Saturday, January 15, 2011

ABC Islam - Book Introduction


I am a "Muslim" with deep knowledge of personal development and human nature sciences who traveled a lot and then re-read the Koran throughout 25 years, and reached results contrary to what we are used to and what we hear from the clergymen all the time. I learned recently that some Muslims agree with me on some of these Quranic discoveries, so I tried to reach you and discuss my discoveries in the Quran, which may be the beginning of cultural exchange between us if you feel like me that there is some error in our current understanding of the Islamic religion that led to the injury of the Islamic community with negative diseases lightest of which is depression, and most recent, sexual harassment. I'm not keeping a secret that these Quranic interpretations may be quite shocking for they are completely new and liberal and most of them did not come up for discussion and research yet, however I feel that some people have the basic knowledge to go into those topics which will not be accepted by mainstream Muslims, particularly Sunnis, because they are more prevalent category of Muslims and most of them believe that Prophet Muhammad was the first who came with Islam and not Prophet Abraham. Actually the meaning of the word "Islam" in my book does not mean that of Muhammadian Sunni Muslims or Shiaa Muslims or any other, it is a different Islam; the one Abraham came with, which God named "Islam of Abraham" in the Quran, and the books I use in this Islam are Quran, Bible and Torah, and reaching reconciliation with the Jews and Christians does not make us reverting to their religion, for God urges us to be kind and justly to them in 60.8 and refer to them in history issues as in . You might wonder if I am a Sunni or not, I'll tell you I do not belong to parties because I am a mix of cultures and different approaches originating from the Quran and Bible together, and I hope we would all come back to believe in the Torah and the Gospels as Muslims and believe in the correction of what might have been altered of them according to what had been corrected in the Koran, which did not leave a small or great, but acknowledged it.
The ideas that revolve in my mind are not necessarily all convincing, but I invite you to reflect on and communicate with me through the pages of my book in a brainstorming session thinking differently yet not necessarily subscribing to or adopting the ideas or embracing a specific ideology. Let me also invite you to chat deeper and wider through the pages of this book on topics of concern to us and others we believe are not of concern to us because they are already well known facts, touching the taboos of the trilogy: religion, sex and politics. And during this chat you may see me agree with a group of Muslims that Muhammad (PBUH) came to call people to the religion of Abraham, which is the religion of the one God revealed to Moses and Jesus, too, and not a new religion, and that people were originally built to worship God but they ascribed to it or got deluded. I want to make it clear that following a worshiping method or another does not make you right in absolute and makes all the others in the manifest, but makes you different only in that you worship God in this way, and I wish you would achieve happiness and paradise following this way, for I believe that unless provided in the Quran it is up to humans to choose what suits them, and what was transferred over ages is not obligatory if the Quran text did not mention. For example, the prayers; Sunnis pray five times a day, but you can pray in another way that you want and at other times agreeing with the two ends of the day and some hours of the night as instructed in 11.114. And thus the Christian prayer is accepted, and also said the Jewish prayer, in case they wash up for prayer.
With regard to women, I completely agree with the view that the headscarf is not of Islam, and I think that it is an invention which infanticide girls as our usual practice, and which is not a duty for the woman, whether following the example of women of the Prophet as they are as none of the women as mentioned in 33.32, or as if women's monasticism and God's opinion in monasticism is clear in 57.27, and that when God commanded the women to apply a veil, He was directing his command to the nursing women to cover their breasts with a scarf while nursing their babies, and we will discuss the interpretation of the verses during our chat in the chapter of "Women" of this book. And I went further that God approved for men and women an open sex life in which practice is advised as in 4.3, and knowing that advisory opinions in sex often end up to differences in views and interpretations according to tendencies of the interpreter and the society in which he grew in, and so they always remain a grey area, yet I see it is time we verify the contemporary interpretation of the term "Bondswomen" or "Right Hand Possess" as I cannot imagine that God has permitted men to marry slave women or war captives without the will of them. And in my opinion I think that sex life in the West is marched by the concept of "one woman or what your right hands possess" in 4.3; for "what your right hand possesses" is a term referring to the girlfriend or the virgin girl who starts her sexual relationship with her boyfriend with the knowledge of her parents, and therefore the difference between Bondswomen/Right Hand Possess and Fortified/Trenched in 4.25 is the difference between Miss and Madam, for the girl does not become an adult but only after her "entrenchment" after experiencing sex, else it hinders the growth of her mentality and so for men as well. As we will see in the book, the term "entrenchment" which we understand as "chastity" means "saturation" of sexual desire not the "abstinence" of it. This misconception makes Muslim men and women rise somewhat sexually conservative to the point of ignorance, which together with Spinsterhood and Platonic love are the most important causes of the disfigured Arab identity. So, either we apply the marriage polygamy by two and three and four; which is something not easy because it is dependent on willing wives and occurs for justice for women, or instead apply marriage of one woman or the least a virgin girl as in 4.25. I do find it important we apply the early practice of the later solution together with reducing the age of sex practice or "boy and girlfriend" relation as in 4.6 and to raise the age of reproduction as in the West. As for adultery, it is well known in all religions; it is the betrayal of a married wife to her husband and is a major crime and is unacceptable to the West and the East together and may seek refuge in Allah as with Joseph, and God forbids it describing it as immoral lewdness and an evil way as in 17.32. It is worth mentioning that the crime of incitement to immorality means incitement to prostitution, which is having sex without discrimination, but what we are discussing here is the human nature and desire, and the world around us Muslims mostly get married only for love in order to raise a family and not to start their sex life as we do, and for them marriage is not a financial deal with expensive dowries, so you will find that by instinct our community has invented many kinds of discreet sexual "partnership" without reproduction or "Safe Sex" meaning fornication or what God calls " lewdness " and is obscene, however it is different completely from adultery. It is the sex under the names of "common law marriage", orfi and misyar and fun marriage and also cohabitation and the like, as alternative to the present marriage of excessive hardships, and that happens because a group of people no longer believe that love is a sin, at least for God. Actually people invented lewdness, while the matter can be resolved by the knowledge of the parents, especially in the case of virginity as in 4.25, and it will only happen if we get convinced that God does not forbid sex. On the contrary, in 3.14 He makes it allowed lust just like children, gold, silver, cars and planes, but with no adultery, prostitution or "incest" which is masturbation while married. So the solution lies in allowing our girls to "marry" several times starting their teenage, and only give birth with the one they desire out of their multiple marriages, for 4.25 and also 66.5 prove that God discriminates between women and girls, ranking the experienced women as better choice for marriage than virgins.
