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The great majority of us are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (may peace be upon him). We are members of the brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in rights, dignity and self-respect. Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake: Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it.
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Muhammad Ali Jinnah
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Teaching:
One hour's teaching is better than a whole night of prayer.
Saying of the Prophet
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Idries Shah (Caravan of Dreams)
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I am the slave of the Master of Prophets
And my fealty to him has no beginning.
I am a slave of his slave, and of his slave’s slave,
And so forth endlessly,
For I do not cease to approach the door
Of his good pleasure among the beginners.
I proclaim among people the teaching of his high attributes,
And sing his praises among the poets.
Perhaps he shall tell me: “You are a noted friend
Of mine, a truly excellent beautifier of my tribute.”
Yes, I would sacrifice my soul for the dust of his sanctuary.
His favor should be that he accept my sacrifice.
He has triumphed who ascribes himself to him!
- Not that he needs such following,
For he is not in need of creation at all,
While they all need him without exception.
He belongs to Allah alone, Whose purified servant he is,
As his attributes and names have made manifest;
And every single favor in creation comes from Allah
To him, and from him to everything else.
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يوسف النبهاني
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- The Azan story -
The five daily ritual prayers were regularly performed in congregation, and when the time for each prayer came the people would assemble at the site where the Mosque was being built. Everyone judged of the time by the position of the sun in the sky, or by the first signs of its light on the eastern horizon or by the dimming of its glow in the west after sunset; but opinions could differ, and the Prophet felt the need for a means of summoning the people to prayer when the right time had come. At first he thought of appointing a man to blow a horn like that of the Jews, but later he decided on a wooden clapper, ndqiis, such as the Oriental Christians used at that time, and two pieces of wood were fashioned together for that purpose. But they were never destined to be used; for one night a man of Khazraj, 'Abd Allah ibn Zayd, who had been at the Second 'Aqabah, had a dream whieh the next day he recounted to the Prophet: "There passed by me a man wearing two green garments and he carried in his hand a ndqiis, so I said unto him: "0 slave of God, wilt thou sell me that naqusi" "What wilt thou do with it?" he said. "We will summon the people to prayer with it," I answered. "Shall I not show thee a better way?" he said. "What way is that?" I asked, and he answered: "That thou shouldst say: God is most Great, Alldhu Akbar." The man in green repeated this magnification four times, then each of the following twice: I testify that there is no god but God; I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God; come unto the prayer; come unto salvation; God is most Great; and then once again there is no god but God.
The Prophet said that this was a true vision, and he told him to go to Bilal, who had an excellent voice, and teach him the words exactly as he had heard them in his sleep. The highest house in the neighbourhood of the Mosque belonged to a woman of the clan of Najjar, and Bilal would come there before every dawn and would sit on the roof waiting for the daybreak. When he saw the first faint light in the east he would stretch out his arms and say in supplication: "0 God I praise Thee, and I ask Thy Help for Quraysh, that they may accept Thy religion." Then he would stand and utter the call to prayer.
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Martin Lings (Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources)
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teach the heart not to give way to proud emotions and arrogant thinking; bring the mind to heart-soothing solutions that make it possible to control oneself gently and wisely.
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)
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Breath control is crucial to most of the contemplative traditions... Qur'anic reciters chant long phrases for meditation. It is natural for the audience to adjust their breathing too and find that this has a calming, therapeutic effect, which enables them to grasp the more elusive teachings of the text.
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Karen Armstrong (Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives))
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The Prophet’s life is an invitation to a spirituality that avoids no question and teaches us—in the course of events, trials, hardships, and our quest—that the true answers to existential questions are more often those given by the heart than by the intelligence. Deeply, simply: he who cannot love cannot understand.
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)
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is foolish to insist, as our leaders habitually do, that the violent acts of radical Islamists can be divorced from the religious ideals that inspire them. Instead we must acknowledge that they are driven by a political ideology, an ideology embedded in Islam itself, in the holy book of the Qur’an as well as the life and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad contained in the hadith. Let me make my point in the simplest possible terms: Islam is not a religion of peace.
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
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That gentleness and kindness were the very essence of his teaching. He kept saying: “God is gentle [rafiq] and he loves gentleness [ar-rifq] in everything.
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)
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In each of the early surahs, God spoke intimately to the individual, often preferring to pose many of his teachings in the form of a question - 'Have you not heard?' 'Do you consider?' 'Have you not seen?'. Each listener was thus invited to interrogate him or herself. Any response to these queries was usually grammatically ambiguous or indefinite, leaving the audience with an image on which to meditate but with no decisive answer. This new religion was not about achieving metaphysical certainty; the Quran wanted people to develop a different kind of awarness.
