Messages

Hi Ters,

I take it you mean your parents have passed away and you saw them?  I am really interested in this because my parents passed away and I would give anything to talk to them again.  I just started reading a lot about OBE's, but I read a lot about near-death experiences right after they passed away.  I had never heard of OBE's until I was traveling lately and listening to a radio show and a talk show was interviewing some man and he was talking about OBE's. It really caught my attention when he said that when you dream you are flying, it is real, and then he talked about how your body will sometimes be paralyzed.  Both of these things had happened to me and I had no idea what was going on.  They were both so real, though, I always thought they were very different experiences from just a dream.

I haven't tried any OBE's yet, mainly, because I'm afraid to.  I figured I'd read more about them first and some of things I have read have scared me a little.  As I recall, something was chasing me when I had the paralyzing experience and I couldn't get back into my body.  But I have got to do this so I can maybe talk to my mom and dad.  You said your mom spoke to you, but you didn't say what she said.  Could you tell us a little bit more about your experience? 

lol sorry:P But I got this article from an email on myspace so I really had no idea whom the other was!

Jeehad, Islam/Muslims are associated with terrorism/violence because there are thousands of people going around calling themselves Muslims who say they are fighting and killing in the name of Islam. They aren't just bombing a certain place and not only doing it a few times as others you mentioned. There are Muslims fighting in about 20 of the 22 armed conflicts in the world today. We hear of Muslims killing on a daily basis, and our media and politicians do not even mention half of these killings. All religions have had cults formed in the name of their religion. These Muslim terrorists/extremists have formed the biggest cult the world has ever known in the name of your religion, Islam. It isn't because of our politicians or our media. In fact, our politicians constantly tell us not all Muslims are terrorists/extremists. It's what we see with our own eyes all over the world every single day that is causing Muslims/Islam to be associated with terrorism/violence. If peaceful Muslims would finally get that right, then maybe they could do something about these terrorists who have hijacked your religion. But stop blaming it on everyone else but the people who are actually saying they are killing innocent people in the name of your religion.

"And also the US has the fastest growing population of muslims in the entire world ...who is forcing them to convert??"

No, the US does NOT have the fastest growing population of Muslims in the entire world. In fact, there are very few Americans who have converted to Islam. Also, seven out of ten westerners who convert to Islam leave soon thereafter.  They tried to do a consensus on how many Muslims there are in the USA, but the members of CAIR wanted to lie about the numbers and would not allow them to do it because they wanted to do it by not counting children and by going by how many attended mosque/church every week, not by how many are on the books, because no one is ever taken off the books once they convert to Islam. Also, since Islam says to kill apostates, no one screams it out when they leave Islam.  The Reader's Digest you got this from was written a long time ago, probably close in time to the civil rights movement when a lot of blacks converted to Islam, and I forgot how it was done, but it wasn't accurate. Islam may still be the fastest growing religion in the world, but I seriously doubt it. It's mainly because all children born into a Muslim home automatically become Muslims and because Muslims multiply about five times more than average people. The Palestinian refugees are the fastest growing population in the world. Also, hardly any Muslims will leave Islam in the Islamic countries because they are afraid of being killed. But tens of thousand convert to Christianity in China and in Africa today. Also, there are more underground churches being built in the Islamic countries than in any other time known of in history. I got this information from a show on Al Jazeera, by the way.

As far as Islam's history, well, there are many ways to, let's say urge people to convert to a religion. One way would be to make them pay taxes they cannot afford. Another way would be to conquer a country, then make your religion that country's religion. People do not like being left out. I am sure there were times Muslims were good to non-Muslims during their empire days, but I am equally certain there were many times non-Muslims were not treated well at all. As I said on another thread, you cannot make one group of people superior and expect the minorities to be treated well or even fair. We even see it today with many Christians being persecuted in Muslim countries all the time. There are some, I am sure, who are good to Christians and are even friends with Christians, but there are also many who treat them really bad and very unfair. I am absolutely certain this was exactly the way it was years ago, too. I remember reading about the Europeans jumping onto the Ottomans for treating Christians badly when the Ottoman empire was the eyesore of that part of the world and Europe could threaten them. Then there are all of the letters people's ancestors left, talking about how Muslims would spit on them, make them bow to them, etc. It may not be written in Islam to act this way, but the superior thing has been a fact throughout history.

