> Differences in approach to Islam between Optimist and Sunni Muslims

[optimist]

Originally Posted by al-boriqee

these ayaah fall null and void to people like optmist

For this post, I do not want to respond. I have already explained this point earlier under the following thread (Post No.31, refer to middle part)
http://www.islamic-life.com/forums/tafsir-sciences-hadith/dicussion-authenticity-necessity-hadiths-2136/page4

And your reply was;

Im not going to respond to this. inshllah, when i actually have time, I will just prepare what I stated I was going to prepare on this subject, and 60 percent of the above imbecility will be cleared up. After this preparation I will then add a section of repelling the shuboohaat, for example the humorous "huwa and hiya" argument to prove it is the Qur'an and not the lafdh mutlaqan of the messenger.

inshallah these satanic doubts will be flushed down the drain of inacceptance once and for all bi ithnillah

[al-boriqee]

Nonsense Number 2:

posed by our poor brother optimist

Originally Posted by optimist

(a) The creation of Eve from the rib of Adam and
(b) The Creation of Adam in Allah's Image
Muslim :: Book 40 : Hadith 6809
Abu Huraira radiallahtalanhu reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created Adam in His own image...
Muslim :: Book 32 : Hadith 6325
This hadith has been transmitted on the authority of Abu Huraira radiallahtalanhu and in the hadith transmitted on the authority of Ibn Hatim Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon him) is reported to have said: When any one of you fights with his brother, he should avoid his face for Allah created Adam in His own image.

Astahfirullah!!!

(In order not to contradict with Quran you will try to give interpreations for the above statements, because you assume yourself as a matter of faith every single hadith classified by Imam Muslim as 'reliable chain of narrators' (sahih) to be infallible, but please my brother, no matter how you try to justify these hadiths, these statements can not be the words of the prophet and these statements have been falsely attributed to our beloved prophet (I have tears in my eyes now)....and these are biblical flase stories tactfully injected into hadiths to spoil Islam)

Wassalam

Deconstructing revisionist vitriol

The Prophet's words, "Adam was created in His image" means that Allaah created Adam in His image, for He has a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot, and Adam had a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot . . . but that does not mean that these things are exactly the same. There is some similarity, but it is not exactly the same. Similarly the first group to enter Paradise are likened to the moon, but they are not exactly the same. This confirms the view of Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaa'ah, who say that none of the attributes of Allaah can be likened to the attributes of created beings, without distorting or misinterpreting, or discussing how or likening Him to His creation.

See Sharh al-'Aqeedah al-Waasitah by Shaykh Muhammad ibn 'Uthaymeen, 1/107, 293.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyah said: "The word soorah (image) in this hadeeth is like all the other names and attributes narrated (in the texts) where the words used may also be applied to created beings, in a limited manner. When these words are applied to Allaah, they carry a unique meaning, such as al-'Aleem (All Knowing), al-Qadeer (All-Powerful), al-Raheem (Most Merciful), al-Samee' (All Hearing), al-Baseer (All-Seeing), and such as His creating with His hands, rising above the Throne, etc." Naqd al-Ta'sees, 3/396

[optimist]

Originally Posted by al-boriqee

Deconstructing revisionist vitriol

The Prophet's words, "Adam was created in His image" means that Allaah created Adam in His image, for He has a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot, and Adam had a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot . . . but that does not mean that these things are exactly the same. There is some similarity, but it is not exactly the same.

Salam,

You are keeping on calling my posts as nonsense. I will say the above statement is a blasphemy and the biggest nonsense!!! From where did you get the reasoning there are some similarities but not exactly the same? Using the same logic, what will happen if someone comes up with an arguement that since a monkey has a face, hands and legs, and also Allah also has a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot (Allah forbid), a monkey is created in the image of Allah? Since a mouse has face, legs can we say a mouse is created in the image of a Lion? Can a cow be said to be created in the Image of Jiraf since both has a face, and four legs?

