format_quote Originally Posted by
TheSeekingSon
My first question is:
What does the Quran say about people who have lost their faith but wants to win it back again? I would appreciate a deep and serious answer to this issue.
My second question is:
If you believe only muslims will enter the paradise, how is that fair to all the "poor" people who are born into a different religion and who maybe will never hear anything about Islam or the Quran? Even if they know about the Quran and it's teachings, they were born into a different faith and therefore they are "brainwashed" or indoctrined to believe in this faith.
How do you muslims feel and reflect about this?
Hello there you and your questions are most welcome so please feel free to continue to ask whatever questions you like and we will try our best to help you God willing.
In regards to your first question about people who have lost their faith and want to come back to Islam then let us look at this verse from the Qur'an:
Allah accept the repentance of those who do evil in ignorance and repent soon afterwards; to them will Allah turn in mercy: For Allah is full of knowledge and wisdom. Of no effect is the repentance of those who continue to do evil, until death faces one of them, and he says, 'Now have I repented indeed;' nor of those who die rejecting Faith: for them have We prepared a punishment most grievous.
(Quran 4:17-18)
Similarly, for those who do shirk (Associate partners with God) and then repent:
But any that (in this life) had repented, believed, and worked righteousness, shall hope to be among those who achieve salvation.
(Quran 28:67)
Therefore a person who leaves Islam and associates partners with God but then returns to Islam again repenting sincerely then they will be forgiven as God is most kind and merciful but he who leaves Islam and associates partners with God and then dies in that state will not be forgiven. God forgives ANY sin as long as one repents sincerely before death.
In regards to your second question:
There are some people who have not been reached by the message of the Prophet of Islam (Allah bless him and give him peace) that we must worship the One God alone, associating nothing else with Him. Such people are innocent, and will not be punished no matter what they do.
Allah says in surat al-Isra',
"We do not punish until We send a Messenger"
(Quran 17:15).
These include, for example, Christians and others who lived in the period after the spread of the myth of Jesus godhood, until the time of the prophet Muhammad (Allah bless him and give him peace), who renewed the call to pure monotheism.
The great Muslim scholar, Imam Ghazali, includes in this category those who have only been reached with a distorted picture of the Messenger of Islam (Allah bless him and give him peace), presumably including many people in the West today who know nothing about Allah's religion but newspaper stories about Ayatollahs and mad Muslim bombers. Is it within such people's capacity to believe?
In Ghazali's view, such people are excused until after they have had an opportunity to learn the undistorted truth about Islam
(Ghazali: "Faysal al - tafriqa," Majmu'a rasa'il al-Imam al-Ghazali, 3.96).
(2) A second group of people consists of those who turn away from God's divine message of Islam, rejecting the command to make their worship God's alone; whether because of blindly imitating the religion of their ancestors, or for some other reason. These are people to whom God has sent a prophetic messenger and reached with His message, and to whom He has given hearing and an intellect with which to grasp it but after all this, persist in associating others with Allah, either by actually worshipping another, or by rejecting the laws brought by His messenger (Allah bless him and give him peace), which associates their own customs with His prerogative to be worshipped as He directs. Such people have violated God's rights, and have accepted to go to hell, which is precisely what His messengers have warned them of, so they have no excuse:
"Truly, Allah does not forgive that any be associated with Him; but He forgives what is less than that to whomever He wills"
(Qur'an 4:48).
In either case, Allah's mercy exists, though for non-Muslims unreached by the message, it is a question of divine amnesty for their ignorance, not a confirmation of their religions validity. It is worth knowing the difference between these two things, for one's eternal fate depends on it.
Hope your questions are answered. Please continue to ask whatever you like and we will try our best to help you. Thank you