So many Muslims going on and on about these things when they do not even begin to understand the Bible or Christianity. Why are Muslims so insecure about their religion?  I'm not going to get into a my religion is better than yours argument with you. I will only say that the Bible is sometimes just talking about historical things that have happened, sometimes it teaches in parables/metaphors, and God periodically changes the names of people and places throughout the Bible. The Bible was given to us over many more years than the Quran. God taught people in each period of time what they needed to be taught at the time - different times, different circumstances.  There are still things in the Bible that we do not understand because God isn't ready for us to understand them and He has sealed them up until He is ready for us to understand them. This only makes sense since the Bible is filled with prophecies and the Quran is not.
I am not sure what the name "Christianity" has to do with anything.  Jesus also tells us that we will worship in His name. I'm not going to look up to see where the name "Christianity" came from, but it's probably just as everything else Muslims have ever told me and I have researched and found there not to be any truth whatsoever to what they say. Pagans actually did have a moon God named Allah, by the way.  Does the Quran have the names Islam/Muslims in it?  I don't know.  I do know that people used to call Muslims "Muhammadans".  But I hardly think an earthly name means anything at all.
You say there are so many errors in the Bible, yet the last time I read anything about this from scholars, they said the Bible was like 98.9% error free.  And most Christians use the exact same Bible. There are some words that may be different, yet mean the same things. The Bible is not like the Quran and Christians do not think of it as Muslims think of the Quran. And by the way, Christians never worshipped Mary. This is one out of many errors in the Quran.  The Quran also has different words in it, according to who interpreted it. The difference in the Quran and the Bible is that Christians have tens of thousands of manuscripts we can always go back to and check to see if what we have is correct or not.  Muslims have zero manuscripts.  The Quran used to have all kinds of different copies...and I mean totally different Qurans, not just different interpretations of words, until some leader picked out one and decided to burn the others.  Also, the Quran verses are not even in chronological order.  It is written with the longest or shortest verses first...can't recall which one.  How and why would God write His holy book with the longest or shortest verses first and how in the world could anyone ever interpret it correctly?
As I said, I really do not want to get into this AGAIN.  I have read all of the accusations Muslims make against the Bible/Christianity and all of the accusations Christians make against the Quran, etc., read all of the supposed conflicts and explanations for both. It's just a never-ending ridiculous argument that almost all Christians will not participate in.  In fact, soon after 9/11/01, when I went to the Muslim message boards/websites to find out what Islam was all about and I encountered these accusations, I did a google search and could only find like one or two Christian sites saying anything at all about Islam/Muslims. Of course, soon after, they began popping up everywhere, but I know for sure who started all of this craziness. 
If you really want to understand the Bible/Christianity, which I doubt you do, I would suggest you do a google search for ex-Muslims who are now Christian preachers. I have never known anyone to preach the gospels better than ex-Muslims. I can certainly see why God is calling so many of them now to Christianity. Thousands of ex-Muslims, now Christians, are claiming to have had visions/dreams of Jesus. In fact, so many have been claiming this in the last few years, they have done studies on this at some university in California. To me, this is a miracle. They were doing a radio show about it in Africa and suddenly the phones began lighting up like crazy with ex-Muslims telling their story of having these visions/dreams.  Why do you think Africa is quickly turning into a Christian country all of a sudden?  For many years Christian missionaries have been going to Africa with little to no success.  Now, suddenly, literally thousands are converting to Christianity every day because they are having these dreams/visions of Jesus.
When I first saw all of these accusations Muslims were making, I went and researched them myself, instead of just believing a website.  I would suggest you do the same.

