the prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him.
The prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him says, "He who is involved (in the responsibility) of (bringing up) daughters, and he is benevolent towards them, they would become protection for him against Hell-fire". [Al-Bukhari and Muslim].
Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, said, " Whoever supports two girls till they attain maturity, he and I will come on the Day of Resurrection like this". Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upom him, joined his fingers illustrating this." [Muslim].
Jabir ibn 'Abdullah reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said,, " "Anyone who has three daughters and provides for them, clothes them and shows mercy to them will definitely enter the Garden." A man from the people said, "And two daughters, Messenger of Allah?" He said, "And two." Hasan (Al-Albani)
Allah equaled between men and women in regards with human dignity, He saidm, " And We have certainly honored the children of Adam" (Al- Israa: 70). Allah also equaled between her and her brother, in the life and Hereafter recompense as we mentioned before, "Whatever you have will end, but what Allah has is lasting. And We will surely give those who were patient their reward according to the best of what they used to do." (Al- Nahl: 97 ) and " and whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer - those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed."(Al- Nisaa:124)
Allah gave women the right of expressing her opinion and consultation. When she complained, Allah was listening to her complaint above the seven heavens and revealed Quran verses for her, these verses are being recited until the day of resurrection, " Certainly has Allah heard the speech of the one who argues with you, [O Muhammad], concerning her husband and directs her complaint to Allah. And Allah hears your dialogue; indeed, Allah is Hearing and Seeing." (Al – Mujaadala)
2- The Social Rights
Islam gave woman the right to learn and to be literalized typically as well as her brother "O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones" (Al- Tahreem: 6)
The prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him recommended seeking knowledge. It was narrated that Anas bin Malik said: "Seeking knowledge is a duty upon every Muslim, and he who imparts knowledge to those who do not deserve it, is like one who puts a necklace of jewels, pearls and gold around the neck of swines." Da'if (Darussalam). This Hadeeth gives evidence that there is no difference between men and women in the necessity of obtain understanding of religion. It was mentioned also that Prophet Mohammed peace and blessings be upon him, ordered and confirmed with Al Shifaa to teach Hfsa how to write.
Another right on father and husband is alimony; Allah says, "Upon the father is the mothers' provision and their clothing according to what is acceptable." (Al- Baqara: 233). When Hend, Abu- Sofian’s wife, complained to the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him, that her husband is miserly man as he does not give her and her son enough for living, the prophet replied: "Take reasonably what is sufficient for you and your children " [Al-Bukhari ] .
Moreover choice of the suitable husband is considered one of the rights of women, the prophet Mohammed peace be upon him said, "A woman who has been previously married (Thayyib) has more right to her person than her guardian; and a virgin's father must ask her consent from her, her consent being her silence, At times he said: Her silence is her affirmation." [Muslim]
While one of the fathers signed marriage for his daughter without her permission, the prophet Mohammed, peace and blessing be upon him, cancelled that marriage. [Al- Bukhari]
Islam made dowry is a right for woman, Allah says “And give the women [upon marriage] their [bridal] gifts graciously." (All- NIsaa:4)
Islam give woman the right of sexual pleasure, accordingly husband can be absent and abandon his wife for maximum four months. He should stop abandon or she would raise her case to the magistrate who would divorce her from such unjust husband. Allah says: " And if they decide on divorce - then indeed, Allah is Hearing and Knowing." (Al- Baqara: 227)
Another one of woman rights is living with kindly, whither she is a mother " And We have enjoined upon man, to his parents, good treatment." (Al- Ahqaf: 18) or a wife " and live with them in kindness” (Al- Nisaa: 18) or if she was a sister, daughter, aunt or whatever. Islam commanded kind treatment for woman, the prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him, said in his latest commandments "Fear Allah in treating women"
Even after marriage, Woman is not forced to live with whom she does not like, she can ask for separation for any legitimate reason.
If Separation took place between the couple, there will be a right she obtains from her ex-husband; this right is the alimony for the waiting-period.
Woman has also the right to breast-feed her kids, Allah says, "Mothers may breastfeed their children two complete years for whoever wishes to complete the nursing [period]." (Al- Baqara: 233) She has this right for breast-feeding whither she is staying with her husband or separated. Also one of her rights whither she lives with her husband or separated is kid’s custody.
Islam gives woman the right to inherit, Allah says "For men is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, and for women is a share of what the parents and close relatives leave, be it little or much - an obligatory share." (Al-Nisaa:8)
3) The Economic Rights
She can own, sell, purchase, gift. In sum woman in Islam has independent financial disclosure.
4) The Legal Rights
In Islam, woman is full-fledged human being; she has rights in suits and witness.
Finally, this is a drop in the Ocean, so honestly have you ever acknowledged any religion that gives woman such generosity or even half of it?!! However it is like Allah says "it is not eyes that are blinded, but blinded are the hearts which are within the breasts." (Al- Hajj: 46).
by: Basma
By: Ayman Samy
Praise be to Allah, His peace and blessing be onto his prophet Mohammed,
...
I Want to Be a Muslim but …" Myths about Converting to Islam in Islam(1)
The most fundamental belief in Islam is that there is no true god (deity) but Allah. He, the One, the Only, the First and the Last, has no partners, sons, daughters or intermediaries. He is Alone in His Dominion and in His Omnipotence. It is a very simple concept, it is simply the truth. Nevertheless sometimes the pure belief in God can be overwhelming. Often we are surprised when we call for God and He answers immediately.
The religion of Islam encompasses that simple concept – that God is One and wraps it in a package called submission. Islam means, submission to the will of God. The root word of Islam (sa-li-ma) is the same that is shared with the Arabic word meaning peace and security. In essence, peace and security comes from living life according to God’s will. Like a circle of life it always begins and ends in the same place – there is no god but Allah. When we submit to the will of God, we are Muslims and to demonstrate our sincerity we testify that we are Muslim by saying, alone or in the company of other Muslims, la ilaha illa Allah, Muhammad rasoolu Allah. There is no true god (deity) but Allah and Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, is His messenger.
Whenever any human being experiences and understands God’s mercy, Satan tries his best to harm that individual. Satan does not want us to feel comfort and mercy; he wants us to feel anxious and depressed. He wants us to make mistakes and commit sins. Satan despairs of ever feeling God’s love therefore he wants to corrupt as many human beings as he can: “…surely I will sit in wait against them (human beings) on Your Straight Path. Then I will come to them from before them and behind them, from their right and from their left…” (Quran 7:16-17)
Whenever a person realises the truth and wants to become a Muslim, Satan introduces the word ‘but’. I want to become a Muslim...BUT! But I am not ready. But I don’t speak Arabic. But I am white. But I don’t really know about Islam. God warned us against Satan and his cunning ways: “O children of Adam. Let not Satan deceive you.” (Quran 7:27) and “Surely Satan is an enemy to you so take him as an enemy.” (Quran 35:6)
Satan’s whispers try to prevent us from converting to Islam. These ideas should not stand in the way of a person connecting, or reconnecting with the Most Merciful God. In this series or articles we will discuss some of the most prominent myths, lay them open to scrutiny and see that God is indeed Most Merciful. He makes converting to Islam easy, not difficult. No buts!
I want to be a Muslim but I do not want to change my name.
A person embracing Islam does not have to change his or her name. Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, said that everybody was entitled to a good name, a name that had meaning or character. For the vast majority of people it is not an issue, however if you discover that your name has a bad meaning or an association with sinners or tyrants it is better to change it to something more acceptable. If the person’s name is a name of an idol or reflects servitude to something or someone other than God, then it has to be changed. Remember though that Islam is easy. If changing your name officially would cause hardship, distress or harm, it would suffice to change it only among friends and family.
I want to be a Muslim but I do not know any Arabic.
The religion of Islam was revealed for all people, in all places, at all times. It is not a religion exclusively for Arabs or Arabic speakers. In fact the majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims are not from an Arab background. A person can become Muslim without knowing a single word of Arabic; it does not affect his or her ability to accept Islam. However, the language of Quran is Arabic and the daily prayers are performed in Arabic, so although it is not necessary to learn the whole language, after conversion it will be necessary to learn some Arabic words.
If a person is unable to learn enough Arabic to perform his prayers because of a speech defect or because he is not able to pronounce the Arabic, he must try as much as he can. If learning at least some Arabic is not possible, then he is relieved of this obligation, because God does not burden people with more than they are able to bear. However God also says that he has made learning Quran easy, therefore it is obligatory for a person to try his best. Allah says, “God burdens not a person beyond his scope.” (Quran 2:286) And says, “And We have indeed made the Quran easy to understand and remember.” (Quran 54:17)
A man came to the Prophet and said, “O Messenger of God, I cannot memorize something from the Quran so teach me something suffices me.” He said, “Say, Subhaan-Allaah wal-hamdu Lillaah wa laa ilaaha ill-Allaah wa Allaahu akbar wa laa hawla wa la quwwata illa Billaah (Far removed is God from every imperfection, praise be to God, there is no god except Allah and God is Most great, and there is no power or strength except with God).”
Entering the fold of Islam is easy. It is a simple process, free of complications. In part 2 we will discuss circumcision, the fact that Islam has no ethnic or race restrictions and becoming Muslim without knowing very much about Islam.
There is no god but God. It is a simple statement that should make converting to Islam easy. There is only One God, and only one religion, nothing could be more uncomplicated. However, as we discussed in the previous article, whenever a person realises the truth and wants to become a Muslim, Satan introduces the word but. I want to be a Muslim...BUT. But I am not ready. But I don’t speak Arabic, or but I do not want to change my name. Today we will discuss more myths that prevent people from converting to Islam.
I want to be a Muslim but I do not want to be circumcised.
Prophet Muhammad said that every child was born in a state of fitrah, with the correct understanding of God. And the traditions of Prophet Muhammad tell us that the conditions related to fitrah (the natural state of being) are five.
“Five things are part of the fitrah: shaving the pubic hair, circumcision, trimming the moustache, plucking the armpit hairs, and cutting the nails.” This is believed to be the ancient way, the natural way, followed by all of the Prophets, and enjoined on the believers by the laws that they brought.
The majority of Islamic scholars agree that circumcision is obligatory for men providing they do not fear that it may harm them. When assessing the degree of harm a man must look to the Quran and the authentic teachings of Prophet Muhammad for guidance. If a man is not able to be circumcised due to fear of injury or any other valid reason that may make his life miserable, the obligation is waived. It is not permissible for the issue to become a barrier that prevents a man from accepting Islam . In other words, it is not a condition for becoming a Muslim. Also, it does not prevent a man from leading the prayers. There is no requirement for female circumcision in Islam.
I want to be a Muslim but I am white.
Islam is the religion that was revealed for all people, in all places, at all times. It was not revealed for a particular race or ethnicity. It is a complete way of life based on the teachings found in the Quran and the authentic traditions of Prophet Muhammad. Although the Quran was revealed in the Arabic language and Prophet Muhammad was an Arab, it would be wrong to assume that all Muslims are Arabs, or for that matter, that all Arabs are Muslims. In fact the vast majority of the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims are not Arabs.
There are no racial or ethnic requirements for one to be a Muslim. In his final sermon Prophet Muhammad reiterated this fact very succinctly.
“O people! Your god is One and your father is one. Verily, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab and a non-Arab has no superiority over an Arab; a red person has no superiority over a black person nor does a black person have superiority over a red person, except by piety.”[6] “O humankind! We have created you from a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another.” (Quran 49:13)
Source: Islam Religion Website
The most fundamental belief in Islam is that there is no true god (deity) but Allah. He, the One, the Only, the ...
FRUITS OF THE GREATNESS OF ISLAM
Fruits of the greatness of Islam
Islam clarifies the great truths that man cannot know without the unmistakable Revelation, such as knowing Allah Almighty, the Creator of all, knowing His orders and prohibitions, knowing the beginning of creation and knowing the purpose of creation man.
Islam is a religion from Allah, a perfect religion without any contradiction or injustice, Islam is the method and the laws of Allah, which is the Wise and knowledgeable. Nothing of what is on earth or in heaven is hidden from Allah " Do they not meditate on the Koran? If it came from others than from Allah, they would find many contradictions there. " (Qur'an 4:82)
Islam is a religion that conforms to the right science and the right mentality, gives importance to science and exalts scientists, respects the mind and speaks with it in a logical and rational way. In the sacred Koran Allah the Almighty clarifies the importance of science and the mind " These metaphors We propose them to men, but they don't understand them if not the wise ones. " (Quran 29:43)
Islam frees man from the adoration of creation or from being a slave of his passions to adore Allah Almighty alone and sincerely, follow his instructions, obey his orders and avoid his prohibitions.
After Allah had sent down, in the Quran, the verse that says: " They took their rabbis, their monks and the Messiah son of Mary, as lords other than Allah " (Quran 9:31), 'Adi ibn Hatim ha heard the Prophet Muhammad peace and blessing on him say: "they did not worship their rabbis and monks, But the lawful and the illicit were what their rabbis and monks said "
Raba'i ibn Amer al-Tamimi told Rustam (the commander of the Persians): " Allah has sent us to draw people out of the worship of creation to the worship of Allah Almighty, of the narrowness of the world to its capacity and from the injustice of religions to the justice of Islam. "
To satisfy the needs of the human soul, Islam has legalized everything that conforms to the human soul and can reform it in case of need, Allah is the Creator of man and therefore His religion goes in harmony with the soul human " Would he not know what he himself created, when He is the Subtle, the Well-informed? " (Quran 67:14)
Translated by: HANAA MOHAMMED
...
The Story Of Ayoub (PBUH) And His Patience
Prophet Ayoub (Alayhis salam) was Allah’s thankful, repentant, patient and steadfast worshipper. Allah the Almighty has praised Him in the Quran thus:-
“Truly! We found him patient. How excellent a slave! Verily, he was ever oft-returning in repentance to Us” (Saad:38:44).
Ibn Kathir narrates that once Iblis (shaytan) heard an angel praising Ayoub (Alayh assalam) to other angels, extolling his noble character, patience and remembrance of Allah and describing him as “the best creature on earth today, and an excellent model for the worshippers of Allah.”
The angel also added that Allah had blessed him with long life and plenty of riches, yet he was never haughty or selfish. His family, servants, the needy and the poor, all had a share in his good fortune. He bought slaves to set them free and made those who received his charity feel as if they were doing him a favor.
Overhearing all this, Iblis became annoyed and planned to tempt Ayoub (Alayhis salam) and lead him to disbelief. First, he tried to distract him from his prayers by whispering to him about the good things in life, but as a true believer, Ayoub(Alayh assalam ) would not let evil thoughts tempt him. Iblis, then tried to attribute ulterior motives to his constant glorification of Allah, projecting his worship as being motivated from greed to safeguard his wealth.
Iblis thus said to Allah Almighty, “If You deprive him of his wealth You will find that he will no longer mention Your name and his praying will stop.”
Allah told Iblis that Ayoub (Alayh assalam) was one of His most sincere devotees whose worship stemmed from his heart and had nothing to do with material gifts or favors granted to him. To prove His devotee’s depth of sincerity and patience, Allah allowed Iblis to do whatever he wished with Ayoub (Alayh assalam)’s wealth.
Delighted, Iblis gathered his helpers and set about destroying Ayoub (AS)’s cattle, servants and farms, depriving him of all his possessions. Then in the guise of a wise old man he approached him and said:
“All your wealth is lost. Some people say that it is because you gave too much charity and that you are wasting your time with your continuous prayers to Allah. Others say that Allah has brought this upon you in order to please your enemies. If Allah had the capacity to prevent harm, then He would have protected your wealth.”
Steadfast in his faith, Ayoub (AS) replied:- “What Allah has taken away from me belongs to Him. I was only its trustee for a while. He gives to whom He wills and withholds from whom He wills,” and he prostrated before his Lord.
Frustrated with his failure, Iblis again addressed Allah (Subhanahu watala):
“I have stripped Ayoub (ALAYH assalam) of all his possessions, but he still remains grateful to You. However, he is only hiding his disappointment, for he places great store by his many children. The real test of a parent is through his children. You will then see how Ayoub (Alayh assalam) will reject You.”
Allah (Subhanahu watala) again granted Iblis authority, but warned him that it would reduce neither Ayoub (Alayhis salam)’s faith in his Lord nor his patience.
Iblis gathered his helpers and brought the house in which Ayoub (Alayhis salam)’s children were living, crashing down, killing all of them. Disguised as a man who had come to sympathize with him, he said:
“The circumstances under which your children died were sad. Surely, your Lord is not rewarding you properly for all your prayers.”
The faithful believer of Allah (Subhanahu watala) replied, disappointing Iblis once again:-
“Allah sometimes gives and sometimes takes. He is sometimes pleased and sometimes displeased with our deeds. Whether a thing is beneficial or harmful to me, I will remain firm in my belief and remain thankful to my Creator.”
Saying this he prostrated to his Lord. Extremely vexed, Iblis again called on Allah Almighty:
“O my Lord, Ayoub (AS)’s wealth is gone and his children are dead, but he is still healthy in body, and as long as he enjoys good health he will continue to worship You in the hope of regaining his wealth and producing more children. Grant me authority over his body so that I may weaken it. He will surely stop worshipping You and will thus become disobedient.”
Allah Almighty granted Iblis his third request but placed a condition:
“I give you authority over his body but not over his soul, intellect, or heart, for in these places reside the knowledge of Me and My religion.”
Armed with this new authority, Iblis afflicted Ayoub (Alayhis salam)’s body with disease, reducing it to mere skin and bone. He suffered severe pain yet remained strong in faith, and patiently bore all the suffering without complaints. Hopeful of Allah’s Mercy, he neither despaired nor turned to others for help. Although he had lost all his children and was deprived of his wealth and physically afflicted, he still continued to glorify Allah the Almighty day and night. His disease lasted for a long time. His friends felt disgusted and his close relatives deserted him. The sole companion and comforter through many years of his suffering was his kind and loving wife.
Iblis became desperate. He consulted his helpers but they asked him:
“How is it that your cleverness cannot work against Ayoub (AS), yet you succeeded in misleading Adam, the father of man, out of paradise?”
Iblis went to Ayoub (ALAYH assalam)’s wife in the form of a man. “Where is your husband?” he asked her.
She pointed to an almost lifeless form crumpled on the bed and said: “There he is, suspended between life and death.”
Iblis reminded her of the days when he had enjoyed good health, wealth and children. The painful memory of years of hardship overwhelmed her. She burst into tears and asked her husband:
“How long are you going to bear this torture from our Lord? Are we to remain without wealth, children or friends forever? Why don’t you call upon Allah to remove this suffering?”
Ayoub (Alayh assalam) sighed, and replied softly:-
“Iblis must have whispered to you and made you dissatisfied. Tell me, how long did I enjoy good health and riches?”
She replied, “For eighty years.”
Then he asked, “How long have I been suffering like this?”
She said, “Seven years.”
Then he told her: “In that case I am ashamed to call on my Lord to remove the hardship, for I have not suffered longer than the years of good health and plenty that I enjoyed. Your faith seems to have weakened and you are dissatisfied with the fate decreed by Allah. If I ever regain health, I swear I will punish you with a hundred strokes! From this day, I shall not eat or drink anything from your hand. Leave me alone and let my Lord do with me as He pleases.”
Crying bitterly, with no other choice, she left with a heavy heart. In his helpless state, Ayoub (Alayh assalam) turned to Allah, not to complain but to seek His mercy:
“And (remember) Ayyub (Job), when he cried to his Lord: ‘Verily, distress has seized me, and You are the Most Merciful of all those who show mercy.’ So We answered his call, and We removed the distress that was on him, and We restored his family to him (that he had lost) and the like thereof along with them as a mercy from Ourselves and a Reminder for all those who worship Us” (Al-Anbiya 21:83-84)....
Almighty Allah further says in the Quran:
“And remember Our slave Ayyub (Job), when he invoked his Lord (saying): ‘Verily Shaitan (Satan) has touched me with distress (by ruining my health) and torment (by ruining my wealth)!’ (Allah said to him): “Strike the ground with your foot: This is (a spring of) water to wash in, and a cool and (refreshing) drink.” And We gave him (back) his family, and along with them the like thereof, as a Mercy from Us, and a Reminder for those who understand (Sad 38:41-43).
Ayoub (Alayh assalam) obeyed Allah’s instructions, and almost immediately his good health was restored. Meanwhile, his faithful wife who could no longer bear to be parted from her husband returned to beg his forgiveness, and to serve him. On entering the house, she was amazed at the sudden change she saw. Ayoub (Alayh assalam) had regained his health! She embraced him and thanked Allah for His mercy.
Ayoub (Alayh assalam) was now worried about the oath he had taken to punish her with a hundred strokes if he regained health. He did not wish to hurt her but could not break a promise to Allah. Therefore, Allah in His wisdom and mercy, came to the assistance of His faithful servant, and instructed him:- “And take in your hand a bundle of thin grass and strike therewith (your wife), and break not your oath” (Sad 38:44).
Thus Allah the Most Merciful rewards His faithful and grateful servants.
Source:- Ibn Kathir...!!!
This story should remind us that we should never make our worship and sincerity toward Allah contingent on our perceived blessings. Allah tests us in many ways and we should, therefore, be steadfast in His worship constantly. And We should never lose hope in Allah Almighty Mercy no matter in what situations in you are Allah Almighty Grant and accept the dua (Intercession) of Iblees for whole the hell was Prepared and destined...We are Muslims and from the Ummah of his beloved Prophet Muhammad (SAW) Imagine how can Allah Almighty Doesn't answer our dua...the only thing we need to do while making Dua is to keep patience so that our Dua is Answered by Allah Almighty. As Allah Almighty is also the maker,writer and owner of our destiny so he only know when and what is the best time to answer his servent's dua's...And Allah will only answer not in a well,good or or prosperous situation....but He Almighty only answer our dua in a situation which is 100% best suitable for our religious and worldly life affairs...
#Dua :- May Allah Almighty Grant Us the Patience of Prophet Ayoub (Alayh al Salam)...Ameen...!!!
...
If God is able to do anything, He could become a man and a son!
If God is able to do anything, Hecould become a Man and have a Son!
Logically speaking, the answer is NO because the concept of God becoming man
contradicts the basic meaning of the term “God.” People commonly say that God is able
to do all things; whatever He wants to do, He can do. In the Bible of Christians it is said,
“… through God all things are possible (Matthew, 19: 26; Mark 10: 27, 14: 36).” The
Qur’aan of Muslims states, “Indeed, Allah (God) is able to do all things (Qur’aan, 2:
20),” and the Hindu scriptures carry texts of similar meanings.
All the major religious texts contain general expressions regarding the basic concept
of God’s omnipotence. He is Greater than all things, and through Him all things are
possible. If this general concept is to be translated into practical terms, one has to first
identifyandunderstand the basic attributes of God. Most societies perceive God as an
eternal being without beginning or end. If, on the basis that God is able to do all things,
and it were asked whether God could die, what would be the answer? Since dying is part
of “all things,” can it be said, “If He wants to?” Of course this cannot be said. So, there is
a problem here. God is defined as being ever-living, without end, and dying means
“coming to an end.” Consequently, to ask if He can die is actually a nonsensical question.
It is self-contradictory. Similarly, to ask whether God can be born, is also absurd because
God has already been defined as eternal, having no beginning. Being born means having
a beginning, coming into existence after not existing. In this same vein, atheist
philosophers enjoy asking theists: “Can God create a stone too heavy for Him to lift?” If
the theist says yes, it means that God can create something greater than Himself. And if
he says no, it means that God is unable to do all things.
Therefore, the term “all things” in the phrase “God is able to do all things”
excludes the absurdities. It cannot include things that contradict His divine attributes;
things that would make Him less than God, like, forgetting, sleeping, repenting, growing,
eating,etc. Instead, it includes only “all things” that are consistent with Him being God.
This is what the statement “God is able to do all things” means. It cannot be understood
in the absolute sense; it must be qualified.
The claim that God became man is also an absurdity. It is not befitting of God to
take on human characteristics because it means that the Creator has become His creation.
However, the creation is a product of the creative act of the Creator. If the Creator
becameHis creation, it would mean that the Creator created Himself, which is an obvious
absurdity. To be created, He would first have to not exist, and, if He did not exist, how
could He then create? Furthermore, if He were created, it would mean that He had a
beginning, which also contradicts His being eternal. By definition creation is in need of a
creator. For created beings to exist they must have a creator to bring them into existence.
God cannot need a creator because God is the Creator. Thus, there is an obvious
contradiction in terms. The claim that God became His creation implies that He would
need a creator, which is a ludicrous concept. It contradicts the fundamental concept of
God being uncreated, needing no creator and being the Creator
source:
book: Dawah to Christians
If God is able to do anything, Hecould ...
The Probability of Macro-evolution
Introduction:
Science has accomplished enormous progress and achievements in genetics since the turn of the 21stcentury. Scientists have sequenced and mapped the entire genomes of more than 2800 organisms/species including human, and the count is on.[1]
Macroevolution of evolution theory tells us that humans, as well as other multicellular forms of life, have evolved from primitive single-celled organisms that fall under the kingdom of prokaryotes or even more primitive.[2] Prokaryotes are single-celled organisms that have no true nucleus as their genome is not contained within a membrane nor distinct from the rest of the cell. They are the earliest and most primitive forms of life found on earth.[3] Is there a chance for this evolution to have taken place from a simple, single cell to a human being during the age of the universe?
The human genome[4] contains approximately 3 billion chemical nucleotide base pairs (A, C, T, and G).[5] Approximately 34 million nucleotide bases of the human genome encode for the production of proteins that are vital to all living processes.[6] These 34 million nucleotides are called genes. Proteins are made of amino acids. Each amino acid is encoded for by a codon, and each codon is composed of 3 nucleotides.
You can think of nucleotides as alphabets of 4 letters pool, and codons as words of 3 letters length.
The sequence of these nucleotides within genes is what defines the characteristics and functions of a living organism and its nature; will it be a bacterium, a plant, a fly, a fish, or a human. The sequence of this coding in human genes, as well as other organisms, is so sophisticated, precise, and well organized that it is comparable to the sequence of alphabets in a Shakespeare’s poem, a novel, a thesis, a computer program, or an encyclopedia of 2 million words (or 2 volumes).
According to macroevolution, this precise sequence, coding, has come into being by random mutations[7] and natural selection.
Maximum Possible Mutations During the Age of the Universe
We will try to find out here the maximum number of mutations that can occur during the age of the universe based on assumptions that favor evolution.
