Salam brother Joseph. I have some questions regarding the Quran.
I know this is a lot of questions, but I hope you can answer. Your website provided a lot of answers earlier, but there are still some things I'm confused on. I know you're busy, but please do your best to answer, since I'm really and confused and I'll pray for you if you can help.
Questions:
1) Some Quran verses (like 5:72) say everyone who associates partners with Allah goes to hell. What if some people are polytheists, but they've never seen the message of monotheism, so they don't know they're doing anything wrong? Do these people also go to hell? This question is important to me because I have some nonmuslim relatives who engage in shirk, but they don't know they're doing it.
I understand that a person is not a disbeliever until they see the message in its correct form and disbelieve in it, but according to 5:72, even if a person has never received the message, if they still commit shirk, they are going to hell. I think I might be misinterpreting this verse, can you explain?
2) There are some Quranic verses that say stuff like "never do we destroy a people until they commit immorality." Does this mean that natural disasters only happen when people do bad things? Like, there are a lot of earthquakes in Japan, but that's because it lies on a faultline, not because Japanese people are evil. Am I missing something?
3) Are the punishments prescribed in the Quran, like lashes for adultery, only to be applied to muslims, or other people too? In a nonmuslim country, you can't punish anyone for adultery. So if you live in a nonmuslim country and you don't punish someone who deserves to be punished under Quranic law, is that a sin?
4) If mankind was created in the best mould like the Quran says, why are there children born with birth defects? I know God is all-knowing, but if He says man was created in the best way, then what about conjoined twins and stuff like that? Is that a test or something?
5) The Quran says no injustice will be done and everyone's good and bad deeds will be repaid to an atom's weight, but there is also a verse (forgot the number, sorry) that says disbelievers' good deeds don't help them. My theory is that good deeds are only considered good when you do them with God in mind, and if you're a disbeliever, then you can't do a good deed with God in mind. So disbelievers' good deeds are not accepted because they're not good deeds. Is this correct?
6) There's a verse that says no vision can encompass God, and the only way He speaks to people is from behind a veil or through a messenger. I'm not sure if this is true, but I heard that there's a verse saying Muhammad saw God. Is there really such a verse? If so, isn't that contradictory, or did Muhammad just see God metaphorically or something?
7) Don't get mad, but--who created God?
Let's say you give the Quran to someone who doesn't know Arabic. They won't understand it, right? But a lot of translators mistranslate verses misogynistically and make them sound more violent. So if someone gets a translation of the Quran that is misogynistic and screwed up, and they reject it, that's not a sin on their part, is it? Because they were just rejecting the messed up version of the Quran, not the legit version. My main question here is, why does God let people mess up His verses by translating them wrong? The Arabic Quran remains (mostly) the same, but people can play around with translations however they want. Not fair. When I first started reading translation, I was shocked by what some of the verses said, which is why I started doing research, and I figured out that my translation was all wrong.
9) Does "no change shall there be in the creation of Allah" make genetic engineering haram? Because I'm doing a science project on that, and I don't want to do a project on haram things. (I'm just modifying harmful genes, not good ones)
10) I understand that God doesn't discriminate against women, but in financial cases, if a girl's testimony is half of a man's, does that mean God thinks women are stupid? That does not go down well with me, especially since I want to be a scientist.
11) And basically, all my questions culminate to this: If the Quran is a guidance for everyone, why was it only revealed in Arabic and not a bunch of other languages as well so people can mess up translations however they wish? Also, is it just me, but why do I find some stuff in the Quran confusing if it's supposed to be clear?
***Importantly, I've noticed that VERY FEW people actually receive the Quran the way it's supposed to be received. Hadiths are nonsense from what I can tell, but most Islamic missionaries tell people to follow hadiths as well as Quran. And then people read the hadiths and find out they're stupid, and they're horrified and reject Islam. Very few people are presented with a good, clear translation of the Quran that they can accept or reject of their own free will. Most people are given bad translations, and then they reject Islam based on that. Why hasn't God made His guidance available to everyone in the best form? Why does He have to make things so confusing???
I'm really sorry if that's too many questions for you to answer, but please try your best.
Some of these questions are probably stupid, but please answer to the best of your ability, as I am REALLY confused.
Mia
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