Muslims, how do you read these verses?

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

peace been upon you

Ok, reading these verses without any background about Islam gives an impression that Islam is based on fighting! which is totally false. 😮
I hope this is not all what you read about Islam, and as a Muslim I'll try to explain to you as much as I could. 🙂

First of all, I would ask you from where you got these verses translation because not all translations are accurate. Moreover, some words in Arabic cannot be translated accurately as they don't have thesaurus in English.

Second, a Koran reader who wants to understand cannot look at part of the verse, or the verse itself. Verses are related to each other. Therefore to understand them, we must look at them as a unit. You have mentioned here part of verses or a verse that is related to previous ones.

Now allow me to take them one by one. 🙂

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

Do not take the Jews and Christians for friends"
(Surah 5:51)

I found here another translation of the whole verse :
[51] O ye who believe! take not the Jews and the Christians for your friends and protectors; they are but friends and protectors to each other. And he amongst you that turns to them (for friendship) is of them. Verily Allah guideth not a people unjust.

I'm not a good translator, but I know that translating 'friends' is not accurate! Maybe they couldn't find a closer translation to this, but I'll try to explain it.

In Arabic the word in the verse is (awleya) plural, and (walii) is the singular of (awleya).
Now 'friend' in Arabic is 'sadeeq ' not 'walii'. Walii is something general than friend. It means that you become closeto aperson as that you are his subordinate so you agree and obey for anything he says.
Hope this is clear so I can say that the meaning here is like the following :
Don't take Jews and Christians as your subordinates.
That is because in this situation, you may be taken away from your religion, and you will be like them.

(for sure, this is not a good situation for a Muslim to be taken away from his religion and that's why the verse warns from it)

On the other hand, it is not true that Islam forbids to take Jews and Christians as friends. (I mean here the ordinary meaning of friends :))
Many Muslims all around the world have Jews & Christians friends and they live with them naturally.However, there is a small point here; because they are not Muslims, we hate (or dislike) the religion that they believe in and wish they can see the correctness of Islam and the falseness of their religions.
To illustrate this , I can say for a non-Muslim: I don't hate you , but I hate the religion that you believe in.

Because I don't if you have a background about Islam or not, I would like to add this:

Islam believes in Moses and Jesus as prophets of God. Therefore, we believe in Judaism and Christianity as religion stated by God. But the point here is that we believe also that Judaism and Christianity has been changed by people.
Original Judaism and Christianity as revealed from God did not contradict with Islam main concept which is "There is no God but God". But because the recent Judaism and Christianity does not support this belief, we cannot refer to them as true religion as Islam.

I hope my explanation is good and understandable. I'm waiting for you reply so I can go to the verses you mentioned

Regards,

* edited for some grammar mistakes, sorry

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

Dear Tulip and Mcnabbmcnow,

Thank you both, this made for some very interesting reading. Suppose it proves a point about how things can get taken totally out of context because:
1. Selective sections only are shown
2. A lot goes lost in translation

May love light your path,
Jo

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

Tulip,

Hi and thanks for your deeper explanation of that verse. Very helpful.

You ask where Mc got his version from. Well, with deference and respect to him as that's his choice, he's posting variously on this broader forum, taking statements or information from one or more Christian fundamentalist websites which are specifically set up with the purpose of 'disproving' other creeds, religions, esoteric interpretations, or even other types of Christianity other than the fundamentalist. So I've no doubt the verses are pasted from such a site - they avowedly are set up to 'disprove' a whole list of beliefs and Islam is amongst that list. [&:]

;)It's really no new phenomenon to me as I've been dealing with this mindset since well before the net became popular and the same attempt to "disprove everything but OUR belief-system" was promulgated in many Christian books sold through protestant bookstores. This regretable tendency, which allows (in the books, sites, and organisations) for no dialogue dates back to at least the early 1970s, is very hardline, and mainly USA-based. In the 1970s it was quite a problem personally as I used to give public lectures such people viewed as 'New Age' - they would have several people planted at the back to heckle and try to disrupt the evenings!

Venetian

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

Jobelle
I'm pleased to hear this from you ^^.
Not only because of these reasons, I believe that Islam has been misunderstood world-widely because many people who are against Islam try their best to create bad view about it.
Thanks

Venetian
Thanks &..... yeah, I understand howmany people want to disprove Islam in different methods .
In fact, disproving other beliefs is common. But the different is in 'broadcasting' (if I could say) the bad impression or LIES about other religions or beliefs.
Same here in Islam, if someone asked me : why you don't become a Christian ? or what is the different between Islam & Christianity? I must mention some evidences or reasons why I am Muslim or why I'm not Christian which leads me to disprove it in some way or another. Believing in something,leads todisprove the others.
Furthermore, we may come to a point where we ask ourselves: what to believe in? or where is the truth? Here a person should look and search by himself to see things as they are , and then when everything is clear he can take the decision.

