Society Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

[amar_kun]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

You're welcome Technomagus, .

 

[pseudorca]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

Alhamdulillah, kudos to you for making this thread amar_kun, I shall hang around too just in case I can answer some of the questions ^_^

 

[Leen]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

Hey there, Muslims. I am just a curious Christian trying to learn more.

The angel Gabriel sent this "wahyu" to Prophet Muhammad first. So by right, he is the first Muslim? What about Abraham then? Is he older than Muhammad or what? Is he a Muslim too?

Also, girls not covering their "aurat". What does your religion say about girls that don't cover their heads and other body parts? Also, don't you think that it is kind of restricting to have to wear long sleeves all your life and cover your head all your life? No offense here, but when I worked in a restaurant last time, I just pitied an Arab woman who was trying hard to drink some soup with her whole head covered except her eyes. Why is Islam so strict about dress code that my crappy university also imposes it on all non-Muslim? No offense again.

Third question. Christianity and Islam posses more similarities that we know of. I learned about Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism,...etc and I found Islam and Christianity to be VERY same except for one thing. Christianity has a bible that divides into Old Testament and New Testament while the Quran of Islam is not divided into any testament. Here's the thing. A lot of things that are mentioned in Quran are parallel with what that are mentioned in Old Testament. For example, the forbidden food, the circumcision, etc are also mentioned in the bible. Plus, we believe in the Messiah too.

The real difference here is:

Christian believes that the Messiah is here. He is Jesus Christ. He came to save sinners by dying on the cross for her. Because he had come to wash away our sins, we no longer have to worry over the traditions in old testament such as burnt offering, circumcision, no pork diet, and more.

Muslim however believes that the Messiah has yet to come. Muslim does acknowledge Jesus as one of their prophet but refused to believe him as the Messiah. Is that true? If yes, why? If no, who is that Messiah that you are waiting for?

Fourth question:
How do you treat your Quran? Do you have to place it on that special stand all the time? Can you write in it? Can you take notes in it? Or is it too holy that you cannot do anything to it?

That's all for now. Thanks.

 

[Leen]

Christianity Q&A Thread to Religious Discussion and Q&A Thread

Well, having amar-kun posting a Islam Q&A, I think that MH deserves a thread on Christianity too. We are looking for mutual understanding here, aren't we? I am not a pastor or a Christian scholar, but I will try my best to answer any questions that you have. Other Christians are welcomed to answer the questions too.

 

[conan]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

I never knew about this thread, well better late than never, salam to all the brothers and sisters, and to non muslims too.

leen, your questions are very deep and scientific, I am surprised, this really interests you, ok first question about abraham, I would think that abraham was the first muslim, becuase it sasys so explicitly in the quran, this is my humble translation of the verse, I might be able to get you the number of the verse and chapter later if you, " ibrahim was not jew nor a christian, he was a " haneef" muslim" I really dont know what "haneef" means but it is an adjective, eventhough I am arabic the quran is a very classic arabic therefore sometimes even for us arabs we get confused but it has a special dictionary I can use for it, so thats about ibrahim.

the womans aurat is a very controversial issue, and I am a male therefore it is not my place to talk about it, I will leave to a female sister to talk to you about it, but I will give you the termas definition according to females anyway, it is what is not allowed to be showed to alien men, to women its everything but their whole face and both their hands, face cover is not obligitary to women, eventhough some scholars say its obligitary many say its not, and you are allowed to choose by yourself, if you wish to talk about the political and social issue regarding this, I will gladly do so, but again I would rather a female sister answer this for you instead of a male.

your third not about the bible and quran is true and I appluade you for noticing becuase most people are ignorant of this issue, in islam according to prophet mohammed there have been the following holy books:
quran-mohammed
bible(injeel (arabic))-jesus
tawrah is the jews holy books name in arabic but I dont know what its name in hebron or english is and its moeses's holy book, and the zabur (arabic name) for david or dawud (arabic).
to us the quran is miraculous in many ways, one of them is that it is unchangable unlike the others, the others were teachings for the prophets and their people, but they were not miraculous, the quran is and it cannot be changed by an oath given by allah in the quran itsself, so you see where the simalarity comes from, if you want to talk about this in more detail about specific issues I do not mind too.
I dont know what you mean by the messiah exactly, but we dont believe that jesus was put on the cross or died, before all that happened jesus was raised to the sky to come back again, the diciple who btrayed had his face changed to resemble jesus as a punishment, and he was the one on the cross, thats the basic difference about jesus.