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Karen Armstrong (Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives))
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In language that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, a young Moroccan named Brother Rachid last year called out President Obama on YouTube for claiming that Islamic State was “not Islamic”: Mr President, I must tell you that you are wrong about ISIL. You said ISIL speaks for no religion. I am a former Muslim. My dad is an imam. I have spent more than 20 years studying Islam. . . . I can tell you with confidence that ISIL speaks for Islam. . . . ISIL’s 10,000 members are all Muslims. . . . They come from different countries and have one common denominator: Islam. They are following Islam’s Prophet Muhammad in every detail. . . . They have called for a caliphate, which is a central doctrine in Sunni Islam. I ask you, Mr. President, to stop being politically correct—to call things by their names. ISIL, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Al-Shabaab in Somalia, the Taliban, and their sister brand names, are all made in Islam. Unless the Muslim world deals with Islam and separates religion from state, we will never end this cycle. . . . If Islam is not the problem, then why is it there are millions of Christians in the Middle East and yet none of them has ever blown up himself to become a martyr, even though they live under the same economic and political circumstances and even worse? . . . Mr. President, if you really want to fight terrorism, then fight it at the roots. How many Saudi sheikhs are preaching hatred? How many Islamic channels are indoctrinating people and teaching them violence from the Quran and the hadith? . . . How many Islamic schools are producing generations of teachers and students who believe in jihad and martyrdom and fighting the infidels?1
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now)
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Part of the task of the Qur’an, in other words, is not to teach humanity anything new but rather to remove the dross on our hearts so that the illuminated jewel that each and every human being contains can shine again.
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Omid Safi (Memories of Muhammad: Why the Prophet Matters)
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I discovered another analogy in the legacy of Prophet Muhammad that immediately clicked with me: that the angels put down their wings in humility for a person who seeks knowledge, and that all living things, even the ants in their anthill and the fish in the sea, pray for a person who teaches people good things.
When I read this, I literally felt the goodness flow out of my heart for all creatures. The beautiful mental image it evoked resonated with my concept of the universe as one unit, and of all living things seeking to live together in peace and harmony, and being grateful when humans tried to fit into the circle of life, instead of working so hard to disrupt its equilibrium
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Sahar El-Nadi (Sandcastles and Snowmen)
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You know what the Quran teaches me? The Quran teaches me that an incredibly wealthy man can be a failure (Pharaoh) and a homeless man can be successful (Prophet Ibrāhīm ). It teaches me that success has nothing to do with wealth and failure has nothing to do with poverty.
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B.B. Abdulla (Timeless Seeds of Advice: The Sayings of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ , Ibn Taymiyyah, Ibn al-Qayyim, Ibn al-Jawzi and Other Prominent Scholars in Bringing Comfort and Hope to the Soul)
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Every year there was an important poetry contest at the fair of ‘Ukaz, just outside Mecca, and the winning poems were embroidered in gold on fine black cloth and hung on the walls of the Kabah. Muhammad’s followers would, therefore, have been able to pick up verbal signals in the text that are lost in translation. They found that themes, words, phrases, and sound patterns recurred again and again—like the variations in a piece of music, which subtly amplify the original melody, and add layer upon layer of complexity. The Qur’an was deliberately repetitive; its ideas, images, and stories were bound together by these internal echoes, which reinforced its central teaching with instructive shifts of emphasis. They linked passages that initially seemed separate, and integrated the different strands of the text, as one verse delicately qualified and supplemented others. The Qur’an was not imparting factual information that could be conveyed instantaneously. Like Muhammad, listeners had to absorb its teachings slowly; their understanding would grow more profound and mature over time, and the rich, allusive language and rhythms of the Qur’an helped them to slow down their mental processes and enter a different mode of consciousness.
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Karen Armstrong (Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time (Eminent Lives))
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In certain ancient civilizations and indigenous cultures there was often a process of initiation that young people would go through before they became adults. In some Native American traditions, for example, the initiate would be put out into the wilderness without any food or any other provisions for survival. He would have to rely on the Universe and his own soul. During the experience, the initiate would fast. He would experience himself confronting the Universe alone. He would be out there for a number of days. This would open up the initiate to a direct experience of something beyond the usual egoic mind and all of its concerns. The initiate would be thrust into an experience that would take him beyond his small, limited self. Such a process existed in our own Tradition going back to the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. What was Muhammad doing in a cave when the first revelations of the Qur‘an began if not going through what Native Americans would call a „Vision Quest“? He received direct revelation and inspiration through this practice. (p. 12)
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Kabir Helminski (In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching)
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but the teaching of the Comforter would be a perfect one, guiding men into all truth, and the Holy Qur’an is the only book which claims to be a perfect law. (2) That the Comforter would not speak of himself, but that which he shall hear he shall speak; the words conveying exactly the same idea as those of Deut. 18:18: “And I will put My words in his mouth”, a qualification which is met with only in the person of the Holy Prophet Muhammad. (3) That he will glorify Jesus, and the Holy Prophet did glorify Jesus by denouncing as utterly false all those calumnies which were heaped upon Jesus and his mother. It is argued, however, that the
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Anonymous (Holy Quran)
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We also believe in the prophethood of Jesus and that the Bible is a divine book, so does that make us Christians? And we believe in the prophets Moses and David too…are we Jews?’ Tehreem queried in a mocking tone. ‘Our faith is Islam and we are the followers of the Holy Prophet, and though we respect other prophets and their teachings, we remain followers of Islam. we are not followers of their faiths. Similarly, you follow your prophet thereby denying the finality of the prophethood of Hazrat Muhammad (pbuh) but yet you insist that your faith is also a sect of Islam. Your prophet and the leaders of your community claim that whoever denies Mirza as a prophet is not a true Muslim—in effect, we’ve all been thrown out of Islam.
