Musings, ruminations, thoughts and discussions on life & living, music, religion, politics, love, philosophy, and all other eccentricities of this sort.
The Muslim declaration of faith (Shahadah = testimony, and from the same root as ‘shaheed’ which you can roughly translate as ‘martyr’) runs thus: “There is no divinity but Allah, Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah”. At one time I used to wonder about this — question why we took the name of the Prophet alongside that of God. Why, if we submitted to God, did we have to declare our allegiance to a man chosen by God to spread the word? It felt almost like ‘shirk’ to me (the association of partners with God).
Eventually I came to accept this as the best summation of our religion of Islam. We submitted wholly to Allah in the ‘latest format’ as preached by Muhammad 
. It suddenly made sense to me. We simply declared our worship of Allah and how it related to the final message delivered to the Seal of the Prophets.
But then I read this today, and some of the old thoughts (…and doubts) came flooding back:
Yiddishe Kopf
Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: USA Posts: 5,048
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From this Jewish perspective, the elevation of prophets, and in Islam,
specifically of Muhammed, to a "superhuman" status (sinless, perfect, etc.)--the
elevation of his name to be said adjacent to Allah/G-d in the Muslim's
declaration of faith (i.e. "There is no god but G-d and Muhammed is His
prophet"), the examples of world-riots and deaths through perceived "insult" to
a man, even a revered man of G-d, is "associating partners with G-d",
is "worship", is blasphemous ("shirk"). Regardless of what is
claimed to the contrary, the actions of Muslims define their beliefs (which is
true of all human beings). |
Always doubts. My entire life seems plagued with one consistency only: Doubt about everything. Does my entire life, my whole being, my religious feelings, my love for my family, my fiancée, my belief in myself… does all of it centre on an empty void of Doubt? Does everything = Doubt to me?
So it turns out that edicts issued by scholars of my religion, Islam, condemn my twin interests, that of boxing and chess, as ‘haraam’ (forbidden). After long discussion on one particular forum, someone concluded that the Prophet himself condemned any ‘sport’ which involved hitting the face, but endorsed wrestling.
My comments asking for further clarification re: the rules of and reasons behind wrestling have received no response. Almost a week later. Hmmm… (“Things that make you go—”)
Quote: Originally Posted by Peacenik  True wrestling … does not involve harmful injury to the other party. |
Then what does it involve? Getting sweaty and touching other men, lying on top of them? True wrestling involves strikes and submission holds — all of which cause injury to the other party, or at least intended injury in order to force the other party to tap out or end up so beaten they can’t tap out (eg striking them to a point that you can pin them).
It is not the eyes that are blind, but the hearts (22:46)
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I saw this hilarious trailer on YouTube for a purported horror film from New Zealand called Black Sheep. I can’t tell if this film actually exists, or if someone made a riotously fantastic spoof of horror films in advert forms, but I love it! Were–sheep yet! The mind boggles…
My email service conducts regular quizzes, which we can take part in or ignore. Today’s asked if we take any sugar in our cuppas and if so how many. I picked zero: I stopped taking sugar in my tea many years ago. 48% of 1598 who voted do likewise. That makes more than 767 people!
I go to see lostprophets and Taking Back Sunday in concert tonight in Manchester. I can’t wait — I adore both of these bands, and get mocked by my Metalhead mates who despise them both. Awesome!
