To all,
A word of advice,if one wants to comment about Islam, I think that the
Individual should atleast know something about what he is talking about, and
I think is better to study the Quran or atleast read it to know what to say
or quote, if anyone is interested post your address privately to my mailbox
and I will send you a copy of the Quran in plain ENGLISH and then one can
determine whether its the word of the muslims or that of ALLAH THE ALMIGHTY
and if you realise whose word it is then please stop quoting muslims as
saying this or that.I studied the bible in school and I have never heard
Father Murphy qoute any christian,all I ever heard is the BIBLE, The
PROPHETS and The Deciples,so please stop quoting muslims we are not the
AUTHOR of the book, we are just the beneficiary.
koto faal.

>From: Y C Jow <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: a perspective - Re: Celebrating Holidays of the Disbelievers/Ginny
>Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 18:04:48 EST
>
>All:
>I just pulled this article on how Islam views other religions by using a
>web
>search engine.  All I had to do was use a simple search engine such as
>Google.com to get answers to questions about the religion.
>
>This is an absolutely beautiful piece.
>
>Here goes:
>
>
>
>
>
>How Does Islam Regard Other Religions?
>Mahjubah, The Islamic Magazine for Women
>Mag 1995,
>Vol. 14, No. 5, Pages: 19-22
>By: Fodhlallah Wilmot
>Word Count: 3909
>
>
>
>This century has witnessed the growth of a new awareness that mankind must
>live together, every group interdependent with all the others. The unity of
>mankind is being felt with increasing intensity around the globe.
>
>There are a number of implications regarding the interdependence of Man
>from
>Islam's theory of God, its theory of revelation, its theory of Man and it
>theory of society and each of these in turn carries implication for the
>place
>of other faiths in Islam's consideration.
>
>Theory of God
>
>Islam's insistence on the absolute unit and transcendence of God is an
>affirmation of God's lordship over all men. To hold God as Creator means
>that
>all men are His creatures.
>
>Muslims therefore, believe that God has not graded any special status to
>any
>person or group. His love, providence, care for and judgement of all men
>must
>be one.
>
>In Islam, all people-Muslims and non-Muslims-stand to God in identically
>the
>same relationship, i.e. they are judged objectively by the same law. This
>is
>made clear in the following verses of the Quran.
>
>"On that day (the Day of Judgement), men will come forth in sundry bodies
>so
>that they may be shown their deeds. So he who does an atom's weight of
>goodwill see it and he who does an atom's weight of evil will see it." (99:
>6-8)
>
>Theory of Revelation
>
>In Islam, the Divine Will, the thought or content of the religious and
>moral
>imperative is knowable directly through revelation or indirectly through
>science. Muslims believe that revelation is not a privilege peculiar to
>Muslims but that the phenomenon or prophecy is common to, and present in
>every people and nation. The Quran says:
>
>"There is no people unto whom we have not sent a prophet warner."
>
>Muslims, therefore, believe that non-Muslims aren't underprivileged in this
>respect although their revelations may have, according to the Islamic
>perspective, been dissipated, lost or tampered with.
>
>Science is an indirect way of learning the Divine Will. Its prerequisites
>are
>the senses, intellectual curiosity and the will to research and discovery,
>the availability of data and communicability of experience, memory and the
>preservation of knowledge, reason and understanding or the capacity to
>grasp
>synthesis and develop knowledge.
>
>None of these are the monopoly of any group.
>
>Theory of Man
>
>Muslims believe that Man is not a fallen being but innocent; that God has
>created him in the best of forms and endowed him with a purposive, causal
>efficacy.
>
>The Muslim does not look upon the non-Muslim as a fallen, hopeless
>creature,
>but as a perfect creature, as a perfect man capable to himself of achieving
>the highest righteousness.
>
>Together with this dignity, Muslims believe that non-Muslims
>
>what Islam calls din al-fitrah or natural religion the census nominees by
>which Man recognizes God as transcendent and holy and hence worthy of
>adoration.
>
>"Life up your faith towards the religious like a hanif. That is the natural
>religion with which God has endowed all men at their creation. No exception
>or change befalls God's creation." (30:30)
>
>Muslims believe that din al-fitrah or naturalize religion is something both
>Muslims and non-Muslims possess by birth. In other words, din al-fitrah is
>original religion which Muslims define as Islam.
>
>In Islam's view, the historical religions are outgrowths of din al-fitrah
>containing with them different amounts or degrees of it.
