veiled4allah: a new voice from Baghdad veiled4allah: a new voice from Baghdad
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Interesting link-will check it out later.
Sorry this is irrelevant to the post you made-but here are 2 blogs by Muslimah reverts if you havn't seen them already:
link
link
note: comment edited to add hyperlinks
Several people have noted the hypocrisy of conservatives' deeming guns to be an absolute right for Americans, while supporting the disarmament of Iraqis.
In really depressing disarmament news, the UN force now in the Congo isn't even going to try to take weapons away from the fighting factions. It's realistic of them -- there aren't enough UN soldiers to do more than watch the slaughter.
PG - "Revert" is a term that Muslims sometimes use for a convert. In order to understand it, you have to understand something about how Islam regards other religions.
According to Islamic teaching, God sent a prophet to each nation. All of these prophets spoke the same message: God is one, so serve Him. Thus every religion of humankind in its original form was pure and monotheistic and from God. However, over time, the message of these prophets has become lost or corrupted and mixed in with man-made doctrines. God also selected the Children of Israel (i.e., the Jews) and favored them above other nations by giving them a scripture from Him, the Torah. He also sent many more prophets to them to keep on calling them to obey the Torah, up through and including Jesus (peace be upon him and all the prophets). He also gave Jesus (pbuh) the Injil or Gospel. The fundamental message of the Torah and the Gospel is also the same as the message of the other prophets. The specific rules set out in the Torah and Gospel are what were appropriate for the time and place and religious development of the people.
Muslims believe that Jesus's message has become completely corrupted by man-made doctrines about the Trinity and the Incarnation. Most Muslims also feel that the Torah has become mixed with man-made materials. However, in any case, the Torah was only intended as a Scripture for the Children of Israel and not for all humankind.
The Quran is the Scripture for all humankind. It restores the original message and the original religion that God gave to each people. It is considered to be the completion of God's religion.
Thus there is islam with a lowercase "i" and Islam with an uppercase "I". Lowercase-i islam is the original religion that was established by each prophet. Uppercase-I Islam is the specific religion established by the Quran. Anybody who truly follows the message brought by one of the other prophets is a muslim (person who follows islam) while a person who follows the Quran is a Muslim (person who follows Islam).
Beyond this, Islam teaches that each person is born with an innate true belief in God and an innate religion of islam. However, their parents and community bring them up in whatever the religion of the community is.
Thus, a person who converts to Islam (uppercase-I) is in some sense "reverting" to the natural religion that they were born with. Hence the term "revert".
Subject: Re: a new voice from Baghdad
Wow -- thanks for the explanation, it is very interesting.This does mean that there can be nothing after Islam, right? There was islam, Judaism, Christianity, Islam as the final resolution of religion, and nothing coming after can keep adding on.
And does Islam regard the Gospel to be applicable to all people?
Subject: Islam and the other religions
Yes, that's correct. The way I understand it, the ultimate aim was to provide a scripture for all humankind. The previous religions didn't do that, but they built up towards it.In Islam, Jesus (pbuh) is considered to be a prophet to the Children of Israel only. There are some passages in the four Gospels that support this, if I remember correctly. Most Muslims consider that Paul totally changed the nature of the religion by saying that the Torah was no longer required, and by opening the religion to Gentiles, and also by adding doctrines about Jesus's nature. This may or may not be a good religion, but it is not the religion that Jesus (pbuh) brought.
From the Muslim point of view, Paul created a universal religion but Islam (the religion of the Quran) is the universal religion that God intended.
The Torah simply does not set out a universal religion. There is one set of rules for Jews (i.e., the Torah itself), and another set of rules for Gentiles (I believe these are called the Noachide laws after Noah). Which set of rules you follow depends on which group you are born into. Islam does not distinguish between people by nationality; everybody is free and welcome to convert. From the Muslim point of view, this is why Judaism cannot be the final word on the matter.
Some Muslims spend a lot of time seeking to prove that the Torah itself has been corrupted or lost and replaced with man-made texts but to me this is purely a secondary concern. Even if it has been perfectly preserved, it would need to be followed up by a universal Scripture that sets everyone on the same footing. Most of the time, these Muslims are not arguing with Jews but with evangelical Christians, however.
