/* */

PDA

View Full Version : Harsh rulings in Islam? (opinions please)



ChosenTCO
01-30-2018, 08:59 PM
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning ☹ but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.
Reply

Login/Register to hide ads. Scroll down for more posts
Zafran
01-30-2018, 09:33 PM
salaam

OK
1 - difference opinion always has been on Music

2 - Looking at the "me too" campaign" and Hollywood moguls caught in all sorts of sexual forbidden acts its safer to have a distance to the opposite sex. Only interactions of necessities should be allowed. However this issue is a lot more complex because of the "hook up culture" and hard to get married in modern societies. pornography which warps humans mind when it comes to the opposite gender clearly shows why the distance is advised by the scholars and early marriage.

3 - people should be happy with what God has given them - the whole cosmetic industry is made on making people look ugly so they can make money out of them - its a superficial and capitalist mess - Women lose out the biggest here as they are pretty much forced to wear make up in every society.

4 - Men cant do some things in Islam women cant do other things. Women cannot marry non Muslim men - giving up silk and Gold is nothing compared to that.

5 - difference of opinion

6 - difference of opinion (see mawlid)

7,8,9 - I play Games and watch films - its better doing these things because boredom can lead to all sorts of terrible things.

You seem to be caught up in fiqh issues rather then actually build the readership with God. Its all about God at the end of day. Giving up things for God are always good even if they hurt in the short term. Having a more internal examination of oneself can reveal wonders.

PS - which scholars do you follow? - they seem to be very restrictive.
Reply

AabiruSabeel
01-30-2018, 10:10 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram
:salam:

Most of these is because of the environment in which we live or the culture in which a person is raised up. If a person associates himself with righteous people, or lives in a society of righteous people, or if a child is brought up according to Islamic values, then he won't face any problems in practicing properly and abstaining from all the sins. But when the environment is so engrossed in all these unIslamic things, it becomes difficult to abstain from them and it looks like a burden and like a restriction on one's freedom of indulging in sins.

That is why it is very important for a Muslim to always be in the company of righteous people. If you can't find them at your place, then move to a better one. Migration to an Islamic place is one of the important aspects of Islam, which is largely neglected in these days.

Allah :swt: says,

Indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] while wronging themselves - [the angels] will say, "In what [condition] were you?" They will say, "We were oppressed in the land." The angels will say, "Was not the earth of Allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?" For those, their refuge is Hell - and evil it is as a destination.
Except for the oppressed among men, women and children who cannot devise a plan nor are they directed to a way -
For those it is expected that Allah will pardon them, and Allah is ever Pardoning and Forgiving.
[An-Nisa: 97-99]


Narrated Sufyan b. Abu Zuhair :ra::
I heard Allah's Messenger :saws: saying, "Yemen will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families, and those who will obey them to migrate (to Yemen) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew. Sham will also be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families and those who will obey them, to migrate (to Sham) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew. 'Iraq will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families and those who will obey them to migrate (to 'Iraq) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew." [Bukhari]


Although this Hadith is regarding Madinah, it can apply to any Muslim populated city. People nowadays are preferring to migrate to far off places instead of living in a place where they can practice their religion properly and safeguard their Imaan.
Reply

Misbah-Abd
01-30-2018, 10:54 PM
Yes, so the solution is to just give in to your whims and desires because you don't have enough iman to follow the Deen. As far as opinions, when it contradicts the Quran and Sunnah then take that opinion and fling it against the wall. Unbelievable that Muslims are starting to act like Christians and going to their prayer service once a week, leaving their righteousness there, and then do whatever they want the rest of the week. And Allah's refuge is sought...
Reply

Welcome, Guest!
Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up
Search
01-30-2018, 11:37 PM
:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Walekum Assalam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatu:

I will not address all the points in your post, but I do want to address point number 2 as thoroughly as I am able.

Even if I agree with you that some gender interactions with the opposite sex is not harmful, I cannot agree that the overall preventative measure in Islam is unnecessary or redundant. You seem to be only contemplating, for example, the worst-case scenario, which is fornication. While that is a great sin in Islam, there are some other bad situations that can occur, and let's demonstrate this with some scenarios for your perusal:

1) You are chitchatting with a girl casually and you develop feelings for her. Your parents of course won't even contemplate marriage until you're older and mature. Now, you're stuck having feelings for this girl, but you cannot do anything about it. Does that sound like an appetizing scenario to you?

But let's imagine yet another:
2) This girl is of another faith, and she doesn't see anything wrong with chatting with you or hugging you or whatever. She seems to understand you, and now you think she would be a great person if she converted and married except all of this contemplation is born only of your imagination. She, however, only sees you as a friend because she long ago "friend-zoned" you and never considered you anything other than a guy in whom she can confide her feelings and deepest desires. So, now, you have a "friend" with whom you don't want a friendship and instead see a future which cannot happen because she's never contemplated any such thing with you in the first place! Is that something you want?

Now let's imagine yet another:
3) You just casually talk to a girl and have absolutely no feelings for her. She, however, draws hearts in her diaries with your name and imagines how wonderful a relationship with you would be because you're her secret crush, and she's having a tough time at home because her parents are divorcing and fighting almost all the time. You, however, are entirely clueless and hurt her feelings when you don't reciprocate; and she genuinely thought you talking to her meant someone in the world liked her. Now, she's having suicidal thoughts because she already hates her home, and here you are another person in her life who disappointed her. Is giving someone heartache a recipe that you concocted with your unknowing encouragement and interaction with her or one born from rules of Islam?

The gendered interaction in Islam is not meant to restrict you but to free you from experiences that might prove burdensome. It is not easy to be rejected or reject, and both of those things are distinct possibilities with unfettered interaction with the opposite sex. You can in fact browse this board or even the wider Internet with just some such questions that people ask once they experience the truth of what I've just relayed to you. These things happen in school, universities, the workplace. The secretary falls in love with her married boss. The student falls in in love with another student. The male friend is upset that the female friend has a proposal. It is said: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

And also, if you're heterosexual, please don't try to tell me that the only feelings you have for a "hot" girl is fraternal in nature because that is something not even worthy of a proper response. But most importantly, don't fool yourself into believing that your innermost intentions are completely pure; we're human beings, not angels. We have a nafs (ego) that is already drawn to lower/most base desires, and we have shaitaan (Satan) always eager to lead us astray.

Read the story of Barsisa to which I'm linking you and contemplate on the fact that shaitaan never comes to any believer and immediately says to fornicate. Rather, shaitaan takes you in any wrong direction by degrees, and the gradual progression and escalation is Shaitaan's greatest trick against all humankind. Fornication is one result, yes, but another one is often heartache. Remember the heart is the house of Allah, and misusing it for self-deception purposes is the reason so many people cry from the fallout of premarital relationships or unexpected heartbreak.

:wa: (And peace be upon you)

format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning ☹ but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.
Reply

talibilm
01-30-2018, 11:48 PM
Sorry no time to read your post fully or the whole thread..

Punishments in Islam SEEM TO APPEAR VERY HARSH ON THE OUTER but when we profoundly study the Prerequisites or requisites to carry out those punishments IT SHOWS THE GIST IS TO JUST TO FRIGHTEN AND WARN THE PUBLIC INTO INDULGING IN SINS, IMMORAL ACTIVITIES, ANARCHY , OPPRESSION etc

For example from a Sahih hadith is that a Drunkard was brought to the Caliph Umar RA with the witness of the Authorities that they found drops of wine in his beard . When interrogated he refused his crime and was let off since there is no witnesses for the exact crime which is the actual drinking and what also drank was really a liquor (not a halal drink stored up in a bottle used for wine)

In Islam we can never allege any one Guilty since just we have some references or being implied of a crime and that's a big crime that carries almost equal punishment of that Criminal. like done in the non islamic method where allegations are dumped on a person because its suspected.

So this is the Law of Allah which is implemented after all its requisites of Banning all sort of triggers temptations that leads man to sins , for example Liquor is banned first 100% before bringing the hadd punishment and such punishments is implemented UNDER a Sharia court or the Ruler under an Islamic State The calipha and its not the job of common Public




- - - Updated - - -

Sorry no time to read your post fully or the whole thread..

Punishments in Islam SEEM TO APPEAR VERY HARSH ON THE OUTER but when we profoundly study the Prerequisites or requisites to carry out those punishments IT SHOWS THE GIST IS TO JUST TO FRIGHTEN AND WARN THE PUBLIC INTO INDULGING IN SINS, IMMORAL ACTIVITIES, ANARCHY , OPPRESSION etc

For example from a Sahih hadith is that a Drunkard was brought to the Caliph Umar RA with the witness of the Authorities that they found drops of wine in his beard . When interrogated he refused his crime and was let off since there is no witnesses for the exact crime which is the actual drinking and what also drank was really a liquor (not a halal drink stored up in a bottle used for wine)

In Islam we can never allege any one Guilty since just we have some references or being implied of a crime and that's a big crime that carries almost equal punishment of that Criminal. like done in the non islamic method where allegations are dumped on a person because its suspected.

So this is the Law of Allah which is implemented after all its requisites of Banning all sort of triggers temptations that leads man to sins , for example Liquor is banned first 100% before bringing the hadd punishment and such punishments is implemented UNDER a Sharia court or the Ruler under an Islamic State The calipha and its not the job of common Public


Reply

Mustafa16
01-30-2018, 11:49 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Search
:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

Walekum Assalam Warahmatullahi Wabarakatu:

I will not address all the points in your post, but I do want to address point number 2 as thoroughly as I am able.

Even if I agree with you that some gender interactions with the opposite sex is not harmful, I cannot agree that the overall preventative measure in Islam is unnecessary or redundant. You seem to be only contemplating, for example, the worst-case scenario, which is fornication. While that is a great sin in Islam, there are some other bad situations that can occur, and let's demonstrate this with some scenarios for your perusal:

1) You are chitchatting with a girl casually and you develop feelings for her. Your parents of course won't even contemplate marriage until you're older and mature. Now, you're stuck having feelings for this girl, but you cannot do anything about it. Does that sound like an appetizing scenario to you?

But let's imagine yet another:
2) This girl is of another faith, and she doesn't see anything wrong with chatting with you or hugging you or whatever. She seems to understand you, and now you think she would be a great person if she converted and married except all of this contemplation is born only of your imagination. She, however, only sees you as a friend because she long ago "friend-zoned" you and never considered you anything other than a guy in whom she can confide her feelings and deepest desires. So, now, you have a "friend" with whom you don't want a friendship and instead see a future which cannot happen because she's never contemplated any such thing with you in the first place! Is that something you want?

Now let's imagine yet another:
3) You just casually talk to a girl and have absolutely no feelings for her. She, however, draws hearts in her diaries with your name and imagines how wonderful a relationship with you would be because you're her secret crush, and she's having a tough time at home because her parents are divorcing and fighting almost all the time. You, however, are entirely clueless and hurt her feelings when you don't reciprocate; and she genuinely thought you talking to her meant someone in the world liked her. Now, she's having suicidal thoughts because she already hates her home, and here you are another person in her life who disappointed her. Is giving someone heartache a recipe that you concocted with your unknowing encouragement and interaction with her or one born from rules of Islam?

The gendered interaction in Islam is not meant to restrict you but to free you from experiences that might prove burdensome. It is not easy to be rejected or reject, and both of those things are distinct possibilities with unfettered interaction with the opposite sex. You can in fact browse this board or even the wider Internet with just some such questions that people ask once they experience the truth of what I've just relayed to you. These things happen in school, universities, the workplace. The secretary falls in love with her married boss. The student falls in in love with another student. The male friend is upset that the female friend has a proposal. It is said: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

And also, if you're heterosexual, please don't try to tell me that the only feelings you have for a "hot" girl is fraternal in nature because that is something not even worthy of a proper response. But most importantly, don't fool yourself into believing that your innermost intentions are completely pure; we're human beings, not angels. We have a nafs (ego) that is already drawn to lower/most base desires, and we have shaitaan (Satan) always eager to lead us astray.

Read the story of Barsisa to which I'm linking you and contemplate on the fact that shaitaan never comes to any believer and immediately says to fornicate. Rather, shaitaan takes you in any wrong direction by degrees, and the gradual progression and escalation is Shaitaan's greatest trick against all humankind. Fornication is one result, yes, but another one is often heartache. Remember the heart is the house of Allah, and misusing it for self-deception purposes is the reason so many people cry from the fallout of premarital relationships or unexpected heartbreak.

:wa: (And peace be upon you)
well said, brother, well said.....i myself was ignorant about this...i will keep this in mind.....
Reply

ChosenTCO
01-31-2018, 12:21 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Zafran
salaam

PS - which scholars do you follow? - they seem to be very restrictive.
I never did follow any specific scholar or anything like that. The stuff I follow is the stuff I learned from my father. He was a graduate of Al Azhar, so he knows quite a bit when it comes to fiqh. The rulings that I was referring to were ones I discovered when I started searching intensely about islam (during the period were I wanted to improve my relationship with God)

format_quote Originally Posted by AabiruSabeel
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/omarm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.png[/IMG]

Most of these is because of the environment in which we live or the culture in which a person is raised up. If a person associates himself with righteous people, or lives in a society of righteous people, or if a child is brought up according to Islamic values, then he won't face any problems in practicing properly and abstaining from all the sins. But when the environment is so engrossed in all these unIslamic things, it becomes difficult to abstain from them and it looks like a burden and like a restriction on one's freedom of indulging in sins.

That is why it is very important for a Muslim to always be in the company of righteous people. If you can't find them at your place, then move to a better one. Migration to an Islamic place is one of the important aspects of Islam, which is largely neglected in these days.

Allah [IMG]file:///C:/Users/omarm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image002.png[/IMG] says,

Indeed, those whom the angels take [in death] while wronging themselves - [the angels] will say, "In what [condition] were you?" They will say, "We were oppressed in the land." The angels will say, "Was not the earth of Allah spacious [enough] for you to emigrate therein?" For those, their refuge is Hell - and evil it is as a destination.
Except for the oppressed among men, women and children who cannot devise a plan nor are they directed to a way -
For those it is expected that Allah will pardon them, and Allah is ever Pardoning and Forgiving.
[An-Nisa: 97-99]


Narrated Sufyan b. Abu Zuhair [IMG]file:///C:/Users/omarm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image003.png[/IMG]:
I heard Allah's Messenger [IMG]file:///C:/Users/omarm/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image004.png[/IMG] saying, "Yemen will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families, and those who will obey them to migrate (to Yemen) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew. Sham will also be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families and those who will obey them, to migrate (to Sham) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew. 'Iraq will be conquered and some people will migrate (from Medina) and will urge their families and those who will obey them to migrate (to 'Iraq) although Medina will be better for them; if they but knew." [Bukhari]


Although this Hadith is regarding Madinah, it can apply to any Muslim populated city. People nowadays are preferring to migrate to far off places instead of living in a place where they can practice their religion properly and safeguard their Imaan.
Thank you SO much for the response brother. Great advice and I agree to it in general, but when u look at it in reality … it is much more difficult than it sounds. Even muslim countries don’t encourage muslims to stay in them. A lot of these countries favor western nationalities and give them extra benefits in work when compared to a regular arab or Asian people. Add to that the harsh and strict laws in some of these countries that make people turn away from islam. We’ve all seen the reaction of the masses to a man in a viral video who was talking to a woman behind a restaurant in SA. He got arrested for simply talking to a woman. (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5093115/Saudi-police-arrest-man-SPEAKING-woman-break.html). May Allah guide us to what is best for us in this world and the hereafter


format_quote Originally Posted by Misbah-Abd
Yes, so the solution is to just give in to your whims and desires because you don't have enough iman to follow the Deen. As far as opinions, when it contradicts the Quran and Sunnah then take that opinion and fling it against the wall. Unbelievable that Muslims are starting to act like Christians and going to their prayer service once a week, leaving their righteousness there, and then do whatever they want the rest of the week. And Allah's refuge is sought...
Sarcasm … Ok I will take it. As such, I will reply in a similar way …
So lets all not question any of the information we are given and follow blindly that which the scholars say, even if its against our very nature. Lets all ignore the fact that the west is 100 times more advanced than us and pretend that we are still better than them. Let’s pretend that this extreme segregation between the sexes isn’t turning the youth into homosexuals and rapists. Let’s pretend that the majority of the sexual assaults and rape cases in Europe isn’t done by muslim immigrants who have been their suppressing urges for years and turning them into perverted creatures with no morals.

Brother, please understand … I am looking for moderation in our religion. Im not calling for liberation, just being in the middle. This (what the scholars are doing to people and the youth specifically) isn’t moderation
Reply

Misbah-Abd
01-31-2018, 12:58 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO



Sarcasm … Ok I will take it. As such, I will reply in a similar way …
So lets all not question any of the information we are given and follow blindly that which the scholars say, even if its against our very nature. Lets all ignore the fact that the west is 100 times more advanced than us and pretend that we are still better than them. Let’s pretend that this extreme segregation between the sexes isn’t turning the youth into homosexuals and rapists. Let’s pretend that the majority of the sexual assaults and rape cases in Europe isn’t done by muslim immigrants who have been their suppressing urges for years and turning them into perverted creatures with no morals.