The maximum number of mutations a human genome can undergo during its course of evolution from a single cell to a human is 3 billion mutations per generation since that is the largest size the genome of mammals has reached. This is an extreme assumption in favor of evolution. In reality, mutation rate ranges approximately between 0.003 and 350 mutations per genome per generation.[8]
The shortest generation time reported to date is the generation ofPseudomonas natriegens, a marine bacterium with a generation time of 9.8 minutes.[9] Nevertheless, going once again to the utmost in favor of evolution, we can assume that we are getting a new generation every one second. Thus, during the age of the universe,[10] which is about 15 billion years,[11] the maximum number of generations that can be reached is:
Universe age in years × Days per year × Seconds per day15 billion × 365 × 86400which equals less than 1018 generations (1 with 18 zeros after it).
The last piece of information needed to calculate the maximum number of possible mutations is the population of these single-celled organisms. For that we will assume a very large number that leaves no place for more; the number of atoms in the observable universe that is about 1082.[12]
Thus, based on previous results and generous assumptions, the maximum number of mutations that may occur in the entire universe and during its age is:
Mutations per generation × Generations during universe age × Population3 billion × 1018 × 1082which equals less than 10110 mutations (1 with 110 zeros after it).
Number of Random Mutations Required for the Evolution into a Human
The genes of human genome consist of approximately 34 million nucleotides.[13]
The largest genome in simple, single-celled organisms, prokaryotes, is about 13 million nucleotides.[14]
Thus, there is a difference of at least 21 million nucleotides between prokaryote organisms and humans. And for a single cell to evolve into a human, the evolutionary process needs to mutate –which may include insertion– at least 21 million nucleotides with the correct nucleotide base and in the correct sequence.
In genes, each amino acid –the building block of proteins that are vital to all living processes– is coded for by 3 nucleotides, which is called a codon. 21 million nucleotides means 7 million codons.
Random mutations have one of three effects: Neutral, Deleterious (harmful), or beneficial. Only beneficial mutations can contribute to the evolutionary process.
In living organisms, there are 20 different amino acids and a stop code,[15] thus, the total is 21.[16] Any mutation will lead to one of these 20 amino acids or the stop code.[17]
Therefore, each mutation falling inside genes, the coding region of the genome,[18] has a chance of approximately 1/21 of not altering the amino acid (i.e. coding for the same amino acid) and thus being a neutral mutation, and a chance of approximately 20/21 of altering the amino acid.[19] 70% of these 20/21 mutations are deleterious (harmful) mutations.[20] Nevertheless, for the sake of evolution, we will assume that all mutations which are altering amino acids are beneficial mutations. Thus, each mutation has a chance of approximately 20/21 of being beneficial.[21]
Therefore, the probability for 7 million codons to mutate randomly with beneficial mutations is:
Chance of mutation for being beneficial to the power of Number of codons20/21 to the power of 7 millionwhich equals 1 to more than 10100,000 (1 with 100,000 zeros after it).[22]
Could natural selection have enhanced the chances of mutations in our scenario? Never, since what natural selection basically does is to sustain lineages with beneficial or neutral mutations and to eliminate lineages with harmful mutations. Natural selection does not prevent beneficial mutations from being mutated again. Moreover, in our scenario, we have already assumed that all mutations are either neutral or beneficial, and have ruled out harmful mutations. Thus, natural selection cannot do any better in this scenario.
Conclusion
Therefore, we need more than 10100,000 (1 with 100,000 zeros after it) random mutations to occur so that a simple, single-celled organisms may evolve into a human, while we can only get less than 10110 (1 with 110 zeros after it) mutations during the age of the universe, even when the entire universe is a stage for this evolutionary process.
All these calculations were based on human genes –that constitute less than 2% of the genome– without taking into consideration the junk region that consumes approximately 98% of the human genome, which turned out not to be junk anymore. The ENCODE Project Consortium was able to assign biochemical functions for 80% of the human genome and found that approximately 20% of it regulates the genes. The results of the five-year ENCODE project were published in 2012 in the journals Nature, Science, Genome Biology and Genome Research.[23] The ENCODE consortium’s 442 researchers, situated in 32 institutes around the world, used 300 years of computer time and five years in the lab to get their results.
Hoping this study was beneficial in shedding some light on this crucial topic.
Foot notes & ref: www.r-islam.com
Introduction:
Science has accomplished enormous progress and achievements in genetics ...
Jesus in the Holy Quran
Muslims and Christians believe different things about Jesus (peace be upon him). For Christians, he is the Saviour of the world, God's Son. For Muslims he is a Prophet of Allah. Idris Tawfiq explains what Muslims believe about Jesus (pbuh), based on what is said about him in the Quran.
Christian artists down through the centuries have shown Jesus surrounded by fluffy clouds or angels. Around his head a golden halo of light shines, while little children and lambs are always at his feet. On the cross, this artistic Jesus is shown suffering terrible agonies on behalf of others, asking always that his enemies be forgiven. The "gentle Jesus, meek and mild" of the Christian hymn books, the blue-eyed Jesus with curly flowing hair, is the Jesus that sits in the popular imagination. Maybe it is because Islam has always discouraged depictions of human beings in art that Christianity has managed to win the publicity prize for its portrayal of Jesus (peace be upon him). In addition to art, the Christian Church chose four of the many Gospels that were written to describe the life of Jesus. Saint Luke's is perhaps the most beautiful, being a Gospel of prayer, of the poor, and of women. The way in which Luke crafts his words makes Jesus so appealing. Islam, on the other hand, has no artists to elevate Muhammad (peace be upon him) to the rank of a deity. It has no Gospel writers and no Paul to use their words to make Muhammad anything more than human. The Quran was revealed to a man who could neither read nor write. He simply recounted what was said as it was told to him. The Jesus which God tells about in the Quran is quite different from the Gospel Jesus, although there are some similarities. Especially at Christmas time, when the depictions of Prophet Jesus are at their most florid, we need to remind people who Jesus really was. In the Quran we read what means, [He [Jesus] said: "I am indeed a servant of God. He has given me revelation and made me a prophet; He has made me blessed wheresoever I be; and He has enjoined on me prayer and charity as long as I live. He has made me kind to my mother, and not overbearing or miserable. So peace is on me the day I was born, the day that I die, and the day that I shall be raised up to life (again)!" Such was Jesus the son of Mary. It is a statement of truth, about which they (vainly) dispute. It is not befitting to (the majesty of) God that He should beget a son. Glory be to Him! When He determines a matter, He only says to it, "Be," and it is] (19:30-35). In other words, according to Islam, Jesus was a prophet of God. He belonged to a long line of prophets, calling people throughout history to the worship of One God. These include such names as Abraham, Moses, David, and Solomon (peace be upon them all) and, like them, he is revered and honored by all Muslims. Whenever they mention the name of Jesus, Muslims will always say, "Peace be upon him." Like the accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, the Quran shows that Jesus' birth was miraculous: [Behold! the angels said, "Oh Mary! God gives you glad tidings of a Word from Him. His name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter, and in (the company of) those nearest to God. He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. He shall be (in the company) of the righteous... And God will teach him the Book and Wisdom, the Law and the Gospel.] ( 3:45-48) Not only did Jesus have a miraculous birth, but the Quran also tells us that he was born of a virgin mother and that he spoke in the cradle, that he performed miracles, and that he did not die on the cross, nor was he raised back to life after three days . God sent messengers down through the ages to bring men and women back to Him.It is part of our human nature, isn't it, that we constantly forget, and need to be called back to the straight path? Different messengers were sent with different gifts, as they needed to speak to their own people in a way that would attract them and help them to understand. It was the special gift of Prophet Jesus that he could perform miracles: [I have come to you with a sign from your Lord: I make for you out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, and breathe into it and it becomes a bird by God's leave. And I heal the blind, and the lepers, and I raise the dead by God's leave.] (3:49) Being able to perform miracles, though, didn't make him equal to God. Everything he did was by God's leave, to teach the people of Israel about God Himself. Even these miracles, though, were not enough to convince them. It is the belief of Islam regarding Jesus that we should never confuse the message with the messenger. His message was to speak about God and to show the power of God in this world and the next, but the message didn't make him equal to God. His miracles were his way of conveying the message. In fact, the Quran is quite clear about this: [Christ, the son of Mary, was no more than a messenger; many were the messengers that passed away before him. His mother was a woman of truth. They had both to eat their (daily) food. See how God makes His signs clear to them; yet see in what ways they are deluded away from the truth!] (5:75) Jesus and his mother both had to eat food. They were human beings, like you and I. Jesus was given the loftiest of tasks in being called to speak God's message to the world, but he remained just that: a man who ate food. Out of an exaggerated love for Jesus, many of his earliest followers, encouraged by the writings of Saint Paul, began to see Prophet Jesus as something more than human, a god. They confused the beautiful message he brought with the One who sent it. They saw his gift of being able to calm the winds and the seas, or his gift of curing the sick, as indicating that he was more than just a man. The Quran is quite clear that Jesus was a great prophet, but he was no more than that. He did not die on the cross, nor was he raised to life after three days, but he was a man. One of the greatest men, yes. A man with very special gifts, yes. A man whom they revere as a great prophet, yes, but not a god. There is no God but Allah. In summary of all this, the Quran tells us what God will say to Jesus n the Last Day, when He Almighty calls all people to Himself: [And behold! God will say [on the Day of Judgment]: "Oh Jesus, the son of Mary! Did you say unto men, worship me and my mother as gods in derogation of God?" He will say: "Glory to Thee! Never could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing, You would indeed have known it. You know what is in my heart, though I know not what is in Yours. For You know in full all that is hidden. Never did I say to them anything except what You commanded me to say: 'Worship God, my Lord and your Lord.' And I was a witness over them while I lived among them. When You took me up, You were the Watcher over them, and You are a witness to all things.] (5:116-11)
Source: www.idristawfiq.com
Muslims and Christians believe different things about Jesus (peace be upon him). For Christians, he is the Saviour of ...
Rare Earth Hypothesis in the Quran, how the earth was created
Rare Earth Hypothesis in the Quran, how the earth was created, scientific miracles in the Quran
When an inventor submits a patent application to the patent office, he describes his invention and follows it with a list of claims or steps that lead him to that invention. Apparently, this seems to be the same approach that Allah; the Almighty, has followed to support his claim for the creation of the Heavens and the Earth. Indeed Ayahs 43 and 44 of the Spider state that Allah has presented us with examples [claims] for the creation of the Heaven & the Earth, and such claims can only be understood by those of knowledge. In other words, the Quran is telling us to see what science is saying about the formation of planet earth and link it to the claims that the Almighty has presented to us.
All references in this article are linked to the original sources such as Wikipedia, Quran Al Tafsser, APOD and other scientific references.
Quranic Ayahs (verses) are colored in green to distinguish them from our own writing, you will notice that within the translations are bracketed terms such as [Your] that were embedded by the translator as he believed that this is what is meant by the Ayahs as in the following example [67:4] Then return [your] vision twice again. [Your] vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued.
The word “Ard” in Arabic أرض refers to the both the planet earth and the land (crust), in a similar fashion to the word Earth in English, however, there is a rule of thumb in the Quran that when Earth is paired with Heavens, then it refers to planet Earth, while if it is referenced alone then it refers to the land we walk on (crust), the only exception is when the Quran refers to the creation of the planet, as the planet was created in the first four days and the heavens were created in the next two days. as such you will find the term [land] in italic that refers to adjustments made by the writer.
In modern science, two hypotheses (theories) where laid down regarding the formation of the earth, those are:
Theory 1:
Carl Sagan and Frank Drake, among others argued that Earth is a typical rocky planet in a typical planetary system, located in a non-exceptional region of a common barred-spiral galaxy. Given the principle of mediocrity (also called the Copernican principle), it is probable that the universe teems with complex life.
What supports this argument is a statistic based on the Kepler observations stating that the Milky-way contains around 40 billion earth-sized planets orbiting stars in their habitable zones, 11 billion of which orbit stars similar in size to our sun.
Theory 2:
The Rare Earth hypothesis argues that the emergence of complex multi-cellular life on Earth (and, subsequently, intelligence) required an improbable combination of astrophysical and geological events and circumstances. The hypothesis argues that complex extraterrestrial life is a very improbable phenomenon and likely to be extremely rare. The term “Rare Earth” originates from Rare Earth: Why Complex Life Is Uncommon in the Universe (2000), a book by Peter Ward, a geologist and paleontologist, and Donald E. Brownlee, an astronomer and astrobiologist, both faculty members at the University of Washington.
While the first theory describes the ease and abundance of earth-like planets, the second puts certain requirements and a mathematical formula (equation) for the existence of a habitable planet, those are:
1- The right location in the right kind of galaxy
Rare Earth suggests that much of the known universe, including large parts of our galaxy, cannot support complex life; Ward and Brownlee refer to such regions as “dead zones”. Those parts of a galaxy where complex life is possible make up the galactic habitable zone. This zone is primarily a function of distance from the galactic center. As that distance increases 1- Star metallicity declines. Metals (which in astronomy means all elements other than hydrogen and helium) are necessary to the formation of terrestrial planets, 2- The X-ray and gamma rayradiation from the black hole at the galactic center, and from nearby neutron stars, becomes less intense. Radiation of this nature is considered dangerous to complex life, 3- Gravitational perturbation of planets and planetesimals by nearby stars becomes less likely as the density of stars decreases.
Item #1 rules out the outer reaches of a galaxy; #2 and #3 rule out galactic inner regions
Claims in the Quran:
In Sorat Fussilat [41] where Allah described the creation of the Heavens & Earth day-by-day, He described a unique event at the beginning of the fifth day as:
[41:11] Then He directed [leveled] Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, “Come, willingly or by compulsion.” They said, “We have come willingly.”
{ ثُمَّ ٱسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلأَرْضِ ٱئْتِيَا طَوْعاً أَوْ كَرْهاً قَالَتَآ أَتَيْنَا طَآئِعِينَ } فصِّلت 12
Allah, the Almighty has directed a part of the heaven and the earth that developed within it in four days to come to a particular location, and they said, “We have come willingly.”, what supports this argument is the meaning of the word “Sawa’ ” in the previous Ayah, which means that the first four days were equal in duration! Both Al Razi and Al Shaarawi reached the same conclusion.
As for the effect of the cosmic rays, Allah described the phenomenon in a different fashion by stating that He raised Heaven and imposed the balance, the same way we do when we hide ourselves under the bed cover on a cold night, we raise the bed cover a bit to have some breathing space and at the same time keep away the unfriendly environment:
[55:7] And the heaven He raised and imposed the balance
{وَٱلسَّمَآءَ رَفَعَهَا وَوَضَعَ ٱلْمِيزَانَ} الرحمن 7
While in Sorat 21 – The Prophets, He described it as a canopy well-secured.
Quran Miracles, the canopy or dome as visualized by scientists
[21:32] and [that] We have set up the sky as a canopy well-secured? And yet, they stubbornly turn away from [all] the signs of this [creation].
{ وَجَعَلْنَا ٱلسَّمَآءَ سَقْفاً مَّحْفُوظاً وَهُمْ عَنْ آيَاتِهَا مُعْرِضُونَ } الانبياء 32
When prophet Mohammad was asked about the meaning of this Ayat, his reply was: “waves shielded from you” and described its shape as a dome. Keep in mind that X-rays and Gamma-rays are scientifically defined as high-energy waves.
If the star is not strong enough, the point of balance or Heliopause, will be close to the orbit of planets if not within, on the other hand, if the star’s orbit is too close to the galactic centre, the point of balance will also be pushed towards the orbit of the planets due to the intensity of the waves and might cause the shield to collapse.
2- Orbiting at the right distance from the right type of star
The hypothesis suggests that complex life requires water in the liquid state, and a central star’s planet must therefore be at an appropriate distance. This is the core of the notion of the habitable zone or Goldilocks Principle. The habitable zone forms a ring around the central star. If a planet orbits its sun too closely or too far away, the surface temperature is incompatible with water being liquid.
The habitable zone varies with the type and age of the central star. Small red dwarf stars conversely have small habitable zones wherein planets are in tidal lock—one side always faces the star and becomes very hot and the other always faces away and becomes very cold. Rare Earth proponents argue that life therefore cannot arise in such systems and that only central stars that range from F7 to K1 stars are hospitable.
Claims in the Quran:
The Quran places more emphasis on the challenge of bringing water into earth, several Ayahs in the Quran describe how the Almighty brought down water from the heaven to bring to life a dead planet, and as an essential component for life, the amount of water was in a measured amount:
[23:18] And We sent down water out of the heaven in measure, and We lodged it within the earth; and We are indeed able to take it away.
{ وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءً بِقَدَرٍ فَأَسْكَنَّٰهُ فِي ٱلأَرْضِ وَإِنَّا عَلَىٰ ذَهَابٍ بِهِ لَقَٰدِرُونَ } المؤمنون 18:
The Quran also state that life on earth is not possible without water:
[21:30] Have those who disbelieved not considered that the heavens and the earth were a joined entity, and We separated them and made from water every living thing? Then will they not believe?
{ أَوَلَمْ يَرَ ٱلَّذِينَ كَفَرُوۤاْ أَنَّ ٱلسَّمَٰوَٰتِ وَٱلأَرْضَ كَانَتَا رَتْقاً فَفَتَقْنَاهُمَا وَجَعَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلْمَآءِ كُلَّ شَيْءٍ حَيٍّ أَفَلاَ يُؤْمِنُونَ } الأنياء 30
Tidal Lock
The twilight is the line separating night from day, should this line be made stationary, this would mean that earth would enter into tidal lock with the sun
Again, Allah speaks in the following Ayah’s to those of knowledge in describing how the earth was in a tidal lock with the sun and then he freed it, this freeing action caused the creation of the night & day, this freeing action also caused the winds to flow globally that will later bring clouds. After freeing the earth from the tidal lock, Allah brought from the heaven water in a measured amount and settled it into the earth in order to bring to life a dead planet.
[25:45] Have you not considered your Lord – how He extends the shadow [twilight], and if He willed, He could have made it stationary? Then We made the sun for it an indication. [25:46] Then We hold it in hand for a brief grasp. [25:47] And it is He who has made the night for you as clothing and sleep [a means for] rest and has made the day a resurrection. [25:48] And it is He who sends the winds as good tidings before His mercy, and We send down from the sky pure water. [25:49] That We may bring to life thereby a dead land and give it as drink to those We created of numerous livestock and men.
{ أَلَمْ تَرَ إِلَىٰ رَبِّكَ كَيْفَ مَدَّ ٱلظِّلَّ وَلَوْ شَآءَ لَجَعَلَهُ سَاكِناً ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَا ٱلشَّمْسَ عَلَيْهِ دَلِيلاً } * { ثُمَّ قَبَضْنَاهُ إِلَيْنَا قَبْضاً يَسِيراً } * { وَهُوَ الَّذِي جَعَلَ لَكُمُ ٱلَّيلَ لِبَاساً وَٱلنَّوْمَ سُبَاتاً وَجَعَلَ ٱلنَّهَارَ نُشُوراً} * { وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِيۤ أَرْسَلَ ٱلرِّيَاحَ بُشْرَاً بَيْنَ يَدَيْ رَحْمَتِهِ وَأَنزَلْنَا مِنَ ٱلسَّمَآءِ مَآءً طَهُوراً } * {لِّنُحْيِـيَ بِهِ بَلْدَةً مَّيْتاً وَنُسْقِيَهُ مِمَّا خَلَقْنَآ أَنْعَاماً وَأَنَاسِيَّ كَثِيراً }الفرقان 45
3- The right arrangement of planets
Rare Earth argues that a planetary system capable of sustaining complex life must be structured more or less like the Solar System, with small and rocky inner planets and outer gas giants. In addition, the arrangement of the Solar System is not only rare but optimal as the large mass and gravitational attraction of the gas giants provide protection for the inner rocky planets from Small Solar System body impacts and asteroid bombardment.
Claims in the Quran
[37:6] Lo! We have adorned the lowest heaven with an ornament, the planets; [37:7] And as protection against every rebellious devil. Note: the Ayah clearly states the Arabic word “Kawkeb” which is an exact meaning for planets, some translations contain the word “stars” instead.
[41:12] And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its command. And We adorned the nearest heaven with lamps and as protection. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.
[67:5] And, indeed, We have adorned the skies nearest to the earth with lights, and have made them the object of futile guesses for the evil ones [from among men]: and for them have We readied suffering through a blazing flame.
From the above three verses, we can conclude that:
1- The lamps are the planets.
2- The near heaven contains the planets.
3- The planets are there as a protection.
4- The planets provide protection by becoming a piling place for the rebellious devils.
4- A continuously stable orbit
Rare Earth argues that a gas giant must not be too close to a body upon which life is developing, unless that body is one of its moons. Close placement of gas giant(s) could disrupt the orbitof a potential life-bearing planet, either directly or by drifting into the habitable zone. Newtonian dynamics can produce chaotic planetary orbits, especially in a system having large planets at high orbital eccentricity.[17]
Claims in the Quran:
[81:15] No! I swear by the slinkers, [81:16] the runners, the sinkers
{ فَلا أُقْسِمُ بالخُنَّسِ الجَوَارِ الكُنَّسِ } التكوير – 16
The books of tafseer such as Al Tabari referred to the five known planets at the time, when a man walked to Ali and asked him, what are the slinkers, runners and sinkers, Ali replied, the planets. In other words the Almighty described the planets as slinkers, runners and sinkers!
In 2006, and after several debates and failed proposals, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) reached a definition for a planet in our solar system which subsequently lead to the demotion of Pluto from a “planet” to a “dwarf planet”. The definition states that a planet is a “A celestial body that (a) is in orbit around the Sun, (b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydrostatic equilibrium (nearly round) shape, and (c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit.”
Did you notice the similarity between the oath in the Quran and the 2006 definition of the IAU, here it is again:
Quran
2006 IAU Definition
The word Khonnasالخُنَّسِ in arabic dictionary means to contract and wrap around itself
b) has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a hydro-static equilibrium(nearly round) shape
The word Jawar الجَوَارِ refers to the action of mevement; as per the books of tafsir, horses move, the sun moves and the wind moves
a) is in orbit around the Sun
The word Konnas الكُنَّسِ means to sweep leftovers and dirt
c) has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit
This description can only happen if the planets are in stable orbits.
5- A terrestrial planet of the right size
It is argued that life requires terrestrial planets like Earth and as gas giants lack such a surface, that complex life cannot arise there.A planet that is too small cannot hold much of an atmosphere. Hence the surface temperature becomes more variable and the average temperature drops. Substantial and long-lasting oceans become impossible. The core will cool faster, and plate tectonics will either not last as long as they would on a larger planet or may not occur at all.
Claims in the Quran
The Quran did mention the significance of making iron lenient to prophet David; an indication of the first use of wrought iron or steel; God also taught him how to make ringed-iron jackets.
However, the Quran states that both water and Iron where sent down to earth, while we have explained the significance of water for life, iron; “hadeed in Arabic” or حديد; was honored by naming an entire Sora after it, the Ayat that refers to the particular event is:
[57:25] We have verily sent Our messengers with clear signs, and We revealed with them the Scripture and the Balance, so that mankind may uphold justice. And We sent down iron, wherein is great might, and [many] uses for mankind, and so that God may know those who help Him and His messengers through the Unseen. Assuredly God is Strong, Mighty.
{ لَقَدْ أَرْسَلْنَا رُسُلَنَا بِٱلْبَيِّنَاتِ وَأَنزَلْنَا مَعَهُمُ ٱلْكِتَابَ وَٱلْمِيزَانَ لِيَقُومَ ٱلنَّاسُ بِٱلْقِسْطِ وَأَنزَلْنَا ٱلْحَدِيدَ فِيهِ بَأْسٌ شَدِيدٌ وَمَنَافِعُ لِلنَّاسِ وَلِيَعْلَمَ ٱللَّهُ مَن يَنصُرُهُ وَرُسُلَهُ بِٱلْغَيْبِ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ قَوِيٌّ عَزِيزٌ } الحديد 25
Planet earth is the most dense of all terrestrial planets, and this is due to the extra iron in its core, Iron is responsible for generating the electromagnetic field of earth, also known as the Van Allen radiation belt, which shields earth from the solar winds. Should the solar winds reach the upper layers of the atmosphere, it will ionize the water molecules in the upper atmosphere leaving earth with no water in a similar fashion to what happened to Mars and is happening to Venus. This is what the trailing part of the Ayat states:
[23:18] And We sent down water out of the heaven in measure, and We lodged it within the earth; and We are indeed able to take it away.
6- With plate tectonics
Rare Earth proponents argue that plate tectonics is essential for the emergence and sustenance of complex life. Ward & Brownlee assert that biodiversity, global temperature regulation, carbon cycle and the magnetic field of the Earth that make it habitable for complex terrestrial life all depend on plate tectonics.
Claims in the Quran
Splitting the earth into fissures
Allah linked the existence of our food to two primary events, the pouring of water and the splitting of the earth:
[80:24] So let man consider his food [80:25] that We pour down water plenteously; [80:26] then We split the earth [land] into fissures, [80:27] and [then] cause the grains to grow therein, [80:28] and vines and herbs, [80:29] and olives and date-palms, [80:30] and gardens of dense foliage, [80:31] and fruits and pastures, [80:32] as sustenance for you and your flocks. [80:33] So when the [deafening] Cry comes [80:34] the day when a man will flee from his [own] brother, [80:35] and his mother and his father, [80:36] and his wife and his sons, [80:37] every person that day will have a matter to preoccupy him. [80:38] On that day some faces will be shining, [80:39] laughing, joyous. [80:40] And some faces on that day will be covered with dust, [80:41] overcast with gloom. [80:42] Those are the disbelievers, the profligates.
{ فَلْيَنظُرِ ٱلإِنسَانُ إِلَىٰ طَعَامِهِ } * { أَنَّا صَبَبْنَا ٱلْمَآءَ صَبّاً } * { ثُمَّ شَقَقْنَا ٱلأَرْضَ شَقّاً } * {فَأَنبَتْنَا فِيهَا حَبّاً } * { وَعِنَباً وَقَضْباً } * {وَزَيْتُوناً وَنَخْلاً } *{ وَحَدَآئِقَ غُلْباً } عبس 24
While plate tectonics can be described in three distinct movement patterns namely; 1- Transform (slide) 2- convergent, and 3- divergent, the Quran described all three of them!
Plate Tectonics
According to Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him, during earth’s creation, earth was totally submerged by water until a sea-mount reached the surface where Mecca is, from which the Almighty spread the land and later split it. The Quran described the first type of plates tectonics as neighbouring plots:
In sorat Al-Raad الرعد, the Almighty said: [13:3] And it is He who spread the earth [land] and placed therein firmly set mountains and rivers; and from all of the fruits He made therein two mates; He causes the night to cover the day. Indeed in that are signs for a people who give thought [13:4] And within the land are neighboring plots and gardens of grapevines and crops and palm trees, [growing] several from a root or otherwise, watered with one water; but We make some of them exceed others in [quality of] fruit. Indeed in that are signs for a people who reason.
