Re: Mixed thread for educational purposes
Our real problem when trying to understand islam through quran and related information
The need for proper study of divine message is not fulfilled by make belief based study of it or the comparative study of it.
What is needed is study of the message according to commonly accepted rules of wisdom that are beyond reasonable dispute. Most people have not yet woken up to that reality and they will not till education becomes available widely and not only that but till people start thinking critically and are able to put things together logically and factually like building a house brick by brick.
It is because people are born into an already existing environment there first struggle is to find out where each of them stand. It is matter of finding one's feet first and then see the wider context or one's relationship with one's own environment. Only when one has realised oneself and one's relationship with one's environment one may rise to find out whether this environment is the only environment available or are there other environments as well. If one manages to reach that much awareness only then one may rise to find out about each of the environment and see the difference between them and whether they are all equally good or bad or are some better than others and even if any are better than others is there room to improve upon any of them.
As one keeps on studying one keeps losing support of people because step by step such a person is rising above the rest and those who cannot move with him cannot any longer link with this person and some due to vested interests may even turn hostile. It is because the world is divided into three main groups. The most learned people, the least learned people and the ones somewhere in the middle of two extremes ie the spectrum is wide ranging.
The differences therefore are not a bad thing within themselves if purely based on amount of information people have but they are made bad by crooked people in the human communities. Because of this major divide the people in the middle must also become learned because unless they support the right side they are actually supporting the bad guys due to their ignorance and simple mindedness.
The world is divided on the basis of control of the land and its resources, means of production and distribution. It was divided by the ignorant and the arrogant because ignorance based arrogance is root cause of greed and therefore rivalry and hence the struggle for survival becomes an issue in itself. People then behave like worse than animals towards their own kind. This way we either move down in to the ditch of hell by supporting such leaders or we choose to support the opposite side and rise above to reach the heaven. We have been given all the world can offer us and we have been given the divine guidance but choice is ours to choose to act as to which way we wish to go. If we want better world then we must do all in our power to get a team in place and support the team that is working for better world.
Most of the mankind has been happily going down the ditch of hell so far and any calls to not to go that way have been ignored. What we call anti God people are not necessarily anti God and what we call religious or God people are not necessarily people of God because these are just claims of people or about the people but the validity of these claims depends upon the standard that ought to be found and followed as measure of good=beneficial or bad=harmful.
So the real question is, has anyone thought of or has one worked out any way of knowing what is right or wrong or how to go about finding out things and does that work ok? If one has then if one's claims prove true by that standard then one is right other wise not.
Knowing that standard is no longer that difficult because that is called scientific method. The next question therefore is, how to apply scientific method to the allegedly divine message and to those who claim to follow it?
All this involves trial and error method because even though the divine message is ok in its own right but the people being humans cannot be trusted 100% either in their findings or their applications. It is like even though we have the correct mathematical formula for solving a question and we apply it to solve a question yet there remain plenty of opportunities for error. We all know who have been through schooling how we used to think we have done questions right but teachers used to point out how we added or subtracted numbers wrongly.
Beside this some people try to mislead others to gain an advantage therefore methods alone cannot be relied upon so people need to be cross examined for their solutions to see which way they take us and why and whether that is good and beneficial for us human beings or bad and harmful and even destructive.
So it should be clear from all this explanation how not to go about anything including God. Taking things for granted could prove as bad as following make beliefs or superstition or myths etc.
So it is a good idea to learn and keep learning till the day we die but follow a method because random information collection and never trying to make sense of it is not really learning anything.
The main thing for anyone of us human beings is to realise that only God is God and that humans at best can only be humans. Only Allah is free of errors and humans being humans can never be Gods ie free of possibility of human error. This being the case we must remember the divisions of roles of God and human beings.
Even though message from God is error free yet human understanding is not necessarily error free. What does that mean? It means just as people can make mistakes in understanding the message so they can make mistakes in implementation of the divine will. So the basic question is how can we understand the message as best as possible for us. This requires us to have some basic understanding of the process involved for making sense of things.
