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Quran much more than a holy book to Muslims

April 14th, 2011 in News with No Comments

Two weeks ago, controversial pastor Terry Jones presided over what he called a trial of the Quran.

The holy book of Islam was “found guilty” by members of Jones’ tiny church in Florida and burned, according to a release posted on the church’s website.

On Friday, 12 people, including eight workers for the United Nations, were killed in the Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, when people protesting the burning of that Quran attacked a U.N. office.

Jones likely knew that burning the Quran would prompt protests when Muslims learned of the actions of his church, the Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville. He canceled plans to burn a Quran last year, on the ninth anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks after being lobbied by President Obama, Gen. David Petraeus and others. Petraeus said American service members in Afghanistan would be increasingly in danger if Jones proceeded with his plan.

On March 20, the parishioners at Dove burned a single copy of the Quran, thus “attacking the foundations of Islam itself,” says one Muslim scholar.

“Symbolically and literally this is the most sacred reminder of God on Earth for a Muslim,” said Akbar Ahmed, the chair of Islamic Studies at American University in Washington. ” More than a mosque … more than any other symbol it is the Quran that symbolizes the word of God for a Muslim.”

But he decried the violent reaction to the burning. He said that Muslims need to understand that we are living in a world that includes atheists and people of faith who have different ideas of how to treat any holy book.

“Therefore Muslims need to respond to acts like (Quran burning) by trying to explain why they are so sensitive, by trying to reach out and trying to explain what Islam is, and not to react in anger and promote any hint of violence.”

Omid Safi agrees.

“Above any scripture, what is sacred and holy is the human being,” said Safi, a religion professor at the University of North Carolina and the author of “Memories of Muhammad”. “The death of a person because of protesting (the desecration of) religious symbols is to misunderstand the ultimate sanctity of life.”

Safi pointed out that people in these discussions compare one holy book to another, but the Quran is more analogous to Christ, so it would be like someone burning Jesus.

The reason for that is that Christ was the very being of the word of God, which has come to live among us and the Quran in the same way embodies the word of Allah, he said.

That is why Muslims hold the Quran in such high esteem. In their homes the book is often wrapped in satin and put it in a place of respect, usually high above all other books.

Some of those who don’t live in the United States, where burning a holy book is considered free speech, have a hard time understanding that concept.

“It is the right of the pastor to do this, but to Muslims it is violating their religious identity and their faith,” said Ahmed who is also the author of “Journey into America.” “It’s important to point out that in many Muslim countries it’s in the constitution that you cannot blaspheme against the Prophet or desecrate the Quran.”

Safi called Jones’ actions hate speech intended to divide humanity.

“I’d rather focus my faith and work to bring it together,” he said.

Source: CNN

My Take: Relationships and religious advice

April 14th, 2011 in News with No Comments

I have been giving a lot of lectures recently — at institutions as different as Duke, Virginia Military Academy and the University of North Alabama — and I have settled into the routine. A bit about my book “Religious Literacy” (Americans are very religious, but know almost nothing about their own religions), a bit about my newest project, “God is Not One” (no, religions are not different paths up the same mountain) and some humor thrown in here and there.

My favorite part of any speaking engagement, however, is the Q& A, which gives me an opportunity to hear what is on the minds of college students, and allows me to freelance a bit — to think on my feet.

In an April 6 talk sponsored by the Center for Interreligious Education at DePaul University in Chicago, DePaul’s Cortelyou Commons — the “Harry Potter” room, as my host David Wellman called it — was packed, thanks to the extra credit offered by many professors and the fact that I had appeared a few nights earlier on “The Colbert Report”.

Usually the questions and answers last only 15 minutes or so, and often they traverse familiar ground. This time, however, the back and forth went on for an hour, and I got a lot of new questions.

The Q&A started with an angry young woman eager to exempt her beloved Confucianism from the horrors of religion. Do I really think Confucianism is a religion? Yes, I do. But Confucius hardly spoke of God or the afterlife. Well, neither do many forms of Buddhism.

