Want to Know Islam?
Look to Qur'an and Sunnah and not at Muslims of Today!
Dr. Pasha
(Bringing Islam to the World One Concept at a Time!
Taking the Qur'an to Every Home and Heart that Needs It --
And which One Does Not?)
There never was a better system of belief and behavior than Islam. There can’t be. And there could not ever have been. For, Islam is from Allah. And all else is from people.
And what is from Allah will always be flawless. Just as the Qur’an says it is:
Laa Rayiba Feehi!
And what is from “men,” or “man,” as the Christian-Western writers would say, is bound to be flawed.
So, Islam must be and is perfect, as it should be.
But Muslims? That is a different story.
May Allah forgive me for saying this, but a worse set of exemplars and spokespeople for Islam than present-day Muslims can hardly be imagined.
So, the burden falls on all those who are outside the fold of Islam to look past the words, actions and lives of today’s Muslims and evaluate and react to Islam, as much as they can, purely on the basis of what Islam really teaches and promotes.
And that means two things:
(1) The Qur’an.
(2) The Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam.
But it is not an easy thing to do. Being able to look purely and solely at the Qur’an and Sunnah for getting a true and full picture of what Islam really is.
Especially, when so many live Muslims, in flesh and blood, and in every color and composition, are running around everywhere beating their breasts and declaring to the whole world that they are the epitome of what Islam is all about. Complete with their “professional” Imams and tribal dresses, implying that they are somehow better people for wearing those costumes.
And also suggesting that is how the whole world will have to look if somehow everyone in the world chose to become Muslim, as some day they will. Wearing their long robes and night clothes during the day in the streets of London and New York and Amsterdam and Paris!
With friends like this, does Islam really need enemies?
But still they are most fortunate in this respect, I mean the non-Muslims. And for that matter even the Muslim peripheralists and borderliners. And by this I mean people who may have some kind of a Muslim background, maybe having been born to Muslim parents, but over time may have drifted away from Islam, for one reason or another, but now may want to return to their Islamic roots for reasons of their own.
For, they have available to them, to the extent it is, the original word of God in the Qur’an. And also the pure and unchanged words and deeds of Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, in the Hadith.
I am saying “to the extent it is,” because I simply do not trust the English translation of these divine texts.
“Divine” because the Qur’an is the direct word of Allah. No ifs or buts about that.
As for the Hadith, that too is nothing but a verbatim and most accurate and trustworthy record of what Allah directly inspired Prophet Muhammad, Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam, to say or do.
Each one of these two texts is in a class all by itself. And nothing in the world compares to either one of them.
As for not trusting the English translations, that is for a number of reasons. First of all, the word of God Almighty in the Qur’an is not translatable – in any language, leave alone in English, a language rooted in an entirely alien culture.
Also, some of the English translations of the Qur’an are plain wrong and misleading.
Yet, in spite of these shortcomings, non-Muslims and others do not have much of a choice. They must look past the somewhat less-than-ideal Muslim reality of today, and the less-than-satisfactory English translations available, at the pristine teachings of the Qur’an and the Hadith, using whatever means and methods that may be available to them, and make their reasoned and informed choices based on their own personal research and findings.
This may be a tall order, but in this way, they will not only choose and act wisely, they will also open themselves to divine grace and blessings that will come pouring down on them.
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