Brother, please understand … I am looking for moderation in our religion. Im not calling for liberation, just being in the middle. This (what the scholars are doing to people and the youth specifically) isn’t moderation
The religion is established. Allah says: "This day I have perfected your religion for you and completed My favor upon you and am pleased with Islam as your religion." (5:3) The only thing now is to hear and obey. Your very nature is to worship Allah Azza wa Jal the way He wants you to and that means to obey His laws i.e. Quran and Sunnah. You can't judge Islam by how you perceive the West is winning and more advanced. Open up the Quran and read about Musa a.s. and his mission against Egypt and Pharoah. From the looks of it the Egyptians were more advanced materially than the Israelites. More military strength, land, fortune, etc. But they didn't have the Islam and the Tawhid. And Allah gave victory to the Muslims of Israel. We are better than them because we have iman in Allah while the kaffir doesn't. And it doesn't matter how well off materially they are because spiritually they are dead. As far as homo's and rapists, well that is more prevalent in Western society where you have the mixing of sexes. And for you to blame Muslim immigrants is a red flag that you are really just a troll or even worse trying to cause fitnah in this forum. The religion is moderate as it is. What is extreme is how you perceive it. What I suggest you do is stop allowing your environment in darul kufr to influence you, stop associating and imitating friends who may be disbelievers, read the Quran and learn your religion properly. And Allah Knows Best.
Reply

Zzz_
01-31-2018, 01:54 AM
Islam is about submission to the will of Allah. Either you submit to Him or you submit to you satan and your whims. Which path is easier or harder depends on the environment you live in and were raised in and your level of education about your religion.

Points 1-4 and 9 are backed by sahih hadith, so don't go blaming scholars for those. Points 5-6 are also backed by hadith, such as those who imitated the kuffar is one of them. Are you going to blame the Prophet (:saws:) now for being too strict? Regarding points 7 and 8, you can engage in them responsibly, such as doing it in moderation and keeping it clean. This is also backed by Islam and Scholars are only alluding to them. There are some scholars who take everything to extreme or say things that are out there. But scholars too are like any professional of any other field, you have the weak ones and you have the best ones. What you need is to increase your knowledge in your religion so you can understand these points that you raise and you will then see them in the right perspective.
Reply

Search
01-31-2018, 02:26 AM
:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

:sl: (Peace be upon you)


format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
I never did follow any specific scholar or anything like that. The stuff I follow is the stuff I learned from my father. He was a graduate of Al Azhar, so he knows quite a bit when it comes to fiqh. The rulings that I was referring to were ones I discovered when I started searching intensely about islam (during the period were I wanted to improve my relationship with God)
I agree with brother Zafran that the scholars whose answers you read, as per when you say you started searching intensely about Islam, seem to be giving extremely rigid answers. Early Muslims used to say, "This knowledge is a matter of deen, so be careful who you take your deen from." For example, I use the site Seekershub.org or eshaykh.com for fiqh rulings on contemporary issues as they better reflect my understanding of Islam specific to emerging issues in our times.

Also, I want to provide you an insight on why you might have disliked, for example, the fatwa on playing video games. I am a voracious reader, though nowadays I have less time to engage in this favorite hobby/passion. However, I once read a fatwa on reading fiction, which seemed to say that I was entirely wasting my time and instead should be engaged in more beneficial Islamic activities. I became upset and angry with the both the fatwa and the issuer of the fatwa; and it took me a long time to realize and admit even to myself why I'd become upset and angry. In Islam, human beings' purpose on this earth is to worship Allah and while we all at some level understand or accept that as a spiritual truth, we're not all on the same level of knowledge or understanding or practice of our deen. Therefore, when we're called to a higher mode of behavior, we feel personally attacked as we feel what we're doing already is not good enough. And nobody likes feeling that they're either (a) not good enough or (b) what they're doing is not good enough. And for a while, when I didn't have free time to engage in any leisurely activity, even reading, I realized I didn't miss it and perhaps indeed I'd been wasting my time. But it took me to reach to a higher level of iman (faith) and being kept busy in other matters to realize this truth. Perhaps scholars feel that they should be calling people to be a better or even the best version of their selves as Muslims, which is perhaps why unfortunately sometimes their fatwas means that they are either (a) alienating or (b) engaging in the risk of alienating Muslims who are not at that same level as the higher call to submission that they're asking us to make for the sake of Allah. Please understand I'm not saying that you should not be playing video games; rather, I'm saying that perhaps you might later recognize why the fatwa is less about what you shouldn't do and more about what you have in yourself to be were you to fulfill your potential in that direction.

By the way, I do celebrate birthdays and do not see anything wrong with celebrating wedding anniversaries; I follow the understanding and fatwa that these occasions are permissible to celebrate given no subversion of rules of Allah. I am not an avid watcher of movies, and I especially dislike the movies that are made today with nudity and strong language. However, I have not given up entirely watching movies as I dislike for myself to engage in any type of stringent mode of behavior that might breed an insidious hypocrisy. It is relayed that Prophet Isa (Jesus) :as: (peace be upon him) once said, "If the bowstring is always taut, the bow will eventually break." I would rather be flexible than break or be breakable. Islam is meant to be easy and we should strive to make it easy on ourselves and others inasmuch as possible while acknowledging our weaknesses; that said, we should keep striving to do all that we within our capacity to escape our weaknesses without at any point overburdening ourselves or others so that we either burn out or turn to kufr (disbelief). Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race. (And if we're contemplative, we'll realize that this is not even a race but a journey to our Lord. Bumps and humps here and there are much preferable to entirely turning away or giving up, because in the end we still can never escape judgment of the Judge when called upon for our individual judging on Judgment Day.)

Thank you SO much for the response brother. Great advice and I agree to it in general, but when u look at it in reality … it is much more difficult than it sounds. Even muslim countries don’t encourage muslims to stay in them. A lot of these countries favor western nationalities and give them extra benefits in work when compared to a regular arab or Asian people. Add to that the harsh and strict laws in some of these countries that make people turn away from islam. We’ve all seen the reaction of the masses to a man in a viral video who was talking to a woman behind a restaurant in SA. He got arrested for simply talking to a woman. (dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5093115/Saudi-police-arrest-man-SPEAKING-woman-break.html). May Allah guide us to what is best for us in this world and the hereafter
I, like many other people, are not in a financial or even a cultural position to make hijrah to Muslim lands. I had in the past thought that I would always be free to practice my religion as I see fit in the U.S. However, over time, I realize that there's a more pronounced discomfort that I feel living here, and I think it is because I don't think the culture reflects a space and openness for acceptance of my unique identity. Rather, I'm becoming more and more aware that I'm an "outsider" and will always be, because I am Muslim Alhamdhullilah (thanks, gratitude and credit to Allah) and plan to continue being so.

If I were given an opportunity in time to move to a Muslim land wherein I could practice my religion freely and listen to adhaan and had pragmatic plans in place for supporting myself financially and a good living situation, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The truth is that Islam is free from all blame and aspersions that people cast on it, but Muslims are not free from following non-Muslims in their sins as the culture in non-Muslim countries is generally inundated with freedoms that are designed to oppress the soul and free the inner beast that seeks to roam free from all restraint without thought to what freedom is; and some of the sins that we're now seeing becoming more pervasive in Muslim communities is due to not being able to teach Muslims that freedom can never come at the cost of not fulfilling responsibilities to others and ourselves (especially as believers) and there is no freedom without consequence. For example, a person is free to drive a car if he has a license and is an adult (that is, 18 years of age) in the U.S. But the person is not free from the responsibility of acquiring car insurance to see that if there's an accident, coverage exists for both parties. And the person is not free from the possibility of losing a limb should he get into a bad accident on the highway when he's speeding. The culture here, however, uses the word freedom for sloganeering without accompanying understanding of attached responsibilities and consequences. Therefore, hollow chants of "freedom" enslave the unthinking mind to the chains of materialism and hedonism. What is the use of your body being free if shaitaan instead shackles you to himself and especially so in the hereafter? The truth is that freedom lays only in submission to Allah; for otherwise you'll be submitting to things other than Allah, which is never a recipe for peace or contentment. Otherwise, the happiest and most contented creature on earth would be shaitaan, because he's willfully disobedient to Allah and has no plans of submission; instead, shaitaan, despite having freely chosen disobedience, is tirelessly running after us because he's submitted to the act of making us to disobey instead. In perhaps what can only be described as supreme irony, shaitaan is defeated not by us but by his own choices.

Sarcasm … Ok I will take it. As such, I will reply in a similar way …
So lets all not question any of the information we are given and follow blindly that which the scholars say, even if its against our very nature. Lets all ignore the fact that the west is 100 times more advanced than us and pretend that we are still better than them. Let’s pretend that this extreme segregation between the sexes isn’t turning the youth into homosexuals and rapists. Let’s pretend that the majority of the sexual assaults and rape cases in Europe isn’t done by muslim immigrants who have been their suppressing urges for years and turning them into perverted creatures with no morals.

Brother, please understand … I am looking for moderation in our religion. Im not calling for liberation, just being in the middle. This (what the scholars are doing to people and the youth specifically) isn’t moderation
Please don't be duped by how "advanced" you find the West. The West is only technologically and scientifically advanced. But that is not the measure of success, remember. What use is technology or science if all you have emerging out of it are people who reject either wholesale belief in Allah (God) or live their lives on the principle of YOLO because they believe themselves already forgiven in the hereafter, as if God has guaranteed any human being Paradise without following through on the intention and action that epitomizes that belief. The West comprises of a declining culture that no longer seems to (a) know itself or (b) be able to reflect on its failings or (c) contemplate self-correction.

Believe it or not, the West had the same morals and values that Muslims hold in regards to aspects of opposite gender interaction about a 150-200 years ago; non-Muslims used to engage in courtship rituals under the proper supervision of chaperones which are not unlike meeting arrangements contemplated in Muslim families. Then, women and men used to value families and neighbors; however, as time moved forward, the familiarity between human beings, especially as once extant in families and neighbors, eroded as an observance. And what you see today is born from the decline of a culture that once valued the same values that Muslims even today value.

Restraint is not harmful and does not turn people into rapists and homosexuals; rather, the culture of expecting youth to attain higher and higher educating without giving them a permissible outlet for their sexual desires is turning people (of all self-identified sexual orientation) into frustrated human beings who are turning to pornography or premarital relationships and sex. In the meantime, the pervasiveness of everyday-type "soft pornography" like perfume ads or beer ads are showcasing gorgeous women in basic states of undress and desirability to sell products, desensitizing men further to women's spiritual role as respected daughters, sisters, mothers, and wives, and heavenly companions of men. The type of illicit promotions seen in the ad world today would never have been contemplated even in Western culture a few hundred years ago, because such bombardment of illicit images would have been considered immoral and even illegal.

Today, from what I understand though, the Muslim world is one of the front-runners in terms of downloading pornography, mainly an invention of depravity which are bringing top dollars to the handful of Western elite in the adult entertainment industry who are creators and exporters of such scandalous and salacious material; and on top of that, many men in Muslim countries have never been taught how to properly address or respect women when guests in a foreign land or even to know to lower their gaze specific to women who do not seem to be reflecting a modest dressing style or demeanor. So, therefore, these "men", (a) free to roam as singles in countries so different from their own and (b) freed from all cultural restraint so ingrained in their country of origin and also (c) not religious or practicing, feel themselves entitled to prey on women who they don't know and contemplate from an eye that objectifies the opposite gender due to desensitization from pornography. By the way, unarguably, "men" who prey on women are beastly and immoral and evil; and I'm not trying to justify such perverted behavior. I use "men" in quotation marks because they're quite clearly ignorant of what it means to be truly men, because they prove themselves little more than boorishly oversexed trolls, in the abject state of looking at the world through boyishly selfish voyeuristic fantasies. In other words, I'm trying to tell you very clearly and simply that to blame Islam at the root of such perversions is to miss the truth that Islam never endorsed such behavior but rather strongly condemned such. Of course, it goes without saying that just because a country is populated with Muslims does not mean that Islam is the backbone of it; the sad truth is that the wider culture in Muslim-majority countries is often steeped in jahilliyah (ignorance) because most Muslim-majority countries are rather un-Islamic once you delve beyond a superficial level to see that there are (a) mosques but without the widespread willingness of the people to congregate and fill the prayer halls and (b) scholars indubitably arrogant on account of their amassed knowledge and adding titles to their names, (c) speakers on the deen who speak without imparting wisdom on advanced topics at level of the common folk and c) imams, mostly inaccessible to the common public, who are also incidentally no longer teaching people about tazkiyaah known as purification (of the soul) or adab known as Islamic manners.

Islam is already a religion of moderation; if we move the needle more towards other than that which is already the baseline thread within Islam, then we'll risk moving towards a direction that is not moderation but laxity which is neither Islamic nor desirable in terms of outcome (under the guise of moderation).

Sincere Regards & Best Wishes,

:wa: (And peace be upon you)
Reply

ChosenTCO
01-31-2018, 02:16 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Search
:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

:sl: (Peace be upon you)


I agree with brother Zafran that the scholars whose answers you read, as per when you say you started searching intensely about Islam, seem to be giving extremely rigid answers. Early Muslims used to say, "This knowledge is a matter of deen, so be careful who you take your deen from." For example, I use the site Seekershub.org or eshaykh.com for fiqh rulings on contemporary issues as they better reflect my understanding of Islam specific to emerging issues in our times.

Also, I want to provide you an insight on why you might have disliked, for example, the fatwa on playing video games. I am a voracious reader, though nowadays I have less time to engage in this favorite hobby/passion. However, I once read a fatwa on reading fiction, which seemed to say that I was entirely wasting my time and instead should be engaged in more beneficial Islamic activities. I became upset and angry with the both the fatwa and the issuer of the fatwa; and it took me a long time to realize and admit even to myself why I'd become upset and angry. In Islam, human beings' purpose on this earth is to worship Allah and while we all at some level understand or accept that as a spiritual truth, we're not all on the same level of knowledge or understanding or practice of our deen. Therefore, when we're called to a higher mode of behavior, we feel personally attacked as we feel what we're doing already is not good enough. And nobody likes feeling that they're either (a) not good enough or (b) what they're doing is not good enough. And for a while, when I didn't have free time to engage in any leisurely activity, even reading, I realized I didn't miss it and perhaps indeed I'd been wasting my time. But it took me to reach to a higher level of iman (faith) and being kept busy in other matters to realize this truth. Perhaps scholars feel that they should be calling people to be a better or even the best version of their selves as Muslims, which is perhaps why unfortunately sometimes their fatwas means that they are either (a) alienating or (b) engaging in the risk of alienating Muslims who are not at that same level as the higher call to submission that they're asking us to make for the sake of Allah. Please understand I'm not saying that you should not be playing video games; rather, I'm saying that perhaps you might later recognize why the fatwa is less about what you shouldn't do and more about what you have in yourself to be were you to fulfill your potential in that direction.

By the way, I do celebrate birthdays and do not see anything wrong with celebrating wedding anniversaries; I follow the understanding and fatwa that these occasions are permissible to celebrate given no subversion of rules of Allah. I am not an avid watcher of movies, and I especially dislike the movies that are made today with nudity and strong language. However, I have not given up entirely watching movies as I dislike for myself to engage in any type of stringent mode of behavior that might breed an insidious hypocrisy. It is relayed that Prophet Isa (Jesus) :as: (peace be upon him) once said, "If the bowstring is always taut, the bow will eventually break." I would rather be flexible than break or be breakable. Islam is meant to be easy and we should strive to make it easy on ourselves and others inasmuch as possible while acknowledging our weaknesses; that said, we should keep striving to do all that we within our capacity to escape our weaknesses without at any point overburdening ourselves or others so that we either burn out or turn to kufr (disbelief). Remember the story of the tortoise and the hare: slow and steady wins the race. (And if we're contemplative, we'll realize that this is not even a race but a journey to our Lord. Bumps and humps here and there are much preferable to entirely turning away or giving up, because in the end we still can never escape judgment of the Judge when called upon for our individual judging on Judgment Day.)

I, like many other people, are not in a financial or even a cultural position to make hijrah to Muslim lands. I had in the past thought that I would always be free to practice my religion as I see fit in the U.S. However, over time, I realize that there's a more pronounced discomfort that I feel living here, and I think it is because I don't think the culture reflects a space and openness for acceptance of my unique identity. Rather, I'm becoming more and more aware that I'm an "outsider" and will always be, because I am Muslim Alhamdhullilah (thanks, gratitude and credit to Allah) and plan to continue being so.