{وَهُوَ ٱلَّذِي مَدَّ ٱلأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ فِيهَا رَوَاسِىَ وَأَنْهَاراً وَمِن كُلِّ ٱلثَّمَرَاتِ جَعَلَ فِيهَا زَوْجَيْنِ ٱثْنَيْنِ يُغْشِى ٱلَّيلَ ٱلنَّهَارَ إِنَّ فِي ذٰلِكَ لآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَتَفَكَّرُونَ} * {وَفِي ٱلأَرْضِ قِطَعٌ مُّتَجَاوِرَاتٌ وَجَنَّاتٌ مِّنْ أَعْنَابٍ وَزَرْعٌ وَنَخِيلٌ صِنْوَانٌ وَغَيْرُ صِنْوَانٍ يُسْقَىٰ بِمَآءٍ وَاحِدٍ وَنُفَضِّلُ بَعْضَهَا عَلَىٰ بَعْضٍ فِي ٱلأُكُلِ إِنَّ فِي ذٰلِكَ لآيَاتٍ لِّقَوْمٍ يَعْقِلُونَ} الرعد 3
The Quran also described the other two interrelated movements:
[13:41] Have they not seen that We set upon the land, reducing it from its borders? And Allah decides; there is no adjuster of His decision. And He is swift in account.
{أَوَلَمْ يَرَوْاْ أَنَّا نَأْتِي ٱلأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَاوَٱللَّهُ يَحْكُمُ لاَ مُعَقِّبَ لِحُكْمِهِ وَهُوَ سَرِيعُ ٱلْحِسَابِ} الرعد 41
And again, in sorat “The Prophets” الأنبياء, the Almighty said[21:44] But, [on the contrary], We have provided good things for these [disbelievers] and their fathers until life was prolonged for them. Then do they not see that We set upon the land, reducing it from its borders? So is it they who will overcome?
{بَلْ مَتَّعْنَا هَـٰؤُلاۤءِ وَآبَآءَهُمْ حَتَّىٰ طَالَ عَلَيْهِمُ ٱلْعُمُرُأَفَلاَ يَرَوْنَ أَنَّا نَأْتِي ٱلأَرْضَ نَنقُصُهَا مِنْ أَطْرَافِهَآ أَفَهُمُ ٱلْغَالِبُونَ} الأنبياء 41
So important plate tectonics are, that Allah, made a bold statement by described the entire earth crust as of fissures: [86:12] and [by] the earth [land] of fissures, [86:13] assuredly it is a decisive word, [86:14] and it is not a jest.
{ وَٱلأَرْضِ ذَاتِ ٱلصَّدْعِ } * { إِنَّهُ لَقَوْلٌ فَصْلٌ } * { وَمَا هوَ بِٱلْهَزْلِ } الطارق 12
The above verses and in a few words, describe the entire theory of plate tectonics in precise details, most of which are at 7,000 meters below sea level in the middle of the Atlantic ocean (MAR) and at 11,000 meters below sea level in the Pacific Ocean at the Mariana Trench and the East Pacific.
7- Large Moon
The Moon is unusual because the other rocky planets in the Solar System either have no satellites (Mercury and Venus), or have tiny satellites that are probably captured asteroids (Mars).
The giant impact theory (birth of the moon) hypothesizes that the Moon resulted from the impact of a Mars-sized body, Theia, with the very young Earth. This giant impact also gave the Earth its axial tilt and velocity of rotation. Rapid rotation reduces the daily variation in temperature and makes photosynthesisviable. The Rare Earth hypothesis further argues that the axial tilt cannot be too large or too small (relative to the orbital plane). A planet with a large tilt will experience extreme seasonal variations in climate, unfriendly to complex life. A planet with little or no tilt will lack the stimulus to evolution that climate variation provides.In this view, the Earth’s tilt is “just right”. The gravity of a large satellite also stabilizes the planet’s tilt; without this effect the variation in tilt would be chaotic, probably making complex life forms on land impossible
A large satellite also increases the likelihood of plate tectonicsthrough the effect of tidal forces on the planet’s crust. The impact that formed the Moon may also have initiated plate tectonics, without which the continental crust would cover the entire planet, leaving no room for oceanic crust. It is possible that the large scale mantle convection needed to drive plate tectonics could not have emerged in the absence of crustal inhomogeneity.
If a giant impact is the only way for a rocky inner planet to acquire a large satellite, any planet in the circumstellar habitable zone will need to form as a double planet in order that there be an impacting object sufficiently massive to give rise in due course to a large satellite. An impacting object of this nature is not necessarily improbable.
Claims in the Quran:
The moon was mentioned 27 times in the Quran, 7 of which where paired along with the sun as being subjected for the benefits of God’s creations
[13:2] God is He who raised up the heavens without pillars you can see, then He sat Himself upon the Throne. He subjected the sun and the moon, each one running to a term stated. He directs the affair; He distinguishes the signs; haply you will have faith in the encounter with your Lord.
[14:33] and He subjected to you the sun and moon constant upon their courses, and He subjected to you the night and day,
[16:12] And He subjected to you the night and day, and the sun and moon; and the stars are subjected by His command. Surely in that are signs for a people who understand.
[29:61] If thou askest them, ’Who created the heavens and the earth and subjected the sun and the moon?’ they will say, ’God.’ How then are they perverted?
[31:29] Do you not see that Allah causes the night to enter the day and causes the day to enter the night and has subjected the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term, and that Allah , with whatever you do, is Acquainted?
[35:13] He causes the night to enter the day, and He causes the day to enter the night and has subjected the sun and the moon – each running [its course] for a specified term. That is Allah , your Lord; to Him belongs sovereignty. And those whom you invoke other than Him do not possess [as much as] the membrane of a date seed.
[39:5] He created the heavens and earth in truth. He wraps the night over the day and wraps the day over the night and has subjected the sun and the moon, each running [its course] for a specified term. Unquestionably, He is the Exalted in Might, the Perpetual Forgiver.
The pairing of the moon with the sun gives them equal value in terms of benefit to God’s creation, if life is not possible without the sun, then the Quran is saying that life is not possible without the moon.
8- An evolutionary trigger for complex
Regardless of whether planets with similar physical attributes to the Earth are rare or not, some argue that life usually remains simple bacteria. Biochemist Nick Lane argues that simple cells (prokaryotes) emerged soon after Earth’s formation, but almost half the planet’s life had passed before they evolved into complex ones (eukaryotes) and because all complex life has a common origin, this event can only have happened once.
Prophet Mohammad peace be upon him said: “Allah created the soil on Saturday, and created the mountains on Sunday, and created the trees on Monday, and created the “Makrooh” on Tuesday, and created light on Wednesday, and dispersed every moving creature on Thursday and created Adam; the last creation, in the last hour on Friday after Asr prayer time and before sunset.”
قال رسول الله ” خَلَقَ اللَّهُ التُّرْبَةَ يَوْمَ السَّبْتِ ، وَخَلَقَ الْجِبَالَ يَوْمَ الأَحَدِ ، وَخَلَقَ الشَّجَرَ يَوْمَ الاثْنَيْنِ ، وَخَلَقَ الْمَكْرُوهَ يَوْمَ الثُّلاثَاءَ ، وَخَلَقَ النُّورَ يَوْمَ الأَرْبِعَاءِ ، وَبَثَّ فِيهَا الدَّوَابَّ يَوْمَ الْخَمِيسِ ، وَخَلَقَ آدَمَ بَعْدَ صَلاةِ الْعَصْرِ مِنْ يَوْمِ الْجُمُعَةِ آخِرَ الْخَلْقِ فِي آخِرِ سَاعَاتٍ مِنْ سَاعَاتِ الْجُمُعَةِ فِيمَا بَيْنَ الْعَصْرِ إِلَى اللَّيْلِ “
The prophet clearly states that “the light” was created during the fifth day, making it 5/7 of the assumed age of earth of 4.7 billion years or almost one billion years ago, making it closer to the date of the Cambrian explosion 800-542 million years ago. Scientifically, this means that the sun took 5/7 of its assumed life to reach the main sequence stage, as such, my speculation is that the sun may have evolved from a brown dwarf into a G-class star! and/or some object like a hot Jupiter merged with the sun causing it to reach critical mass for nuclear fusion. What supports this argument is the discovery of planetary nebula where measurements show that NGC 6153contains large amounts of neon, argon, oxygen, carbon and chlorine — up to three times more than can be found in the solar system. Since such a star could not have produced such elements within, it must have accumulated them from the original cloud. Another argument is the discovery of a massive outburst in a star-forming cloud.
The science of genetics and the theory of evolution will fail if there were no pairs, and no pairing process; (mating), thus, a key creation was the pairs, [53:45] That He did create in pairs,- male and female,. the books of Tafseer interpret it as “He invented the process of the pairing; male and female and made them pairs” وأنه ابتدع إنشاء الزوجين الذكر والأنثى، وجعلهما زوجين, this was capped by [36:36] Exalted is He who created all pairs – from what the earth grows and from themselves and from that which they do not know.
9- The right time in evolution
The evolution to complex organs took around 800 million years (Cambrian explosion). Civilizations on Earth have existed for ~10,000 years and radio communication with space is not older than 80 years. Relative to the age of our solar system (~4.57 Ga) this is a tiny age span, an age span where extreme climatic variations, super volcanoes or large meteorite impacts were absent. These events would severely harm intelligent life, as well as life in general.
Claims in the Quran:
This argument takes us back to point 8 that the sun did not shine (as we know it) during the first few 100 million years but rather after 5/7 of earth’s assumed life has passed. At the same time, Ayah’s 9 through 12 of Surat Fussilat also state the the planet earth, as a body, was not ready to host advanced life forms until 4 days have passed, this is because earth was going through major changes and refinements. Those Ayah’s tell us that earth took 2 days to form, which included bringing of extra iron to earth as part of the formation of the moon (giant impact), which also freed earth from the tidal lock. The two days also included the pouring of water in measured amounts. During the first four days, the first sea-mount was formed, followed by the spreading of the land above water, the splitting of the land into fissures, the creation of the mountain chains as a result of the continental collision after the first split (creation of Pangaea) and the second split forming the current continents.
[41:9] Say, “Do you indeed disbelieve in He who created the earth in two days and attribute to Him equals? That is the Lord of the worlds.” [41:10] And He placed on the earth firmly set mountains over its surface, and He blessed it and determined therein its sustenance in four days without distinction – for [the information] of those who ask. [41:11] Then He directed [leveled] Himself to the heaven while it was smoke and said to it and to the earth, “Come willingly or by compulsion.” They said, “We have come willingly.” [41:12] And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its command. And We adorned the nearest heaven with lamps and as protection. That is the determination of the Exalted in Might, the Knowing.
{ قُلْ أَإِنَّكُمْ لَتَكْفُرُونَ بِٱلَّذِي خَلَقَ ٱلأَرْضَ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَتَجْعَلُونَ لَهُ أَندَاداً ذَلِكَ رَبُّ ٱلْعَالَمِينَ } * { وَجَعَلَ فِيهَا رَوَاسِيَ مِن فَوْقِهَا وَبَارَكَ فِيهَا وَقَدَّرَ فِيهَآ أَقْوَاتَهَا فِيۤ أَرْبَعَةِ أَيَّامٍ سَوَآءً لِّلسَّآئِلِينَ } * { ثُمَّ ٱسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى ٱلسَّمَآءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلأَرْضِ ٱئْتِيَا طَوْعاً أَوْ كَرْهاً قَالَتَآ أَتَيْنَا طَآئِعِينَ } * {فَقَضَٰهُنَّ سَبْعَ سَمَٰوَٰتٍ فِي يَوْمَيْنِ وَأَوْحَىٰ فِي كُلِّ سَمَآءٍ أَمْرَهَا وَزَيَّنَّا ٱلسَّمَآءَ ٱلدُّنْيَا بِمَصَٰبِيحَ وَحِفْظاً ذَلِكَ تَقْدِيرُ ٱلْعَزِيزِ ٱلْعَلِيمِ } فصلت 10
[29:20] Say, [O Muhammad], “Travel through the land and observe how He began creation. Then Allah will produce the final creation. Indeed Allah , over all things, is competent.”
{ قُلْ سِيرُواْ فِي ٱلأَرْضِ فَٱنظُرُواْ كَيْفَ بَدَأَ ٱلْخَلْقَ ثُمَّ ٱللَّهُ يُنشِىءُ ٱلنَّشْأَةَ ٱلآخِرَةَ إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ عَلَىٰ كُلِّ شَيْءٍ قَدِيرٌ } العنكبوت 20
10- Mountain Chains
Ward & Brownlee contend that the lack of mountain chains elsewhere in the Solar System is direct evidence that Earth is the only body with plate tectonics and as such the only body capable of supporting life. However, they did not indicate any benefit.
Claims in the Quran
Termed in the Quran as soaring-high anchors, an illustration of the effect of mountains on the earth’s crust and mantle, the illustration shows the crustal roots that have a stabilizing effect on the earth crust
Mountains were referenced 33 times in the Quran, but they were also nicknamed “Anchors” and referenced 9 times, anchors refer to their effect on the earth crust as they prevent the crust from shifting, which will lead to inconsistent motion, the Quran described them as soaring-high anchors.
[16:15] And He has cast into the earth [land] firmly set mountains, lest it shift with you, and [made] rivers and roads, that you may be guided,
{ وَأَلْقَىٰ فِي ٱلأَرْضِ رَوَاسِيَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَأَنْهَاراً وَسُبُلاً لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ }النحل 15
[77:27] And We placed therein lofty [soaring high], firmly set mountains and have given you to drink sweet [fresh] water.
{ وَجَعَلْنَا فِيهَا رَوَاسِيَ شَامِخَاتٍ وَأَسْقَيْنَاكُم مَّآءً فُرَاتاً } المرسلات 27
Mountain chains are also a source for sustainable fresh water, almost all rivers on earth except for the equatorial ones, originate from the mountain chains, and that is where ancient civilizations rose!
We live in a highly sensitive planet, the average temperature in non-equatorial areas varies by 30+ degrees between the summer and winter, this is due to the 23 degree tilt in earth’s rotation axis, so imagine the effect on life if the crust shifts randomly and the polar regions become equatorial!
One final note regarding the often confused and misunderstood term “Heaven and Earth”, the seven heavens were created during the fifth and sixth days: [41:12] And He completed them as seven heavens within two days and inspired in each heaven its command. It seems that the seven heavens make-up a superstructure around earth that is invisible to the human eye, however, Allah guided us as to how to detect those heavens in the following Ayahs in The Sovereignty: [67:3] [And] who created seven heavens in layers. You do not see in the creation of the Most Merciful any inconsistency. So return [your] vision [to the sky]; do you see any breaks? [67:4] Then return [your] vision twice again. [Your] vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued. The bracketed terms such as [Your] were added by the translator as he believed that this is what is meant by the Ayahs, however, the original scripture in Arabic does not contain them, simply try to read the ayahs without the bracketed terms and they will become much clearer. My own interpretation is that Allah is instructing us to “reflect” the visible light from beyond the seven heavens and we should be able to detect the boundaries of such heavens, returning the light once again and the “vision will return to you humbled while it is fatigued!”.
This leaves us with the question of how high are they? Prophet Mohammad asked his followers: “Do you know the distance between the heavens and the Earth, they replied: Allah and His Messenger know better, He said: between earth and the [first]heaven is the travel distance of 500 years, and from each heaven to the next is travel distance of 500 years and the thickness of each heaven is travel distance of 500 years)”.
(هل تدرون كم بين السماء والأرض؟ قال قلنا الله ورسوله أعلم, قال: بينهما مسيرة خمسمائة سنة، ومن كل سماء إلى سماء مسيرة خمسمائة سنة، وكثف كل سماء مسيرة خمسمائة سنة)
This is confirmed in sorat Noah which indicates that the moon (400,000 km) is within the seven heavens while the sun (150 million km) is not: [71:15] Do you not consider how Allah has created seven heavens in layers [71:16] And made the moon therein a [reflected] light and made the sun a burning lamp.
Since the daily caravan travel distance is roughly 40 km, then the travel distance per year is 365 days / year * 40 km / day = 14,600 km/year, thus, the travel distance of 500 years = 14,600 km/year * 500 years = 7,300,000 km. This makes the distance to the end of the seventh heaven 7 * 7,300,000 = 51,100,000 km. By pointing a laser beam from earth or earth’s orbit to a spacecraft near the Mars orbit (minimum 78 million km from earth) and reflecting that beam back should accomplish part one of the experiment. Returning that beam again and refracting it back should give us some unexpected results! probably a change in the frequency and amplitude of the beam! (humbled while it is fatigued).
So, did Allah create a similar creation to the heavens and earth? Sounds like he did: [36:81] “Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth able to create the like thereof?” – Yea, indeed! for He is the Creator Supreme, of skill and knowledge [infinite]!
To be Continued … This article is still in progress!
By: Husein Kattab
Rare Earth Hypothesis in the Quran, how the earth was created, scientific miracles in the Quran
When an inventor ...
Gravity
The holy verse: God be he exalted says: (Allah, it is He Who has made for you the earth as a dwelling place and the sky as a canopy, and has given you shape and made your shapes good (looking) and has provided you with good things. That is Allah, your Lord: so blessed be Allah, the Lord of the ‘Âlamîn (mankind, jinn and all that exists). [Surat Ghafir, verse: 64].
The explanation of the verse:
Almighty God talks about his graces that He bestowed upon his people. From these graces that He be exalted made the earth settled for its inhabitants and made the sky as a canopy. He also created mankind in the best shape and He provided them with good things.Ibn Kathir says that (dwelling place) means that the earth is fixed and still, it doesn't shake or move with its people and if it wasn't settled it will be impossible to live on. Scientific fact:
In the modern era, scientists have discovered that all the planets have gravity that attracts the nearby bodies and the force of gravity is proportional to the mass of this planet and the distance between it and the bodies that it attracts.Newton was the first one to discover the law of gravity in the 17th century. It was shown that all the cosmic bodies like the sun, moon, planets, stars, and cosmic dust, etc. all have gravitational fields. Therefore the earth has a gravity field that attracts people to it and because of this gravity the objects are settled on the surface of the earth even the atmosphere. This means that if there wasn't a gravitational field for the earth, the atmosphere would have escaped and faded away in the outer space. Hence, the gravity is the reason for the stability of life on earth.The point of inimitability:
Through Gods saying: (Allah, it is He Who has made for you the earth as a dwelling place), we notice that God be He exalted told us about the grace of settling the earth and settling the objects on its surface. And the word (dwelling) refers to the stability of creatures on the earth which is an indication to the gravity and that is what scientists have discovered.
This verse was revealed at the time when no one was aware of the importance of gravity and stability on earth which attests to the truthfulness of this Quran and that it is a book from Almighty God.
This is a picture of the earth and the moon appears beside it, and we notice that the earth has a gravitational field that attracts the moon towards it. And without this gravity, life wouldn't have continued on its surface. God be he exalted says: (Allah, it is He Who has made for you the earth as a dwelling place and the sky as a canopy, and has given you shape and made your shapes good (looking) and has provided you with good things. That is Allah, your Lord: so blessed be Allah, the Lord of the ‘Âlamîn (mankind, jinn and all that exists). [Surat Ghafir, verse: 64].
www.kaheel7.com/eng
The holy verse: God be he exalted says: (Allah, it is He Who has made for you the earth as a dwelling place and the sky ...
Optimism/Positive Thinking
Optimism/Positive ThinkingA new scientific research discovers that optimism & being optimistic & thinking positively has a useful effect on health & enhances the immune system in the body. And this is why we can see the good effect of religion on the psychological and physical life of a believer/ a religious person. The more the believer has faith in ALLAH, the better health & the stronger immunity system he has. ALLAH (AZZA WA JAL) says: ﴾ say" O my servants who have transgressed against themselves, do not despair from the mercy of ALLAH. Indeed ALLAH forgives all the sins. Indeed HE is the forgiver & the most merciful ﴿ Surat: Az-Zumar, verse: 53 let's contemplate & think about these words (do not despair).... (do not grieve) ..... (do not lose hope).... All of them are direct orders from ALLAH (AZZA WA JAL) to his servants to correct their way of thinking & to be optimistic & to think positively & have hope.
References :Abduldaem Al-Kaheel
Optimism/Positive ThinkingA new scientific research discovers that optimism & being optimistic & thinking ...
Heal Yourself By Honey
Honey can be the new antibiotic for the 21st century! Thousands of studies and experiments proved this. The Holy Qur’an, however, proved it 14 centuries back.
Dear ones! We all heard and read about the benefits of honey and the healing properties Allah the Almighty has given this wonderful substance. However, very few of us think of using honey to treat diseases. The reason may be that many of us are not aware of the wonderful healing energy of honey - discovered by western science today- which is superior to any other substance in the world.
I will present to you the latest news that scientists have about the use of honey in healing. My simple advice: you should always have honey at home even for small quantities, because the benefits we will see are so great and amazing. Thousands of years back (approximately 5,000 years back), the old Egyptians used honey to heal injuries and realized some of its medical properties.
Islam emphasized on the importance of honey, the word (healing) appeared 4 times in Qur’an, 3 times linked to Qur’an and one time linked to honey. Allah the Almighty says“Then, eat of all fruits, and follow the says of your Lord made easy (for you). There comes forth from their bellies, a drink of varying colour wherein is healing for men. Verily, in this is indeed a sign for a people who think.” (An-Nahl:69).
Some people may ask: How can we see the miracle of the Qur’an in honey if the old Egyptians realized its importance even before the Qur’an appeared? I say that the Qur’an confirmed the right and discarded and corrected the wrong, and this itself is a miracle!
To prove this, there is no single verse (Ayah) in the Qur’an that is proved incorrect by the science. There were so many myths known to the descending time of the Qur’an, so if the Qur’an was written by a man as claimed, it would have been mixed with the myths of that time, but we find that the Qur’an comes with the ultimate truth from Allah the Almighty.
Now Let us carefully study some of the new discoveries about this substance that Allah created for us:
Dr. Molan found that all kinds of honey have strong antibiotics; he said that there is no single substance in the world that has antiseptic properties like honey, because the bees produce a stuff called Hydrogen Peroxide through special enzymes that is known for its antiseptic properties.
After 20 years of experiments, this researcher proved that honey has high healing power that can be used for treating prolong constipation without any side effects. He says that the medical tools he carries in his treatment case are just honey and bandages! Dr. Molan treats so many diseases just with honey! And he says: “honey has a wonderful effect when treating burns and suppuration, it can be applied directly on burns to repair the skin and kill the bad bacteria, it removes the burn marks and you can see the burned part without marks or scars”
There are similarities between humans and bees. Psychologists confirms that human in nature prefer natural substances for healing diseases, so we find human by nature accept honey and other natural substances more than the chemical ones..
After long experiments, Cancer specialist – Dr. Glenys Round- discovered something new about honey! He discovered the amazing effect of honey in treating cancer. He said that he used honey in treating skin cancer because honey penetrates through the skin and treats the cancer; something other medications failed to do.
He also confirmed that all the drugs failed to cure ulcers but finally ulcer is cured when honey was used. All the patients who were treated by honey were so happy during the treatment because they had no side effects and no pain.
In the USA, researchers could not find cure for some kind of germs, but now they try to utilize the antibiotics that exist in honey for disinfecting hospitals because they know for sure that they are one of the best antibiotics available.
Experts confirm that 6 Billion Dollar is spent per year on treating injuries and burns, and a big percentage of this money can be saved if honey is used instead, so honey can save money too.
Researchers found that honey had a healing power for treating stomach ulcer and throat infection. They found that germs usually stick together in a way to assure their existence and concentration, the scientific research proved that honey aparts, disintegrates, and weakens these germs defences so the body can kill them. Lately, the scientists discovered stuff in honey that stops oxidation and therefore honey helps treating Cholesterol
Honey has ‘information’ that passes from the bee to the honey during the production process. This information is found in the flowers’ nectar. Inside the belly of the bee, this information is interacted, modified, and increased in effectiveness so it becomes ready to use, and this is the secret of healing with honey. Allah the Almighty provided each bee with a special programs in its brain cells, which means that it performs something that has been already planned for it, and this is what is expressed in the Holey Qur’an: “And your Lord inspired the bees.”. This is a way planned earlier for the bee, it is an inspiration from Allah the Almighty in a method that we human can not understand!
Scientists wonder about the hidden healing power found in honey which can treat incurable diseases, and they ask: how does healing happen? What does honey do inside the cells of our bodies that lead to a sudden stop of cancer, cease the growth of so many bacteria in the body and activate the immunity system and make it more efficient? What does happen? No one knows
Allah the Almighty says, ‘And your Lord inspired the bees, saying: “Take you habitations in the mountains and in the trees and in what they erect.” “Then, eat of all fruits, and follow the ways of your Lord made easy (for you).” There comes forth from their bellies, a drink of varying colour wherein is healing for men. Verily, in this is indeed a sign for people who think’. (An-Nahl:68-69). We will find that Allah the Almighty has given honey its healing power through His word “Inspire”, therefore, it is important to recite some verses of Qur’an on the honey before we take it as a nutrient or a medication.
Despite the huge number of bees that participate in making the hive, we can not see problems or conflict in their work. Scientists are amazed by how accurate their organization skills are, where they learned these principles, and how the bees can perform all these responsibilities efficiently without being trained to do so. A bee is “programmed” to do this job: does not this witness omnipotence of Allah the Almighty?
Honey contains vitamin (B1) that is important for treating polyneuritis and limbs’ numbness. It also contains vitamin (B2) needed for treating mouth ulcers, lip tearing, and Ophthalmia. Honey also contains various minerals like potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron, copper, phosphor, sulphate, which are required to calm patients with psychical disorders.
Honey is very important for infants to protect them from anaemia, cripple and enuresis. For infants below the age of one year, small amount needs to be taken. Chewing little beeswax with pure honey helps to treat cold, coughing, throat infection, sinusitis, and rhinitis. Honey can also be used to treat muscular overstress, myospasm, liver diseases and toxicity.
The bees take good care of their babies while at the same time produce honey. Scientists say that a bee carries a very complex program in its brain; coincidence can not make such a program which is superior to a human brain in some aspects. A bee is skilful beekeeper that takes care of the eggs and feeds the babies, protects them and looks after them until they grow. Glory to Allah the Greatest! Despite all these proofs and there are still people who refuse to admit that Allah the Almighty exists!
Honey cures the following diseases:
Anxiety and lack of sleep can be treated by drinking a glass of water that has a spoon of honey dissolved in it (honey drink). Scientists found that drinking water with honey has a very calming impact on people.
Honey can be used to treat lips tearing, skin wrinkly, in cosmetics, and flabby skin stimulation.
