Say hypothetically there is an actual god who created this universe, now If someone becomes convinced and decides to devote themselves to a particular faith, where do you think that conviction should stem from and why? Should the acceptance come from a place of spirituality or should it have any emperical grounds or does it need to be a mix of both knowledge and connection? and to what extent? What would be the correct approach to go on about this in your opinion?

The ayah:

أَيَّامًا مَّعْدُودَٰتٍ فَمَن كَانَ مِنكُم مَّرِيضًا أَوْ عَلَىٰ سَفَرٍ فَعِدَّةٌ مِّنْ أَيَّامٍ أُخَرَ وَعَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يُطِيقُونَهُۥ فِدْيَةٌ طَعَامُ مِسْكِينٍ فَمَن تَطَوَّعَ خَيْرًا فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّهُۥ وَأَن تَصُومُوا۟ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ

(2:184)

The part:

‎وَعَلَى ٱلَّذِينَ يُطِيقُونَهُۥ فِدْيَةٌ طَعَامُ مِسْكِينٍ فَمَن تَطَوَّعَ خَيْرًا فَهُوَ خَيْرٌ لَّهُۥ وَأَن تَصُومُوا۟ خَيْرٌ لَّكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ تَعْلَمُونَ

and understand as such:

“And upon those who are inconvenienced, a ransom of feeding one poor—so whoso volunteers oneself good, then it is good for him; and that ye fast is good for ye, if ye were knowing!”

Am I missing something?

Materialism leads to Arrogance

Materialism, arrogance, and wealth-worship were primary reasons that the people of Nuh AS rejected his message and refused to follow him.

The wealthy leaders and elites rejected Nuh AS, considering themselves superior and refusing to accept that a "man like themselves" was a messenger from Allah. (11:27)

The rich and affluent people refused to follow Nuh AS because his followers were mostly poor, docile and of low social status. (26:111)

The people were so consumed by their material well-being, wealth, and children that they grew arrogant and rejected the afterlife, focusing only on worldly pleasures. (71:21)

They clinged to their ancestral idols (Wadd, Suwa, Yaghuth, Ya'uq, and Nasr) as part of a culture that prioritized material pursuits over spiritual devotion. (71:23-24)

Despite Nuh AS calling them for 950 years, their obsession with worldly status and refusal to accept equality with the poor lead to their demise. (29:14)

The message of the Qur'an is universal, i have no doubt in that.
Time and time again, various prophets from different eras were named as "muslims" in the Qur'an.

To be a muslim is to submit to god and everyone who believes in Allah and the hereafter is our brother in religion.

Yet, when it comes to the law the "mu'minun" were supposed to uphold, am I the addressee ?

It may appear as a strange question but from what read, the Qur'an is highly interactive with it's orignal audience. It talks about their struggles and guides them while narrating the stories of the old to extract unchanging moral truths.

When addressing the jews and Christians, the Qur'an isn't really keen on them observing the islamic rituals, rather it tries to purify their ideology from association and deviance.

This leaves me with a question, am i supposed to read the Qur'an as an observer who extracts moral lessons from the long gone 6th century arabs or am i addressed in the pages of the book ?

While I'm very pleased by following Allah's command, (and I'm an arab), it's obvious that a lot of the islamic rituals are very arab-centric.
You pray in Arabic, you perform pilgrimage in mecca, you observe the arabic lunar months, you even do animal sacrifices annually which somewhat imply that you're from a pastoralist background.

Hypothetical question to see how you would react. Don't click if you are sensitive.

Quranists are quick to dismiss the hadiths, but what if the Quran was also proven to be corrupted by the same people you accuse of inventing hadiths?

Hadithists are quick to attack the Quranists and call them deviant, but see no problem with treating the Quran as an incomplete Book that needs hadiths to explain what it means.

View Poll

​

Allah SWT in the Quran (57:27) has explicitly told us, that Monasticism is not possible. Monasticism is a rebellion against basic biological and social priorities, especially personal relationships.

4 stories of Monasticism, which tells us it's not at all sustainable especially without divine intervention:

1)Story of Barsisa. He died a disbeliever.

2. Story of Juraij. Divine intervention saved him or he might have been beaten to death by his own people.

This story confirms that the pleasure of Allah is in the pleasure of the parents. The anger of Allah is in the anger of the parents.