If I were given an opportunity in time to move to a Muslim land wherein I could practice my religion freely and listen to adhaan and had pragmatic plans in place for supporting myself financially and a good living situation, I'd do it in a heartbeat. The truth is that Islam is free from all blame and aspersions that people cast on it, but Muslims are not free from following non-Muslims in their sins as the culture in non-Muslim countries is generally inundated with freedoms that are designed to oppress the soul and free the inner beast that seeks to roam free from all restraint without thought to what freedom is; and some of the sins that we're now seeing becoming more pervasive in Muslim communities is due to not being able to teach Muslims that freedom can never come at the cost of not fulfilling responsibilities to others and ourselves (especially as believers) and there is no freedom without consequence. For example, a person is free to drive a car if he has a license and is an adult (that is, 18 years of age) in the U.S. But the person is not free from the responsibility of acquiring car insurance to see that if there's an accident, coverage exists for both parties. And the person is not free from the possibility of losing a limb should he get into a bad accident on the highway when he's speeding. The culture here, however, uses the word freedom for sloganeering without accompanying understanding of attached responsibilities and consequences. Therefore, hollow chants of "freedom" enslave the unthinking mind to the chains of materialism and hedonism. What is the use of your body being free if shaitaan instead shackles you to himself and especially so in the hereafter? The truth is that freedom lays only in submission to Allah; for otherwise you'll be submitting to things other than Allah, which is never a recipe for peace or contentment. Otherwise, the happiest and most contented creature on earth would be shaitaan, because he's willfully disobedient to Allah and has no plans of submission; instead, shaitaan, despite having freely chosen disobedience, is tirelessly running after us because he's submitted to the act of making us to disobey instead. In perhaps what can only be described as supreme irony, shaitaan is defeated not by us but by his own choices.



Please don't be duped by how "advanced" you find the West. The West is only technologically and scientifically advanced. But that is not the measure of success, remember. What use is technology or science if all you have emerging out of it are people who reject either wholesale belief in Allah (God) or live their lives on the principle of YOLO because they believe themselves already forgiven in the hereafter, as if God has guaranteed any human being Paradise without following through on the intention and action that epitomizes that belief. The West comprises of a declining culture that no longer seems to (a) know itself or (b) be able to reflect on its failings or (c) contemplate self-correction.

Believe it or not, the West had the same morals and values that Muslims hold in regards to aspects of opposite gender interaction about a 150-200 years ago; non-Muslims used to engage in courtship rituals under the proper supervision of chaperones which are not unlike meeting arrangements contemplated in Muslim families. Then, women and men used to value families and neighbors; however, as time moved forward, the familiarity between human beings, especially as once extant in families and neighbors, eroded as an observance. And what you see today is born from the decline of a culture that once valued the same values that Muslims even today value.

Restraint is not harmful and does not turn people into rapists and homosexuals; rather, the culture of expecting youth to attain higher and higher educating without giving them a permissible outlet for their sexual desires is turning people (of all self-identified sexual orientation) into frustrated human beings who are turning to pornography or premarital relationships and sex. In the meantime, the pervasiveness of everyday-type "soft pornography" like perfume ads or beer ads are showcasing gorgeous women in basic states of undress and desirability to sell products, desensitizing men further to women's spiritual role as respected daughters, sisters, mothers, and wives, and heavenly companions of men. The type of illicit promotions seen in the ad world today would never have been contemplated even in Western culture a few hundred years ago, because such bombardment of illicit images would have been considered immoral and even illegal.

Today, from what I understand though, the Muslim world is one of the front-runners in terms of downloading pornography, mainly an invention of depravity which are bringing top dollars to the handful of Western elite in the adult entertainment industry who are creators and exporters of such scandalous and salacious material; and on top of that, many men in Muslim countries have never been taught how to properly address or respect women when guests in a foreign land or even to know to lower their gaze specific to women who do not seem to be reflecting a modest dressing style or demeanor. So, therefore, these "men", (a) free to roam as singles in countries so different from their own and (b) freed from all cultural restraint so ingrained in their country of origin and also (c) not religious or practicing, feel themselves entitled to prey on women who they don't know and contemplate from an eye that objectifies the opposite gender due to desensitization from pornography. By the way, unarguably, "men" who prey on women are beastly and immoral and evil; and I'm not trying to justify such perverted behavior. I use "men" in quotation marks because they're quite clearly ignorant of what it means to be truly men, because they prove themselves little more than boorishly oversexed trolls, in the abject state of looking at the world through boyishly selfish voyeuristic fantasies. In other words, I'm trying to tell you very clearly and simply that to blame Islam at the root of such perversions is to miss the truth that Islam never endorsed such behavior but rather strongly condemned such. Of course, it goes without saying that just because a country is populated with Muslims does not mean that Islam is the backbone of it; the sad truth is that the wider culture in Muslim-majority countries is often steeped in jahilliyah (ignorance) because most Muslim-majority countries are rather un-Islamic once you delve beyond a superficial level to see that there are (a) mosques but without the widespread willingness of the people to congregate and fill the prayer halls and (b) scholars indubitably arrogant on account of their amassed knowledge and adding titles to their names, (c) speakers on the deen who speak without imparting wisdom on advanced topics at level of the common folk and c) imams, mostly inaccessible to the common public, who are also incidentally no longer teaching people about tazkiyaah known as purification (of the soul) or adab known as Islamic manners.

Islam is already a religion of moderation; if we move the needle more towards other than that which is already the baseline thread within Islam, then we'll risk moving towards a direction that is not moderation but laxity which is neither Islamic nor desirable in terms of outcome (under the guise of moderation).

Sincere Regards & Best Wishes,

:wa: (And peace be upon you)
In your post, there are a few points that I actually found intriguing and stirred up my thought process.

1) The statement about your hobby and why it made you angry to hear that fatwa: to be honest, I never thought of it like that. I think it also does apply to me to an extent. However, now that I think about it, I think the main reason why I got upset about it is because of the justification to the fatwa they gave. It seemed to me that they were implying that any action that does not consist of Ibada can be considered as haram because it is considered as a waste of time. However, if we apply this logic to everything, we can also consider sleeping moderately to be haram as well because this time can be used for Ibada instead.

2)
Your quote regarding Prophet Isa (AA): This is exactly the point I was trying to make in the first post (but somehow people misunderstood me and thought I was attacking the religion itself. I was only questioning and doubting the scholars and their fatwas, not the deen!). If we keep forbidding more and more things in our world eventually we will break and wont be able to continue (and for those who have iman and think that they can handle all that, good for you, but don’t forget that most of the world aint like that). Just remember the encounter Prophet Muhammad (SAAW) had with Prophet Musa (AA), just after he received the command of salah. The Prophet Musa requested that the Prophet Muhammad would go back and ask Allah to reduce the number of salawaat on us.

3)
“The truth is that Islam is free from all blame”: Again, this goes back to the original intention of my post. It was meant to question the scholars of today, not islam. I truly believe that most of the fatwas of prohibition made on the doubtful matter are made out of fear or bias, not reason and logic. But who am I to judge, that’s why I was asking for the opinions of other people. But then again made some people to call me a troll and a non-practicing muslim for questioning these fatwas.

4)
The section about freedom and responsibility: I agree with most of what you have said. However, I failed to understand how all of what you said relates to the point I was trying to make

5) Restraint is not harmful and does not turn people into rapists and homosexuals: I would have to strongly disagree with you there. Restraint is extremely harmful. Specially when it comes to sexual desires. The longer a person is restraint from their desires the more they yearn for it. And if the person is taught islam through fear (which is how most people are taught islam nowadays in Pakistan and Afghanistan) they wont have proper iman or even morals. That’s why when they leave their parents houses and immigrate to western countries, they abandon all of that which they have been taught about islam. Had it not been for the wrong methods they were taught with (fear of Allah instead of love for him), they would probably want to hold on to their faith and willingly give up everything for Allah’s sake and satisfaction.

That’s also the problem with the scholars of this generation. It is that they choose to teach islam through fear instead of love. They make the main motive of the younger generation to be fear when following the deen than to follow it out of love of Allah’s mercy. And who would be motivated to believe in a God that keeps punishing people for every single wrong thing they do? This is what people perceive when scholars keep shooting the haram word at everything(shubuhat) they do. Every action they take will lead to punishment. How is that a religion which motivates people to follow it?

I remember there was a hadeeth about a person that pledged his allegiance to the Prophet (SAAW) on the conditions of praying 2 salat only per day. The Prophet accepted and later when the man was dismissed, the companions asked the Prophet why he agreed to such conditions. He stated that once the man tastes the goodness of these 2 prayers he will want to pray more. This is the kind of teaching that would actually encourage people to join islam, not the constant bombardment of how everything that doesn’t consist of ibada or sunna is haram.

Finally, I would like to state the original purpose of this post again, which was to discuss the points I mentioned and see why you may or may not agree with them since they were controversial topics (or so I thought). I never meant to offend anyone by posting this at all and im sorry if it did. Anyways, thanks for ALL your responses.
Reply

99sobi
01-31-2018, 02:47 PM
1) Music: If it doesn't help you in remembering Allah, what's the point of it? It's just a waste of time, and time is something that is very useful and crucial. You can still listen to music while remembering Allah, i.e. listening to anasheed (preferably without certain musical instruments, i.e. vocals only).

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: I know there will be some people who are more conservative and strict in their approach but this is what I personally think. There is nothing wrong with simply interacting with the opposite gender. Having a quick chat, helping them with something, or asking them about something is perfectly fine. Some people think that as soon as they see someone of the opposite gender, they should shield their eyes and run away. And frankly, I find this approach immature. If you find yourself alone with a woman or a man, then you need to be mature about it and deal with this situation in a controlled way. Lowering your gaze does not only mean not looking at things you're not meant to, but also the way you behave, i.e. not flirting or stepping outside your boundaries. But there is nothing wrong with simply talking to someone of the opposite gender.

3) Cosmetics: If the cosmetics are being used to beautify oneself for the sake of their husband and their appearance, then it's permissible, as long as a) the ingredients are not harmful b) the ingredients are not haram and c) the body isn't altered or permanently changed. Allah has created us perfect: { لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلإِنسَانَ فِيۤ أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ }Verily We created man al-insān the generic in the best of forms in the best proportioning of his shape.

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: Men are allowed to wear rings, but chains, bracelets, and earrings are discouraged because they are imitations of men.

5) Wedding anniversaries: An Eid is a festival or holiday. It does not need to be of religious influence or significance. If the husband makes a day special, and he intends to do the same the next year, and so on and so forth, then he is clearly making it a festival, when Allah has decreed there only to be two festivals. Besides, every day should be a day of love, not just the day one year after their marriage.

6) Birthdays: Not decreed, not in the Sunnah, and nothing to celebrate about getting closer to your death.

7) Playing video games: There's nothing wrong with having fun, as long as you aren't doing anything sinful or anything that might lead you to sin. And actually, not having fun, i.e. boredom, can lead you to sin as said above.

8) Watching movies: Entertainment is allowed, in my opinion, although you should be a bit cautious about what kinds of stuff you're watching and who you're watching it with (some things may not be suitable for children)

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: Wearing T-shirts is fine; they're not an imitation of the Kuffar. Not everything is an imitation of the Kuffar; there are guidelines concerning that, please read them here https://islamqa.info/en/21694. Depends what is on the T-shirt, things like animals, etc, should not be worn.

As you can see, most of the stuff you mentioned are actually fine. Islam allows you to have some freedom in your lives; it's not restricted only to worship. If you have further queries, feel free to ask.
Reply

azc
02-01-2018, 03:18 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by 99sobi
1) Music: If it doesn't help you in remembering Allah, what's the point of it? It's just a waste of time, and time is something that is very useful and crucial. You can still listen to music while remembering Allah, i.e. listening to anasheed (preferably without certain musical instruments, i.e. vocals only).

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: I know there will be some people who are more conservative and strict in their approach but this is what I personally think. There is nothing wrong with simply interacting with the opposite gender. Having a quick chat, helping them with something, or asking them about something is perfectly fine. Some people think that as soon as they see someone of the opposite gender, they should shield their eyes and run away. And frankly, I find this approach immature. If you find yourself alone with a woman or a man, then you need to be mature about it and deal with this situation in a controlled way. Lowering your gaze does not only mean not looking at things you're not meant to, but also the way you behave, i.e. not flirting or stepping outside your boundaries. But there is nothing wrong with simply talking to someone of the opposite gender.

3) Cosmetics: If the cosmetics are being used to beautify oneself for the sake of their husband and their appearance, then it's permissible, as long as a) the ingredients are not harmful b) the ingredients are not haram and c) the body isn't altered or permanently changed. Allah has created us perfect: { لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلإِنسَانَ فِيۤ أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ }Verily We created man al-insān the generic in the best of forms in the best proportioning of his shape.

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: Men are allowed to wear rings, but chains, bracelets, and earrings are discouraged because they are imitations of men.

5) Wedding anniversaries: An Eid is a festival or holiday. It does not need to be of religious influence or significance. If the husband makes a day special, and he intends to do the same the next year, and so on and so forth, then he is clearly making it a festival, when Allah has decreed there only to be two festivals. Besides, every day should be a day of love, not just the day one year after their marriage.

6) Birthdays: Not decreed, not in the Sunnah, and nothing to celebrate about getting closer to your death.

7) Playing video games: There's nothing wrong with having fun, as long as you aren't doing anything sinful or anything that might lead you to sin. And actually, not having fun, i.e. boredom, can lead you to sin as said above.

8) Watching movies: Entertainment is allowed, in my opinion, although you should be a bit cautious about what kinds of stuff you're watching and who you're watching it with (some things may not be suitable for children)

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: Wearing T-shirts is fine; they're not an imitation of the Kuffar. Not everything is an imitation of the Kuffar; there are guidelines concerning that, please read them here https://islamqa.info/en/21694. Depends what is on the T-shirt, things like animals, etc, should not be worn.

As you can see, most of the stuff you mentioned are actually fine. Islam allows you to have some freedom in your lives; it's not restricted only to worship. If you have further queries, feel free to ask.
Sayyiduna ‘Ali (radiyallahu ‘anhu) said:
“If the religion were based on opinion, it would be more important to wipe [make masah on] the under part of the leather sock rather than the upper, however, I have seen Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) wipe the upper part.”

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith: 163, At Talkhisul Habir, Hadith: 717)
Reply

99sobi
02-02-2018, 05:02 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by azc
Sayyiduna ‘Ali (radiyallahu ‘anhu) said:
“If the religion were based on opinion, it would be more important to wipe [make masah on] the under part of the leather sock rather than the upper, however, I have seen Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) wipe the upper part.”

(Sunan Abi Dawud, Hadith: 163, At Talkhisul Habir, Hadith: 717)
If the Prophet did it, then you should do it; what do you mean/what is your point?
Reply

azc
02-02-2018, 05:40 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by 99sobi
If the Prophet did it, then you should do it; what do you mean/what is your point?
format_quote Originally Posted by 99sobi
1) Music: If it doesn't help you in remembering Allah, what's the point of it? It's just a waste of time, and time is something that is very useful and crucial. You can still listen to music while remembering Allah, i.e. listening to anasheed (preferably without certain musical instruments, i.e. vocals only).

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: I know there will be some people who are more conservative and strict in their approach but this is what I personally think. There is nothing wrong with simply interacting with the opposite gender. Having a quick chat, helping them with something, or asking them about something is perfectly fine. Some people think that as soon as they see someone of the opposite gender, they should shield their eyes and run away. And frankly, I find this approach immature. If you find yourself alone with a woman or a man, then you need to be mature about it and deal with this situation in a controlled way. Lowering your gaze does not only mean not looking at things you're not meant to, but also the way you behave, i.e. not flirting or stepping outside your boundaries. But there is nothing wrong with simply talking to someone of the opposite gender.

3) Cosmetics: If the cosmetics are being used to beautify oneself for the sake of their husband and their appearance, then it's permissible, as long as a) the ingredients are not harmful b) the ingredients are not haram and c) the body isn't altered or permanently changed. Allah has created us perfect: { لَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا ٱلإِنسَانَ فِيۤ أَحْسَنِ تَقْوِيمٍ }Verily We created man al-insān the generic in the best of forms in the best proportioning of his shape.

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: Men are allowed to wear rings, but chains, bracelets, and earrings are discouraged because they are imitations of men.

5) Wedding anniversaries: An Eid is a festival or holiday. It does not need to be of religious influence or significance. If the husband makes a day special, and he intends to do the same the next year, and so on and so forth, then he is clearly making it a festival, when Allah has decreed there only to be two festivals. Besides, every day should be a day of love, not just the day one year after their marriage.

6) Birthdays: Not decreed, not in the Sunnah, and nothing to celebrate about getting closer to your death.

7) Playing video games: There's nothing wrong with having fun, as long as you aren't doing anything sinful or anything that might lead you to sin. And actually, not having fun, i.e. boredom, can lead you to sin as said above.

8) Watching movies: Entertainment is allowed, in my opinion, although you should be a bit cautious about what kinds of stuff you're watching and who you're watching it with (some things may not be suitable for children)

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: Wearing T-shirts is fine; they're not an imitation of the Kuffar. Not everything is an imitation of the Kuffar; there are guidelines concerning that, please read them here https://islamqa.info/en/21694. Depends what is on the T-shirt, things like animals, etc, should not be worn.

As you can see, most of the stuff you mentioned are actually fine. Islam allows you to have some freedom in your lives; it's not restricted only to worship. If you have further queries, feel free to ask.
''In my opinion'' has NO place when clear guidelines in Islam are written. Plz see bold parts in your post.

I'm not a pious person though but I never mould Islamic rulings according to ''in my opinion''.
Reply

99sobi
02-02-2018, 07:03 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by azc
''In my opinion'' has NO place when clear guidelines in Islam are written. Plz see bold parts in your post.