One spoon of honey everyday can protect you from a deadly heart attack. This has been proven by new studies made on honey where scientists noticed that honey helps to regulate the work of the heart.
In a recent research, doctors suggested to have one spoon of honey everyday to treat prolonged coughing effectively instead of other known medications.
Another research mentioned that honey proved to treat medical cases like Asthma, infection of the lungs and the respiratory tract; which chemical medication failed to treat.
Honey has a wonderful energy in regulating and reducing the symptoms of anxiety, polyneuritis, and other disorders that can be found in the body, in addition to its calming effects.
Honey can be used to treat ulitis and caries. Some experiments showed that massaging the gum with honey strengthens the weak gum, stimulates the blood flow, and kills the bad bacteria in the mouth.
Researches proved that honey can be used to treat impotency and infertility because it is effective in stimulating and regulating the sexual status in men and women. Other researches mentioned the important role that honey has in treating infertility.
If you suffer from allergy, you can drink some honey dissolved in water (honey drink) after reciting some audible verses of Qur’an on it with submission and reflection. After sometime – can reach 3 months- you will find that the allergy that medicine failed to treat disappeared with Allah’s will.
In the Qur’an we find that the only nutrient with healing power that Allah the Almighty mentions is honey. Allah the Almighty says “There comes forth from their bellies, a drink of varying colour wherein is healing for men” (An-Nahl:69). Following the recent discoveries, we find that today honey is used to treat burns, injuries, pyoderma, skin diseases and maintaining a healthy skin, freckles, hair loss and hair damage, enteritis, and various cancer diseases.
Miracle in the Qur’an and Sunnah
It is narrated in the Sahihan that “A man came to the Prophet peace be upon him and said, ‘my brother is complaining about his stomach’. The Prophet peace be upon him said, ‘give him some honey.’ The man went and came back later, saying, ‘I have given him some honey, but it did not help.’ He repeated this three times, all the while the Prophet peace be upon him continued saying to him, ‘give him some honey.’ In the fourth time he came, the Prophet peace be upon him said, ‘give him some honey.’ And the man said ‘I have given him some honey, but it did not help.’ Then the Prophet peace be upon him said, ‘Allah has said the truth while your brother’s stomach has lied.’” The man gave his brother some honey and he was healed.
The Prophet’s words above indicate the importance of using honey in treating digestion disorders.
The stomach complain that came in the Hadeeth above is the closest translation for the original Arabic word ‘istitlaq’, which is known today to be diarrhea. Studies showed that honey kills all types of germs especially the ones exist in the digestion system. As a result, honey is considered effective in treating Diarrhea and stomach ulcer in a very short time. However, honey has a dual effect, it also treats constipation, it regulates the motion of the colon and influences the colon with the information that Allah the Almighty has designed it with.
Finally, we want to mention a hadeeth [narrated by Al-Bukhari] stated that the Prophet peace be upon him said, “There is cure in three substances, a drink of honey, a slash with a knife used for cupping and cauterizing by fire. I forbid by nation from cauterizing by fire.”
Another hadeeth [narrated by Ibn Majah and others] stated that the Prophet peace be upon him said, “Make use of the two cures: honey and the Qur’an”
We recall Allah the Almighty says: “There comes forth from their bellies, a drink of varying colour wherein is healing for men. Verily, in this is indeed a sign for people who think. (An-Nahl: 69).
I strongly suggest we start using honey and the Qur’an for healing, something the Prophet peace be upon him advised us to do, then we can follow the path to healing. From experience, when we recite Surat Al-Fatihah 7 times on the honey dissolved in water (honey drink), the drink will be affected by the reciting of the Qur’an. With Allah the Almighty will, the drink becomes more effective to heal from diseases.
-------------
By: Abduldaem Al-Kaheel
www.kaheel7.com/eng
Honey can be the new antibiotic for the 21st century! Thousands of studies and experiments ...
Akifah Baxter, Ex-Christian, USA
I have always been aware of the existence of God. I have always felt that He was there. Sometimes that feeling was distant, and often times I ignored it. But I could never deny this knowledge. Because of this, throughout my life, I have been searching for the truth of His Plan.
I have attended many churches. I listened, I prayed, I talked to people from all different faiths. But it seemed that there was always something that didn’t feel right; it felt confusing, like there was something missing. I’ve heard many people in the past say to me, “Well, I believe in God, but I don’t belong to any religion. They all seem wrong to me.” This was my feeling exactly, however, I didn’t want to just let it go at that and just accept it. I knew that if God exists then He wouldn’t just leave us with no direction, or even a warped version of the truth. There had to be a plan, a “true religion.” I just had to find it.
The various Christian churches are where I concentrated my search, simply because that is what I grew up with, and there seemed to be some truths in some of their teachings. However, there were so many different views, so many conflicting teachings on basic things like how to pray, who to pray to or through, who was going to be “saved”, and who wasn’t, and what a person had to do to get “saved.” It seemed so convoluted. I felt I was near giving up. I had just come from yet another church whose views on God and the purpose of our existence, left me so completely frustrated because I knew what they were teaching wasn’t true.
One day, I had wandered in the bookstore and I went over to the religious section. As I stood there gazing over the vast array of mostly Christian books, a thought occurred to me to see if they had anything on Islam. I knew virtually nothing about Islam, and when I picked up the first book, it was solely out of curiosity. But I became excited with what I was reading. One of the first things that struck me was the statement ‘There is no god but God,’ He has no associates, and all prayers and worship are directed to Him alone. This seemed so simple, so powerful, so direct, and made so much sense. So from there I started reading everything I could about Islam.
Everything I read made so much sense to me. It was as if suddenly all the pieces of this puzzle were fitting perfectly, and a clear picture was emerging. I was so excited my heart would race any time I read anything about Islam. Then, when I read the Quran, I felt like I was truly blessed to be able to read this. I knew that this had come directly from God through His Messenger [may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him]. This was it, the truth. I felt like all along I had been a Muslim but I just didn’t know it until now. Now as I start my life as a Muslim, I have a sense of peace and security knowing that what I am learning is the pure truth and will take me closer to God. May God keep guiding me. Ameen.
http://www.islamreligion.com
I have always been aware of the existence of God. I have always felt that He was there. Sometimes that ...
I Found the Perfect Code of Conduct in Islam
Interviewer: Let me begin by a question I’m sure you get asked a lot:
Why did you embrace Islam?
Isa: I do get asked this question a lot, and I can say that the most convincing reason for me was Islam’s logical nature.
I had a lot of questions, and I found that Islam really quenched the thirst that I had.
I felt that everywhere I looked in the observational world that I could see everything had a perfect code of conduct, everything had a set of rules that it followed; the plants, the animals, and even evolution, everything had a really refined course that it was taking, except for humans.
Humans have this ability to really make their own choices. For me it was very subjective, in terms of moral questions, social questions, economic question and political questions, it is so subjective. When I look at the world I see that everything is one way and it couldn’t have been another way, at least in the context that it was created.
So, for me my biggest question was: Is there also a set of rules and a course that I’m supposed to be taking? It cannot be a subjective opinion, or is it something that is universal or for the common good.
Similarities Between Christianity and Islam
When I started looking into Islam, and I looked into a lot of religions. I grew up as a Christian, and I started to find a lot of similarities between Christianity and Islam in terms of their code of conduct; the moral code of conduct. I looked at a lot of other religions, and found out that really the major point in all religions is to be a good person.
So, my question at that point was OK; how do I become a good person?
If there’s only One in the entire world that would know, it would have to be God. So, I asked God how could I achieve the pinnacle of my humanity?
When I started looking into Islam, I found that even though there were things that seemed a little contradictory to what I believed, or they gave me a little bit of a challenge because I had notions already that I had conceived myself, I thought OK, despite that, maybe I could be wrong, as everybody has a different opinion.
When I looked at it closely and analyzed it, I realized that we can take these arguments, and let’s take them in a very objective rational way devoid of emotion, bring everybody’s argumentz to the table. And Islam I can honestly say that I’m completely convinced it will not lose.
Interviewer: Excellent, that’s some very profound words. But let me ask you a question in closing:
Was there something that you read in particular that kind of really set out a clear path towards Islam? Was it the Quran, maybe Hadith, maybe some advice or someone you talked to? Because it’s always good to know what really caused you to take that way, because a lot of times everybody does research, but a lot of times research is inconclusive until you read something that motivates you to really take that leap of faith; what was that in your case?
Isa: In my case I would have to say there were two things.
The Bible is really where I started, and I started doing a lot of comparisons between the Bible and the Qur’an, and I was finding that they are really not so different. In terms of prophecies it’s something very remarkable the similarities you find.
Also, within the Quran one of the most fascinating aspects to me was the scientific advancements in this book written fourteen hundred years ago, and giving insight towards things we are just coming to know within the last twenty years.
Interviewer: Excellent, you make some great points. Just to kind of build on some of his points, a lot of times when we start looking at things from a third party perspectives is the only way you actually find the truth.
So, when brother Isa was following Christianity, then he laid all the facts on the table, he saw that there was a more rational way to live his life and to practice his religion. And when he is talking about code of conduct that makes perfect sense. So we as Muslims have to look at ourselves and see are we following that code of conduct that we should, that the Prophet (peace be upon him) and Muslims lived by.
Source:
http://www.onislam.net/english/reading-islam/my-journey-to-islam/contemp...
Interviewer: Let me begin by a question I’m sure you get asked a lot:
Why did you embrace Islam?
Isa: ...
Malaysian Pop Star Reverts To Islam
Malaysian pop singer officially announced her reversion to Islam during a press conference held at the ASTRO All Asia Broadcast Centre on Tuesday, August 25, confirming rumors about embracing Islam after being spotted wearing hijab.
“Yes, I have converted to Islam officially yesterday. It was the happiest day of my life,” local singer Stracie Angie Anam, also known as Stacy AF, was quoted by News Straits Times Online.
Rumors about the Akademi Fantasia Season 6 champion’s reversion to Islam were circulated on social media after she had appeared in a video taking Shahadah (Islamic declaration of faith) while donning hijab.
Officially embracing Islam at the Johor Baru religious office in Johor, the pop star opted to take a Muslim name, Ummu Syaikhah Stacy binti Anam.
“But I still answer to Stacy,” said the singer, who was flanked by her parents, Agnes Kaloos, 57, and Anam Bayar, 53, during the press conference.
The 25-year-old star, who has four albums, hopes that fans wouldn’t question her reversion to Islam.
“I was a Christian before and I am proud of it. But this is a matter of the heart, and I have fallen in love with Islam and I am ready to embrace it with all my heart,” she said.
“I hope everyone will respect that.”
Marriage
The Muslim star, who is in relationship with the Muslim popular actor and TV personality Akim Ahmad, denied that marriage plans were the reason behind her conversion to Islam.
“It’s not true. Honestly, Akim and I have no plans to tie the knot yet. If I had converted because I wanted to get married, I would probably have done so only when a wedding date has been set,” Anam said.
“Being a Muslim is a huge responsibility. There are a lot of things that I need to learn.
“So my focus now is to learn to become a good Muslimah first, before I can think about marriage,” she added.
In a Rakyat Post report, Ahmad expressed frustration after Anam's reversion video and photos in hijab were leaked without her permission.
Taking to Twitter he wrote: “If you feel any respect for someone, please stop sharing and delete the video that was recorded without permission."
“Respect someone’s privacy. A person’s privacy should not be shared.”
Meanwhile, Anam said: “It was supposed to be the happiest day of my life. But after the photo and video were shared, I felt very down and depressed.
“It is not as if I was trying to hide the good news, but the matter is a personal one as some of my family members are still not in the know about my conversion to Islam.
In dismay, Anam added, “Imagine how they felt when they saw the photograph and video?
“It was a sacred moment...a special moment between God and I. So it was frustrating when someone recorded and shared it without my consent."
“As a new Muslim convert, I forgive her.”
Although she would have preferred to share the news with everyone gradually, Anam stated that, as a new Muslim, she was willing to forgive the person who leaked the video.
Last month, Tottenham striker Emmanuel Adebayor revealed his reversion to Islam after taking Shahada, (the Islamic creed declaring belief in the oneness of God and the acceptance of Muhammad as God's prophet), in a YouTube video.
Almost a month after announcing his reversion, Adebayor revealed that he had come up with 13 reasons leading to hisconversion, saying that it was the similarities between Christianity and Islam that led him to the truth.
Malaysia has a population of nearly 26 million, with Muslims, making up nearly 60 percent.
http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/492605-malaysian-pop-st...
Malaysian pop singer officially announced her reversion to Islam during a press conference held at the ...
Dr. Jerald F. Dirks accepted Islam part 2
While I never spoke to my Muslim friends about those hooks, my wife and I had numerous conversations about what I was reading. By the last week of December of 1992. Iwas forced to admit to myself, that I could find no area of substantial disagreement between my own religious beliefs and the general tenets of Islam. While I was ready to acknowledge that Muhammad, peace be upon him, was a prophet of (one who spoke for or under the inspiration of God, and while I had absolutely no difficulty affirming that there Nvas no god besides God/Allah, glorified and exalted is He, I was still hesitating to make any decision. I could readily admit to myself that I had far more in common with Islamic beliefs as I then understood them, than I did with the traditional Christianity of the organized church. I knew only too well that Icould easily confirm from my seminary training and education most of what the Qur'an had to say about Christianity, the Bible. and Jesus, peace be upon him. Nonetheless, I hesitated. Further, I rationalized my hesitation by maintaining to myself that I really didn't know the nitty-grittydetails of Islam, and that my areas of agreement were confined to general concepts. As such. Icontinued to read, and then to re-read.
One's sense of identity, of who one is, is a powerful affirmation of one's own position in the cosmos. In my professional practice, I had occasionally been called upon to treat certain addictive disorders, ranging from smoking, to alcoholism, to drug abuse. As a clinician. I knew that the basic physical addiction had to be overcome to create the initial abstinence. That was the easy part of treatment. As Mark Twain once said: "Quitting smoking is easy; I've done it hundreds of times". However, I also knew that the key to maintaining that abstinence over an extended time period was overcoming the client's psychological addiction, which was heavily grounded in the client's basic sense of identity, i.e. the client identified to himself that he ‘vas "a smoker", or that he was "a drinker", etc. The addictive behavior had become part and parcel of the client's basic sense of identity, of the client's basic sense of self Changing this sense of identity was crucial to the maintenance of the psychotherapeutic "cure". This ‘vas the difficult part of treatment. Changing one's basic sense of identity is a most difficult task. One's psyche tends to cling to the old and familiar, which seem more psychologically comfortable and secure than the new and unfamiliar.
On a professional basis, Ihad the above knowledge, and used it on a daily basis. However, ironically enough, I was not yet ready to apply it to myself, and to the issue of my own hesitation surrounding my religious identity. For 43 years, my religious identity had been neatly labeled as "Christian", however many qualifications I might have added to that term over the years. Giving up that label of personal identity was no easy task. It was part and parcel of how I defined my very being. Given the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that my hesitation served the purpose of insuring that Icould keep my familiar religious identity of being a Christian, although a Christian who believed like a Muslim believed.
It was now the very end of December, and my wife and Iwere filling out our application forms for U.S. passports, so that a proposed Middle Eastern journey could become a reality. One of the questions had to do with religious affiliation. I didn't even think about it, and automatically fell back on the old and familiar, as Ipenned in "Christian". It was easy, it was familiar, and it was comfortable.
However, that comfort was momentarily disrupted when my wife asked me how I had answered the question on religious identity on the application form. I immediately replied, "Christian", and. chuckled audibly. Now, one of Freud's contributions to the understanding of the human psyche was hisrealization that laughter is often a release of psychological tension. However Nvrong Freud may have been in many aspects of his theory of psychosexual development, his insights into laughter were quite on target. I had laughed! What was this psychological tension that I had need to release through the medium of laughter?
I then hurriedly went on to offer my wife a brief affirmation that I was a Christian, not a Muslim. In response to which, she politely informed me that she was merely asking whether I had ‘vritten "Christian", or "Protestant", or "Methodist"_ On a professional basis. I knew that a person does not defend himself against an accusation that hasn't been made. (If, in the course of a session of psychotherapy, my client blurted out, "I'm not angry about that", and I hadn't even broached the topic of anger, it was clear that my client was feeling the need to defend himself against a charge that his own unconscious was making. In short. he really was angry, but he wasn't ready to admit it or to deal with it.) If my wife hadn't made the accusation. i.e. you are a Muslim", then the accusation had to have come from my own unconscious, as I was the only other person present_ I was aware of this, but still Ihesitated. The religious label that had been stuck to my sense of identity for 43 years was not going to come off easily.
About a month had gone by since my wivife's question to me. It was now late in January of 1993. had set aside all the books on Islam by the Western scholars, as I had read them all thoroughly. The two English translations of the meaning of the Qur'an were back on the bookshelf. and I was busy reading yet a third English translation of the meaning of the Qur'an. Maybe in this translation Iwould find some sudden justification for...
I was taking my lunch hour from my private practice at a local Arab restaurant that I had started to frequent. Ientered as usual, seated myself at a small table, and opened my third English translation of the meaning of the Qur'an to where Ihad left off in my reading. I figured I might as well get some reading done over my lunch hour. Moments later, I became aware that Mahmoud was at my shoulder, and waiting to take my order. He glanced at what I was reading., but said nothing about it. My order taken, I returned to the solitude of my reading.
A few minutes later, Mahmoud's wife, limn, an American Muslim, who Nvore the Hijab (scarf) and modest dress that I had come to associate with female Muslims. brought me my order. She commented that I was reading the Qur'an, and politely asked if Iwere a Muslim. The word was out of my mouth before it could be modified by any social etiquette or politeness: "No!" That single word ‘vas said forcefully, and with more than a hint ofirritability. With that, Brian politely retired from my table.
What was happening to me? I had behaved rudely and somewhat aggressively. What had this woman done to deserve such behavior from me? This wasn't like me. Given my childhood upbringing, Istill used "sir" and "ma'am" when addressing clerks and cashiers who were waiting on me in stores. Icould pretend to ignore my own laughter as a release of tension, butcouldn't begin to ignore this sort of unconscionable behavior from myself My reading was set aside, and I mentally stewed over this turn of events throughout my meal. The more i stewed, the guiltier I felt about my behavior. I knew that when liimn brought me my check at the end of the meal, Iwas going to need to make some amends. if for no other reason, simple politeness demanded it. Furthermore, I was really quite disturbed about how resistant Ihad been to her innocuous question. What was going on in me that Iresponded with that much force to such a simple and straightforward question'? Why did that one, simple question lead to such atypical behavior on my part?
Later, when Brian came with my check, I attempted a round-about apology by saying "I'm afraid I was a little abrupt in answering your question before. if you were asking me whether I believe that there is only one God, then my answer is yes. If you were asking me whether I believe that Muhammad was one of the prophets of that one God, then my answer is yes." She very nicely and very supportively said: "That's okay; it takes some people a little longer than others."
Perhaps, the readers of this will be kind enough to note the psychological games I was playing with myself without chuckling too hard at my mental gymnastics and behavior. well knew that in my own way, using my own words, I had just said the Shahadah. the Islamic testimonial of faith, i.e. "I testify that there is no god but Allah, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah". However, having said that, and having recognized ‘vhat I said, I could still cling to my old and familiar label of religious identity. After all, Ihadn't said I was a Muslim.
I was simply a Christian, albeit an atypical Christian, who was willing to say that there was one God, not a triune godhead, and who was willing to say that Muhammad was one of the prophets inspired by that one God. If a Muslim wanted to accept me as being, a Muslim that was his or her business, and his or her label of religious identity. However, it was not mine. I thought I had found my way out of my crisis of religious identity. Iwas a Christian, who would carefully explain that I agreed with, and Nvas willing to testify to, the Islamictestimonial of faith. Having made my tortured explanation, and having parsed the English language to within an inch of its life, others could hang whatever label on me they wished. It was their label, and not mine.
It was now March of 1993, and my wife and l v%.rere enjoying a five-week vacation in the Middle East. It was also the Islamic. month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from day break until sunset. Because we were so often staying with or being escorted around by family members of our Muslim friends back in the States, my wife and Ihad decided that we also would fast, if for no other reason than common courtesy. During, this time, Ihad also started to perform the five daily prayers of Islam with my newfound, Middle Eastern, Muslim friends. After all, there was nothing in those prayers with which I could disagree.
I was a Christian, or so [ said. After all, I had been born into a Christian family, had been given a Christian upbringing had attended church and Sunday school every Sunday as a child, had graduated from a prestigious seminary, and was an ordained minister in a large Protestant denomination. However. I was also a Christian: who didn't believe in a triune godhead or in the divinity of Jesus, peace be upon him; vvrho knew quite well how the Bible had been corrupted; who had said the Islamic testimony of faith in my own carefully parsed words; who had fasted during Ramadan; who was saying Islamic prayers five times a day; and who was deeply impressed by the behavioral examples Ihad witnessed in the Muslim community, both in America and in the Middle East. (Time and space do not permit me the luxuiy of documenting in detail all of the examples of personal morality and ethics Iencountered in. the Middle East.) If asked if Iwere a Muslim, I could and did do a five-minute monologue detailing the above, and basically leaving the question unanswered. I was playing intellectual ‘vord games, and succeeding at them quite nicely.
It was now late in our Middle Eastern trip. An elderly friend vk.rho spoke no English and I were walking down a winding, little road, somewhere in one of the economically disadvantaged areas of greater 'Amman. Jordan_ As vve walked, an elderly man approached us from the opposite direction, said, "Salam 'Alaykum", i.e_, "peace be upon you", and offered to shake hands. We were the only three people there. I didn't speak Arabic. and neither my friend nor the stranger spoke English. Looking at me, the stranger asked, "Muslim?"
At that precise moment in time, I was fully and completely trapped. Therewere no intellectual v%.rord games to be played, because I could onlycommunicate in English, and they could only communicate in Arabic. Therewas no translator present to bail me out of this situation, and to allow me to hide behind my carefully prepared English monologue. Icouldn't pretend I didn't understand the question, because it was all too obvious that I had. My choices were suddenly, unpredictably, and inexplicably reduced to just two: I could say "Warn", i.e., "yes"; or l could say "La", i.e., "no". The choice was mine, and I had no other. l had to choose, and Ihad to choose now; it was just that simple. Praise be to Allah, I answered, "N'arn".
With saying that one word, all the intellectual word games were now behind me. With the intellectual word games behind me, the psychological games regarding my religious identity were also behind me. I wasn't some strange, atypical Christian. I was a Muslim. Praise be to Allah, my wife of 33 years also became a Muslim about that same time.
Not too many months after our return to America from the Middle East, a neighbor invited us over to his house, saying that he wanted to talk with us about our conversion to 'slam. He was a retired Methodist minister, with ‘vhom I had had several conversations in the past. Although we had occasionally talked superficially about such issues as the artificial construction of the Bible from Niarious, earlier, independent sources, we had never had any in-depth conversation about religion. I knew only that he appeared to have acquired a solid seminary education, and that he sang in the local church choir every Sunday.
My initial reaction was, "Oh, oh, here it comes". Nonetheless, it is a Muslim's duty to be a good neighbor, and it is a Muslim's duty to be willing to discuss Islam with others. As such, I accepted the invitation for the following evening, and spent most of the waking part of the next 24 hours contemplating how best to approach this gentleman in his requested topic of conversation.
The appointed time came, and we drove over to our neighbor's. After a few moments of small talk, he finally asked why Ihad decided to become a Muslim. I had ‘vaited for this question, and had my answer carefully prepared. "As you know with your seminary education, there were a lot of non-religious considerations which led up to and shaped the decisions of the Council of Nicaea." He immediately cut me off with a simple statement: "You finally couldn't stomach the polytheism anymore, could you?" He knew exactly wiry I was a Muslim, and he didn't disagree with my decision! For himself, at his age and at his place in life, he was electing to be "an atypical Christian". Allah willing, he has by now completed his journey from cross to crescent.
There are sacrifices to be made in being a Muslim in America. For thatmatter, there are sacrifices to be made in being a Muslim anywhere.
However, those sacrifices may be more acutely felt in America, especially among American converts. Some of those sacrifices are very predictable, and include altered dress and abstinence from alcohol, pork, and the taking of interest on one's money. Some of those sacrifices are less predictable. For example, one Christian family, with whom we were close friends, informed us that they could no longer associate with us, as they could not associate with anyone "who does not take Jesus Christ as his personal savior". In addition, quite a few of my professional colleagues altered their manner of relating to me. Whether it was coincidence or not, my professional referral base dwindled, and there was almost a 30% drop in income as a result. Some of these less predictable sacrifices were hard to accept, although the sacrifices were a small price to pay for what was received in return.
For those contemplating the acceptance of Islam and the surrendering of oneself to Allah—glorified and exalted is He, there may well be sacrifices along the way. Many of these sacrifices are easily predicted, while others may be rather surprising and unexpected. There is no denying the existence of these sacrifices, and I don't intend to sugar coat that pill for you. Nonetheless, don't be overly troubled by these sacrifices. In the final analysis. these sacrifices are less important than you presently think. Allah willing, you will find these sacrifices a very cheap coin to pay for the •'goods" you are purchasing.