“And there is none co-equal or comparable unto Him.” (Quran 112:4)

"No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision. God is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things" (Qur'an 6:103)

"Nothing is like him in anyway," [Quran 42:11].

You are desperately trying to justify a clear contradiction. Well, did you read Sahih Muslim Hadith number 6809? The biggest nonsense is that this hadith even says even the length of Allah is 60 cubits!!!

"Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created Adam in His own image with His length of sixty cubits......"


Well, you will now claim that "His length" refers to length of Adam without reference to God. 'His' in that sentence can only refer to Allah. "His" or "him" when capitalized in the middle of a sentence ALWAYS refer to God. You can check all translations.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamen....html#040.6809
http://www.quraan.com/index.aspx?tab...4&bid=1&cid=41
http://www.searchtruth.com/book_disp...30&number=6807
http://www.islamicpulse.com/hadith/s...40_number_6809
http://www.islam-universe.com/Saheeh_Muslim/40.htm


You will now start shouting all translators have wrongly translated the hadith as "His length" instead of "his length" and that only idiots will rely on English translations!!! Please do the homework first before again calling my post as nonsense!

Actually the idea of man being in God's own image is taken from the first book of the Bible;

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

"This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God." (Genesis 5:1)

The ides of man being in God's image goes against the method as well as the Message of the Qur'an. It is problematic because (a) it invites arrogance on the part of people who adhere to this notion (b) it is blasphemious to liken Almighty God to His creation and such an utterance will be equal to 'assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing, whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall to ruins' (19:88)

“There is nothing like Him; and He is the All-Hearer, the All-Seer.”(42: 11)

Not only did Abu Huraira never hear the Final Messenger say any such outdated and convoluted nonsense that contradicted both his method and message, but also that Abu Huraira would never report such a blasphemy. It was not beyond the "intelligence" of those who objected to the Final Messenger's mission, to fabricate both hadiths and isnads too, once they found out how they were verified. These are the people who would be described as hypocrites in the Qur'an. We cannot pretend they did not or do not exist because if that were the case the Qur'an would never have mentioned them so often.

Wassalam

[optimist]

Dear brother salman, could you change the title of the thread to something else like, 'theological detox program for optimist' or 'Deconstructing revisionist vitriol' (taken from the comments from brother Al boriqee)....or any other less offensive words?

Thanks & Wassalam

[bordi]

A reasonable request

[Abdul-Fattah]

Selam aleykum
While I agree with the points the members are making against optimist, I also agree with optimist that we should refrain from insulting. I didn't step in before, because I didn't want to get caught in-between this madness. But seeing this request I went ahead and changed the title of the thread.

[optimist]

Wassalam,
Thanks a lot. I only wanted a fair treatment. And actually I do not think brother Salman had anything against me also. He acted on the spur of the moment. I do not have any wrong intention in the forum. I am fully aware that whatever I say and post in this forum, I will be answerable to Allah.

[al-boriqee]

Originally Posted by optimist

Salam,

You are keeping on calling my posts as nonsense. I will say the above statement is a blasphemy and the biggest nonsense!!!

of course, because you don't have detailed knowledge of Islamic doctrine

From where did you get the reasoning there are some similarities but not exactly the same?

Based on the Qur'an. If you can't understand that, then I suggest you go back and learn the basics of speech. When Allah said He has hands, eyes, this that or the other, and then He says "laysa kamithlihi shay" then that ENTAILS by default of logic that there is a similitude in the expression without a similutude in HOWNESS or Physical likeness. This is how both claims from Allah Himself mentioned in the Qur'an are reconciled. If you can't understand this basic aspect of language, then you my friend need to go back to learn these basics before you embark on an intellectual journey far greater than this, like speaking on islamic doctrine and the science of hadeeth. Because this is upheld by basic human logic, then the following comment has no basis and hence needs no reply

Using the same logic, what will happen if someone comes up with an arguement that since a monkey has a face, hands and legs, and also Allah also has a face, an eye, a hand, and a foot (Allah forbid), a monkey is created in the image of Allah? Since a mouse has face, legs can we say a mouse is created in the image of a Lion? Can a cow be said to be created in the Image of Jiraf since both has a face, and four legs?

no need for reply

“And there is none co-equal or comparable unto Him.” (Quran 112:4)

"No vision can grasp Him, but His grasp is over all vision. God is above all comprehension, yet is acquainted with all things" (Qur'an 6:103)

"Nothing is like him in anyway," [Quran 42:11].

no need for comment

You are desperately trying to justify a clear contradiction.