I'm not a pious person though but I never mould Islamic rulings according to ''in my opinion''.
I'm not trying to suggest a different ruling, I wouldn't dare do such a thing. I believe that actions are by intentions as the Prophet :saws: said, so if someone speaks to a woman with the intention of breaching her space, and making her feel uncomfortable, and not lowering his gaze, in order to flirt or anything like that, then he is sinning and going against the command of Allah. But if someone is speaking to a woman with the intention of helping her, or finding information about something, or anything that is not impermissible, then there is no sin being committed, because my intentions are not evil or bad. And Allah knows best
Reply

ChosenTCO
02-02-2018, 08:09 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by azc
''In my opinion'' has NO place when clear guidelines in Islam are written. Plz see bold parts in your post.

I'm not a pious person though but I never mould Islamic rulings according to ''in my opinion''.
You mentioned CLEAR GUIDELINES. Brother, don't forget that there are some things that are considered as Shubuhaat (شبهات) (meaning doubtful matters). And the reason why there are things that are of shubuhat is because it DOES NOT have clear guidelines in share'a. Things like driving cars, praying in airplanes, using the internet, vaping, all of these things did not exist at the time of the prophet and therefore doesn't have clear rulings in the Share'a. There are also acts that used to exist at the time of the prophet that were not talked about (or at least, no mention of it exist in our records. Example, Oral xxx). Now, with this in mind, all of the points i wanted to discuss in my post were things that (as far as i know) have no clear rulings in Islam. Most of these things are made doubtful in our hearts because of all the stuff that the scholars of today harshly and illogically say about them. I made this post in effort to discuss whether i was missing any clear rulings regarding these points and discuss about how to counter the harshness of some of these scholars.

As proof to what i just said, there is a hadith that encourages us to consult our heart about such matters even if we consulted the right people and still feel doubt.
Sayyiduna Wabisah ibn Ma’bad (radiyallahu ‘anhu) said: “I came close to Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) until my knees touched his. He asked: ‘O Wabisah, should I inform you of what you came to ask or will you ask?’ I replied: ‘O Messenger of Allah, inform me.’ He said: ‘You came to ask me about righteousness and sin.’ I replied: ‘Yes.’ He combined three of his fingers and started to poke me with them in my chest and said, ‘O Wabisah, ask your heart, ask yourself.’ [He repeated it three times and then said:] ‘Righteousness is that which the heart feels at ease with and the soul is content with and sin is that which troubles the heart and causes doubts in the chest, even if people pass fatwa (of permissibility) for you and give you verdicts.”

You speak of Clear Guidelines, yet i have directed you to a link that talks about instances and narrations given as proof that music is not forbidden as appose to the many narrations that goes against music (just as an example to show you that not everything is that clear). Other scholars use single cases of reasoning to justify prohibiting entire things that can have many different motives. For example, cosmetic surgeries are deemed haram because most scholars think that the only reason why people do it is to change the natural human form when in fact this is not the case. Many of the women who have had cosmetic surgeries did it to restore a part of their body to their natural state/size (this can vary from resizing an abnormally large nose to restoring the breast size after pregnancy & breastfeeding). Another example is drawing, but i have already made a previous post about that (if you want to take a look about my argument). A third is adornments for men, where most scholars seem to think its just for beautification when its not.

On and on the arguments go ... so no brother, things are not clear as you may think. I was wanting to discuss and debate about the reasoning of some of these prohibitions. Im not here to mock or insult! So if you feel like you would like to correct me on one or more of my points feel free to do so as i am looking to learn more about other people's perspectives and gain knowledge from them:statisfie.

- - - Updated - - -

format_quote Originally Posted by azc
''In my opinion'' has NO place when clear guidelines in Islam are written. Plz see bold parts in your post.

I'm not a pious person though but I never mould Islamic rulings according to ''in my opinion''.
You mentioned CLEAR GUIDELINES. Brother, don't forget that there are some things that are considered as Shubuhaat (شبهات) (meaning doubtful matters). And the reason why there are things that are of shubuhat is because it DOES NOT have clear guidelines in share'a. Things like driving cars, praying in airplanes, using the internet, vaping, all of these things did not exist at the time of the prophet and therefore doesn't have clear rulings in the Share'a. There are also acts that used to exist at the time of the prophet that were not talked about (or at least, no mention of it exist in our records. Example, Oral xxx). Now, with this in mind, all of the points i wanted to discuss in my post were things that (as far as i know) have no clear rulings in Islam. Most of these things are made doubtful in our hearts because of all the stuff that the scholars of today harshly and illogically say about them. I made this post in effort to discuss whether i was missing any clear rulings regarding these points and discuss about how to counter the harshness of some of these scholars.

As proof to what i just said, there is a hadith that encourages us to consult our heart about such matters even if we consulted the right people and still feel doubt.
Sayyiduna Wabisah ibn Ma’bad (radiyallahu ‘anhu) said: “I came close to Rasulullah (sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) until my knees touched his. He asked: ‘O Wabisah, should I inform you of what you came to ask or will you ask?’ I replied: ‘O Messenger of Allah, inform me.’ He said: ‘You came to ask me about righteousness and sin.’ I replied: ‘Yes.’ He combined three of his fingers and started to poke me with them in my chest and said, ‘O Wabisah, ask your heart, ask yourself.’ [He repeated it three times and then said:] ‘Righteousness is that which the heart feels at ease with and the soul is content with and sin is that which troubles the heart and causes doubts in the chest, even if people pass fatwa (of permissibility) for you and give you verdicts.”

You speak of Clear Guidelines, yet i have directed you to a link that talks about instances and narrations given as proof that music is not forbidden as appose to the many narrations that goes against music (just as an example to show you that not everything is that clear). Other scholars use single cases of reasoning to justify prohibiting entire things that can have many different motives. For example, cosmetic surgeries are deemed haram because most scholars think that the only reason why people do it is to change the natural human form when in fact this is not the case. Many of the women who have had cosmetic surgeries did it to restore a part of their body to their natural state/size (this can vary from resizing an abnormally large nose to restoring the breast size after pregnancy & breastfeeding). Another example is drawing, but i have already made a previous post about that (if you want to take a look about my argument). A third is adornments for men, where most scholars seem to think its just for beautification when its not.

On and on the arguments go ... so no brother, things are not clear as you may think. I was wanting to discuss and debate about the reasoning of some of these prohibitions. Im not here to mock or insult! So if you feel like you would like to correct me on one or more of my points feel free to do so as i am looking to learn more about other people's perspectives and gain knowledge from them:statisfie.

- - - Updated - - -

damn this double post/editing glitch thing :facepalm:
Reply

beleiver
02-02-2018, 11:54 PM
I am here as a Truth seeker with belief in the One God and that Mohamed and Jesus are his messengers, I love reading the Koran and my daily prayers are influenced by Islam, yet i am far from what makes a True Muslim?
This is my opinion for what its worth.

The world is ruled by Satan, he seeks to destroy all that is Good and Just in the world, Islam is his enemy but is perfected in such a way that it can not be destroyed , so Satan can only seek to infiltrate, divide and try to distort its Truth as he has done previously with Judaism and Christianity..This has been going on since Islams early days i am certain, and now thousand+ years later and hundred plus years after the fall of the Caliphate Satan's task in subverting the religion of Islam has never been easier..And i think this is whats happened.

That beautiful Hadith above is clear proof Scholars have done great work in preserving the Truth as was their purpose, their purpose is to help us understand and record history not guide us to the extent they create and dictate laws..That can only come from the Koran surely? And how can anyone claim they are sovereign when we worship God as our Sovereign when he has no partners and intermediaries?

Unless a Scholar makes it clear its his learned opinion and opinions can be wrong and to ultimately make up ones own mind then personally i would be more inclined to doubt his Truth..In my search for Truth I have read Opinions that claim to be the basis of Islamic Law that imho opinion are seriously flawed and supported by untruths, when these laws come with punishments it turns me away from Islam to the degree that i oppose it, but i refuse to give Satan that satisfaction.. Its the erroneous Scholars i actually oppose or their untruths.

If people are causing no harm or loss to another and have respect for life and are in good health and cause no trouble then who can really judge but God as it can only be between God and the offender, and the Koran gives clear enough warning..

Banning Music, now cmonimsad Where did that one come from?
Reply

Misbah-Abd
02-03-2018, 12:43 AM
I see that is becoming more prevalent for Muslims to disrespect the scholars and think that their own opinion with regards to the religion is a better way to go. This is a grave mistake that will lead to misguidance that makes it even easier for the Shaytan. The premise that only Allah can judge disregards the very Law of Allah and His prescribed punishments for certain crimes. If you have a problem with certain punishments in the Quran and Sunnah, or think that they are barbaric and not "acceptable" by today's standard then you cannot be a Muslim. A Muslim is one who submits his will to the Will of Allah. So continue to follow your religion of "Jedi" or whatever makes you feel better about your deluded self, but don't come on a Muslim site and have the audacity to give us your worthless opinion about the religion and all of its precepts.
Reply

beleiver
02-03-2018, 01:43 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Misbah-Abd
I see that is becoming more prevalent for Muslims to disrespect the scholars and think that their own opinion with regards to the religion is a better way to go. This is a grave mistake that will lead to misguidance that makes it even easier for the Shaytan. The premise that only Allah can judge disregards the very Law of Allah and His prescribed punishments for certain crimes. If you have a problem with certain punishments in the Quran and Sunnah, or think that they are barbaric and not "acceptable" by today's standard then you cannot be a Muslim. A Muslim is one who submits his will to the Will of Allah. So continue to follow your religion of "Jedi" or whatever makes you feel better about your deluded self, but don't come on a Muslim site and have the audacity to give us your worthless opinion about the religion and all of its precepts.
sorry i didnt realize this was a Muslim only forum? i am here to learn..And the OP asked for opinions he didn't express if he only wanted opinions from practicing Musilms or not.

I only disrespect untruths.And it would be a little naive to think Satan wouldnt of tried to influence Islam..
What i do not understand is who gets to be a scholar in Islam? I am confused how some one gains the Authority to partner with God?
And which are these punishments you talk of? I am not against punishment for crimes, i question what constitutes a crime, like for example Music a crime:heated: I have asked this before here and no one has replied with an answer.

I selected Jedi on the form more of a Joke as anything, I am searching Truth and believe that will lead me on the right path closer to God and his preferred way of life..Isnt that why we are here?
Reply

azc
02-03-2018, 02:44 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by 99sobi
I'm not trying to suggest a different ruling, I wouldn't dare do such a thing. I believe that actions are by intentions as the Prophet :saws: said, so if someone speaks to a woman with the intention of breaching her space, and making her feel uncomfortable, and not lowering his gaze, in order to flirt or anything like that, then he is sinning and going against the command of Allah. But if someone is speaking to a woman with the intention of helping her, or finding information about something, or anything that is not impermissible, then there is no sin being committed, because my intentions are not evil or bad. And Allah knows best
Your intention is not questionable here. Rather It's to be seen whether or not Islam allows interacting with opposite gender..? Practically, what we do is a different matter.
Reply

Search
02-03-2018, 03:04 AM
:bism: (In the Name of God, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful)

:sl: (Peace be upon you)

You're most welcome here to learn, as we are all here for learning and sharing. :statisfie

:wa: (And peace be upon you)

format_quote Originally Posted by beleiver
sorry i didnt realize this was a Muslim only forum? i am here to learn..And the OP asked for opinions he didn't express if he only wanted opinions from practicing Musilms or not.

I only disrespect untruths.And it would be a little naive to think Satan wouldnt of tried to influence Islam..
What i do not understand is who gets to be a scholar in Islam? I am confused how some one gains the Authority to partner with God?
And which are these punishments you talk of? I am not against punishment for crimes, i question what constitutes a crime, like for example Music a crime:heated: I have asked this before here and no one has replied with an answer.

I selected Jedi on the form more of a Joke as anything, I am searching Truth and believe that will lead me on the right path closer to God and his preferred way of life..Isnt that why we are here?
Reply

Hamza Asadullah
02-03-2018, 03:35 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning ☹ but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.
Wa Alaikum Asalaam,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us my brother. My own thoughts on what you have written in your post is that "are these rulings" really harsh? or is the reality that they are against our own desires? Most of the things you have mentioned are of the worldly things which not only distract from the Hereafter but are harmful and have corrupting and negative influences on our hearts and souls.

Surely there is enough distraction and corrupting influences in the world already and these worldly desires you posted about are just adding to that. Not only that but surely we have already lost focus, or losing focus on the bigger picture in that we can die at any second which there is no difference of opinion on, and so we only have little time - some of us more than others. Therefore is indulging in our worldly desires really going to help us in this world and the next? Should we not be shunning anything that pulls us towards having love for the world and instead striving to go towards that which increases our desire for the Hereafter and to be with Allah?

Let me comment further on the points you made:

1. So you already acknowledge the utter filth that is apparent in todays mainstream music industry. An industry that is totally satanic and full of occultic symbolism, subliminal messaging, appealing to the lowly carnal desires, unspeakable negative and evil influences on our hearts and souls. Can anything good really be totally taken over by so much evil? Do your research on the industry and you will realise what it is really about and how the celebrities, actor/singers have sold their souls for fame. This is an industry that has created the worst people on Earth to be "idols" for the youth and mankind. Shaythan uses music as his weapon and believe me it is an effective one espeially to "distract" and corrupt the hearts and minds of the youth.

You mention there is "some" good music. So your stance on this is to "fight" for the very little good music - if any - there is out there when the vast majority is totally controlled by evil? Where is the logic in that? Anyone who looks at the evidence for prohibition for music will realise that there is far greater evidence for prohibition than there is against. To be honest with you there is not much difference of opinion against prohibition of music at all except on certain occassions and using limited instruments. So my brother you are holding onto nothing with any substance here.

2. With regards to interaction with the opposite sex then the example you gave with comparing a same gender friendship to an opposite gender friendship is absurd. You even mentioned incest? Why would you give such an extreme example which is totally irrevelant to what we are discussing? Yes there are isolated instances and cases where this may happen but of course in the vast majority of cases things like that do not happen. If they do then surely there is a corruption in the heart of the person who is inclined in such a way.

What does happen in the vast majority of cases is that friendships between opposite genders gradually or instantly turn into much more than just friendships. Me, you and most of the people reading this have seen it and exprienced it around us but you are acting as though you have lived a sheltered existance that these things only happen in fairy tales?

My brother the stance of having limited interactions with the opposite gender particularly when it comes to private interactions is not just an "isolated" opinion of a few scholars but it is a well known and established stance that is in the Qur'an and authentic Hadith and strongly supported by the past 1400 years of classical and scholarship. To be honest with you such prohibitions are far more important now than they have ever been because of the increasingly promiscuis and sexualised society we live in.

That is not to say that we should shut ourselves away and never even look at the opposte gender let alone interact with them. But the point is that we limit our ineractions with them to what is necessery. There is no reason to expand further on why. Anyone with a little common sense knows that it only takes one conversation whethr at work, college, University, on the streets, shopping mall etc to spark or ignite passions and then things progress from there. There are tonnes of examples of these things happening all around us all the time, so there is absolutely no denying this fact at all and the dangers of freely mixing with the opposite gender. We were created as human beings to generally be attracted to the opposite gender, so do you think the creator is not the best one to give us advice on interaction between the genders?

3. You mean to say "cosmetic procedures". I do not know of any majority opinion that states that if you have burns, or significant injury which changes the appearance of a bodily part that it cannot be corrected with corrective cosmetic surgery. However you say breast implants for flat chested women and nose jobs for people with large noses? So when did a flat chest or large nose become a deficiency? I find your logic very strange and very much influenced by the so called "societal norms" being pushed by those who deem what women and men should look like - not how they were created by Allah.

So all of a sudden according to you the differences in the way Allah created us all with different sized noses, ears, chest, skin colour and shade etc includes many deficiencies? My brother desist from such harmful thinking lest you claim you know what is better than Allah. Allah has created us in the normal human form. It is "us" who have decided what is more beautiful and what is considered "deficient". This is pure arrogance and in fact this type of thinking is what causes a lot of suicides in our societies when certain people especially the youth are come under immense pressure to "physically conform", but feel like they cannot then many end up taking their lives or living in severe depression and feeling low confidence and self esteem.

What may become deficient can happen through a natural birth defect, injury, illness etc but a person born with differences in physical form and appearance is absolutely not deficient! These people feel this way beause of the "perfect photoshopped human image" being pushed all over the media. There is no doubt that this is utter deception. In fact when Allah talks about this world being a deception then believe me it is more so than we think. We only have to look around us and research into what is going on to realise that we are living a lie.

5 and 6. If you want to mark an anniversary or a birthday with some contemplation on what has passed and make a Dua for a blessed, happy and successful year ahead etc then there is nothing wrong with this. Anything more than that will be considerred an innovation. This has nothing to do with being restrictive just for the sake of it. Many of us fail to understand the wisdom behind many things so we just pull a tantrum and call it archaic and restrictive. But we should try to understand the wisdom behind many of the things we become rebellious about. In this particular case it is so that we do not become like those who follow and worship other than Allah in their customs and celebrations. Surely you have heard of " You are what you eat and you are who your friends are". Then what we eat and who we follow and hang around with will surely shape who we are. If not now then eventually. What we have to understand is that many of the wisdoms behind Islamic principles and teachings is taking preventative measures - or "prevention is better than cure".

