Prophecy and the Mullah: Hotel Mohenjodaro

Thanks Escapist ! It is with sadness that I have reached the same conclusion. He used the pet ``debating tactics`` of such kind of people: he started by congrulating me for engaging in debate, then he tried to put me down even though I called him brother, then he kept repeating ``islam is so simple`` thing, then he asked me for references from Quran, when i gave him that, he refused to believe the translation, when i asked him for his translation, he started quoting half aya so it would fit his theory, when i pasted the full aya, then he came up with some other debate ending stupid argument.

Unfortunately, there are people who bash Mullahs even while in sleep. They keep telling us that ``islam is easy``. Now if one were to see tahmed`s argument below, he is not making islam look easy. He is so shamelessly engaging in tinkering with the obvious meanings of Quran.

Thank God for Mullahs, they may be wrong on many things, but they have been right all along in taking covers off of these people who deliberately misrepresent the message of Islam.

MaududiLives.

If you read my earlier posts and tahmed`s responce, you d realise this excercise that you are doing, with sincerity is useless. For people like tahmed, every group is with a book. Even commies have a book, ya know.

Chillax.

maududi lives: OK, add the second phrase as well: ``(Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers , but chaste women among the people of the book , revealed before your time,``. This changes nothing!

You were merely grasping straws here by saying that I deliberately left out the second phrase when in fact you should know that was simply to keep my post concise. The simple fact is that addition of this phrase changes nothing, UNLESS you make the assumption that the ``people of the book`` excludes hindus. There is nothing in the Quran to that effect, and indeed the Quran emphasizes the opposite - namely that the message has been sent to all peoples, and that all of those prophets are not even listed in the Quran.

Indeed, this flies in the face of some of the fundamental teachings of the Quran: it flies against the Quranic condemnation of the concept of a ``chosen people``- while the Quran refers to the jewish tribes of the time that had this concept, common sense telss us that the same principle applies to ALL individual. Muslims are NOT to think of themselves as a chosen people. There are NO chosen people in Islam. All individuals are equal before God. All religions, the rituals of all religions, are to be respected. THAT is the message of islam. Not this half-baked, petty-minded, chauvinistic notion that my calling oneself a ``muslim`` an individual is automatically something better than other humans.

tahmed32 - for the sake of Allah please DO NOT tinker with quran`s meaning. You are quoting HALF verse and hiding the other half of the sentence which clarifies the meanings.

Here is what you quote `` (Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers``

Here is the full verse:

(Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers , but chaste women among the people of the book , revealed before your time,-

I am convinced that you are a neem mullah. Please excuse me for saying this. I got into this discussion because you had claimed to have read and understood quran on your own and hence i was expecting a good debate. But when you start hiding half of the verse to fit your theorem then there is nothing I can do about it.

May Allah give us knowledge and His blessings.

maududilives: If you read what I wrote carefully, you will see that I am not questioning that you took the verse straight from the Quran. What I am questioning are the conclusions you draw from that verse. Let me try again:

The verse says: `` (Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers``

You draw the conclusion that this means a hindu wife is not lawful to a muslim man.

Simple logic says that this conclusion can only be reached if one considers hindus to be nonbelievers and women to be unchaste if they happen to be hindus. This conclusion violates the basic teachings of the Quran, not to mention common decency and common sense. Please tell me if you see any flaw in this logic which leads me to say that even the very verse you quote does not support your conclusions.

tahmed32 - brother, I will set aside the critique you had for me personally and focus on the debate.

As for your critique of the verse that I provided from Quran, I am bwildered by your response. It is so obvious that you are trying to mould the aya to fit your response, rather than the other way around. That is a grave sin, brother Tahemed.

You are accusing me of playing with verse? I took the verse STRAIGHT out of Quran. I did a cut and paste and did not even change a comma. It is translated by Yusuf Ali, unless of course you do not believe this translation either. IN that case, I must ask you whether you yourself are an Arabic language scholar and hence if you can provide us the translation of this verse. I have already provided for you the surah and the chapter numbers. Unfortunately, in getting into ``debate for the heck of debate`` you are displaying the typical symptoms of a habitual mullah basher. You bash him for things you YOURSELF are quilty about - that is, ignorance and deliberate tinkering with the meanings of Quran. Please excuse me for saying this.

You first asked me to provide a verse from Quran, since you did not beleive me and that the only thing you would believe is Quranic reference since you so love quran. Now that I have provided you the clear verse from Quran, you are getting into a debate of ``women/men, chaste/unchaste``. You might as well fight with Allah since I did not creat that verse.