A contradiction based on your lack of knowledge that you espouse and articulate. Just because you are clearly ignorant of how the Qur'an is to be understood, infact even in plain ignorance of simple basic arabic, much less other aspects of usool, then all of these together create the fallacies you hold about Islam, the Qur'an, and the sunnah that have been enshrined in hadeeth. When Allah saysvHe has Hands, Eyes, Sees, or whatever, and then He says "laysa kamithlihi shay", to an ignorant person, this is a contradiction. This is why we accuse ahlul-kalaam (jahmiyyah, mutazilah, ash'aris, maturidis) of ignorance because since their minds were convoluted under the science of philosophy, their backwards logic could not understand this contradiction, hence this is why find ash'ari and mutazili theologians claiming that the Qur'an contains blatant kufr and tashbeeh (anthropomorphism) because their minds could not reconcile the two SEEMINGLY contradictions Allah brought forth in His book. You on the other hand operate on the same paradigm but instead of having the guts to call the Qur'an to have contradicting paradoxes, you simply pass it off to hadeeth literature instead of applying the same usool you hold for the Qur'an and applying them to Hadeeth as well, logically because both eminate from the same source i.e. the messenger of Allah, and both being entrusted by Allah in the hands of men and not in the hands of the prophet. The same narrators that brought you your Qur'an, are the same people who brought to you these hadeeth that you have problems with.

Well, did you read Sahih Muslim Hadith number 6809? The biggest nonsense is that this hadith even says even the length of Allah is 60 cubits!!!

I know what it says

"Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) as saying: Allah, the Exalted and Glorious, created Adam in His own image with His length of sixty cubits......"


Well, you will now claim that "His length" refers to length of Adam without reference to God. 'His' in that sentence can only refer to Allah. "His" or "him" when capitalized in the middle of a sentence ALWAYS refer to God. You can check all translations.

I know you will try to refute the argument that they mistranslated it, so let me quote this argument, and then prove what happened by basic arabic.

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamen....html#040.6809
http://www.quraan.com/index.aspx?tab...4&bid=1&cid=41
http://www.searchtruth.com/book_disp...30&number=6807
http://www.islamicpulse.com/hadith/s...40_number_6809
Sahih Muslim, KITAB AL-JANNAT WA SIFAT NA'IMIHA WA AHLIHA

You will now start shouting all translators have wrongly translated the hadith as "His length" instead of "his length" and that only idiots will rely on English translations!!! Please do the homework first before again calling my post as nonsense!

I don;t need to do the homework because I already know what happened.

Actually the idea of man being in God's own image is taken from the first book of the Bible;

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." (Genesis 1:27)

"This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day when God created man, He made him in the likeness of God." (Genesis 5:1)

Thats great. The Bible also says that God created Adam from dust and to it he shall return.

The ides of man being in God's image goes against the method as well as the Message of the Qur'an

Not really, but let us hear this explanation

It is problematic because (a) it invites arrogance on the part of people who adhere to this notion

Gee, I wonder how this arrogance was created based on this text. I never came across anyone who inherently was arrogant using this idea as proof for his arrogance. Strange how normal human logic seems not to coincide with yours.

(b) it is blasphemious to liken Almighty God to His creation and such an utterance will be equal to 'assuredly ye utter a disastrous thing, whereby almost the heavens are torn, and the earth is split asunder and the mountains fall to ruins' (19:88)

We know it is blasphemous, that is why people who have a corrupt thinking like yourself accused the Qur'an of revealing blasphemies. The only difference between you and them is that they had more courage to say it than you.

