Answer to Don

Submitted by Sue (United Kingdom), Oct 2, 2005 at 08:49

Dear Don,
thanks for your reply.
My answer to you is as follows:

1. I don't have anything twisted cause reading my answer you would understand that I meant that people take it for granted to critisize Islam, while muslims could do the same. So basically this was an example of being able to also discuss other religions.
However it was not meant as an 'attack' it was meant as a question. If u think it was an attack, then maybe it's because you see it a negative thing having to sacrifice your own son to save the people??

2. This second point is really just circulating around the same issue, but i'll give u an answer as well. Again i tell you that Allah is not a name as much as it's a meaning. it means 'The God'.
The ancient arabs (Muhammad's father or the others) didn't worship a God called 'Allah' they worshiped statues called 'Ellat and Elluzza' and some other things.
The thing about the Pagan God, which i must admit is very funny to me, is totally wrong. Cause the ancient arabs (also the fathers of Abraham) were worshiping statues, as if they were Gods. All the prophets including Muhammad, came to say that this is wrong, and that God is not a statue, it is our creator, He cannot be seen, and you can find this stated many times in the Quran.
So could you get me one thing in the Quran talking about this pagan God???? I don't have a clue how people reached this conclusion. I really do believe that people talk about Islam without reading nor understanding the Quran.

However, about the religion of the ohter prophets and the other books. Well, first of all i'm not bothered that Muhammad is not mentioned in other books as you say, cause i again i tell you that i believe that these books have been changed, and i have no reason to believe otherwise.
Give me one prove that the Bible or the Torah are true. I don't have any prove till now.
Besides, would you hesitate about your beliefs if i told you that Jesus was not mentioned in the Sikhism? No, cause you don't believe it in this religion anyway.
Now about the religion of the prophets, again i tell you that they were muslims. But it's a very shallow imagination to think that this means they have to go to Haj or pray 5 times a day.
Cause 'Islam' means surrendering=believing in 1 God. We believe that ALL prophets believed in one God, and they came to the people to teach them that.
Now when God distributes his message to the people he takes them gradually. So u start by Adam until Muhammad who finally gave the final message, when people are supposed to be already introduced to the idea of the one God, and here come the daily duties that they have to do.
It's exactly when you start the school in kg1, you have no clue about anything, and when you reach the graduation year you are expected to start working.
This is how we mean prophets are muslims! Islam means believing in God, and not the daily rituals.

3. About God loving all people or burning them in Hell, this is a very interesting point. You think it's bad to think that God can punish people. So does this mean that Christians believe that Muslims and Jews and all the other religions are going to Heaven as well?? In this case what is the point of being christian in the first place, if we're all going to heaven anyway??
And how about Jews? do they believe that all the other people are going to heaven? Or do they believe that the jews are the only chosen ones?
I see life only fair, if everyone gets the result he seeked for. As i said in one of my answers, i wouldn't expect a killer, to have the same end as a saint. it's not fair.
I can only believe in a fair God.
However, muslims cannot judge who will go to heaven or not, it's only God's judgement, and we still do believe that the jews who believed with Moses and the christians who believed in Jesus were on the right track.

4. I have read the holy bible on German and on Arabic.
The arabic meaning of Messiah, is 'removing' but not that removes sins, but because the Jews have had a very difficult religion with many rules, Jesus the messiah, came to remove a lot of the difficult rules they had. He did not come to remove the sins of the people, because if he did that, then again what's the point of being good anyway? Why not steal and kill and be trouble makers, if someone already removed our sins??
Isn't it more logic that everyone be responsible for his own acts? Or do we have to get someone suffer for the sins we do?
If you feel the responsibility, you are more likely to think about your acts.

The Quran is not full of contradictions, it's just the people who are trying to manipulate the meanings to serve their arguments.
The Quran talks clearly about Jesus that he was not crossed. And if you are referring to the verse that talks about God took him, you will notice the word ' wafa' which is sometimes used in the meaning of death, now in the common spoken arabic, but in the Quran used as in the meaning of 'sleep' exactly like in the verse that says what means: that God 'yatawafa al anfus' (take the soul) when they die, and those who don't die then in their sleep.
This means that God takes or 'yatawafa' the soul of everybody, some only while their sleep, and also when they die.
So there's is no contradiction about Jesus not being killed in the Quran. It is stated very clear, you can also refer to Quran explanation books or simply read the meaning of your Quran in your language to be able to see how clear it is.

