Tempted to stop calling myself Muslim

[Jafar]

I've come to the same conclusion about local mosques. I may visit a UU church, though.

ALLAH knows best.



~Abdul-Hadi

Good for you, don't worry muslims are everywhere... although they might not label themselves as Muslim, never read the Quran and don't speak Arabic..

Salam / Peace

[nurmuhammed]

what is Muslim??

Salam / Peace

salam,
well ,muslim is servant of God.
so ?

[Jafar]

salam,
well ,muslim is servant of God.
so ?

The same meaning..  in Japanese language..

[Karimah]

This is directed to the orginal poster. I can understand where you are coming from. It is hard to go through this trial. I had studied Islam on and off for ten years and I remember once thinking "Can't I just be a muslim and follow only the quran?" because at the time I thought adherence to hadith was required and I didn't remember the verses saying the quran was complete and all I needed.

Finally I came around and saw the truth. I was excited to join other Muslims in this beautiful religion and then was sorely disappointed at how much reliance on hadith there was and many thought I was crazy for not following it like them. I also felt like when Muslims go out and try to bring others into the fold they hand you the Qur'an and say "this is the way" and then when you decide so they then give you the hadiths and say "oh actually it is this"

Another thought I had recently was that it seems from my perspectives that a lot of Muslims treat Mohammed like the Christians treat Jesus. More than just a man. Now it kind of makes sense to me why in earlier writings Muslims were called Mohammedans because from the outside it almost seems as if that is who they are worshiping instead of the one true God.

These thoughts are just my own and I am not trying to offend anyone...

[Zulf]

In my cynical mood I tend to say that traditional Islam is Christianity The Next Generation... it's basically the same thing... worship of people and physical objects. The human mind seems to have a tendency (though unconsciously) to gravitate away from the unseen and unifying and towards the physically tangible, detailed and separate.

I have also stopped calling myself anything which is a pre-defined label. Unity will never come from labels, no matter how well crafted they are. I'm really sick, tired and fed up of peoples arrogance towards those who do not belong to their group. I keep hearing such moronically stupid and blazingly dumb things from people who generally are very nice people... and mostly they just mean well. And this is particularly the case with religious people talking about religion. But I try to keep it cool as I know that my knowledge is limited and only our creator knows the ultimate truth about things. We are all here on individual journeys. We all grow (or at least have to opportunity to) and we just have to do the best we can as per our current understanding and ask our creator for better understanding.

Peace and love to all

[Bigmo]

This is directed to the orginal poster. I can understand where you are coming from. It is hard to go through this trial. I had studied Islam on and off for ten years and I remember once thinking "Can't I just be a muslim and follow only the quran?" because at the time I thought adherence to hadith was required and I didn't remember the verses saying the quran was complete and all I needed.

Finally I came around and saw the truth. I was excited to join other Muslims in this beautiful religion and then was sorely disappointed at how much reliance on hadith there was and many thought I was crazy for not following it like them. I also felt like when Muslims go out and try to bring others into the fold they hand you the Qur'an and say "this is the way" and then when you decide so they then give you the hadiths and say "oh actually it is this"

Another thought I had recently was that it seems from my perspectives that a lot of Muslims treat Mohammed like the Christians treat Jesus. More than just a man. Now it kind of makes sense to me why in earlier writings Muslims were called Mohammedans because from the outside it almost seems as if that is who they are worshiping instead of the one true God.

These thoughts are just my own and I am not trying to offend anyone...

Excellent observation. Couldn't agree with you more. Like u said, converts get attracted by the Koran and then scared away by the Sunnah.

[Zulf]

Excellent observation. Couldn't agree with you more. Like u said, converts get attracted by the Koran and then scared away by the Sunnah.

Yes, converts get attracted by the spirit of the system... all the good parts...  and that's of course before they know all the "fine print".
But funnily you see many converts being better sunnis than sunnis themselves.... keeping beards, changing names, changing clothes, adding foreign vocabulary etc etc. Maybe they enjoy it. I'm sure some just move from one dogma system to another... like priests and reverends becoming staunch traditionalist sunnis. Same game, different label. Others may not enjoy all the extra add-ons, but are too afraid to use their common sense and critical and free thinking, and doesn't dare to question their newly adopted system. They are afterall newcomers who"may not know or understand fully" so they "better keep quiet" and listen to "those who know better than them"... and so people get stuck in traditionalism. They end up desperately defending a flawed system... a system which could be harmless if certain chunks were taken out... but it's not easy to defend what people call Islam, coz there is simply no uniform definition. There are too many interpretations... and in practice just as many as there are followers.

peace!

[captainneckbeard]

Seems like reform Jewish temples might be ok to find other monotheist friends too, other than a uu church which I'm wary of for some reason.