(In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)
Welcome to the forum, sister @Kazu. Thank you for entrusting us with your concern and queries; we appreciate your trust in us, and we hope we can do justice to that trust.
I used to be a staunch materialist atheist. I turned Muslim after I'd completed college, and I've remained a Muslim for some years now. I should mention I did not want to adopt Islam nor was I looking for a religion at the time this happened, but Islam took me by surprise, and I fell in love with Islam after studying it deeply and reflecting on the patterns in my own life and that I saw in life of humanity. Since I studied Islam from both the proper sources and used to peruse Islamophobic sites as well (the latter not being something I'd recommend for sincere seekers), I think I can address at least some of your concerns. Having said that, God-willing I or others can answer more of your questions and give you the satisfaction you seek in your heart, mind, and, soul if God wills.
Logical thinking is important to ascertaining facts in life. Islam doesn't negate logical thinking or halt people from exercising their mental faculties or intelligence to reach logical conclusions. What Islam instead advises is that you as an individual and a thinking human being have to acquire knowledge and learn and reflect and travel and observe and ponder and study until you reach the point of certainty in faith. After you've reached the point of certainty in faith, you have to subordinate your logic to primordial instinct and inclination to faith. For example, if you have seen Russel Crowe's movie
The Next Three Days, you'll have an understanding of why that should be. Russel Crowe's character John in the movie has lived with his wife in peace and happiness, and they also have a young child. However, one day, their life is turned upside-down his wife is arrested for murder of her boss and she goes to jail and the courts also find her guilty; every single shred of evidence points to his wife's guilt, but he believes in her innocence. And the audience learns that she is innocent also, despite what logic would have the police understand, which is to judge her guilty. So, understand that logic is a tool, but it can never be a substitute for or replacement for faith. This is also evidenced in the case of Iblees who logically concluded that he was better than Adam
(peace be upon him) because Iblees was created from fire whereas Adam
(peace be upon him) was created from clay. Also, understand that logic can be used in what will upend morality and become another tool of Satanic wish-fulfillment. For example, on this board, we recently had a young teenage Muslim boy saying that in Islam touching is not allowed of opposite sex. So, what if he wore a condom and had sex with a girl because then he wouldn't be touching her with his penis as the condom would be covering his male appendage. So, the boy is logically correct, but he is of course subverting the intent and the language and the purpose of Islam's prohibition on touching the opposite sex. Learn, therefore, to think of logic as a tool but not the supreme tool, especially in matters of faith.
I'll tackle some other questions later as it's quite late at night, and I accidentally stumbled upon this thread after being unable to sleep. So, I'll answer some other questions later. At this time though, I'd like to clarify the issue that you brought in respect to Aisha
(may God be pleased with her). I hope you know that she was engaged before Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) ever came into her life. Moreover, it wasn't Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) who thought of the marriage first, but he
(peace and blessings be upon him) was given a divine dream three times indicating that he should or will marry her, and Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) peaceably submitted to God's Will. To be blunt, the marriage cannot be considered pedophilia because
WebMd describes pedophilia as "a sustained sexual orientation toward children, generally aged 13 or younger." However, we know that all the other women whom Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) were much older, widows and divorcees. In fact, Khadija
(may God be pleased with her) was a 40-year old woman to his
(peace and blessings be upon him) young 25-year old self. Also, pedophiles lose attraction for a person once they turn older, which Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) never did for Aisha even as she aged for the rest of the years that he
(peace and blessings be upon him). Pedophiles do not seek marriage but sexual gratification as the immediate end of their fantasy is simply deflowering the girl and does not involve taking responsibility for her in life and treating her as an equal partner. If you read the Seerah of Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), you'll immediately realize that Aisha
(may God be pleased with her) was never treated as anything but an equal partner and that she was a firebrand who never raised any objections either prior to the marriage or long after the marriage had ceased to exist with the death of her noble husband
(peace and blessings be upon him). Aisha
(may God be pleased with her) was happy in her marriage and herself praised his noble character
(peace and blessings be upon him); if there was any lewdness or indecency in the outlook of Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him), she would have been the first to know or report because she was never one to hold her tongue irrespective of the position of the person facing her. So, finally, you should realize that Aisha
(peace and blessings be upon him) was an exception in Prophet's
(peace and blessings be upon him) life, the only person who was young and virgin chosen by God. There is much wisdom behind this marriage, and one of the wisdom that we may surmise from this marriage is that the young age of Aisha
(may God be pleased with her) still had her youthful ability to memorize and relay all aspects of
Sunnah (prophetic footsteps) accurately; that is because scientifically we know today that our memory is best when we're younger and deteriorates as we age. Also, if you go back in global history, you'll find that Western marriages were also conducted very young in many cases among the aristocratic set. Parents married their toddlers to other older people because marriage was seen as a way to cement alliance between powerful families; that is why, for example, you'll find that in well-researched historical romance novels, you'll find this theme being replayed. One such example is the historical romance novel
The Gift authored by Julie Garwood in which an example is given of child marriage. Also, child marriages still occur in villages in India and tribes in Africa; in fact, a hit fictional television series called
Balika Vadhu in India portrays onscreen the journey of a child bride. Also, again, I emphasize that the marriage with Aisha
(may God be pleased with her) was an exception for many enumerated reasons, and there is no Islamic reason to believe that the high emphasis on emulation of Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) need include us in an exception in doing the same when clearly exceptions do not inform the norm nor are they meant to inform the norm.