Not only did Abu Huraira never hear the Final Messenger say any such outdated and convoluted nonsense

oh really, so were you there. Did you hear Abu Hurayra tell you this. were you his student. I think I would place my trust in his direct students than to place my trust in you, whose only proof for this claim is your awkward and distorted reasoning, again all of it being fueled by a compounded ignorance of what the Qur'an and its explainer, the sunnah, enshrined in hadeeth.

that contradicted both his method and message

So I guess when the Messenger of Allah revealed from the Qur'an that Allah created Adam with His two Hands, that the messenger contradicted the Qur'an or that Allah revealed an inconsistency. This is the basic implication of your reasoning whether your logic can grasp this or not.

but also that Abu Huraira would never report such a blasphemy.

How do you know. Were you his student. Again, what tangible proof do you have to make this remark. Unlike you, the Muslims follow what we know as proofs or evidences, we don't follow hear say.

It was not beyond the "intelligence" of those who objected to the Final Messenger's mission, to fabricate both hadiths and isnads too, once they found out how they were verified.

Again, this is a result of your fundamental ignorance of how isnaad works. Part of knowing the validity of hadeeths are complete biographical data of each single narrator, a science you may have never even heard of up until now. With that being said, the basic science of the isnaad WAS SET UP in such a way that whatever was injected as a narration was easy to cipher out. The only way I can explain this to you in a manner you may comprehend is a statement made by one of the Imaams about Abu Sawud. This Imaam said that
"Allah made hadeeth easy (to work with, tangibility) in the hands of Imaam Abu Dawud as Allah made iron easy (to work with, tangibility) in the hands of Prophet Dawud"

The point is that the scenario you have just described about how people could have created and injected hadeeth using an isnaad has been weeded out by the isnaad itself. Thats how we know what hadeeths are authentic or not. Your argument would have a ground in reality had this science never been formulated.

To complete the matter for you, I believe it was Sufyaan ath-Thawri who said
"This science raises the truthful, and it debases the problematic one"

In other words, the way the science was structured was set up in such a way that what was fabricated was not only SPOTTED, but the narrator himself was also spotted and rejected. and to close the doors to this science as a seal to perfect methodology of authenticatorship, they even rejected reports from unknowns. In other words, if a narrator has no biographical data about him where the truthful can verify his affair, then narrations that have such a person in it have also been disparaged.

i guess the only way for you to comprehend this subject more in depth is if you took a basic course of mustalah al-hadeeth in order to understand the multi-faceted factors that most Muslims on the planet understand on basics terms which is why the understand hadeeth as preserved along with the Qur'an.

What amazes us muslims even more is how you apply on form of discipline and logic to the Qur'an whenever you come across a seemingly apparent contradiction, but fail to apply it as well to another source that comes form the same reference point.

These are the people who would be described as hypocrites in the Qur'an.

Of course, and that is why the Imaams have identified who these people are and have labelled them as "dajjal". So with that being said, you are not bringing anything new to the table that has not already been elucidated for centuries before your existence.

We cannot pretend they did not or do not exist because if that were the case the Qur'an would never have mentioned them so often.

Wassalam

we know that they exist. We have entire collections of books dedicated to the topic. You can even read some of their biographical dat if you want to. You can even know which hadeeth were fabricated. All of this has been exposed, concluded, and sealed centuries before your arrival to existence. Again, your not bringing anything new to the table.

as an advise ot the benefit of your own soul, I suggest you learn Islam, don't learn Parwizism so that way you can accurately identify problems rather than insinuate problems that in reality don't exist, or were already treated.

oh, and uh lastly, as for the mistranslation of these translators, from the arabic perspective the term

صورته

in the construction of the sentence in the textual reports, the grammarians argued that since the prophet (being the master of arabic) organized the construction of the phrase as "Allah created Adam in his own image" with the phrase

