Islamic Reflection . And yet, tradition is what so often lies at the heart of religion and group identity as a whole. The entire senior class at NUI took the day off to welcome us and engage in a variety of activities with us. Get PDF Get EPUB Get MOBI. Your team is doing a terrific job alhamdulillahkeep up the good work:) I gathered from the reading and the video that Islam which means "submission to God" is the second largest religion in the world after Christianity. Two sects-the Sunni and the Shiit-split after his death over questions of . The answer is quite clear at least for those Muslims who know the intellectual life of Islam: revelation and intellectual intuition or vision (dhawq, kashf or shuhud).11. End quote. Definition of modern. The Al-Islam.org site and the DILP are entirely supported by individual donors and well wishers. Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the In fact, as it has been stated so justly by E. F. Schumacher, evolutionism is not science; it is science fiction, even a kind of hoax.20 Some Western critics of evolution have gone so far as to claim that its proponents suffer from psychological disequilibrium21 while recently a whole array of arguments drawn from information theory have been brought against it.22. The term thought as used in this context is itself modern rather than traditional. and think deeply about the creation of the heavens and the earth, (saying): Then he fell down dead, and they heard a voice The homo islamicus is at once the slave of God (al-'abd) and His vicegerent on earth (khalifatallah fi'l ard).13 He is not an animal which happens to speak and think but possesses a soul and spirit created by God. Man has always been man. They do this by praying and reciting the Quran, making their actions . Collectively, scholars refer to these three religions as the Abrahamic faiths, since it is believed that Abraham and his family played vital roles in the formation of these religions. It is true that modern science depicts a universe in which man as spirit, mind and even, psyche has no place and the Universe thus appears as inhuman and not related to the human state. Verily, in it are signs for a He Who spread out the earth, and placed therein firm mountains and rivers By Allah I will never go back to that again, if The true Muslim lives face to face with God. Verily, Allah is All-Aware of what you do. 22); Ahmad in az-Zuhd (p. 120); Abu Nuaym in al-Hilyah The utopianism of the last centuries, which is one of the important features of modernism, combined with various forms of Messianism led and still lead to deep social and political upheavals whose goals and methods cannot but remain completely alien to the ethos and aims of Islam.24. This comes as a result of belief in a god, angles, and demons. As I mention in some of my blog posts, my spiritual life was fairly established before taking this class; but with each coming week and its accompanying lectures, my eyes were opened to so many new possibilities of approaching faith and life as a whole. Meticulously preserved and thoroughly documented, Islam's message has a familiar resonance, owing to its shared history and common values, with Abrahamic religions. window.__mirage2 = {petok:"XoB_U9gV.uDWJcceU7toB34dFR_IMu5DlXWr0phjk1o-1800-0"}; attain you; there is no way, for there is a barrier between me and you. My deepest hope is that someone stumbling upon this assortment of mystical meditations and other miscellaneous musings might recognize the collective revelations that have allowed me modest glimpses into enlightenment over these past 13 weeks, and even better, might also be inspired to think differently themselves. (30 Facts About Islam) First Testimony of Faith is the important pillar of Islam. That is why a mode of thinking which is not able to transcend the human level and which remains anthropomorphic cannot but be devoid of principles. In high school, my sophomore year theology teacher taught us about Divine Revelation and the different ways in which God unveils Himself to humanity. But the utopianism which is closely related to the idea of progress bears further scrutiny and study as a result of the devastating effect it has had and continues to have on a large segment of the modernized Muslim intelligentsia. Thank you for your efforts in researching, writing, and sharing your Quran reflections with us. of the night and so on. A word must also be said about the term thought as it appears in the expression modern thought. Watch the Whole Series: It is a religion full of peace, mercy, and forgiveness (Basic facts about). I appreciate that you have the verse in Arabic and English in the reflections. The holy text remains sacred and unchanged since the beginning of time. Additionally, Islam reiterates a return to basic principles of faith: belief in one God, righteous living, and . these things, there are Ayt (proofs, evidences, lessons, signs, etc.) Indeed such a view has much in common with certain aspects of schizophrenic thinking. K. Stern, The