3. The Sleepers (Ashab al-Kahf). This was only possible by divine intervention.

4. Story of an unnamed monk who worshipped Allah for 60 years, committed adultery with a woman. Unlike Barsisa he didn't go down the path of murder and disbelief. He repented.

Monasticism is a non-achievement. That's why Monasticism was never practiced by Prophet Muhammad pbuh or prescribed by him pbuh, thus it is a bid'ah (innovation). Prophet Muhammad pbuh is the ultimate example of Asceticism.

Difference between Asceticism and Monasticism:

Asceticism is self-discipline and renunciation of worldly pleasures for spiritual growth. In Asceticism there is no withdrawal from the world.

Monasticism is a way of life that adopts ascetic practices while living separated from society (withdrawal from the world).

Salaam.

Many Quran-alone followers say that Wudhu' is required for each prayer, based on the command found in the sixth verse in Al-Maa'idah:

>O you who have believed, when you rise to [perform] prayer, wash your faces and your forearms to the elbows and wipe over your heads and wash your feet to the ankles. And if you are in a state of janabah, then purify yourselves. But if you are ill or on a journey or one of you comes from the place of relieving himself or you have contacted women and do not find water, then seek clean earth and wipe over your faces and hands with it. Allah does not intend to make difficulty for you, but He intends to purify you and complete His favor upon you that you may be grateful. - 5:6

It's implied that for each prayer, you need to restart Wudhu', and it's not valid to do multiple prayers with just one Wudhu' as long as you don't break it, which is what is mentioned in Sunni jurisprudence.

When I looked, however, to the Sunni justification of one Wudhu' being able to suffice for all prayers [as long as it isn't broken], it is mentioned that the rising part mentioned in 5:6 doesn't mean initiating the prayer, it means if you're rising from your beds/places of rest, i.e. from sleep, then you need to make Wudhu' for prayer.

This seemingly literal interpretation was brought by Zayd ibn Aslam, son of Aslam, freed slave of Umar ibn Al-Khattab. It is an interesting opinion, as it justifies the other traditional claim that sleep also breaks Wudhu'. It is also mentioned that this was the Ijmaa' [i.e. the consensus] amongst the early generations of Muslims that you can do any prayer with just one intact Wudhu'.

I see problem with this. Does this imply that Allah isn't detailing in his book how to do Wudhu' for Salat in general, just for when you wake up for sleep? Then again, I guess this can be answered with the later part of the verse, where Allah states:

>...Allah does not intend to make difficulty for you, but He intends to purify you...

Maybe it can be implied that the intention of purification mentioned above indicates Wudhu' being necessary for prayer in general.

I would like to know what you all think. Is it more right to do multiple prayers with one Wudhu', or do you need to do Wudhu' for each prayer?

Asselamu aleikum everyone!

I am from Germany myself and I grew up here. As a minority in this country my experience is quite the thing.

How do you guys also living in Germany or another country be it European or any other place where Muslims are a minority experience your faith?

For me it was always often challenging, people of course don’t understand what a Muslim really is or have prejudice. I don’t blame them. They don’t know better and many are a bit clumsy with their knowledge an there is no bad intention.

I often then experienced hostility and people making a lot of jokes about halal and haram food for some reason or asking provocative and dishonest questions.

But often people don’t care a lot and let you by yourself.

Also greeting to my fellow German Muslims!

Hey guys although I am a practicing muslim I lean towards perennialist quran based thinking like in the article about the quran's universality by Farhad Shafti. I agree with many of his points however he seems to believe that the bani israel were the chosen people of Allah. Were they the chosen people or could they have been just a strong example of one of potentially multiple such communities entrusted with divine guidance from among their nations?

In the Name of God, the Most Gracious, The Most Merciful

Salamu 'Alaykum (Peace be upon you)!

All praise be to the Lord Most High, who sent us miraculous signs during 2024 - the year of the signs - and who blessed us greatly with evidence affirming the preservation and truthfulness of the Quran in its declaration of being from God.

I want to briefly share some thoughts about signs, what defines a sign, and how we determine whether something is a sign from God, a miracle. Then we will move on to discuss the so-called “19 miracle code” and why it is anything but a miracle or a sign.