Regards 🙂

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

ORIGINAL: tulip

yeah, I understand howmany people want to disprove Islam in different methods .
In fact, disproving other beliefs is common. But the different is in 'broadcasting' (if I could say) the bad impression

Yes, well I must admit, not being a Muslim and not having the insights such as your post gave, looking at the list of quotes I did feel, "Whew! Really? What to think of this?!"

Fundamentalism, in any religion, may be the problem. It doesn't really allow for honest dialogue and so sets people against each other. Not wanting to go too far off-topic, but it's easy to see (given the present neoCon advisors in the White House) some major global conflicts as Christian fundamentalism vs. Muslim fundamentalism. Get rid of that "f"-word, and there'd be peace.

Venetian

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

I think I found where Mc is coming from, so to speak, and posted about it under Christianity at:

[link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/tm.asp?m=288736&mpage=1&key=&#289190 ]http://www.healthypages.net/forum/tm.asp?m=288736&mpage=1&key=&#289190[/link]

V

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

ORIGINAL: venetian

ORIGINAL: tulip

yeah, I understand howmany people want to disprove Islam in different methods .
In fact, disproving other beliefs is common. But the different is in 'broadcasting' (if I could say) the bad impression

Yes, well I must admit, not being a Muslim and not having the insights such as your post gave, looking at the list of quotes I did feel, "Whew! Really? What to think of this?!"

Fundamentalism, in any religion, may be the problem. It doesn't really allow for honest dialogue and so sets people against each other. Not wanting to go too far off-topic, but it's easy to see (given the present neoCon advisors in the White House) some major global conflicts as Christian fundamentalism vs. Muslim fundamentalism. Get rid of that "f"-word, and there'd be peace.

Venetian

Venetian,

One things I've noticed in your posts is that you seem a little obsessedwith my reasons for being on this site and my intentions for being here. You seem to be concerned with websites I reference, as that might cause me to try to convert someone. I guess what I don't understand is, why would this been seen as such a threat? If you truly feel confident in what you believe, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc...why should you feel threatened? Shouldn't you be able to defend your faith?

As to the orginal poster, thanks for the response. To an extent, I think you did explain the one verse...I don't know about the others yet. I look at these verses on many websites and cringe, but that's why I wanted someone of the Muslim faith to help explain them to me.

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

ORIGINAL: venetian

ORIGINAL: tulip

yeah, I understand howmany people want to disprove Islam in different methods .
In fact, disproving other beliefs is common. But the different is in 'broadcasting' (if I could say) the bad impression

Yes, well I must admit, not being a Muslim and not having the insights such as your post gave, looking at the list of quotes I did feel, "Whew! Really? What to think of this?!"

Fundamentalism, in any religion, may be the problem. It doesn't really allow for honest dialogue and so sets people against each other. Not wanting to go too far off-topic, but it's easy to see (given the present neoCon advisors in the White House) some major global conflicts as Christian fundamentalism vs. Muslim fundamentalism. Get rid of that "f"-word, and there'd be peace.

Venetian

This is kind of offensive, to compare Christian fundamentalists to Muslim ones, at least today. I don't know any Christian fundamentalists who strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves and othersup, because it will lead them to heaven to be with tons of virgins. Or that fly planes into buildings. Now, before anyone jumps on me, I acknowledge that most Muslim people are good, peace-loving people. I would be happy to be friends with them. However, today, the fundamentalist Islamic movement overseashas gotten out of control in many countries, where people will kill others for their religion. Moderate Muslims are phased out. And I have a big problem with this. Except an isolated case here or there of someone claiming to be a Christian who really probably is not, I don't know of Christians who will die just to kill other people.

If fundamentalistsare the problem, Venetian, how do you explain Hitler, Stalin, and the wicked Chinese governments? They killed more people than any religion, and their teachings were based in evolutionary theories, not religion. Hitler said that "Christianity and Secular Naziism cannot co-exist." Many think Christians were next on his hit list.

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

Venetian,

One things I've noticed in your posts is that you seem a little obsessedwith my reasons for being on this site and my intentions for being here. You seem to be concerned with websites I reference, as that might cause me to try to convert someone. I guess what I don't understand is, why would this been seen as such a threat? If you truly feel confident in what you believe, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc...why should you feel threatened? Shouldn't you be able to defend your faith?