And I did not ignore any refernces of quran that you gave. I went back to your post and found only one vague reference regarding ``mercy to all people`` and I have no dispute with that. In fact, I was the one who brought it out in the first place.

Tahmed - might i suggest that instead of spending your time bashing mullahs for distorting Islam, you spend that precious time and learn the true meanings of Islam for yourself?

maududilives: ``Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers`` YOU (not the Quran) are assuming that women are not chaste (!!) and/or ``believers`` if they are hindus. The fact is that there are chaste and unchaste women (and chaste and unchaste men,!! and why are you so fascinated with women when as a man you should be more concerned with your own behavior??) in every society.

I realize you will find this hard to understand since obviously you have been indoctrinated by the maududi philosophy of conveniently reading between the lines of the Quran what YOU want to believe (and thus totally changing the message of God to mankind).

Please use your God-given ability to think logically. I will leave you with the first three lines of my poste above only to reflect on. And this is a verse you yourself pulled out of the Quran!!

I will also note that you ignored other references I gave to the Quran - why do you find it so hard to even acknowledge the truth?? You dare to ignore references I provided you, and you chose to replace the clear words of the Quran with your own prejudices. Do you really have any fear of the Judgement Day?? Or are you really incapable of ridding you of the bhoot of maududi and maulvism and accepting the individual responsiblity that is expected of you (as of every other human being) according to the Quran?

I have no desire to go around in circles, since obviously you can keep on arguing long after you have broken any link to logic or facts of what is clearly written in the Quran. So I will end the discussion here. You can agree, disagree and/or reach your own conclusions. Just remember that it is you, not maududi on your behalf, who will face the music on the Judgement Day.

Tahmed32 - Here is the pertinent ayah.

Al-Ma`idah (The Table Spread) - (Arabic)
5:5 This day are (all) things good and pure made lawful unto you. The food of the people of the book is lawful unto you and yours is lawful unto them. (Lawful unto you in marriage) are (not only) chaste women who are believers, but chaste women among the people of the book, revealed before your time,- when ye give them their due dowers, and desire chastity, not lewdness, nor secret intrigues if any one rejects faith, fruitless is his work, and in the Hereafter he will be in the ranks of those who have lost (all spiritual good).

Please keep in mind that the arabic word for ``believer`` woman is (mauminaat, and that to be called a ``maumin`` you have to be a muslim first). So now that you see Quran states that, would you agree that Hindus are not considered believers because they are not the ``people of the book``?? And by the way, don`t stetch things (in the spirit of Pak-India friendship) to say that hindus are believers too. Guess what! I `believe` in partying all night. Does that make me a `believer` too??

Now, its your turn to tell me where in Quran does it say that muslims are supposed to pray 5 times a day. Guess what!!!! IT DOESN`T!!!!! So why is salaat the pillar of Islam??? Because the Prophet (saw) said so!!! Cool. So now you and I are coming to the conclusion that it is Quran AND Sunnah that provide quidance to Muslims. You cannot just say that Quran is the one and the only thing Islam is ALL about.

As to your point that on Judgement Day God will ask ``Where are those to whom you looked for instruction?``. Well said Brother Tahmed!!! In fact, not even our loving mothers will come to our rescue because they will be answering for their deeds. Now lets go back to my earlier example of studying for physics exam. Whenever you felt you needed help, you went to teacher because you were worried that otherwise you will fail. Now the teacher may have taught you wrong and told you matter of factly that ``Newton was not a physicist, he was really a soccer player``. So you write that down in your exam and the grader fails you. You may cry and make your case that the teacher told you that, but guess what! the ultimate responsibility lies with you. Brother, its the same concept with Islam. I see your point that Islam is not a ``rocket science``. However, as easy as Islam is, I would like to do everything in my power to understand it, discuss it, implement it in my life BECAUSE my WHOLE AFTERLIFE AND ETERNITY depends on it.

Also, don`t discount and disparage the Islamic scholars. I am not talking about the illiterate Mullahs (as in Paki mullahs). Don`t go overboard in your contempt for religious scholars by lumping them ALL into one. I am talking about the learned Islamic scholars who have spent their lives studying Islam. Now I am sure at your work when you engage in projects you employ something called ``team work``. Various people with various capabilities come together and the result is that (hopefully) the project succeeds. Brother, its the same concept here. These scholars, as learned as they are, are still far from being perfect. They are learning as well as you are. However, to use them is to employ in ``team work``. You bounce ideas off them, you discuss with them, and the project is to have a fulfilling life and a successfull hereafter. May be THEY will learn something new from you? WHY SHUN THEM? Why sit alone at home and think you have it all figured out? Why think your glass is full? Why take these risks with your life and afterlife when you would never take such risks on projects at work?

