On the Acts of Private Worship (Great Books of the Islamic World). On Attaining Orthodox Belief (Great Books of the Islamic World). Al-Ghazzali on the Treatment .
Table of contents
To avoid further fighting, the new caliph Hasan ibn Ali signed a peace treaty , abdicating to Mu'awiyah , beginning the Umayyad dynasty , in return that he not name his own successor. The majority accepted the legitimacy of the first four leaders and became known as Sunnis. A minority disagreed, and believed that only Ali and some of his descendants should rule; they became known as the Shia. The descendants of Muhammad's uncle Abbas ibn Abd al-Muttalib rallied discontented non-Arab converts mawali , poor Arabs, and some Shi'a against the Umayyads and overthrew them, inaugurating the Abbasid dynasty in During this time, the Delhi Sultanate took over northern parts of Indian subcontinent.
Religious missions converted Volga Bulgaria to Islam. Many Muslims also went to China to trade, virtually dominating the import and export industry of the Song dynasty. This era is sometimes called the " Islamic Golden Age ". An important pioneer in this, Ibn al-Haytham is regarded as the father of the modern scientific method and often referred to as the "world's first true scientist".
Amongst his contributions are the discovery of the contagious nature of infectious diseases, [] and the introduction of clinical pharmacology. Al-Shafi'i codified a method to determine the reliability of hadith. Philosophers Al-Farabi and Avicenna sought to incorporate Greek principles into Islamic theology, while others like Al-Ghazali argued against them and ultimately prevailed.
Caliphs such as Mamun al Rashid and Al-Mu'tasim made the mutazilite philosophy an official creed and imposed it upon Muslims to follow. Mu'tazila was a Greek influenced school of speculative theology called kalam , which refers to dialectic. In inquisitions, Imam Hanbal refused to conform and was tortured and sent to an unlit Baghdad prison cell for nearly thirty months.
Some Muslims began to question the piety of indulgence in a worldly life and emphasised poverty, humility and avoidance of sin based on renunciation of bodily desires. Ascetics such as Hasan al-Basri would inspire a movement that would evolve into Tasawwuf Sufism. In , the Ismaili group known as the Qarmatians unsuccessfully rebelled against the Abbassids, sacked Mecca and stole the Black Stone, which was eventually retrieved. The Muslim world was generally in political decline starting the s, especially relative to the non-Muslim European powers.
This decline was evident culturally; while Taqi al-Din founded an observatory in Istanbul and the Jai Singh Observatory was built in the 18th century, there was not a single Muslim-majority country with a major observatory by the twentieth century. By the 19th century the British Empire had formally ended the Mughal dynasty in India. The majority and oldest group among Shia at that time, the Zaydis , named after the great grandson of Ali, the scholar Zayd ibn Ali , used the Hanafi jurisprudence, as did most Sunnis. A revival movement during this period was an 18th-century Salafi movement led by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab in today's Saudi Arabia.
Referred to as Wahhabi , their self designation is Muwahiddun unitarians. Building upon earlier efforts such as those by Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim , the movement allegedly seeks to uphold monotheism and purify Islam of what they see as later innovations. Their zeal against idolatrous shrines led to the desecration of shrines around the world, including that of Muhammad and his companions in Mecca and Medina. Contact with industrialized nations brought Muslim populations to new areas through economic migration.
Many Muslims migrated as indentured servants, from mostly India and Indonesia , to the Caribbean , forming the largest Muslim populations by percentage in the Americas. There are more and more new Muslim intellectuals who increasingly separate perennial Islamic beliefs from archaic cultural traditions. Its supporters say that there are multiple ways to read Islam's sacred texts, and they stress the need to leave room for "independent thought on religious matters".
Secular powers such as the Chinese Red Guards closed many mosques and destroyed Qurans, [] and Communist Albania became the first country to ban the practice of every religion. Jamal-al-Din al-Afghani , along with his acolyte Muhammad Abduh , have been credited as forerunners of the Islamic revival. In Turkey , the Islamist AK Party has democratically been in power for about a decade, while Islamist parties did well in elections following the Arab Spring.
Piety appears to be deepening worldwide. It is estimated that, by , the number of Muslims will nearly equal the number of Christians around the world, "driven primarily by differences in fertility rates and the size of youth populations among the world's major religions, as well as by people switching faiths. Sunnis believe that the first four caliphs were the rightful successors to Muhammad; since God did not specify any particular leaders to succeed him and those leaders were elected.