While I never spoke to my Muslim friends about those hooks, my wife and I had numerous conversations about what I was ...
story of the court magician and the young boy
Suhaib (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "There lived a king before you and he had a court magician. As he (the magician) grew old, he said to the king:
'I have grown old, so send me a young boy in order to teach him magic.' The king sent him a young boy to serve the purpose. And on his way (to the magician) the young boy met a monk to whom he listened to and liked it. It became his habit that on his way to the magician, he would meet the monk and sit there and would come to the magician (late). The magician used to beat him because of this delay. He complained about this to the monk who said to him: 'When you feel afraid of the magician, say: Members of my family detained me. And when you fear your family, say: The magician detained me.' It so happened that there came a huge beast and it blocked the way of the people, and the young boy said: 'I will know today whether the magician or the monk is better.' He picked up a stone and said: 'O Allah, if the way of the monk is dearer to You than the way of the magician, bring about death to the animal so that the people be able to move about freely.' He threw that stone at it and killed it and the people began to move about freely. He then came to the monk and told him the story. The monk said: 'Son, today you are superior to me. You have come to a stage where I feel that you would be soon put to a trial, and in case you are put to a trial, do not reveal me.' That young boy began to heal those born blind and the lepers and he, in fact, began to cure people from all kinds of illnesses. When a courtier of the king who had gone blind heard about him, he came to him with numerous gifts and said, 'If you cure me, all these things will be yours.' He said, 'I myself do not cure anyone. It is Allah, the Exalted, Alone Who cures; and if you affirm faith in Allah, I shall also supplicate to Allah to cure you.' This courtier affirmed his faith in Allah and Allah cured him. He came to the king and sat by his side as he used to sit before. The king said to him, 'Who restored your eyesight?' He said, 'My Rubb.' Thereupon he said, 'Do you have another lord besides me?' He said, 'My Rubb and your Rubb is Allah.' So the king kept torturing him untill he revealed the young boy. The young boy was thus summoned and the king said to him, 'O boy, it has been conveyed to me that you have become so much proficient in your magic that you cure the blind and the lepers and you do such and such.' Thereupon he said, 'I do not cure anyone; it is Allah Alone Who cures,' and the king took hold of him and began to torture him until he revealed of the monk. The monk was summoned and it was said to him: 'You should turn back from your religion.' But he refused. The king sent for a saw, placed it in the middle of his head and cut him into two parts that fell down. Then the courtier of the king was brought forward and it was said to him: 'Turn back from your religion.' He, too, refused, and the saw was placed in the midst of his head and he was torn into two parts. Then the boy was sent for and it was said to him: 'Turn back from your religion.' He refused. The king then handed him over to a group of his courtiers, and said to them: 'Take him to such and such mountain; make him climb up that mountain and when you reach its peak ask him to renounce his Faith. If he refuses to do so, push him to his death.' So they took him and made him climb up the mountain and he said: 'O Allah, save me from them in any way you like,' and the mountain began to shake and they all fell down (dead) and that young boy came walking to the king. The king said to him, 'What happened to your companions?' He said, 'Allah has saved me from them.' He again handed him to some of his courtiers and said: 'Take him and carry him in a boat and when you reach the middle of the sea, ask him to renounce his religion. If he does not renounce his religion throw him (into the water).' So they took him and he said: 'O Allah, save me from them.' The boat turned upside down and they all drowned except the young boy who came walking to the king. The king said to him, 'What happened to your companions?' He said, 'Allah has saved me from them,' and he said to the king: 'You cannot kill me until you do what I command you to do.' The king asked, 'What is that?' He said, 'Gather all people in one place and tie me up to the trunk of a tree, then take an arrow from my quiver and say: With the Name of Allah, the Rubb of the boy; then shoot me. If you do that you will be able to kill me.' 'The king called the people in an open field and tied the young boy to the trunk of a tree. He took out an arrow from his quiver, fixed in the bow and said, 'With the Name of Allah, the Rubb of the young boy,' he then shot the arrow and it hit the boy's temple. The young boy placed his hand upon the temple where the arrow had hit him and died. The people then said: 'We believe in the Rubb of this young boy.' The king was told: 'Do you see what you were afraid of, by Allah it has taken place; all people have believed.' The king then commanded that trenches be dug and fire lit in them, and said: 'He who would not turn back from his (the young boy's) religion, throw him in the fire' or 'he would be ordered to jump into it.' They did so till a woman came with her child. She felt hesitant in jumping into the fire. The child said to her: 'O mother! Endure (this ordeal) for you are on the Right Path".
[Muslim].
Suhaib (May Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said, "There lived a king before you ...
Free mixing Between the Sexes
Free mixing Between the Sexes
Shaykh Muhammad Bin Ibrahim Aal-Al Sheikh [1311-1389 H (1893-1969 AD)], the former Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, said:
Introduction:
Free mixing between men and women can be of three types:
Mixing of women with men who are their Mahram (husband and men whom she may never marry, e.g. father, brother, son etc). There is no doubt that this is permissible in Islam.
Mixing of women with non-Mahram men for evil and depraved purposes. There is no doubt that this type is not allowed (haram) in Islam.
Mixing of women with non-Mahram men in educational institutes, shops, offices, hospitals, get-togethers, parties etc. At first a questioner (asking fatwa) really might think that this does not lead to one gender tempting the other. To expose the reality of this type, we will reply (to the questioner) both briefly and in detail.
Brief Reply:
The brief answer is that Allah made men to have a natural inclination towards women and gave them power over the females. He made women to be naturally inclined towards men though He made them weak and soft in nature. Hence, when free mixing occurs between women and (non-Mahram) men, its effects result in bad intentions, since the human self is inclined towards evil and (carnal) desires make a person blind and dumb, while Satan commands people to do indecent and evil things.
Detailed Reply:
The detailed answer is that Islamic Law (Shari’ah) is based on objectives and the means to achieve them. The means for an objective have the same rulings as the objective itself. Women are the object of desire for men, and Islam blocks the doors leading to members of one sex becoming attached to the members of the opposite gender. The evidence from the Qur’an and Sunnah that we will now mention for you will show this clearly.
a) Proofs from the Qur’an:
There are six proofs for this from the Qur’an:
Allah says, “
And she, in whose house he was, sought to seduce him (to do an evil act), she closed the doors and said: “Come on, O you.” He said: “I seek refuge in Allah (or Allah forbid)! Truly, he (your husband) is my master! He made my stay agreeable! (So I will never betray him). Verily, the Zalimoon (wrong and evil-doers) will never be successful.” ” (Surah Yusuf 12:23)
It is a proof (for saying that the third type of free mixing is prohibited) because when there was free-mixing between the wife of the Egyptian minister and Prophet Yusuf (peace be upon him), she displayed what was hidden (her love for him) and asked him to have illicit sexual relations with her. However, Allah had Mercy on Yusuf and saved him from her (advances), as He said,
“So his Lord answered his invocation and turned away from him their plot. Verily, He is the All-Hearer, the All-Knower.” (Surah Yusuf 12:34).
Similarly, if free-mixing occurs between men and women, members of both genders pick for themselves the one they please from members of the opposite gender and use all means to get that person.
Allah commanded men and women to lower their gaze. He said,
“Tell the believing men to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts, etc.). That is purer for them. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what they do. And tell the believing women to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things)…”
(Surah Al-Noor 24:30-31). This verse is a proof for what we say since Allah ordered believing men and women to lower their gazes, and His ordering something means it is obligatory. Then Allah tells us that it is purer and that only an accidental (unintentional) glance will be forgiven. ‘Ali bin Abi Talib, may Allah be pleased with him narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“O ‘Ali, do not follow a glance with another, for you will be forgiven for the first, but not for the second.”
(Reported by Al-Hakim in Al-Mustadrak (2/212 and 3/133), Ahmed (5/351,353 and 357), al-Tirmithi and others. Al-Hakim said it is authentic according to standard of Muslim, and Al-Dhahabi agreed with him in Talkhis). There are many hadiths with the same meaning. Allah did not order people to lower their gaze except for the fact that looking at objects that are forbidden to see is counted as adultery (zina). Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) said,
“The adultery of the eyes is the sight (to gaze at a forbidden thing), the adultery of the tongue is the talk,… and the inner self wishes and desires and the private parts testify all this or deny it.”
[Sahih Al-Bukhari (no. 6612), Muslim (no. 2657), Ahmed (2/276)]. Gazing at forbidden things is adultery since it is enjoying the sight of charms of a woman, results in these images becoming etched in the heart of the person and he tries to commit actual adultery with her. If Islam forbids gazing at her due the resultant evil, then the same evil results from free mixing. Hence, free mixing too is forbidden, since it is the means to the same evil consequences as the forbidden gaze.
The evidences that we mentioned earlier that it is not permissible to gaze at women means that it is obligatory upon a woman to cover her entire body, since exposing it or part of it results in (forbidden) glances towards it, which in turn leads the heart to become attached to her and then utilizing the means to obtain her (for illicit relations). This is also the case with free mixing.
“And let them (Muslim women) not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment.” (Surah Al-Noor 24:31).
Even though the act of stamping feet itself is permissible, still Since Allah forbade women from stamping their feet so that it does not become a reason for men to hear the sound of anklets worn by women. This would arouse men’s desire for women, and the same evil consequences result from free mixing.
Allah says,
“Allah knows the fraud of the eyes, and all that the breasts conceal.” (Surah Ghafir 40:19).
Ibn ‘Abbas and others said,
“It is (about) a man who visits the house of a family, which includes a beautiful woman too who passes by him. When the members of the family are not watching him, he looks at her, but when they are alert, he lowers his gaze from her. When they are not watching, he gazes at her and when they are observing him, he lowers his gaze. Allah knows that in his heart he wishes to see her naked and if he could, he would commit adultery with her.” (Tafsir Ibn Kathir).
If Allah described the eye which steals a glance towards what is not permissible for it to look as ‘fraud’, then how about free mixing?
Allah ordered women to stay in their homes. He said,
“And stay in your houses, and do not display yourselves like that of the times of ignorance.” (Surah Al-Ahzab 33:33).
Allah commanded the wives of the Prophet (peace be upon him), who were the most pure and chaste women, to stay in their homes. This commandment is addressed to Muslim women in general too, since it is a well established principle of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) that directed speech is general in scope, except if there is an evidence proving that it is specific to whom it is addressed. However, there is no evidence to make it specific (the Prophet’s wives) in this case. Hence, if women are commanded to remain at home except in case of a necessity that required them to go out, then how can free mixing between them and men of the kind mentioned earlier be permissible? Moreover, in our times women have become too headstrong, have left modest all-covering garments and expose themselves wantonly to the extent of nudity in front of un-related (non-Mahram) men. Husbands and other guardians of women have little control over women whose well-being they are entrusted with.
b) Proofs from the Sunnah
As for the evidence from the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) words and actions, we will mention just ten:
Imam Ahmed narrated It was narrated that Umm Humayd the wife of Abu Humayd al-Saa’idi came to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and said,
“O Messenger of Allah, I like to pray with you.” He said, “I know that you like to pray with me, but your prayer in your room is better for you than your prayer in your courtyard and your prayer in your courtyard is better for you than your praying in your house, and your prayer in your house is better for you than your prayer in the mosque of your people, and your prayer in the mosque of your people is better for you than your prayer in my mosque.” So she issued orders that a prayer-place be prepared for her in the furthest and darkest part of her house, and she used to pray there until she met Allah (i.e., died).”
[Narrated by Ahmad(6/371), Ibn Khuzaymah in his Saheeh (no. 1689)and others]. Ibn Mas’ood (may Allah be pleased with him) said,
“The woman’s prayer (salah) most beloved to Allah is the one she offers in the darkest part of her home”
[Narrated by Ibn Khuzaymah (no. 1691, 1692) and Al-Tabarani in Al-Mu’jam (2/35)]. There are many other narrations to this effect that it is better for a woman to pray at home than the mosque. Hence, because Islam advises women to pray at home and that it is better than even praying in the Prophet’s Mosque behind the Prophet (peace be upon him) himself, it free mixing should be forbidden with even more reason!
Abu Hurairah (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“The best rows for men are the first rows, and the worst ones the last ones, and the best rows for women are the last ones and the worst ones for them are the first ones.”
[Sahih Muslim (no. 440), Abu Dawud (no. 678), Al-Tirmithi (no. 224). Al-Tirmithi declared it authentic]. Hence, the Prophet (peace be upon him) told the women that if they came to the mosque, they should firstly remain separate from the worshiping men. Then he described their foremost rows to be worst and the last rows as the better ones. This was only to keep the women praying behind away from mingling with, seeing and having their hearts attached to the men in front of them on hearing voices or watching movements of the men. The Prophet (peace be upon him) described the last rows of men as the worst if there were women in the mosque. The reason behind this is that men in the last rows missed being near the Imam (prayer leader) and instead found positions near the women who are a cause of distraction and may even spoil the prayers by making these men lose concentration and sincerity in worship. Hence, if the Prophet (peace be upon him) expected this to happen in a place of worship, then how about free mixing? Free mixing in which men and women are much closer!
Zainab, the wife of ‘Abdullah, reported: The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) said to us:
“When any one of you comes to the mosque, she should not apply perfume.”
[narrated by Muslim (no. 443), Ahmed (6/363)]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) also said
“Do not prevent the female servants of Allah from visiting the mosques of Allah, but they may go out (to the mosque) having no perfumed themselves.”
[Ahmed (2/475) and Abu Dawud (no 565)]. Ibn Daqeeq al-‘Eed said
“This indicates that it is forbidden for a woman who wants to go to the mosque to wear perfume, because this causes provocation of men’s desires, and it may even be a cause of provoking women’s desire (and sensuality)… The scholars also included other things under this heading of things to be avoided by women who want to go to the mosque, such as beautiful clothes, jewelery that can be seen and excessive adornments”. Ibn Hajar added, “and similarly, mingling with men.”
See Fath al-Baari, 2/279.
Usama bin Zaid reported Allah’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying:
I have not left after me any (chance) of turmoil more injurious to men than the harm done to the men because of women.
[narrated by Al-Bukhari (no. 5069) and Muslim (2740)]. Since the Prophet (peace be upon him) described women as being a fitnah (temptation, trial) for men, how can the temptation and the temptable be placed together? This is not allowed!
Abu Sa’eed Al-Khudri (may Allah be pleased with him) reported that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
" The world is sweet and green (alluring) and verily Allah is going to install you as vicegerent in it in order to see how you act. So avoid the (allurement of) women: verily, the first trial for the children of Israel was caused by women.”
[Sahih Muslim (no. 2742)]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) made it obligatory upon Muslim men to avoid (non-Mahram) women. But how can we act on this hadith in the presence of free mixing? This is impossible, hence free mixing of the sexes is forbidden.
Abu Usayd Al-Ansari said he heard the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) say
when he was coming out of the mosque, and men and women were mingled in the road: ‘Draw back, for you must not walk in the middle of the road; keep to the sides of the road.’ Then women were keeping so close to the wall that their garments were rubbing against it.
[Abu Dawud (no. 5272)]. The Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade them from walking in the middle of the road since it leads to temptation, then how can one permit mingling in other places?
It is narrated from ‘Umar that when the Prophet of Allah (peace be upon him) built the mosque, he made a door for women and said,
“Men should not enter from this door.”
[Abu Dawud Al-Tialisi in his Sunan (no. 1829) and Al-Bukhari in his Al-Tarikh Al-Kabir (1/60)].Hence, the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade men and women to mingle with each other when entering and exiting the doors of the mosque by forbidding them to use the same doors. This prohibition was enforced to block the means to free mixing. If free-mixing between the sexes is forbidden in such a condition, it should be forbidden at other places too with all the more reason!
Umm Salama (may Allah be pleased with her) said,
“Whenever Allah’s Prophet (peace be upon him) finished his prayers with Taslim (saying salam at the end of prayers), the women would get up and he would stay on for a while in his place before getting up.”
In another narration, the words are:
“When the Prophet finished the prayer with Taslim, the women would depart and enter their houses before Allah’s Apostle departed.”
In the third narration in Bukhari from her,
“In the lifetime of Allah’s Apostle the women used to get up when they finished their compulsory prayers with Taslim. The Prophet and the men would stay on at their places as long as Allah will. When the Prophet got up, the men would then get up.”
[Sahih Al-Bukhari (no. 849)]. Here, we see that the Prophet (peace be upon him) prevented mixing between men and women by his action. This action cautions us against free-mixing between the genders in places other than the mosque as well.
Mi’qal Bin Yasar (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said,
“If the head of one of you is pierced with an iron needle, it is better for him than to touch a woman who is not legal for him (to touch).”
[Narrated by Al-Tabarani in Al-Mu’jam Al-Kabir (20/213), Ibn Abi Shaybah in Al-Musannaf (4/341) and the narrators were declared trustworthy by Al-Haytami and Al-Mundhiri].
Abu Umamah (may Allah be pleased with him) narrated from the Prophet (peace be upon him) that he said,
“It is better for man to press (against himself) a pig smeared with clay and mud, than to press his shoulder against the shoulder of a woman not legal for him (to touch).” [Al-Tabarani 4/326, though Al-Mundhiri said that a narrator in the chain is extremely weak].
Hence, the Prophet (peace be upon him) forbade men from touching women (and vice versa), whether with or without a barrier (like a cloth etc) if he is not her Mahram due to its evil consequences. So, free mixing between the sexes too is forbidden for the same reason.
Conclusion:
A person who ponders on the evidence presented by us will clearly see that the opinion that free mixing among men and women does not lead to fitnah (trials, temptation) is a figment of imagination of a few people. However, in reality, it does lead to fitnah and that is why Islam forbade from it; in order to nip the evil in the bud. The special circumstances which are due to necessity or extreme need in places of worship, e.g. the mixing of men and women in the Grand Mosque at Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina are exceptions to the rule. We ask Allah to guide the misguided among the Muslims and to increase the guidance of those Muslims who are guided. We ask Allah to make the Muslims rules to do good, leave evil and physically stop the foolish people. Indeed, Allah is All-Hearing, Near (by His Knowledge) and Responsive!.
by Muhammad Ibn Ibrahim
Translated by Abu Maryam Bilal
http://www.islaam.net
Free mixing Between the Sexes
Shaykh Muhammad Bin Ibrahim Aal-Al Sheikh [1311-1389 H (1893-1969 ...
Women in Islam
By: Magdy Abdelshafy
The issue of women in Islam is a topic of great misunderstanding and distortion due partly to a lack of understanding, but also partly due to misbehavior of some Muslims which has been taken to represent the teachings of Islam. We speak here about what Islam teaches, and that is the standard according to which Muslims are to be judged. As such, my basis and source is the Quran--the words of Allah, and the sayings of the Prophet, his deeds and his confirmation. Islamic laws are derived from these sources.
To facilitate our discussion, we can discuss the position of women from a spiritual, economic, social, and political standpoint.From the spiritual aspect, there are seven points to remember:According to the Quran, men and women have the same spirit, there is no superiority in the spiritual sense between men and women. [Noble Quran 4:1, 7:189, 42:11]The Quran makes it clear that all human beings (and the phraseology doesn't apply to men or women alone, but to both) have what you might call a human; He"breathed some of My spirit into divine touch. When God created him"(or her in this sense). [Noble Quran 15:29 See also 32:9]Some of His spirit here means not in the incarnational sense, but the pure, innate spiritual nature that God has endowed her or him with.
The Quran indicates again that one of the most honored positions of human is that God created the human, and as I referred to Surah 17 earlier, it means both sexes, as His trustee and representative on earth. There are many references in the Quran that reaffirm this.Nowhere in the Quran do we find any trace of any notion of blaming Eve for the first mistake or for eating from the forbidden tree. Nowhere, even though the Quran speaks about Adam, Eve, and the forbidden tree, but in a totally different spirit.
The story is narrated in 7:19-27, and it speaks about both of them doing this, both of them are told that both of them disobeyed, both of them discovered the consequences of their disobedience, both of them seek repentance and both of them are forgiven. Nowhere in the Quran does it say woman is to be blamed for the fall of man.
Furthermore, when the Quran speaks about the suffering of women during the period of pregnancy and childbirth, nowhere does it connect it with the concept of original sin, because there is no concept of original sin in Islam. The suffering is presented not as a reason to remind woman of the fall of man, but as a reason to adore and love woman or the mother.
In the Quran, especially 31:14, 46:15, it makes it quite clear that God has commanded mankind to be kind to parents and mentions,"His mother bore him in difficulty or suffering upon suffering." [Noble Quran 31:14, 46:15].
The Quran makes it clear again to remove any notion of superiority and I refer you again to 49:13. I must caution you that there are some mistaken translations, but if you go to the original Arabic, there is no question of gender being involved.In terms of moral, spiritual duties, acts of worship, the requirements of men and women are the same, except in some cases when women have certain concessions because of their feminine nature, or their health or the health of their babies.
The Quran explicitly, in more than one verse, 3:195, 4:124, specified that whoever does good deeds, and is a believer and then specifies "male or female" God will give them an abundant reward.In the area of economic rights,we have to remember that in Europe until the 19th century, women did not have the right to own their own property. When they were married, either it would transfer to the husband or she would not be able to dispense of it without permission of her husband. In Britain, perhaps the first country to give women some property rights, laws were passed in the 1860's known as "Married Women Property Act." More than 1300 years earlier, that right was clearly established in Islamic law."Whatever men earn, they have a share of that and whatever women earn, they have a share in that." [Noble Quran 4:32]
Secondly: there is no restriction in Islamic law that says a woman cannot work or have a profession, that her only place is in the home. In fact, by definition, in a truly Islamic society, there must be women physicians, women nurses, women teachers, because it's preferable also to separate teenagers in the volatile years in high school education. And if she chooses to work, or if she's married with the consent of her husband, she's entitled to equal pay, not for equal work, but for work of equal worth.
Thirdly: when it comes to financial security, Islamic law is more tilted in many respects towards women. These are seven examples:
During the period of engagement, a woman is to be on the receiving side of gifts.At the time of marriage, it is the duty of the husband, not the bride's family. He is supposed to pay for a marital gift. The Quran called it a gift, and it is exclusively the right of the woman. She doesn't have to spend it on the household, she doesn't have to give it to her father or anyone else.
If the woman happened to own any property prior to marriage, she retains that property after marriage. It remains under her control. Also, in most Muslim countries, the woman keeps her own last name, and her own identity.
If the woman has any earnings during her marital life, by way of investments of her property or as a result of work, she doesn't have to spend one penny of that income on the household, it is entirely hers.The full maintenance and support of a married woman is the entire responsibility of her husband, even though she might be richer than he is. She doesn't have to spend a penny.At the time of divorce, there are certain guarantees during the waiting period and even beyond for a woman's support.If the widow or divorcee has children, she's entitled to child support.
In return for these listed securities, it is clear why the Islamic laws pertaining to inheritance give men a higher share. From the social standpoint, as a daughter we find that credit goes to Islam for stopping the barbaric practice of pre-Islamic Arabs of female infanticide. These ignorant people used to bury female daughters alive. The Quran forbade the practice, making it a crime.
Surah 81, additionally, the Quran condemned the chauvinistic attitudes of some people who used to greet the birth of a boy with gladness, but sadness in the case of a girl.The duty, not the right, the duty of education, as the Prophet said, is a duty on every Muslim, male and female.As far as treatment of daughters is concerned, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "Anyone who has two daughters, and did not bury them, did not insult them and brought them up properly, he and I will be like this," holding his two fingers close together.
Another version adds, "And also did not favor his sons over daughters." One time the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) was seated. A companion was sitting with him. The companion's son came. He kissed his son and put him on his lap. Then his daughter came, and he just sat her by his side. The Prophet told the man, "You did not do Justice," meaning he should have treated the daughter equally, kissed her and put her in his lap also. Indeed, whenever the Prophet's daughter Fatimah came to him, in front of everyone, he stood up, kissed her and let her sit in his favorite place where he'd been sitting.From the marital standpoint, the Quran clearly indicates in Surahs 30:20 and 42:11 that marriage is not just an inevitable evil, marriage is not somebody getting married to his master or slave, but rather to his partner."Among His Signs is this, that he created for you mates from among yourselves, that they may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): Verily in that are signs for those who reflect." [Noble Quran 30:21]There are numerous verses in the Quran to the same effect.
Secondly, the approval and consent of the girl to marriage is a prerequisite for the validity of marriage in Islam. She has the right to say yes or no.Husbands' and wives' duties are mutual responsibilities. They might not be identical duties, but the totality of rights and responsibilities are balanced. The Quran says:"Women have the same rights (in relation to their husbands) as are expected in all decency from them, while men stand a step above them." [Noble Quran 2:228]This only specifies the degree of responsibility, not privilege, in man's role as provider, protector, maintainer, and leader of the family.
The same Surah speaks about divorce, about consultation between husband and wife, even in the case of divorce. When there are family disputes, first the Quran appeals to reason and the consideration of positive aspects of one's spouse,"Dwell with your wives in kindness for even if you hate them, you might be hating someone in whom God has placed so much good." [Noble Quran 4:19]
If that appeal does not succeed, and problems between the husband and wife continue, there are measures that can be applied. Some of these measures are done privately between husband and wife. Some of them might appear harsh, but there are qualifications to restrict excessive or abusive use of these measures.
These measures are considered an attempt to save a marriage rather than break a family apart. If the situation does not improve, even with the limitation and prevention of excesses, the next step is a family council. One arbiter from his family and one from her family should sit together with the couple and try to resolve the problems.If a divorce becomes necessary, there are many detailed procedures in Islamic law that really knock down the common notion that divorce in Islam is very easy and that it is the sole right of man. It is not the sole right of man alone and neither is it true that all you have to say is: "I divorce you three times," and that's it.
Islam also has laws regarding custody of children. I was very surprised to see newspapers making the false claim that in all cases custody goes to the father. Custody involves the interest of the child, and laws often favor the mother of young children.Polygamyhas become so mythical in the minds of many people that they assume being Muslim means having four wives.
This is a false notion, of course. A very renowned anthropologist, Edward Westermarck, in his two-volume work, "History of Human Marriage," notes that there has been polygamy in virtually every culture and religion, including Judaism and Christianity. But the point here is not to say, "Why blame Islam?" Actually, Islam is the only religion even among Abrahamic faiths, that specifically limited the practice of polygamy that existed before Islam and established very strict conditions for guidance.
The question, "How could any man have two wives? That's terrible!" reflects ethnocentrism. We assume that because we're living in the West and it seems strange, and we assume it must apply to all cultures, all times, under all circumstances. This simply isn't true. Let me give you one current-day example. In the savage attack on Afghanistan, genocide was committed on the Afghani people. It is estimated that 1-1.5 million people lost their lives, a great majority of whom were men of a marriageable age.
Now, with a great shortage of men, what will happen to their widows, their orphans and their daughters of marriageable age? Is it better to leave them in a camp, with a handout? Or better a man is willing to take care of his fallen comrade's wife and children?It is obvious that monogamy is the norm for Muslims. If we assume that having four wives is the norm, then we assume a population of 80% female and 20% male, which is an impossibility on the aggregate level.
The only verse in the Quran that speaks about polygamy, speaks about limiting not instituting polygamy. The verse was revealed after the Battle of Uhud in which many Muslims were martyred, leaving behind wives and children in need of support. This verse shows the spirit and reason of the revelation.The Quran placed obedience to parents immediately after worship of God."We commanded mankind to be kind to his parents" [Noble Quran 31:14]And then speaks of the mother. In a very succinct statement, Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) said, "Paradise is at the feet of mothers." Once a man came to him and asked, "O, Messenger, who among mankind is worthy of my kindness and love?" The Prophet answered, "Your mother." "Who next?" "Your mother." "Who next?" "Your mother." Only after the third time he said, "And your father."
As a sister in faith, in blood, we find the Quran speaks about men and women, that they should cooperate and collaborate in goodness. Surah 9:71 speaks about men and women as supporters and helpers of each other, ordaining the good and forbidding the evil, establishing prayers and doing charity. Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) echoed what the Quran said, "I command you to be kind to women." In one of his last commands in his farewell pilgrimage before his death, he kept repeating, "I command you to be kind and considerate to women." In another hadith, he said, "It is only the generous in character who is good to women, and only the evil one who insults them."