As we all know that all our knowledge begins with suppositions ie we suppose things to begin with and then we try to build our picture from that base through trial and error. There is no any other way about it.
As we go along we put foundational brick in place and if we see it is stable then we put another on top of it and if it becomes unstable we move it and keep moving it till it is stable and in right place and then place on it the next brick and repeat the process each time and keep on building the structure so long as it remains stable. Thus we keep going for as long as we are successful in getting the balance right and we have the building as much as we can build in our life time. This is how far we can take this exercise. It is an act of balancing plates on sticks and each of us can only balance so many in our lives ie rome was not build in a day.
In short we are all out on a fact finding mission knowing absolutely nothing at all in advance. In other words when we are born we have nothing to go on other than the brain and its senses and the environment we are born in.
The learning process continues till the day we are unable to learn anything any more. Between the beginning and the end of our lives whatever we have experienced is total sum of our knowledge.
Some people have more knowledge than others due to having wider and deeper life experiences than others as well as some people have different knowledge from others due to having spent their lives in totally different environments from each other. This is why nothing is cut and dry for anyone.
By exchanging ideas with each other we are only sharing our own life experiences with each other and thereby we help each other learn from that. Some people who are better at absorbing information and putting it together in better ways put forth more convincing claims and evidences than others and therefore we tend to unite on something better than what we already have.
This is how humanity came to an agreement that rules of wisdom should be the basis for all our claims and evidences to judge by.
The main rule is that if we have two opposing statement then both of them cannot be true at the same time in the same sense. Either both are false or only one of them may be true.
Likewise any statement that contradicts self evident facts cannot be accepted true. The facts as understood by us at any given time.
What all this means is that nothing is true unless something is consistent within itself and with respect to realities of real world as understood by humans who do research and explore things.
This means that if the quran is divine in its origin then all its statements should prove free of contradictions within itself and with respect to realities of real world as far as they can be understood by human beings. Any information in the quran that humans yet do not understand cannot be used in evidence either till it becomes known as to what it stands for.
Since we are all on a journey of discovery therefore we should be allowed to continue this journey and we must not be stopped by each other because if we are stopped in the middle of this process then this process will remain an unfinished business and any claims about it by anyone will be absurd.
This is why claims of our sectarian friends are neither here nor there. They have so called aqaaid based religious interpretations of the quran that have countless mistakes in them because they do not use the proper idea for discovering the truth instead they take their make beliefs as sure thing and then try to prove them correct through quranic statements by their senseless interpretations.
The main point for us to realise is that in islam the quran is supposed to be the foundational text of isalm. For the quran to be proven genuine source of divine origin therefore we can never understand the quran in isolation from things that it is talking about. Since the quran talks about islam therefore we need to know what islam is, only then it will make sense likewise if it is divine manifesto of islam then we must also learn what a manifesto is all about before we could understand what the quran has to say as divine manifesto. Likewise if the quran is divine constitution for mankind to build their human community or society upon it then we need to know what are social structure, systems and practices that the quran is talking about. It is because there has to be relationship between constitution, its organisation and community as well as its institutions therefore if we do not make ourselves aware about these things then the quran cannot be understood at all.
It is therefore not right to ignore anything when we interpret the quran because every little can help to understand the quran. However nothing can be taken 100% genuine hence we are forced to take what works and leave what does not because whatever works to serve the stated purpose is right and all else is wrong. This is why we must take realities of the real world as basis to begin with and build upon that and the picture the quran gives us will gradually become clearer and clearer fitting like pieces of a jig saw puzzle.