Sunnis believe that anyone who is righteous and just could be a caliph but they have to act according to the Quran and the Hadith, the example of Muhammad and give the people their rights. For legal matters derived from the Quran or the Hadith, many follow four sunni madh'habs schools of thought: Hanafi , Hanbali , Maliki and Shafi'i. All four accept the validity of the others and a Muslim may choose any one that he or she finds agreeable.
The Salafi movement claim to take the first three generations of Muslims, known as the salaf , as exemplary models. The Deobandi movement is a reformist movement originating in South Asia, influenced by the Wahhabi movement. While the Sunnis believe that a Caliph should be elected by the community, Shia's believe that Muhammad appointed his son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi Talib , as his successor and only certain descendants of Ali could be Imams.
Other points of contention include certain practices viewed as innovating the religion, such as the mourning practice of tatbir , and the cursing of figures revered by Sunnis. Shia Islam has several branches, the most prominent being the Twelvers the largest branch , Zaidis and Ismailis. Different branches accept different descendants of Ali as Imams. The Zaydis consider Zayd ibn Ali , the uncle of Imam Jafar al-Sadiq , as their fifth Imam, and follow a different line of succession after him.
Other smaller groups include the Bohra as well as the Alawites and Alevi. Sufism , or tasawwuf Arabic: It is not a sect of Islam and its adherents belong to the various Muslim denominations. Classical Sufi scholars have focused on the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God by making use of "intuitive and emotional faculties" that one must be trained to use. The Barelvi movement is a Sufi-influenced revivalist movement within Sunni Islam with over million followers, [] largely in South Asia.
Central Asia is considered to be a center of Sufism. Sufism has played a significant role in fighting against Tsars of Russia and Soviet colonization. Non-denominational Muslims is an umbrella term that has been used for and by Muslims who do not belong to or do not self-identify with a specific Islamic denomination. At least one in five Muslims in at least 22 countries self-identify in this way. Some movements, such as the Druze , Berghouata and Ha-Mim , either emerged from Islam or came to share certain beliefs with Islam and whether each is separate a religion or a sect of Islam is sometimes controversial.
The majority of Muslims live in Asia and Africa. Most estimates indicate that the China has approximately 20 to 30 million Muslims 1. According to the Pew Research Center , Islam is set to equal Christianity worldwide in number of adherents by the year Islam is set to grow faster than any other major world religion, reaching a total number of 2. Causes of this trend involve high fertility rates as a factor, with Muslims having a rate of 3. Countries such as Nigeria and the Republic of Macedonia are expected to have Muslim majorities by In India, the Muslim population will be larger than any other country.
The term " Islamic culture " could be used to mean aspects of culture that pertain to the religion, such as festivals and dress code. It is also controversially used to denote the cultural aspects of traditionally Muslim people. Perhaps the most important expression of Islamic architecture is that of the mosque. For example, North African and Spanish Islamic architecture such as the Great Mosque of Kairouan contain marble and porphyry columns from Roman and Byzantine buildings, [] while mosques in Indonesia often have multi-tiered roofs from local Javanese styles.
Great Mosque of Xi'an in Xi'an , China. Dome in Po-i-Kalyan , Bukhara , Uzbekistan. Interior of domes in the Alabaster Mosque in Cairo , Egypt. Islamic art encompasses the visual arts produced from the 7th century onwards by people not necessarily Muslim who lived within the territory that was inhabited by Muslim populations. However this rule has been interpreted in different ways by different scholars and in different historical periods, and there are examples of paintings of both animals and humans in Mughal, Persian and Turkish art.
The existence of this aversion to creating images of animate beings has been used to explain the prevalence of calligraphy, tessellation and pattern as key aspects of Islamic artistic culture.
Great Books Of The Islamic World
Islamic calligraphy representing various planets. Geometric arabesque tiling on the underside of the dome of Hafiz Shirazi's tomb in Shiraz , Iran. The formal beginning of the Muslim era was chosen, reportedly by Caliph Umar , to be the Hijra in CE, which was an important turning point in Muhammad's fortunes.
It is a lunar calendar with days lasting from sunset to sunset. The most important Islamic festivals are Eid al-Fitr Arabic: Criticism of Islam has existed since Islam's formative stages. Early criticism came from Christian authors, many of whom viewed Islam as a Christian heresy or a form of idolatry and often explained it in apocalyptic terms. Objects of criticism include the morality of the life of Muhammad, the last law bearing prophet of Islam, both in his public and personal life, [] [] as seen in medieval Christian views on Muhammad.
