Let me start with that Islam is a complete system of life and is taken as a whole. Which of these two versions you think Islam is? Which one is the Quraan supported version?
I don't know. Different Muslims and Islamic websites have told me different things. Different verses of the Qur'an can be used to support each version.
Which one is the one that Allah, the All Merciful wants us to follow?
The all-merciful God would want us to follow the second.
Well this is the most complex question one would ask.
Allah knows everything that a person would do because He is the one who created us. He knows who will obey and who will not. He knows who will open the door and who will close the door. However this is not to be confused to the person's ability to choose, but still God knows what you will choose.
It is like when you offer your child to choose between going to the cinema or going to the beach. You know what he will choose because he's your child and that is how well you know him. So we know how our children thinks, and we only gave birth to them. Allah is our Creator and He knows us better we know ourselves.
Thank you, this is pretty much identical to the Christian position (Calvinist heresy notwithstanding).
Here are some verses as you requested
6:104 There has come to you enlightenment from your Lord. So whoever will see does so for [the benefit of] his soul, and whoever is blind [does harm] against it. And [say], "I am not a guardian over you."
2:286 Allah does not charge a soul except [with that within] its capacity. It will have [the consequence of] what [good] it has gained, and it will bear [the consequence of] what [evil] it has earned. . . .
13:11 For each one are successive [angels] before and behind him who protect him by the decree of Allah . Indeed, Allah will not change the condition of a people until they change what is in themselves. And when Allah intends for a people ill, there is no repelling it. And there is not for them besides Him any patron.
17: Whoever should desire the immediate - We hasten for him from it what We will to whom We intend. Then We have made for him Hell, which he will [enter to] burn, censured and banished.
18 But whoever desires the Hereafter and exerts the effort due to it while he is a believer - it is those whose effort is ever appreciated [by Allah ].
19 To each [category] We extend - to these and to those - from the gift of your Lord. And never has the gift of your Lord been restricted.
. . .
41:46 Whoever does righteousness - it is for his [own] soul; and whoever does evil [does so] against it. And your Lord is not ever unjust to [His] servants.
2:256 There shall be no compulsion in [acceptance of] the religion. . . .
18:29 And say, "The truth is from your Lord, so whoever wills - let him believe; and whoever wills - let him disbelieve." . . .
Thank you, those verses sound agreeable. One question I have though, is this: Whenever I decide to go to quranexplorer.com to listen to the Qur'an being recited (sometimes the mood strikes me, and I find the chanting to be very relaxing), I always come to the beginning passages from Surah al-Baqarah, and the two ones that make me raise my eyebrows go like this:
As for the Disbelievers, Whether thou warn them or thou warn them not it is all one for them; they believe not. (6) Allah hath sealed their hearing and their hearts, and on their eyes there is a covering. Theirs will be an awful doom.
(16) Their similitude is that of a man who kindled a fire; when it lighted all around him, Allah took away their light and left them in utter darkness so they could not see. (17) Deaf, dumb, and blind, they will not return (to the path). (18) Or (another similitude) is that of a rain-laden cloud from the sky; in it are zones of darkness, and thunder and lightning they press their fingers in their ears to keep out the stunning thunder-clap, the while they are in terror of death. But Allah is ever round the rejecters of Faith! (19) The lightning all but snatches away their sight; every time the light (helps) them, they walk therein and when the darkness grows on them, they stand still. And if Allah willed, He could take away their faculty of hearing and seeing; for Allah hath power over all things.
When I read the first part, it strikes me very much as if Allah has hardened the hearts of the disbelievers so that they will not believe, and has doomed them to Hell. Is it not Allah's will that all be saved? And in the second part, it sounds to me like Allah punishes those who say they believe but don't, and instead of guiding them, He confuses and disorients them.
Well believe me one I say I don't pay attention to labels and I don't really know who are they and what they stand for.