Lastly, I know we can keep arguing for the sake of argument. The human spirit is such that we hate to lose arguments. But brother, when it comes to Islam, the only real loss is what we may face in front of Allah.

One more thing regarding my nick. Ok, so just because a person on this board has a nick called ``Mantolives``, does not mean that he owes EVERY SINGLE THING in his life to Saadut Hassan Manto`s teachings. Same with me. I admire Maududi, but I do not worship him. Just because I wear New York Giants t-shirt, does not mean that I am living my life according to the ``principles of NY Giants``. Neither should you come to me if NY Giants do something stupid.

So in the end my humble request to you is to not distort the message of Islam. At least not do that with the OBVIOUS facts, such as calling hindus as ``believers``!!!!

Regards

maududilives:

``do you know that you cannot marry a hindu girl, UNLESS she converts to Islam?``
Show me what you base this on - the Quran or maududi?

``Do you know that ``shirk`` is the worst sin?``
Fine.

``and you seem to think that Hindus are not mushrik?``
It does not matter what I think. On religious matters, the Quran says quite clearly that God will decide on the Judgement Day. As you should know if you read the Quran seriously for the purpose it was sent - God`s message to man, and not for the purpose it has been reduced into: man`s offering to God to get ``swaab``.

`` Now, as to whether hindus will go to heaven or not is not for me and u to decide.``
Now we are talking from the same book.

`` We know that Allah is merciful and his justice is quite different from the human justice. ``
True on the first part. The second part is not true: the Quran ALSO explicitly calls upon humans to be merciful and kind - and this includes human justice. Human`s are explicitly expected to aspire to God`s concept of justice - not vengeance but forgiveness, not cruelty but mercy. The most evil of states in the Quran is that of the pharaoh - where it refers to the cruel punishments the pharoahs inflicted. This is the evil state that the maulvis have introduced whereever they have achieved direct power (as by taliban, and in Pakistan under Zia until Zia realized Pakistani journalists were not cowed by his cruel whippings, that not one Pakistani doctor was willing to chop of anyone`s hands - and then the rascal gave up).


``However to distort the message and meanings of quran is a grave sin. ``
Agreed fully. So please re-consider your previous point.

``I suggest that you not entirely rely on your head and talk to some learned scholars of islam.``
One should rely upon oneself, since on the Judgement Day God will ask ``Where are those to whom you looked for instruction?``. There will be no learned scholars around to defend the individual. Even his own words will not be there, since his lips will be sealed. All that one would have is one`s hands and feet - in other words, aamaal (actions). I would rather live accept the simple and profound message of the Quran - i.e. practice forgiveness and mercy, respect all faiths, get education and learn and love the mysteries of God`s creation that he created man to understand and appreciate. The Quran makes it clear in so many ways that it is not meant for PhDs or ``learned people``, it even says explicitly that it is a Book to make things simple.
It is these ``learned people`` who have misled muslims for centuries, turned Islam from a religion into superstition, turned the message of God into magical incantations - in other words, replaced the enlightened message of the Quran with the cruel and pagan rituals of a primitive people that it was meant to replace.

Please reflect on the above. These ``learned people`` (uleman, mullahs, whatever) are responsible for muslims become the most backward people on earth. Far from being the torchbearers of human progress, muslims are part of the problem.

``but didn`t you go to your teachers in school whenever you had doubt about a physics or maths problem?``
Because the message of God is not rocket science or advanced calculus - it has to do with what comes BEFORE all knowledge. Religion is about character. The Quranic message is about keeping one`s word, giving fair measure in business, being kind to your fellow human being. These things are NOT difficult to understand. They are difficult to implement, though, UNLESS your training from childhood on has made this your second nature.


``While Islam CLEARLY states that muslims MUST be tolerant of other religions, but your calling them ``believers`` makes it clear that the head you used while studying Quran needs to be examined.``
The Quran says clearly that ALL religions are to be respected. (It mentions specifically the Sabians, e.g., who were NOT in the abrahamic tradition. Hinduism recognizes a supreme deity - are you aware that there is a hindu prayer (according to the writer Huston Smith in his book ``THe World`s Religions`` that is repeated by hindus before praying to before the statue of a god: ``Forgive us for worshipping you in material form, it is our weakness as humans that we find it difficult to conceive of you in nonmaterial form``. Somethoing like this. All religions - hinduism, islam, christiantiy, judaism - bring comfort to the individual in times of distress. What is so bad in that? The Quran specifically enjoins us to respect not just all religions but also RITUALS of other religions. I feel truly sad when I see muslims who are kept in such total ignorance that even these entreaties from God to mankind are so widely ignored by the muslims.

