Brother Assalam Alikum,
As I was reading your articles I came across quotes from Bhagwad Gita. I understand you are a student of comparative study and on the other hand good from other literatures can not be bad! but when you have ocean of water then why squeeze a drop from other sources.
Secondly just sharing my contemplation that most of the Muslim world is suffering because of the wrong Quranic interpretations and twisting for personal gain.
if you see people who do not pray to Allah eat the nasty food like idol worshipers in china eat snakes, scorpions, some eat pigs and some do not eat the meat, people in Nepal do not drink milk for they consider cow as god!
if we think deeply we come to the conclusion Allah gives the best to His worshipers!
Jazak Allah
Wa alaikum us salam wa Rahmatullah
I fully agree with your view that the Quran is the source of true guidance. The objective of giving quotations from the Gita or the Bible is to call the people of other religions towards Islam. It is apparent from the Quran that Allah’s religion remained only and only one in all ages. It was the religious leaders who corrupted their sacred texts and distorted their religion. However, despite of this distortion, the scriptures still contain the true guidance of Allah that is 100% compatible with the Quran. Once people of other religions realize this that the Quran is not an alien book but the true version of their own religion, they’ll be attracted towards Islam. Some of our brothers have presented Islam to them as a religion hostile to theirs, as a result of that, they are churned up with it.
Imagine a Christian calls a Muslim towards his religion and presents quotations from the Bible to support his view, would the Muslim ever be willing to listen his message earnestly? On the other side, if he presents verses from the Quran, it is highly likely that the Muslim will pay heed to his words. Same is true for the people of other religions. If we present the teachings of their own scriptures that are compatible with the Quran and Sunnah, they’ll be willing to pay heed. Once they’ll realize that Islam is the same religion that was proclaimed by their own great prophets, it is highly likely that they’ll come to hear this final version of God’s message. We are responsible to present the message of Allah to Non-Muslims with passion, love, sympathy and openness otherwise our attitude may become an obstacle in spreading the message of Islam.
Your view about twisting the Quran in favor of personal gains is correct. Not only personal gains, people twist it in favor of the views of their sect that preoccupy their minds. We should try to indicate our brothers and sisters in a humble and sympathetic manner that biased attitude is not correct under any circumstances. We should read the Quran and Hadith with an open and blank mind and should change ourselves according to its ideals.
People of some religions have gone to extremes regarding diet as well as other matters because we failed to present them the true guidance of the Almighty in a reasonable manner. We should realize our fault and start conveying the message to such people as much as we can.
wassalaam
Muhammad Mubashir Nazir
Brother Nazir salam Alikum,
I understand your pragmatic approach to Dawah (Islamic call) and this strategy is used by the other religious propagators but my understanding is different we need to preach Quran, its they who need to decide what’s common within us. because source of all good is Allah and source of all deviations is shaitan. if we analyze surah kafirun and no matter how hard you try oh Muhammed! they are not going to listen to you. true guidance is from Allah only. We need to show them their scriptures are adulterated. if we show them that we have common understandings we will raise a generation of Sharukh Khans and inter faith marriages. we need to be cautious because shaitan sways us away by showing good. He made the good pious people into idols and grave worshipping. man by nature is good. he won’t accept bad unless it is a cocktail of good and bad and thats how shaitan works to lead to bad.
we always look forward to Westerners approach to any problem and regard it as the best and here again i have difference of opinion. why to follow them when they have no factual knowledge of who their Creator is in the first place! If you go deeper and further you will realize we Muslims laid the foundations and they are just tiling up!
we try to bring many people into our folds my concern is my ummah in the first place, we have so many deviated ,not following the correct requirements of Quran and Sunnah.
excuse me i need to tend to chores.
Jazak Allah
keep up your good work-fiamanulllah.
Wa alaikum us salam wa Rahmatullah
You’ve the full right of disagreement. The issues you’ve pointed out result from syncretism as intentional attempts were made by Akbar, Darashikoh and Mustafa Kamal to mix Islam with other philosophies or religions. I’m a strong critic of that approach. On the contrary, I vehemently believe, as it is indicated in the Quran, that the Quran is “Muhaiman” over previous scriptures. This means that the Quran is the only criteria to evaluate the truth and debasements in them. It is the Quran only which can tell us what is from Allah and what is adulteration of later generations.
You’ve correctly mentioned that man by nature is good. There are people in Non-Muslims who are sincere to God. That’s why we should approach them in a decent and humble way. Approaching them with a robust and chesty way, as our many brothers usually do, produces nothing but a sense of reactionism in them. It is true that we’ve to tell them that the scriptures they believe are corrupted by their leaders but that should not be the first step. If we’ll do so at the outset, they’ll assume us as bigots and will never listen to us further.
