Muslims fasting of Ramadan 1435 H

[iih]

congratulations to all Muslims fasting of Ramadan 1435 H
starting at June 28 2014 ends with idul fitri 1435 H at July 28 2014

Welcome Ramadan

Regards
Ismet iih

[scarface]

In fact, the ramadan will begin on sunday and not saturday. At least that the decision which has been taken by the French Muslim Cult. Those who are in favour of the astronomical calculations can begin to fast today, indeed.
(I guess it's going to be hard for iih if he's the guy in the avatar, he won't smoke as many joints).
What's important is to have a good meal after the sunset. It can be a feast with your family.
Personally I will try do to it one day next week and if I'm resistant enough, perhaps longer.

[scarface]

What I think about iih? well, only good things. He seems concerned about malware, and I'm wondering what kind of sites he's browsing (I wasn't really looking for information about him in fact). As for his avatar, I'm sure it's not him, the guy seems to be too old and it seems he's using different avatars.
You know, It's a shame that I don't have time to travel, because I wouldn't only go to Cairo but probably to the overpopulated island of Java. I don't think Jakarta is really a cultural town, but it is said to be a good place to live. It's teeming with people everywhere, and they are happy. I guess iih is like that, insouciant and absent-minded, the kind of guy who doesn't care about what tomorrow will be made.

[humbert]

may ALLAH bless all Muslims.

What about the rest of us? Don't we get blessed too?

[scarface]

What's your religion humbert? probably Catholic like me I guess. Gujjar thinks there is only one god, Allah, and if you're not Muslim, you will hardly blessed by the god of the Muslims. But as I said in one old post, the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions have the same origin: Abraham. And these 3 religions are monotheistic. What's more, for these religions, God is unique.
If we agree on these postulates, then we have a unique and common God. But unlike Muslims, for the Christians, God has no name, let's call him God, or "Pater noster", as the Pope would do.
The believers of these 3 religions have not the same customs (Jesus was probably too busy doing miracles to tell his apostles that God had forbidden pork!) Anyway, we have probably the same God.
I'm not sure that everyone here will agree with that, but your silence will be considered as an approval.
Gujjar who seems to be a religious specialist certainly know every name of Allah.
In fact he has 99 names, some of whom are: Ar-Rahman, Al-Malik, Al-Quddus, As-Salam, Al-Mu’min, Al-Mouhaymin, Al-‘Aziz, Al-Jabbar, Al-Mutakabbir...

[iih]

may ALLAH bless all Muslims.

What about the rest of us? Don't we get blessed too?

May GOD bless you All..

[humbert]

An interesting topic indeed.

Scarface -> I was born a Catholic, but I left the religion many years ago. Today I follow no religion, you could say I'm an agnostic. Naturally I have respect for all faiths provided they do not proselityze, i.e., engage in altering laws to suit their beliefs, or worse, attempt to forcibly convert others.

Also, your comment regarding the fact that most Muslims on our forum openly and very often express their religious beliefs prompts another question. Since rarely do we see this in Christians despite the fact that there are more Christians than Muslim, I wonder if Muslim indoctrination is so intense so as to eliminate any possiblity of what happened to me many years ago, i.e., sitting back and questioning my beliefs.

gujjar -> how do you reply to Scarface's questions? It it true that they do not educate you as to what other religions believe in social studies or geography class? I ask because I realize that, as a Muslim, you would probably not be aware of the details regarding Catholicism and other forms of Christianity, but certainly you should have been taught the very basics. I'd also like to hear your comments regarding "indoctrination" as I mentioned above. Finally, be advised my questions are always for my own education, never for proselyzation.

[humbert]

gujjar -> You haven't said anything bad. I was just curious about why it is that most Muslims I know express their beliefs all the time, and yet almost none of the Christians or other religions don't do that. To say it another way, Aamost all non-Muslims on this forum just come to talk about the different topics we discuss here. The only way you know their religion is by asking them, otherwise they don't discuss it. By comparison, most Muslims here almost all sigs saying "Allah akbar" (or similar). Can you or any other Muslim on here explain to me why this is?

As for your education, were you ever taught in school the basics about other religions, such as what they believe and what parts of the globe they occupy?

Note: all these are simply questions to satisfy my curiosity, at no time do I accuse anyone of proselization or disrespect for others' beliefs.

[Ahmad]

Hello everyone

Sorry for being late ..
This is my opinion replying to your posts..

I was just curious about why it is that most Muslims I know express their beliefs all the time

For me, I do that as a way to tell others (who don't know) that there is a religion called Islam and there is a prophet called Muhammad (Peace be upon him and all the prophets)..
After that he can search about that and he can choose freely to believe what he wants.

Why I do that?  because Allah told us to tell others to try to know well about him before it's too late.
It's not acceptable for me in Islam to hide useful knowledge from the others.. as they may listen, do, and even be better than me.

Ive noticed that the persons who are talking very often about religion, or those who are inflexible, are usually the ones who have poor knowledge about it. They know the name of God, perhaps the name of a prophet, that's all. They don't know the precepts nor the origin of their religion.