``If you can form such an erroneous opinion about the CLEAR hukms from Quran, you should wonder what other not-so-clear areas you might be wrong at. ``
On the contrary, by ignoring the CLEAR message (there is no compulsion in religion - and your use of the word hukum violates this basic restriction that was explicitly placed on the Prophet himself.). And I have explained above a number of FUNDAMENTAL and CLEAR messages of the Quran that are widely ignored and routinely violated by muslims who are misled by maulvis.


``Just because I admire Maududi for the work he did in explaining Islam in a modern way, does not mean that i FOLLOW him. ``
I am sorry sir, but you define your entire presence on chowk with your name. All men are equal, including maududi. He will pay for his sins just like any man. By trying to gain political power by exploiting religion, he is in my eyes (and I am certain in the eyes of God) the most evil of men.

``But he was right on many topics too - one of them being that Qadiyanis are not muslims.`` This is another example of his mischief making. He can disagree with Qadiyanis (I disagree with them too). However, I follow the Quran when it says that on matters of religion it is for God to judge. Not you or me, and certainly not a power-seeking man like maududi.

This has been a long reply, but I believe that you have tried in a sincere way to discuss our differences, and for that I thank you. Even as I suggest you reflect on some of the things I have written. After that it is your choice.

MaududiLives.

Iqbal said something about them.

Khud badaltey nahee, qur`an ko badal daitey hain.

Quran:Imran 3:85

And whoever seeks a religion other than Islam, it will never be accepted of him, and in the Hereafter he will be one of the losers.

tahmed32 writes ``stop listening to what maududi says islam is, and start reading the Quran and trying to understand it using your OWN head``

and I suppose this is exactly what you have done, that is read Quran using your own head. then why is it that whatever interpretations you have put on this board are so clearly contradictory to the hukms from Quran - such as the one that hindus are ``believers`` according to quran???

I have read Quran (using my own head) and I can unequivocally state that your understanding of quran is OBVIOUSLY incorrect - at least in regards to hindus being ``believers``. do you know that you cannot marry a hindu girl, UNLESS she converts to Islam? Do you know that ``shirk`` is the worst sin? and you seem to think that Hindus are not mushrik? Now, as to whether hindus will go to heaven or not is not for me and u to decide. We know that Allah is merciful and his justice is quite different from the human justice. However to distort the message and meanings of quran is a grave sin. I suggest that you not entirely rely on your head and talk to some learned scholars of islam. Now do not start this mantra that ``quran is easy and we should not rely on anyone but our heads to read it``. true, but didn`t you go to your teachers in school whenever you had doubt about a physics or maths problem? why didn`t you solely rely on your head then?

While Islam CLEARLY states that muslims MUST be tolerant of other religions, but your calling them ``believers`` makes it clear that the head you used while studying Quran needs to be examined. If you can form such an erroneous opinion about the CLEAR hukms from Quran, you should wonder what other not-so-clear areas you might be wrong at.

By the way, before you start making any disparaging remarks about Maududi - let me clarify my nick. Just because I admire Maududi for the work he did in explaining Islam in a modern way, does not mean that i FOLLOW him. I use my head in that regard :) and I believe that he was wrong on many topics - human as he was. But he was right on many topics too - one of them being that Qadiyanis are not muslims.

Tahmed,

You are arguing with a person who is a liar, a hypocrite and without any shame or decency...

Why bother?

tahemd.
I dont remember qouting maududi, and I dont follow maududi either. And I have presented to you nothing but the translatiojn of qura`nic text. And I have asked you to do the same, which you have refused to do, again and again, now now started passing fatwas on what would happen to those who disagree with you. Which sounds pretty much the same like my local imam.

Now why is that so difficult? Is it because you dont have an answer?

instead of trying to come up with clever responses which have nothing to do with what i wrote you would be well advised to listen to the advice i gave you: stop listening to what maududi says islam is, and start reading the Quran and trying to understand it using your OWN head. why is this simple point so difficult for you to comprehend??

Interesting way of discussion tahmed.

First refuse to explain your nonsense, saying ``I have already explained somewhere``. And then resort to name calling and issuing fatwas. Good to notice you belive in Iblees and the life after death.

now tell us your Madrassah where people can get these fatwas from.

Good good.