On the question of attire, the Quran and the sayings of the Prophet did not say women must adopt a particular dress of a particular country. It only gives basic boundaries, and for a committed Muslim woman, she doesn't follow this simply because her father or husband tells her, but because Allah already stated that as a requirement in the Quran, and was explained through revelation given to Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) that this was not to restrict woman, but to provide a virtuous society where sexual attraction is not the main obsession of everyone. This forces everyone to respect the woman for what she is as a human being, as an intellectual and a spiritual being, rather than being diverted to her sexuality.
Finally, a few words about political involvement. The verse quoted earlier, Surah 9:71, which speaks about men and women being supporters and helpers of each other was taken by some jurists to mean that it involves also public life. How could they ordain the good and forbid the evil without women being active in the affairs of their society? According to the Quran, I'm not talking about the practices of Muslims, in Surah 60:12, we read about Muslim women making "bayy'ah" to the Prophet. Bayy'ah as an Islamic term is somewhat analogous, to a degree, to what we would call an election, or oath of allegiance. And that was given in his capacity not only as a Prophet, but as a head of state, as he was already the head of state in Medina.
During the rein of 'Umar, women participated in law making. 'Umar made a proposal of a certain regulation concerning marriage. A woman in the mosque stood up and said, "'Umar, you can't do that." 'Umar did not tell her, "Shut up, you are a woman, you have nothing to do with politics, etc." He asked, "Why?" She made her argument on the basis of Quran. In front of everybody, he stood up and said, "The woman is right and 'Umar is wrong," and he withdrew his proposal. That was the spirit in the early days of Islam.In the most authentic collection of Hadith, Hadith Bukhari, a section is devoted to the participation of women, not only in public affairs, but in the battlefield, too, and not only as logistical support. Women carried arms, and when there was great danger to the Muslims, they volunteered to participate even in the battlefield.The problems presented here are not the problems of Islam. They are problems of a lack of commitment, lack of application, or misapplication of Islamic teachings by Muslims themselves.
The topics I have tried to cover here represent and exemplify the big gap that exists between the true teachings of Islam as derived from its original sources and its projected image in the West and the way some Muslims behave in the disregard of those noble teachings.There's no question that the Western media has played an important role in perpetuating these misconceptions. But in fairness, we should not blame the media alone. Western culture, in writings about other religions, in particular Islam, have distorted images.
From books, novels, even in the academic circle, and sermons from the pulpit in places of worship, these kinds of prejudices are perpetuated.There are fair and honorable people in the media who are receptive to correction of inaccuracies, and who present the facts, when the facts become manifest, as we have seen in the coverage of the barbaric and cruel treatment of the Palestinians n the Occupied Territories. What I would suggest to the media is instead of depending on the distorted information about Islam, they should keep in touch with educated Muslims, and remember, the U.S. has between 5 and 6 million Muslims. Only through correct representation and open communication with Muslims in America can the media give a fair analysis of current events, given the background of those conflicts, and provide a great service to society.
Source: Know Muhammad
By: Magdy Abdelshafy
The issue of women in Islam is a topic of great misunderstanding and distortion due partly to ...
Islam: The Only Choice
PREFACE
I receive dozens of letters every week from allover the world written by different people of different nationalities, most of whom came across one of my books on Islam, Christianity, or comparative religion. Hundreds of those people, originally Christians, have told me that they have embraced Islam.
Each one of them has a story of his own.How did he inquire about Islam?What made him have doubts about Christianity?What made him step towards Islam?I thought that many readers would be interested in just knowing more about the experiences of such embracers.
I wrote back to every one of them asking for permission to publish the story of his or her embracement of Islam. Most of them gave me this permission, and many of them allowed me to mention the family name with the initials of the first and middle names, and some were reluctant about my mentioning their country.
I have omitted some stories if they are very similar to other stories. In most cases, I paraphrased and edited the whole thing for reasons of style and language correctness.
The outcome has been this book, a book about real experiences of real people struggling with man's main issue, i.e., the search for the truth, since the search for it is not easy among the wide jungle of falsehood. Nevertheless, millions of people have never stopped searching for the truth, and many lucky thousands often find it every day, enjoy it, and live under its blessing.
I would like to sincerely congratulate the new embracers of Islam on the right choice they have made. In fact, their choice of Islam is the only right choice.
Dr. Muhammad Ali Alkhuli
(1) FROM THE CROSS TO RESPONSIBILITY
My name is W.F. Hebb, 41 years. I noticed that Christianity could be summarized into a not very much convincing story, i. e., that God crucified his only son in order to save us and that if you believe in this crucifixion, you are saved. I could not see why God should kill His only son since killing is prohibited by God Himself. God orders us not to kill, but He Himself killed His own son. I could not either swallow the crucifixion of Jesus, assuming it happened, as a means to salvation because I could not figure out how crucifying an innocent person would lead to others' salvation. I used to hear about Islam, and I was informed that Islam does negate Jesus' crucifixion and does not accept the theory of salvation through crucifixion. The Islamic principle that salvation is guaranteed only through faith and good deeds makes more sense to me.
(2) THE FOUR GOSPELS
My name is C.F. Guthrie, 47 years. I am a professor of physics. I used to read The New Testament with its four gospels: the Gospel of .t'Jatthew, the Gospel of Mark, the Gospel of Luke, and the Gospel of John. Very frequently, I noticed that there are many contradictions inside each gospel and many other contradictions among the gospels themselves. I began to doubt the holiness of The New Testament and wonder whether it is really God's word. It kept on persisting in my mind that if The New Testament had been God's pure word, we should have -had one gospel only and not four different and inter-contradictory ones. I looked deeper into the matter and came to know that The Holy Quran of Islam is in a better position to be God's pure word because we actually have one version of The Holy Quran, not four, as is the case with the Gospel.
I obtained an English translation of The Holy Quran and began to read it. I find it full of spirituality, good ethics, convincing arguments, lofty contents, and practical legislations in a unique manner. I have come to the conclusion that Islam is the true religion of God and that The Holy Quran is the true and pure word of God.
(3) DEATH AND RESURRECTION
My name is G.W. Ferster, 35 years. I used to go to church every Sunday. On one of those Sundays, the pastor was talking about the death of Jesus Christ on the Cross, that he was buried for three days, and that he was raised alive from the dead, which is labeled as Jesus' resurrection. I began to wonder about the whole matter right there and then. Jesus was dead. Then what? He was raised. Who raised him? Jesus could not raise himself simply because he was dead. Therefore, it follows that someone else did raise him. This raiser cannot be but God. So Jesus cannot be God because Jesus was dead. Jesus cannot be a raiser and a raised one at the same time. This proves that Jesus is not God, which contradicts what the church keeps on doing, i.e., addressing Jesus as God, as the Lord.
From that moment on, I suspected all the stories of Christianity and began to look for something more convincing. Fortunately, the search led me to Islam, where God is God and Messenger Muhammad is just God's messenger and servant. Thanks to God that He has guided me to Islam, the true religion of God.
(4) A HELPLESS GOD!
I am K.Z. Dollard, 25 years. The church always emphasizes that Jesus, who is God's son or God the son, was crucified. I could not understand why God sent his beloved son to the cross or why a son so innocent was to be crucified in the first place. Nor could I understand why God did not defend His only son. Nor could I understand why God, being the Almighty, could not save people without torturing His only innocent son. After all, I could not see why and how Christians are proud of such a god slain on the cross so defencelessly and helplessly. The Christian God, i.e., Jesus (!), is the weakest among all gods, yet, to my surprise, they are so proud of his weakness and defencelessness! I have told myself that the true God must be different from that of Christianity. He should be the All-powerful, the All-just, and the AlI-merciful. These qualities are met by God, i. e.,Allah, the god taught by Islam.
(5) THE SAD FRIDAY
I am W.N. Berlyne, 44 years. The New Testament describes the hour of Jesus' death on the cross as a very sad hour with the sky weeping and the earth shaking. It was a horrible moment when Jesus died on the cross. This is what The New Testament says and what pastors preach. In fact, that day is called the Sad Friday. People were sad; so were the sky, mountains, and the whole universe. In contrast, pastors often picture the crucifixion of Jesus as the moment of glory and joy because it was the golden unique moment of salvation. In fact, I could not compromise the two stories: one assumes that Jesus' crucifixion was the saddest moment ever and the other assumes that it was the most glorious and happiest moment ever.
If Jesus' crucifixion had been for salvation, why would it have been so sad? There is a clear contradiction between the moment of salvation with its glory and enjoyment and the moment of melancholy.
The whole church story cannot hold together. If the crucifixion story is so basic to Christianity, it should be very clear, which is not the case.
The Islamic way of dealing with such matters is devoid of mysteriousness or contradiction. I like the simplicity and clarity of Islam.
(6) SEPARATION OF MEN AND WOMEN
My name is A. E. Hull, 33 years. I am a chemist. My personal experience, first-haIid experience, has taught me that the Western way of life is not good and, in fact, very dangerous to both men and women alike. In the West, men and women mix freely everywhere, anywhere, and at all times. The result is that most people are quite ready for easy seduction. There are many women in every man's heart and dreams, and there are many men in every woman's heart and dreams. Almost everybody in the West is ready for fornication or adultery . I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years. There, as in most Islamic countries, the two sexes mingle only in a very limited scope according to the teachings of Islam, which discourages the free intermingling of the two sexes. The result, in Islamic societies, is less problems, less divorce, stronger marriages, and more enduring families.
Comparing our Western way to the Islamic way of living, I have come to the practical conclusion from practical premises that Islam is the best to organize human life and to lead man to a very stable social and psychological security.
(7) NO ALCOHOL
I am H. Q. Lawrence, 36 years. I have a Muslim friend, whom I used to invite to have a drink with me, i.e., to drink alcohol. He always refused to drink because Islam prohibits alcohol. I told him that Jesus turned water into alcohol, and that was Jesus' first miracle in public. I urged him to drink a little, just one glass or one sip. In spite of all my insistence, he strongly refused with no hesitation and said that one sip of alcohol, according to Islam, is as disallowed as a jug. From that moment on, as a result of my friend's adherence to his religion and his absolute refrain from alcohol, I began to seriously think of that religion, i.e., Islam, which cares so much for the health of its followers. It must be God's true religion. I have declared my Islam since then.
(8) MAKING A DIFFERENCE
I am P. L. Mowrer, 29 years. To be a Christian makes no difference since Christians eat, drink, and behave like non-Christians where as if you are a Muslim, it makes a difference with regard to what you eat, what you drink, how you behave, how you think, and what you say or do. Islam is a complete code of behavior. Islam has its say on every basic matter of life. I noticed the positive influence of Islam on some of my Muslim friends at the company where I used to work. Their behavior was obviously positively different from others. This means that Islam is a turning point, a factor at work, not words said on Sundays and forgotten on Mondays.
Because Islam can be the most influential positive factor in a man's life, I have decided to be a Muslim.
(9) HOW TO SERVE
I am B. P. Premack, 37 years. Church sermons often emphasize the concept of Jesus entering our hearts. The pastor used to repeat and ask us to repeat after him, "Jesus, my Lord, enter my heart. Let me serve you” After the sermon, I asked the pastor, "Is God our Lord or is Jesus our Lord?" Believe it or not, he said, "Look, my son, the whole thing is confusing even to me. In fact, I don't know. I feel that God, not Jesus, is our Lord."
Then I asked the pastor, "If we have been already saved by Jesus' crucifixion, why should we serve Jesus or even God?" He could not answer this question either. "Serve him" means "obey him". If we have to obey God in order to be saved, why was Jesus on the cross? We are always told by the church that Jesus was crucified so as to save us, but then we are told that we have to obey God in order to be saved. Then, the church has never made it clear to me or to any other Christian whether God and Jesus are one person or two. I have always felt that things are not clear even to churchmen themselves. I could not take any more puzzling hints from the church. In Islam, Jesus is just God's messenger to the people of Israel , and Muhammad is God's messenger to all humans. I am quite satisfied with how Islam puts things.
(10) MORE DETAILS
I am C. E. Seward, 49 years. Once, I asked the priest if Jesus has left any teachings about how to distribute inheritance after the death of any person. He answered in the negative. I told him that everyone dies and leaves inheritance to be distributed among heirs. How could The New Testament leave such an important problem untouched? I had a Muslim neighbor, and I asked him if his Holy Book, i.e. The Holy Quran, has anything to say about the subject. He told me that The Holy Quran, the word of God according to Muslims, gives detailed teachings on the matter of inheritance distribution. I began to ponder and wonder which book is the real Holy Book: a book that ignores the essential matters of life or a book which never ignores such matters. I came to the obvious conclusion that The Holy Quran is the true and pure word of God, and Islam is His true religion.
(11) A DEAD GOD!
I am D. E. Spence, 44 years. I could not logically accept that Jesus can be God, as the church insists. Jesus has a birth date. He was hungry as The New Testament tells. He was a baby in the cradle. He was put to trial. He was crucified (as the church believes). He died for three days, according to the church. To me, the Christian god is oddly unique among all gods. He was the only one to be born, the only one to be crucified, and the only one to be dead. No god can be dead and remain a god at the same time.Through my readings, I learned that the God of Islam is the Eternal, has no beginning, has no end, has no equal, and has no son, no wife, and no daughter. To me, the concept of God in Islam is much more logical and much more convincing.
(12) THE WORKING WOMAN
I am W. B. Underwood, 35 years. I had a wife, who insisted on working at a leading company as a secretary. She took the job against my will. She turned her back on me, on our home, and on our three kids. Our life became a kind of a hell. I did not know whether I was to play the father's role or the mother's role. Our children were almost lost. Our home was in a mess. In the meantime, I had a Muslim colleague at my work. I discussed my family's crisis with him since it was continuously on my mind. To my surprise, he said, "In our religion, i.e., Islam, the wife cannot work outside her home unless her husband agrees. In Islam, the main job of the wife is home-making: to take care of home, husband, and kids. Anything else comes second."
The Islamic life pattern makes a lot of sense, indeed. According to Islam, everyone works but at the right place: women at home and men outside, and everything goes on so smoothly and harmoniously. We, in the West, work, but often in the wrong place, and home is left for maids and baby-sitters. Our women go in and out, early and late, night and day; nobody knows why or where; it is a complete chaos under the fatal pretext of man-woman equality.
As far as I am concerned, I see that the Islamic pattern of life is by far better for men, women, and all. Women, in Islam, work outside homes, but not all of them do and without showing the Western woman's work-mania. When they do, their work is conditioned by the husband's full consent and without sacrificing their essential roles as mothers, wives, and housewives.
(13) MAN-WOMAN EQUALITY
I am C. S. Verplanck, 26 years. In the West, I we are told by our church, media, and everybody that men and women are equal, so equal that men wanted to be women and women wanted to be men! We squeeze women everywhere to herald this parrot -repeated so-called equality. Women want to be whatever men are. They want to dress themselves as men do, to go wherever men go, to take the same jobs men take whether they can shoulder them or not. This equality mania is going too far and is becoming, in fact, rather ridiculous and funny, and sometimes tragic. According to my experience about Muslim societies in the Middle East and according to my knowledge about Islam, men and women are equal before law, before God, and in social dignity, but not equal, or necessarily so, in function. By her very nature, a woman is different from a man. I am not saying that she is superior or inferior to him. I am just saying that she is merely different. There are certain characteristics of either sex, and there are certainly some advantages of each sex over the other.
In my opinion, equality in function is unfair. There are areas where women are better and areas where men are better. Life is not a war between the two sexes; it is rather a cooperative scheme between them. This is how Islam looks at it and how Islam organizes the status of the two sexes. I see that the Islamic pattern is the right one and that Islam organizes the roles of both men and women in an ideal way.
(14) HOME-MAKING
I am A. J. Wychkoff, 31 years. I do not like the Western Christian life pattern, where husband- wife roles are so confused. The woman in the West wants to eat the cake and have it at the same time. She wants to be a home-maker, wife, mother, and employee, all together. How can she be at home and at the job at the same time? Is she going to care for her home and her children by remote control from her office?! Islamic societies, by Islamic regulations, have solved this problem nicely and neatly. The husband wins the bread and the wife cares for home. In the West, both win the bread and both forget home! I personally prefer the Islamic pattern of life: I feel that it is nicer and neater, and brings more harmony to the family.
(15) GOD AND THE CROSS
I am N. B. Alexander, 30 years. I could not see how the Christian god is God and a Iamb on the cross at the same time. I could not reconcile the concept of the Almighty God with the concept of a crucified God. The church's god is the only god that ended that way: slain on a piece of wood and then buried. God in Islam is different. He meets the requirements of a real god. He was not slain or buried. He is the Conqueror, the Able, and the Ever-living. This is the god I like to believe in.
(16) SON OF MAN
I am L. B. Allport, 43 years. It has shocked me to see how much contradiction there is between what Jesus says in The New Testament and what the church attributes to him. I used to read The New Testament, where everyone can see how often Jesus himself reiterates that he is the son of man. In fact, he said it about eighty times. In contrast, he has never said in The New Testament that he is God or God's son, not once. Nevertheless, to my great amazement, the church keeps ignoring what Jesus has emphasized and keeps emphasizing what he has never said. It is quite unusual for the church to emphasize Jesus' sonship to God, which he never pronounced, and to ignore his sonship to man, which he repeated about eighty times in The New Testament.
Today's Christianity is basically different from Jesus' Christianity. Upon reading The Holy Quran of Islam, I have found that Islam emphasizes Jesus' sonship to man, i.e., to Mary. Hence, I believe that The Holy Quran is telling the truth, the straight truth. I like my Holy Book to be clear, simple, straight, and comprehensive, which is fortunately the case with The Holy Quran, and not with other books. –
(17) DIVORCE
I am S. E. Anderson, 22 years. Jesus in The New Testament and Catholic Christianity disallow divorce except for adultery. But later, all Christian countries, including Catholic ones, have realized that it is impractical and dangerous to disallow divorce to a couple who cannot continue to live together as husband and wife. Hence, one can easily see that The New Testament regulation, in fact Jesus' regulation concerning divorce, is not valid any more; nor was it valid any time for actual human needs. Christian teachings are often not in line with human nature, and the divorce issue is just an example. In contrast, Islam has been decisive on this issue since its beginning: divorce is allowed, yet it is most hated by God. Islam allows divorce and at the same time discourages it. This is a very balanced, practical, and acceptable legislation. I like the practicality and consistency of Islam. Islam has unchangeable and clear basics, unlike Christianity, which keeps on changing.
(18) TWO-BOSS FAMILIES
I am T. M. Baker, 33 years. In Western families, the wife usually refuses the leadership of her husband, and he refuses to be Number Two in the family order. Thus, the Christian family ends up with two bosses. The empty misleading motto of man-woman equality has blown the heads of women and cut off the wings of poor men. The tragic result is manly women and womanly men. Every institution in the west and the east has one boss except the Western family: it is destined to have two bosses. No ship can make it with two captains. With two captains, the ship is bound to sink, as it is always said. So does the Western family; with two bosses, it goes nowhere or in fact down to the bottom. The Western family is, unfortunately, a sinking ship.
According to Islam, this matter has been already settled in a very clear and specific manner: the husband is the boss. This does not rule out wife-husband consultations over family matters, yet a boss is always needed at every institution, and the family is no exception. The husband in the Islamic family knows his role very well; the wife knows and accepts her own role and admits her husband's role, and all goes on quite smoothly and harmoniously. Islam gives more stability to the family than any other religion or creed.
(19) CRISSCROSS LINES
I am E. R. Bartlett, 31 years. Christianity does not organize man-woman relationships in the right way. Men and women mix together even in the church itself. They mix together at schools, offices, companies, streets, homes, parties, beaches, and everywhere. Although The New Testament says if your eye gazes at a woman, you must tear it out, our eyes do nothing but gaze at women simply because women are around men at all places and all times, often in seclusion and in seductive semi-nudeness, in most cases. The New Testament disallowed gazing at women, but it said nothing about their clothes, nor about what parts of the female's body are to be covered; nor did it warn against seclusion, i.e., a man being alone with a woman. In contrast, in Islam, free unnecessary mixing is disallowed. So is seclusion and so is women's semi-nudeness. Islam makes decency practically possible: no mixing, no seclusion, and no nudeness. Christianity makes decency impossible due to incomplete guidance.
I see that Islam makes the conditions of decency more available. Islam specifically orders the woman to cover all her body except the face, hands, and feet. Islam disallows man-woman seclusion. Islam disallows a man to visit a woman in her husband's absence. Islam closes the doors to adultery in a superb manner. For a clean society, I prefer Islam. In the Christian society, we have crisscross lines. Eyes travel in all directions hunting female naked flesh exposed everywhere, and there are hence only two choices, no more: either the lust is actualized and adultery takes place or the lust is silenced. In both cases, individuals and the whole community suffer. Islam saves us this dilemma by arranging for man-woman separation. No lust is given the chance to show its head in the first place.
(20) NO TEACHINGS
I am W. B. Beadle, 37 years. Christian preaching in the church focuses on the person of Jesus, his miracles, the cross, his crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. We rarely hear anything about moral teachings. I understand that the most important thing that a person does need in every- day life is, in fact, to hear some teachings that guide him as to what is good or bad, and what is right or wrong; such guidance is surprisingly missing in church sermons. Out of curiosity, I entered a mosque, the Islamic prayer place. I listened to the sermon, which a friend translated to me later. To my surprise, all the sermon was on codes of behavior, daily behavior. The prayer leader was repeatedly quoting The Holy Quran and the sayings of Prophet Muhammad. If you are looking for a perfect and detailed code of daily behavior, Islam gives you this code. That is why I have decided to go to Islam, as a matter of fact.
(21) THE INTERCESSOR
I am L. J. Cox, 35 years. In Christianity, in order to repent, you have to go to the priest as an intercessor. In Islam, you can just say what you want to say directly to God without the intercession of anyone. In Islam, there are no intercessors between man and God. I like the simplicity of Islam and the direct relationship between man and God.
(22) MORE COMPREHENSIVE
I am N. R. Mansfield, 42 years. Christianity tells you not to kill, steal, or commit adultery, but it does not tell about the punishment of possible transgressors. In contrast, Islam prohibits such crimes and at the same time sets a deterring penalty for each crime. I find Islam more comprehensive, more practical, and more related to the needs of life. Islam gives moral guidance and penal laws at the same time.
(23) GOD'S FAMILYI
I am S. B. Lecky, 51 years. The reason why I have embraced Islam is that I have heard many non-understandable and unacceptable things in Christianity. For example, it is said that God has a son. We know that Jesus' mother is Mary. If God is Jesus' father and Mary is Jesus' mother, it follows that Mary is God's wife. Thus, God has a family. I could not accept a god with a family. I accept this about humans, but not about God. I asked about God in Islam and I was told that God according to Islam has no sons, no wife, was not beaten, did not beget, and has no partners and no equals. I find that the concept of God in Islam is very much more convincing than the concept of God in Christianity.
(24) GOD'S AGENT!
I am A. H. Horton, 28 years. Something surprised me when I was listening to a sermon at a church. The pastor said that God authorized Jesus to judge people on his behalf on the Day of Judgment. He gave him an exclusive agency and an absolute authorization. I asked myself why God would do so. We humans give such an agency when we are busy or not available at a certain place or time. Such limitations do not apply to God, Who is never too busy to do anything, and He is available at all places and all times. I could not swallow that exclusive-agency story. I asked a Muslim friend about who judges on the Day of Judgment. His answer was God and no one but God. Judging people is the most important thing in the two lives, i. e., this first life and the other life. Why would God skip it? I am convinced more by the Islamic scenario.
(25) FOUR GODS!
I am S. J. Cason, 27 years. The church says that God the Father is God. God has a son and, as we know, the son is like his father. So Jesus is a God also. A God cannot marry but a goddess. Here, up till now we have three gods. Don't forget God the Holy Spirit. Hence, we end up with four gods: God the father, God the Son, Goddess the Mother, and God the Holy Spirit. I could not understand why there are four gods, who would quarrel or disagree. If the four gods are equal, each one of them will compete with the others. They may give contrary instructions or teachings. Which god are we going to obey? If they are not equal, then only one of them is God and the other three are inferior to Him. I could not buy the Christian four-god theory or even the three-god theory.
Islam gives us the clear concept of monotheism. There is no god but God, i.e., Allah, as he calls Himself. Islam emphasizes the Oneness of God. I am for this Oneness.
(26) PEOPLE OF ISRAEL ONLY
I am W. W .Greene, 36 years. One night, I was reading in The New Testament when I came across a sentence said by Jesus which I had never seen before. Jesus said, "I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ." (Matthew 15:24) I could not believe my eyes. Jesus was sent to the people of Israel only. This is what Jesus himself confirms, and his statement stands there right in The Bible. Please, check it right now. I remembered what a Muslim friend once said to me, ie., that every prophet was sent to his own people except Prophet Muhammad, who was sent by God to all humans. My friend's words were true and came to be verified by Jesus himself. Jesus was sent to the people of Israel only. Since I am not from the people of Israel , Jesus was not sent to me. The one sent to me is Prophet Muhammad with his message of Islam. Jesus himself told his people to follow Prophet Muhammad when he would come. Jesus said,"Howbeit when he, the spirit of truth, is come, lie will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himselj:" (John 16: 13 -14)
Jesus tells us to follow Prophet Muhammad, but the people of the West have turned their backs on Prophet Muhammad exactly as the Jews did turn their backs on Jesus. This is, in fact, the real tragedy of both the Jews and the people of the West; they have rejected God and His final perfect message, which is Islam. If you love Jesus, you must love Prophet Muhammad and believe in him as God's last Messenger. This is exactly what Jesus wants us to do, and this is exactly what I have done.
(27) BEARER OF SINS
I am R. L. Dodge, 30 years. I could not see how one may bear others' sins. This is an invitation to people to sin as often as they wish. The Christian advice is always this: sin and sin and sin; don't you ever worry a bout your sins because Jesus is there; he loves you, and he will bear all your sins with all pleasure. Christianity gives its followers an open check for sinning. The church always emphasizes that Jesus came to bear all our sins.
Islam says that everyone is responsible for his own deeds before God and no one bears another's sin. That is it: very simple and very logical. I like the logic of Islam and the individual's ethical accountability adopted by Islam.
(28) CRUCIFIXION
I am H. P. Harrell, 33 years. All Christianity centers around the cross and Jesus' crucifixion. I don't see how the whole religion may center around one single incident or accident, i.e., crucifixion. Crucifixion happened at the end of Jesus' short three-year mission. What about Jesus' followers who died before his so- called crucifixion? Christianity holds that if you believe in Jesus' crucifixion, you are saved. The problem, accordingly, is that Jesus' followers who died before his crucifixion will go to Hell because they failed to meet the salvation requirements. You cannot build a whole creed on a death incident. Christianity finds pleasure in Jesus' death on the cross. I do not see much guidance in the story of crucifixion. Let alone the strong doubt in the truthfulness of crucifixion per se.
