Topics

166

Discussions / I'm a fan!

« on: November 17, 2011, 12:38:55 AM »

Salamu Aleikum

First, I want just say, that your site  is very good and very interesting. please send me all updates. I opened new a blog "Koran ist  Wahrheit". it’s in german and never like yours- mashAllah. I would like to transform articles from you in german, is this possible? I write one allready about how to study the Koran from you  and I wish to share with all the people your science, it,s so wonderful.. I will  not make this for me, I will tell all the people, that in fact ,it,s not me, who write all that – I never will arrive for it , I wish to learn the Arabic right, not like i ‘m speaking now.But there is no teacher in front of me, so I don,t have any possibility to study.

[Name withheld from forum]

167

Discussions / Your Site, My Background

« on: November 17, 2011, 12:36:16 AM »

I'm so grateful to Allah that I came across your site. I actually belong to a shia family and have been involved in all the shia practices (matam, mourning, etc) for so many years of my life. But only recently I came across some 'Quranist' website and all of a sudden I had a paradigm shift. I never thought about the other side of the 'truth' I was holding on to.

I always thought what I believed was right and I took all that for granted. But by the grace of Allah, I have started studying Quran on my own and researching things over the internet and your work has been of tremendous help in clearing many of my doubts and confusions as well as misconceptions. I used to take the Ahadith Corpus as almost equal to the Quran, and never bothered to read the Quran. But I'm so grateful to Allah for showing me the correct path and guiding me through it.
 
Your work and research is truly amazing. May Allah reward you for your efforts. I'll be looking forward to reading more of your articles.

[A sister in faith - Name withheld from forum]

168

Discussions / Thought of an Institution Based on True Scholarship for the Masses

« on: November 12, 2011, 02:31:46 AM »

Peace to you Joe,

I just wanted to suggest an idea that would probably take 1 year to carry out, but that can be an impetus for progress. There are some big scholars out there and institutions who are much more open minded than others. I was thinking of the institution that generated the Amman Declaration for instance.
 
I think a list should be compiled of them and then they should be contacted with a 1 page letter requesting them that:
 
1.  The population of the world is becoming ever more competent in their reasoning and analytic abilities.
 
2.  Since the foundation of Islam is belief on a perfect all-knowing God, any statement that is apparently or clearly in violation of historical, scientific, or moral facts will strike a serious blow in the faith of many Muslim readers.
 
3. Therefore, we ask these selected individuals and institutions based on their own statements and on their proven track record of initiating a more systematic and scientific analysis of the whole transmission of ahadeeth.
 
4. And for all weaknesses of this transmission process to be published in clearly and explicitly so that believers of today and of future generations can realize that certain hadeeth that conflict with established facts or with their conscience are probably not traced to the Prophet after all.
 
5. Thereby allowing them to not lose their faith in the perfect Qur'an if they are conditioned to believe that they must accept these ahadeeth with conflict with their intellects or their morals.   
 
6. I think a good appendix for evidence can be statements from Jeffrey Lang's book "Losing my faith" where he says that almost all the doubts in the religion of the new generation is from those who have hard time grappling with certain ahadeeth.
 
7. I think the signatories of this letter need to be people who don't trash the ahadeeth unscholarly like some of the followers of Rashid Khalifa do, But people like Aisha Musa and those other people who are scholarly...perhaps from you as well.
 
8. I think we need to phrase something that makes clear we are not trying to eliminate ahadeeth altogether but just to produce a scholarly and authoritative and ongoing published initiative that is updated to incorporate study methods that have been established in the last several centuries that both cast doubt on some ahadeeth (a la Schact, etc.) and that support ahadeeth (a la Motski, Azami,etc).
 
9. To show that using ahadeeth is still important so we can follow the Prophet but that we must not lose sight of the limitations of using ahadeeth transmitted through several generations and through centuries of political and sectarian and theological strife to infer the true set of inspiration and guidance from the Prophet.

10.  I think the goal of educating Muslims to truly place secondary Islamic sources on a truly secondary level is more achievable and legitimate than to effectively eliminate this source altogether.  This may be at odds with your view of ahadeeth as altogether useless and worthless but I think without you changing your personal view which is more radical than views like mine or Motski's, we can still move forward in educating the lay public about the limitations of the ahadeeth.