Issues relating to the authenticity and morality of the Quran, the Islamic holy book, are also discussed by critics. Other criticisms focus on the question of human rights in modern Muslim-majority countries, and the treatment of women in Islamic law and practice. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article is about the religion. For the history of Islamic civilization, see History of Islam. For other uses, see Islam disambiguation. Profession of faith Prayer Fasting Alms-giving Pilgrimage.
God in Islam and Allah. Quran , Wahy , and Islamic holy books.
Al-Ghazali
History of the Quran. Prophets and messengers in Islam , Sunnah , and Hadith. Five Pillars of Islam. Shahada Salat Raka'ah Qibla Turbah. Sunnah salat Tahajjud Tarawih. Masturbation Hygiene Sexual violation Zina Awrah. Riba Murabaha Takaful Sukuk. Jihad Hudna Istijarah asylum Prisoners of war.
Jihad , Islamic military jurisprudence , and List of expeditions of Muhammad. Islam and children , Women in Islam , and Marriage in Islam. Adab Islam and Islamic dietary laws. History of Islam and Spread of Islam. Mosque of the prophet Possessions Relics. Muhammad and Muhammad in Islam. Early social changes under Islam. Muslim conquests , First Fitna , and Second Fitna. Islamic Golden Age , Hadith studies , and Islamic philosophy.
Islamic schools and branches. Part of a series on Sunni Islam. Sunni schools of law. Sunni schools of theology. Ash'ari Maturidi Traditionalist Others: Jerusalem Mecca Medina Mount Sinai. Part of a series on Shia Islam. Muhammad Ali Fatimah Hasan Hussein. Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam. Muslim world and Ummah. Such are the people of truth, the God fearing'. The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Profession of Faith [ Essays in scriptural intertextuality. The Straight Path 3rd ed. A Guide for Jews and Christians. Islam and the Integration of Society.
In Sharifah Shifa Al-Attas. Archived from the original on 2 April The New York Times. Retrieved January 4, Retrieved January 6, Oxford Bibliographies Online Research Guide "Sunni Islam is the dominant division of the global Muslim community, and throughout history it has made up a substantial majority 85 to 90 percent of that community. Retrieved December 20, Retrieved December 5, The Future of the Global Muslim Population. Retrieved 22 December Britannica Book of the Year Markham, A World Religions Reader. These numbers are estimates, and remain a matter of conjecture.
See Amadu Jacky Kaba. The spread of Christianity and Islam in Africa: Discusses the estimations of various almanacs and encyclopedium, placing Britannica's estimate as the most agreed figure. Notes the figure presented at the World Christian Encyclopedia, summarized here , as being an outlier. On rates of growth, Islam and Pentecostal Christianity are highest, see: Archived from the original on 9 February Retrieved 18 April Islam is the youngest, the fastest growing, and in many ways the least complicated of the world's great monotheistic faiths.
It is based on its own holy book, but it is also a direct descendant of Judaism and Christianity, incorporating some of the teachings of those religions—modifying some and rejecting others.
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Islam and Other Major World Religions. According to Ibn Taymiya, although only some Muslims accept the textual veracity of the entire Bible, most Muslims will grant the veracity of most of it. Esposito , pp. Encounters of Words and Texts: Intercultural Studies in Honor of Stefan Wild. Georg Olms, Hildesheim, pp.
Asian Music Autumn — Winter There are two different theories about this term and its formation. The Canonization of Al-Bukh? The Formation and Function of the Sunn? Second Edition By John L. Portents And Features of the Mahdi's Coming. The verb qadara literally means "to measure, to determine". Here it is used to mean that "God measures and orders his creation".
An introduction, Journal of Law and Religion, 3 2: Wallis June 13, A Classic 19th century Travel Guide. Encyclopedia of Women and Religion in North America: Native American creation stories. And Allah is Knowing and Wise. Islam and the Economic Development of Southeast Asia. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. A faith-based aid revolution in the Muslim world? Islamic Beliefs and Practices. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis The Cambridge History of Islam. Islam and the Glorious Ka'abah: Its History, Teaching, and Practices. Retrieved 4 December The Oxford Dictionary of Islam.