I asked her whether she had been to the Temple of Confucius in Qufu, China, where Confucianism’s founder is plainly worshipped as a god. She said yes, but added that Confucius would be disgusted by efforts to turn him into anything other than a sage. The debate ended only when Wellman, an assistant professor of religious studies at DePaul, told us to move on.

Apparently I wasn’t particularly convincing. The next day the woman called me an ignorant “a–hole” on her Twitter feed.

My favorite exchange of the evening came from a young Muslim woman. She told me she was rooming with two Russian Jewish women who had become her friends, but that her grandfather was very upset with the arrangement.

“What should I do?” she pleaded. “It’s a real problem.”

At first, I had no idea. So I stalled by saying I felt like I was on the NPR program “Car Talk,” where the hosts dispense advice about carburetors and timing belts but are really talking about relationships and other human foibles. In between my hemming and hawing, she asked me to explain “this Jewish-Muslim thing” — something I said I doubted I could do in a minute or two.

In the end, what I said was that her grandfather was concerned because he loved her. I then suggested she do some research on “La Convivencia” — a moment in medieval Spain, from 711 to 1492, in which Jews, Christians and Muslims coexisted peaceably, collaborating together in such arenas as mathematics, philosophy and architecture — and share her findings with her grandfather. Perhaps her dorm room could become yet another place of interreligious “coexistence.”

I have often observed that religious traditions intrigue me more for the questions they ask than for the answers they offer. And so it goes for my invited lectures. At least for me, it’s the questions that really get me going.

Source: CNN

Tafseer Surah al-Tahrim, ayah 6: Protecting your family

March 30th, 2011 in News with No Comments

Allah سبحانه وتعالى says in the Qur’an:

يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا قُوا أَنْفُسَكُمْ وَأَهْلِيكُمْ نَارًا وَقُودُهَا النَّاسُ وَالْحِجَارَةُ

“O believers, save yourselves and your family from the Hellfire whose fuel is men and stones”

Whenever Allah سبحانه وتعالى begins anything with the phrase ‘O believers!’, it means He is alerting our attention to something important for us to do or to avoid. Ibn Mas`ud (ra) says:

وقال ابن مسعود: إذا قال اللَّه يا أيها الذين آمنوا فارعها سمعك فإنه خير تؤمر به أو شر تنهى عنه

“Ibn Mas`ud said: whenever Allah says ‘O believers’ then raise your hearing because it is a good you are being commanded to or a bad you are being told to avoid…”[1]

The meaning of “save yourselves and your family from the fire” means turn them away from it, prevent them from it. Sayyiduna `Ali (ra) in his commentary of this verse as well as Qatada and Mujahid state:

“Save yourselves from the Fire through your actions and save your family from the Fire through giving them all correct advice and guidance (bi-wasiyyatikum) [...] and there are three meanings to the phrase ‘and save your family from the Fire through giving them all correct advice and guidance’ and they are:

1. To command them to obey Allah and to avoid disobeying him. This is what Qatada said.

2. To teach them all the obligatory aspects of their religion as well as to train them with the correct manners and conduct in their lives. This is what `Ali said.

3. To on the one hand teach them the khayr (‘the good’) and to ensure they are made to live with it and to clarify what is wrong and bad so as to ensure they avoid it…”[2]

Lessons

In this noble verse of the Qur’an, Allah is commanding the Muslim believers to take serious consideration in safeguarding themselves and their family from the Hellfire.

To safeguard and protect the family means to ensure they live by the commandments of Allah and to avoid his prohibitions.

All fathers and providers of the household have a duty to their family that involves teaching them the obligatory aspects of their religion which is the fiqh (Islamic rulings) on all daily actions. We must not fall short in this or neglect this. How can it be that we are aware of our duty to learn Islamic rulings and prevent our wives from learning it as well? How can our children learn the teachings of Islam unless their parents instill it in them?

The need to train, nurture and teach Islamic values, norms and principles to our family is all the more serious given the context of the widespread assault on Islam, Shari`ah and Muslim family values as being antithetical to anything British, Western and liberal.

Notes

1. Imam al-Mawardi, al-Nukat wa’l-`Uyun
2. Imam al-Mawardi, al-Nukat wa’l-`Uyun

Source: khilafah