خلقللة آدم

the grammarians argued that due to the rules of arabic, whenever there is an object being described (in this case Adam) then the descripter, when it ends with "hu" in this case sooratuHU, it refers back to the last ism (noun) that was referred to and not to any noun (ism) before it.
Since Adam was the final ism (noun, entity) being referred to before the utterance "sooratuhu", then the grammarians argued that the "hu" in soorah refers back GRAMMATICALLY to Adam and it oppose basic jaahili Arabic principles to refer it back to a previous entity, in this case "Allah"

In short speak, the phrase
"khalaqallahu Adam bi sooratuhu"

the objective pronoun "hu" in soorah is referring back to the final chronologically listed ism (noun) which in this case is Adam and does not refer back to a previous ism before the chronological final ism, in this case "Allah"

This is the reasoning of most of the grammarians an it seems that the ummah generally fell into two general ideas about this hadeeth, which is that

1. they followed the grammarians in their argument and thus they never had any qualms with the hadeeth as they grammatically knew what was being referred to by "in his own image"
and
2. those who did opine that he was created to the image of Allah UNDERSTOOD the narration in light of what the orthodox theologians I have listed above have explained, which is perfectly understandable when reviewing the Qur'an between the ayaah that convey no likeness and between other ayaah that Allah uses terminologies that imply likeness and we affirm these names with their basic meaning, but relegate the aspect of its howness to the Lord of the worlds.

Both of these ideas were what the Muslims remained upon till now, and the Muslims never in the history of fourteen centuries never fell into those awkward ideas you posed as to what such a concept would bring forth i.e. arrogance.

[salman]

regarding the issue of title of this thread

I am in no position to question anyone's intentions but I cannot stomach optimist's speech by laying back. And the following is not directed to anyone personally

Allah has made us a balanced nation so let us be fair and just. The title of thread was to expose the kufri speech of optimist and NOT insulting him personally because as far I am concerned we have given him enough benefit of doubt and being ignorant. If he and others found the title to be offensive then it makes me wonder why his speech is not found to be offensive which is crystal clear mockery of speech of Allah and His Messenger (sal-allahu alayhi wa sallam)? Which is btw against the rules and he can be banned for life. I don't see a resonable request being made or voice is raised when optimist made mockery of Allah's Book and speech of His Messenger (sal-allahu alayhi wa sallam) to ask him to remove his certain comment and apologize to everyone in public. What happened when he called the ahadith nonsense? Are so called personal insults greater than the insults of Allah's deen?

What do you think Umar ibn al-Khattaab (radiAllahu anho) would have done when someone insulted the speech of Allah's Messenger (sal-allahu alayhi wa sallam) and his companion (radiAllahu anho)? We are too worried about our personal rights but we turn blind eye when it comes to the rights of Allah and His Messenger (sal-allahu alayhi wa sallam) and the sahabas (radiAllahu anhuma)

Originally Posted by Abdul-Fattah

Selam aleykum

wa'alaykum as-salam akhi al-kareem

Originally Posted by Abdul-Fattah

I also agree with optimist that we should refrain from insulting.

no one insulted him personally - calling his arguments and speech nonsense doesn't constitute as an insult. And if it does then his speech is more dangerous and as a result our reaction is reasonable.

Originally Posted by Abdul-Fattah

I didn't step in before, because I didn't want to get caught in-between this madness.

I don't know akhi what do you mean by madness but let us be careful of what we say.

Originally Posted by Abdul-Fattah

But seeing this request I went ahead and changed the title of the thread.

that is fine, insha'Allah. however, the title is still wrong because it is giving a message as if the board members have monoply over al-Islam or we present a different understanding. I am going to change it slightly.

[al-boriqee]

even though I share the same sentiment with what others said regarding the rewording of the thread, I lean towards the sentiments of Salman and the intricate realities he has professed more so than I do for the thread title.

if the honor of the deen has no precedence over the self, then be prepared to face scrutiny of others against yourself. That was always my philosophy

Im glad you pointed this out akhee Salman