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Umera Ahmed (Pir-E-Kamil: The Perfect Mentor)
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Only after making intelligent and thorough use of his human powers had he trusted himself to the divine will, thereby clarifying for us the meaning of at-tawakkul ala Allah (reliance on God, trusting oneself to God): responsibly exercising all the qualities (intellectual, spiritual, psychological, sentimental, etc.) each one of us has been granted and humbly remembering that beyond what is humanly possible, God alone makes things happen. Indeed, this teaching is the exact opposite of the temptation of fatalism: God will act only after humans have, at their own level, sought out and exhausted all the potentialities of action. That is the profound meaning of this Quranic verse: “Verily never will God change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves.”1
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)
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Umar said: “One day when we were sitting with the Messenger of God there came unto us a man whose clothes were of exceeding whiteness and whose hair was of exceeding blackness, nor were there any signs of travel upon him, although none of us knew him. He sat down knee unto knee opposite the Prophet, upon whose thighs he placed the palms of his hands, saying: “O Muhammad, tell me what is the surrender (islam)’. The Messenger of God answered him saying: ‘The surrender is to testify that there is no god but God and that Muhammad is God’s Messenger, to perform the prayer, bestow the alms, fast Ramadan and make, if thou canst, the pilgrimage to the Holy House.’ He said: ‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ and we were amazed that having questioned him he should corroborate him. Then he said: ‘Tell me what is faith (iman).’ He answered: ‘To believe in God and His Angels and His Books and His Messengers and the Last Day, and to believe that no good or evil cometh but by His Providence.’ ‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ he said, and then: ‘Tell me what is excellence (ihsan).’ He answered: ‘To worship God as if thou sawest Him, for if thou seest Him not, yet seeth He thee.’ ‘Thou hast spoken truly,’ he said, and then: ‘Tell me of the Hour.’ He answered: ‘The questioned thereof knoweth no better than the questioner.’ He said: ‘Then tell me of its signs.’ He answered: ‘That the slave-girl shall give birth to her mistress; and that those who were but barefoot naked needy herdsmen shall build buildings ever higher and higher.’ Then the stranger went away, and I stayed a while after he had gone; and the Prophet said to me: ‘O ‘Umar, knowest thou the questioner, who he was?’ I said: ‘God and His Messenger know best.’ He said: ‘It was Gabriel. He came unto you to teach you your religion.
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Martin Lings (Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources)
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to Moses, thou canst not see Me, do not negative the sight of the Divine Being in the life after death. All that they negative is the seeing of the Divine Being with the physical eye. Moses’ request seems to have been based on the elders’ demand spoken of in 2:55. The crumbling of the mountain is the same as the rumbling of the earthquake of 2:55. I venture, however, another explanation. What Moses wanted to see was the great manifestation of Divine glory which was reserved for the Holy Prophet Muhammad. In fact, both Moses and Jesus were not equal to the task which was reserved for the Prophet Muhammad. Jesus said that he could not teach his followers all things, but that when the Comforter made his appearance he would guide them into all truth. That Moses was unequal to the Holy Prophet’s task was clearly demonstrated by his falling down in a swoon when he beheld the Great Manifestation. 144 He said: O Moses, surely I have chosen thee above the
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Anonymous (Holy Quran)
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The Japanese have a saying—hara hachi bu—counseling people to stop eating when they are 80 percent full. The Ayurvedic tradition in India advises eating until you are 75 percent full; the Chinese specify 70 percent, and the prophet Muhammad described a full belly as one that contained ⅓ food and ⅓ liquid—and ⅓ air, i.e., nothing. (Note the relatively narrow range specified in all this advice: somewhere between 67 and 80 percent of capacity. Take your pick.) There’s also a German expression that says: “You need to tie off the sack before it gets completely full.” And how many of us have grandparents who talk of “leaving the table a little bit hungry”? Here again the French may have something to teach us. To say “I’m hungry” in French you say “J’ai faim”—“I have hunger”—and when you are finished, you do not say that you are full, but “Je n’ai plus faim”—“I have no more hunger.” That is a completely different way of thinking about satiety. So: Ask yourself not, Am I full? but, Is my hunger gone? That moment will arrive several bites sooner.
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Michael Pollan (Food Rules: An Eater's Manual)
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Social life was similarly affected by the teachings of the Koran. At a time when in Christian Europe an epidemic was regarded as a scourge of God to which man had but to submit meekly - at that time, and long before it, the Muslims followed the injunction of their Prophet which directed them to combat epidemics by segregating the infected towns and areas. And at a time when even the kings and nobles of Christendom regarding bathing as an almost indecent luxury, even the poorest of Muslim houses had at least one bathroom, while elaborate public baths were common in every Muslim city (in the ninth century, for instance, Córdoba had three hundred of them): and all this in response to the Prophet’s teaching that ‘Cleanliness is part of faith’. A Muslim did not come into conflict with the claims of spiritual life if he took pleasure in the beautiful things of material life, for, according to the Prophet, ‘God loves to see on His servants an evidence of His bounty’.
In short, Islam gave a tremendous incentive to cultural achievements which constitute one of the proudest pages in the history of mankind; and it gave this incentive by saying Yes to the intellect and No to obscurantism, Yes to action and no to quietism, Yes to life and No to ascetism. Little wonder, then, that as soon as it emerged beyond the confines of Arabia, Islam won new adherents by leaps and bounds. Born and nurtured in the world-contempt of Pauline and Augustinian Christianity, the populations of Syria and North Africa, and a little layer of Visigothic Spain, saw themselves suddenly confronted with a teaching which denied the dogma of Original Sin and stressed the inborn dignity of earthly life: and so they rallied in ever-increasing numbers to the new creed that gave them to understand that man was God’s vicar on earth. This, and not a legendary ‘conversion at the point of the sword’, was the explanation of Islam’s amazing triumph in the glorious morning of its history.