Soul's travel out of the body 

Answered by Shaykh Gibril F Haddad

Is it permissible to, take your soul out of your body (The way the Buddhists or wizards do it)? Because the way the wizards do it, is that they just sit down and imagine themselves floating and then their soul comes out of their body (in simple words).

I will leave it for others to address permissibility, but it seems to me that permissibility in the Law is for matters that involve both the spirit and the body.

However, I will address the issue of the soul's travel. The soul roams away from the body at sleep and may do so also when awake, if there is a purpose.

A soul that becomes deliberately disembodied may take another form. The form may be identical to the body left behind, or another form, including animal forms East or West, in the higher world (for Muslims) or lower world (for all others).

One purpose for this is to help others. There is permission for this for many Awliya' (believers who are close to Allah) who, depending on their strength, may take one a multiplicity of self-forms (dhawaat) at one at the same time. The original body stays awake or goes unconscious depending on strength also.

There is a very important difference between Muslims and non-Muslims in such phenomena. Muslim spirits are clothed with light while non-Muslim spirits are clothed with darkness and vulnerable to dark forces. Another danger is that the disembodied soul may "lose" its way back or be prevented from its body, which results in death.

And Allah knows best.

Source: al-Ibriz min Kalam Sayyidi `Abd al`Aziz.

Hajj Gibril
--
GF Haddad

Tell this to the over 80,000 American Christians who have had near-death experiences and reached, and even talked with, the bright and peaceful light at the end of the tunnel.  I have read one where the man went to the dark forces because he didn't believe in God.  The man remembered singing "Jesus loves me" as a child and started singing it. This is when the dark forces began to get really angry and went away and the man was led to the light at the end of the tunnel.

looool Every Scholar nowadays knows that the verse that allegedly allows "wife beating" means to leave! The word Darb has multiple meanings and by understanding the root word of such we know what it truly means. It actually means to reject or leave, Therefore on the basis of "wife beating" God says that if she cheats on you at least twice you are allowed to leave the relationship.

"The Arabic word used in Noble Verse 4:34 above is "idribuhunna", which is derived from "daraba" which means "beat".  The thing with all of the Arabic words that are derived from the word "daraba" is that they don't necessarily mean "hit".  The word "idribuhunna" for instance, could very well mean to "leave" them.  It is exactly like telling someone to "beat it" or "drop it" in English."

Taken directly from an article on the arabic language written by doctor tariq al suaidan. Now is it really a erligions fault for a mans misunderstanding of the religious system?? Can I blame Americans for misunderstanding the role Bush played on the role of Iraq and solely blame the deaths of innocent Iraqis on them? NO I cant... Secondly, Shariah law is actually a democratic system.

"...Do not retain them (i.e., your wives) to harm them...(The Noble Quran, 2:231)"

"If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband's part, there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best; even though men's souls are swayed by greed. But if ye do good and practise self-restraint, God is well-acquainted with all that ye do.  (The Noble Quran, 4:128)"

Narrated Mu'awiyah al-Qushayri: "I went to the Apostle of Allah (peace_be_upon_him) and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them.  (Sunan Abu-Dawud, Book 11, Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah), Number 2139)"

He who believes in Allah and the Hereafter, if he witnesses any matter he should talk in good terms about it or keep quiet. Act kindly towards woman, for woman is created from a rib, and the most crooked part of the rib is its top. If you attempt to straighten it, you will break it, and if you leave it, its crookedness will remain there. So act kindly towards women.  (Translation of Sahih Muslim, The Book of Marriage (Kitab Al-Nikah), Book 008, Number 3468)"

"O ye who believe! Ye are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should ye treat them with harshness, that ye may take away part of the dower [money given by the husband to the wife for the marriage contract] ye have given them, except where they have been guilty of open lewdness; on the contrary live with them on a footing of kindness and equity. If ye take a dislike to them it may be that ye dislike a thing, and God brings about through it a great deal of good.  (The Noble Quran, 4:19)"