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He says that you should know that you are born with an outer form and an inner essence and it is that inner essence of the spiritual heart that you have to come to know in order to know who you are. Read more Read less. Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser. Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship. The Book of the Secrets of Prayer and its Requirements. Challenging Materialism and Godlessness. Sponsored products related to this item What's this? Amish widow Sarah has secrets and her lifelong crush Eli might pay the price.
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But his nature was not perfect! Not to mention the Gospels where God says: Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Logically, the Christian notion has more in common with true God than Islamic which is too human-like if you will. This is the case of a pure anthromorphism. The second article of faith for Muslims reads as follows: Muslims must believe in angels. Strictly speaking, aqidah maintains that a Muslim must believe in Allah, his angels, his Book, his envoys, and the last day These are the six points.
According to Islam, angels cannot fall. The only case of a fallen angel is Iblis — our Satan — turning shaytan, e. Yet whether Iblis is an angel or a supreme jinn is a matter of argument. Some authorities say that Iblis is a mutinous angel, while others perceive him as jinn. Angels have variable wings, and various stories are told about them.
Thus archangel Gabriel presumably has wings and goes bathing in a spring every day when drops from his wings turn to pearls.
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The fantastic tales of Arabia illustrate an idealistic notion of angels. In addition to angels, there are spirits designated as jinn Jinn are beings of non-angelic substance, created of smokeless fire and existing in the two types: Muslim jinn and heathen jinn. Where does the notion of Muslim jinn come from? One day at the very beginning of his life Muhammad visited a town in Arabia. He had no army of his own and wished to preach his Word. Driven away and very much upset, he was inspired to think that his was not a fruitless effort for jinn of all Arabia came to hear his preaching and adopted Islam.
This meant that he had accomplished his mission. Muhammad had this consolation. And that was the origin of Muslim jinn. Unlike angels, jinn are male and female. They can intermarry and marry human beings. Whether the shariah should approve of marriage with jinn was the subject of wide speculation in Islamic newspapers of Tatarstan in !
There it was in Tatar newspapers, as large as life. Jinn can be injurious to man: Mutinous heathen jinn are led by Iblis — Satan, shaytan. In Islamic view, Iblis and his jinn will eventually be punished and cast into hell-fire along with those who defeat Islam. How can we interpret the view?
The question is not of mere tales and lore, but rather of a grave distortion of spiritual realities. The vivid and active world of spirits, and the notion of that world, is distorted to prevent human struggle against evil spirits. For if a jinn can be converted to Islam without any reservations, why not negotiate?! Islam demands systematic struggle against the world of evil spirits. Allah himself is presumed to defend human beings. One possessed — a common case in Islamic world when preaching in Izhevsk, I saw a Muslim woman trembling and fainting when the Gospel was recited — should read the Quran to pacify a jinn.
This, however, is hardly true for the Islamic world seems terribly afraid of evil curse. Visitors in Turkey or Egypt, and in the East at large, would notice multiple apotropaic charms. They are taken quite seriously: That is why Muslims always appear panic stricken.
The second article of faith for Muslims as opposed to Christians is the belief in the sacred Scriptures. For Muslims, the Quran is an eternal being along with Allah. As it should only exist in Arabic text, translations are never regarded as adequate. This results in Islamic view of the impossibility of adequate translation for the Quran.
The idea of God using a temporal language to speak in eternity is also anthropomorphic, attributing variability to God. Not to mention the fact that the idea of an eternal reality parallel to God without being God is certainly polytheistic. How can we explain to a Muslim that the Scripture is the Divine Word? Take a case of schooling: Or else, one can use working models. So God teaches mankind by divine Revelation with His Word, appearing in action, word, punishment, preaching, demonstration, etc.
On the other hand, the Quran assumes no covenant of God and people. The Quran is a one-way communication, a commandment to man, instructions of sorts. The Quran stories frequently contradict the Scripture. There are many other actual errors. The Quran contains contradictions even noticed by Muslims They are explained by revoked and replaced ayat.
Because we are convinced that the revelation was transmitted via … Yet the revelation did occur! We must also know that Muhammad had a genuine revelation and it was evident. He often fainted, sometimes foaming. Muhammad said that at times he had a headache or heard bells ringing in his head, getting louder and terribly painful, and then he could not remember what had been transmitted Of course, we could regard the symptoms as evidence of revelation.