It was not the Muslims that had made Islam great: it was Islam that had made the Muslims great. But as soon as their faith became habit and ceased to be a programme of life, to be consciously pursued, the creative impulse that underlay their civilisation waned and gradually gave way to indolence, sterility and cultural decay.
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Muhammad Asad (The Road to Mecca)
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Unfortunately, we live in an era where once a person learns a bit of the Arabic language and memorizes the translation of the Qur’an, he thinks he has the right to make his own opinions regarding the Qur’an. The Blessed Prophet s said, “Whosoever explains the Qur’an from his own opinion is wrong even if he is right.”
Modernists generally ignore the opinions and exegesis of the pious predecessors [al-salaf al-salihun] issuing fatwas that are based on their own whims. In our time, the modernist desires to embody all the greatest attributes in every field. If he can write simple Arabic, articulate himself in his native language, or deliver impromptu speeches, he sees himself the teacher of Junaid and Shiblõ in Taüawwuf and also a mujtahid in fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). He introduces new ideas in the exegesis of the Qur’an without concern for the opinions of the pious predecessors or that his opinions contradict the aúódõth of the Blessed Prophet (PBUH).He is whimsical in matters of Dõn. He states his heart’s desire no matter how much it contradicts the Qur’an and the Sunna. Despite this, no one discredits him, protests his incompetence, or shows him his deviation.
If one gathers the courage to say, “This is against the teachings of the pious predecessors,” he is immediately branded a sycophant of the pious predecessors. He is condemned as ultra-orthodox, anti-intellectual, and someone not attuned to the modern world. Conversely, if a person rejects the explanations of the pious predecessors and lays out his own views on matters of Din he is looked upon as an authority [muúaqqiq] in the Din.
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Shaykh Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhlawi
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My own observations had by now convinced me that the mind of the average Westerner held an utterly distorted image of Islam. What I saw in the pages of the Koran was not a ‘crudely materialistic’ world-view but, on the contrary, an intense God-consciousness that expressed itself in a rational acceptance of all God-created nature: a harmonious side-by-side of intellect and sensual urge, spiritual need and social demand. It was obvious to me that the decline of the Muslims was not due to any shortcomings in Islam but rather to their own failure to live up to it.
For, indeed, it was Islam that had carried the early Muslims to tremendous cultural heights by directing all their energies toward conscious thought as the only means to understanding the nature of God’s creation and, thus, of His will. No demand had been made of them to believe in dogmas difficult or even impossible of intellectual comprehension; in fact, no dogma whatsoever was to be found in the Prophet’s message: and, thus, the thirst after knowledge which distinguished early Muslim history had not been forced, as elsewhere in the world, to assert itself in a painful struggle against the traditional faith. On the contrary, it had stemmed exclusively from that faith. The Arabian Prophet had declared that ‘Striving after knowledge is a most sacred duty for every Muslim man and woman’: and his followers were led to understand that only by acquiring knowledge could they fully worship the Lord. When they pondered the Prophet’s saying, ‘God creates no disease without creating a cure for it as well’, they realised that by searching for unknown cures they would contribute to a fulfilment of God’s will on earth: and so medical research became invested with the holiness of a religious duty. They read the Koran verse, ‘We create every living thing out of water’ - and in their endeavour to penetrate to the meaning of these words, they began to study living organisms and the laws of their development: and thus they established the science of biology. The Koran pointed to the harmony of the stars and their movements as witnesses of their Creator’s glory: and thereupon the sciences of astronomy and mathematics were taken up by the Muslims with a fervour which in other religions was reserved for prayer alone. The Copernican system, which established the earth’s rotation around its axis and the revolution of the planet’s around the sun, was evolved in Europe at the beginning of the sixteenth century (only to be met by the fury of the ecclesiastics, who read in it a contradiction of the literal teachings of the Bible): but the foundations of this system had actually been laid six hundred years earlier, in Muslim countries - for already in the ninth and tenth centuries Muslim astronomers had reached the conclusion that the earth was globular and that it rotated around its axis, and had made accurate calculations of latitudes and longitudes; and many of them maintained - without ever being accused of hearsay - that the earth rotated around the sun. And in the same way they took to chemistry and physics and physiology, and to all the other sciences in which the Muslim genius was to find its most lasting monument. In building that monument they did no more than follow the admonition of their Prophet that ‘If anybody proceeds on his way in search of knowledge, God will make easy for him the way to Paradise’; that ‘The scientist walks in the path of God’; that ‘The superiority of the learned man over the mere pious is like the superiority of the moon when it is full over all other stars’; and that ‘The ink of the scholars is more precious that the blood of martyrs’.
Throughout the whole creative period of Muslim history - that is to say, during the first five centuries after the Prophet’s time - science and learning had no greater champion than Muslim civilisation and no home more secure than the lands in which Islam was supreme.
