I've often wondered what you are left with once you take away all the nasty bits. For some reason the Muslims here have only ever given vague platitudes, going little beyond "Muhammed said to be nice to people". For example - if you beat your wife, you are not the nicest person. Or, it is a good thing to free slaves. The difficulty I see with this is that there are so many specific examples of Muhammed going against the vague but good principles, and none of him standing up for them with any sort of consistency. Any noble principle can only be fully understood with examples of people carrying them out, not just when it is convenient to do so, but most importantly when the personal cost of sticking to your principles is high. To me this seems like an insurmountable barrier to a progressive reclamation of Islam.

freediver wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 7:50pm:


There is some truth to this, FD, but I can’t think of one prophet in the Judeo-Christian tradition who was written as perfect.

Just as the Greco Roman gods were far from perfect. More accurately, they were flawed.

Islam is not about Muhammed, it’s about Allah. All those rules about prohibiting Muhammed’s image are to avoid deification - Islam’s charge against Christianity.

Prophets are flawed, as we all are. If they’re not, they should be.

Muhammed is not the only prophet of Allah, but Allah is the only God. God has many prophets - Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, etc, etc, etc. This is the teaching of Islam.

If Muslims don’t understand this, it’s not Allah’s problem. There were prophets before, and there will be prophets again.

Many Muslims do understand this. These,are spiritual issues, not legal or political ones. Simplicity, humility and charity are not just political virtues. These values bring people closer to what lies within them - what some call God.

This is what Islam is. This is what Christianity is. This is what every spiritual tradition ultimately is.

If you don’t understand it, submit your intellect to a new way of seeing. Many spend lifetimes doing this, and some are Muslims.

There are many books, but Allah is only found in silence - this is the teaching of Islam.

All else is just a giggle.

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Oh. Silly me. Silly Muslims.

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I think it leaves out the eastern religions.

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I don't think Islam teaches that either.

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Except that Islam is also a legal and political tradition. When Muhammed consulted Allah and withdrew his ban on wife beating, it was not a statement of spirituality. It was a statement of law, direct from Allah.

freediver wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 9:36pm:


Islam teaches all those things I’ve mentioned. Read Persian poetry, hear Sufi singing, see the carvings, architecture and ceramics of the Moors.

The law from Allah, as in the Bible, comes from.disciplined self study and patience. These laws are only revealled through wisdom.

Islam is much less legalistic than other traditions, including Hinduism and Medieval Catholicism. Islam, like every other religious tradition we know, has changed from time to time and place to place.

You see? Always, absolutely, never ever. Times, people - and prophets - change. Islamic cosmology speaks of an ever-increasing complexity in the universe. Of course laws change.

According to Islam, only Allah doesn’t change.

Soren wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 9:35pm:


You don’t look for anything spiritual. What do you expect?

Mormor’s panties hanging on the line?

The aim of all that praying and submitting is spiritual awakening.

As a Freudian, of course, you won’t understand this. Where there was id, there shall Mormor’s skidmarks be.

Karnal wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 9:54pm:



Funny. Who was speaking out of Hinduism or Medieval Christianity on any of these threads?

Islam is infinitely more legalistic than modern Christianity of secularism or humanism. It is even more legalistic than orthodox Judaism not to mention reformed Judaism. It is beaten only by ultra-orthodox Judaism.

Sufis are persecuted and killed in most Muslim countries, Mother Pakistan once again at the forefront. Spiritual Islam, innit.


PB, you are talking pap (when you are not talking gibberish, that is).

Soren wrote on Apr 2^nd, 2014 at 10:13pm:


Plop.

Sufis have, in times past, been in the ascendant. Fundamentalist Islam is no better than fundamentalist Christianity or ultra-Orthodox Judaism.

I wouldn’t stick my neck out for Inquisitors, Zealots or the Taliban.

This doesn’t make one quarter of the world’s population intrinsically better than another quarter. Islam is about submission to the same God as the rest of humanity - not the deification of a prophet.

There is no way you can pretend anything otherwise. I have met a few fundamentalist Muslims, and even they stipulated the above. There is no God but God - that’s the faith.

Do with this what you will.