There certainly was a spiritual intervention though by no means divine. Moreover, this is confirmed by Muhammad himself. Muhammad first thought that he was attacked by an evil spirit as he was smothered. He said that archangel Gabriel appeared, strangled him and made him read a text he could not understand. For a long time Muhammad believed that he was assaulted by an evil spirit, and even wanted to take his life. He was tortured by suicidal thoughts after the first revelation, which for us is a striking case of enticing trickery. He was only dissuaded by Khadijah, his first and elder wife.
Belief in delegates also distinguishes Islam from Christianity and Judaism. In Christianity and Old, and even New — modern Talmudic — Judaism the concepts are more or less variable… In this sense Islam has even less to do with Christianity than modern Talmudic Judaism, let alone Old Judaism, a true precursor of Christianity. Prophets are sent to a certain man with a certain will of God depending on that man, to make a covenant, a union. That is, a prophet heralds a covenant with God gradually revealed. There prophetical mission ends when prophets herald Incarnation, the ultimate revelation.
This is told in the Epistle to Jews recited on Christmas Eve. God who spoke of prophets before the Fathers many times and in many ways ultimately spoke to us in His Son Whom he put at the head of everything and through Whom He created the times. In Islam, monotheism is the only message.
Allah could only announce to mankind that no one was to be worshipped apart from himself. Consider also that some hadith reports mention thousand messengers invariably maintaining that no one deserves worship but Allah who should be obeyed.
A discussion with Muslims on the Internet concerned the Quran as a fresh message compared to the Bible. What was Muhammad charged with? What gaps in the Bible were to be filled in by the Quran? Apparently, the Quran brought no news except permission to partake of suet. But suet had been formally permitted by the New Testament.
So there was nothing new even in that point. The qiblah 35 — that is, the direction of worshipping salat, namaz , was different, and that was probably all there was. The Quran offers nothing that the Bible does not. The Quran is a trivial doctrine if any. The Quran has nothing to add to the Bible, and nothing to reveal of God, simply overriding the true statements and rejecting some of the revelations.
We are coming now to the question of messengers. Those described in the Quran widely disparate from our common notions. But in fact they depart both from the Holy Writ and simple historical reality. Indeed, many scriptural characters are known from historical studies supporting Scripture texts. By way of example, consider the attitude to Jesus Christ, critical in Christianity.
First, by his name. Characteristically, Muhammad explains the loan translation by the fact that he knew the real name but could not adjust it to rhythm of the Quran. Can you imagine the name of Jesus Christ tuned up to the Quran? Well, we will not quarrel about the name. It is not that important for the loan translation could be much worse. The point is that Christ is not seen as God but as a creature, contrary to the Gospel and Early Prophets.
There are apocryphal stories of inconceivable miracles like animating clay birds in young childhood or talking at birth. So Muhammad even distorted the apocryphal text. There is another story of a meal he got out of Allah at the instance of his disciples. The Last Supper was thus combined with the story of feeding the multitudes in an affluent meal served by a magic tablecloth. The wonders are quite absurd. Jews and atheists are known to reject the idea of Resurrection. Muslims reject the Crucifixion. They believe that Jesus Christ was not crucified but hidden by Allah substituting another victim.
Burial ground is reserved for Jesus Christ in Medina where Muhammad lies. So the Jesus Christ described by the Quran differs radically from genuine Christ, and even from the historical Christ, for the Crucifixion theory is corroborated by every historian. All the sources, even other than Scriptural, relating to Jesus Christ as a person initially describe the crucifixion. For us this is the key message. Incidentally, here lie the origins of the fearful hatred of the Cross. Destroying the cross has been among the principal Muslim actions in occupied territories.
And, to repeat, the Muslim Christ would destroy the crosses. In addition, Muslims are prohibited to partake of wine. The Quran banned wine but not drug already in use at the time. A doubtful hadith says that everything springing from poppy is blessed. Anyway, Muslims have always used narcotic drugs.
This is a nude fact and it has been so since the days of Muhammad. Why then the wine ban? For us it means the ban on the Holy Communion. Christians were periodically persecuted in Islamic countries because of the Communion wine. So they had to use raisin wine to escape oppression. And most interestingly, Muslims venerate Alexander of Macedonia as a prophet. He is said to be a prophet of Allah. But Alexander believed himself to be a son of Zeus, and was a zealous partisan of polytheism. The Two-Horned indeed… There is a fascinating story of his coming to a dirty, stinking spring where the Sun descends to each night.