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Muhammad Asad (The Road to Mecca)
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To say; Merry Christmas does not harm my belief and Islam; it creates the message of love, respect, and peace, which is the teaching of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH).
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Islam
Islam represents and defines the practical life of the ending prophecy of Prophet Muhammad Peace Be Upon Him;
* A core principle of truth and promise with its all dimensions
* Respect and equality of all humans
* The system of the judiciary, justice, and security
* The system of health care in a natural and regular sporty as prayers
* The system of ethical and welfare society with peace
* The system of spiritual and material needs
* A way of conduct, regardless of distinctions
* A way, towards the Day of Judgement.
* The teachings of forgiveness.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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It is futile to pretend the problem doesn’t exist and hope that it will go away. Yet, absurdly, this has been American policy since the September 11 attacks. U.S. officials seem to believe that if they act as if Islam is a religion of peace and the Koran a book of peace, Muslims will feel themselves compelled to behave accordingly. An extreme example of this bizarre assumption came in President Obama’s heralded speech to the Islamic world in Cairo on June 4, 2009.16 Obama was extremely anxious to appear sympathetic and accommodating to Muslim grievances—so much so that he not only quoted the Koran (and did so ham-handedly and out of context, as we have seen), but also signaled in several ways, whether by ignorance or by design, that he was Muslim himself. For example, Obama extended “a greeting of peace from Muslim communities in my country: assalaamu alaykum”—that is, peace be upon you. According to Islamic law, however, this is the greeting that a Muslim extends to a fellow Muslim. To a non-Muslim he is to say, “Peace be upon those who are rightly guided”—in other words, “Peace be upon the Muslims.” Islamic law is silent about what Muslims must do when naïve, non-Muslim, Islamophilic presidents offer the greeting to Muslims. Obama also said the words that Muslims traditionally utter after mentioning the names of prophets—“peace upon them”—after mentioning Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad. Does he, then, accept Muhammad as a prophet? No reporter has asked him, but that was decidedly the impression he gave, intentionally or not, to the Islamic world. Obama spoke of a “relationship between Islam and the West” marked by “centuries of coexistence and cooperation, but also conflict and religious wars.” He then named three sources of present-day tensions between Muslim countries and the United States: the legacy of Western colonialism; “a Cold War in which Muslim-majority countries were too often treated as proxies without regard to their own aspirations;” and “the sweeping change brought by modernity and globalization,” which “led many Muslims to view the West as hostile to the traditions of Islam.” Significantly, Obama only listed ways in which the West has allegedly mistreated the Islamic world. He said not a word about the Koran’s doctrines of jihad and religious supremacism. Nothing at all about the Koranic imperative to make war against and subjugate non-Muslims as dhimmis. Not a word about the culture of hatred and contempt for non-Muslims that arises from Koranic teachings and which existed long before the ostensibly harmful spread of American culture (“modernity and globalization”) around the world. Obama did refer to “violent extremists” who have “exploited these tensions in a small but potent minority of Muslims.” The idea that Islamic jihadists are a “small but potent minority of Muslims” is universally accepted dogma, born of ignorance of the Koran’s contents. The jihadists may indeed be a minority of Muslims, but there is no solid evidence that the vast majority of Muslims reject in principle what the jihadists do—and indeed, how could they, given the Koran’s explicit mandates for warfare against Infidels?
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Robert Spencer (The Complete Infidel's Guide to the Koran)
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As a fact that, no need to become, the new Muslims around the world, since the contemporary Muslims need to become the true and the genuine ones first; accordingly, the teachings of the last prophet Muhammad (PBUH), that the Muslims, fail to follow and execute within the real Islamic conception. In that sense, the quantity shows nothing if there exists not the quality because of the wrong deeds in the practical life of the Muslim majority, contradict excellence of Islam.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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The Prophet said to the jinni: “This is the stride of a jinni, as well as the tone of his voice!” The jinni replied: “My name is Hamah ibn Laqqis ibn Iblis.” The Prophet said: “Only two generations separate you from him [Iblis].” He replied: “True.” The Prophet asked: “How long have you lived?” The jinni replied: “Almost all of time. I was a small boy when Abel was killed. I believed in Noah and repented at his hands after I stubbornly refused to submit to his call, until he wept and wept. I am indeed a repentant—God keep me from being among the ignorant! I met the prophet Hud and believed in his call. I met Abraham, and I was with him when he was thrown in the fire. I was with Joseph, too, when his brothers hurled him into the well—I preceded him to its bottom. I met the prophet Shu‘ayb, and Moses and Jesus the son of Mary, who told me: ‘If you meet Muhammad, tell him Jesus salutes thee!’ Now I’ve delivered his message to you, and I believe in you.” The Prophet said: “What is your desire, O Hamah?” He said: “Moses taught me the Torah, Jesus the Gospels, can you teach me the Qur’an?” So the Prophet taught him the Qur’an.
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Amira El-Zein (Islam, Arabs, and the Intelligent World of the Jinn (Contemporary Issues in the Middle East))
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3) Chrislam is an Obvious False Teaching that Has Entered Christianity:
Marloes Janson and Birgit Meyer state that Chrislam merges Christianity and Islam. This syncretistic movement rests upon the belief that following Christianity or Islam alone will not guarantee salvation. Chrislamists participate in Christian and Islamic beliefs and practices. During a religious service Tela Tella, the founder of Ifeoluwa, Nigeria’s first Chrislamic movement, proclaimed that “Moses is Jesus and Jesus is Muhammad; peace be upon all of them – we love them all.’” Marloes Janson says he met with a church member who calls himself a Chrislamist. The man said, “You can’t be a Christian without being a Muslim, and you can’t be a Muslim without being a Christian.” These statements reflect the mindset of this community, which mixes Islam with Christianity, and African culture.