I agree that there are many people have poor knowledge about religion and like to talk about it.. In fact, for some, this may be their only relationship to religion.. TALKING!!
But not all of them.
As there are some people like to know the origin of everything and go deeper and deeper in their religion and apply it to the reality and reach one of 2 ways :
Increase in belief and move from uncertainty to certainty or lose faith completely.

For me, actually I know well about all the mentioned prophets and their stories and this is also from the holy Qur'an and from our prophet .. and that is a reason you'll see many Muslims mention Allah and his prophet in a lot of their talking because they are a huge source of information for us about many aspects of life (not religion only).

the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions have the same origin: Abraham. And these 3 religions are monotheistic. What's more, for these religions, God is unique.
If we agree on these postulates, then we have a unique and common God.
***
The believers of these 3 religions have not the same customs

I agree that there is only one God who sent all the prophets, and he sent every prophet to his people with a specific mission. All the missions have the same principles that God is one and only, and he sends all the prophets ..etc. But these missions differ in some orders and prohibitions according to the circumstances then.

That was my opinion according to my beliefs which are not yours but this doesn't mind that I'm happy to have all of you as friends.

[Ahmad]

Another important thing to clarify.. "Questioning my beliefs"
We are told to think deeply and learn about everything we can so as to differentiate the right from the wrong and use our mind to judge things.

We are also told to search about the origin of creation..
If you watch documentaries about space and universe, you will hear them saying that the whole universe started with a single point (singularity) of high energy, and with size zero i.e. came from nothing and this point exploded to form the universe (according to the big bang theory).
According to people who deny God existence, they say that all the rearrangement of the universe galaxies after explosion came by coincidence..

OK, if this was true, then from where did this first point come ?!!
And how did a mass or energy come from nothing ?!

And saying that this amazing rearrangement in the universe after an explosion came by coincidence, is (for me) like saying that some pieces of junk, iron and Aluminum were exposed to a storm and the result was the formation of an airplane Boeing 777  for example !!

There must be a master that first created that point from nothing, and set the rules that will control what results from it, like time and gravity, and made the explosion with very complicated calculations beyond man mind to become the universe we see today.

Another thing about the origin of species ..
According to Darwin, All the creatures came from common ancestor (single cell)..
If this was right, then, from where did the first cell come?
Don't tell me that the cell with its complicated minute structures, membrane with its channels and gates, nucleus with its chromosomes and genes and organelles came by coincidence as a result of some chemical reactions !!
Then why can't we create a similar cell by a chemical reaction between organic substances ?!

Another thing about baby creation during pregnancy ..
Watch documentaries about that too, and see how a single cell divides many times to become a piece of meat and after that a group of cells differentiate to create a specific organ and another group differentiate to create another different organ.
How does this happen ?!
and why didn't all the cells do the same behavior ?!
This also has complicated rules and surely these rules and this elegant system did not come by coincidence.
...

All of the above leads me to believe that God exists and he created all of this.
He created me and told me that I won't see him but I'll see his existence clearly in his creation. All I have to do is think, learn about sciences and search about the origin of creation, but not search about the origin of his existence because as long as I reached the fact that there must be a God who created all of this, consequently, I also reached the fact that he created me with a mind that is able to understand only the rules  in this universe NOT the rules beyond it.
...

Regarding Why does God allow bad things to happen to us ?
Bad things happened also to prophets who are the most beloved people to God.
Does this mean that God hated them or was punishing them ?
NO and they knew that.
They knew that God was testing their patience to know who is better than who.. Also some good things come from the happening of those bad things.. Also some bad things happen to us to make us think about a specific matter and conclude something that helps us after that.
You may say that this is some way of education.
================

All of my previous talking was about God existence, but why do I believe that Muhammad (peace be upon him and all the prophets) is a prophet ?
Others say that he wrote the Qur'an and the Qur'an is not from Allah !!

Then why did a man bother himself writing about things that he had no clear knowledge about before ?!
Like the universe and what in the heavens although he had no Hubble telescope or NASA !!,
and what happens under the sea although he didn't dive in it nor even be on its surface by any means !!,
and the details of baby creation in the womb although he had no electronic microscope !!

How on earth did he know about things like that 14 centuries ago with no means of technology at that time, and there is no one mistake in anything he said ?!

With the recent discoveries in space, embryology and other sciences, We discover new things in the Qur'an that we didn't know before and we see that the Qur'an mentioned some of them 14 centuries ago in an easy way for the Arabs to understand then.
So Muhammad (peace be upon him and all the prophets) didn't say the Qur'an from his own mind nor from a previous experience, but he said what Allah told him to say.
================

I'm telling all of that not to say I'm right and others are wrong but to clarify that I'm Muslim not only because I was born Muslim, but also because I searched hard and found evidences that Allah exists and Muhammad is a prophet who didn't tell a lie (peace be upon him and all the prophets).

I'm also telling that to clarify that since this is my case, there must be a lot of Muslims much better than me, think better than me and have better knowledge than me.
The typical Muslim that Islam seeks is not what you see in Media, nor what you see in many Muslims nowadays (unfortunately). So, don't misjudge all the Muslims or Islam.

With all respect,
Ahmad