Hi Mc (sorry not to have mastered the full psuedonym sans copy/paste),

I apologise if I misjudged you. Believe me, given the site you've chosen to quote from, it was easy to take it you were coming directly from that perspective, which is an aggressive one. Sorry again if you just happened to find it at random? No, not 'obsessed' - certainly not with you - but these people such as behind the site you link to on the Christianity thread addressing Judy just need IMO an 'exposure' as to motive if they were to post here or get involved in any dialogue. The word I'd use for them, having often met that ilk personally, is 'aggressive' and indeed - obsessed.

I would say most of us are 'confident' in what we believe - the kind of people you find on HP - and don't need to 'defend' those beliefs; however that confidence should IMO never be so closed-minded as to not be open-minded to fresh insight and to some changes of mind.

P.S. Oh, I see the second post has the same quote and again addresses myself. I can't really go into that Mc, since HP doesn't want politics on the forum (see the rules). Maybe I can just slip in that from the early 1990s there's been an agenda, a conscious one, by Christian fundamentalists in the USA to use the White House as a base from which to invade the M. East - way before 9/11. They were going into Iraq anyway before 9/11 occurred. But with respect to HP I'm not going more into that with evidence, debate, etc., as I can't. But the loss of civilianlife from just initialUS bombing was great. There are two fundamentalist mind-sets clashing here, with the ordinary people in the middle,be them Western, atheist, Christian or Muslim not wanting anything but peace. Conflict in this instance is coming from a politico-religious background.

To illustrate what I mean by a clash of mindsets, you find it offensive to compare to Western ways the fundamentalist, radical (and quite new) practice of 'human bombs'. Because Christians don't do it. But the 'Christian'USA / UK invaded Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11 as is now proven fact. That is equally offensive to many Muslims, who don't have such means of warfare at their disposal. So one's eyes can become blinkered by one's surrounding culture and media, believing that one's own culture is 'right'. I don't personally support either way. And with respect to HP I really can't go into this more! 😉

V

Venetian

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

Dear Tulip,

I was so pleased to read your reply! I e-mailed a Muslim scholar I know when I saw these quotes that Mc posted here, but he did not bother to reply, which I found really sad and a missed opportunity for correction and explanation. I was interested that at least one of those quotes was taken out of context. Groups who try to ridicule or discredit other religions often use that unprincipled manner of distorting what is actually meant.

I had already decided to post what I have below, this morning, before I even realised there were further posts here.

Just to give some balance:

"O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female,and
made you into nations and tribes, that you may know one another, (not that
you may despise one another). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight
of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you".
The Qur'an. Surah (Chapter) 49, v13

Not one of you truly believes until you
wish for others what you wish for yourself.
The Prophet Muhammad, 13th of the 40 Hadiths of Nawawi

I know that there are several references to the "people of the book" (the book being the Bible) where the Prophet Muhammed urges his followers to show repect and hospitality.

The name Islam means peace. It is tragic when people read their sacred texts in an unquestioning, literal, maerialistic way and twist them to jusify heinous crimes, just like some people who call themselves Christians feel justified in murderng medical staff who are acting up to their own highest idea of right in helping women who have an unwanted pregnancy to terminate it. (I am not condoning abortion here. I try not to judge, believing that we each have to work out our own salvation and we are only answerable to God.)

Locve and peace,

Judy

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

ORIGINAL: venetian

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

Venetian,

One things I've noticed in your posts is that you seem a little obsessedwith my reasons for being on this site and my intentions for being here. You seem to be concerned with websites I reference, as that might cause me to try to convert someone. I guess what I don't understand is, why would this been seen as such a threat? If you truly feel confident in what you believe, whether Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc...why should you feel threatened? Shouldn't you be able to defend your faith?

Hi Mc (sorry not to have mastered the full psuedonym sans copy/paste),

I apologise if I misjudged you. Believe me, given the site you've chosen to quote from, it was easy to take it you were coming directly from that perspective, which is an aggressive one. Sorry again if you just happened to find it at random? No, not 'obsessed' - certainly not with you - but these people such as behind the site you link to on the Christianity thread addressing Judy just need IMO an 'exposure' as to motive if they were to post here or get involved in any dialogue. The word I'd use for them, having often met that ilk personally, is 'aggressive' and indeed - obsessed.

I would say most of us are 'confident' in what we believe - the kind of people you find on HP - and don't need to 'defend' those beliefs; however that confidence should IMO never be so closed-minded as to not be open-minded to fresh insight and to some changes of mind.

P.S. Oh, I see the second post has the same quote and again addresses myself. I can't really go into that Mc, since HP doesn't want politics on the forum (see the rules). Maybe I can just slip in that from the early 1990s there's been an agenda, a conscious one, by Christian fundamentalists in the USA to use the White House as a base from which to invade the M. East - way before 9/11. They were going into Iraq anyway before 9/11 occurred. But with respect to HP I'm not going more into that with evidence, debate, etc., as I can't. But the loss of civilianlife from just initialUS bombing was great. There are two fundamentalist mind-sets clashing here, with the ordinary people in the middle,be them Western, atheist, Christian or Muslim not wanting anything but peace. Conflict in this instance is coming from a politico-religious background.

