The First International Islamic Retreat in the Caribbean

[MuslimAgorist]

I recently got back from an Internaltional Islamic Retreat at the Islamic Center of Barrackpore, Trinidad. My primary interest in the retreat is the opportunity hear Islamic speaker and writer Maulana Imran Hosein. His book on the Gold Dinar, and his two books on Riba in Islam were the primary research for my article “The Dust of Riba and the Rush for Gold.” His lecture and article about women in the house of Allah were the primary inspiration for my article “Empathy Day.” Although the Shaikh’s primary field of scholarship, around which this retreat perambulates, is the signs of the end times in the modern world. I just finished writing summaries for each day, enjoy.

Introduction
A brief history of Trinidad
A brief bio of Maulana Imran Hosein

Day One
First Impressions

Day Two
Session One: Signs of the Last Day and the Reality of the Modern Age
Session Two: Islam’s Conception of the End of Time
Session Four: Surah Kahf in the Modern Age

Day Three
Session One: Dajjals most Dangerous Weapon, Riba.
Session Two: Riba Part II

Day Four
The Muslim Village
Evening Celebrations

Day Five
An Islamic Response to the Political and Economic Challenges of the Modern Age

Day Six
Session One: Dajjal and the Feminist Revolution
Session Two: Gog and Magog Part I
Session Three: Gog and Magog Part II

Day Seven
Session One: Islam and it's Political Order
Session Two: A brief history of the fall of the Islamic Caliphate

More Photos

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[MuslimAgorist]

The Dust of Riba and the Rush for Gold
Empathy Day.
Introduction
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
More Photos
Follow me on Twitter

Sorry, I fixed all the links.

 

[Sampharo]

Gog and Magog forming an oppressive country and ruling over man? Anti-Christ a fairly normal person leading Gog and Magog?

Didn't see such level of delusional twisting of straight-forward text in an attempt to make it "normal" and acceptable by secularists in a long long time. This is what they call "not taking texts literally", right? Don't know what is with some people to be so hungry for attention they would make up all this to promote their ignorance.

However, I could not imagine a person calling himself an Islamic scholar and using a "traditional" sounding title such as Moulana, then says Jesus will come back to re-establish the true state of Israel!

Strange how some are so desperate to appeal to non-muslims and athiests and zionist, they're willing to go to the edge of the fold of Islam this way.What's next? Judgement day itself is metaphoric? Sad really.

 

[MuslimAgorist]

With all respect I think you've misread something. Maybe it's my fault and I've provided a poor summary. I encourage everyone to read his original material because he's a far better writer, and definitely scholar, than me.

I'm not sure which part your talking about, but I don't recall saying that Jesus would form a State of Israel, but that the aim of the Dajjal is to claim to be the Messiah so he has to lead the State of Israel before people will believe him.

Also, he doesn't say that the Dajjal is a regular being. I didn't write alot about that, because he has a forthcoming book which is clearer about it. But Imran Hosein says that the Dajjal isn't even human, but a unique creature created by Allah for his specific purpose. Although he will appear human.

But Imran Hosein is not uneducated. Maulana is a title he earned at the Islamic University in Trinidad. He also studied at Aleemiyah Institute of Islamic Studies in Karachi. His credentials are on the intro page.

You can disagree with him. I certainly don't agree with everything he says. I mostly agree with his stuff on Islamic monetary policy. But we can have a discussion about it without being insulting. Can't we?

 

[Sampharo]

Undermining Islamic text and trying to present a metaphoric explanation to it is an insult to Islam, the prophet, and muslims. If someone is unknowledgable and asks or mentions something, we can have a calm friendly conversation, when someone claims being knowledgable and heading Islamic conferences and says those things, he is a delibarate mixer of truth and respect is not something I am willing to extend at this time. Let's get to specifics:

"These people, behind the barrier, are Gog and Magog, and it is expected that in the Last Age that barrier is broken, and Gog and Magog are released into the world, using their power to oppress people of faith and control the entire world, politically, economically and culturally.... For this reason Shaikh Imran believes that Gog and Magog are not a race of people or an army, as many have argued in the past, but a global society. In this way an African, or Indian or Chinese man, who may have no ancestral roots in the Caucus Mountains may still be from among the people of Gog and Magog by dressing and acting and thinking like they do. Eventually all of mankind will be carbon copies of one way of life." That is direct contradiction to the letter of the prophet's hadith, in them being barbaric non-sensible warring hordes who will control nothing. Children know this.