For example, the quran claims that Allah has set for humanity a goal to accomplish and maintain and that goal is islam=peace. Peace according to the quran is not possible unless people accept certain terms and conditions as laid down in the quran eg freedom of individual from individual ie no man is slave of any other man. All are free from control of each other. If anyone tries to control any other be it through strength of arms, deceptive ideas or wealth, all such control is termed oppression or suppression. The quran wants people to deal justly and fairly with each other but compassionately in order to bring mankind together to tie them in to a brotherhood. This is necessary according to the quran because without such blood, marriage and ideological bonding people cannot cooperate with each other and they cannot make progress and therefore prosperity of nations becomes impossible to achieve. So long as these essential ingredients remain missing from human society peace therefore cannot be established between mankind. So long as there is no stability progress and prosperity cannot be assured.
This is why it is essential to realise the place of the quran in a human society. Without quran peace is impossible in the world because only the quran sets a goal that cannot be improved upon and the terms and the conditions the quran set for mankind cannot be surpassed. Hence the challenge in the quran that mankind cannot produce the like of the quran. Why not? Because the quran is the divine manifesto for islam=peace. It is the divine constitution for mankind to build their human society upon. No other manifesto or constitution can beat the quran on what it stand for.
So a muslim is the one who works for peace in the hope that God will reward him not only with good outcome of his efforts in this world in form of better world but also in hereafter.
This explanation should help people see how they should look at the quran and islam, God and mankind. Once people become aware of proper context of the quran then it is not at all difficult to see what people say and do is according to the quran and what is not. Islam is not necessarily what muslims claim it to be or what they do as islam but that quran is the foundation of islam and whoever claims and does what is in the quran in its own proper contexts is right and anyone else is not right.
So anyone who is critical of islam and quran must separate between islam and those who claim to follow it. If people believe and do wrong things in the name of islam that is not fault of islam and quran but of the people. The quran is just a divine advice and a guidance just like health guidelines which if people understand and follow properly will benefit them and if they do not then they will not help them. We cannot blame health guidelines for their misuse by the people.
Likewise any hadith that appears to oppose the quran should be first of all checked for its correct interpretation. Only such a report may be rejected that cannot be understood in proper quranic context no matter what but there is always possibility it might be true but not yet understood properly.
Our real problem when trying to understand islam through quran and related information
The need for proper study of divine message is not fulfilled by make belief based study of it or the comparative study of it.
What is needed is study of the message according to commonly accepted rules of wisdom that are beyond reasonable dispute. Most people have not yet woken up to that reality and they will not till education becomes available widely and not only that but till people start thinking critically and are able to put things together logically and factually like building a house brick by brick.
It is because people are born into an already existing environment there first struggle is to find out where each of them stand. It is matter of finding one's feet first and then see the wider context or one's relationship with one's own environment. Only when one has realised oneself and one's relationship with one's environment one may rise to find out whether this environment is the only environment available or are there other environments as well. If one manages to reach that much awareness only then one may rise to find out about each of the environment and see the difference between them and whether they are all equally good or bad or are some better than others and even if any are better than others is there room to improve upon any of them.
As one keeps on studying one keeps losing support of people because step by step such a person is rising above the rest and those who cannot move with him cannot any longer link with this person and some due to vested interests may even turn hostile. It is because the world is divided into three main groups. The most learned people, the least learned people and the ones somewhere in the middle of two extremes ie the spectrum is wide ranging.
The differences therefore are not a bad thing within themselves if purely based on amount of information people have but they are made bad by crooked people in the human communities. Because of this major divide the people in the middle must also become learned because unless they support the right side they are actually supporting the bad guys due to their ignorance and simple mindedness.
The world is divided on the basis of control of the land and its resources, means of production and distribution. It was divided by the ignorant and the arrogant because ignorance based arrogance is root cause of greed and therefore rivalry and hence the struggle for survival becomes an issue in itself. People then behave like worse than animals towards their own kind. This way we either move down in to the ditch of hell by supporting such leaders or we choose to support the opposite side and rise above to reach the heaven. We have been given all the world can offer us and we have been given the divine guidance but choice is ours to choose to act as to which way we wish to go. If we want better world then we must do all in our power to get a team in place and support the team that is working for better world.
