Quote from: Bender on July 13, 2012, 02:42:07 PM
Salaam,
Thanks for sharing these "contraditions" and "problems" in The Quran.
I am not sure if you can read arabic characters, if you can then please read the verses again. Half of the things you mentioned is simply because of bad translations. Allah uses precise words, while in translations you can have 10 different translations for 1 arabic word or they translate 10 different arabic words in 1 way.
The other half of the problem is that you use hadiths and other sources besides The Quran to understand The Quran. I know you don't do this on purpose as this still effects all of us in some way without noticing it even when we claim that we are Quran alone.
Please try to take a fresh look on it. Just start over again but this time with a clear mind, thus without hadith understandings and other sources.
If you can't read the arabic characters and you are to lazy to to learn the arabic letters then a transliteration is more then enough.
Salaam,
Bender
WHAT?!
When did I ever say I use the sunnah or hadith to understand the Qur'an?! I've always been an outright opponent of hadith literature and the idolatry of the Sunnah. Why else do you think I've been a member of this for years? What an insane and inaccurate assumption about me...
Also quite funny because I was enamored by Sufi literature as a convert and love all of the Sufi concepts of universalism, oneness with God, dhikr, etc.
Next, I don't speak Arabic! You're calling me lazy because I wasn't born in an Arabic speaking country?! What an ignorant insult. You're exercising the same air of Arabic superiority that the Sunnis practice. First off, it makes no sense for me to read a transliteration (which I have) because I don't understand the words. Second, you're telling me that God only wants his revelation for all mankind over all time periods to be understood by 7th century Arabs! Even those who speak Arabic likely don't fully grasp the full meanings of the classical Arabic used in the Qur'an so I guess we should all give up on salvation according to you.
Apparently the Creator of the entire universe for some reason or another, either could not or would not create a book that would translate clearly and concisely no matter which language you speak. Only 17% of the 3 billion Muslims on this planet speak Arabic as a native language.
Also I highly doubt that Arabic speakers all understand EVERY single word of Al-Qur'an in the same exact way even though they all speak the language because when they mentally internalize it likely takes a slightly different meaning to all of them.
You are using the typical Sunni arguments for someone who doesn't understand Al-Qur'an in the same exact way they expect.
1. You don't understand Arabic so you're not qualified to understand, question, or criticize.
2. You don't read it in the proper context.
As for how my contradictions were wrong, maybe there were. I can only read and try to understand and use my human reason. Logically many of the premises of the Abrahamic faiths in general has lost a lot of color and substance to me however. I wish for Islam to be true and I embraced it fully so why would God make me a disbeliever? Do you not acknowledge that it is only through His will that I can believe?
Quote from: IAMOP on July 13, 2012, 03:03:54 PM
A very wise post indeed.
In this thread we see a very marked & common outcome of Sunni-ism's overruling of Sufi-ism. It's amazing how a struggle from back then is still sending shockwaves here and now. What do I mean by that? Had sufism been the dominant sect then most people would have approached God experientally rather than trying to logically piece together things. The problem with the logical approach is that incomplete information but perfect logic leads to grievously harmful conclusions as demonstrated in this thread.
We can never really know enough to say much. Had the OP and others approached their 'islam' from the meditative side they may have perhaps noticed God within themselves. From that side it is much easier to then fill in the logical aspects remaining aware of the incompleteness of one's knowledge and all the while the experiential evidence of God's presence alone is enough to keep doubt from gripping so hard it breaks the rope that God extends to a soul. How strange seeing people deny something that I could not dispute if I tried purely because my experience alone could not lie to me, to go against that would be to deny that which I am and to do that would be like closing my eyes and pretending I had never seen.
Or by analogy, to catch a glimpse of the finished puzzle thusly knowing that the pieces I have will fit, merely a matter of when.
This is pure foolishness. I was more a student of Sufi philosophy than any other school of thought. I've never once been a Sunni and have always outright rejected them.
I "experienced God" many times and on many different levels. So much so that if you would have asked me 2 months ago how real God was not only would I say that God is real, I would say he is in fact more real than me standing before you!
But I have to be reasonable and open in accepting that MAYBE I'm creating the experience of God in my mind and so I decided to take a step back from just my "feelings" and "experience" and be objective, logical, and reasonable in whether or not my beliefs were VALID.
If Islam is not the enemy of logic and reason, and it invites questioning then this type of experiment should not be a problem. But apparently it was a problem for me because I have not recovered from my doubt.