about treatment of the quran, I would treat it respectfully, I dont know what a scholars exact thoughts on this but it is what we do, and in many tales of the propthet and companions and the people who followed them the quran was treated with respect so I really couldnt answer the reast of your question, but why would you write on it or take notes, I think you can take notes, becuase scholars wrote cooks which had bits of the quran verses and then their explanation for example after the verses, and I would wirte my name on the firs blank page if I wanted to, but thats all I would do.
whew that was exhausting, hope I gave you good enough answers, I have to study now, exams are on the way.

 

[amar_kun]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

thank you leen, my lovely malaysian friend. your effort to ask us questions shows your determination to understand us muslim more so that there will be more understanding, respect and love between each other in the future

okay your first question about abraham (ibraheem in arabic). actually brother conan already answer your question quite well. thank you conan!! (actually the verse of holy Quran that conan mention before is 3:67)

i might add a few information about this matter. since Abraham is one of the chosen Messenger of God, let me explain about the status of prophets in islam. actually believing in the prophets is one of 6 main pillar of faith (Iman) in our religion.

the six pillars of faith (iman) are:

1) believe in One God Almighty
2) believe in Anglels
3) believe in holy scriptures (Zabur/Psalm, Taurat/Torah, Injil/Bible, alQuran/Koran)
4) believe in prophets (from Adam until Muhammed)
5) believe in the end of the day (alQiyamah)
6) believe in qadar (fate)

this is a Prophet's saying that related to Iman

Spoiler

Also on the authority of Omar, who said : One day while we were sitting with the messenger of Allah there appeared before us a man whose clothes were exceedingly white and whose hair was exceedingly black; no signs of journeying were to be seen on him and none of us knew him. He walked up and sat down by the prophet. Resting his knees against his and placing the palms of his hands on his thighs, he said:"O Muhammed, tell me about Islam". The messenger of Allah said: "Islam is to testify that there is no god but Allah and Muhammed is the messenger of Allah, to perform the prayers, to pay the zakat, to fast in Ramadhan, and to make the pilgrimage to the House if you are able to do so." He said:"You have spoken rightly", and we were amazed at him asking him and saying that he had spoken rightly. He said: "Then tell me about eman ."He said:"It is to believe in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day, and to believe in divine destiny, both the good and the evil thereof." He said:"You have spoken rightly". He said: " Then tell me about ehsan ." He said: "It is to worship Allah as though you are seeing Him, and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you". He said: "Then tell me about the Hour". He said: "The one questioned about it knows no better than the questioner." He said: "Then tell me about its signs." He said: "That the slave-girl will give birth to her mistress and that you will see the barefooted, naked, destitute herdsman competing in constructing lofty buildings." Then he took himself off and I stayed for a time. Then he said: "O Omar, do you know who the questioner was?" I said: "Allah and His messenger know best". He said: "He was Jebreel (Gabriel), who came to you to teach you your religion."
narrated by Muslim

So in Islam, we must believe in all the messengers of God. It is said that there are 313 messengers was sent down to guide people to the right path, and 25 is mentioned in alQuran and every muslim must study all the stories of all them and take the moral of their stories into our everyday life.