Regarding Christianity, Jesus (pbuh) talks in the Gospel of John about one who is to follow him. The Pauline writings identify this as the Holy Spririt and therefore that completes the religion. Muslims identify the Paraclete as Muhammad (peace be upon him).
Obviously, every religion claims that it is the final word. If you're not a Muslim you won't agree with me that Islam is the final word. However, I'm hoping to set out why Muslims believe that Islam is the final word, and how we respond to the claims of (in particular) Jews and Christians that their own religions are the final word. People can then judge these claims for themselves.
Subject: Re: Islam and the other religions
The Torah simply does not set out a universal religion. There is one set of rules for Jews (i.e., the Torah itself), and another set of rules for Gentiles (I believe these are called the Noachide laws after Noah). Which set of rules you follow depends on which group you are born into.Judaism also accepts converts and makes no distinction as to their nationality. The Jewish religion started out as a tribal cult, but made the transition to a universal faith during the rabbinic period. There are different rules for Jews and Gentiles - in fact, it's easier for a Gentile to be considered righteous than it is for a Jew - but those rules don't depend on birth.
Subject: Re: Islam and the other religions
Thanks for clarifying, Jonathan. Obviously, if conversion is easy and welcomed, then the "birth distinction" doesn't mean anything and everybody can be held to the same standards by converting. My own personal experience seeking to learn more about religions led me to feel that Islam is much more welcoming to converts than Judaism. This may be a reflection on the particular people who were providing that information rather than on the religions themselves.I also liked that Islam is that way from the start. I really feel that it has a stronger claim to be the "final version". I don't know if this feeling is unique to me or fairly common among Gentiles.
I see Judaism and Islam as being basically the same religion at heart, but for different times, different places, and different people. Islam is the one that's right for me. That's why I converted to Islam.
In the end, each of us needs to find what we believe is the path that is right for us and the closest to what God wants. Ultimately, He is the judge of who was correct and who was wrong.
As a general supplement to this discussion, see also Will all non-Muslims end up in hell, an earlier blog entry.
Subject: Re: Islam and the other religions
My own personal experience seeking to learn more about religions led me to feel that Islam is much more welcoming to converts than Judaism.This is true, although it wasn't always. Judaism was occasionally a proselytizing religion during pre-Christian times - there are records of Jewish missionaries in Rome - during most of the medieval and early modern era, proselytizing was an easy way to get killed. Even accepting converts from the locally dominant religion could lead to persecution. The rabbinical response to this was to forbid proselytizing and to attempt to dissuade converts.
This has obviously become less of a concern in modern times, but there's still a tradition of telling converts how hard it is to be a Jew so that they will approach the religion with open eyes. In addition, because the righteous among the Gentiles will have a share in the world to come, there is less of a theological imperative to encourage people to become Jews. For all that, however, sincere converts are eventually accepted and welcomed.
I see Judaism and Islam as being basically the same religion at heart, but for different times, different places, and different people.
Judaism and Islam are very close in theological terms - I'm a Jew and I'll always be one, but I think there's a great deal to be learned from the Muslim approach to law and faith. I suppose it comes down to what you say - the right path for everyone is different.
Subject: Re: Islam and the other religions
There are some significant differences between Islam and Judaism of course, but I think that the similarities are even more profound, especially when compared to a religion like Christianity.BTW, I was doing some legal research for a blog entry while you were on vacation and came across a fascinating law journal article. I don't know if you've seen it or not. Reason and Analogy: A Comparison of Early Islamic and Jewish Legal Institutions, 2 UCLA J. Islamic & Near E.L. 129. The author, Sam Heldman, concludes:
The rabbis and the Islamic jurists share a tradition of a vast corpus of intellectual material. At first glance, the rabbis may have been more liberal with the use of reason and hermeneutics while Islamic jurists circumscribed the expanse of analogy, but perhaps this difference is only in the labels and justifications of the institutions rather than in the substance.
I came across the article while researching the use of analogy in Islamic law, which forms a small part of my blog entry A lesson in Islamic legal theory.