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You are here: Experts > Homework Help > Islam > Islam > Credibility of References, etc.
Islam - Credibility of References, etc.
Expert: A. Abraham - 11/5/2009
Question
QUESTION: Asalamalaykom,
I have a question about the credibility of this website and the resources of some of the questions I have read answers to. Each answer seems to be well thought out and makes sense. The references to the Holy Quran really help to back up the answers to each question. However my question has to do with the advertising on this website and I am concerned. As a relatively new Muslim (I accepted Islam almost a year ago, Alhamdolillah), I am still in a period of major learning and am therefore, fairly vulnerable and impressionable, I must admit. Although the answers seem to be logical and make sense, the sponsored links underneath advertising for people to "Meet Local Cheating Wives" and to know "The 1 Way To Seduce Her" and to get to know "Beautiful Muslim Women" concerns me deeply. Does this website actually support such haram links? These are the links that I saw directly under a well-answered question about men and women having friends of the opposite sex. I very carefully check the resources where I am trying to get information on Islam about and I don't know whether or not I can trust this site which seems to have a number of experts, yet advertises links to "Meet Muslim Girls Online: Muslims Girls and Women for Dating and Marriage". Please explain this. In understand that websites need sponsoring in order to continue to be available, but such conflicting sponsors to the beautiful deen of Islam.....surely there must be another way to keep the website going..... I do hope to hear from you and wish you a pleasant evening. Salam.
ANSWER: Peace to you,
Thanks for your question. All Experts is a huge site that has many different topics. The experts come from many different background and have no influence on the advertisement which is needed to finance the site.
For example, I am a follower of Jesus who is only an expert on that topic. May I ask you why you accepted Islam and what you were before?
Kind regards,
A. Abraham
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QUESTION: Hello and peace be with you:) Certainly:) My parents christened me into the Greek Orthodox relgion at birth and I grew up in Canada. Despite the topics on TV and movies, the way my friends acted and dressed, and the fairly unstructured and secular lifestyle etc. that I grew up with, I never fit into this culture really. When I looked for answers within Christianity, I left feeling empty and with a very strong sense that women (although this has changed in terms of a social sense) were really not loved or respected. Early Christianity deemed women to be the door of hell and women were treated in a vile manner where rulings actually took place to determine whether or not they even had souls. The fact that this was present at the beginning doesn't really encourage faith. In fact, as a Christian, I was scared of God and thought that He was unforgiving. In Islam, every soul, every person is treated with diginity and respect and has rights. Allah gave us Islam to reaffirm the most wonderful teachings of the Torah and the Bible, in terms of worshipping The One God and in how to respect and care for all people. Allah showed us and told us time and time again throughout the Quran as well as in Hadith of our beloved prophet Mohammed (pbuh) just how forgiving He is. All one needs to do is ask Allah directly - no person or mediary in between. In Islam, it's just my heart, soul and intentions and Allah listens. Inshallah, He sees my efforts and mistakes and will reward my efforst and forgive my mistakes. All I need to do is keep trying and a true effort and pray to Allah - and not a person. As a Muslim I know that Jesus (pbuh) is a wonderful example to follow in terms of behaviour but I do not believe he is part of a trinity of Allah because this negates the very idea that Allah is The God. Even Jesus (pbuh) said in (I believe it was John who confirmed this, I'm not entirely certain) that people are not to worship Jesus but to worship and believe in Allah and only Allah.
Islam also came with protection of Allah's (Swt) Word to be free from corruption by mankind and with very direct rules and guidelines. It is the complete and perfected religion that is more than a religion - it is a deen, a lifestyle. After reverting, (which I did after I spent a great deal of time researching about Islam), I finally came to understand why I never fit into wearing revealing clothing, acting in a promiscuous manner etc. to get a man who would not want to keep me pure and protect me in marriage. If I followed the western way, I would be with a man - eventually - but only after he had his fill of women and had to finally settle down or risk being alone. There is not a lot of value placed on the marriage, family, raising children etc. nor is there a lot of emphasis placed on women acting and dressing modestly. As a woman, this affected me a great deal as this is an expected behaviour and if I didn't conform to it and show my body, I was considered to be an outsider and socially almost an outcast, like I had too many morals even though I didn't flaunt my morals. I just acted the way I thought I should. I didn't make anyone feel lower for doing what they were doing with drinking and picking up men - I just refrained politely from doing this myself, yet I still felt as though I was unaccepted. This is sooooooo not the case in Islam. Our beautiful Quran shows all the correct way to behave and treat people and how to act. This is for both in the home and out in public.
I hope this gives you some insight as to why I reverted - my apologies for it not being very structured in terms of my writing. I just get really caught up with talking about it because I so thoroughly enjoy it:) Take care and all the best:)
Answer
Hi Tanja,
Thanks for your answer. I am so sorry that you had to experience the worst of hypocritical religion. I applaude you for not joining those people who lived such an immoral lifestyle. However, these people who live such a loose live are definitely not Christians by the definition of Jesus himself. It is the only one that really counts. He said in the Injeel, Matthew 7:
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21-23"Knowing the correct password—saying 'Master, Master,' for instance— isn't going to get you anywhere with me. What is required is serious obedience—doing what my Father wills. I can see it now—at the Final Judgment thousands strutting up to me and saying, 'Master, we preached the Message, we bashed the demons, our God-sponsored projects had everyone talking.' And do you know what I am going to say? 'You missed the boat. All you did was use me to make yourselves important. You don't impress me one bit. You're out of here.'