Spoiler

the messengers are
1. Adam
2. Idris/Enoch
3. Nuh/Noah
4. Hud/Eber
5. Soleh/Shaloh
6. Ibraheem/Abraham
7. Luth/Lot
8. Ismail/Ishmael
9. Ishak/Isaac
10. Yaqub/Jacob
11. Yusuf/Joseph
12. Ayub/Job
13. Shuib/Jethro
14. Musa/Moses
15. Harun/Aaron
16. Zulkifli/Ezekiel
17. Daud/David
18. Sulaiman/Solomon
19. Ilyas/Elijah
20. Ilyasa'/Elisha
21. Yunus/Jonah
22. Zakariya/Zacharias
23. Yahya/John
24. Isa/Jesus
25. Muhammad/Muhammed

so in our belief, each of the messenger starting from Adam until Muhammed are Muslims as they invite people to serve and worship the same God. That is why you might find a lot of similarities especially between Judaism-Christianity-Islam because we are serving for the same God.

Why God keep on repeating sending a new messenger while He already send Adam with the true religion? This is because, people tend to go astray due to following their desires. So another messenger is sent to bring back the people to the straight path. And usually the coming of the next messenger is already mentioned by God in His holy scriptures so that the people will expect his coming and follow him.

Spoiler

This is an example how God told the people to expect the coming of another prophet. In this verse, God tell people to expect the coming of Prophet Muhammed"I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee (Moses), and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him." Deutronomy 18:18

erm.. i think i have to stop for here right now. InsyaAllah (with God will) i will continue after i have my dinner

alhamdulillah (all praise to Allah). i just have my dinner. now lets answer the next question. Aurat. Aurat means the body part that you need to cover from other people except your family. It applies to both men and women who reached puberty

Spoiler

all the islamic rulings only applies to people after they reach puberty. this means that all children never have sins. so if a child, whether a muslim or non-muslim dies before they reach puberty, they will go to Heaven

Aurat for the men are between their belly button to their knee. Aurat for the women are all her body except their face and palm. There are many purpose of aurat that have been discussed by the scholars. However i will try to list a few of the points here.
1. so that a muslim can be recognized and distinguished from the others
2. to protect the lady from the gaze of people with sick mind

As for the face veil, majority of the scholars agree that it is not compulsory to wear it. Actually most people who wear face veil is because they wanted to, as they feel safer wearing it, not because they are push to wear it.

As for the crappy university in Malaysia who impose the non-muslim to wear long sleeve and long trousers/long skirt is to make them safe from the gaze of the sick minds of malaysian people. it is for your own good, i hope you wont get mad to them

Third Question, about the messiah. Actually I am not too clear about the word messiah. what do you mean by messiah? InsyaAllah i will try to answer it again later.

Fourth Question, about how we treat alQuran. We treat alQuran respectfully by reading it, memorizingit, studying it, understanding it and applying it in our daily life. About the special stand, it is just a custom to use it. About writing notes, my alQuran is full of notes .

 

[conan]

Re: Christianity Q&A

well even though I live in the uk and in my original country in the middle east I had two chritian neighbours, I dont claim to know much about christianity, first you mentioned the messiah in your post in the islam q and a thread so you answer here and there if you like, also, whats so different about catholic, protistant and orthodox christianity, and finally, could you explain the issue of the old testament and the new testament becuase I dont get it.
thanks.

 

[amar_kun]

Re: Christianity Q&A

peace be upon you, leen . i hope with this thread we can clears any ambiguity about christianity..

this is my question.. i've heard in a few talks in youtube that christian have many version of holy bible.. so how many version of holy bible do you have? and what is the difference between each version?

ok, that is my question for now.. bye!

 

[kiddo7]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

is the prophet Ilyasa peace be upon him the same as Elija from the old testament?

 

[conan]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

is the prophet Ilyasa peace be upon him the same as Elija from the old testament?

I would think he is, but you might have to make sure, but I opened the old testemant once and read from it, the prophets stories were almost identical, so you can make sure by comparing what events happened to him that were stated in the quran and the bible, if you can tell me what the old testament says about elija I can make sure and also direct you to the chapters and verses related to him in the quran.

 

[amar_kun]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

Dear kiddo7, i've just updated the name of prophets which is mentioned in alQuran and their name which is mentioned in Old Testament. Sorry for the late update

 

[kiddo7]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

this is pretty cool I already know most of the prophets then

 

[amar_kun]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

this is pretty cool I already know most of the prophets then

congratulation!!