First of all, we’ll have to establish in their minds that the Quran does not present a new religion. It is, as mentioned by the Quran itself, the same religion that was given to Prophet Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus علیہم الصلوہ والسلام. The basic teaching of the Torah, the Gospels and the Quran is the same i.e. believe in monotheism and man’s accountability. Even scriptures of Hindus present the same message. Once they are convinced on following the pure teachings of their own scriptures, then we can tell them about the corruptions in their texts which have already been pointed out by their own scholars.
The same approach of starting from the common grounds is suggested by the Quran itself:
قُلْ يَا أَهْلَ الْكِتَابِ تَعَالَوْا إِلَىٰ كَلِمَةٍ سَوَاءٍ بَيْنَنَا وَبَيْنَكُمْ أَلَّا نَعْبُدَ إِلَّا اللَّهَ وَلَا نُشْرِكَ بِهِ شَيْئًا وَلَا يَتَّخِذَ بَعْضُنَا بَعْضًا أَرْبَابًا مِنْ دُونِ اللَّهِ ۚ فَإِنْ تَوَلَّوْا فَقُولُوا اشْهَدُوا بِأَنَّا مُسْلِمُونَ. 64
[Prophet!] Inform to them: “O People of the Book! Come to what is common between you and us that we will worship none except Allah. We will associate nothing with God, and that none of us shall make anyone except God as our Lord.” If they turn away, inform them: “Bear witness that we submit to the God only.” (Aal Imran 3:64)
If we keep this approach in mind, it will never result in religious syncretism and produce fruitful results in the field of Da’wah.
wassalaam
Muhammad Mubashir Nazir
Brother Nazir Assalam Alikum,
Thanks for your prompt replies. You are a man of knowledge and wisdom mashallah, I appreciate your point of view. This is how we learn, whats others point of view and what they think about it though we might have difference of opinion, like a half full glass/half empty glass! both are right but one has edge over other while one is considered optimistic while the other is considered as pessimistic.
It is unfortunate that times have come that we need to give dawah within our community because Muslims don’t know the correct islam. When prophet was giving dawah to the rich Quresh men, Allah ordered him to attend to the poor Muslim man with a question in surah abasa.
secondly, when Islamic scholars give fatwas they are based on religious grounds only, they do not have worldly knowledge ex. science, maths, astronomy etc. that’s the reason I think that people are at lost. eg-when to celebrate eid in other parts of the world? organ donation etc when we have a question some times we get mixed responses.
I feel a scholar must have religious and worldly knowledge as both are inter related.
Brother, it’s no kidding I have experienced this through dreams. I feel through dreams Allah subthanvathala introduces everyone to other world but we do not pay attention to it!
Fisabeelullah
Wa alaikum us salam wa Rahmatullah e wa barakatuhu
Many thanks for your kind words. Actually, the basic principle of Dawah is to put yourselves in shoes of others and think in the way he/she is thinking. Then it will be easy for you to present your point of view. Some eager beavers want to convert their audience immediately. Since I’ve converted from a staunch sectarianism, therefore, I know that the process is very long and painful. It took 6-7 years for me to come out of the chasm of the sect I belonged. You can see the details of that process in my book مسلم دنیا میں ذہنی، فکری اور نفسیاتی غلامی which is available here:
I fully agree with you that a religious scholar should also have at least basic knowledge of worldly knowledge. He/she should know the basics of natural sciences but must study social sciences like sociology, anthropology, economics and political science in-depth because they have very strong relation with religion and dawah. That’s why I’m working on a life-time project of developing a course for such type of scholars. My main focus is to serve this particular class of the students of religion up to the best. The details of this project are provided here:
Your kind comments on this program will be highly appreciated.
Regarding your spiritual experience, it is a fact that a person can observe some realities of the afterlife in a dream or a daydream. It is called “Kashf“. The Kashf of the prophets is a type of revelation and 100% correct but for non-prophets, it may have an interference from the Satan. Sufis had a lot of such experiences and they relied upon that. Since the Satan can interfere is kashf of non-prophets, therefore, we should not blindly rely upon them.
Whatever we observe in it, we should compare it with the information provided in the Quran / Sunnah. If it is compatible to them, it’s ok otherwise we should assume that it is from the Satan. If the kashf is about something that is not mentioned in the Quran / Sunnah, then we should ignore it as there is no way to verify such information.
I hope that this detail may be helpful.
wassalaam
Muhammad Mubashir Nazir
Don’t hesitate to share your questions and comments. They will be highly appreciated. I’ll reply as soon as possible if I know the answer. Send at mubashirnazir100@gmail.com.