>
>From the Islamic perspective, the differences of the various religion of
>din
>al-fitrah are due to accumulations, figurations, interpretations or
>transformations of history, i.e., of place, time, culture, leadership and
>other particular conditions.
>
>The Muslim, therefore, respects the adherent of another religion as a
>carrier
>of din al-fitrah, the religion of God as well as his own religious
>tradition
>as one based on din-al-fitrah.
>
>Islam's discovery of din-al-fitrah and its vision of it as the base of all
>historical religions is, Muslims believe, a breakthrough of tremendous
>importance in inter-religious relations.
>
>For the first time, it has become possible for an adherent of one religion
>to
>tell an adherent of another religion:
>
>"We are both equal members of a universal religious brotherhood. Both our
>traditional religions are de jure for they have both issued from and are
>based on a common source, the religion of God which He has implanted in
>both
>of us equally, din al-fitrah."
>
>"Rather than see how much your religion agrees or disagrees with mine, let
>us
>both see how far both our religious traditions agree with din al-fitrah,
>the
>original and first religion".
>
>"Say, O people of the book! Come now to agreement with us, based on a fair
>principle common to both, namely, that we shall worship none but God. That
>we
>shall never associate any other with Him; that we shall never take one
>another as lords besides God." (3:64)
>
>"Rather than assume that each of our religions is Divine as it stands
>today,
>let us both, cooperatively wherever possible, try to trace the historical
>development of our religions and determine precisely how and when and where
>each has followed and fulfilled or transcended and deviated from din
>al-fitrah.
>
>"Let us look into our holy writ and other religious texts and try to
>discover
>what change has befallen them, or been reflected in them, in history".
>
>Islam's breakthrough then is the first call to scholarship in religion, to
>critical analysis of religious text of the claim of such texts to
>revelation
>status.
>
>Islam assigns to the confession of faith the value of a condition, only
>acclaims the good works where and by whomever they are done, it regards
>them
>as the only justification in the eyes of God and warns that not an iota of
>good work or mischief will be lost on the Day of Reckoning.
>
>The non-Muslim, therefore, has the public record of works he has done to
>justify him in Muslim eyes; to establish him as a man of great piety and
>saintliness. For in Islam, good deeds earn merit with God regardless of the
>religious adherence of their author.
>
>From the Islamic point of view, moreover, salvation consists of nothing
>more
>than such merit as the good works earn. The act of faith is a work which is
>added and whose inclusion affects the whole.
>
>Islamic ethics being totally world-affirming, positive and governed by
>public
>law, the non-Muslim has as much potential and room for meritorious work as
>the Muslim.
>
>Muslims believe that it is only Islam that allows its adherents to call
>non-adherents to the religion than they themselves, and to do so
>religiously.
>
>Persuasion, not Compulsion -Theory of Society
>
>Islam has defined the will of God, the norms of human conduct and ends of
>human desire in terms of values which are societal. Muslims believe that
>they
>must strive to transform this world and mankind into an actualization of
>the
>Divine pattern.
>
>This cannot be achieved unless mankind is convinced of its moral and
>utilitarian value and, therefore, the non-Muslim will need to be involved.
>This can only be achieved voluntarily. Islam lays down very clearly that
>there must never be any compulsion in religion.
>
>The Quran laid down the method of persuasion to be used by Muslims when
>attempting to discuss matters with non-Muslims.
>
>Islam teaches that the majority, no matter how large or overwhelming, have
>no
>right to coerce even a single person. Islam recognize that the non-Muslim
>is
>not to be coerced or subversively influenced to conversion, but that he is
>fully entitled to pursue his non-Islamic culture and pass it on to his
>descendants.
>
>The very survival of the Eastern Churches in Asia, regarded as heretical by
>the rest of Christendom, is evidence of Islamic tolerance. No religion has
>preserved the shrines of another in its own base to the same extent as
>Islam.
>
>Muslims are taught that it is their religious obligation to enforce the
>observance of the religious law of others as long as the adherents of these
>religions live in their midst. Muslims believe that Islam's concept of din
>al-fitrah is the only idea capable of pulling modern man out of his
>predicament.