"And among God's signs is this: He created for you mates from amongst yourselves (males as mates for females and vice versa) that you might find tranquillity and peace in them. And he has put love and kindness among you. Herein surely are signs for those who reflect. (The Noble Quran 30:21)"   

"Women impure for men impure. And women of purity for men of purity. These are not affected by what people say. For them is forgiveness and an honorable provision. (The Noble Quran 24:26)"


The Islamic empire was a system known as the caliphite which allowed the people to vote for a leader. The system compared to the other systems present at that era seemed very noble in the lights of such an age. Now, shuld we incorporate the laws of the babylonians? The laws of the israelites during exile? The laws of the romans? No, they are past civilizations, they are past laws to rule mankind and seem barbaric in the lights of modern day. But lets be real here..... the Study of an Islamic system and a democratic system are really very similiar. There was a lecture I went to in Toronto on this topic. It stated how the system of sharia law actually is not implemenmted today in society. NO COUNTRY HAS AN ISLAMIC SYSTEM NOT EVEN IRAN!! An Islamic system must have a caliphite which I do not see any of this today. The laws for punishment of execution and jail time is permissible but under certain circumstances. execution must be done after a terrible deed that the person commited such as murder, or possibly rape. Although, YOU MUST BE 100% SURE OF THE INTENTION AND CRIME COMMITED. There are also many rulings which explain such consequetive actions. I'm pretty sure if the western societies governments were more lineant on punishing people instead of offering an easy way out of it would set a good example for people. Look at Saudia Arabia.. although the system is a monarchy(which is against Islamic beliefs) it still offers some views on islamic law. Such as, death if one was to murder... Such as Death as to someone was to rape. The thing I see in such a country is that the rape and murder rate is one of the lowest in the world. It bears witness to the effectievness of such a system.. although, there are some aspects to this system which I think are unislamic and nowhere in the Islamic religion overule such doins. Such as... women not driving cars? The Quran CLEARLY shows that man and women are equal!  So in retrospect, I think all modern politics is corrupt and that the political systems people try and convey are to tehre own humanly desires and not of thd divine... hope I answered your questions.