Most of the mankind has been happily going down the ditch of hell so far and any calls to not to go that way have been ignored. What we call anti God people are not necessarily anti God and what we call religious or God people are not necessarily people of God because these are just claims of people or about the people but the validity of these claims depends upon the standard that ought to be found and followed as measure of good=beneficial or bad=harmful.
So the real question is, has anyone thought of or has one worked out any way of knowing what is right or wrong or how to go about finding out things and does that work ok? If one has then if one's claims prove true by that standard then one is right other wise not.
Knowing that standard is no longer that difficult because that is called scientific method. The next question therefore is, how to apply scientific method to the allegedly divine message and to those who claim to follow it?
All this involves trial and error method because even though the divine message is ok in its own right but the people being humans cannot be trusted 100% either in their findings or their applications. It is like even though we have the correct mathematical formula for solving a question and we apply it to solve a question yet there remain plenty of opportunities for error. We all know who have been through schooling how we used to think we have done questions right but teachers used to point out how we added or subtracted numbers wrongly.
Beside this some people try to mislead others to gain an advantage therefore methods alone cannot be relied upon so people need to be cross examined for their solutions to see which way they take us and why and whether that is good and beneficial for us human beings or bad and harmful and even destructive.
So it should be clear from all this explanation how not to go about anything including God. Taking things for granted could prove as bad as following make beliefs or superstition or myths etc.
So it is a good idea to learn and keep learning till the day we die but follow a method because random information collection and never trying to make sense of it is not really learning anything.
The main thing for anyone of us human beings is to realise that only God is God and that humans at best can only be humans. Only Allah is free of errors and humans being humans can never be Gods ie free of possibility of human error. This being the case we must remember the divisions of roles of God and human beings.
Even though message from God is error free yet human understanding is not necessarily error free. What does that mean? It means just as people can make mistakes in understanding the message so they can make mistakes in implementation of the divine will. So the basic question is how can we understand the message as best as possible for us. This requires us to have some basic understanding of the process involved for making sense of things.
As we all know that all our knowledge begins with suppositions ie we suppose things to begin with and then we try to build our picture from that base through trial and error. There is no any other way about it.
As we go along we put foundational brick in place and if we see it is stable then we put another on top of it and if it becomes unstable we move it and keep moving it till it is stable and in right place and then place on it the next brick and repeat the process each time and keep on building the structure so long as it remains stable. Thus we keep going for as long as we are successful in getting the balance right and we have the building as much as we can build in our life time. This is how far we can take this exercise. It is an act of balancing plates on sticks and each of us can only balance so many in our lives ie rome was not build in a day.
In short we are all out on a fact finding mission knowing absolutely nothing at all in advance. In other words when we are born we have nothing to go on other than the brain and its senses and the environment we are born in.
The learning process continues till the day we are unable to learn anything any more. Between the beginning and the end of our lives whatever we have experienced is total sum of our knowledge.
Some people have more knowledge than others due to having wider and deeper life experiences than others as well as some people have different knowledge from others due to having spent their lives in totally different environments from each other. This is why nothing is cut and dry for anyone.
By exchanging ideas with each other we are only sharing our own life experiences with each other and thereby we help each other learn from that. Some people who are better at absorbing information and putting it together in better ways put forth more convincing claims and evidences than others and therefore we tend to unite on something better than what we already have.
This is how humanity came to an agreement that rules of wisdom should be the basis for all our claims and evidences to judge by.
The main rule is that if we have two opposing statement then both of them cannot be true at the same time in the same sense. Either both are false or only one of them may be true.
Likewise any statement that contradicts self evident facts cannot be accepted true. The facts as understood by us at any given time.
What all this means is that nothing is true unless something is consistent within itself and with respect to realities of real world as understood by humans who do research and explore things.
