a bit of patience does work off (i should learn this )

glad the members here changed your mind

I have a bad feeling about this.

Salaam

Care to elaborate

Salaam,

interesting....

Bad feeling about what exactly. This is a feel good post, it should be giving off good feelins and vibes!

Pr4sE
Alhamdullilah

so are you considerin islam now

lol i hope u find the truth


lol not quite and about the guy who has bad feelings, he shouldn't , cheer up mate

Yeah cheer up Abrar bro! Always see the good in everything unless proved otherwise.

Welcome back YouAreLostSouls! Your post really brightened up my day

there's always good in something bad
thats y Allah says, to show kindness to those who hadnt harmed u, and truly enough u see what happen, he now believes that all muslims are not terrorists, and its just some whackos who happen to be terrorists call themselves muslims. Have faith bro

dear you are lost,
that's great that you discovered you were wrong.
this forum has actually had the opposite effect on me! i find some of the intolerance on this board quite shocking. fortunately, i do know that islam is not one thing and no all muslims are intolerant like some here are.

Maasha allaah that was great. i hope many people would hear this.

We live by the book. If you want to know what Islam is about, then you can read the Quran. Only then will you get a true understanding of how Muslims should be. It is just a suggestion.
Peace.

hi cheb,
problem is that there are the ahadees too. and as far as i know there is no universal agreement in islam about which are authentic and which are faked. (is that right?).
i have interacted with quite a few muslims - most have been religious but not to the extreme as many in this forum. so i am getting a different view of islam here than i've had before.
peace

Actually that is not correct. The hadith have been studied and classified by hadith scholars such that we know which are authentic and which are fabricated. If you would like further information, I would be happy to the discuss the subject with you.

I must say I'm quite surprised by your comments. I'm not sure which posts you've read or which sections you frequently check, but I have a hard time understanding what could have given you such an idea. We have had a number of non-muslims on this forum for a long time, including atheists, christians, jews, buddhists, hindus, etc. and they have been able to interact peacefully and engage in positive dialogue with the Muslims here. So long as we maintain respect for eachother and seek to increase understanding, then we will be succesful in our dialogue. If there are any specific issues you would like clarified, please do mention them and again, I would be more than happy to discuss them with you .

Peace

thanks for your answer. is there universal agreement in islam about all the hadiths and unanimity on which ones should be followed? sometimes i have the feeling (don't know enough) that the hadiths are given importance even beyond the qur'an.
most of the people here are tolerant and interact politely.
the things that have horrified me here are:

people who leave islam should be killed (almost no one found anything wrong with this concept).
gay people should be killed
music is haram

i have just never run in to muslims that believe these things before.

Hi snakelegs,
The hadith are secondary source and the Qur'an is the primary source in Islam. The vast majority of hadith are unanimously agreed to be either authentic or not, you might have a small handful that are subject to some disagreement, but these never concern fundamental issues in Islam.

There is a law concerning apostasy in Islam, however, it tends to be misunderstood or taken out of context. It has been explained in greater detailed in this thread, however, for your convenience I will summarize the issue for you.

Understandably, a non-muslim may be shocked when they hear of a death-penalty in Islam or apostasy because in secular societies religion is considered a personal choice for people, and therefore it would seem extreme for the state to interfere in one's personal freedom.

However, from the Islamic perspective, a number of points must be observed with regard to apostasy:

1. Islam has never compelled anyone to accept the religion. Anyone who becomes a Muslim does so purely through objective study of the religion. As Allah has informed us in the Qur'an:

2:256 There is no compulsion in religion.
10:99 So would you (O Muhammad) then compel people to become believers?

Likewise, Islam encourages its followers to reflect and contempate upon the universe around us and to ponder over the beauty of the Qur'anic message:

47:24 Do they not ponder over the Qur'an or are their hearts locked up?

51:20-21. And on earth are signs for those endowed with inner-certainty; and [likewise there are signs] in yourselves, do you not observe?

29:20 Say: "Travel through the earth and see how Allah did originate creation; so will Allah produce a later creation: for Allah has power over all things.