>
>FROM THE QUR'AN:
>
>"Religious goodness does not consist in your ritual worship, turning your
>faces towards the east or towards the west. Rather, it consists in
>believing
>in God, in the Day of Judgement, in His angels, Books, and Prophets, as
>well
>as in sharing one's wealth, for His sake, with the relative, the orphan,
>the
>destitute, the wayfarer, in spending it for the ransom of those who are not
>free, as well as in observing the prayers, paying the zakat, fulfilling
>one's
>contracts and promises, in holding firm in good times and ill times, or
>under
>constraint; in being always truthful. These are the truly
>felicitous."(2:171)
>
>Perhaps the greatest implication of Islam's confession that there is no god
>but God (with its tacit assumption that everyone has been endowed by God
>with
>natural religion-dine al-fitrah)- is its universalism.
>
>All humans are, in Islam's view, potentially God's vicegerents on earth.
>All
>are subjects under moral obligation and all the objects of one another's
>moral action.
>
>Obviously the greatest threat to this universalism, and hence to Islam, is
>particularism, the view that some people are to value their distinction
>from
>the rest of humankind more than their communion.
>
>Of course humans do differ from each other. But undeniable as the
>difference
>may be, the point that Islam makes is that they are irrelevant for
>measuring
>a person's worth.
>
>A human's creatureliness before God, the ultimate base uniting each person
>with all humanity, is far more important.
>
>To assert the opposite is to divide humankind into separate entities with
>the
>danger that an individual will feel that his group is superior to the other
>and on that basis, take away from all others to give to his own group.
>
>Although Islam agrees with the principle of the priority of next of kin, it
>insists on defining the benefits of society in terms of the well-being of
>all
>people.
>
>No Master Race:
>
>Islam rejects therefore all varieties of ethnocentrism which leads to the
>concept of 'the master race', 'the people of God', 'the chosen of God' who
>regard others as 'the subject races', 'people of the devil'. 'people of
>inferior gods'.
>
>Islamic universalism holds that all people are entitled by nature to fill
>membership of any human corporate body, for everyone is at once subject and
>object of the one and same moral law. The unity of God is inseparable from
>the unity of His will, which is the moral law.
>
>Under this one law, Islam seeks to rally the whole of humankind on equal
>terms. It does not hold or tolerate to hold, a doctrine of election.
>Nobody,
>according to Islam, has been predestined to any station in this world or
>the
>next.
>
>The universalism of Islam does not, however, preclude it from
>differentiating
>between people on the basis of their moral endeavor and achievement.
>
>Such preclusion would be equally contrary to the moral law which assigns
>'moral worth' in direct proportion to a person's moral accomplishments.
>
>Indeed, discrimination based on moral worth is obligatory, for this sort of
>discrimination encourages people to excel in good deeds, which is the
>purpose
>of creation itself.
>
>Islam, however, is a missionary religion and missionary zeal is a duty
>incumbent upon every Muslim. Mission is endemic to Islam as a universal
>religion for every Muslim wishes that Islam would be the conscious religion
>of every person.
>
>In fact, Muslims believe that Islam was the original religion of everyone
>but
>that it has been changed by time and culture into something else.
>
>Islam's missionary spirit of da'wah (calling) does not contradict its
>recognition of all religions as de jure. Islam invites the adherents of all
>religions to the task of criticism.
>
>According to Prof. Esmail Faruqui, a noted Muslim scholar, no religion is
>priori ruled out by the Muslim even though Muslims believe that Islam is
>the
>truth among many competing claims.
>
>A Muslim on meeting some one who worships, for example, an 'x' or 'y',
>whatever that may be, is not free to call him a pagan or to regard him as
>condemned by God; rather he must talk with him to discover what his
>religion
>is, in the belief that God must have sent a prophet to him.
>
>Prof. Esmail Faruqui states that believing that God, in His mercy, must
>have
>told him something, the Muslim meets with the non-Muslim with a view to
>being
>instructed about his faith, and then Muslim invites the non-Muslim to
>research his own tradition in order to discover the essential message that
>God has given him.
>
>And, if in relation to that central revealed core, it turns out that the
>rest
>of the beliefs and practices of that religion as developed through history
>have been distorted, that would be an empirical discovery for the Muslim.
>
>But Muslim must never make a priori decision which condemns a man because
>he
>does not believe in 'my God, my way'.
>
>However, if it is found that another man's religion has been corrupted and
>falsified beyond recognition, then the Muslim has a duty to tell the
>non-Muslim about the Quran, which Muslims believe to be God's final
>revelation and to present it to him as rational truth and invite him to
>consider it.
>
>From the Islamic point of view, to say that the adherents of
>
>other religions are equal members of a universal religious brotherhood
>because all religions are based on a common source, does not mean that all
>religions are the same or that Islam is trying to syncretism different
>faiths.
