islam

This division is not one by religious affiliation, rather it separates the extremists and the peace-loving people.Therefor I'm optimistic: now a humanistic Islam is getting shaken awake. Moderate Islam needs now to finally break cover and explain how to deal with the violence-glorifying parts of the Quran. The (psychological) repression that this has nothing to do with our belief doesn't work anymore. We have to face this challenge.

Learn! For learning is an adornment for one who possesses it, avirtue and a prelude to every praiseworthy action. Profit eachday by increasing [your] learning, and swimming in the seas ofbeneficial knowledge. Give yourself up to the study of jurisprudence,for the knowledge of jurisprudence is the best guide to piety andthe fear of God, and it is the straightest path to the ultimate goal.It is the milestone leading to the ways of proper guidance;it is the fortress that saves [one] from all hardships.Indeed, one godly person versed in jurisprudence is more powerfulagainst Satan than a thousand [ordinary] worshipers.

To understand the extreme lengths to which the Sufis were prepared to go in reading esoteric meanings into the quite simple language of their Scriptures, it is necessary to remember that the Koran was committed to memory by all deeply religious men and women, and recited constantly, aloud or in the heart; so that the mystic was in a state of uninterrupted meditation upon the Holy Book. Many passages which would otherwise pass without special notice were therefore bound to arrest their attention, already sufficiently alert, and to quicken their imagination, already fired by the discipline of their austerities and the rigor of their internal life.

Some people make the mistake of confusing "submission" with "weakness", whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.

True freedom is doing what Allah wants which is the defintion of freedom in Islam. The 'Abdullah is the only real hur because he is a servant and a slave to Allah and not to creation.The one who is a slave to himself is not free and will never be free until he is freed of himself.And this is why in arabic language the word for freed slave is also the word for master: "Maula"; like we call Allah "Maulana". So the freed slave is the one who is the master of himself.

There is so much debate about moderate and radical Islam but there is only one Islam.

A world that becomes more Muslim becomes less everything else. First it__ Jews, already abandoning France. Then it__ homosexuals, already under siege from gay-bashing in Amsterdam, __he most tolerant city in Europe_. Then it__ uncovered women, targetted for rape in Oslo. And if you don__ any longer have any Jews or (officially) any gays or (increasingly) uncovered women, there are always just Christians in general, from Nigeria to Egypt to Pakistan. More space for Islam means less space for everything else, and in the end for you.

The Islamic Revolution, as it turned out, did more damage to Islam by using it as an instrument of oppression than any alien ever could have done.

People have been fighting and dying over religion for thousands of years. I could understand that fear. It creeps up on you a bit more when you__e alone in a foreign land. You certainly worry about it more when you walk the same streets as violent people that harbor a clear hatred of your beliefs and values. The reality is some Muslims in the world would kill me for being Christian, just as some Christians in the world would kill Maya, Gita, Farid and Ridwan for being Muslim. Nowadays news outlets and social media have reified that fear. It keeps some people focused and aware. It paralyzes others. It blinds some of us. That__ what happened to me. It__ why I felt the whole world shake. Twice.

Allah says in Surah Ar-Rahman that every thing in the Heavens and the Earth begs Allah for its needs. The argument can be made that an atheist doesn't ask Allah for anything at all. The answer to that is simple: his throat begs to Allah when it is thirsty, his heart seeks permission from Allah before beating each and every single time, and every blood cell asks Allah's permission before traveling through his veins. There is only one small part of his heart, his free will, that is in disobedience to Allah. And even that part will beg to Allah on Judgment Day.

Saying of the ProphetDistributionGod it is who gives: I am only a distributor.

Some people make the mistake of confusing "submission" with "weakness", whereas it is anything but. Submission is a form of peaceful acceptance of the terms of the universe including the things we are currently unable to change or comprehend.I accepted the fact that there are things beyond my limits. I can only see some parts, like floating fragments from a movie, but the bigger scheme is beyond my comprehension.

Reh Gyi Rasm-e-Azan, Rooh-e-Bilali Na RahiFalsafa Reh Gya, Talqeen-e-Ghazali Na RahiAzan yet sounds, but never now Like Bilal__, soulfully;Philosophy, conviction-less, Now mourns its Ghazzali

You could read a dozen large tomes on the history of Islam from its very beginnings and you still wouldn't understand what is going on in Algeria. But read 30 pages on colonialism and decolonisation and then you'll understand quite a lot.

Saying of the ProphetSome behaviourI am like a man who has lighted a fire, and all the creeping things have rushed to burn themselves in it.

I want you all to stand like the Muslims who stood with La ilaaha ilalla for Truth and Right

Centuries have passed since the wars of religion ceased in Europe, and since men stopped dying in large numbers because of arcane theological disputes. Hence, perhaps, the incredulity and denial with which Westerners have greeted news of the theology and practices of the Islamic State. Many refuse to believe that this group is as devout as it claims to be, or as backward-looking or apocalyptic as its actions and statements suggest."Their skepticism is comprehensible. In the past, Westerners who accused Muslims of blindly following ancient scriptures came to deserved grief from academics__otably the late Edward Said__ho pointed out that calling Muslims 'ancient' was usually just another way to denigrate them. Look instead, these scholars urged, to the conditions in which these ideologies arose__he bad governance, the shifting social mores, the humiliation of living in lands valued only for their oil."Without acknowledgment of these factors, no explanation of the rise of the Islamic State could be complete. But focusing on them to the exclusion of ideology reflects another kind of Western bias: that if religious ideology doesn__ matter much in Washington or Berlin, surely it must be equally irrelevant in Raqqa or Mosul. When a masked executioner says Allahu akbar while beheading an apostate, sometimes he__ doing so for religious reasons.

Saying of the ProphetReflectionThe Faithful are mirrors, one to the other.