Samsindeen Saka, a self-proclaimed prophet, also promotes Chrislam. Mr. Saka founded the Oke Tude Temple in Nigeria in 1989. The church's name means the mountain of loosening bondage. His approach adds a charismatic flavor to Chrislam. He says those bound by Satan; are set free through fasting and prayer. Saka says when these followers are set free from evil spirits. Then, the Holy Spirit possesses them. Afterward, they experience miracles of healing and prosperity in all areas of their life. He also claims that combining Christianity and Islam relieves political tension between these groups. This pastor seeks to take dominion of the world in the name of Chrislam (1).
Today, Chrislam has spread globally, but with much resistance from the Orthodox (Christians, Muslims, and Jews). Richard Mather of Israeli International News says Chrislamists recognize both the Judeo-Christian “Bible and the Quran as holy texts.” So, they fuse these religions by removing Jewish references from the Bible. Thereby neutralizing the prognostic relevance “of the Jewish people and the land of Israel.” This fusion of Islam with Christianity is a rebranded form of replacement theology (2) (3). Also, traditional Muslims do not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Therefore, they do not believe Christ died on the cross for the sins of the world. Thus, these religions cannot merge without destroying the foundations of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
References:
1. Janson, Marloes, and Birgit Meyer. “Introduction: Towards a Framework for the Study of Christian-Muslim Encounters in Africa.” Africa, Vol. 86, no. 4, 2016, pp. 615-619,
2. Mather, Richard. “What is Chrislam?” Arutz Sheva – Israel International News. Jewish Media Agency, 02 March 2015,
3. Janson, Marloes. Crossing Religious Boundaries: Islam, Christianity, and ‘Yoruba Religion' in Lagos, Nigeria, (The International African Library Book 64). Cambridge University Press. 2021.
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Marloes Janson (Crossing Religious Boundaries: Islam, Christianity, and ‘Yoruba Religion' in Lagos, Nigeria (The International African Library))
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The fundamental teachings of the Holy Quran are based on rational arguments.
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Mirza Ghulam Ahmad (Barahin-e-Ahmadiyya - Parts I & II : Arguments in Support of the Holy Quran and the Prophethood of the Holy Prophet Muhammad)
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Umar, despite his strong character and impressive personality, had lost control of himself for a short while, his emotions seizing him so strongly that it brought out a heretofore unsuspected fragility, causing him to react like a child refusing the ruling of God, of reality, of life. By contrast, Abu Bakr, who was normally so sensitive, who wept so abundantly and so intensely when he read the Quran, had received the news of the Prophet’s death with deep sorrow but also with extraordinary calm and unsuspected inner strength. At that particular moment, the two men’s roles were inverted, thus showing that through his departure the Prophet offered us a final teaching: in the bright depths of spirituality, sensitivity can produce a degree of strength of being that nothing can disturb. Conversely, the strongest personality, if it forgets itself for a moment, can become vulnerable and fragile. The
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Tariq Ramadan (In the Footsteps of the Prophet: Lessons from the Life of Muhammad)
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Within the Shia position - that there is something unique about the Prophet's line that gives them a special ability to rule - there is an important division that was not immediately apparent after the Prophet's death: is this uniqueness something that is born within them, or is it a special knowledge which comes from either a secret teaching or from insights gained from prolonged intimacy with Muhammad? This is important because if it is knowledge, then it can be codified and taught to those who are not his descendants, and it can also be lost by those who are.
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Jesse Harasta (The History of the Sunni and Shia Split: Understanding the Divisions within Islam)
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the idea of demonic transmigration. There were the expected Catholic texts from the Rituale Romanum, containing the rites and guidelines for major exorcisms, but also a host of more arcane materials whose origins ranged from India to Egypt. She found passages copied from the Zohar, the Jewish mystical text of Kabbalistic teachings, describing the ways in which a demon could secretly slip into a victim’s soul, and how it could only be dislodged by a minyan reciting Psalm 91 three times; if the rabbi then blew a certain melody on the shofar, or ram’s horn, the sound would in effect “shatter the body” and shake the evil spirit loose. Even the Muslims had their methods for disposing of wandering demons. The prophet Muhammad instructed his followers to read the last three suras from the Koran—the Surat al-Ikhlas (the Fidelity), the Surat al-Falaq (the Dawn), and the Surat an-Nas (Mankind)—and drink water from the holy well of Zamzam.
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Robert Masello (The Einstein Prophecy)
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The Prophet Muhammad said : "The action of man stops when he dies except three things: continuous charity, knowledge (that he shares/teaches) or a pious child who prays for him." [Muslim: 4223]
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the prophet Muḥammad
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After three years of undercover activism, a group of believers emerged stamped by a spirit of brotherhood and cooperation with one definite objective in their mind: propagating and deeply establishing the call unto Islam. For full three years Muhammad (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) had been content to teach within a rather narrow circle. The time, however, had come to preach the faith of the Lord openly. Then Revelation descended giving Allah’s Messenger (May the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) the duty of publicizing it for his people, to confront them, invalidate their falsehood, and crush down their idolatrous practices.