According to Muhammad, the stinking spring is located in the Far West. While Muslims of today feel very awkward and try to evade the confusion, the Quran text definitely indicates that the Sun goes down into that particular stinking spring. Muslim belief in the Last Day also contrasts with Christianity.
In Muslim doctrine, death occurs as follows: I kept asking Muslims in vain what pleasure one could find in a grave. I asked common people and imams, and no one informed me. More often the answer was: And so one lies in his grave to the Last Day, enjoying it or suffering. Islam specifies the following before the end of the world: Jesus Isa shall return to Earth, destroy all Christians, break all crosses, marry, and worship Allah.
Moreover, he will not lead the Muslim prayer, the namaz, only assisting the leading imam of the time, the Mahdi. Then al-Dajjal, a counterpart to our Antichrist, shall appear, to be killed by Allah. Finally, angel Izrail shall blow his trumpet and all the world shall die: Then Izrail shall kill himself by order of Allah. And then Allah shall raise the dead and they shall come before Allah, and Allah will judge them.
Muslims will have their sins produced, confess and receive absolution. More sinful Muslims will be cast into hell but led out by Muhammad a thousand years after. Those who died in Jihad, the Holy War — terrorists and the like — shall not be judged but taken straight to paradise. Hadith say that their wounds would open and shed musk on resurrection. Others shall cross the As-Sirat 37 bridge to paradise.
The bridge shall be as a razor blade for sinners but broad and smooth for the righteous. Muslims would ride the rams they had sacrificed for Greater Bayram A worthless ram would stumble and fall down into fire. Those riding good rams — i. Muslim paradise is unlike Christian conceptions. Some hadith provide for three million dishes per day and ability to eat them all. In addition, there would be thousand houris per day.
A houri is a being — not at all human — of variable appearance and black-eyed as a pearl to enjoy, etc. She instruments sexual pleasure alone. There would be thousand every day, and endurance enough to cope. This is the actual promise of afterlife, impossible as it seems. Moreover, one shall never see Allah except as a misty Moon from afar, as one hadith puts it. And Allah would ask: Would you like any more? And Allah would fulfill all his carnal desires, but no more. How should we interpret this? In my opinion, Muslim paradise is fully practicable.
Church Fathers mention succubi and incubi 40 , demons of lust. This is a case of insatiable… like bulimia, excessive or insatiable appetite due to eating disorder. It would be more like hell for us. Therefore we can neither accept nor conceive of Muhammadan delight. Another point of Muslim doctrine is belief in divine decree. According to Hadith and the Quran, Allah told a pen to write 50 thousand years before Creation, and the pen began writing down everything to come until the end of days.
This was how a world program was written down. Only the Quran was excluded for it was created. So Allah is the creator of all deeds, both evil and good. He creates good and evil. In a recent debate held on 3 February, Polosin 41 unwittingly supported the doctrine of Allah as the creator of evil.
For us the idea is inconceivable as there is no evil and what does not exist cannot be created. Evil has no proper substance, it is the distorted good, perverted good abusing divine good works, and God will not disfigure His creation. God the good and merciful, absolutely just and holy will not tolerate evil. According to Islam, however, Allah enables a murder to kill, an adulterer to commit adultery, and a clement man to give alms. Allah is believed to have two will types: This is not permissiveness but will.
An example of disapproving will is making a man a murder and then punishing him for it. The only line of freedom for man in Islam is a thin line of choice. A man may follow or not follow the way of Allah. The source of freedom is obscure. While refuting original sin and perversity of human nature, Islam proposes a nafs, cognate of the Hebrew nefesh soul opposing the will of Allah for reasons unknown. Different Islamic trends have different opinion on the subject. Some deny free will without reserve, others believe that man may wish and only Allah can fulfill. It fact it repeats an old lie.
That is, the sin was committed by the wife God palmed on Adam. My wife is to blame and not myself. In fact, the blame is put on God, and man declines reform. This invariably leads to theomachy. Thus Islam and Christianity are totally opposite and incompatible on doctrinal grounds. Personal appeal in prayer is allowed periodically, though not highly approved of due to the doctrine of predestination: Of course, Islam allows for private prayer but namaz is the rite of adoration. Interestingly, ritual is the key element of namaz. If ritual is broken, namaz is invalid and has to be repeated.