Hi,

With all due respect, we have no clue what the criminal statistics really are in Saudi Arabia because they are a closed society with the government hiding almost everything bad that takes place. For instance, the Sauds always lied about their statistics on AID's victims, sometimes even claiming to not have any AID's cases at all.  YIKES! No kidding. This is what they had in the CIA Facts Books.  Some other Islamic countries did the very same thing, only they were a little more realistic about the number of cases in their countries.  However, years of denial, also brought on years of ignoring the problem, which caused AID's to become either an epidemic or on the verge of becoming an epidemic in many Islamic countries, which forced them to admit the truth so they could finally do something about it.  We also saw in Egypt not long ago how the men on the streets suddenly started chasing the women and trying to rape them.  We saw this very same thing in Saudi Arabia a few years ago.  Women could walk down the streets where I live in bathing suits and not get attacked by men.  When a government runs the media, etc, in a country, there are many things that are never told. With the Internet in this day and time, though, things are beginning to leak out.  They still are not like the western countries, having all of our dirty laundry hung very high for the world to constantly see.  But there is no difference as far as morals are concerned in any Islamic country today and in any free western country. I have had this conversation with many Muslims who have tried to claim this very same thing and they have gotten barbarded with the truth. The only difference is our dirty laundry is viewed and talked about and they are constantly trying to hide theirs.  This was also brought out when Muslims were making fun of the so-called Christian bishops that molested some children.  A quick google search shows this is a major problem in the Islamic schools. The only difference is that it is probably done much more in the Islamic countries because they still do not protect the victims so the victims are usually either intimidated into keeping their mouths shut, paid off for keeping their mouths shut, or they tell and are made out to be the bad person. And sometimes acid is thrown in their faces for telling as we saw the brave boy from Pakistan being interviewed from his hospital bed and telling all about it.  One school in Pakistan had like 1200 molesting complaints in one year. Also, Islamic countries have immorals that are different from the western free world.  For instance, we saw how the girl's school caught on fire in Saudi Arabia a few years ago and the religious police would not allow the girls to come out of the burning building because they were not properly dressed. I can't recall now how many girls burnt up in that school, but that was definitely a huge embarrassment for the Sauds, and rightly so.
Unfortunately, most of these immoral problems/crimes are universal, but denying that they exist or saying the Islamic countries are somehow more moral for some reason or another, is simply not true.  Through many years of mistakes, we finally learned that cutting off body parts, etc, and much more harsher punishments do not make people behave much better.  It's when society accepts the bad things that makes them much worse. The US and Europe have a lot of crime because we have had a whole lot of illegal immigrants coming into our countries. Most of them come with little to nothing.
I have talked with a whole lot of Muslims on this subject of being allowed to beat their wives and this is the very first time I have heard this one about interpreting it wrong.  All of the Muslims I have talked to say this is used as a last resort and you are only to hit them lightly without making any marks. So they admit that it is true.  Well, I hope they do come to the conclusion that it isn't interpreted correctly.  However, the Muslims I have talked to about it speak both English and Arabic and, obviously, they have always interpreted this to mean you are allowed to hit your wife.  Also, I have always read and I have always been told that the Caliphate is appointed by a certain group...like a council, and were never voted on by the people themselves. And the way I understand it, Islam can never divide religion and government.  You cannot have a true free, peaceful, Democratic country without separating religion and government and without having a free media. The western free Democracies did not just dream all of these things up overnight. All of these ideas were based on many years of mistakes/failures/wrongdoings, and seperating religion from the government was one of their main themes. There is no way in the world anyone can have a religion as a country's religion and not have the minorities treated very unfairly and badly. If the government doesn't treat them badly, the people will. It's just human nature, and minorities were and are definitely treated very badly in most Islamic countries. There's always going to be someone treat the minorities bad if you make any group superior. Anytime throughout the history of the world that someone is made more superior in a country to others, it has been a disaster.  Christians fought for many years because no one interprets any religious book in exactly the same way, therefore, you cannot make one group more superior to others and expect there to be peace and fairness. In fact, in looking at the Muslim world today, it looks much like the way the Christian western world used to be. Muslims have already made these very same mistakes. If they would take a good, honest look at their history, they would see that the Muslim world wasn't much different most of the time than the way we see it today.  There were always other groups taking down others and many assassinations and wars going on in one place or another. The Muslim countries almost always end up with dictators because being ruled under dictators who rule with an iron fist is the only way to keep them from fighting one another for the power, just as it used to be in the Christian world.  Also, Islam's leaders are given power for way too long a period of time, making it easy for their leaders to take over the country's army and, thus, turning into a dictatorship.  I have seen Muslims trying to say they had the first Democracy, but they were very far from having a Democracy as we do today. I've even seen where some Muslims are trying to say America's founding fathers used Islam's system as some kind of an example. Then I have seen where some Muslims are trying to say that Muslims were in America first. Then I've seen some saying that Americans brought some Muslims over for slaves and that Islam helped shape America. The story gets bigger and bigger as time goes on.  Before we know it, they will be saying that Muslims were with our founding fathers and told them how to write the constitution.  I am sorry, but there is a reason why Muslims' history is the most controversial history in the world. Many Muslims rewrite their history, as well as everyone else's.  I'm not sure why they have such a hard time admitting to their failures/mistakes/wrongdoings, but they do. The rest of the world admits to all of their failures/mistakes/wrongdoings.  If you can't admit to them, you can't learn from them and will continue to repeat them over and over again, which is what we see Muslims in the Muslim world doing today.