I have come across a book that contains some sayings of Prophet Muhammad. There I read several hundreds of sayings full of daily guidance, legislations, pieces of wisdom, ethics of behavior, and sincere counseling needed by us all. There is a big difference between the two religions: Christianity centering around the cross and Islam centering around guidance. If you hear Christian preachers, their main focus is Jesus' crucifixion; if you hear Muslim preachers, their main focus is guidance related to daily behavior. What actually and practically helps you and me is guidance, not crucifixion stories.
(29) WHAT IS HE?
I am S. A. Hilden, 37 years. The church talks about Jesus as the son of God. Then it refers to him as God. Until today, I have never been able to see how Jesus could be God and the son of God at the same time. I feel that Christianity is a net of unsolved riddles. There are many statements in The New Testament where Jesus thanks God or prays to God. If Jesus prays to God, then he cannot possibly be God, yet the church chooses to ignore such facts. The church can say whatever it likes to say, but what counts is not to say; it is to convince.
I thought that if Jesus himself prays to God and thanks God, why would we thank Jesus and pray to Jesus? We must thank God, not Jesus. Christianity has caused me a lot of confusion, in fact. The pastor himself seemed confused too: sometimes he prays to Jesus; sometimes he prays to God; sometimes he prays to God via Jesus. Is Jesus God or God's son or one of three gods or vice-God? The whole thing is just chaos.
Islam gives a clear simple constant answer. Jesus was God's messenger to the people of Israel only. That is it. He is neither God nor God's son. He is just Mary's son, sent by God as His messenger, exactly like Abraham, Moses, and Muhammad.
(30) Slaying the son!
I am N. M. James, 47 years. The church pastor used to repeat that God slew His son in order to save us, but the story was never received very well in my mind. Why should God slay His only son? Because He loves us. Well, if He loves us, He should love His son even more, and He would not sacrifice him for anyone or anything. I could not accept the claim that God slew His son Jesus to save us. God, being The Almighty, could surely have a better way, a way fairer and cleaner, rather than slaying His poor innocent kid.
Islam says that God saved Jesus from his enemies, and thus he was not crucified. I accept this Islamic story to be more in line with God's power, mercy, and justice.
(31) THE GOOD AND THE BAD
I am R. E. Landis, 49 years. No theory or creed destroyed people's lives more than Christianity did. Jesus is the Lamb. Believe in him, and hold that he died to save you and you are saved. You are not required to do anything good. Just take Jesus as your savior and you are saved. Your deeds do not save you. If so, why was Jesus crucified? You are saved by Jesus, blood, not by your good deeds. These are some of the Christian cliches which we often hear in church sermons.
This strange creed puts the good guys and the bad guys on equal footing. No matter what you do, you are saved, provided that you take Jesus as your savior.
I could not accept a naive creed such as Christianity, which makes good persons equal to bad persons. In contrast, Islam makes everyone responsible to God for whatever he does or says. You bear your own sins; no one will bear them for you. I think that Islam establishes individual responsibility very obviously, and this makes more sense to me rather than being saved by the Lamb, in my modest opinion.
(32) UNBELIEVABLE!
I am C. I. Hunt, 24 years. I was attending a Sunday sermon when the pastor said, "I am not asking you to give the poor in charity or do good deeds in order to guarantee Paradise . You don't need good deeds to send you there. Just believe in Jesus and that he died for you."
When I heard what I heard, I could not believe my ears. How could a pastor discourage people from doing good deeds? It was both frustrating and unbelievable, indeed.
In Islamic Friday sermons, the main focus of the speaker is to urge people to do good deeds and to abstain from bad deeds. I compared the two speakers, and I came to the clear conclusion that the church preacher simply destroys the community's ethics, whereas the mosque preacher obviously builds them. That is why I have chosen the mosque, rather than the church.
(33) WOMEN'S APPEARANCE
I am B. H. Johnson, 25 years. Women in my country, USA , feel free to wear whatever they wish the way they wish. The Bible says nothing about how women should appear; nor does the church say anything, or it may have nothing to say. The woman in the Christian West exposes almost all her nude body, and sometimes exactly all her body, on streets, beaches, and parties. I don't like the almost-nude woman in my country. In fact, the sexual instinct is strong enough in men, and it certainly does not need any further external stimulation. The semi-nudeness of women ignites the sexual motive of men. The result is in fornication, adultery, or sexual suppression. This repeated suppression and deprivation may end up in crimes with sexual motives or create grudge and hatred between a lot of people from both sexes. I have lived in the Middle East for seven years. I saw Muslim women dressed decently covering all their bodies, walking decently, looking down on the road, not gazing here and there. I admire the Muslim women’s decency, resulting from the clear regulations of Islam related to women’s clothes and appearance. If you are looking for women's decency, nothing but Islam can create it. This is just one of the great aspects that have attracted me to Islam.
(34) SELFISHNESS
I am D. L. Kelley, 27 years. The church holds that Jesus bore and bears all our sins so as to save all humans and us. I thought that this belief represents the acme of selfishness. The holders of this belief want all that is good for them selves only and all that is bad for others only. They want pleasure, money, success, and life enjoyments for themselves. However, when it comes to sin, the pain of sin, and the cost of sin, they simply transfer all of that to Jesus, and they want him to bear not one sin, not two, not one million, not one billion sins, but an infinite number of sins: all sins committed by all people through all times. What selfishness this is! How unfair they are!
Is it not better that each one bears his own sin? Is it not fair and square this way? I do not like the idea that I sin and somebody else bears my sin. The one who does it should be the one who bears it. I do it, and I bear it. This teaches everybody to be ethically responsible for what he does before people and before God. I prefer the principle of ethical responsibility as adopted by Islam.
(35) IF HE
I am K. J. Lavater, 31 years. The church pastor, night and day, refers to Jesus as God, the Lord, or God's son. I thought that it would be impossible that Jesus is God or God's son, as the pastor likes to assume. Let us imagine a person in our time coming to say to us, "Listen to me. I am God. Look at me. I am God." What would be our reaction? We will call him mad immediately, and he will be taken to rest at the nearest lunatic asylum within a few minutes. Previous prophets were rejected by their peoples, harmed, or tortured for saying very much less than being God or God's son. They merely said that they are God's messengers, yet they were not easily believed in. I would strongly argue that had Jesus said that he was God or God's son, he would have been killed immediately. Had Jesus been here with us and heard what the pastor says about his being God or God's son, he would have silenced the pastor instantly, might have killed him out of uncontrollable rage, or suffered an immediate heart attack. I can’t see how a man like Jesus is considered a god by the church. Christianity always chooses the most complicated and most illogical explanation or doctrine, whereas Islam always gives the easiest and most logical explanation. In Islam, Jesus is a man. He is a messenger sent by God to the people of Israel only. God gave him some miracles, as he did give to all other prophets before or after him.
(36) LOST ORIGINALS
I am T. H. Bode, 37 years. Whenever I went to church to attend the Sunday sermon, I heard the pastor emphasizing that The Bible is God's word. After one of those sermons, I privately asked the pastor whether the original of The Bible is in English. His answer was in the negative. Then I asked him about the original of The New Testament. He said that its original is lost. I truly began to wonder how the original of a book supposed to be God's word is lost. Had Christians been serious about their Book, they would not have lost its original. How can we be ever sure that the translations which we have nowadays do really correspond to the original? If The Bible had been meant to be God's final word, God would have preserved its original. Since this original is not preserved and is actually lost, this proves that God does not want it to be His final word. In contrast, the Arabic original of The Holy Quran of Islam has been kept safe and sound for the last fifteen centuries. When a Muslim says about The Holy Quran that it is God's word, he has the full right to say so with the original right in his hand. I have figured out that Chrisu'an clergy are living in a world of fancy, and they are sure of nothing, not even of the book which they repeatedly claim that it is God's word. I have chosen Islam because The Holy Quran, the book of Islam, is God's true pure word.
(37) CHURCH PRAYER
I am K. U. Park , 46 years. What happens in every church on Sunday differs from what happens in other churches. Every pastor conducts the prayer in his own way. The prayer audience do nothing but listen and say amen upon the pastor's request. Let alone laughter, joking, singing, music, and miscellaneous acts that differ from time to time, from place to place, from sermon to sermon, and from church to church. One pastor criticized the way Christians pray and said it does not include prostration, the importance of which he strongly emphasized as a symbol of complete submission to God. He even asked sinners in his audience to approach the platform and, despite their embarrassment, confess publicly because, as he put it, God came to us publicly. I began to wonder why Christians do not pray as Jesus did. I felt that Christians do not have an example to imitate. I thought that The New Testament should tell us how to pray, which it does not. If prostration in prayer is essential, as the pastor sees, why don't we do it? Why doesn't The New Testament command us to do so? I had strong feelings that Christianity is very far from being complete, not in any aspect at all. One day, it came to my mind to ask a Muslim friend to allow me to attend a Muslim prayer at the mosque. Since I did not know Arabic, the language of Islam allover the world, I was interested mainly in the explicit components of prayer. I saw it include the positions of standing, bowing, kneeling, sitting and prostration. I sawall persons performing prayer do all the movements together in straight lines, led by the prayer leader, saying the same statements. The Islamic prayer is performed exactly in the same way at millions of mosques all over the world by millions of Muslims. It is performed exactly in the same manner as Prophet Muhammad did it fifteen hundred years ago.
Comparing the Islamic prayer and Christian prayer, I felt that Islamic prayer is a godly one, more divine, more spiritual, more submissive to God, more unified, more unifying, more social, and more meaningful than any other prayer I have ever experienced. Islam is indeed perfect in all its ways and aspects.
(38) A BURIED GOD!
I am I. S. Thomson, 39 years. Christianity holds that Jesus is God incarnate and that, after his crucifixion, death, and burial for three days, he was raised alive. I could not understand how God can possibly be buried, nor how he can be dead for three days. My concept of God is that he is the Ever-living. No god died except the Christian god, to my surprise. The church story about God's death made me doubt all the church stories about crucifixion, original sin, and salvation. The more you think about Christianity, the less convinced you become. In contrast, the more you think about Islam, the more convinced you become. God, in Islam, does not ever die; nor can He be ever buried. The Islamic concept of God fits very well in my logic and understanding. This is how the story of my Islam began.
(39) SEPARATION OF THE TWO SEXES
I am D. S. Finney, 36 years. The church welcomes the intermingling of the two sexes without any restrictions whatsoever. They mingle everywhere, at any time, whether necessarily or unnecessarily. The result is obvious: boyfriends and girlfriends, dating, fornication-making, now called love-making, adultery, drinking, dancing, and a long list of sexually-stimulated behaviors.
When a Western man gets married, he usually keeps in touch with his ex-girlfriends, and they usually keep in touch with him as well. When a woman gets married, she usually continues to keep in touch with her ex-boyfriends. The result is that the husband rarely remains loyal to his wife and the wife rarely remains loyal to her husband. The free intermingling of the two sexes is blessed by the church and the clergy. I have never heard a pastor warning people against intermingling and its dangerous consequences. Everybody, including the clergy, seems happy with the intermingling behavior although it is extremely destructive to society, family, and marriage; nevertheless, nobody cares. Being a psychologist, I thought of the matter deep. According to my experience with my clients, I noticed that most of their problems, especially the marital ones, are caused by the non-restricted intermingling Christian habits. I had a Muslim friend, with whom I used to discuss different things, one of which was the intermingling habit in our Christian community. To my surprise, he explained to me that Islam disallows the free intermingling of the two sexes. Islam puts restrictions on this matter. For example, no man and woman can meet alone in a room, house, or office. No woman can travel alone. No man can visit a woman alone in her home. Women should cover their bodies and wear untight clothes. Women cannot go on streets with make-ups or perfumes on.
I came to the conclusion that if I am for a clean society, I should embrace Islam, which I fortunately did two years ago. Islam looks at the woman as a dignified person, not as a sexy female. In Islam, the woman is a person first. In our Christian civilization, she is a sexy female first. I personally prefer the woman's role as designed by Islam. I feel that Islam respects the woman's humanity and dignity more than any other belief. Islam is perfect in all its aspects, not in this aspect only.
(40) FAMILY PROTECTION
I am M. B. Home, 27 years. The family in the West has no chance to hold together, no chance at all. I was a student and had many girlfriends at the school stage and the university stage. I had several jobs after graduation, and had many office female colleagues. I went to parties, where I made some more female friends. Then I married a girl, and her female friends became mine too.
Thus, I ended with about seventy girlfriends, most of whom I dated, danced with picnicked with, kissed, hugged, and even went beyond that in many cases. Now, how can I stay loyal to my wife with seventy ex-girlfriends around me? Most of them are more beautiful, more sexy, and more cute than my wife. They used to phone me, to visit me, to invite me, and write to me. Most of them, in fact, tried more than once to seduce me. What applies to me applies to almost all men in the Christian world. Women in the West also have boyfriends and male classmates, and male office mates. Every man has his past relations, and every woman has her past relations. It is rather impossible, literally so, that a man or a woman can stand against the temptations of the Christian life. Only a few do not commit fornication before marriage or adultery after marriage. The family is dying in the Christian West. Marriage is dying. Divorce is the rule and a protected surviving marriage is the exception. Everybody there is somehow tortured from within although he seems happy or pretends to be so.
In Islamic communities, the opposite is true. Divorce is the exception and a continued marriage is the rule. The family is well protected. Most men and almost all women do not practice sex outside marriage. It is a blessing to be a Muslim or live in an Islamic society, where the father can rest assured that his child is really his, where loyalty is the rule, where virginity is something holy, where no man touches any woman except his wife, and where no woman touches any man except her husband. Such a life is a real life, a clean life, a secure life, an ethical life, a godly life, a righteous life with a special taste, indeed.
When I became a Muslim, I felt really clean, internally pure, spiritually happy, and fully conscientious. I became a completely different person with a different look and a different objective. My objective now, the main one, is to obey God and be ready for the Day of Judgment.
(41) GAMBLING
I am M. E. Hilgard, 25 years. I was attending a Sunday church prayer when the pastor began talking about the dangers of gambling. I could not agree more to what he was preaching then. Meanwhile, he asked a question I wished I could have an answer to, "Is gambling prohibited in The Bible?" He said it was not disallowed in The Bible, in fact not mentioned at all.
I asked myself, "If gambling is so bad and so dangerous, which is true, why doesn't The Bible prohibit it?" This proves something important to me: The Bible is not complete; The Bible does not give enough guidance to people. I said to myself if I can find a book or a religion where gambling is explicitly and categorically disallowed, this book must be God's complete and pure word. Upon inquiring, I came to know that The Holy Quran, the holy Book of Islam, disallows gambling very strongly. I concluded that The Holy Quran is God's complete pure word and that Islam is the true religion of God.
(42) GOD'S LOVE
I am S. E. Combs, 33 years. Christianity emphasizes that God loves you and cares for you and that he sent his only son to the cross to die for you so as to save you. God does not want anything from you, not even good deeds; He just loves you. The church does not often talk about God; it usually talks about Jesus, God the son. God the Father is forgotten almost completely by the church. The church talks about a loving god; that's all. As for me, I began to doubt the whole thing. I thought that it is not enough for God to offer us love. We should fear Him too. How can humans abstain from sins, crimes, and all kinds of misbehavior if they do not fear God? We need to love God, yes, but to fear Him too.
Islam teaches Muslims to love God and to fear Him at the same time. According to Islam, no one burdens your sins on behalf of you. You must observe your own behavior. You must be careful. You must strive to get God's love. God loves you if you deserve it, and He hates you if you deserve it too. I myself think that the Islamic view is the right one, the logical one, the view that really can control human behavior. That is why I have embraced Islam, and I thank God heartily that I came to the right decision before it would be too late.
(43) ALCOHOL
I am W. T. Wallin, 41 years. I was married to a man who was madly fond of alcohol. As a result, he lost his job, and no one accepted to give him another chance as long as he was an alcoholic. I don't blame people for not hiring an alcoholic such as my husband. He began to mistreat our children and me including beating, calling bad names, insulting, and, the worst of all, falsely accusing me of adultery. Instead of him taking care of the family, he became a burden to the whole family, a social and financial burden.
Life with him became unbearable. Sometimes I asked God to end my life; death was better than living with him. I asked people whom I knew why The Bible did not prohibit alcohol since it is so destructive and so harmful. I asked if there is a religion which prohibits alcohol. They told me that Islam absolutely prohibits making or drinking alcohol, not a drop of it.
I thought that Islam must be the right religion because it always does what should be done. Islam, of course, has many other advantages, but, in my case, it is enough for Islam to disallow alcohol to be the greatest religion because alcoholism is, in fact, a horrible disease threatening millions of people in the West and all over the world.
(44) THE ABSENCE OF SPIRITUALITY
I am P. L. Seidman, 34 years. The key words in the Western life are dollars, salaries, income, production, sales, exports, imports, industry, and commerce. Our civilization is really " (In empty one and a nonbalanced one. The only thing it focuses on is money and whatever leads to money. In fact, we often send our military forces abroad for nothing but to kill in order to protect what we often call our interests, which is, indeed, an act of robbery at gunpoint involving stealing other countries' rights and natural resources. We kill for dollars, a shameful crime committed by both our gangs in our cities and by our governments abroad, with our church saying nothing in either case perhaps because all our sins are borne by Jesus, the Lamb! In media, we rarely hear anything about God. The Western civilization has killed its god or put it in the closet.
At our schools and universities, nothing is taught except technology, sciences, languages, and humanities. They teach anything except religion. They discuss anything except spiritual or God-related topics. Parents are busy with their jobs. Our schools often instruct, but they rarely educate. The children are brought up spiritually empty with stone like hearts. They know little about mercy, tolerance, sympathy, pity, chastity, or decency.
In contrast, I know that schools in Islamic countries give a religion session almost every day. Students are made to learn by heart chapters and parts from The Holy Quran. Media make reference to God so recurrent and so essential in their pro gram content.
I like the spirituality of the Islamic countries. They live with Islam and Islam lives with them day by day and minute by minute. I like the great harmonious Islamic balance between spirituality and materialism.
(45) GOD'S NAME
I am K. B. Trow, 30 years. Every one of us has a name. God, the Creator of all, must have a name. Christianity does not give Him a name although the name is there, i.e., Allah, which appears in the famous Biblical halleluyah. I was not at ease with Christianity hiding God's name and not using it although it is right there in The Bible.
Muslims call God Allah as God calls Himself. You cannot call one other than what he calls himself. The name Allah appears hundreds of times in The Holy Quran, the Holy Book of Islam. The word god is not a name. It is a word referring to a common noun. It can be pluralized into gods and can be feminized into goddess. It can be written in a small letter or a capital letter. The Greeks had many gods and goddesses. Only the word Allah is God's name.
I take Muslims seriously, and I do respect them very highly because they take serious matters seriously enough. They do not have fun when it comes to Allah. They glorify Allah very highly. No people on the earth did, do, or will glorify Allah more than Muslims do. Faith in Allah comes first in their life. This is so because Islam, being God's true religion, is the most comprehensive, convincing, logical, simple, useful, and helpful creed. You can find no faults with it, no defects, and no inner-contradictions. It is simply superb. That is why, among other reasons, I have chosen Islam to be my religion.
(46) EQUALITY
I am C. M. Walker, 28 years. I have decided to become a Muslim because Islam is actually sent to all humans, all peoples, all countries, and all continents. Jesus was sent to the people of Israel only as Jesus himself said it very clearly in The Bible (Matthew 15:24 ).
No prophet came or will come after Prophet Muhammad. Prophet Muhammad was not sent to the Arabs only, as some people my think. He was sent to all peoples, including those in Europe and the two Americas .
Another thing that attracted me to Islam is the real equality among humans. Islam emphasizes equality and plants it so deep in the hearts of its followers that it has become a daily practice in their life. I bitterly remember, since I am a black American, those days when the blacks were not allowed to enter the churches of the whites. Let alone that we could not go to their schools, restaurants, and clubs. The whites, unfortunately, rejected the blacks so harshly and so cruelly. When the soil is sick, the trees and the fruits will be sick too. I asked a friend of mine who used to live in the Middle East working at an oil company if Muslims there segregate against the blacks or other colors. He said that Muslims have never practiced any racial, color, or religious segregation inside the mosque or outside it. To me, Islam looks like an oasis in the desert of the Christian world, which is a world full of big words, but empty of honorable practices. They talk about human rights in the Christian West, but what rights! They talk well and smile well, but they act ill. The US constitution sounds great, but when it comes to implementation, we blacks are simply lost because prejudice against us chases us wherever we go.
I converted from Christianity to Islam because Islam was sent to all humans and because Islam teaches equality and Muslims implement it in their actual daily life. Islam is not words only, but deeds as well. Islam is faith and behavior.
(47) CONSISTENCY
I am T. B. James, 31 years. I am a student of philosophy, who likes to read about religion, philosophy, and humanities in general. I was a regular reader of The Bible especially since we find it everywhere and we are told by the church that it is God's word.
I noticed, to my amazement, that The Old Testament (OT) differs from The New Testament (NT) in basic things. For example, The OT always refers to God as one, Who has no equals. In contrast, The NT sometimes refers to the Trinity, i.e., three gods. The NT makes the father God and Jesus God and the Holy Spirit God.
The OT talks about one god; The NT talks about three gods though implicitly. The OT says that God has no equal, whereas The NT talks about Jesus being God's son, and, as we know, the son will be equal to his father, as he fully grows. The OT ignores the Day of Judgment and the other life, whereas The NT emphasizes them. I began to wonder how The OT contradicts The NT on two basic creeds, i. e., God's nature and the Day of Judgment, when both The NT and The OT are supposed to be God's word, as we are always told by the church. The only possible explanation to this OT-NT contradiction is that The Bible, as it is now, is corrupted, and it is no more the pure word of God.
I had a Muslim classmate in my class and I began to ask him about Islam. I have been told that in Islam, God is one, has no son, and has no equal. There are a Doomsday, a Day of Judgment, a Day of Resurrection, the other life, Paradise , and Hell. Islam is consistent in all that it says. I have chosen Islam because of its consistency, clarity, and simplicity, and I am extremely happy that I have made this choice.
(48) MISTAKES
I am B. W. Jeans, 47 years. I read a book on The Bible. It is a book analyzing The Bible. I am sorry I don't remember its title. That book gives examples of dozens of mistakes in The Bible, all sorts of mistakes. The writer of that book mentions mistakes in geography, mistakes in history, and contradictions inside the same gospel, contradictions inside The New Testament, contradictions inside The Old Testament, and contradictions between the two testaments. He said that The Bible has about thirty thousand mistakes, a horrifying number, for certain.I myself was shocked at the figure. I said to myself if The Bible had been God's pure word, it would not have had even one single mistake; let alone 30,000 mistakes. In fact, some Christian analysts raise the number of Biblical mistakes up to about 50,000.
I doubted what the man wrote in his book. Hence, I began to check some of his criticisms and the Biblical mistakes which he referred to. In fact, he mentioned bout 200 mistakes. I didn't have time to check them all. I checked ten only. To my surprise, the writer was always right. I could not but agree with him to the fact that The Bible is full of mistakes, all sorts of mistakes. Here is just one of them as an example: In Genesis (1) on the first page of The Bible, The Bible says that God created night and day on the first day of creation (Genesis 1:5). Then The Bible itself says that God created the sun, one of the two great lights, on the fourth day (Genesis 1:16 -19). How can there be night and day on the first day, when the sun was created on the fourth day? This is just one example of mistakes coming right on the first page of The Bible. The writer of that book emphasizes that The Holy Quran, a book revealed by God, is the last revealed book and it is void of any mistakes, which proves that it is God's true and pure word.
Since I was looking for a book that contains the pure word of God, I have taken The Holy Quran to be my holy book and Islam to be my sole religion.
(49) BEFORE JESUS
I am R. E. Kinney, 51 years. The church makes the crucifixion of Jesus the core of Christianity. The argument which it always offers is the inability of man to save himself because he is born sinful, i.e., dirty with sin since his first minute on the earth. The church argues that without crucifixion man has no chance at all for self-salvation. Because God loves man, he sacrificed his only son, or himself, in order to save man. This is the Christian theory in brief. Not all Christians can or could swallow the Christian theory easily. First, I myself, one of many, doubt original sin. The child, in fact, in my opinion, is born sinless ratter than sinful. Second, I do not agree to the Christian assumption that man cannot save himself because he is saturated with sin. Not all men are Satans. There are many persons of all ages and at all places who, if guided, are ready to obey and abide by the requirements of God's guidance. I do not agree that all persons are equally bad, as the Christian theory insists. There were, are, and will be always good persons, clean characters, and honorable people everywhere. Of course, man is capable of sinning, no doubt. Nevertheless, he is capable of righteousness as well.
The most important source of doubt that was raised in my mind is related to those who lived and died before Jesus' crucifixion. According to the Christian theory, the only way to get salvation is to believe in Jesus' crucifixion. To my astonishment, it follows then that none of those who died before Jesus' crucifixion could possibly be saved, not even those followers of Jesus who died one hour or one day before the so- called crucifixion. In other words, billions and billions of people, ie., all those who passed away before Jesus' crucifixion, will be sent to Hell for no fault on their part, but simply because they died before the event of crucifixion. They could not make it because they could not enjoy salvation through crucifixion. Is this reasonable? Will God send all pre-crucifixion people to Hell because they were not saved through the crucifixion of Jesus? Weren't there any good people at all before Jesus' crucifixion? If salvation cannot happen except through the belief in Jesus' crucifixion, then those who died before it have no chance at all to salvation, which is unfair and unacceptable by all criteria.
My doubt urged me to look for the truth, to read more, and to inquire more. I was led to Islam. Islam holds that you are responsible for your deeds, whether good or bad; and you are judged by God; i.e., Allah, accordingly on the Day of Judgment. This Islamic belief makes man in race with time: he does his best to do as many good deeds as he can and to avoid sins as earnestly as he can. I find Islam much more logical and feel quite convinced of the Islamic answers to my persisting questions.
(50) ALL PROPHETS
I am E. A. Lowell, 37 years. I have noticed that Christians do not accept Muhammad as prophet and do not accept The Holy Quran as holy. Unfortunately, Christians did to Muhammad what the Jews did to Jesus: disbelief in his message. Judging prophets for what they say and do, I read about Prophet Muhammad's life and read his sayings translated into English from Arabic. I found nothing wrong with what he said or did. In fact, I have never read something more respectable and superb than his sayings, which are full of sympathy and which urge people to be honorable, modest, cooperative, kind, virtuous, truthful, honest, straight, and sincere. He urged people to avoid hypocrisy, backbiting, talebearing, lying, false witnessing, and any other evil manners.