 

[TechnoMagus]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

Paece!

re: aurat
i thought that the aurat for women extended only up to the ankles in the feet?
and does aurat also include that the clothes be not tight-fitting to hide the body's outline or just that the necessary body parts are covered?

i would like to share this. somewhat humorous for non-muslims but i think this is a great invention to allow muslim females to enjoy active outdoor activities....
and it also for those not wanting to show skin for non-muslims albeit for more "cosmetic" reasons

http://www.ahiida.com/

 

[Az3r]

Re: Islam Q&A Thread

About aurat, yes, for woman it is the whole body except the palms and the face. It's a basic rules of women's aurat in Quran. And by women wearing a thight outfit that the body outline is shown, it can be considered an aurat revealing.

 

[TechnoMagus]

Re: Christianity Q&A

Well I think its time I gave back to our Muslim folks who have been so accomodating to us in the Islam Q&A thread!

I'll me using information compiled into wikepedia.

Christianity is a religion centered on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as presented in the New Testament.[1] Christians believe Jesus to be the Son of God and the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.

So these are the two "minimum" prerequisites to be called a Christian whic differentiates them from Jews and Moslems.

The name "Christian" (Greek Χριστιανός Strong's G5546), meaning "belonging to Christ" or "partisan of Christ",[8]

---

well even though I live in the uk and in my original country in the middle east I had two chritian neighbours, I dont claim to know much about christianity, first you mentioned the messiah in your post in the islam q and a thread so you answer here and there if you like, also, whats so different about catholic, protistant and orthodox christianity, and finally, could you explain the issue of the old testament and the new testament becuase I dont get it.
thanks.

Regarding the term Messiah....

...the focus of Christian theology is a belief in Jesus as the Messiah or Christ. The title "Messiah" comes from the Hebrew word מָשִׁיחַ (māšiáħ) meaning "the anointed one" or "King." The Greek translation Χριστός (Christos) is the source of the English word Christ.

This is the main difference with the Jews as they are still waiting for "their" Messiah to come....

Regarding the different sects/denominations of Christianity....

This was brought about by historical internal and external factors. At the start, Christianity was persecuted and when it ended and they were given power and a favourable status, the unity that held them united in the persecution was shattered and like a corked bottle, almost exploded into different sects/denomination/beliefs with different interpretations of their doctrine. The emerging authority structure tried to resolve these by convening different "church councils" to resolve these disputes. As humans are not perfect, almost every council resulted in some form of a breakup from the dominant stream of Christianity resulting in what you see today.

The differences range from the fundamental/canonical (scripture-related, the nature of Christ) to the sacramental (rites of worship, the role of different Traditions) and even political (the legitimate authority to arbitrate matters of faith and morals).

Regarding the Old Testament and New Testament...
The Old Testament consists of books that the Jews hold to be divinely inspired (the Torah/Pentateuch, historical writings, Psalms, Prophetic texts, etc). The New Testament consist of books written after the OT that deal with the teachings and life of Christ. There are apochryphal/deuterocannonical books which are in dispute as whether they are divinely inspired or just worthy as supplemental reading.

peace be upon you, leen . i hope with this thread we can clears any ambiguity about christianity..

this is my question.. i've heard in a few talks in youtube that christian have many version of holy bible.. so how many version of holy bible do you have? and what is the difference between each version?

ok, that is my question for now.. bye!

I'll try to answer this one. Ordinary/lay Christians do not usually use the BIble as written in their original language in worship and personal prayer (although specialized theological seminaries (religious schools of higher learning) study them in the original Hebrew and Greek. Hence the different versions correspond to the different translations made throughout history as a result of external factors and what is the dominant language at that time.
As the Bible is held as the Word of God, the translators have quite a power on how the Word of God is made understandable in the language to be translated.

Hence, the different denominations advocate different translations that affirm/do not contradict their teachings.
So there are almost no finite "versions" of the Bible as anyone with the resources and translation to print one can claim it as his own "version" of it.