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Safiur Rahman Mubarakpuri (The Sealed Nectar | Biography of Prophet Muhammad (SAW))
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As a fact that, no need to become the new Muslims around the world, since the contemporary Muslims need to become the true and the genuine ones first; accordingly, the teachings of the last prophet Muhammad (PBUH), that the Muslims, fail to follow and execute within the real Islamic conception. In that sense, the quantity shows nothing if there exists not the quality because of the wrong deeds in the practical life of the Muslim majority, contradict excellence of Islam.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Because Muhammad is considered Allah's final prophet and the Quran the eternal, unalterable words of Allah himself, there is also no evolving morality that permits the modification or integration of Islamic morality with that from other sources. The entire Islamic moral universe devolves solely from the life and teachings of Muhammad.
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Jake Neuman (Islam: Evil in the Name of God)
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once heard a short saying about Jesus, comparing him to the other religious leaders. It stuck in my head and goes something like this: “Founders of other religions claim they are a prophet to help you find God. Jesus came to say, ‘I am God come to find you.’ ” The Hindu Vedas say, “Truth is one, but the sages speak of it in many different ways.” Buddha said, “My teachings point the way to attainment of the truth.” Muhammad said, “The truth has been revealed to me.” Jesus said,“I am the truth.
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Dan Kimball (How (Not) to Read the Bible: Making Sense of the Anti-women, Anti-science, Pro-violence, Pro-slavery and Other Crazy-Sounding Parts of Scripture)
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This time, among the letters waiting for Gandhi on his return from his travels was one from a Muslim friend. This man, a liberal and sceptic, wondered why, when referring to the Prophet Muhammad or the Koran, Gandhi never analysed them critically. ‘I am at a loss to understand how a person like you,’ this correspondent told Gandhi, ‘with all your passion for truth and justice, who has never failed to gloss over a single fault in Hinduism or to repudiate as unauthentic the numerous corruptions that masquerade under it, can.... accept all that is in the Koran. I am not aware of your ever having called into question or denounced any iniquitous injunction of Islam. Against some of these I learned to revolt when I was scarcely 18 or 20 years old and time has since only strengthened that first feeling.’
Reproducing and then answering this letter in Harijan, Gandhi remarked that ‘I have nowhere said that I believe literally in every word of the Koran, or for that matter of any scripture in the world. But it is no business of mine to criticize the scriptures of other faiths or to point out their defects. It should be, however, my privilege to proclaim and practise the truths that there may be in them.’
Gandhi held the view that only adherents of a particular faith had the right to criticize its precepts or sanctions. By that token, it was both his ‘right and duty to point out the defects in Hinduism in order to purify it and to keep it pure. But when non-Hindu critics set about criticizing Hinduism and cataloguing its faults they can only blazon their own ignorance of Hinduism and their incapacity to regard it from the Hindu viewpoint... Thus my own experience of the non-Hindu critics of Hinduism brings home to me my limitations and teaches me to be wary of launching on a criticism of Islam or Christianity and their founders'.
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Ramachandra Guha (Gandhi 1915-1948: The Years That Changed the World)
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The Prophet Muhammad said, „Die before you die.“ We are being told to know the after-death state now, while we are alive. The mystics say that just as the embryo fears being born from the womb into this world, we fear our next birth. We fear being born from the womb of this material existence. The embryo can‘t imagine there is anything better than the warmth, comfort, and easy life it experiences in the womb. When it uncomfortably emerges into the expanded world outside the womb, it finds beautiful colors, fragrances, sensory experiences, and relationships. As human beings, we may similarly fear emerging into the expansive world that is beyond the boundaries of our egoistic existence. It‘s a goal of this spiritual path to be living in two worlds at once. By doing so, we can bring heaven to earth. (p. 33)
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Kabir Helminski (In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching)
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The main idea of the Bahá’í faith is that we are all connected. There is no us or them. Bahá’í teachings revere Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad, believing that all major religions come from one spiritual source. The community started in the mid-1800s in Iran, and it has spread just about everywhere. There are 150,000 adherents in the United States. The largest community is in India. But there are no ministers, no clerical leaders to run things. So how do they make decisions?
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Amanda Ripley (High Conflict: Why We Get Trapped and How We Get Out)
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Journey to Ajmer Khwaja Usman Harooni always heard a Nida after every prayer that ask whatever you want, your salah is accepted. but He never ask for anything accept forgiveness of Ummat e Muhammadi . One day he cried after Salah and Asked Oh my Lord, I want to ask you two things, he heard a voice "Ask whatever You want". First I wish to be bury in Mecca and sign of my grave should be preserved till Qiyama and Second I wish that you bestow such a status to my desciple Moinuddin that no Saint ever have or nor any saint will have. he heard a Nida " Your both wishes are accepted and we have bestowed the guardianship of India into hand of Moinuddin and he have achieved a status that no one before him or after him will receive. tell him to Go to Medina and take the blessings of Prophet Muhammad and goes to India to spread the Message
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Syed Ali Hamza Chishty (Gharib Nawaz: Life and Teachings of Gharib Nawaz also known as Khwaja Moinuddin Chishty)
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The roles of Muhammad's daughter Fatima and Mary are similar. The true line of the Prophet 'Isa (Jesus) and his real teaching passing through Mary and into Europe mirrors the true line of the Imams (who propagated the real teachings of the Prophet Muhammad) who issued from the womb of Fatima. Fatima is regarded by some Sûfîs and theologians as the first spiritual head (qutb) of the Sûfî fellowship.
