To Shakeel: Reality really bites.

Submitted by Plato (United Arab Emirates), Jun 30, 2007 at 08:15

Shakeel you wrote (in inverted commas):

"---Please read carefully this hadith,Prophet (sws) said,

"When you see the evil, stop it by force, but if you cannot do it, then stop it with your tongue, but if you cannot do it too, then hate it in your heart and this is the least of faith."

So I think, Abbas had a least of faith, because he did not use force against pagans, nor he resisted them by tongue.---"

Shakeel I did not ask about Abbas' faith. What I asked was since the Prophet was quick to accuse others of being hypocrites and traitors what can you say about Abbas' behaviour. I also asked if you would justify traitorous behaviour towards your countrymen if asked to fight Muslim invaders. You are avoiding answers to key questions.

"---First, I believe, god is just one and there is no other god besides God. Second, everything is God's and we have nothing of our own. My son is my son because God has made it my son; else I feel no difference in my son and someone else's son---"

Again, as usual, you have evaded answering the points I raised. You seem to believe that belief in one god (what is so special to this kind of belief?) justifies whatever you have been bamboozled or more correctly terrorised into believing, however unethical or immoral it may be. Like justifying Ibrahim's action of trying to murder his son to please this monomaniacal god. Why don't you admit, instead of going around in circles, that you will murder your own son if Allah assures you of a place in his paradise. I wouldn't, not for the even the closest seat near this kind of Allah.

"---God does not ask Muslims to kill others, I have told it several times. In fact, all human beings are family of God.---"

Shakeel, you may have told several times that God does not ask Muslims to kill others. But that is not what God actually said in the Koran. Read the following verses. I know you are going to plead Itmam ul hujja. But remember in that case these verses in the Koran are redundant. Itmam ul hujja will force you to edit out several verses from the Koran, apart from these.

YUSUFALI 009.029 Fight those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, nor hold that forbidden which hath been forbidden by Allah and His Messenger, nor acknowledge the religion of Truth, (even if they are) of the People of the Book, until they pay the Jizya with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued.
008.012 Remember thy Lord inspired the angels (with the message): "I am with you: give firmness to the Believers: I will instil terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers: smite ye above their necks and smite all their finger-tips off them."
002.191 And slay them wherever ye catch them, and turn them out from where they have Turned you out; for tumult and oppression are worse than slaughter; but fight them not at the Sacred Mosque, unless they (first) fight you there; but if they fight you, slay them. Such is the reward of those who suppress faith.

Even if not meant for today's Muslims, the people who are being asked to kill were Muslims, weren't they? How can you claim that God does not ask Muslims to kill others?

"---Let me tell you one Hadith Qudsi,

Prophet said, "At the Day of Judgment, God and one man will have this dialogue God: I came to you, I was hungry, but you did not give food to Me.

Man: Oh Lord, How can you be hungry? …

God: I came to you, I don't have any clothes, but you did not give me any cloth?

Man: Oh Lord, How can you have no cloth?...

…..Then God will say. My man came to you, he was hungry, you did not give him any food, he hadn't any cloth, you did not give him any cloth to wear…."

All we know to lie is wrong, but even then we tell lies (Are we mentally deficient? Or we are wrong-doers?).

Those who reject Rasools are not mentally-deficient, they are liars and wrong-doers. So they deserver punishment.---"

Shakeel you don't seem to get my point. Knowing that lying is wrong and lying (denying) about the Rasoolhood of the Prophet when it has been proved to them and shown the horrible consequences are entirely different. People lie to gain some advantage not to suffer, unless they are masochists. Any person with even a modicum of intelligence will not do it. Shakeel if I demonstrated to someone that jumping into the Niagra falls will surely kill him and if he does it anyway what will you think of his mental capacity? Do I need to explain this in even simpler words?

The hadith Quds you have quoted tells me that Allah has already scripted the dialogues that will take place between Him and the billions of people who will rise up on judgement day. Life is just a drama that Allah is letting us play out where every action every thought of the players is already decided by Him. How more depressing can Allah's creation be?

"---Which is more effective, trimming or washing them daily?---"

Since one does have a bath daily I think your question is irrelevant. I would think washing would be more effective. Maybe in the Rasool's time they did not bathe daily which is why he thought of trimming? Again you have evaded answering why Allah gave us pubic hair in the first place. Was it just to have us go through the torture of using a razor in awkward and delicate crannies of one's body. Wouldn't creating us with clean shaven pubes and armpits have been a more intelligent option? If you had read your Darwin you would not have asked that question.

"---Actually, Rasool is commanded to fight and punish the wrong-doers. Allah punishes the wrong doers by the hands of Rasool and believers, as we both have already read the verse about it. All you are sympathizing the people who were guilty of treason.---"

I suppose this comment of yours is about Abu Bakr's ridda wars. So if people try to go out of Islam it is treason. If pagans convert to Islam it is because they have seen reason! Wonderful Muslim thinking! My sympathies are certainly with those 'treacherous' tribes who tried to wriggle out of the straitjacket of Islam. They had every right to go their own way. Or maybe you are referring to the murder of Asma Bint Marwan. Criticising a person is treachery? It seems to be the norm in Islamic countries. People who criticise Muslim leaders soon disappear.

"---It is because of wives of Prophet, we know that Muhammad was as good a person in his personal life as he was in his public life---"

Why don't you tell us something about what his wives reported about his personal life. I know one where he hits Aisha on the chest and it hurt her. There is another where one of his wives discovered him in her bed with a slave and she created a ruckus. Allah himself had to intervene and tell his wives to shut up about his sex life or they would be exchanged for better ones. You will find them in Bukhari and the Koran.