So in this case we are dissallowd to follow in the customs and practices of the disbelievers - much of which have pagan roots if you really look into it such as birthdays, anniverseries, New Year, Halloween etc. This is in order to preserve the pure and unadulterated way of life (deen) that Islam has given us. If we had a religion that was "anything goes" then surely we would have ended up like the modern day Christians whose practices and beliefs are nothing like the practices and beliefs of early Christians. This is because it has become a "anything goes" religion. But those who make excuses say it is because they are being "progressive". I do not see anything progressive about people losing all trust and faith in the Church. Actually what attracts many Christians to Islam is the "unadulterated" preservation of Islamic beliefs and practies. But if we want to live a "anything goes" kind of life then that is upto us. But surely we should be living lives where we put almighty Allah first. That is the real test of this life and the true success in this world and the next!

7. It depends on the type and nature of the game but surely nowadays video games are very different from the early days of Atari. Amiga and Commodore 64. Video games have become so advanced that they are essentially like movies that we can control. Not only that but many of them are very explicit, voilent and can even take months to complete which involve spending significant amounts of time. So there is no doubt that video games like movies and mainstream music can be a terribley corrupting influence on society particularly the youth. Not only that but it can take significant amounts of our most valuable asset - time.

As if there was not enough evil influences on our children but video games can present a huge danger to their psychological development. In fact there was a study done that looked at a class of children, where half of them played a "soft" game and the other half played a voilent game. There were some tests carried out on the children and it was found that in general the half that played the voilent games became much more desensitised than the other half that played soft games. So parents need to be very careful as to the nature and type of games their children are playing as well as restricting the amount of time they spend on such games as these games can become very addictive and will absolutely distract us from the "true reality, purpose and focus of our lives" to that of a virtual fantasy reality that gaming offers.

8. This is very similar to my response to music but of course as well as Music, gaming, Television and the media - it goes without saying that the movie industry whether hollywood, bollywood, lollywood or nollywood is totally satanic. This is very apparent with the type of sybomlism and themes contained in the movies as well as the utter filth, promiscuity, voilence and horror that movies contain. It only takes a little research to establish what these industries are really about and the extent to which celebrities, actors, musicians sell their soul for fame. It also does not take much thought to establish that these movies have a very corrupting influence on our hearts and souls just like the gaming, music, Television and the media industry. Much of this negative corrupting influence is subliminal. This is no secret or "conspiracy" for it is something well known and if we really opened our eyes we would be able to see these evil industries for what they really are.

So if we want to keep putting corrupting, negative, toxic influences into our hearts then we are only damaging ourselves. For surely there is enough toxicity thrown at us by pollution and the food, water and medicine we consume but on top of that we are mentally and physically corrupting ourselves further by constantly feeding our minds and hearts filth, rather than trying to clean and purify our hearts with the remembrance and glorification of Allah and spending our time learning and doing good and putting him "first" in all of our affairs! This is true success for surely our enemy shaythan wants to distract us until we are destroyed!

9. My brother you only have to look at how the Jesuit Catholics corrupted Christianity with putting animate imagery all over the Churches to realise what a terribly damaging influence animate imagery has had on corrupting religions to the point that animate pictures and idols had become a source of worship. This is not only limited to Catholicism, Hinduism and many other religions particularly those of pagan origin. Even many people from our own faith have pictures and images of "peers" (saints) and Awliyah (alleged friends of Allah) up in their houses or they create dargah's (shrines) in which they put flowers and make offerings. Eventually these places become places where people come from afar to make Dua to them. Notice how it starts from an image to remember the saint but then gradually progresses to the point where these people become essentially worshipped.

That is not to say that images on clothing etc may become a source of worship but it is the principle. In Islam we take great care to avoid any type of idolatary practices or imagery which can be deemed as shirk. This is because if we looked throughout history and the stories that Allah has given us then most of the nations of the past that we destroyed were those who worshipped other than Allah by creating images of idols and made them a source of worship. Therefore we keep away from all animate imagery, do not create images nor put them up in our homes. Lest shaythan decieves us for he is the biggest deciever of all!

My brother if there is evidence in our deen to prohibit us from something that is harmful to us, potentially harmful to us or at least will harm us more than doing us any good then why do we have to rebel in accordance with our desires? Have we studied the deen to the depth of classical scholars and those who have inherited their knowledge today? Or is saying that my father studied in "Al Azhar" really enough to make us understand this deen and many of the wisdoms behind many of its teachings and principles? Why do we have to become so rebellious? What will we achieve by furthering that which will potentially harm us and those around us?

You say Scholars are making things unbearable for us by prohibiting this and that, but my brother if you do not like the stance and approach of a particular scholar then find one whose stance and approach appeals to you. There is not a lack of scholars out there. You are making it out like the vast majority of scholars are like that which is totally false and even misleading. There are many scholars out there who are trying their best. They also have immense pressure on them especially in the present climate. They also have to be very careful what they say and the way in which they say it. However many of them are only trying their best to forward the knowledge from scholars of the past and also expanding on their works and applying it to present times. Just because you see todays society as "progressive" and more advanced than before it does not mean we should welcome all of the potentially evil, corrupting influence upon ourselves. We already have enough of that. We need more purity and goodness in our lives.

If we want freedom then we have it. By all means we have free choice to live how we want. But remember on that day when we are all gathered together then it will be those of us who tried to put Allah first in our lives that will be truly successful. Then we will look back and think "what did I achieve from following my desires in the world? What did I achieve from being rebellious on that which was only for my benefit to avoid or limit." So my brother know that there is no compulsion on us for the way we live our lives but we have choices to make and diffeent paths to take but if we act treacherously in this world then there can only be a wretched end for us!

May Allah enable us to focus on the bigger picture and what is really important and that which will help and benefit us to get closer to him and away from that which will harm us in this world and the next. Ameen
Reply

Zzz_
02-03-2018, 03:40 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by beleiver
sorry i didnt realize this was a Muslim only forum?

What i do not understand is who gets to be a scholar in Islam? I am confused how some one gains the Authority to partner with God?
And which are these punishments you talk of? I am not against punishment for crimes, i question what constitutes a crime, like for example Music a crime:heated: I have asked this before here and no one has replied with an answer.
welcome. It's not a muslim only forum. all are welcome so long as the rules are followed.

Music or rather Musical instruments are sinful, not a crime unless ruled out as such by the government of that land. What constitutes as a crime is what is stated the penal code of the residing nation.

In Islam, scholarship is earned through years of studies and apprenticeship. There are imams, missionaries, islamic speakers and then there are scholars. While many islamic speakers are referred to as scholars by others but it is not the same. But no one gains authority to be partner with God. There is no room in Islam for polytheism.
Reply

beleiver
02-03-2018, 11:56 AM
"Music or rather Musical instruments are sinful"

Thank you Zzz for your reply, but where does the above statement originate, is it verse from the Koran or Hadith or where?

I can understand some music is sinful but all music and instruments, i struggle to believe that is the case..

Also If the Scholars can not be partners to God how can they create laws and or rulings that in cases contradict principles in the Koran?
Reply

azc
02-03-2018, 12:11 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by beleiver
"Music or rather Musical instruments are sinful"Thank you Zzz for your reply, but where does the above statement originate, is it verse from the Koran or Hadith or where? I can understand some music is sinful but all music and instruments, i struggle to believe that is the case..Also If the Scholars can not be partners to God how can they create laws and or rulings that in cases contradict principles in the Koran?
Are you Zaidi shia........?
Reply

99sobi
02-03-2018, 12:48 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by beleiver
Also If the Scholars can not be partners to God how can they create laws and or rulings that in cases contradict principles in the Koran?
The scholars would never suggest something that is contrary to the Qur'an or Sunnah. The scholars have a very high status in Islam, and they have studied Islamic jurisprudence very well, which gives them the ability to give rulings with evidence from the Qur'an or Sunnah; that is, they would never give a ruling when the Qur'an or Sunnah suggests otherwise. Have you got any examples of this?

Also, Allah does not have and will never have or need a partner or associate. The Qur'an forbids taking multiple Gods or turning to others instead of him.
Reply

Zzz_
02-03-2018, 07:28 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by beleiver
"Music or rather Musical instruments are sinful"

Thank you Zzz for your reply, but where does the above statement originate, is it verse from the Koran or Hadith or where?

I can understand some music is sinful but all music and instruments, i struggle to believe that is the case..
There are plenty of threads open here on this topic that you can explore. Just a quick summary is this:

Quran:

Allaah says in Soorat Luqmaan (interpretation of the meaning):

“And of mankind is he who purchases idle talks (i.e. music, singing) to mislead (men) from the path of Allaah…” [Luqmaan 31:6]

The scholar of the ummah, Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: this means singing. Mujaahid (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: this means playing the drum (tabl). (Tafseer al-Tabari, 21/40).

Al-Hasan al-Basri (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: this aayah was revealed concerning singing and musical instruments (lit. woodwind instruments). (Tafseer Ibn Katheer, 3/451).

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The interpretation of the Sahaabah and Taabi’in, that ‘idle talk’ refers to singing, is sufficient.


Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“[Allaah said to Iblees:] And befool them gradually those whom you can among them with your voice…” [al-Israa’ 17:64]

It was narrated that Mujaahid (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: “And befool them gradually those whom you can among them with your voice” – his voice [the voice of Iblees/Shaytaan] is singing and falsehood.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Do you then wonder at this recitation (the Qur’aan)?

And you laugh at it and weep not,

Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements (singing)”

[al-Najm 53:59-61]

‘Ikrimah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: it was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas that al-sumood [verbal noun from saamidoon, translated here as “Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements (singing)”] means “singing”, in the dialect of Himyar; it might be said “Ismidi lanaa” [‘sing for us’ – from the same root as saamidoon/sumood] meaning “ghaniy” [sing]. And he said (may Allaah have mercy on him): When they [the kuffaar] heard the Qur’aan, they would sing, then this aayah was revealed.

Hadith:

The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:

“Among my ummah there will certainly be people who permit zinaa, silk, alcohol and musical instruments…” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari ta’leeqan, no. 5590; narrated as mawsool by al-Tabaraani and al-Bayhaqi. See al-Silsilah al-Saheehah by al-Albaani, 91).

This hadeeth indicates in two ways that musical instruments and enjoyment of listening to music are haraam. The first is the fact that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:
”At the end of time, there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk (for men), the drinking of Khamr (intoxicant) and the use of musical instruments as lawful. Allah will make the earth sink with them” [Bukhari]

you can read more on this here: https://islamqa.info/en/5000

how is music considered speech of shaytan?

check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONbvC8vfKTQ

This is a vast topic as there many things covered under it. Such as that nasheed are allowed while singing with musical instruments is not. And the daff/duff (one sided drum) is allowed where as musical instruments are not. But if you want to go into more technical stuff then that daff too was allowed by women only during weddings times or during war time and not for these recreational playtime and amusements. Like I said, it's a vast topic with varied opinions.

For laymen, it's sufficient to say music is not allowed. For those interested in in-depth reading, there's plenty out there, including secular studies showing how music influences the brain and changes it.

Also If the Scholars can not be partners to God how can they create laws and or rulings that in cases contradict principles in the Koran?
The shia believe that scholars are infallible and equal to God, but the Sunni Islam does not teach that. The scholars are inheirtors of the prophets since prophets leave nothing behind but knowledge. Islamic law and rulings are dervived from three things, the Quran, hadith/sunnah, and rulings for the previous generation of scholars.

For example, Prophet (peace be upon him) said: ”Allah has forbidden Khamr, gambling, Kubah (drums), and every intoxicant.”

So we know khamr (alcohol) is forbidden. What we also know from this is that every intoxicant is forbidden as well. As such, if there is medicine that has ingredients that lead to intoxication then scholars will rule that medicine as haram. This ruling would be dervived from the hadith stated above and any other similar evidence found in the Quran/sunnah and the rulings prevous islamic jurists issued.
Reply

azc
02-04-2018, 02:48 AM
Another aspect of music:

https://islamictextinstitute.co.za/o...f-al-qaradawi/
Reply

Zzz_
02-04-2018, 03:45 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by azc
Interesting reader comment:

Amjad: Sheikh Qaradawi believes shaking hands with non mahram is permissible if there is no desire. Please do not blindly follow one sheikh. Seek further knowledge on all subject matters. May Allah swt guide us to the right path and strengthen our imaan.
Reply

azc
02-04-2018, 03:59 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Zzz_
Interesting reader comment:Amjad: Sheikh Qaradawi believes shaking hands with non mahram is permissible if there is no desire. Please do not blindly follow one sheikh. Seek further knowledge on all subject matters. May Allah swt guide us to the right path and strengthen our imaan.
I don't follow any scholar of this age. It's just his views concerning this topic I shared.
Reply

ChosenTCO
02-04-2018, 04:52 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Hamza Asadullah
Wa Alaikum Asalaam,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us my brother. My own thoughts on what you have written in your post is that "are these rulings" really harsh? or is the reality that they are against our own desires? Most of the things you have mentioned are of the worldly things which not only distract from the Hereafter but are harmful and have corrupting and negative influences on our hearts and souls.

Surely there is enough distraction and corrupting influences in the world already and these worldly desires you posted about are just adding to that. Not only that but surely we have already lost focus, or losing focus on the bigger picture in that we can die at any second which there is no difference of opinion on, and so we only have little time - some of us more than others. Therefore is indulging in our worldly desires really going to help us in this world and the next? Should we not be shunning anything that pulls us towards having love for the world and instead striving to go towards that which increases our desire for the Hereafter and to be with Allah?

Let me comment further on the points you made:

1. So you already acknowledge the utter filth that is apparent in todays mainstream music industry. An industry that is totally satanic and full of occultic symbolism, subliminal messaging, appealing to the lowly carnal desires, unspeakable negative and evil influences on our hearts and souls. Can anything good really be totally taken over by so much evil? Do your research on the industry and you will realise what it is really about and how the celebrities, actor/singers have sold their souls for fame. This is an industry that has created the worst people on Earth to be "idols" for the youth and mankind. Shaythan uses music as his weapon and believe me it is an effective one espeially to "distract" and corrupt the hearts and minds of the youth.

You mention there is "some" good music. So your stance on this is to "fight" for the very little good music - if any - there is out there when the vast majority is totally controlled by evil? Where is the logic in that? Anyone who looks at the evidence for prohibition for music will realise that there is far greater evidence for prohibition than there is against. To be honest with you there is not much difference of opinion against prohibition of music at all except on certain occassions and using limited instruments. So my brother you are holding onto nothing with any substance here.

2. With regards to interaction with the opposite sex then the example you gave with comparing a same gender friendship to an opposite gender friendship is absurd. You even mentioned incest? Why would you give such an extreme example which is totally irrevelant to what we are discussing? Yes there are isolated instances and cases where this may happen but of course in the vast majority of cases things like that do not happen. If they do then surely there is a corruption in the heart of the person who is inclined in such a way.

What does happen in the vast majority of cases is that friendships between opposite genders gradually or instantly turn into much more than just friendships. Me, you and most of the people reading this have seen it and exprienced it around us but you are acting as though you have lived a sheltered existance that these things only happen in fairy tales?

My brother the stance of having limited interactions with the opposite gender particularly when it comes to private interactions is not just an "isolated" opinion of a few scholars but it is a well known and established stance that is in the Qur'an and authentic Hadith and strongly supported by the past 1400 years of classical and scholarship. To be honest with you such prohibitions are far more important now than they have ever been because of the increasingly promiscuis and sexualised society we live in.

That is not to say that we should shut ourselves away and never even look at the opposte gender let alone interact with them. But the point is that we limit our ineractions with them to what is necessery. There is no reason to expand further on why. Anyone with a little common sense knows that it only takes one conversation whethr at work, college, University, on the streets, shopping mall etc to spark or ignite passions and then things progress from there. There are tonnes of examples of these things happening all around us all the time, so there is absolutely no denying this fact at all and the dangers of freely mixing with the opposite gender. We were created as human beings to generally be attracted to the opposite gender, so do you think the creator is not the best one to give us advice on interaction between the genders?

3. You mean to say "cosmetic procedures". I do not know of any majority opinion that states that if you have burns, or significant injury which changes the appearance of a bodily part that it cannot be corrected with corrective cosmetic surgery. However you say breast implants for flat chested women and nose jobs for people with large noses? So when did a flat chest or large nose become a deficiency? I find your logic very strange and very much influenced by the so called "societal norms" being pushed by those who deem what women and men should look like - not how they were created by Allah.

So all of a sudden according to you the differences in the way Allah created us all with different sized noses, ears, chest, skin colour and shade etc includes many deficiencies? My brother desist from such harmful thinking lest you claim you know what is better than Allah. Allah has created us in the normal human form. It is "us" who have decided what is more beautiful and what is considered "deficient". This is pure arrogance and in fact this type of thinking is what causes a lot of suicides in our societies when certain people especially the youth are come under immense pressure to "physically conform", but feel like they cannot then many end up taking their lives or living in severe depression and feeling low confidence and self esteem.

What may become deficient can happen through a natural birth defect, injury, illness etc but a person born with differences in physical form and appearance is absolutely not deficient! These people feel this way beause of the "perfect photoshopped human image" being pushed all over the media. There is no doubt that this is utter deception. In fact when Allah talks about this world being a deception then believe me it is more so than we think. We only have to look around us and research into what is going on to realise that we are living a lie.