"The Hadith Qudsi tell us that Allah will command Adam to select out the people for the Hellfire. Out of every 1,000 Adam will take 999, and they would all be the people of Gog and Magog." Wrong ta'weel of the hadith. Gog and Magog were never mentioned in it to start with, and Adam was not asked to select anything, this goes against the very basics of faith that people would go to heaven or hell because of Adam's selection, rather than God's or their own actions.

This is just from one page. The others seem to be political commentary suggesting (but not explicitly saying so will not debate) that the dajjal is a metaphoric power, with all the discussion of Riba being the dajjal's strongest weapon.

I'm not sure which part your talking about, but I don't recall saying that Jesus would form a State of Israel

Then what exactly is: "The oppression of the Anti Christ will continue throughout the world until the return of Jesus, the true Messiah, who will take up the sword and destroy the Dajjal. After this he will establish the True state of Israel and rule with peace and justice from Jerusalem."?

but that the aim of the Dajjal is to claim to be the Messiah so he has to lead the State of Israel before people will believe him.

Where did you get that? The hadiths specifically say that he will claim to be GOD! The only way this could be mixed up along with the thought that Jesus will establish the true state of Israel is that he (or you) are mixing up his readings with Israelite twisted material.

This is not a debate with your views, for modernist philosophy application to Islam is a field of its own whose adopters like and believe in and I am not here to show the errors of their ways, but what you wrote and published is so baseless it is insufficient and unworthy of mention.

Peace

 

[MuslimAgorist]

You know, I gotta tell you. I am very concerned with Truth. And as a convert sometimes we have some conceptual baggage from our past and we make mistakes. The mistakes you're talking talking about are my own, not his, and largely the result of not having a book in front of me, but instead trying to transcribe a solid if week of lectures from audio recordings and summarize them affectively very quickly. So sometimes I misspeak. And I have always said that I am open to correction in a respectful manner.

Normally, being concerned with Truth, I'll go and do the fact checking when my ideas are challenged. And I started doing that. A Google search brought up a handful of Sahih Hadith that explicitly say that Gog and Magog are from Bani Adam, including the one in the article, which I admittedly misquoted due to the poor audio. And I was about to take the numbers and go to the book and confirm the narrations and do all the leg work... but then I stopped.

The burden of your disrespect is so heavy that it's crippling. I don't want to fight with you. To me, the compassion with which we treat one another is more important that having correct eschatology. It was the character of the prophet, peace be upon him, to show respect even to his open enemies.

So, I humbly withdraw. You win. For whatever that's worth. I hope that brings you the satisfaction you’re looking for.

 

[Khaldun]

Dear brother muslimagorist I am sure brother sampharo does not mean to be harsh and please dont forget that posting anything online can easily be misunderstood.

I am also sure that you can understand where brother sampharo is coming from, if anyone represents islam in a wrong way any sound muslim would become upset, so please do not think that the brother is upset at you.

Gog and Magog are humans aswell as Dajjal, you often get people from time to time who try to say that Dajjal is only a concept or that he is a representation of evil not an actually human being, this is not right due to the numerous hadiths that describe his physical appereance etc. So do not pay attention to people who will say otherwise.

Since the jews are awaiting the promised Messiah (even though Jesus did come to them and they rejected him) they will readily accept Dajjal, infact it states in authentic hadiths that majority of the followers of dajjal will be jews and women. Perhaps this was what you were refering too?

I know you are looking for the truth, that was the reason you reverted to Islam in the first place and I ask Allah to keep you stead fast upon the straight path always and forever.

 

[MuslimAgorist]

To be clear. Nobody is saying the Dajjal was system or a concept or whatever. He is a young Jewish man, of strong build, curly haired, and one eyed... according to the Hadith. No one is interpreting that symbolically. All that's being suggested here is that there is an agenda in place now, a system, which is orchestrating the socio/political landscape for when the Dajjal reveals himself.

 

[Sampharo]

MuslimAgorist, as I made it very clear, if someone is unknowledgable and asks or mentions something, then we can have a calm friendly conversation.

Are you unknowledgable or knowledgable?

If you're the first then let's have a calm conversation, however you will need to behave as someone trying to learn from those who do know, and maintain "ideas" as nothing but internalized concepts that stand to be corrected until you're aware of at least the fundamentals. You are spending time and effort and expense in flying to a place like this retreat, so you're not really low on energy or apetite in learning. You should then spend time with a scholar on the proper path of Ahlu Sunnah Wal-JamaAAa, the path of the prophet -pbuh- and his companions, and learn the basics of faith, sunnah, Quran, hadith, revelations, and prophet's biography, and most of all learn of how much incredible amount of knowledge is remaining and that thousands of scholars have been spending decades in studying before delivering verdicts and opinions and making articles.