Thus a night service celebrated in all form will be void if the mind is indulging in a flight of fancy. Prayer without consideration and sincere concern is worthless to God. Similarly, heathens making Christians celebrate the rite of adoration never required any sincere concern in the process. They even used to say: But it is nothing of the kind. Zakah is an obligatory charity. For the first, it must be public. Zakah is generally announced in public, often in a mosque: This is not universal but most frequent. And then, zakah is only donated to Muslims or potential converts.
By contrast, Christians should give alms to anyone. The proverbial charitable Samaritan helped anyone, Christian or not, believers and nonbelievers, as we should help everyone in the name of the Lord As regards the alms, God forbids ostensible Christian charity. Incidentally, sectarians boasting of great charity but actually far less charitable than Orthodox Christians, often use charity to promote their wrong beliefs.
Early Muslims in the days of Muhammad kept the fast in a Christian manner: Then Muhammad said it was too hard, and it was revealed to him that daylight fasting would suffice. Accordingly, Ramadan fasting involves abstinence from drink and food, sexual intercourse and, funny enough, cupping glasses other bans are detailed by the Shariah from the dawn to the moment when a black thread is indistinguishable from the white one out-of-doors. Then comes the first meal after fasting when you may eat anything you like.
I visited Cairo in a Ramadan. It was a pathetic sight. Imagine a Muslim milking a goat in the street in broad daylight, the milk flowing on the asphalt. Of course, the goat had to be milked because of the swelling udder but why make a pool on the asphalt? Late in the day the streets are quite dangerous with motorcycles and fast cars almost touching the pavement when Muslims are racing to their meals. Then the call comes like a factory siren and they all fall almost diving on the food at once.
I was rather amused because they seemed to regard fasting as dieting rather than a way of spiritual growth. Yet it should be realized for the sake of objectivity that many good Muslims prefer in-depth study of the Quran during the Ramadan. This certainly resembles our fasting devoted to fundamental knowledge of the Holy Writ. Thus Islam retains some elements of Christian fasting. Fasting is rather used as an instrument of devotion to Allah in parallel to namaz. The key element of the fast for Christians is the struggle against gluttony, anger, and other passions.
Islam knows no such notions. Passions are not to be driven in Islam because they are all natural. Originating in heathen days, the hajj copies the heathen rite and remains obscure. Why kiss the black rock, for instance? The custom seems superstitious. Indeed, sacrifice is not important and has nothing to do with redemption, it is simply senseless. Mercifully, Muslims have abandoned pagan notions of Allah living on sacrificial flesh.
Neither do they believe in Hebrew conception of sacrifice reminiscent of the sin and redemption, nor in Christian purifying sacrifice. Why then sacrifice camels or rams? We see it as worthless and certainly superstitious. Stoning is likewise inconceivable. Many people are pelted to death with stones in Mecca every year. They think it means stoning the Satan. I doubt that one can stone a genie or an angel for they are hard to hit.
This is mere superstition. And, of course, death comes at the end. While old rites were to prepare men to the Coming of The Lord, modern hajj rites are mentally void and thus obscure. Muslims would generally explain that white robes symbolize spiritual purity, and that is all. Now Orthodox Christians are known to wear white robes for baptism. The rest is incomprehensible. Why should they do so and so in namaz? That is, some things that are absurd and inconceivable in doctrinal terms are done just because they were told to do so.
This is indeed superstitious. Christians regard it as superstition to be rejected in baptism. It is a mission of sorts for Islam. Why is it omitted in standard regulations? Muslims refusing jihad as the sixth pillar do not oppose it. A Muslim cannot oppose jihad because it is mentioned in Quranic ayah They generally explain that jihad cannot be universal and thus cannot be a pillar for all. And that is that.
This is common for all Muslims in the world. Yet Islam is not solid. There are four principal schools, and two fundamentally different kinds of Islam: It is referred to as jadidism 46 , a doctrine emerging in and adapting Islam to traditional notions and traditional laws of Bashkirs, Tatars, and other Turkic people. The resulting doctrine is not considered as genuine Islam by Arabic Muslims. And this is fair enough as jadidism actually involves non-Islamic notions like the holy examples, pagan remedies for the evil eye, etc.
Thus Islam is identified with nationalism. Remember that nationalism resulted from damnation. According to the Bible, there were no nations before the Tower of Babel 47 , and different nations resulted from the damnation of the Tower of Babel, to prevent them from building together a city in defiance of God. If people cling to nationality rather than search for absolute truth, they will never find God. Of course this presumably mild Islam is destructive because of the nationalist trends, as evident in Tatarstan today appearing as a symbol of nationalism.