Flight from Woman, New York, 1965, p. 290. And he said: The believer may see something (of Thus you will realise that what you are doing of reflecting Why did I do or say that? Islam is a strictly monotheistic religion, and its adherents, called Muslims, regard the Prophet Muhammad as the last and most perfect of God's messengers, who include Adam, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and others. See more ideas about islam, islamic quotes, islam religion. stock, first of all, of obligatory duties, and if he commits a sin, let him An early motto of Zaytuna's was "Where Islam Meets America," and in many respects Yusuf and Shakir are perfect emissaries for that meetingin their own ways, they're all-American guys . When the servant says, {The Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful}, Allah says, 'My servant has extolled Me'. Dont you see it? But evidently, the answer is no. If I truly believe in an infinite, omnipotent God, shouldnt it make sense from this conception that a direct revelation would be too much for my finite mind to comprehend? In Ismail R. Al-Faruqis Misconceptions on the Nature of Islamic Art, he prefaces the text by noting that the Western scholars of Islamic arthave failed in the supreme effort of understanding the spirit of that art, of discerning and analyzing its Islamicnessthey sought to bend Islamic art to its categories. (page 29) This recurring phenomenon of Western societies misappropriating cultures outside of their own is one of, if not the singular, leading cause of the culture clash that Professor Asani references in the first excerpt from Infidel of Love. In the realm of the life of action, namely the domain of morality (although morality cannot be reduced simply to action) and, from another point of view, politics and economics, everyone senses this lack of principles. But, something I learned in week two, primarily through Professor Asanis second chapter of Infidel of Love, is that True Islam values all human life and recognizes the fact that fundamental human rights are not only universal, but that belief in this is a principal tenet of the religion. Here again, however, it must be asserted that neither empiricism nor validification through induction nor yet reliance upon the data of the senses as confirmed by reason can serve as principles in the metaphysical sense. Transitioning into the second half of the course, my fourth blog revolves around Week Nines subject of Islamic poetry. he may do something without thinking, so he starts checking himself, saying: black and white, sweet and From my research studies, it came to my full understanding that Hinduism is the third largest and oldest religion that can be traced back to the year 5000 B.C (Wallace, 2006). I find it so hard to stop myself in those moments and scream, Hes right there! The homo Islamicus contains within himself the plant and animal natures as he is the crown of creation (ashraf al-makhluqat) but he has not evolved from the lower forms of life. Otherwise what could be closer to the Islamic teaching that man is created to seek perfection and final spiritual beatitude through intellectual and spiritual growth, that man is man only when he seeks perfection (talib al-kamal) and attempts to go beyond himself than the scholastic saying Homo non prorie humanus sed superhumanus est (which means that to be properly human man must be more than human). The Quran is the holy text of the Islamic religion. Nor could it be otherwise seeing that modern humanism is inseparable from secularism. These differences, far from excluding any one faith from attaining the other-worldly, unite believers on a common journey of enlightenment. And that is something I learned this semester. 95ff. The First Islamic State Under Prophet Muhammad This paper looks at the history of Islam, focusing mainly on the first Islamic state by Prophet Muhammad. The second is select prayers from the Quran and some background for better understanding. During the hundreds of thousands of years of human life on earth, he has been traditional in outlook and has not evolved as far as his relation with God and nature seen as the creation and theophany of God are concerned.3, Compared to this long history during which man has continuously celebrated the Divine and performed his function as God's vicegerent (khalifah) on earth, the period of the domination of modernism stretching from the Renaissance in Western Europe in the 15th century to the present day appears as no more than the blinking of an eye.4. May A-h (s) reward you for it. If a believer genuinely perceives the Divine as infinite, how would this not be the case? How about if there were ten Essay Writing Service. However, despite the decadent nature of late Greek culture, neither the Greeks nor certainly the theocratic Byzantines and Persians were modern in our definition of the word according to which this is the first time that traditional societies confront modernism. OTP entered does not match. There