To illustrate what I mean by a clash of mindsets, you find it offensive to compare to Western ways the fundamentalist, radical (and quite new) practice of 'human bombs'. Because Christians don't do it. But the 'Christian'USA / UK invaded Iraq which had nothing to do with 9/11 as is now proven fact. That is equally offensive to many Muslims, who don't have such means of warfare at their disposal. So one's eyes can become blinkered by one's surrounding culture and media, believing that one's own culture is 'right'. I don't personally support either way. And with respect to HP I really can't go into this more! 😉

V

Venetian

I understand completely about avoiding politics. You view Bush/Blair and the whole Iraq thing as a "Christian" thing. I don't. I view it as an economic system/freedom thing, democracy in Iraq. I don't see it as an attempt to convert Iraqis to Christianity. Nor do I hear anything about it being for oil like I did before the war. I really don't think Bush/Blair would put lives at stake for no reason. Now, I do agree that the problem was that the US/Britian focused so much on weapons of mass destruction. But to be fair, a lot of other countries came up with this same intelligence against Saddam. Thisturned out to be wrong. And to also be fair, France and Russia were doing a lot of illegal things with the oil for food program, actually helping out Saddam behind theUnited Nations back. The truth is, there were about 9 reasons for attacking Saddam and that was only 1 of them. I've heard h

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

I disagree withyour reasons for the war - it's documented that it was planned from about 1992. But again, the decision of HP is that we really aren't going to go there and discuss it....

RE: Muslims, how do you read these verses?

All Respect & regards to you: [link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/showProfile.asp?memid=15630 ]mcnabbmcnow[/link] , [link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/showProfile.asp?memid=11125 ]venetian[/link] & [link= http://www.healthypages.net/forum/showProfile.asp?memid=72 ]Principled[/link]
Allow me first to go through rest of verses before we discuss other issues. Also, excuse me not to go through them by order [ if you don't mind ]
🙂

ORIGINAL: mcnabbmcnow

"and fight them until there is no more persecution and religion should be only for Allah"
(Surah 8:39)

I will quote the translation I have
[39] And fight them on until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevails justice and faith in Allah altogether and everywhere; but if they cease, verily Allah doth see all that they do
(Important Note: Allah = God. However, they are leaving it as it is pronounced in Arabic, to illustrate that the God meant here is the one and only God, not any god )

I hope explaining this verse will shorten the way in explaining all others.

Islam, the religion revealed by God, is universal. It is not for certain region or certain people only. [This should be obvious because the creator (God) cannot ask certain creatures to follow the religion he stated and leave the others; all creatures must follow the same religion.]

As Islam was revealed to Prophet Muhammad and his partners, they carried the responsibility to convey the message of Islam all over the world. But in what manner or method will they convey it?
It may be known that saying something new, (new religion in this case) is usually defeated by people. This is what happened to Prophet Muhammad and his partners for more than 13 years. They beared many kinds of torment in Mekka, just because they worshipped the God only and left worshipping idols (in other words, they became Muslims) . However, Prophet Muhammad and his partners didn't fight or struggle but they tried to bear and continue conveying the message.

After that, it was the time to spread the religion of God to the whole world. In precise, this was when they could find a place which it could be called an Islamic country, center of Islam, or a place where people can worship the God without any torturing (which was: Madinna) .

Now imagine the big responsibility: Conveying the message of God to the whole world.
First, conveying the message has a main rule (if I could say) which is, to convey the message peacefully. Many verses in Koran states this, for example:

"Call to the way of your Lord with wisdom and good preaching" (Surah 16:125)
" So speak to him, both of you, mildly in order that he may reflect or fear God" ( Surah 20 :44)
(Referring to Prophet Moses and Haaron(his brother) to talk to Pharaoh who was ,at that time, claiming that he was God ! )

"Your responsibility is only to convey [ the message] and the accounting is on Me "(Surah 13:40 )
( Referring to Prophet Muhammad )

and many other verses that shows that delivering Islam must be in mild, kind and peaceful manner as a first step.

Furthermore, this is not an easy thing, putting in mind that defeating the message by certain people (for example: the authority) will conceal it from others.
And here is the challenge: I'm calling/conveying the message but they refuse and stand on my way (and sometimes they start fighting me), where I must do my job. So what to do? They either let me convey the message peacefully; otherwise I need to fight them. Not because killing people is easy to me, but because they are not allowing other people to see the