Thus, Islam requires that one's faith be constructed upon logical investigation and study of the universe in which we live. Through logical contemplation, one realizes the supreme authority of the Creator and the veracity of Muhammad's (saws) claim to prophethood. Thus we find that, in the history of Islam, no knowledgeable Muslim has ever left Islam. The only cases we find of former Muslims are people who were never practicing Muslims in the first place, nor did they ever have a good understanding of Islam. Yet on the other hand, the list of educated converts to Islam is immense, and it includes educated leaders such as priests, rabbis and atheists.

2. Those who have left Islam have historically fallen under three categories: those who left having never properly understood the religion often due to social circumstances, those who faked a conversion into Islam in order to undermine the Islamic community from within, and those who left to support opposing forces in battle against the Muslims. Because of the first category, Islam requires that the person who has chosen to forsake the religion be consulted with in order that his doubts may be clarified to him if there is any specific issue of confusion, or so that he may learn the proper Islamic teachings that he may otherwise have not been exposed to. As for the second and third category, this was the original reason behind the Prophet's statement on apostasy. The Qur'an records (3:72) that the Jews of Madinah decided to initiate the practice of pretending to accept Islam and then publically declare their rejection of it, so as to destroy the confidence of the newly-converted Muslims. Thus, the Prophet Muhammad (saws) ruled that a punishment should be announced so that those who decide to accept Islam do so because of a firm conviction not in order to harm the Muslim community from within.

3. Coming to the actual law of apostasy, the Prophet Muhammad (saws) did say, in the above historical context, "Whoever replaces his religion, execute him" (Bukhari, Abu Dawud) but how exactly do we understand this statement and does it conflict with the principles of freedom? It should be noted that every country has maintained punishments, including execution, for treason and rebellion against the state (See Mozley and Whitley's Law Dictionary, under "Treason and Treason Felony," pp. 368-369). Islam is not just a set of beliefs, it is a complete system of life which includes a Muslim's allegiance to the Islamic state. Thus, a rejection against that would be akin to treason. Rebellion against God is more serious than rebellion against one's country. However, one who personally abandons the faith and leaves the country would not be hunted down and assasinated, nor would one who remains inside the state conforming to outward laws be tracked down and executed. The notion of establishing inquistion courts to determine peoples' faith is something contrary to Islamic law. As illustrated by the historical context in which it was mandated, the death penalty is mainly for those who collaborate with enemy forces in order to aid them in their attacks against the Islamic state or for those who seek to promote civil unrest and rebellion from within the Islamic state. When someone publically announces their rejection of Islam within an Islamic state it is basically a challenge to the Islamic government, since such an individual can keep it to themselves like the personal affair it is made out to be.

4. From Islamic history, we can gain a better understanding of how this law has been implemented. Although the Prophet Muhammad (saws) threatened the death penalty in response to the attempts against the Muslim community, no such executions took place in his time (Imam Shawkani, Nayl Al-Awtar, vol. 7, p. 192) even though there is a report that a bedouin renounced Islam and left Madinah unharmed in his time (Fath Al-Bari vol. 4, p.77 and vol. 13 p. 170; Sahih Muslim biSharh An-Nawawi, vol. 9, p. 391). Thus, we find that context plays an important role in determining how to deal with apostates. The case of one who enlists nations to fight against the Islamic state is more serious, for example. That is why the scholars of the Hanafi school of thought felt that the punishment only applies to the male apostate and not the female apostate because the latter is unable to wage war against the Islamic state. If someone simply has some doubts concerning Islam, then those doubts can be clarified.

So an Islamic state is certainly justified in punishing those who betray the state, committing treason and support enemy forces. As for anyone else, if they do not publically declare their rejection of Islam, the state has no interest in pursuing them; if their case does become public, however, then they should be reasoned with and educated concerning the religion so that they have the opportunity to learn the concepts they may not have understood properly and they can be encouraged to repent.

That pretty much sums up the general view on this issue, if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.

This was discussed in great detail in this thread:
http://www.islamicboard.com/basics-i...being-gay.html

Gay people are not killed in Islam, they are advised against the harms of their behaviour. The one who is killed is the one who publically commits homosexual acts right in the open such that four witnesses are able to testify to the obscene behaviour.

No one can make a blanket statement in this regard and there is disagreement over this area, however there are some areas of music that are clearly haraam and some that are clearly halal. I'll just refer you to previous discussion:
I hope this helps.

Regards