Hey bouncer!
Thanks man, i really appreciate hearing people who have an open mind and wish to remove their ignorance! Let us pray to God and praise Him for such a blessing.
Now, you've brought up an interesting subject. I myself have started to ponder upon it as I've encoutered more and more Muslims online. I live in
Montreal and don't really socialize with Muslims in the "Real World", so i wasn't very aware of how they viewed things.
So here's my view of things..hope it helps!
bouncer said:
The kind who will insist that Surah 55, actually does refer to 'virgins' and that women should not be able to drive and people like yourself who claim otherwise.....
The verse you speak of is as follows:
56. In them will be (Maidens), chaste, restraining their glances, whom no Man or Jinn before them has touched;
The Maidens are indeed virgins, not necessarily women. They are "Huriyat", creatures of Paradise. Also must remember that the Qur'an is trying to express and explain a high spiritual meaning for the AfterLife using allegories of this world. The prophet has told us that what is in Paradise, no eye has seen, no ear as heard and no thought thereof ever occured. So whenever God refers to descriptions about Paradise, we CANNOT take them literally.
Huriyat in some places are likened to a fruit. Could they be fruit and not 'virgins'? And so what if they were virgins? What is forbidden in this lifetime is not necessarily sin in the next. We must forget the cartoon image of people with halos and wings floating in clouds. The AfterLife will be more "real" than this reality, and more concrete. Acts considered sinful in this life, are not in the next. Alcohol and Sex are restricted in this life, not necessarily in the next. That is how God tests us. Life is a test.
The driving thing is completely pathetic and stupid. Saudi Arabia is the ONLY country in the world, Muslim or non-Muslim, that doesn't allow women to drive, yet Islam is blamed for this, when it's plainly not true. Saudi Arabia practices a particulalry strict interpretation of the Qur'an called Wahabbism, inspired by Mohamed Abdel-Wahab, a muslim scholar of the early 20th century. Many Muslims blame Wahabbism for the sorry state of our faith today and the spread of extremist views, but to say that Islam is to blame is indeed ignorant.
The kind who claim that Christian or Jewish scriptures are completely corrupt and cannot be trusted at all, and others who say that they are not really corrupt themselves, but that the meaning of its words are deliberately misinterpreted by its followers......
The problem is, what really is Islam? Once on a different forum, I was trying to argue for over 100 posts how Christian scriptures are not really corrupt, only to be told that true muslims do not believe they are corrupt, but just misinterpreted. A few months later, I find myself arguing with another 'true' muslim, that infact, Christian scriptures have been changed and manipulated by men for centuries.
Up until very recently, i was on either side of that argument. But recently I've come to the (personal) conclusion that the original Scriptures were not corrupt since God's Word is always protected. The Torah, Gospel and Qur'an are Holy Scriptures that are the _literal_ Word of God.
My argument is that some Jews are overlooking some of their ommandments, not that their Scipture is corrupt. Usury (interest) is one example. Hence they've broken their covenant with God.
For the Christians, the original Gospel of Jesus is no where to be found, but the texts which God inspired to Jesus' disciples are with us, although no longer in their original language of Aramaic. Nonetheless, the meaning is there! So it's not the deliberate misinterpretation, but the loss of quality of the text due to multiple translations. The original texts are intact, the translations pose a problem because an idea expressed in one language with a certain cultural background can be interpreted in many varying ways when translated. ie: "a son" can become "The Son".
Just as the Qur'an has many versions in the non-Arabic, so does the Bible in non-Aramaic. The Qur'an has one authoratative copy in Arabic which no Muslim of any sect or denomination disagrees on the content.
Please don't take this as me trying to dislodge Christianity's theological standpoint. That is not my purpose here. I'm merely explaining my standpoint of other Scriptures sincerely.
In the meantime, I find that Muslims themselves, while appealing to Christians and westerners for greater understanding of their religion, are completely ignorant of Christianity. I realise further, that a major source of their ignorance is the Quran, or the Hadiths (details of which I can go into later).
Yes indeed. Fortunately, i grew up in a Muslim/Christian environment all my life. And i mean in my house, i had a live-in nanny as a kid who was Catholic. The problem on both sides is lack of diaolgue and interaction. There are diaologues being set up these days but we've only seen the start of this. But I believe that one day, there will be a great Union of Faiths under God. Soon hopefully...
As for the question of "true" Muslims...I have quasi-simple answer. According to God's Word in the Qur'an and what the prophet has taught us, Islam is the middle road or the Straight Path. Meaning it is a moderate way of life, not too lacks and not too strict, and i believe in this strongly.
Those who live Islam with this in mind are truely on the Straight Path. Those who exceed the requirements and go beyond what has been prescribed are going into unlawful extremes, ie: BinLaden and friends. Then you have those who take their faith lightly and the Qur'an as a mere book of poetry, those cause the understanding of Islam to fade. Both extremes are rampant and causing great harm to the minority of believers who are sincere in their worship.
I'm in no place to say or judge how a "true" Muslim is supposed to act. But by being at either extreme, you're lost. And by being too harsh towards other faiths or intolerant of differences, you're also lost. I base these opinions on my understanding of the Qur'an, and the example set by the prophet Muhammad.
Make sense?
Oh my....you're just playing, right grace? Women and driving has nothing to do with Islam. My american friends who happen to be muslim drive, one actually is a former demolition derby driver. Some of the muslimahs i know in the middle east drive. If you open up the Qur'an i don't think you will see anything about driving. Governments and traditions have had an impact on the laws, mores, norms and values of cultures that have an Islamic majority. You live in the united states, correct grace? Our government allows abortions. That means christians support abortion, right? Surely now you can see the difference.