24-25"These words I speak to you are not incidental additions to your life, homeowner improvements to your standard of living. They are foundational words, words to build a life on. If you work these words into your life, you are like a smart carpenter who built his house on solid rock. Rain poured down, the river flooded, a tornado hit—but nothing moved that house. It was fixed to the rock.
26-27"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."
28-29When Jesus concluded his address, the crowd burst into applause. They had never heard teaching like this. It was apparent that he was living everything he was saying—quite a contrast to their religion teachers! This was the best teaching they had ever heard.
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In the Injeel we also learn how God wants women to be dressed. 1 Timothy 2 says:
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8-10 Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.
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In your reply you said, "Our beautiful Quran shows all the correct way to behave and treat people and how to act." Are you aware of the following verses about women found in the Quran and the hadith? Would you be so kind and tell me whether you still feel the same after having read them and answer the questions linked to them?
Compared with the appalling status women in Saudi Arabia had in pre-Islamic times the Quran has brought considerable improvement for them. However, in the light of the following verses (translated by Marmaduke Pickthall and approved by the ministry of religious affairs of the government of Pakistan), the question that begs the answer is: Are women really declared to be of the same value as men?
According to Surah 4 (An-Nisa), verse 34, are women treated like children!
According to Surah 4 (An-Nisa),verse 15, the punishment in case of lewdness is confinement to the house until death! Some commentators believe that the punishment later was altered to 100 lashes. But if women are created physically weaker than men why do they have to endure the same punishment as they?
According to Surah 4 (An-Nisa), verse 176, why do men inherit twice as much as women?
According to Surah 2 (Al-Baqarah), verse 282, why do two female-witnesses count as much as one male?
According to Surah 2 (Al-Baqarah), verse 221, and Surah 5 (Al-Ma'idah), vers 5, why can women not marry non-Muslims, while men are allowed to?
According to Surah 2 (Al-Baqarah),verse 223, wives are as a field unto the husbands; why can they approach them when and how they will?
According to Surah 4 (An-Nisa) verse 24, Muslims are allowed to have sex with female slaves! Does this horrifying verse not amount to legalising rape among prisoners of war? (See also 23:5-6, 33:50, 70:22-30)
The Quran does not say anything about women who for some reason can not or choose not to get married. Does this status virtually not exist?
According to Surah 56, (Waqi'a), verses 35-38, are newly created virgins waiting for men only in paradise? (See also Surah 55, (Rahman), verses 56-57)
According to Surah 2 (Al Baqarah), verses 226-242, Muslim men only are allowed to divorce and get reconciled to their wives twice without having to give reasons. Muslim women can seek a divorce mainly in the following seven extreme cases, but they generally require to be ratified by a decree from the Qazi or "judge":
(1) Jubb. That is, when the husband before marriage has been by any cause deprived of his sexual organ. This condition is called majbub.
(2) Cases of evident madness
(3) leprosy.
(4) Refusal of Islam. If one of the parties embraces Islam, the judge must offer it to the other three distinct times, and if he or she refuses to embrace the faith, divorce takes place. If they keep living together both are technically committing adultery for which the punishment is death by stoning. While a Muslim man is allowed to marry a woman from among the ‘People of the book’, the Jews or Christians, this privilege is denied to a Muslim woman.
(5) La'n, or "imprecation." That is, when a husband charges his wife with adultery, the charge is investigated, but if there is no proof, and the man swears his wife is guilty, and the wife swears she is innocent, a divorce must be decreed.
(6) Difference of country For example, if a husband flees from a daru 'l-harb, or "land of enmity," ie "a non-Moslem country," to a daru 'l-Islam, or "country of Islam", and his wife refuse to perform hijrah (flight) and to accompany him, she is divorced.
(7) Apostasy from Islam. The author of the Raddu 'l-Mukhtar ( vol ii p 643) says: "When a man or woman apostatizes from Islam, then an immediate dissolution (faskh) of the marriage takes place, whether the apostasy be of the man or of the woman without a decree from the Qazi." And again, (p. 645), "If both husband and wife apostatize at the same time, their marriage bond remains; and if at any future time the parties again return to Islam, no re-marriage is necessary to constitute them man and wife; but if one of the parties should apostatize before the other, a dissolution of the marriage takes place
" For more details and the following quote see ‘Dictionary of Islam by T.P. Hughes, 1988, ‘divorce’: “Burckhardt tells us of an Arab, forty-five years old, who had had fifty wives, so that he must have divorced two wives and married two fresh ones on the average every year. We have cases of Muhammad's own ‘Companions’ not much better. This is the natural and legitimate effect of the law“”
Kind regards,
A. Abraham
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