• A sign or miracle (i.e., ayah) can be defined as follows: Something that deviates from natural or scientific laws, nor can it be achieved or produced by humans or jinn, and is therefore attributed to a divine agency, namely God.

For something to qualify as a sign, it must be impossible for humans or jinn to replicate. Otherwise, how could it be considered a sign if, tomorrow, some random Joe Schmoe produces an equally impressive, albeit fake, Quran? Or if everyone could somehow with time and effort develop the ability to cure blindness, and so on? Signs are sent by God to prove to them that it indeed is God who is behind a caller or a message, and to effectively do so, this sign must be impossible to produce by anyone else.

Now, regarding this so-called “19 code”:

Even if this code were present in the Quran, it would still not be considered a sign or a miracle, because humans can also write books full of codes, puzzles, wordplay, and numerical phenomena. All one has to do is keep a separate record of the specific counts of the words or letters included in the “code,” work within the limitations one has set, or simply add another 19 words or letters of a given count, and it will once again be divisible by 19 and thus a “sign” (sarcasm).

And if a count fails when analyzing the Quran, one can simply introduce Gematria (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with Islam) as Rashad Khalifa often did, and voilà, the total once again becomes divisible by 19. Do you understand what I am trying to convey here, and how this supposed “code” cannot be considered a sign or a miracle? If certain words yield totals divisible by 19, but other similar words or names of God do not, then that represents a discrepancy in the alleged system. Why would the phrase “Allah” conform to this pattern while “ar-Rahman” does not? This is precisely where words have been selectively chosen without a consistent basis and then presented as evidence of a “code.”

Another point to note is that for something to be considered a sign, it cannot be altered in any way. Otherwise, one could remove half of the Quran and claim it was fabricated, while asserting that the remaining half satisfies the conditions of some arbitrary code. Rashad Khalifa and the Submitters are known for such distortions. They've not only removed verses, but also added letters because one of the disjointed letters did not conform to some baseless count they imagined. One cannot have it both ways - the patterns must either be inherently present or not at all; otherwise, the entire theory collapses. You created your own "miracle pattern" and claim it to be a sign from God.

If a “code” requires removing verses to work, then the code is being used to override the text, not confirm it, and the very text has to alter itself to appear consistent and agree with a baseless claim. This is not how signs work.

The same can be done with any other book that contains verses. One could even apply this to different numbers and construct elaborate patterns - people have identified patterns based on the number seven as well; are they now also messengers of God? If ordinary individuals can replicate a supposed sign, it ceases to be a sign or a miracle. This principle is quite simple to grasp, and once one takes the time to internalize it, one may come to the conclusion that Rashad Khalifa was merely a fabricator and a liar. Had he been truthful and a genuine messenger of God, he would have been given something that others cannot emulate, such as a fulfilled prophecy within a code or pattern that clearly demonstrates deliberate divine design. Rashad did not present a sign; rather, he offered his own unsupported predictions of a Doomsday year, which he derived from arbitrary counts within the Quran.

With this, I end this post.

/ By Exion

This has been bugging me for a long time, but why should we specifically try to practice and spread the Islam inside the Quran? When even people in this sub can't seem to agree on various topics, and a lot of questions end up with the answer - do/interpret it as you will. Most agree people who don't believe/practice won't go to hell as long as they do good deeds, so why should we engage in Salah, Saom, when we can just be decent human beings via the moral code we were born with.

Apart from tradition/ a sense of attachment why do you still follow Islam? From a logical standpoint? Feeling super depressed and lost regarding this dilemma and I feel like I'm losing my will to keep my faith.

"[POST 955]

.

Dear All,

As-salamu alaykum

Please kindly see below a short essay shared with me by brother Farhan Muzaffar derived from my humble perspectives/works. A good summation of my perspectives in a short essay form and worth a read.

The Quran-Centric Paradigm: A Hermeneutical and Philosophical Framework A Systematic Exposition Compiled and structured by Farhan Muzaffar

https://quransmessage.com/files/The%20Quran-Centric%20Paradigm%20-%20Farhan%20Muzaffar.pdf

Regards,

Joseph"

Like does the original arabic actually say what the translation says?