This means that if the quran is divine in its origin then all its statements should prove free of contradictions within itself and with respect to realities of real world as far as they can be understood by human beings. Any information in the quran that humans yet do not understand cannot be used in evidence either till it becomes known as to what it stands for.
Since we are all on a journey of discovery therefore we should be allowed to continue this journey and we must not be stopped by each other because if we are stopped in the middle of this process then this process will remain an unfinished business and any claims about it by anyone will be absurd.
This is why claims of our sectarian friends are neither here nor there. They have so called aqaaid based religious interpretations of the quran that have countless mistakes in them because they do not use the proper idea for discovering the truth instead they take their make beliefs as sure thing and then try to prove them correct through quranic statements by their senseless interpretations.
The main point for us to realise is that in islam the quran is supposed to be the foundational text of isalm. For the quran to be proven genuine source of divine origin therefore we can never understand the quran in isolation from things that it is talking about. Since the quran talks about islam therefore we need to know what islam is, only then it will make sense likewise if it is divine manifesto of islam then we must also learn what a manifesto is all about before we could understand what the quran has to say as divine manifesto. Likewise if the quran is divine constitution for mankind to build their human community or society upon it then we need to know what are social structure, systems and practices that the quran is talking about. It is because there has to be relationship between constitution, its organisation and community as well as its institutions therefore if we do not make ourselves aware about these things then the quran cannot be understood at all.
It is therefore not right to ignore anything when we interpret the quran because every little can help to understand the quran. However nothing can be taken 100% genuine hence we are forced to take what works and leave what does not because whatever works to serve the stated purpose is right and all else is wrong. This is why we must take realities of the real world as basis to begin with and build upon that and the picture the quran gives us will gradually become clearer and clearer fitting like pieces of a jig saw puzzle.
For example, the quran claims that Allah has set for humanity a goal to accomplish and maintain and that goal is islam=peace. Peace according to the quran is not possible unless people accept certain terms and conditions as laid down in the quran eg freedom of individual from individual ie no man is slave of any other man. All are free from control of each other. If anyone tries to control any other be it through strength of arms, deceptive ideas or wealth, all such control is termed oppression or suppression. The quran wants people to deal justly and fairly with each other but compassionately in order to bring mankind together to tie them in to a brotherhood. This is necessary according to the quran because without such blood, marriage and ideological bonding people cannot cooperate with each other and they cannot make progress and therefore prosperity of nations becomes impossible to achieve. So long as these essential ingredients remain missing from human society peace therefore cannot be established between mankind. So long as there is no stability progress and prosperity cannot be assured.
This is why it is essential to realise the place of the quran in a human society. Without quran peace is impossible in the world because only the quran sets a goal that cannot be improved upon and the terms and the conditions the quran set for mankind cannot be surpassed. Hence the challenge in the quran that mankind cannot produce the like of the quran. Why not? Because the quran is the divine manifesto for islam=peace. It is the divine constitution for mankind to build their human society upon. No other manifesto or constitution can beat the quran on what it stand for.
So a muslim is the one who works for peace in the hope that God will reward him not only with good outcome of his efforts in this world in form of better world but also in hereafter.
This explanation should help people see how they should look at the quran and islam, God and mankind. Once people become aware of proper context of the quran then it is not at all difficult to see what people say and do is according to the quran and what is not. Islam is not necessarily what muslims claim it to be or what they do as islam but that quran is the foundation of islam and whoever claims and does what is in the quran in its own proper contexts is right and anyone else is not right.
So anyone who is critical of islam and quran must separate between islam and those who claim to follow it. If people believe and do wrong things in the name of islam that is not fault of islam and quran but of the people. The quran is just a divine advice and a guidance just like health guidelines which if people understand and follow properly will benefit them and if they do not then they will not help them. We cannot blame health guidelines for their misuse by the people.
Likewise any hadith that appears to oppose the quran should be first of all checked for its correct interpretation. Only such a report may be rejected that cannot be understood in proper quranic context no matter what but there is always possibility it might be true but not yet understood properly.
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