5 and 6. If you want to mark an anniversary or a birthday with some contemplation on what has passed and make a Dua for a blessed, happy and successful year ahead etc then there is nothing wrong with this. Anything more than that will be considerred an innovation. This has nothing to do with being restrictive just for the sake of it. Many of us fail to understand the wisdom behind many things so we just pull a tantrum and call it archaic and restrictive. But we should try to understand the wisdom behind many of the things we become rebellious about. In this particular case it is so that we do not become like those who follow and worship other than Allah in their customs and celebrations. Surely you have heard of " You are what you eat and you are who your friends are". Then what we eat and who we follow and hang around with will surely shape who we are. If not now then eventually. What we have to understand is that many of the wisdoms behind Islamic principles and teachings is taking preventative measures - or "prevention is better than cure".

So in this case we are dissallowd to follow in the customs and practices of the disbelievers - much of which have pagan roots if you really look into it such as birthdays, anniverseries, New Year, Halloween etc. This is in order to preserve the pure and unadulterated way of life (deen) that Islam has given us. If we had a religion that was "anything goes" then surely we would have ended up like the modern day Christians whose practices and beliefs are nothing like the practices and beliefs of early Christians. This is because it has become a "anything goes" religion. But those who make excuses say it is because they are being "progressive". I do not see anything progressive about people losing all trust and faith in the Church. Actually what attracts many Christians to Islam is the "unadulterated" preservation of Islamic beliefs and practies. But if we want to live a "anything goes" kind of life then that is upto us. But surely we should be living lives where we put almighty Allah first. That is the real test of this life and the true success in this world and the next!

7. It depends on the type and nature of the game but surely nowadays video games are very different from the early days of Atari. Amiga and Commodore 64. Video games have become so advanced that they are essentially like movies that we can control. Not only that but many of them are very explicit, voilent and can even take months to complete which involve spending significant amounts of time. So there is no doubt that video games like movies and mainstream music can be a terribley corrupting influence on society particularly the youth. Not only that but it can take significant amounts of our most valuable asset - time.

As if there was not enough evil influences on our children but video games can present a huge danger to their psychological development. In fact there was a study done that looked at a class of children, where half of them played a "soft" game and the other half played a voilent game. There were some tests carried out on the children and it was found that in general the half that played the voilent games became much more desensitised than the other half that played soft games. So parents need to be very careful as to the nature and type of games their children are playing as well as restricting the amount of time they spend on such games as these games can become very addictive and will absolutely distract us from the "true reality, purpose and focus of our lives" to that of a virtual fantasy reality that gaming offers.

8. This is very similar to my response to music but of course as well as Music, gaming, Television and the media - it goes without saying that the movie industry whether hollywood, bollywood, lollywood or nollywood is totally satanic. This is very apparent with the type of sybomlism and themes contained in the movies as well as the utter filth, promiscuity, voilence and horror that movies contain. It only takes a little research to establish what these industries are really about and the extent to which celebrities, actors, musicians sell their soul for fame. It also does not take much thought to establish that these movies have a very corrupting influence on our hearts and souls just like the gaming, music, Television and the media industry. Much of this negative corrupting influence is subliminal. This is no secret or "conspiracy" for it is something well known and if we really opened our eyes we would be able to see these evil industries for what they really are.

So if we want to keep putting corrupting, negative, toxic influences into our hearts then we are only damaging ourselves. For surely there is enough toxicity thrown at us by pollution and the food, water and medicine we consume but on top of that we are mentally and physically corrupting ourselves further by constantly feeding our minds and hearts filth, rather than trying to clean and purify our hearts with the remembrance and glorification of Allah and spending our time learning and doing good and putting him "first" in all of our affairs! This is true success for surely our enemy shaythan wants to distract us until we are destroyed!

9. My brother you only have to look at how the Jesuit Catholics corrupted Christianity with putting animate imagery all over the Churches to realise what a terribly damaging influence animate imagery has had on corrupting religions to the point that animate pictures and idols had become a source of worship. This is not only limited to Catholicism, Hinduism and many other religions particularly those of pagan origin. Even many people from our own faith have pictures and images of "peers" (saints) and Awliyah (alleged friends of Allah) up in their houses or they create dargah's (shrines) in which they put flowers and make offerings. Eventually these places become places where people come from afar to make Dua to them. Notice how it starts from an image to remember the saint but then gradually progresses to the point where these people become essentially worshipped.

That is not to say that images on clothing etc may become a source of worship but it is the principle. In Islam we take great care to avoid any type of idolatary practices or imagery which can be deemed as shirk. This is because if we looked throughout history and the stories that Allah has given us then most of the nations of the past that we destroyed were those who worshipped other than Allah by creating images of idols and made them a source of worship. Therefore we keep away from all animate imagery, do not create images nor put them up in our homes. Lest shaythan decieves us for he is the biggest deciever of all!

My brother if there is evidence in our deen to prohibit us from something that is harmful to us, potentially harmful to us or at least will harm us more than doing us any good then why do we have to rebel in accordance with our desires? Have we studied the deen to the depth of classical scholars and those who have inherited their knowledge today? Or is saying that my father studied in "Al Azhar" really enough to make us understand this deen and many of the wisdoms behind many of its teachings and principles? Why do we have to become so rebellious? What will we achieve by furthering that which will potentially harm us and those around us?

You say Scholars are making things unbearable for us by prohibiting this and that, but my brother if you do not like the stance and approach of a particular scholar then find one whose stance and approach appeals to you. There is not a lack of scholars out there. You are making it out like the vast majority of scholars are like that which is totally false and even misleading. There are many scholars out there who are trying their best. They also have immense pressure on them especially in the present climate. They also have to be very careful what they say and the way in which they say it. However many of them are only trying their best to forward the knowledge from scholars of the past and also expanding on their works and applying it to present times. Just because you see todays society as "progressive" and more advanced than before it does not mean we should welcome all of the potentially evil, corrupting influence upon ourselves. We already have enough of that. We need more purity and goodness in our lives.

If we want freedom then we have it. By all means we have free choice to live how we want. But remember on that day when we are all gathered together then it will be those of us who tried to put Allah first in our lives that will be truly successful. Then we will look back and think "what did I achieve from following my desires in the world? What did I achieve from being rebellious on that which was only for my benefit to avoid or limit." So my brother know that there is no compulsion on us for the way we live our lives but we have choices to make and diffeent paths to take but if we act treacherously in this world then there can only be a wretched end for us!

May Allah enable us to focus on the bigger picture and what is really important and that which will help and benefit us to get closer to him and away from that which will harm us in this world and the next. Ameen
Ok, this is one of the best responses on this thread thus far. I do agree with most of your classification of these problems. However, I do not agree with your method of resolve. For example, you say most music is bad so ban it all together, id say ban the thing that makes this music haram. Ofc your method is easier so I can see the logic behind, but easier is not condition to consider when putting a ruling on certain things … more on why later.

Im not going to address all the points you mentioned because I feel like im getting on peoples nerves in this thread (however if you are interested in continuing this with me, we can talk about it through messaging …)(this is likely the last post I make on this thread). I will however address the last few paragraphs of your post.

No brother, this was not out of rebelliousness. This is out of fear. Fear for the people who might be in the same situation that I was in when I was young. As I mentioned before I passed through tough times that made me seek God’s refuge and help. I made an effort to learn about how to do that. The first thing I was subjected to were videos about some of the points I mentioned and how bad they were … for example, about how sick the hearts of people who liked listening to music were. I believe Search put it in the best way …

format_quote Originally Posted by Search
we feel personally attacked as we feel what we're doing already is not good enough.
But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part is when I actually believed that. I started hating myself for liking these things and habits. Even though I tried to stop, I still liked those things. I even did some pretty horrible things to myself in effort to stop but to no avail. Even though I tried to become a better muslim by praying extra prayers at night and started reading some Quran every night. I started overburdening myself and was afraid of every minut thing I did (id have to search whether it is haram or not). But the thing that tipped me off was that I was still facing these calamities and I felt like it was all my fault and all because of me (what was worse is that these problems affected both my parents and family in general … and to have the feeling that you are the cause of hardship for people you care about dearly can suck pretty hard). I honestly don’t know what kept my sanity and my religion other than the grace of Allah (I don’t want to seem like im exaggerating here … It sounds little worse than it was, but still … was bad). Mind you I was 17 then. Times passed, and I lost a great ordeal because of what I was going through (I trust Allah That it is for the better). But I will never forget the empty promises of the people I heard and trusted. I now knew that ibada is not meant to make things get better, its meant to make the person stronger and more patient … but I learned it the hard way. This is where my resentment and skepticism of these rules stem from. Hope that makes the picture more clear for you and inform all the other readers why it’s important to be sure of the information you obtain from the internet or anybody is 100% true … not to follow blindly without question then experience the same thing that happened to me.

format_quote Originally Posted by Zzz_
There are plenty of threads open here on this topic that you can explore. Just a quick summary is this:

Quran:

Allaah says in Soorat Luqmaan (interpretation of the meaning):

“And of mankind is he who purchases idle talks (i.e. music, singing) to mislead (men) from the path of Allaah…” [Luqmaan 31:6]

The scholar of the ummah, Ibn ‘Abbaas (may Allaah be pleased with him) said: this means singing. Mujaahid (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: this means playing the drum (tabl). (Tafseer al-Tabari, 21/40).

Al-Hasan al-Basri (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: this aayah was revealed concerning singing and musical instruments (lit. woodwind instruments). (Tafseer Ibn Katheer, 3/451).

Ibn al-Qayyim (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The interpretation of the Sahaabah and Taabi’in, that ‘idle talk’ refers to singing, is sufficient.


Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“[Allaah said to Iblees:] And befool them gradually those whom you can among them with your voice…” [al-Israa’ 17:64]

It was narrated that Mujaahid (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: “And befool them gradually those whom you can among them with your voice” – his voice [the voice of Iblees/Shaytaan] is singing and falsehood.

Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“Do you then wonder at this recitation (the Qur’aan)?

And you laugh at it and weep not,

Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements (singing)”

[al-Najm 53:59-61]

‘Ikrimah (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: it was narrated from Ibn ‘Abbaas that al-sumood [verbal noun from saamidoon, translated here as “Wasting your (precious) lifetime in pastime and amusements (singing)”] means “singing”, in the dialect of Himyar; it might be said “Ismidi lanaa” [‘sing for us’ – from the same root as saamidoon/sumood] meaning “ghaniy” [sing]. And he said (may Allaah have mercy on him): When they [the kuffaar] heard the Qur’aan, they would sing, then this aayah was revealed.

Hadith:

The Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:

“Among my ummah there will certainly be people who permit zinaa, silk, alcohol and musical instruments…” (Narrated by al-Bukhaari ta’leeqan, no. 5590; narrated as mawsool by al-Tabaraani and al-Bayhaqi. See al-Silsilah al-Saheehah by al-Albaani, 91).

This hadeeth indicates in two ways that musical instruments and enjoyment of listening to music are haraam. The first is the fact that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) said:
”At the end of time, there will be some people who will consider illegal sexual intercourse, the wearing of silk (for men), the drinking of Khamr (intoxicant) and the use of musical instruments as lawful. Allah will make the earth sink with them” [Bukhari]

you can read more on this here: https://islamqa.info/en/5000

how is music considered speech of shaytan?

check here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONbvC8vfKTQ

This is a vast topic as there many things covered under it. Such as that nasheed are allowed while singing with musical instruments is not. And the daff/duff (one sided drum) is allowed where as musical instruments are not. But if you want to go into more technical stuff then that daff too was allowed by women only during weddings times or during war time and not for these recreational playtime and amusements. Like I said, it's a vast topic with varied opinions.

For laymen, it's sufficient to say music is not allowed. For those interested in in-depth reading, there's plenty out there, including secular studies showing how music influences the brain and changes it.



The shia believe that scholars are infallible and equal to God, but the Sunni Islam does not teach that. The scholars are inheirtors of the prophets since prophets leave nothing behind but knowledge. Islamic law and rulings are dervived from three things, the Quran, hadith/sunnah, and rulings for the previous generation of scholars.

For example, Prophet (peace be upon him) said: ”Allah has forbidden Khamr, gambling, Kubah (drums), and every intoxicant.”

So we know khamr (alcohol) is forbidden. What we also know from this is that every intoxicant is forbidden as well. As such, if there is medicine that has ingredients that lead to intoxication then scholars will rule that medicine as haram. This ruling would be dervived from the hadith stated above and any other similar evidence found in the Quran/sunnah and the rulings prevous islamic jurists issued.
Im not sure if you actually did look at the other side of the argument or bothered to give it a chance since I even provided you with a link. Anyways here is the proof that goes against that prohibition.

Narrates ‘A’ishah (rta): The Messenger (sws) of God came to my residence while two female singers were singing the songs of Bu‘ath.1 The Holy Prophet (sws) lay down and turned his face to the other side. Meanwhile Abu Bakr (rta) entered and [seeing the singers] rebuked me thus: ‘Satanic musical instruments in the presence of the Holy Prophet (sws)?’ On hearing this God’s Messenger (sws) turned towards him and said: ‘Let them [sing and rejoice]’. When Abu Bakr was engaged in some other business, I signalled to the girls [to go out] and they left. It was on the ‘Id day.

Umm-i-Salamah narrates: A slave girl belonging to Hassan Ibn Thabit (rta) came to us on ‘Id al Fitr. Her hair was unkempt and she carried a tambourine and was singing [some song]. Umm-i-Salamah rebuked her. But the Holy Prophet (sws) said to her: ‘Ummi-i-Salamah, let her [sing and rejoice]. Certainly every nation has an ‘Id and this day is our ‘Id’.

Narrates Ibn ‘Abbas: ‘A’ishah (rta) arranged the marriage of a close Ansari girl. The Holy Prophet (sws) also came to attend the ceremony. He inquired from the people: ‘Have you sent forth the bride?’ ‘Yes’, they replied. ‘Did you send any singer with her?’ He asked. ‘A’ishah (rta) replied in the negative. The Holy Prophet (sws) then remarked: ‘The Ansar cherish singing. It would be better that you sent along with her a singer who would sing’

‘A’ishah (rta) reports: An Ansari girl lived under my guardianship and I arranged her marriage. The Holy Prophet (sws) came to my house on the day she was married and did not hear any songs or any other joyful activities. [Observing this] he asked of me: ‘Did you people sing to her or not?’ ‘This is the tribe of the Ansar who like singing,’ he added.

Narrates Anas Ibn Malik: [Having entered the city], the Holy Prophet (sws) passed through a certain part of the town. Suddenly some slave girls appeared singing on the Daff the following ditty: ‘We are the slave girls of Bani Najjar. 7 How lucky! This day the Holy Prophet (sws) has come to be our neighbor’. At this the Holy Prophet (sws) remarked: ‘God knows that I love you people

Narrates Salama Ibn Al-Akwa‘: ‘We set off for Khaybar in the company of the Holy Prophet (sws) at night. A man from the group said to ‘Amir: ‘O ‘Amir, would not you let us hear your poetry?’ ‘Amir who was a Hida poet got down and started reciting for the people [the following verses]: ‘O God, were not it for your guidance, we could not have been able to offer the Salah and pay the Zakah. So please forgive our sins that [we have committed] and the ones we may commit in future. We are ready to offer our lives for your cause. Grant us perseverance when faced [with the enemy] and pour down your mercy upon us. [We are the people] who refuse to surrender when the enemy challenges us to fight. And [we leave them] to cry for help against us’.
The Holy Prophet asked: ‘Who is that signer?’ They replied: ‘‘Amir bin Al-Akwa‘’. ‘God bless him’, prayed the Holy Prophet (sws)

Narrates Rabi‘, daughter of Mu‘wwadh: On the occasion of my transfer to my husband’s home after marriage, the Holy Prophet (sws) came to visit us and sat down on my bed just as you [the next narrator] are sitting before me now. Some slave girls were beating the Daff and singing in lamentation of their forefathers who had been killed during the battle of Badr. Then one of the girls sang: ‘Among us is the Prophet (sws) who knows even what will happen in coming days’. At this, the Holy Prophet (sws) said: ‘Do not say this, but go on singing.

Narrates ‘A’ishah (rta): Once on an ‘Id day the Abyssinian slaves came and started dancing in the mosque. The Holy Prophet (sws) called me. I placed my head on the Holy Prophet’s shoulder and started watching their performance. [The Holy Prophet did not stop me] until I myself got tired of watching them and turned away.

Im not sure if all of these hadiths are Saheeh, but i sure half of them are.
This is just to give you a perspective of how valid the other side of the argument is. And Allah knows best.
Reply

Zzz_
02-04-2018, 04:16 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO


Im not sure if you actually did look at the other side of the argument or bothered to give it a chance since I even provided you with a link. Anyways here is the proof that goes against that prohibition.