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Laurence Galian (Jesus, Muhammad and the Goddess)
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Suleyman Dede was someone who spoke from a place of deep knowing, a place much greater than himself. Suleyman Dede was not just an individual while speaking. He was representing something Infinite. The love, acceptance, and belonging you felt from him made you want to be with him for the rest of your life. It made you want to never leave his side. Some said that in Suleyman Dede‘s embrace you felt as though you were in your mother‘s arms. You felt a real sense of being in a state beyond comparing, free from like or dislike. Suleyman Dede spoke with the genuine voice of the Prophet Muhammad. The love he gave came from a deep center within his heart. His heart was connected to Mevlana Rumi, and the Prophet. He was part of something that was intricately and carefully balanced. Suleyman Dede said chance did not play a role in the people he met. He knew that wherever he was, it was the right place, right time, and that he had been called for a specific service. He was awake to that. Dede said that we are never separated from God. He invited us to enter into the experience described by Surah al-Hadid: He is with you wherever you are. (p. 78-79)
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Kabir Helminski (In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching)
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Worship is taking time from the momentum of our lives to stop and stand before the Face of God for a few minutes. The prostrations in the ritual prayer that are the regular practice of the Islamic tradition, and which Sufis also do, include four to eight cycles of standing, bowing, and prostrating. At most, the ritual prayer takes between five and ten minutes. It‘s a deep and mindful encounter with the Infinite Face of God, not performing a ritual with rote recitations. In fact, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, said, „If your ritual prayer is not done with presence, it‘s not worship.“ Presence is absolutely essential to the ritual prayer. The whole normative practice of Islam, its basic practices and rituals, are a spiritual training system when properly understood […] One of our friends, a great Sufi teacher, recently said, „Everything is in the prostration.“ When our foreheads touch the ground we enter into that Divine Oblivion. It is oblivion, in the sense that we are so present with the Divine that everything else just disappears. We‘re completely there in the consciousness of the Divine, forehead to the ground, for that moment. It‘s a kind of bliss. (p. 103)
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Kabir Helminski (In the House of Remembering: The Living Tradition of Sufi Teaching)
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There are only a handful of monotheistic divine religions in the world. Muslims believe that there was a single monotheistic religion. It was the same religion which was preached by Adam (pbuh), Noah (pbuh), Ibrahim (pbuh), Moses (pbuh), Jesus (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh) and all the other Prophets (pbut) in between Adam (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh). Christians defined their distinct faith as Christianity by believing in Jesus (pbuh) and denying Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) despite Bible giving clear signs of His arrival and characteristics. Jews defined their distinct faith by believing in Prophets before Jesus (pbuh), but denying Jesus (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh) despite Torah giving clear signs of the arrival of last Prophet (pbuh) and His (pbuh) characteristics101. The denial of the last Prophet (pbuh) is not supported by the religious scriptures which clearly foretold the last messenger by name, characteristics and traits. Muslims believe in all Prophets (pbut) including Jesus (pbuh) and Moses (pbuh). Muslims believe in all Holy Books. Since these Holy Books were not kept in their original form, Muslims pay more heed towards the last Holy Book, i.e. Qur’an which was revealed in the daylight of history and which encapsulates the true teachings and foundational beliefs of the original monotheistic religion. Quran’s every word has been transmitted from generations to generations through i) the verbal transmission of thousands of people in every age who had learnt it by heart and through ii) written transmission soon after Prophet Muhammad’s (pbuh) time. Qur’an is the God’s last words transmitted to humans on earth because it was ensured that these final verses will be preserved in the daylight of history.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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We are the online Quran academy which is providing the facility for Muslims to learn Quran at their home. We are the leading Quran Academy in Pakistan which are providing this service for almost 5 years. We have Qualified male and female teachers who are teaching the students in a very beautiful way. We as an online Quran academy, our mission is to spread the message of Allah and his Prophet Muhammad S.A.W to Muslims all over the world. So, that they can know about the meaning of their life.
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Almazhar
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Hinduism’ is thus the name that foreigners first applied to what they saw as the indigenous religion of India. It embraces an eclectic range of doctrines and practices, from pantheism to agnosticism and from faith in reincarnation to belief in the caste system. But none of these constitutes an obligatory credo for a Hindu: there are none. We have no compulsory dogmas. This is, of course, rather unusual. A Catholic is a Catholic because he believes Jesus was the Son of God who sacrificed himself for Man; a Catholic believes in the Immaculate Conception and the Virgin Birth, offers confession, genuflects in church and is guided by the Pope and a celibate priesthood. A Muslim must believe that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet. A Jew cherishes his Torah or Pentateuch and his Talmud; a Parsi worships at a Fire Temple; a Sikh honours the teachings of the Guru Granth Sahib above all else. There is no Hindu equivalent to any of these beliefs. There are simply no binding requirements to being a Hindu. Not even a belief in God.
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Shashi Tharoor (Why I am a Hindu)