>
>Muslims accept other religions as de jure and believe that true tolerance
>means permitting every adherent of a religion to live his life in
>accordance
>with the religious values and traditions, no matter how incorrect they may
>seem from the Islamic point of view.
>
>It is not tolerance to try to pretend that differences do not exist. For
>example, when presented with two objects one of which is black and the
>other
>white, it is not tolerance to say that both are gray.
>
>Neither is it tolerance to say that one particular religion is the same as
>another religion.
>
>To say that religions with different beliefs, dogma and practices are the
>same is either hypocrisy or stupidity, and neither hypocrisy nor stupidity
>can be the basis of tolerance.
>
>For Muslims tolerance lies in the willingness to accept difference and
>acknowledge the right of others not only to believe differently but do
>order
>their lives according to that belief. Further, to say that all religions
>are
>the same or that they are equal, is neither logical nor rational because it
>would mean the juxtaposition in consciousness of contrary claims to the
>truth
>without the demand for a solution of their contradiction.
>
>True Tolerance:
>
>By avoiding all these pitfalls and shortcomings through its concept of din
>al-fitrah as the base of all historical religions, Islamic da'wah invites
>the
>non-Muslim to examine his religion, to analyses his religious texts and see
>how close or how far his religion is from dim al-fitrah which, for Muslims,
>is the criterion for determining truth.
>
>With the rising tide of Islamic awareness in the world and calls by Muslims
>for the implementation of Islamic law (the Shari'ah), some quarters have
>voiced concern about the effect on non-Muslims.
>
>It would, however, be a wrong presumption to assume that under Islamic law
>non-Muslims would lose their rights and suffer. In fact there are clear
>guidelines in the Quran and the traditions of Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.),
>which speak of straightening and cementing relationships between Muslim and
>non-Muslim citizens. The basic foundation of the relationship is found in
>the
>Quran:
>
>"God does not forbid you to act considerately or to act fairly towards
>those
>who have never fought you over religion nor have evicted you from your
>homes.
>God loves the fair-minded. God only forbids you to be friendly with those
>who
>have fought you over religion and evicted you from your homes and who
>helped
>others in your eviction. Those helped other in your eviction. Those who
>befriend them are wrongdoers." (60: 8-9)
>
>The words 'does not forbid you', are in fact, in this context positive
>command ordering Muslims to deal with non-Muslims kindly and justly unless
>they are clearly out to destroy the Muslims to deal with non-Muslims kindly
>and justly unless they are clearly out to destroy the Muslims. The best
>example of such treatment can be seen from the life of Prophet Muhammad
>(s.a.w.) himself who ordered the Muslim convert Asmah Abubakr to visit her
>non-Muslim mother and to treat her well as Asmah was under the misguided
>notion that she should not be friendly with her (the mother) after she had
>converted to Islam.
>
>Protection:
>
>The fundamental rights of non-Muslims, according to the Shari'ah, are their
>protection from all external threats, their protection from internal
>tyranny
>and persecution and their right to their own personal law according to the
>teachings of their own religion.
>
>The protection from external threats is the normal duty of any state. It is
>the duty of the head of state and those in authority to look after the
>interests of all the citizens. Of more relevance to the contemporary scene
>is
>the question of the rights of non-Muslim citizens under the Shari'ah. The
>most important protection to be accorded to non-Muslim citizens is
>protection
>from internal high-handedness, persecution, tyranny and injustice.
>
>To assault, injure or abuse a non-Muslim or even backbite him is just as
>immoral as it is to do such things in respect of a Muslim. The Muslims are
>duty-bound to spare their hands and tongues from hurting the non-Muslim
>citizens. They must not keep enmity or hatred against them.
>
>Since Muslims believe that God hates tyrants and punishes them both in this
>world and the next, Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) himself warned Muslims
>against
>any high-handedness towards the non-Muslim citizens (called dhimmis in
>Arabic) - e.g. "One who hurts dhimmi hurts me, hurts God. Also whosoever I
>am
>a complainant, I shall ask for his right on the Day of Resurrection."
>
>In Islam all humans are equal and even if one does not choose to follow the
>religion of Islam he has every right to live in peace and tranquillity in a
>Muslim country as an honored citizen with all rights and privileges.