We will never agree to it. As a matter of fact, Arabic Muslims are no more enthusiastic. And I will certainly agree with Arabic Muslims on the subject: Truth is more important than nation, truth is independent of nation, and one cannot be Muslim because one is Tatar. Similarly, one cannot be Christian because one is Russian. For people serve God in different language but worship God of all people in the Church universal. Accordingly we will hold this Thursday service in Krutitsky town house both in Tatar, and in Old Slavonic, celebrating the Church universal. In the Caucasus, Shariah, or the divine Law of Islam, was combined with the traditional Turkic code, the adat, to produce a peculiar synthesis.
Some of the regulations emerging in the guise of Islam actually disagree with it. The feud is the classic example. Feud runs contrary to Islamic practices, and was disapproved of by Muhammad who promoted communal Shariah Courts. Meanwhile, feudal practices persist as part of the adapted heathen code.
Additionally, veneration of hallowed places, holy springs, and saints is widespread in the Caucasus, obviously contradicting Islam that is unaware of holiness as communion with the Lord. The only holiness in Islam is that of dervishes. A dervish is a man of exceptional abilities generally regarded as not quite agreeable. There is a saying that miracles are the menses of saints and righteous men, that is, something unclean that righteous men have.
Moreover, dervishes generally produce miracles of occult nature, and admit it. They describe the process as a trance, a certain state not invoked by Allah but rather by intercourse with jinn. People want saints because that is their nature. Man wants to be holy. God created man for holiness. And man looks for sacred objects. And finally, two more Islam types emerge in Russia.
One recruits young people regarding Islam as a more vigorous style of living. They think that Russian Orthodox Church is good for old wives and strong men should choose Islam. In my opinion, it suits teenagers more. Anyway, this is why Russian converts adopt the more radical form of Islam, the Wahhabis. The other type is the female Islam when a Russian wife of a Muslim, or a man marrying a Muslim woman, converts under the influence of her or his mate.
Shariah permits a Muslim to marry a Christian, a Jew, or a Zoroastrian, but not the reverse. Nevertheless, the latter is a rather widespread occurrence now. Similarly popular today is the sufism, an Islamic trend formally condemned as heretic and describing God as an impersonal power capable of absorbing and dissolving man which is, strangely enough, the ultimate goal of human being!
The trend is also very popular in some intellectual circles. It is criticized severely and sometimes referred to as a sect though President Putin justly disproved the term. And he was absolutely right in doing so for Wahhabis is not a sect. Rather it is the purest remnant of the core Islam, and the official confession in Saudi Arabia adopting the Wahhabis version along with some other Arabic countries. This particular version of hanbali madhhab 49 tracing back to the 8 th century accepts the Quran and Sunnah 50 — the prophetic tradition — as the only sources of Islamic law, rejecting any possible change.
It was founded by Muhammad ibn Abd Al-Wahhab He initiated the destruction of all sacred places in Arabia, and the removal of all decorations from the Kaaba Wahhab advocated strict observance of Sunnah, social justice for Muslims, and active jihad against the infidels. Those unwilling to reject the vestiges of paganism were condemned as unfaithful and should be suppressed. Among his followers were the Saudites, the royal family in Saudi Arabia today. They were first defeated by Turks, but regained power in the 20 th century, not without the support of Great Britain and the United States.
One related trend was the murids 53 of Shamil in the Caucasus. The Shamil movement had a genetic affinity with the Arabian movement of Muhammad Wahhab. It is a revival of Old Islam, the more barbaric components in particular. To say nothing of slave-trading! Slave trade was practiced in the Islamic world until recently. Slave trade was only abolished in Islamic countries in s and s though actually surviving today. The main component of Wahhabis is certainly the law. Remember the Taliban 54 , a Wahhabis movement specifically controlling beard length for men over a certain age.
It appeared that a man over 30 should wear a beard as long as that of Prophet Muhammad. Moreover, Wahhabis detailed human life all round. This presumably guaranteed salvation. The idea is inherent in Wahhabis. They maintain that the main goal for a Muslim is creating the kingdom of justice. This is actually impossible as no justice is possible on the Earth without God, without defeating death that will otherwise devour justice. And evil cannot be defeated without the intervention of Christ.