I am not convinced that a God who is able to forgive, would not be also sacrificing an innocent person who you say never made a sin. Forgiveness doesn't match with being unfair. and killing someone who never made a sin, or leaving him to do that willingly, is unfair to him, and unfair to the people who just hung their sins on someone elses life to feel safe and free to do whatever they want to do, now that someone already died for their sins.
It doesn't really seem any fair to me. If someone has to die for my sins then logic and fairness tell me it should be me and not someone else.
If someone steals your car, would you go punish his friend cause he loves him so much, or will you insist on punishing the thief so that he doesn't continue stealing from others?

Besides, i don't also understand why the punishment of sin is death. Why not ask for forgiveness as God tells the muslims and you're forgiven. It's really more simple and urges the poeple to forgive eachother, and also to have hope that doing a sin is not the end of the world, mistakes happen and you just have to be aware of it and regret it in order to be a better person.

5. I am not a new convert to Islam, thank God i am muslim for 30 years now.
Now it is important for all to know that Islam is not responsible for any wrong acts done by people claiming they're muslims. Islam is only responsible for what is written in the Quran.
So i really wish to know WHERE it is written in the Quran, not to respect the other religions.

and it's very interesting about what you wrote how to respect muslims on the street and so on.
So can you please explain how girls are not allowed to put their veil in schools in france??
and how teachers are not allowed to put veil in schools in Germany??
Is this the way you respect the religions of the others??
Now tell me where did a christian get prevented of performing his faith by muslims??

Now about the punishements of Islam, you have to know that these punishement are of showing how bad an act is and if the person gets the punishement on earth he will not be punished again for it in the afterlife.
This punishement should be done through the governement and not through normal people. For example cutting hand of the thief. Almost all muslim countries don't do that, cause as i said, it's not a must do, it was written in Islam to show that a thief made a bad act that deserves this punishement. he either gets it on earth or he is punished later if he doesn't seek forgiveness.

So can you tell me about when someone was killed cause he talked badly about God/Allah? People do that almost daily. We believe they take their punishement through God and not by us.

Besides, a small reminder to you that your religion tells you that the punishment of sins is death, only that you had someone die for you instead. but it's the same concept!!

Now have you ever lived in Lebanon? or Anywhere in Northeast Africa? Go and see what rights the Christians have there.
Besides, have you ever lived in Israel? in India? In Germany and many many other countries? Please go there and tell us what rights the Muslims have there.

You manage to just look at one side of the Coin. This doesn't enable you to have a full clear picture.
And again i remind you, Quran is the basis and the measurment and not the acts of the people.

Now i will not give you an answer to every Quote you wrote, cause it's just a waste of time.
I'll just give you this:
you shall not let a soul remain alive
you must proscribe them as the Lord your God has commanded you, lest they lead you into doing all the abhorrent things that they have done for their gods and you stand guilty before the Lord your God.
you shall put all its males to the sword. You may, however, take as your booty the women, the children, the livestock, and everything in the town--all its spoil--and enjoy the use of the spoil of your enemy, which the Lord your God gives you.
From Parshat Shoftim. From THE TANAKH: The New JPS Translation According to the Traditional Hebrew Text.

These are similar quotes from the Torah!!

In order not to waste my time looking for the Quran quotes that you haven't mentioned the name of the paragraph, so i can't really look them out. i just gave you similar quotes from another book.

Would like to add that reading a book only makes meaning if you read the context as a whole. You cannot just take a sentence and make a claim around it, cause u have to read in what condition it was said in the first place? Only then it could be a prove of something.

Unfortunately, all what the critisizers of Islam manage to do is to take a sentence out of its context and make a whole new story about it. However, muslims who have read the Quran many times do know this manipulation, cause they're clever enough to read a book as a whole.

About my German translation it is exactly the same meaning of the Quran, and for sure i have an arabic copy of the Quran, cause i do read arabic as well. both are the same, and if you have a book that has any other meaning other than the Arabic Quran, then it's wrong, and this is one of the reasons why the Quran is NEVER translated, we can only translate the meaning. unlike the bible.

Thanks again,

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