>According to the teachings of the Quran neither the religion of Islam nor
>the
>Shari'ah can be forced on anyone against his will. The main emphasis of the
>Shari'ah is on the sanctity of the concept of legal due process to
>guarantee
>the life, liberty, property and honor of every human being, Muslim and
>non-Muslim. Therefore Islamic law is fair to all.
>
>Muslims believe that the guarantees of the Shari'ah go far beyond the
>Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Shari'ah guarantees freedom of
>opinion and the right to advocate one's idea in public both in speech and
>writing. The Shari'ah guarantees the inviolability of a citizen's home,
>private life and honor and prohibits the authorities from doing anything
>against this fundamental guarantee.
>
>Because the right to express one's opinion is meaningless (and perhaps even
>dangerous) without sound knowledge, Islam makes it the citizen's right and
>the Government's duty to have a system of education which would make
>knowledge freely accessible to every man and woman in the country.
>
>Progress:
>
>A Muslim government also is responsible, according to the Shari'ah to
>provide
>its citizens with such economic facilities as are necessary for the
>maintenance of human happiness and dignity. Therefore the affairs of the
>community must be arranged in such a way that every individual man and
>woman,
>Muslim and non-Muslim, shall enjoy that minimum of material well-being
>without which there can be no human dignity, no real freedom, and in the
>last
>resort no spiritual progress. This does not mean that the state should or
>ever could, ensure carefree living from its citizens. It does mean,
>however,
>that every citizen has:
>
>a) The right to productive and remunerative work while of working age and
>in
>good health. b) Training at the expense of the State, if necessary, for
>such
>productive work.
>
>c) Free and efficient health services in case of illness. d) Provision by
>the
>state of adequate nourishment, clothing and shelter in cases of disability
>resulting from illness, widowhood, unemployment due to circumstances beyond
>individual's control, old-age or under-age.
>
>Justice:
>
>The socio-political scheme of Islam aims at justice for Muslim and
>non-Muslim
>alike and the desire of Muslims to establish the Shari'ah is driven by
>moral
>considerations,. The Quran makes it obligatory to provide justice for all
>people and under the Shari'ah. Non-Muslims enjoy freedom of religion and
>religious worship, the freedom to maintain their own languages and customs
>and open their own schools, their right of life, honor, privacy and free
>movement. The Islamic Shari'ah also guarantees freedom from arbitrary
>arrest
>and detention, the right of peaceful assembly and association, freedom of
>expression and association and political freedom. The right of non-Muslims
>to
>property, freedom to practice any profession or trade and to assistance
>from
>the public treasury of the Muslims, if they are in need, are all
>guaranteed.
>
>All personal matters of non-Muslims are to be decided in accordance with
>their own personal law. The corresponding laws of the Shari'ah are not to
>be
>enforced on them. If something is forbidden to Muslims but allowed in their
>religion then they will have the right to use that thing and the courts in
>the country will decide their cases in the light of their own personal law.
>This has been the rule of all Muslim governments since the time of Prophet
>Muhammad (s.a.w.). The non-Muslims are given the fullest freedom in the
>performance of their religious rites and communal festivals.
>
>Once Caliph Omar noticed an old non-Muslim begging and he fixed a pension
>for
>him, saying: "By God it is undoubtedly not just that we derive benefit from
>a
>person in the prime of his youth but leave him to beg in the streets when
>he
>is stricken with old-age. " Caliph Omar also fixed pension for all the aged
>and invalid non-Muslims.
>
>Penal Code:
>
>Every non-Muslim enjoys security and equal justice under the Shari'ah.
>Under
>the Shari'ah no distinction of race, religion, citizenship, economic or
>social status or personal capabilities can ever obliterate the rights of a
>non-Muslim. Muslims and non-Muslims are to be treated as equal before the
>law. The penal laws of Islam are the same as for the Muslims and the
>non-Muslims - although Imam Malik exempts the non-Muslims from the Islamic
>punishment for adultery and he states that such cases should be referred to
>the offender's co-religionists.
>
>The penal laws of Islam are only a small part of the Shari'ah which is
>primarily concerned, as can be seen from the above, with social and
>economic
>justice. The penal laws of Islam are concerned with theft, murder, highway
>robbery, rebellion and accusations of adultery. The laws concerning the
>other
>matters are too detailed to discuss here but the aim is prevention but only
>on clear evidence.
>
>The penalties often mentioned for such offences are, as has been mentioned,
>the maximum penalty. Islam imposes a rigid code of punishment for the
>microscopic minority of hard-core criminals to ensure an atmosphere of
>peace
>and security for the rest of the society.
>
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