Im not sure if all of these hadiths are Saheeh, but i sure half of them are.
This is just to give you a perspective of how valid the other side of the argument is. And Allah knows best.
Slapping a few hadiths together when you are not even sure if they are sahih is not a very convincing way to make an argument, especially one related to the religion. I shared is the evidence given by the scholars who rule out music as impermissible. The hadith you shared show the girls singing and sending a singer to the wedding, not the whole band with their musical instruments. As i stated above, scholars approved of singing (nasheeds) but not musical instruments. Its like milk is halal but if i pour some alcohol in it, is it still halal?
Reply

Misbah-Abd
02-04-2018, 04:55 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Zzz_
Slapping a few hadiths together when you are not even sure if they are sahih is not a very convincing way to make an argument, especially one related to the religion. I shared is the evidence given by the scholars who rule out music as impermissible. The hadith you shared show the girls singing and sending a singer to the wedding, not the whole band with their musical instruments. As i stated above, scholars approved of singing (nasheeds) but not musical instruments. Its like milk is halal but if i pour some alcohol in it, is it still halal?
And you also have to consider when that hadith was actually spoken. Muhammad al-Ghazzali in his book, Within the boundaries of Islam, says: "It is not important to only know what he said, but how, when, and to whom. All these factors assist us tremendously in understanding the Sunnah correctly....It is also a mistake to be ignorant of the circumstances in which the hadith was recalled as this context throws tremendous light upon its intent."
Reply

Zzz_
02-04-2018, 05:38 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by Misbah-Abd
And you also have to consider when that hadith was actually spoken. Muhammad al-Ghazzali in his book, Within the boundaries of Islam, says: "It is not important to only know what he said, but how, when, and to whom. All these factors assist us tremendously in understanding the Sunnah correctly....It is also a mistake to be ignorant of the circumstances in which the hadith was recalled as this context throws tremendous light upon its intent."
Yes, the historical timeline and context matters as well.
Reply

space
02-04-2018, 05:57 PM
I understand OP very well, I had exactly the same questions.. well, we are not angels after all! Human's life is much more difficult than life of other creatures on planet Earth in our reality! This should we know!!!!!!




Allah intends for you ease and does not intend for you hardship
Reply

Umm Malik
02-04-2018, 08:08 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning ☹ but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.
Its not about hard or difficult
Its about love. . Because when you love you found the hard thing for people easy and lovely for you

In islam you began small but day by day and as much as you know allah more you want to worship him more
Sometimes you let halal things just to get time to worship just because your love for allah
But allah want us to do what he ask us to do for our benefit.
For example :
I know something is haram and try my best to don't do it ... but I full into it ... its better for me to ask allah's forgiveness ... than just saying something that show anger about what allah says and saying things .
And if this rules are unbearable than how does a lot of people do it and they found it easy to do ??
Its all about- love and how much your love will take you to be better in rank as much as you can
Do the obligatory things I mean faridah as prayers fasting and remembering allah and try your best to pleased allah but if you cant ask allahs help but don't destroy your tawheed by saying things about allah and his rules
If you can't bear them now your love to allah by trying to do what he says and to seek forgiveness when you sin and feeling guilty is better than destroying rules.
You are muslim as long as you feel guilty about your sins when you do them.
Because day by day you will stop them ... its like a muscles as long as you train it it will be more strong for the wights
But if you stop move them you may found the easy things for the other people are hard for you and may cause you a muscle rupture.
Not because of the wight but because of your muscles .
What cause you to- wake up early and work hardly all the day?
Is it the your hoping of reaching a good and easy life is the reason for that ?
Can a person stop hard working and gain knowledge and easy life by staying at them places ?
This life is just a test ... and if you want something you have to strive for whatever it is
So allah deserve .
And by allah if you try to worship allah as you can but by knowing that if you can't burden something now its not because of that thing, it is because of you and as long as you work on yourself to be good allah will help you and as long as you seek forgiveness when you sin allah will forgive you .
May allah help you to understand that and to see the beauty of islam
And you will enjoy letting things for the sake of allah and doing things for his sake.
Reply

OmAbdullah
02-04-2018, 09:59 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning ☹ but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.

There is a hadeeth shareef about mushtabihaat (the doubtful things). In that hadeeth the Prophet salla Allaho alayhi wa sallam informed us that the halaal are clear (bayyan) and the haram are clear but in between them are the doubtful things/matters. Those who stop from the doubtful ones will be able to stop from the unlawful. And those who don't stop from the doubtful, are in danger of falling into the unlawful. This is a long hadeeth. I am giving the translation in short. May Allah forgive me but here I want to mention especially the last part of the hadeeth which says that there is a piece of flesh in the body. If that piece of flesh is healthy then the whole body is healthy, if that piece is ill then the whole body is ill. Know that that piece is the heart. (And Allah knows the best).


My words will surely seem very harsh and bitter but it is true that fact is always very bitter. However, fact is a fact as truth is truth and these cannot be changed. In the very beginning, in a post from you in the thread "Doubts about Allah" I read some points about atheism which were posted by you and it was like I was stunned, then I read your post attentively and saw that you tactfully turned your words around to make it seem like you were speaking in favor of Islam.Then you wrote some points about the Holy Quraan that it is "unhuman and unnatural". Now it is obvious that these points were not posted by mistake. You had really tried to attack the Holy Quraan but when your attack was exposed, you answered in very humble and good way covering up your true self. Today your post has made it very manifest that your heart is diseased. The disease is so much extensive that you are trying to attack the faith of other Muslims. But you must note it that by the Grace of Allah, here are very learned and practicing Muslims who will teach you a good lesson insha-Allah.
Reply

Supernova
02-05-2018, 01:25 AM
Asalaamulaykum

SERIOUS ADVICE:

You need to speak a scholar - You dont realise that half the things you have mentioned qualifies you on your self testimony as boarder line Kufr.
Reply

Misbah-Abd
02-05-2018, 01:28 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by Supernova
Asalaamulaykum

SERIOUS ADVICE:

You need to speak a scholar - You dont realise that half the things you have mentioned qualifies you on your self testimony as boarder line Kufr.
The problem is that he doesn't have the respect for scholars like he should and would rather have his whims and desires dictate what is halal and haram.
Reply

ChosenTCO
02-05-2018, 12:59 PM
format_quote Originally Posted by OmAbdullah
My words will surely seem very harsh and bitter but it is true that fact is always very bitter. However, fact is a fact as truth is truth and these cannot be changed. In the very beginning, in a post from you in the thread "Doubts about Allah" I read some points about atheism which were posted by you and it was like I was stunned, then I read your post attentively and saw that you tactfully turned your words around to make it seem like you were speaking in favor of Islam.Then you wrote some points about the Holy Quraan that it is "unhuman and unnatural". Now it is obvious that these points were not posted by mistake. You had really tried to attack the Holy Quraan but when your attack was exposed, you answered in very humble and good way covering up your true self. Today your post has made it very manifest that your heart is diseased. The disease is so much extensive that you are trying to attack the faith of other Muslims. But you must note it that by the Grace of Allah, here are very learned and practicing Muslims who will teach you a good lesson insha-Allah.
Ok, so if we are dragging stuff I said from another thread into this, I feel inclined to respond.

First off, I do appreciate your honesty and would take the bitter truth anytime and day over a sweet lie. I find it amusing how you say that I was tactfully turning my words around to make it seem like I was in favor of islam … As if I wasn’t? Id have you know that I said those things because I actually AM in favor of islam way more than you think. As for the “unhuman and unnatural” comment I made about the Quran … Its seems like you are unwilling to change your incorrect initial perception of it despite that I have made it clear to you before. … Look at it like this. If the Quran was natural and humanly, then it can be 100% replicated. And if it was, then how in Gods name can it be a miracle? That’s why it has to be unnatural and unhuman for it to be majestic. You think I was criticizing the Quran? Go read what I said again. You will find that I was criticizing how people think about the Quran, not the Quran itself. Its not meant to be something beautiful, its meant to deliver a message to mankind, and we should ponder about this message and all the miracles that lies within through critical thinking, not blind belief. And how do you expect to learn these miracles without critical thinking? Questioning the Quran is what made me learn so much about it and got me convinced of it. That is why I also question the rulings of these scholars, to learn more about islam, and when I come across logic I don’t agree with, I don’t simply turn my back on my intellect and blindly believe. I stay after it until I get to the bottom of the point of disagreement and resolve it. But it seems that every time a person asks such questions or challenges these rulings, he is branded as someone who is diseased in the heart or even worse, as kafir.

In the end, I realize that no matter how much a person tries to explain and justify, one cannot change how another person thinks of them. That’s why I rest my case with Allah. But Just remember, Allah stated in his Book that some assumptions are considered Ithm and what you are doing goes under the heading of assumptions (specifically when you said I was trying to “attack” the faith of other muslims which I clearly wasn’t trying to do).

format_quote Originally Posted by Misbah-Abd
The problem is that he doesn't have the respect for scholars like he should and would rather have his whims and desires dictate what is halal and haram.
Please brother, just because we don’t agree on some things doesn’t give you the right to spread lies about me. You think I am asking these things because I care about my whims and desires? Please don’t pretend you have me figured out cause you don’t.
2) I asked about interaction with the opposite gender because I have a female muslim friend who I started supporting after she lost one of her parents. I wouldn’t have been able to support her or even have known about her condition if I didn’t interact with her. How is this about my whims and desires?
3) I know about cases where husbands leave their wives after the dramatical change in appearance (for the worse) due to pregnancy. And others who were never even married because of certain features here or there that made them look not as beautiful. How is this about my whims and desires?
4) I wanted to wear a bracelet with an ayaa to remind me of sabr when I was going through harsh times. How is this about my whims and desires?
1,5-8) all of these points are considered leisures to help us cope in this dunya.
وَابْتَغِ فِيمَا آتَاكَ اللَّهُ الدَّارَ الْآخِرَةَ ۖ وَلَا تَنسَ نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا

But seek, through that which Allah has given you, the home of the Hereafter; and [yet], do not forget your share of the world. (Quran 28:77)
9) Concerns the validity of prayer while wearing such T-shirts. How is this about my whims and desires?

Lastly, with reference to your deconstructive criticism to my sincere questions:
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should not hurt his neighbor and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should serve his guest generously and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should speak what is good or keep silent." Sahih al-Bukhari 6136

And Allah knows best.
Reply

air
02-05-2018, 03:23 PM
:sl:
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Ok, so if we are dragging stuff I said from another thread into this, I feel inclined to respond.

First off, I do appreciate your honesty and would take the bitter truth anytime and day over a sweet lie. I find it amusing how you say that I was tactfully turning my words around to make it seem like I was in favor of islam … As if I wasn’t? Id have you know that I said those things because I actually AM in favor of islam way more than you think. As for the “unhuman and unnatural” comment I made about the Quran … Its seems like you are unwilling to change your incorrect initial perception of it despite that I have made it clear to you before. … Look at it like this. If the Quran was natural and humanly, then it can be 100% replicated. And if it was, then how in Gods name can it be a miracle? That’s why it has to be unnatural and unhuman for it to be majestic. You think I was criticizing the Quran? Go read what I said again. You will find that I was criticizing how people think about the Quran, not the Quran itself. Its not meant to be something beautiful, its meant to deliver a message to mankind, and we should ponder about this message and all the miracles that lies within through critical thinking, not blind belief. And how do you expect to learn these miracles without critical thinking? Questioning the Quran is what made me learn so much about it and got me convinced of it. That is why I also question the rulings of these scholars, to learn more about islam, and when I come across logic I don’t agree with, I don’t simply turn my back on my intellect and blindly believe. I stay after it until I get to the bottom of the point of disagreement and resolve it. But it seems that every time a person asks such questions or challenges these rulings, he is branded as someone who is diseased in the heart or even worse, as kafir.

In the end, I realize that no matter how much a person tries to explain and justify, one cannot change how another person thinks of them. That’s why I rest my case with Allah. But Just remember, Allah stated in his Book that some assumptions are considered Ithm and what you are doing goes under the heading of assumptions (specifically when you said I was trying to “attack” the faith of other muslims which I clearly wasn’t trying to do).



Please brother, just because we don’t agree on some things doesn’t give you the right to spread lies about me. You think I am asking these things because I care about my whims and desires? Please don’t pretend you have me figured out cause you don’t.
2) I asked about interaction with the opposite gender because I have a female muslim friend who I started supporting after she lost one of her parents. I wouldn’t have been able to support her or even have known about her condition if I didn’t interact with her. How is this about my whims and desires?
3) I know about cases where husbands leave their wives after the dramatical change in appearance (for the worse) due to pregnancy. And others who were never even married because of certain features here or there that made them look not as beautiful. How is this about my whims and desires?
4) I wanted to wear a bracelet with an ayaa to remind me of sabr when I was going through harsh times. How is this about my whims and desires?
1,5-8) all of these points are considered leisures to help us cope in this dunya.
وَابْتَغِ فِيمَا آتَاكَ اللَّهُ الدَّارَ الْآخِرَةَ ۖ وَلَا تَنسَ نَصِيبَكَ مِنَ الدُّنْيَا

But seek, through that which Allah has given you, the home of the Hereafter; and [yet], do not forget your share of the world. (Quran 28:77)
9) Concerns the validity of prayer while wearing such T-shirts. How is this about my whims and desires?

Lastly, with reference to your deconstructive criticism to my sincere questions:
The Prophet (ﷺ) said, "Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should not hurt his neighbor and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should serve his guest generously and whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day, should speak what is good or keep silent." Sahih al-Bukhari 6136

And Allah knows best.
#2 Why not you marry her?
#3 It's the husband fault not the fatwa, btw do you know the story of Julaybib :ra:?
#4 Why not always recite surah that contain ayaa of sabr even when you're not in harsh condition? :ia: you'll always remember to sabr even without bracelets...
Reply

A786
02-05-2018, 10:57 PM
Islam isn't that complicated of a religion. Sometimes it is only just our diverse mindsets, cultures, politics etc.. which we like to stir up in the name of religion. Please let's try to just to maintain its simplicity. If you have complication, seek assistance from a scholar of Islam who can better guide you. And sometimes not EVERYTHING needs to be questioned. IF Allah has ruled it for us, then submit and obey. Just know that he is OUR LORD and he will NEVER disappoint us InshaAllah.(given we do good deed daily and seek forgiveness).

And Allah knows best.

Forgive me if this was a bit harsh, never meant to be.

JZK thank you
Reply

OmAbdullah
02-08-2018, 08:48 PM
عن أبي عبد الله النعـمان بن بشير رضي الله عـنهما قـال: سمعـت رسـول الله صلي الله عـليه وسلم يقول: (إن الحلال بين وإن الحـرام بين وبينهما أمور مشتبهات لا يعـلمهن كثير من الناس فمن اتقى الشبهات فـقـد استبرأ لديـنه وعـرضه ومن وقع في الشبهات وقـع في الحرام كـالراعي يـرعى حول الحمى يوشك أن يرتع فيه ألا وإن لكل ملك حمى ألا وإن حمى الله محارمه ألا وإن في الجـسد مضغة إذا صلحـت صلح الجسد كله وإذا فـسـدت فـسـد الجسـد كـلـه ألا وهي الـقـلب) هلاّ وضحتم لنا هذا الحديث بالتفصيل؟عن أبي عبد الله النعـمان بن بشير رضي الله عـنهما قـال: سمعـت رسـول الله صلي الله عـليه وسلم يقول: (إن الحلال بين وإن الحـرام بين وبينهما أمور مشتبهات لا يعـلمهن كثير من الناس فمن اتقى الشبهات فـقـد استبرأ لديـنه وعـرضه ومن وقع في الشبهات وقـع في الحرام كـالراعي يـرعى حول الحمى يوشك أن يرتع فيه ألا وإن لكل ملك حمى ألا وإن حمى الله محارمه ألا وإن في الجـسد مضغة إذا صلحـت صلح الجسد كله وإذا فـسـدت فـسـد الجسـد كـلـه ألا وهي الـقـلب) هلاّ وضحتم لنا هذا الحديث بالتفصيل؟



It was narrated on the authority of Abu ‘Abdullah An-Nu‘uman bin Bashir (may Allah be pleased with them) who said, “I heard the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu a’laihi wa sallam) saying,

“That which is lawful is clear, and that which is unlawful is clear and between the two of them are doubtful (or ambiguous) matters about which not many people are knowledgeable. Thus, he who avoids these doubtful matters certainly clears himself in regard to his religion and his honor. But he who falls into the doubtful matters falls into that which is unlawful, like the shepherd who pastures around a sanctuary, all but grazing therein. Verily, every king has a sanctuary, and Allah’s sanctuary is His prohibitions. In the body there is a piece of flesh which, if it is sound, all of the body is sound, and which, if it is diseased, all of the body is diseased. This part of the body is the heart.”***************************************** ************************************************** *****

The above is the full hadeeth with its Arabic text and translation. As in my previous post I had given only short translation in my own words therefore I was in fear of the Anger of Allah. May Allah forgive me and all other Muslims, aameen.



I reminded this hadeeth to advise all Muslims to keep check on their hearts and to make their hearts and minds clear from any doubts. Their (as well as my) faith must be very strong to say "Aamannaa wa sadaqnaa, sami'naa wa ata'naa, ghufraanaka Rabbanaa wa ilekal-Maseer". ("we believed and considered it true, we heard and obeyed, O our Lord forgive us and we are returning un to You").