Also, there are some interpretations of the Quranic terms such as "the orphans and the poor", a term that God intended "your wives and your children" and not literally orphans and poor, and God therefore says in 4.3 that in case of the fear not to deal justly with the "wives", marry the women of your choice, two or three, or four. And says that, if present at the division of inheritance first kin and your wives and your children, distribute it among them, and tells us, therefore, that charity money is for the love of kin and "our women and our children" and all the poor, including orphans and "the poor trodden" and orphanages and so on. This concept changes our perspective on things like feeding the poor, which is a child or to sponsor an orphan who is a woman.
I touched on in the book as well the idea of death and heaven, paradise and hell, with my faith in the unseen and the best of our knowledge about the spirit is only a little as in 17.85, I agree with a category which considers that for man there are two lives, and I think more is possible because 40.11 "Our Lord! Twice hast Thou made us die, and twice hast Thou made us live" may be relative pending knowing whether death or life precedes the other. I imagine that the man after he dies is born again in earthly conditions rewarded by God for his acts in a previous life, he is in the new life a son of the King of Sweden, "Heaven", or a child of famine in the" hell" of Somalia or a poor engineer overcome in Egypt, and therefore God affirms that the blind and the deaf are not alike with the seer and the hearer; a fate theory known as Karma. And a man has the right to maintain that heaven by his work in that world, or he comes out of it as the out of Adam, and so for hell. And this often occurs at the age of forty in every life when a man peaks as in 46.15, and remains the everlasting cycle of life and death, even after the Day of Resurrection named Olam HaBa in Judaism. The theory is based on the principle of transmigration of souls, reincarnation, and the Koran promoted it in many places, notably in 2.28 "How can ye reject the faith in Allah?- seeing that ye were without life, and He gave you life; then will He cause you to die, and will again bring you to life; and again to Him will ye return." We will come to the explanations concerning heaven and the afterlife and the unseen generally in the book.
There are also interesting things in this book one should know as a Muslim, as the name of God. Allah's name is Arrahman and it is the name which was called by God in his Surah in the Quran and He calls us "Slaves of Arrahman", not the Beneficent God. And all the prophets loud that name, an example of Mary who vowed to fast unto Arrahman in , and God says in 17.110 Allah call me or call me Arrahman, both are my sublime names, for the word Allah to the Arabs has the meaning of God, who is the same God named Yahweh or YHVH in Judaism and described as The Almighty and they call him G-d out of respect and sacredness. And his name in Christianity is Jehovah or JHVH and they call him God, and described as their Father in Heaven, and his name in Islam is Arrahman or Arra7man. And we say In the name of Allah, Arrahman, the Merciful we have described, and we thank Arrahman on this because there are people who worshiped him described as the" Avenger". Also addressing the conflicts between different religions, I am with a class of Muslims and Jews and Christians of opinion that the Bible quoted to us that the sacrifice Son was Isaac not Ishmael, and the Koran did not want to correct this as it did in the stories of Jesus or Moses, it stated only that Abraham was talking with his son and did not note Ishmael, unlike the verses of building the Holy Kaaba that mention Ishmael by name. The fact that the sacrifice is Isaac does not make the cattle offering or slaughtering a Jewish duty instead of Islamic, it will remain a holiday for the Muslims and an obligation of Hajj, because Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Ishmael, Moses, Jesus and Muhammad were all following the same "Religion of God" which we will call in this book "Islam of Abraham" according to the Quran. The ideas and interpretations throughout the pages of my book may take us to think together how to get the broader concept of the Religion of God, which can accommodate all of us, sinners and committed, decorous manner and liberated, rich and poor, east or west, Muslims, Christians or Jews. My name is Wessam Muhammad Abraham, or Ibrahim, a communications engineer and I do not want any glory, I just want to chat with people to increase my knowledge, and be able to become religious as favored by Arrahman, adopting the natural religion, a religion of instinct, a religion that is not fanatic of Muhammad or Jesus or Moses, but the Religion of Ibrahim, the upright and was not of the idolaters.
Wessam Abraham (talk) 02:46, 19 November 2010 (UTC)