I have read parts of The Holy Quran translated into English. I have never seen a book like that: full of wisdom, righteousness, faith, urging for all virtues, and warning people against all vices. There is no virtue not commanded to be done in The Holy Quran and Prophet Muhammad's sayings. There is no vice not commanded to be avoided.
Islam is great: it recognizes all prophets including Moses and Jesus. It recognizes all revealed books including the true Pentateuch revealed to Moses and the true Gospel revealed to Jesus. Islam includes Moses and Jesus. I admire Islam for its objectivity, comprehensiveness, and inclusion of all previous prophets and revealed books. That is why I have become a Muslim thanks to God. I do urge all brethren not to miss the opportunity. Share the experience with me, and you will not regret it, I am sure.
(51) JESUS AND MUHAMMAD
I am B. O. Lyndon, 34 years. I was reading The New Testament and I came across Jesus' words saying that when Jesus goes, he will send us the comforter and when the comforter comes, he will tell us the whole truth. Jesus himself tells us that a prophet will come to tell us the whole truth (John 16:13 ). Jesus was absolutely right. The comforter, i.e., Prophet Muhammad, did come, conveyed Islam, told the whole truth, and spoke with God's word.
I have become a Muslim because Jesus orders me to be a Muslim. He told us in The New Testament to follow the coming prophet when he comes. I have become a Muslim in obedience to Jesus' teachings. Jesus said, "But the Comforter ...whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and brings all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. ‘’(John 14:26). Some people, many people I know, believe in Islam at the bottom of their hearts, but they are afraid of relatives, neighbors, and friends; they are afraid of social pressure. To them I say that they should be afraid of God, not of humans. What will relatives do for them at the Day of Judgment? Certainly, nothing. My advice is this: go to Islam now, right now with no delay or hesitation. Get out of ignorance into knowledge and from darkness into light.
(52) EDITIONS
I am P. C. Marsh, 42 years. There are many different editions of The Bible. One of them is called The Revised Edition. If revised, it is modified. If modified, how can it possibly be God's true word? Another edition of The Bible is simplified; another is called international. I wonder how a book called holy and labeled as God's word can be revised, simplified, and can appear in versions so different, and even so contradictory, in content.
I began to doubt the holiness of The Bible simply because there are so many Bibles. Which Bible is The Bible?
In contrast, there is The Holy Quran: perfect in content, great in meanings, miraculous in its facts, complete in legislation, devoid of mistakes, and with one single version. This is the Book, the really Holy Book, The Holy Quran, God’s pure final word.
(53) A COMPLETE RELIGION
I am C. K. Morris, 38 years. I have to be guided by the divine message conveyed to me. The nature of Jesus, whether man, god, or man- god, does not help me at all in solving the problems which I face every day. What I need as a human being is a detailed heavenly message that instructs me on how to behave. I looked into the message conveyed in The New Testament, and I found it a very poor message. The New Testament does not help much; nor does it offer much guidance, in the first place.
My curiosity led me to read The Holy Quran of Islam. Upon comparing The Holy Quran to The New Testament, I have found out that The Holy Quran gives full guidance on matters of worship, faith, ethics, what is right, what is wrong, penalties, death, Hell, Paradise, the Day of Judgment, business, trade, peace, war, man and woman, marriage and divorce, life and death, inheritance, parents and children, and all the major concerns of man. It is a perfect book, indeed. In fact, the title of the book, i.e., The Holy Quran, means the book to be read.
I personally advise everyone to read The Holy Quran, the book revealed by God to Prophet Muhammad originally in Arabic, but now you can find translations in all the important languages of the world, especially in English and French. If you do not read The Holy Quran, you miss the truth, lose a lot, and alienate yourself from your Creator.
(54) LACK OF MEN
I am D. L. Mowat, 26 years. At the end of the church service, I asked the pastor," As you know, the number of women in the USA exceeds the number of men by about ten million. How can Christianity solve this problem? Will those ten million women remain unmarried?" The man thought for a while and gave a joke as an answer, "I guess the only solution is that they should convince ten million husbands to divorce their ten million wives." What a solution!
I had a Muslim friend, whom I asked the same question. He answered, "Islam solves this problem both fairly and easily. It allows polygamy: a man may marry up to four wives. Of course, not all men actually use this license; only very few do when they have to." Thus, polygamy solves the problems of some husbands who find themselves in need of another wife, and at the same time it solves the problems of millions of single women waiting for marriage. Obviously, the Christian formula of one-man-one-woman does not suit neither men nor women. On the surface, it may look as if it works, but in fact it does not. Everybody knows what is going on in the Western life: one man with one wife, but with several mistresses. The Islamic pattern is different: one man with one wife, basically, but with another wife if necessary. The only allowed relationship between men and women in Islam is marriage and nothing but marriage in order to protect the family, define responsibilities, and keep the community morally, hygienically, and socially clean. Another point is that Islam depends on the divine sources, i.e., The Holy Quran and Prophet Muhammad's traditions, which allow polygamy. In contrast, Christianity does not depend on its divine source. The Bible allows polygamy, but the church disallows it. Prophet David had many wives (II Samuel 5:13); other Jewish kings had 14-18 wives plus dozens of mistresses (II Chronicles 11:12 and 13:21); Prophet Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred mistresses (I Kings 11:3). There is no single evidence in The Bible that disallows polygamy. In fact, The Bible allows limitless polygamy: Solomon had seven hundred wives. Islam came and limited the number up to four only. For this matter and many others, I have found out that Islam meets life requirements better than any other creed. Wherever you look, you find Islam perfect. The more you know Islam and the more you think about it, the clearer its greatness and perfection become.
(55) NO SON
I am C. M. Pierce, 29 years. Christianity depends on the creed that Jesus is God's son. But I always kept on asking myself, "How did the church come to this conclusion?" Jesus has no father; neither does Adam have. In fact, Adam has neither a father nor a mother, yet this did not make Adam God's son. In fact, Adam is parentless.
On the other hand, why does one need a son? We humans desire having sons to give us strength and support especially when we become old. We also desire having sons to give us a sense of continuity through extended living after we die. Does God need support or help? Certainly, not. Does He need continuity? No, He does not because He is the Ever-living.Having a son is exactly the opposite of God's nature. God is one, with no daughter or son. I see that the Oneness of God as emphasized by Islam is the only true concept of God.
(56) DIFFERENT FATHERS
I am M. E. Proust, 31 years. I was a regular reader of The New Testament, where I came across many contradictions which I could not reconcile, especially those related to Jesus. I could not understand how Jesus can be the son of God and God at the same time, nor how he is the son of Joseph, the son of God, and the Son of David, all at the same time, as The New Testament tells. The Holy Quran of Islam genealogically refers to Jesus in one single way only, i.e., the son of Mary. No one can deny that Jesus is the son of Mary. Islam always gives the indisputable truth, the clear truth, the unrefusable undeniable truth. You never find any false statements in The Holy Quran, God's pure true final word.
(57) THE LAMB
I am K. A. Randolph, 30 years. The church always repeats that Jesus is the Lamb of God slain to bear our sins. I thought if the Lamb is always there ready to bear our sins, then we should never worry about committing as many sins as we like as long as we have the Lamb, someone who is always ready to pay the bill.
The church simply says to us, "Sin, and the Lamb will carry your sin." I figure out that this lamb theory is a very strange, illogical, and ethically destructive theory. As a matter of fact, it encourages people to sin and sin and sin worrying about nothing because God offered his beloved only son as a sacrifice on the cross in order to save them from the burden of sin. The church is implying this message to its followers: be as sinful as you wish to be because all your sins were, are, and will be paid for and borne by Jesus. The church message is simply destructive to morality, ethics, good behavior, and community welfare. What people actually need, I believe, is not an encouragement to sinning, but rather a discouragement. People must be warned against sin, rather than be tempted to do it.
Islam, I have known, does the opposite of what Christianity does. Islam keeps on warning people against sin and its dangers. Islam teaches people that if you sin, it is you, and only you, who will pay for it, not Jesus or any other one. Islam teaches that all your good deeds and all your bad deeds will be written in your record, and on the Day of Judgment the balance will be worked out: which overweighs which? Do your good deeds overweigh or do your bad deeds overweigh? As a result, Islam builds up in the individual a sense of ethical responsibility, certainly not achieved by the Christian lamb theory. I have chosen Islam because once you truly know it, you cannot but accept it. I am absolutely sure, beyond any doubt, that Islam is the only right choice.
(58) INCOMPLETE
I am J. A. Swift, 45 years. I was attending a Sunday prayer, which I used to observe regularly. The priest referred us to the ten commandments in The Old Testament. He also emphasized the fact that the ten commandments do not appear in The New Testament and that they only appear in The Old Testament. I thought that the ten commandments are the only ethical code in the whole Bible and I wondered, if they are so important, why they appear only in The Old Testament and not in The New Testament as well. The reason, I thought, may be that a Christian should abide by both Testaments and that the two testaments are to be considered as one book. However, this explanation is opposed by the fact that the church has cancelled The Old Testament, which is referred to selectively only. Although Jesus said that he came to confirm Moses' law, the church cancelled this law. Then Paul came and cancelled most of what Jesus enjoined. Finally, we ended with a Christianity that has little to do with Jesus Christ. It also occurred to me that most of the ten commandments are in the negative, i.e., don'ts. What if the verbal prohibition is not obeyed in practice? What if killing actually happens despite the don't? What if stealing happens? What if fornication or adultery happens? The New Testament gives no penalties if a transgression occurs, probably because our Jesus, the Lamb, will bear or has already borne all our past, present, and future sins, crimes, and what not.
In Islam, I know, there are so many detailed commandments about behavior, which makes human life so happy because there is little room for faults if God's word is listened to. A Muslim lives in light: everything is clear and well-defined. The Muslim knows what to do, what to say, and how to behave because all is made clear in the message of Islam, unlike Christianity, which leaves its followers in complete darkness and in puzzling skepticism most of the time. Islam does not only give commandments but it also gives penalties if the commandments are violated. Islam gives advice and gives punishment too. Islam meets the psychology of humans better. Islam does not preach and teach only; it also punishes transgressors.
(59) ONE, NOT THREE
I am Y. J. Thomas, 40 years. The church says that The Bible is God's word, but I began doubting this claim when I started examining The Bible. For one thing, The Old Testament always talks about one God, whereas The New Testament sometimes refers to three gods. How can the book of God not be sure about God Himself? Does God not know whether He is one or three?!
Because of this, among other reasons, I seriously began to suspect the origin of The Bible and began to doubt its authenticity. I have come to the conclusion that The Bible cannot be God's pure word. In contrast, The Holy Quran, the book of Islam, consistently refers to God as one. I take The Holy Quran to be God's pure word. That is why I have embraced Islam, the religion of pure monotheism.
(60) LOST ORIGINAL
I am P. D. Thoreau, 21 years. The original version of Jesus' Gospel in Hebrew is lost. Of course, God could have preserved it if He had wanted to. But He did not wish to do so. This is a proof that God does not want The Gospel to be His final word. Had God wanted The Gospel to be His final word, He would have preserved its original from loss. Because the original of Jesus' gospel is lost, nobody knows for sure what God's word to Jesus really was. That is why we have now the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In fact, in the beginning, there were more than one hundred different gospels, which the church reduced repeatedly and gradually until the number finally reached four. The fact that the gospels are four proves the point, i.e., that God's pure word to Jesus or Jesus' gospel is lost. What The New Testament now has is merely stories about Jesus, some of which are true and some are not, some of which are complete and some are not.
Looking at The Holy Quran, the Holy Book revealed by God to Prophet Muhammad, I know that The Holy Quran is, was , and will be as it was revealed in its original form and original language, i.e. Arabic, with no letter more and no letter less, in one form and one version. God has preserved The Holy Quran because He wants it to be His only final Revealed Book. The only book that contains God's pure word is The Holy Quran, not The Bible. That is why I have embraced Islam. The fact that God has preserved The Holy Quran from corruption and has not preserved The Bible proves that The Holy Quran, not The Bible, is God's pure word.
(61) THE BOOK TITLE
I am J. A. Welty, 35 years. If God has a book, He will surely give it a name, i.e., a title. As for The Bible, God has not called it The Bible; nor has He called The New Testament as such, nor has He called The Old Testament as such. Is God's book not worthy of a title? Surely, it is. However, those three titles were not given by God; they were given by the church. This proves the point that he who writes a book is the one who gives it a title. That is exactly what happened: the church and other human sources supervised writing different parts of The Bible, and hence they gave the titles. God did not give those three books the titles they have now, i.e., The Bible, The Old Testament, and The New Testament. Men wrote them, and men named them.
Look at The Holy Quran. Its name, i.e., The Holy Quran, is given to it by God in the very text of the Holy Quran. When God gives a book, He gives its name. This did happen to The Holy Quran, but not to The Bible.
(62) GOD'S RELIGION
I am G. C. Bailey, 35 years. God wants us to obey Him, surrender to Him, and follow His way. Every philosopher gives a name to his philosophy, which usually ends in -ism. Every way has a name such as naturalism, socialism, and existentialism. What is the name of God's way?
The church says that God's way is named Christianity. If so, why do we not find this name in The Bible? God, in The Bible, never gave the order to us to be Christians. Jesus never said that he was Christian. He never described his disciples as Christians. The word Christianity never appeared in The New Testament nor in The Old Testament.
As for Islam, God, in The Holy Quran, explicitly mentions Islam to be the only religion accepted by God. Literally, Islam means submission. Theologically, Islam means willing submission to God. That is why The Holy Quran refers to all prophets, even those before Muhammad including Abraham, Jesus, and Moses, as Muslims, i.e., true submitters to God. God’s way is Islam, as The Holy Quran tells. The term “Christianity” is not mentioned, not once, in The Bible. It is a term invented by the church. Islam is a term given by God to God’s way. This gives the clue that Islam is what God wants us to follow. God wants all humans to be Muslims, not Christians, not Buddhists, not Hinduists, not anything else.
(63) THE BEGINNING AND THE END
I am D. L. Clark, 39 years. I had a Muslim friend who used to keep talking to me about Islam. I repeatedly asked him to stop doing so, but he earnestly insisted on his attempts. He told me something interesting about the Book of Islam, i.e., The Holy Quran. He said that The Holy Quran has a beginning verse, which marks the beginning of God's revelation, and a closing verse, which marks the end of God's revelation, i.e., a verse whose text shows where and when the Quranic revelation began and a verse whose text shows where and when the Quranic revelation ended. I thought that this is a really significant indicator. A revelation of God really deserves an opening marker and a closing marker, a matter which surely takes part in the text preservation.
In contrast, The Bible never gives you a clue where and when God's revelation began or ended. The Bible, in fact, is an open book: many people felt free to add to it, delete from it, and even change it. That is why there are different Bibles: the international one, the authorized one, that of king James, the simplified one, the shortened one, that of the Protestants, and that of the Catholics. Which Bible is The Bible? There are many Bibles. There is one Quran. I felt more at rest with The Holy Quran. That is why I have become a Muslim.
(64) HOW MANY GODS?
I am M. D. Crow, 27 years. I used to attend Sunday church prayers, but the more I went there, the more confused I got. The pastor referred to Jesus as God's son; all right so far. Then, to my surprise, he began to refer to him as God. How can one be X and the son o/X at the same time? I could not grasp it.
The pastor played hide and seek with my mind. He addresses God through God's son, i.e., Jesus. Then he begins to address Jesus as if he were God Himself. I felt there is something wrong with what I heard. The pastor was not clear whether Jesus is human, God, God's son, or what. He gave contradictory clues.
In Islam, I feel more at ease. Everything is clear and logical. Jesus is God's messenger. God is God. Man is man. I like the logic and simplicity of Islam. The more you know Islam, the more you accept it. Don't be afraid of knowing.
(65) YAHWEH
I am R. W. Ebel, 38 years. The Old Testament says that God's name is Yahweh, but strangely, this name never shows up in The New Testament. Why? Has God cancelled His old name? The only answer to this question is that either Yahweh is not God's name or The New Testament is not God's pure word. In both cases, the obvious conclusion is that The Bible is not God's pure word.
Is God's word so cheap and so insignificant to play with? If God's name is Yahweh as The Old Testament says, why don't we find this name in The New Testament? '
In the case of The Holy Quran, God's name in it is Allah. This name is referred to thousands: of times in The Holy Quran. It is the only name; given to God by all Muslims. Other words such as: the Merciful and the All-Knowing are merely Allah's attributes. Looking into this matter, I felt that The Holy Quran is quite consistent with itself, and it leaves no doubt about the fact that it is God's true pure word.
(66) THE CARPENTER GOD!
I am T. A. Gardener, 25 years. Jesus was a carpenter when he was twelve years of age and remained so until he was thirty, as The New Testament tells. He was earning his bread through carpentry, and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.
However, I could not swallow the idea that God was a carpenter for eighteen years. I could not either swallow the idea that God was not only a carpenter, but just an apprentice in the early years of his career learning carpentry. I could not swallow the idea that Jesus until the age of thirty was behaving like a normal human being and waited until the age of thirty when he began to play the so-called role of God. The Christian God is the only god that was a carpenter! Jesus was a carpenter like thousands of human carpenters, and suddenly he became not a god, but God, God the carpenter or the carpenter God!
My modest explanation is this. Jesus is a human being, and when he was thirty, God sent to him His revelation and ordered him to convey the message to the people of Israel only. Jesus is God's messenger. That is all. God gave him miracles as he gave to all messengers before and after him.
This was my personal solution to the Christian dilemma. Later, I discovered that my understanding completely agrees with the Islamic understanding. This has convinced me to embrace Islam, which explains all my questions in a very convincing manner.
(67) AMERICANISM
I am J. B. Miller, 36 years. I was a teacher. Because I was a devoted Catholic Christian, it happened once that I criticized Darwin 's evolution theory and stated to my students in class that Darwinism is merely a theory, not a law; he could be wrong. I told my class that there must be the Creator, Who created all beings and all animals in their different forms. Two days later, I was called by the school principal. To my surprise, he gave me a written final warning for my anti-secular tendencies and my pro-religion attitude. I told him that the US constitution guarantees both the freedom of belief and the freedom of expression and that he has no right to deny me my constitutional rights. He replied that I am free to say anything except preaching God in class and he said, "No God in class." I could not believe what I heard; I was utterly shocked that secularism has become America 's new religion.
I have come to the conclusion that freedom in the USA is a big lie. I have realized that there is no difference between Americanism and communism: both are godless and atheistic. In contrast, I like the spirituality of the Islamic countries, where God is reminded of everywhere: at school, at home, at mosque, in media, and on all occasions. The Islamic life is more natural, more spiritual, and more balanced than our Western life, where God is imprisoned at church and is never allowed out! The Western life is a schizophrenic life. You have to be two persons in one: one on Sunday and one on other days; one at; church and one outside it. You have to be with a double personality: two minds, two souls, two tongues, two sets of standards, and two faces. It is a life of utterly unbearable hypocrisy.
In Islam, you believe in God and Islam, and you carry your belief wherever you go. You have one mind, the mind of the believer. You have one soul, the soul of a surrenderer to God. You have one tongue, a tongue of a worshipper. You have one set of ethics, the ethical set of Islamic values. You have one face, the face of a pacified Muslim.
(68) THE TRIO
I am V. P. Hansen, 27 years. I spent years and years trying to understand how God can be three in one, and I simply couldn't. My brain can understand that God could be one, two, or three, but no human brain can possibly understand how God can be three gods in one God. It is too mysterious to be true. Why does God need to be three in one when He can be one and function as one? Multiplicity implies incapability. If He needs other partners, assistants, or godly copies, this means that he is not perfect and, hence, he is no more God. He would be a god, not God. I have come to the belief that the Trinity is one form of polytheism, that the Trinity contradicts God's Oneness, preached in The Old Testament and all prophets. I felt that the whole Christianity is collapsing before my eyes because its basis, i.e., the Trinity, is simply wrong, unreasonable, and groundless. I could not understand the chaos caused by the Trinity. Sometimes the church says that Jesus is God and sometimes it says that Jesus is the son of God. There is no possible confusion beyond such confusion. I didn't know who my God is: Is he Jesus or God? I did not know who God is and who Jesus is. I began to wander if there is a more convincing religion with a reasonable concept of God. I found the answer in Islam: God is one; God is eternal; God has no equals and no partners; God did not beget; nor was He begotten. This is the God I was looking for: one, not three; eternal, not dead on the cross; unique, not with three copies; able, not with two assistants. In Islam, I find everything logical, simple, and reasonable. Thanks to God that I am on the right path, the straight way of Islam.
(69) WHAT SAVES?
I am G. A. Mackin, 34 years. The church has never made what saves man clear to me or to any Christian. Sometimes, we are told that the crucifixion of Jesus saves humans. Sometimes, the church says that if you believe, you are saved. Sometimes, it says that belief alone is not enough; you have to do good deeds. The whole church story has never been, nor will it ever be, clear in my mind. The New Testament says, "The tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be at the end to this world."(Matthew 13:40). If sinners will be punished, why was Jesus' crucifixion then? What for? Islam is crystal clear on this: you save yourself through your faith and good deeds. That is Islam: logical, consistent, and clear. I like the logic and consistency of Islam.
(70) NO INTERCESSORS
I am C. M. Hill, 23 years. Christianity tells me that if you want to ask God, you cannot ask Him directly. You have to go through a process. First, ask the Holy Spirit. Next, if the Holy Spirit approves, he will pass your request to Jesus. Then, if Jesus approves, he will pass it to God. You have to reach God through secretaries or intercessors. I understand that Islam does not require such a process. There is none or nothing between you and God. Just address God directly with no mediators. I like this Islamic concept of God. That is why, among other reasons, I have chosen Islam.
(71) USELESS CRUCIFIXION
I am R. D. Hockett, 43 years. The basic comer-stone of Christianity is Jesus' crucifixion since it is essential to salvation although such a concept has never convinced me.
To my surprise, The New Testament itself has evidence against the concept of salvation through crucifixion. Jesus says, "Not every one that hath saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my father which is in heaven." (Matthew 7:21). Doing God's will means obeying God. This evidence proves beyond doubt that what saves you is faith and good deeds, not Jesus, crucifixion. This text undermines the whole basis of Christianity. Islam has this view: believe in God, obey Him, and you are saved. The Islamic view I makes sense. Christianity, in fact, encourages people to sin because Jesus bore their sins! Islam makes everyone bear his own sin, which makes much more sense. That is why I have become a Muslim.
(72) WHY ASK FOR FORGIVENESS?
I am N. W. Jersild, 44 years. Whenever I attended prayer at the church, the pastor asked the audience to repeat after him asking God through Jesus, or Jesus through God, to forgive them. The church music added to the hypnotic effect of the situation. Everybody, except me, was pleased or seemed pleased. I began to question the whole thing. Now we ask God to forgive our sins. All right! But didn't Jesus bear our sins? The church tells us this night and day: Jesus offered himself on the cross to bear our sins, and he did bear them. If Jesus bore our sins, why are we asking God to forgive our sins? I felt that Christianity is a loose inconsistent belief; it does not hold well together. I began to look for the truth and started to read more about religions in general.
My readings led me to the truth: Islam is the only true religion. It is the religion of all prophets including Moses and Jesus. Believe in all the messengers of God, not only one. Believe in all. God's Revealed Books, not only one. Love all humans and all races, not the white race only. Islam is the only right choice; I repeat that Islam is the only right choice. Indeed, it fully satisfies the mind, the heart, the body, and the soul of any objective unbiased person.
THE AUTHOR'S BOOKS
In English
1. Language Teaching
2. Programmed TEFL Methodology
3. A Workbook for English Teaching Practice
4. A Dictionary of Education: English-Arabic
5. A Dictionary of Theoretical Linguistics: English-Arabic
6. A Dictionary of Applies Linguistics: English-Arabic
7. Teaching English to Arab Students
8. The Teacher of English
9. A Contrastive Transformational Grammar: Arabic and English
10. Learn Arabic by Yourself (English and Arabic)
11. A Dictionary of Islamic Terms: English- Arabic
12. Simplified English Grammar
13. Improve Your English :. .
14. The Light of Islam 1'-'.
15. The NeedforIslam ft .
16. Traditions of Prophet Muhammad
17. Sayings of Prophet Muhammad
18. The Truth about Jesus Christ
19. Islam and Christianity
20. Questions and Answers about Islam
21. Introduction to Linguistics IN ARABIC
22. Dictionary of Phonetics
23. Study Skills
24. Linguistics Studies
25. The Student's Guidebook in Teaching Practice
26. Language Teaching
27. Living with Two Languages
28. Frequent Structures in Arabic
29. Learn Spelling in Arabic
30. Arabic Transformational Grammar
31. Language Phones
32. Introduction to Linguistics
33. How to write a Research Paper
34. The False Glimmer of the Western Civilization
35. The Truth about Jesus Christ
36. A Comparison between the Four Gospels
37. The Corruption of the Old Testament
Ref.www.missionislam.com
PREFACE
I receive dozens of letters every week from allover the world written by different people of different ...
Articles
- Recent
- Popular
Muslims News
Some 12.5 million Muslims have been killed in wars during the last 25 years, a Turkish scholar said Saturday.
Speaking at a conference in Istanbul, Refik...
Monday, 01 April 2019
New Zealand rugby player Sonny Bill Williams has called on the New Zealand public to learn about Islam following the public Friday prayers which was held...
Monday, 25 March 2019
According to The Indian Express, in the complaint, Sajid’s nephew Dilshaad, who was among those beaten up, said “Two unknown men came on a bike and...
Sunday, 24 March 2019
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA): Jewish settlers early Friday set fire to a house belonging to the Palestinian Dawabsheh family in the village of Duma near the...
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia (AA) – At least 13 people were killed and 43 injured in a string of suicide bombings that targeted Sunday Mass congregations...
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA): At least 41 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured on Monday by Israeli gunfire during anti-occupation rallies in...
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
GAZA CITY, Palestine (AA): At least 41 Palestinians were killed and hundreds injured on Monday by Israeli gunfire during anti-occupation rallies in...
Tuesday, 15 May 2018
KAMPALA, Uganda (AA): Uganda security forces said they have killed two people and arrested 36 others following a raid in a mosque in a Kampala...
Wednesday, 02 May 2018
NAIROBI, Kenya (AA): Female Muslim students at the Kenya Medical Training College in Mwingi town were denied entry Friday for wearing the hijab....
Wednesday, 02 May 2018
Innalillahi wainnailaihi rajioun 😢😢😢American War Planes murdered more than 100 children (Hafiz Qur'an) during graduation ceremony (Dastar Bandi) in...
Saturday, 28 April 2018