Translation has given rise to a number of issues, as the original languages are often quite different in grammar as well as word meaning. While the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy states that inerrancy applies only to the original languages, some believers trust their own translation to be the accurate one. For readability, clarity, or other reasons, translators may choose different wording or sentence structure, and some translations may choose to paraphrase passages. Because some of the words in the original language have ambiguous or difficult to translate meanings, debates over the correct interpretation occur.

more here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_the_Bible

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

now, when is the atheist/agnostic/existentialist thread coming up?
maybe there ought to be one for the jews and other eastern asian religions....

 

[Leen]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

We(Christians) have many versions of bible in English alone. There is no specific number of translation available.

I'll give you an example.
Arguably, the most accurate version is King James Version(KJV). This is said so because KJV retains the most of the original hebrew/old English translation. Words like thy, thou, brethen are used widely in KJV. However, this poses several problems to those who find it too boring and hard to understand because of all the thou and thy. Notice this also, the language used in KJV is more poetic than the rest of the versions as well, again making it the not-so-appealing type of version to normal people who prefers readability to accuracy.

Hence, KJV comes up with New King James Version (NKJV). It still retains the old English but some of the sentences are restructured (but same meaning) to improve readability.

So you see, even for KJV alone, there are already several versions of it.

Another TRUSTED version is of course New International Version (NIV). This is the most widely used version in the world. In fact, I plan to get a study bible from NIV. NIV replaces all the thou, thy, brethen to brothers, you, we...etc. So, it automatically enhances readability without altering the meaning of the bible itself. It is one of the most readable bible version of all time with simple, concise usage of English.

The current bible that I am using is New Living Translation (NLT). Take note of this also, NLT is not a VERSION, rather it is a TRANSLATION. It is a translation of the original version but it does not have variations of its own like (KJV NKJV). It is also very readable. Some prefer this translation because the English used is very straightfoward and easy to understand.

There are also other versions of English bible because different countries use different English. For instance, Americans will use American English Bible like American Standard Version (ASV) while the UK people might prefer the bible to be written in British English, thus the English Contemporary Version (ECV). Besides, we also have different types of bible to suit different age groups. Students might go for "Study Bible For Teens" while the children might want to read "Children Bible". Every versions contain the same essence, the only difference is the way it presents itself to suit different people with different English command and needs. A scholar will usually goes for KJV but layman like you and I who just want to catch the meaning and not the aesthetic value of it, might mostly go for NKJV, NIV or NLT according to our own preferences.

That's about the different versions of bible.

---

well even though I live in the uk and in my original country in the middle east I had two chritian neighbours, I dont claim to know much about christianity, first you mentioned the messiah in your post in the islam q and a thread so you answer here and there if you like, also, whats so different about catholic, protistant and orthodox christianity, and finally, could you explain the issue of the old testament and the new testament becuase I dont get it.
thanks.

Hey, Techno was right about the different denominations of Christian. Just to add a little not of myself here.

At first, there was only one type of Christianity. As time evolved, especially during the Reformation era, the Catholics were corrupted with the selling of Certificate of Indulgence and the priests of the era were too concerned about the spiritual life that they ignored almost totally the secular life. Martin Luther King was the first one to protest against the selling of Certificate of Indulgence and also to criticize the Catholic churches for some of their wrongdoings. After the first printing machine in Europe was invented by Johann Gutenberg, printing of bibles became an easy task. Soon, everyone was able to afford cheap bibles and realized how the Catholics had diverted from the original teaching of the Christ. To fight that, protestant movement was inspired by Martin Luther King. Hence, we now have Protestant and Catholics.