"---As a matter of fact, Muhammad (sws) gave Safiyah the choice of joining her people who were captives when they were set free or accepting Islam and marring him. She accepted later.---"

Why are you so coy about how much later it was. I have shown you it was just the day after he had her husband tortured and killed. If she accepted the Rasool's offer of marriage from the person responsible for the killing of her husband and other relatives it does not say much for the character of this Mother of Believers. And if the marriage was forced on her it does not say much for your Rasool. And please give us proof of Mohammed giving Safiyah any choice. This is what Bukhari has to say about it:

'We conquered Khaibar, took the captives, and the booty was collected. Dihya came and said, 'O Allah's Prophet! Give me a slave girl from the captives.' The Prophet said, 'Go and take any slave girl.' He took Safiya bint Huyai. A man came to the Prophet and said, 'O Allah's Apostles! You gave Safiya bint Huyai to Dihya and she is the chief mistress of the tribes of Quraiza and An-Nadir and she befits none but you.' So the Prophet said, 'Bring him along with her.' So Dihya came with her and when the Prophet saw her, he said to Dihya, 'Take any slave girl other than her from the captives.' Anas added: The Prophet then manumitted her and married her.' (Bukhari 1.367)

Nice story isn't it? Booty being taken in the form of women. Also the class consciousness (or maybe beauty consciousness because the hadith says 'when the Prophet saw her') of the Prophet is established in this story.

"---Quran has more right to be believed then Tibri, and in the eye of Allah, man and woman will be rewarded equally.---"

Then their Lord answered them, `I do not waste the work of a worker among you, be it a male or a female; you are from one another. So those who emigrated, and were expelled from their homes, and were given hurt in My way and who fought and were killed, I will acquit them of their evils, and admit them to gardens underneath which rivers flow __ a reward from God; and with God is the most handsome reward.(3:195) ---"

Obviously this verse is referring to people who emigrated to Madina and had to suffer in the cause of Allah. A very contextual verse if ever there was one as it directly refers to those who emigrated and were expelled. It is being directly addressed to 'worker among you, be it male or female'. Shakeel how did you generalise this verse to all males and females. If you can claim context for other verses which shows Allah and his Prophet in a bad light, why not for this one? This one also shows up that cute little habit of Allah bribing people. He promises to wipe out all their sins and literally invites them to suffer, fight and die in his cause and for which he will give them paradise. What a marvellous being your Allah is!

Where in the verse you have quoted does it say man and woman will be rewarded equally?? If in this life a woman is considered worth only half a male and inherits only half a man's share and is considered deficient why should Allah change his rules in heaven. The Islamic heaven has grades, as you are aware, so maybe the females' grade will be lower than that of men. Allah himself seems to have some grudge toward females going so far as to say thay those who name angels with female names do not believe in the hereafter. Read these verses:

037.150-51 YUSUFALI: Or that We created the angels female, and they are witnesses (thereto)? Is it not that they say, from their own invention,

043.019 And they make into females angels who themselves serve Allah. Did they witness their creation? Their evidence will be recorded, and they will be called to account!
053.027 Those who believe not in the Hereafter, name the angels with female names.

"---First, Allah has not given a right to every man to beat his wife. Only those men are allowed to beat, who are maintainers and protector of their women but their women are disobedient to them.---"

Men are the protectors and maintainers of women

Shakeel you or the translator have committed blasphemy by putting words in Allah's mouth. All those words in brackets are your or the translator's. There is no 'and last', 'tap' or 'lightly' in the Arabic Koran. In practice what this has meant is that (did not Allah know that this would happen?) a good number of Muslim men feel free to thrash their wives.

Shakeel you have put an atrocious interpretation on this verse. Allah has given the right to beat only the women who are physically and economically weak. Women of poor families who are married off into rich households can be beaten but rich girls cannot be touched if they are disloyal and disobedient? The poor girls know they cannot run back to their helpless parents and so suffer silently any brurtality that is inflicted on them. That is the reality, Shakeel, and not the light tap you have put into Allah's mouth. And for suffering women reality is more important than Allah's intention.

"---Beating means to beat gently and does not mean physical torture; it is a last resort to avoid divorce. Judiciary will control husband for his transgressions.---"

The Koran has placed women between a rock and a hard place. You say that only poor girls can be beaten (lightly) and if the husband misunderstands this verse, as invariably happens, and soundly beats her up for staring at a handsome man across the street what then? Since she is poor how can she approach the judiciary? And in pure Islamic countries girls cannot even venture out of their homes without a close male relative how does she accomplish this task of informing the judiciary. As women have been created deficient in intelligence by Allah Himself the judiciary in good Islamic countries are made up of men. So even if she manages to get across to the judiciary she will be further punished for talking to strange men. As they say reality bites but unfortunately it is the poor Muslim women who are getting bitten by Islamic reality. Like the hudood on stoning a woman who gets pregnant after being raped.

Shakeel, I know what is going on with you. I have argued with other Muslims on very similar issues. You find it painful to admit your belief cannot stand up to close scrutiny. The reason you find it painful is because you have been conditioned from childhood in madrassas and at home about what a great religion Islam is and how holy a man the Prophet was. It is now hard-wired into your brains. Rewiring your thoughts about your belief is so wrenching an experience that you turn logic upside down, change the meaning of ordinary words like mercy and so on in order to avoid the pain of seeing your belief system collapse.

. because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part you fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next) do not share their beds, (and last) beat (tap) them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them means (of annoyance): for Allah is Most High, Great (above you all). (4:34)

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