I would have been a lot more respectful if we didn't already have a discussion over apostasy, where not only you have shown complete contempt to Islamic scholarship, went all out into self-interpretation of Quran and Hadith erroneously, but even submitted false information as facts, such as that Ibn Taimeyya declared that there is no apostasy in Islam.

So it strikes me now strange that you're telling me you seek truth and you're the one who made all these mistakes. If that's the case then Al-Hamdolillah that the sheikh is not really twisting anything. But then that actually places a higher requirement for you to start observing respect, not only towards your articles where your errors and ideas have rendered it to be blasphemy and heresy and insulting to Islam, but also to the fact that you shouldn't be making all this effort if you're going to be comprehending and then communicating this haphazardly.

It was the character of the prophet to show respect to his enemies, but it was also the habit of the companions to quickly correct blasphemers or those who make grievous statements, and if one of them speaks ignorantly or ill Islamic scholarship, Omar Ibn Al-Khattab would be doing a lot more than just telling them off.

Brother Khaldun up there is more like Abu Bakr Al-Seddiq, I pray that some day I can become like that. But till that time comes, I will just be myself. You want respect, earn it back. Open the basic books and learn what everyone should know about Islam, understand the principals of Fiqh before you speak of it, look at the analysis of judgement day made by great scholars, and understand the true faith of the companions of the prophet and what they were ordered to take literally even if it defied their understanding, and later turned out to be literally true. Don't write in what you do not know because it is highly sinful brother "[FONT=Verdana,Arial]And yet, among men there is many a one that argues about God without having any knowledge [of Him], without any guidance, and without any light-giving revelation.[/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial]scornfully turning aside [from the truth] so as to lead [others] astray from the path of God. Disgrace [of the spirit] is in store for him in this world; and on the Day of Resurrection We shall make him taste suffering through fire." [22:8-22:9] Correcting and actually seeking that truthful knowledge, THAT would bring satisfaction, not your humbleness and not your conceding a debate. And if you take that same energy and write truthfully and authentically from reliable scholarly sources, then you will be doing yourself and Islam a lot of good, and my satisfaction will and should not matter to you, it's God's satisfaction that you should be humbly seeking.

Peace
[/FONT]

 

[MuslimAgorist]

Sampharo,

I can only quote myself:
"When it comes to his analysis of the modern world and the Signs of the End Times I'm not yet endorsing his thesis. I am only presenting it for you to assess for yourself. And even if you don't accept that the Signs are as eminent as he suggests, certainly we can agree that this is a subject worth studying which is often overlooked by our scholars. If you need clarification about these subjects please don't come to me. His videos are prolific on the Internet and he's very accessible by Email."

Don't ask me. If you've got a problem, take it up with him.

I have not invented anything. I have only presented the findings of my own research. And shared my own thoughts, which I have always described as unqualified.

Are you claiming some kind of qualifications? Where did you study? How many years? Or are you doing the same thing as me, and sharing the findings of your own research, and sharing your own thoughts?

You reinvent my statements and argue against positions I haven't taken. That's called the Straw Man fallacy.

You casually say that what I've done is blasphemy and heresy and insulting to Islam. Tell me... what is to be done with a person guilty of such a thing? It seems to me that behind your civil discourse is a willingness to endorse violence against people who don't see it the same way you do. That is no civil discourse. So, I'm not interested in talking to you.

My wish for your satisfaction was not a wish for your satisfaction with me, but your satisfaction in general with whatever you're seeking by whatever methodology you've chosen. I am not concerned whether or not you are satisfied with me. I am happy with Allah.

 

[Sampharo]

In one post:

The mistakes you're talking about are my own, not his, and largely the result of not having a book in front of me...

Another post:

Don't ask me. If you've got a problem, take it up with him.

In one post:

You reinvent my statements and argue against positions I haven't taken.

Even though I quoted the very lines you published and then you actually acknowledged them.

YET, in the SAME one you actually do yourself what you accused me of:

It seems to me that behind your civil discourse is a willingness to endorse violence against people who don't see it the same way you do.

I think everyone can see the complete lack of sincerity in what you say, including the: "I humbly withdraw".

Let me put it simply: Speak of invented opinions and ignorant ideas and attach them to Islam and then publish them, you will be criticised, and when you make statements that scar the faith or contradicts authenticated hadiths, it's called blasphemy, and you will get corrected, with disregard to how you like to be corrected since you showed clearly you have no credibility or respect in the first place in order to get any.

End of this story as far as I am concerned.

سلاما