John Calvin and Martin Luther King were some of the most notable early Protestant founders. Of course, not all the Catholics were corrupted, which was why the Reformed Catholics came into the drama as well. These people (couldn't remember their name... ) also lived a very modest life without corruption and they claimed themselves to be reformed Catholics. Over the years, there were a lot of holy wars in Europe between Protestant and Catholics that divided Europe into Pro-Catholics and Pro-Protestant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Europe_religion_map_en.png

You will notice that the northen countries are more towards Protestantism while the southern countries advocate Catholicism. Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal.....so on and so forth are also considered as a Protestant movement. Basically, all the non-Catholics are Protestant. Of course, in our modern days, some prefer to call themselves as non-denominational, meaning that they are neither Catholics nor Protestant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations

If you look at the content:
1. Eastern Churches
..
....
..
2. Catholicism
....
...
...
3. Churches of Reformation (often described as "Protestant")

So you see, those non-Catholics are just under a big umbrella called "Protestant" no matter what denomination they are in.

That's a little about denomination.

 

[TechnoMagus]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

re: translations
here is a list of modern english bible translations....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_English_Bible_translations

also....

Criteria for choosing a translation

There are a number of criteria which are usually used when assessing a translation:

• Does the traanslator have a good knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Greek?
• How literal is it? A less literal translation uses more natural language.
• What is it going to be used for? A more literal Bible which is suitable for extremely detailed study of a single chapter may not be very easy to read in large quantities.
• Who is the audience? Children? Working class people? Theologians? The level of language used by the translators will have some differences.
• What is the theological background of the translators? A Bible translated by a single Christian sect is likely to be different from a Bible translated by a cross-denominational group such as, for example, the United Bible Societies.
• Is the translation done by a single person, a different person per book, or a committee of people? A single person is most likely to have bias. Examples of Bibles done by individuals are The Living Bible and Lamsa Bible. The latter is a good illustration of the problem of translations done by individuals; the author of this translation has taken particular translation decisions which most scholars simply do not accept as being correct.
• What were the source documents used to do the translation? A translation like The Living Bible which does not use the original languages is likely to suffer a lot more from the Chinese whispers effect.
• How old is the translation? Perhaps word usage has changed today, or new document fragments have been discovered.
• Does the publisher/translator provide a free download or do they even charge for an e-text version?

I'll try to be more objective here.
--If you want readability, yes try the NLT and other paraphrased/dynamic versions. These are also more suitable for private reading as the text does not "weigh" you down.
--The KJV has a high degree of accuracy with what original text was available at that time aside from its literary, sentimental, historical and religious value.
--The NIV is a balance between the paraphrased and the scholastic/formal character of the KJV.

The more recent versions benefit from the recent discoveries of alternative original sources and thus are more appropriate for a more thorough scholarly work.
--Examples are the New Jerusalem Bible and the New/Revised Standard Version.
--For a cross-denominational version (several Christian denominations working together for a common bible that is accepted by many denominations), the RSV/NRSV is also appropriate.
--For liturgical/worship use, there's the New American Bible for Catholics and the KJV for some of the traditional/evangelical American Christian denominations and the RSV/NRSV for others.

The other versions are of sentimental, historical and old liturgical/worship (prior to modern reforms of several denominations) value.

As you can see, bible translations/versions are as numerous as the denominations that promote a particular one to be used.

-----------------------------------------------

re: denominations
it is interestng to note that a lot of the newer denominations "claim" primacy from the earliest form of Christianity and are erroneously labelled in the general term as "Protestants"(see Restorationism).

 

[Leen]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

There really are too many versions of bible nowadays. However, the best thing to do (that's what I think) is to get a version that you are most comfortable with, and stick with it. If you switch from one version to another, sometimes it can be quite confusing.

Just something on a site note, when a group of my friends sit down for a bible study night and everyone reads a line from his or her bible, it was like WoW. Everyone with different sentence for different verses. XD It's quite interesting too. But at the end of the day, we all manage to grasp the meaning of that chapter and we still managed to do our bible study together. That only goes to show how different versions is not a big problem actually.

Of course, I have to agree to some degree of certainty about the chinese whispers. HEHEHE. I played that game several times and each time ended up with something completely different from the original message. XD

 

[amar_kun]

Re: Christianity Q&A Thread

Thank you Technomagus and Leen for you answer. It must took you a while to write all of those . but it is worthwhile because at the end of the day other people will understand your religion better. thank you.

so leen, are you a protestant?
and how about you TechnoMagus?