Salamualaykum, I see many brothers have done a good job repudiating this quote from the first post in the thread, but my temper is such that I want to also:
The remarkable thing about the mystical traditions of the three monotheistic religions - Islamic Sufism, Judaic Kabbalah and Gnostic Christian – is their similarity to Hinduism and Buddhism. All doctrines hold that everything is One and that time is an illusion, and all believe in the doctrine of reincarnation and the great work, the perfection of the soul in one’s final incarnation, leading to an ultimate union with the Universal Consciousness.
Maybe the really remarkable thing is that the similarity is between the Religious thought of every believer no matter what Religion is ascribed to. And so maybe the mystery of mysticism is no mystery at all to any believer, but to non-believers is indubitably a mystery, otherwise they would all be believers.
Actually Islam is formidably based in debunking the myth of mystery in Religious teaching. It is all about making the teaching available to any person whom so seeks. But that process enabled also that shaytan attached their own perversions to the words of Religion, and so these days the mystery might equitably be understood as why one man can perceive Glory and Sorrow in Allah in simultaneous moments, while another man only perceives poverty and pain.
In fact it is wrong to mystify any aspect of any Religious teaching, and even before Islam that became the case, because by shrouding a lesson in mystery, false teachers are able to present themselves as though trustworthy, when they are only occluding reality.
Sufism is much older than Islam and like the Judaic Kabbalah has its origins in Chaldea in southern Iraq, from where Abraham originated. Chaldea (Khalidiyah) means land of immortality in Arabic and corresponds to the Biblical garden of Eden.
So what if Sufism existed before Mohammed, most of Islam already is before Him, but that fact can not detract from his greatness, or from the fact that Jibril descended to teach him the method of correctly compiling older teaching through Qur'an . Kabbalah has its origins in an older school of thought than Chaldea thankyou. The lessons I know is that the origins are with the lineage of Melkizedek, also known as Akhaldan, but the teaching is older even than the Earth itself.
Can anybody define Chaldea or Khalidiyah for me? There are many words people can use and in each instance we might intend to express a portion of our meaning in common, but have other parts of what we understand which can not be communicated. (that being the nature of mystery which we must try to prevent) For example: what is the relationship between words such as Jannah, Atlanta, Jukurrulpa, etc, and is there any worth in mentioning such words unless we have already established a solid ground work of commonly understood meaning.
According to the Qur’an, all peoples of the Earth have been sent prophets to guide them. This would explain why the mystical traditions of all the major religions are virtually the same, as they are all of the same Divine origin.
Yes.
There is a passage in the Qur’an that alludes to the doctrine of reincarnation:
[2:28] And you were dead, and He brought you back to life. And He shall cause you to die, and shall bring you back to life, and in the end shall gather you unto Himself.
The word "reincarnation" has an exact meaning. That is of an incarnation of life that is an exact replica.
If you would like to be alive again in future within an exact replica of what you are today, or even suffer the hell of so trying, then go ahead, but it will not be in Islam that you try.
My own preference in belief in everlasting life as Isa taught, is to believe that Isa is the only yet known example of any actual re-incarnation.
Of course, that is not to say that once we are in the grave we might just stop existing. If we have been wrong ever, we must remember that wrong and decompose all evidence of the wrong so that it will not be in the future, and thereby are we enabled as a species to evolve. That is the context in which Islam refutes re-incarnation. Those whom want to refute that we can cause a more positive future, and so fall back into imagining that in a future life cycle we might accomplish what we ought to be trying to accomplish today, are only of that self of wrongs done, which might never find any future life.
Islam must be strict in this.
Salamualaykum