Also, I acknowledge your point about the modern-day problems that child brides experience such as anal fistula or being too young to give birth or internal bleeding. However, if you believe we have as human beings not evolved over a millennia, you'd be incorrect.
This necessarily means that we've evolved as human beings in our development and there is no reason to believe that we've stopped evolving in other specific ways; so, it is quite possible that Aisha
(may God be pleased with her) had attained maturity in her time in her development despite her age in that time and that modern girls of a similar age today do not attain to maturity in that same way, which is why they might experience the problems you've mentioned.
Suffering and evil are a part of life as you yourself said in the earliest part of your post. Do you know why both exist? Suffering exists when we attach our hearts to ephemeral things. Children, as beautiful and as innocent as they are, are just part of existence, not the defining points of our existence. However, whenever we ascribe or choose to define ourselves by the things or beings we possess, you should realize that instead those things have possessed us. People run after fame, but become depressed or suicidal after their fame runs out, and they're no longer treated to that adulation. People run after wealth, but they become depressed or suicidal after the wealth runs out, and they're no longer privy to the luxuries they enjoyed. People run after spouses and children, but they become depressed or suicidal after their spouse dies or their children die, no longer giving them meaning in life. However, these are just gifts, for the Owner to do with as the Owner pleases; they never belonged to the people who felt that they had a right to them in the first place. We human beings should not attach our hearts to that which is temporary and instead look to God, the Eternal, to attach our hearts. Do you know what the logical opposite of light is? It is the absence of the light, which we call darkness. Do you know what the logical opposite of goodness is? It is the absence of goodness, which we call evil. God did not create evil; the very inability for human beings to govern their egos and free themselves from negative influence whether mental, psychical, or spiritual results in evil. So, you should not seek to blame God for that which God is not responsible. We all have Free Will from birth to grave; we choose what we want and the responsibility of not exercising the freedom properly is not the fault of God but human beings. For example, there are traffic laws which asks us to stop at a red signal. Do you blame the red signal for a car driving through the red light and causing an accident? No, right. That's because the red traffic light is an instrument of neutrality. In that same way, God has promised to judge our actions in the Hereafter, but here in this world we're given free will and God listens to our prayers and answers them but God has given us free will in life as an instrument of neutrality to exercise in whichever way we will.
You mentioned that there are cases wherein some children were kidnapped from their houses, gang-raped and burnt to death and you asked how was that a test. Recognize God has created two worlds, the Seen and the Unseen. In the Seen world, you see from the materialist perspective the horrible way in which an innocent child died and for no reason. However, in the Unseen world, you see from the spiritual perspective the martyrdom that that the innocent child achieved and the higher status in Paradise were it not for the horrible way in which this innocent child had died and now his/her death becomes an instrument for the parents to revive/maintain their faith and for the wider world to become aware of guarding their children from predators. In the Unseen world, a bad thing that happens in the Seen world is still an event from which a spiritual and/or material good ensues.
Since you've said that you'd became an agnostic several months ago, I think you need to rethink your agnosticism but in ways that are going to be conducive to you attaining belief. First and foremost, recognize that we're all (Muslims and non-Muslims) on a spiritual journey, regardless of whether're cognizant of this fact or not. What is important therefore is that we all realize that neither belief nor nonbelief are permanent states of being; rather, they're both simply states of existence that are subject to processes of thinking and processes of life. Therefore, I think it is important that you learn to see your nonbelief as a blank slate from which you're going to be building up your faith God-willing. Remember the first words of the testimony of faith known as
shahada is "
I bear witness that there is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God." So, you already have the blank slate of the
shahada as per the highlighted portion in maroon red as a gateway to the acknowledgement of the rest. If you do not give into this state of anxiety and stay calm and focused, frankly, I think you here might have a golden opportunity here that many people do not have, which is to have an
iman (faith) that is going to become the stuff of mountains that nobody will be able to move because hopefully you'll be able to build from a solid foundation this time around. As a starting point, I think you should watch the YouTube videos
Divine Prologue 1 and
Divine Prologue 2 and tell me if you still feel the same way. With anything good in life in which you want to invest, you'll have to give your time, energy, and attention. So, if truth and faith is something you desire, I hope you'll not mind devoting the time, energy, and attention building yourself up in this matter will require. If you do so, I'm inclined to think God-willing you'll be better off in the end for it and perhaps even some day recognize the wisdom and value of God having you taken down that path so that hopefully you'll be able to then be the light that guides other Muslims when they should fall off the bandwagon as you did here in your story. However, that's going too far yet into the future, and we'll both have to agree to take you taking it easy on yourself by going one step at one time. Agreed?
Last Point: Faith is that which the heart believes but the mind denies. It would be useless for anyone to try to build knowledge of faith on the level of the mind as faith exists on a spiritual plane and that plane resides in the heart. So, if your heart corrects you, your faith will become revived. So, if I were you, I'd focus on correcting the heart that became an instrument of corruption (which fed off of the doubts you'd been having and led to agnosticism materializing as an organic path and natural outcome). Remember Prophet Muhammad
(peace and blessings be upon him) said, "
There lies within the body a piece of flesh. If it is sound, the whole body is sound; and if it is corrupted, the whole body is corrupted. Verily this piece is the heart." The aphorism in the
hadith (prophetic tradition) is stating a profound and primordial Spiritual Law governing us.
Take care.
Sincere Regards & Best Wishes,
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