Basically, they were a school of Islam that developed in the 900's that emphasized dialogue and reason to deal with matters of the faith. They taught that mankind had complete free will, and Allah didn't force them into anything, unlike some other schools of Islam that stressed Allah's sovereignty to the point where humanity had no free will at all.
Well I don't recall a verse a particular verse in the Quraan that states that, nor I recall that there is a verse that says that God hates us, but there are many verses talking about rewards. Would you rewards someone of you don't love him?
Fair enough. The Christian Bible makes it very explicit that God loves us, and that God is love. Love is easily the most important thing in Christianity, whereas it seems that submission to Allah is the most important thing in Islam (hence the name).
Two hadith I recall and they are stuck in my memory are:
Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "If Allah loves a person, He calls Gabriel saying, 'Allah loves so and-so; O Gabriel! Love him.' Gabriel would love him and make an announcement amongst the inhabitants of the Heaven. 'Allah loves so-and-so, therefore you should love him also,' and so all the inhabitants of the Heaven would love him, and then he is granted the pleasure of the people on the earth."
"My servant draws not near to Me with anything more loved by Me than the religious duties I have enjoined upon him, and My servant continues to draw near to Me with supererogatory works so that I shall love him.
"When I love him I am his hearing with which he hears, his seeing with which he sees, his hand with which he strikes and his foot with which he walks.
"Were he to ask [something] of Me, I would surely give it to him, and were he to ask Me for refuge, I would surely grant him it. I do not hesitate about anything as much as I hesitate about [seizing] the soul of My faithful servant: he hates death and I hate hurting him."
These are very nice hadith. I understand that a hadith cannot be considered valid if it contradicts the Qur'an. Can a Muslim pick and choose which hadith he/she decides to accept?
Can you point these to me in the Quraan?
Almost all of them are in Surah 5.
And behold! Allah will say: "O Jesus the son of Mary! Didst thou say unto men, 'Take me and my mother for two gods beside Allah'?" He will say: "Glory to Thee! Never could I say what I had no right (to say). Had I said such a thing thou wouldst indeed have known it. Thou knowest what is in my heart, though I know not what in Thine. For Thou knowest in full all that is hidden. [Qur'an 5:116]
^The problem with this is that the Qur'an claims that we Christians believe that Mary and Jesus are two gods besides Allah. We do not. Mary is a normal human who was exalted and greatly honored for her cooperation with God. And Christians say that Jesus is one Allah with the Father and the Holy Spirit--in fact, Antiochian Orthodox Christians will always say "In the name of the Father and of the Son (i.e. Jesus) and of the Holy Spirit,
one God. (or, if you prefer, one Allah)."
Another problematic verse is this one:
They do blaspheme who say: Allah is one of three in a Trinity: for there is no god except One Allah. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy), verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them. (5:73)
^Again, Christians do not say that Allah is one of three in a Trinity. Allah IS the three of the Trinity, and the three of the Trinity are one Allah, one in essence and undivided.
And then there's the part about Ezra:
The Jews call `Uzair a son of Allah, and the Christians call Christ the son of Allah. That is the saying from their mouth; (In this) they are intimate; what the Unbelievers of the old used to say. Allah's curse be on them: how they are deluded away from the truth. (Qur'an 9:30)
The thing is, no Jew that I've ever heard of, either from the present or from the past, has ever said any such thing. This would be blasphemy in Judaism, and strictly forbidden. Unless one can prove that there was a group of heretical Jews that called Ezra the Son of God, this verse is completely wrong. At the very least, it is partially wrong, because the vast majority of Jews do not believe this, nor have they ever believed it.
I don't find it laughable because through out the bible, you can see contradictions of teachings and I think that is what majority tries to prove when they follow that approach.
I was more talking about stuff like Muhammad being the Holy Spirit that Jesus promised, or the claim that the Holy Spirit from Matthew 1:18 is the angel Gabriel.
Watched 'em.