If a Muslim strongly believes that he/she is surely returning back to Allah for Judgment and reward or punishment, then he/she shall surely shake and shiver with the fear of standing in front of his/her Lord for Accounting. So such a one shall never criticize the Ruling of Islam because this system came down from Allah and was implemented by Allah's Final Prophet Muhammad salla Allaho alayhi wa sallam.

If you pick up the Holy Quraan for guidance then this Divine Book shall never deceive you but don't forget to follow it in accordance with
Muhammad salla Allaho alayhi wa sallam.
Bringing so many points of Islam and criticizing them is surely attack on the Islamic system. And ignorant Muslims who like to listen to music and want other unislamic methods will go further away from Islam. If you really try to seek guidance from the Holy Quraan then see the verse 6 of surah Luqmaan for the ruling on music:

(31:6) There are some human beings5 who purchase an enchanting diversion6 in order to lead people away from the way of Allah without having any knowledge,7 who hold the call to the Way of Allah to ridicule.8 A humiliating chastisement awaits them.9


Exp. notes


5. That is, on the one hand, there is this mercy and guidance sent down by Allah, of which some people are taking full advantage, and on the other hand, there are also some unfortunate people living side by side with the fortunate ones, who are adopting this sort of attitude as against the revelations of Allah.

6. The words lahv al-hadith in the text imply such a thing as may allure and absorb a listener completely and make him heedless of everything else around him. Lexically, there is nothing derogatory in these words, but in custom and usage they apply to evil and useless and vain things, such as gossip, nonsensical talk, joking and jesting, legends and tales, singing and merry making, etc.


“Purchases” alluring tales may also mean that the person concerned adopts falsehood instead of the truth, turns away from the guidance and turns to those things which can neither benefit him in the world nor in the Hereafter. But this is the metaphorical meaning. The real meaning of the sentence is that a person should purchase an absurd and useless thing for his money, and this is supported by many traditions. Ibn Hisham has related on the authority of Ibn Ishaq that when the disbelievers of Makkah could not stop the message of the Prophet (peace be upon him) from spreading in spite of their best efforts, Nadr bin Harith said to the people of Quraish: “The way you are counteracting this man will avail you nothing. He has lived a lifetime among you. Until now he was the best of your men morally: he was the most truthful and the most trustworthy person among you. Now you say that he is a sorcerer and enchanter and a poet and a madman. Who will believe all this? Don’t the people know the way the sorcerers talk? Don’t they know the enchanters and the way they conduct their business? Are they unaware of poetry and of the states of madness? Which of these accusations sticks to Muhammad (peace be upon him) by exploiting which you would turn the people’s attention away from him? Look! I will tell you how to deal with him.” Then he left Makkah for Iraq and managed to get from there legends and tales about the kings of Iran and Rustam and Isfandyar and started to arrange tale telling parties to distract the people from the Quran and to absorb them in the tales. The same tradition has been cited by Vahidi in Asbab un Nazul on the authority of Kalbi and Muqatil. And according to Ibn Abbas, Nadr had bough singing girls also for the purpose. Whenever he heard that someone was coming under the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) influence, he would impose a singing girl on him with the instruction: “Feed him and entertain him with your songs so that he is absorbed in you and distracted from the other side.” This was the same device which the arch criminals of the nations have been employing in every age. They try to get the common people so absorbed in fun and sport and musical entertainments in the name of culture that they are left with no time and sense to attend to the serious problems of life, and in their heedlessness they do not even feel what destruction they are being driven to.


The same commentary of lahv al-hadith has been reported from a large number of the companions and their immediate followers. Abdullah bin Masud was asked, “What does lahv al-hadith mean in this verse?” He said thrice emphatically: “By God! it means singing.” (Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Shaibah. Hakim, Baihaqi). Similar traditions have been reported from scholars like Abdullah bin Abbas, Jabir bin Abdullah, Mujahid, Ikrimah, Said bin Jubair, Hasan Basri, and Makhul. Ibn Jarir, Ibn Abi Hatim and Tirmidhi have related on the authority of Abu Umamah Baheli that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said, “It is not lawful to buy and sell and trade in singing girls nor is it lawful to take their price.” In another tradition, the last sentence is to the effect: “It is unlawful to eat their price”. Yet another tradition from Abu Umamah is to the effect: To teach music to slave girls and to trade in them is not lawful and their price is forbidden. All these Ahadith also elucidate that the verse containing lahv al-hadith was sent down in this very connection. Qadi Abu Bakr Ibn alArabi has related in the Ahkam alQuran a Hadith from Abdullah bin Mubarak and Imam Malik on the authority of Anas, saying, that the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “He who hears the song of a singing girl in a musical concert, will have molten lead poured into his ear on the Day of Judgment” (In this connection, one should also note that the culture of music in those days flourished almost entirely through the slave girls: Free women had not yet become “artists”. That is why the Prophet (peace be upon him) spoke about trading in slave girls, and described their wages and earnings as their price, and used the word qaynah for the singing girl, which is specifically used for a slave girl in Arabic).


7. “Without knowledge” may be connected with “buys” and also “lead astray”. In the first case, it would mean: The ignorant foolish person buys this alluring thing and does not know that he is buying a ruinous thing at the cost of a highly valuable thing. On the one hand, there are the divine verses which are full of wisdom and guidance, which he can obtain without any cost, but he turns away from them. On the other hand, there are these absurd things, which are disastrous for his morals and he is expending his wealth to obtain them. In the second case, it would mean: He has come out to guide the people without any knowledge: he does not know what burden of sin he is taking on himself by trying to lead the people astray from Allah’s Way.


8. That is, this person wants to make fun of the divine revelations by alluring and absorbing the people in legends and tales and music. He intends that the invitation of the Quran should be derided and ridiculed and laughed away. He plans to fight the religion of God with the strategy that as soon as Muhammad (peace be upon him) should come out to recite revelations of God to the people, there should be a charming, sweet-voiced damsel giving her performance in a musical concert. On the one hand, a glibtongued story teller telling tales and legends of Iran, on the other hand, the people should become so absorbed in these cultural activities that they may not be in a mood to hear anything about God and the morals and the Hereafter.


9. This punishment will be in accordance with their crime. They want to debase and disgrace God’s religion, His revelations and His Messenger; God will take His vengeance on them by giving them a disgraceful torment.
************************************************** **********************************************


If you all check my previous post in this thread in the light of only this one verse, its explanation and ruling, you will find my post correct and true.

Reply

beleiver
03-20-2018, 12:42 AM
Thank you for your replies and your patience with my reply, i have tried several times to reply to this thread but just as my reply was complete something happened and all the text was lost, annoying, but i must be greatfull to Allah for making my reply easy and granting me more time for a more indepth response as i have learned much more since my first attempt..
First off i would like to say i agree with all the points made by Hamza Aasadullah in his long and well articulated reply and can understand why there are such warnings against the points made by the OP. But as I read them they are just that, warnings, no clear prohibitions just warnings as in dont do these things IF it might lead to shirk or it CAN lead one astray so one might neglect ones duties..I will take music as an example as that was the one i really have a problem with..
For example the word music is not even in the Koran..The verse’s used to warn against music could actually mean somthing other than Music, either way Music is not condemned but it simply warns us not to let pleasures in life distract us from our duties to Allah.

31-6 And of mankind is he who payeth for mere pastime of discourse, that he may mislead from Allah's way without knowledge, and maketh it the butt of mockery. For such there is a shameful doom.

This for example could be interprited as there are people that will spend their time with debate and writings to misslead from the path..I am not saying Music could be used this way but this verse in no way condems Music by any stretch of the imagination..This could be applied to the likes of Tommy Robinson as amuch as Music?

53- 58 None beside Allah can disclose it.
59 Marvel ye then at this statement,
60 And laugh and not weep,
61 While ye amuse yourselves ?
62 Rather prostrate yourselves before Allah and serve Him.

Even if amusing yourselves was Music and music alone which of course it could be a part, then as long as it doesnt stop your worship then its not really condemned is it? It is just a warning to say dont let amusements and pleasures distarct or stop your prayers and duties..
Now this one...This is Allah talking to Satan telling him to go to earth and do what he can to harm us humans and our relationship with God.

64 And excite any of them whom thou canst with thy voice, and urge thy horse and foot against them, and be a partner in their wealth and children, and promise them. Satan promiseth them only to deceive.

Now this verse is one of several verses that backs up my original post in the thread, that being Satan can not destroy but distort Islam..Many of these extreme rulings that can turn many people away from Islam are from the devil using his voice and/or wealth, influence and power and arms to deceive and wage war..Yes he can and i am absolutley certain does use music of his vast array of ways of deception but it would be insane not think he would by now not have many more powerfull tools at his disposal other than Music to deceive us..
What i have learned is what is clear is to add anything to the Koran is wrong as stated in the koran, to change anything is wrong..This is clear, so who is really being so anti Music?

I copy and pasted this quote from a reply to me into google search
”Allah has forbidden Khamr, gambling, Kubah (drums), and every intoxicant.”
And there were three results on the whole web, this thread, and two sites from Saudi Fatwas condemning Music..I listened to the youtube vid of the Saudi scholar saying how music is the voice of Satan with his beutiful voice and discovered after not being convinced by his words he was trained in a Saudi state sponsored university founded in the 80s with their usury based wealth and we know from whom and how thwy accuired their weapons..Music can be bad i agree but it can also be a good way to speak Truth to power in oppresed times, for this i seriously question the motive here..
Khamr comes from the word to cover? Which in this context means cover the mind as in alcohol? The word intoxicant does not translate? Where does this quote come from? Is it a fabrication or misstranslation?
And who are the Scholars from Islamq+a? Are they from the same Saudi funded schools? Regarding issues of intoxicants they have missed the Truth from what i read there..
Someone asked what Koran principles have some scholars contradicted, i would say any ruling that forces an action or inaction with threat of force or punishment or punishes another human when there is no victim other than the self. Dress code, consumption of banned food drugs for example..There is no compulsion in relegion and say Mohamed ‘i am not put in charge of you’ and if Allaha is the most beneficiant and mercifull and powerfull and you have faith in Him He will punish if its his will, if its between Him and another then its His job to punish His slave not another slave should take out that task out of respect for the peace and for Allah..He wants peace among us slaves surley?

The Koran several times states not to ban good things, the book is complete and perfected and can not be added to or changed, that is clear, so when a good thing like music is condemned as a sin when the word Music is not even present in the Koran one has to question why..In this way the True relegion can and will be preserved as Truth and only that way will satan never touch its integrity no matter how powefull a foe he can become..All else he can do is turn good people away, if for example it might appear harsh and extreme..Your relegion is easy , its natural , its not a burden. To me at least its a calamity when its made so harsh that people will turn away in a time when the world needs more Islam.
Reply

cinnamonrolls1
03-20-2018, 10:12 AM
format_quote Originally Posted by ChosenTCO
Assalamu Alaykom Wa Rahmat Allah.

Alright, so I wanted to make a post like this for quite a while. But before I start, let me just quickly tell why im posting this. When I was young I was trying to get to know my religion more and more and get closer to Allah because I was facing lots of problems in life and was suffering from depression (I also wasn’t the best muslim because I was sinning [emoji852] but I was still a practicing muslim). Anyways, when I started to learn more and more I realized that the type of islam that was being preached by current scholars is very difficult and harsh to follow. I tryed to accept it somehow but the more I tried, the more resentment I developed towards islam. I felt like the only thing scholars of islam had to offer was fear and the loss of our self-worth (thinking that this is the only way to humbleness and humility).
A lot of the scholars today keep bombarding us with how everything we do is haram and how much you should fear Allah and no matter what you do, you will never be as good as those people at the time of the prophet because your inherently evil. This is the type of mentality that I was able to observe and deduce from these people. Its like no matter how much you try your still evil because you don’t practice all the things that the prophet used to do (As if they expect you to be like a prophet or better). This is what started to make me feel quite resentful towards our religion and Islam in general.
Ok, so basically, what I wanted to talk about is how scholars had made islam so unbearable to me and a lot of other people as well. I wanted to dedicate this post to discuss some of the things that are considered as Shubuhat (doubtful matters) that made scholars label it as haram just because they wanted people to be on the safe side instead of saying the truth (that is that they are unsure but are bias against those things).

1) Music: Though there are some really good arguments made against music, those arguments are still not 100% solid. The reason is that there are some really good evidences that contradict those evidence in favor of the prohibition. (http://www.shahbazcenter.org/is-music-haram.htm)
I do admit that the majority of the songs of today promote promiscuity, violence, sex and drugs. But there is still good music that don’t have any of these things in them! And that is why I think putting a haram label on ALL MUSIC IN GENERAL is completely wrong and insane!

2) Interaction with the opposite gender: Time and time again. We have heard it! Stories about 2 friends falling into temptation and committing zina. But guess what, we also heard stories about 2 friends of the same sex commit acts of homosexuality or stories about incest as well. Are you going to make those 2 haram as well? Im not saying that all boys and girls should have bfs & gfs. But to go as far as saying that all interaction between the genders is forbidden unless in times extreme need is insane. They even regard mixed school/university/job as haram! How much more are these people going to take away from us? All im asking for is being moderate in the ruling of prohibition. A friendly conversation between the opposites should not be considered as haram.

3) Cosmetics: Some scholars say that all cosmetics are considered haram except in the case of extreme skin burns or facial structure damage. Wrong! Braces should be allowed because they restore that natural form of the human body. Breast implants for flat chested women, double chin removal, nose jobs for people with crooked or large noses. All these can be considered as restoring the original form of the human body. But some scholars regard it as haram

4) Men wearing nongold and silk adornments: They claim it’s a form of imitation of women. Are fang necklaces and dog tags adornments of women? How about we look into how earrings came about, then we will see who was imitating who! (PS im not saying this because I wanted to wear earrings, instead I used to want to wear an adornment of high sentimental value back then, but was discouraged because of claims like this)

5) Wedding anniversaries: Some claim its imitation of kuffar, some say its innovation and making an eid for yourself. First off, an Eid is an occasion of celebration for a group of people and is of religious basis. A wedding anniversary is neither.

6) Birthdays: same as the one before

7) Playing video games: waste of time.

8) Watching movies: haram because music and free mixing

9) Wearing T-shirts that has drawings on them: drawings are haram! What about plan ones? Still haram because its imitation of kuffar.

On and on the list goes. If you actually realize, most of these prohibitions can applied to almost every single thing a human does in his day to day life in this era. So how is the person supposed to live? This mentality that most religious muslims have is so hard to apply in this day and age. Everything has to be related to the worship of Allah somehow in their minds.
Honestly this is but a fraction of what I wanted to say but unfortunately, I don’t have much time. Its extremely difficult to put my thoughts and way of thinking in an organized and neat way for you guys to understand my full picture of things so I apologize for that.

Its important to note, I want you guys to understand that Im not saying this to insult or destructively criticize anyone. I just wanted to share my mind with people who might be willing to listen and give me constructive feedback whether they support my opinion or not. So feel free to add on to this or open up a new perspective for me to look through.
1) as always theres a diff of opinion. I dont believe music to be haram entirely but i believe there needs to be specific conditions- no innapropriateness , swearing etc Shouldnt distract you from God as well( that applies to all things). I do think music shouldnt be listened to like everyday tho and should be limited because personally for me, i was addicted to music, like i full on felt withdrawal symptoms when i deleted my entire music library( yea i was very attached... So for me i try and not listen to music a lot lol)
2) it would be extremely difficult to never talk to the opposite gender. I dont agree with friendships etc, but if you need to talk eg at work be professional etc. No need to be rude or arrogant.
2) plastic surgery is allowed in extreme circumstances, but the plastic surgery/ cosmetic industry( and beauty industry) ruins women, especially young girls, speaking as a teen it has contributed to my low self esteem and has made me feel like crap tbh. Why should a woman with a small bust feel the need to get implants? I mean theres no needs. You seem to be insinuating theres something wrong with having a smaller bust. Its natural and how we were created.
4) dont know enough about to answer you
5) I believe its okay as its celebrating love between a married couple, which is fine in islam. They shouldnt be extravagant or over the top though.Dont quote me though
6) Iv always done stuff my bday, just a cake and a get together with my family. Shouldnt be extravagant or showy( think american sweet 16s)
7)Depends how often u play. If its constantly then yeah, it distracts you from god.
8)Depends on content of film
9)never heard of tshirts being haram. As long as ur dressed modestly i should think itd okay.
Those are my opinions, check with an actual proper scholar and not some scholar who only knows haram and halal. Its dangerous to put things into those two binaries.
Reply

Hey there! Looks like you're enjoying the discussion, but you're not signed up for an account.

When you create an account, you can participate in the discussions and share your thoughts. You also get notifications, here and via email, whenever new posts are made. And you can like posts and make new friends.
Sign Up

Similar Threads

  1. Replies: 35
    Last Post: 07-04-2017, 10:20 AM
  2. Replies: 1
    Last Post: 05-04-2012, 09:58 AM
  3. Replies: 22
    Last Post: 04-28-2007, 10:22 AM
  4. Replies: 6
    Last Post: 04-04-2007, 11:39 PM
  5. Replies: 13
    Last Post: 06-07-2006, 02:47 PM
British Wholesales - Certified Wholesale Linen & Towels | Holiday in the Maldives

IslamicBoard

Experience a richer experience on our mobile app!