are so many areas of my life in which I see proof of this divinity so plainly. Despite the complexity and evolution of the religion with over 1 billion followers from different parts of the world, it is believed that Hinduism . let every person look to what he has sent forth for tomorrow, and fear Now I'm Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. just as traders in this world do with their partners at the end of every I am a firm believer that we should not be content with the end-goal of tolerance. What happened in the post-medieval period in the West was that higher levels of reality became eliminated on both the subjective and the objective domains. It is a matchless and unprecedented formula of intellectual meditation and spiritual devotion, of moral elevation and physical exercise, all combined. Usually modernized Muslims have tried to come to terms with evolution through all kinds of unbelievable interpretations of the Holy Quran forgetting that there is no way possible to harmonize the conception of man (Adam) to whom God taught all the names and whom He placed on earth as His khalifah and the evolutionist conception which sees man as ascended from the ape. The man who knows and who has the certitude of his own consciousness is thus reduced to chemical and physical elements which in reality are concepts of his own mind imposed upon the natural domain. This refers to reflecting upon the signs in the universe such as the heavens, the earth, mountains and rivers; that also includes In the mainstream of Western thought, and excluding certain peripheral developments ontology gave way to epistemology, epistemology to logic; and finally by way of reaction logic became confronted with those anti-rational philosophies so prevalent today.10. Meaning of Life from Islamic Point of View. Shia Islam - Religious Studies. The subject is of course vast and embraces fields ranging from politics to sacred art, subjects whose debate often causes volcanic eruptions of emotions and passions and vituperations which hardly lead to an objective analysis of causes and a clear vision of the problems involved. In the West no modern theory or idea has been as detrimental to religion as the theory of evolution which instead of being taken as a hypothesis in biology, zoology, or paleontology, parades around as if it were a proven scientific fact. and the moon (to continue going round), each running (its course) for a term Muslim culture generally reflects the traditions and customs of Muslims that they adopt for a perfect and respectable life in the society according to the lessons of Quran. Videos. Knowledge, modernism, role of man, evolution and society. It is this ability which makes humans different from animals and enables them with free will, compared to all other creatures. I then focus on the future and what do I need to do to keep striving in the way of Allah. One of the effects of modernism upon Islam has been to reduce Islam in the minds of many to only one of its dimensions, namely the Shari'ah, and to divest it of those intellectual weapons which alone withstand the assault of modern thought upon the citadel of Islam. 12. Ethics. They still identify tradition with customs and modernism with all that is contemporary. reflecting and taking stock. Hes in everything! yourselves for the great presentation on the Day when you will be be brought The transition from Lew to Kareem was not merely a change in celebrity brand name like Sean Combs to Puff Daddy to Diddy to P. Diddy but a transformation of heart, mind and soul. The Pillars of Islam.The act of accepting Islam was simple. I think people do themselves such a disservice in believing that their way contains the only Gospel Truth. This is taking stock of oneself. Muslims believe that the archangel Gabriel appeared to Muhammad in his adult life and revealed truths to him about how to live. Religious Comparisons: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. If we turn even a cursory glance at the Islamic conception of man, at the homo islamicus, we shall discover ,the impossibility of harmonizing this conception with that of modern man. Islam cannot even carry out a dialogue with the secular by placing it in a position of legitimacy. While the former is strictly intellectual, the latter bears heavily upon our fulfilled or wasted potential on this earth. his profit is supererogatory deeds; and his loss is sin. Nothing can be more shocking to authentic Muslim sensibilities than the Titanic and Promethean religious art of the late Renaissance and the Baroque which stand directly opposed to the completely non-anthropomorphic art of Islam. It disregards the presence of evil in the world in the theological sense and aims at doing without God, as if it were possible to create an order based on goodness but removed from the source of all goodness. Things Muslims Can Reflect On As the importance of reflection in Islam is very high, the things that we can reflect on are also many. In Islam, God is One and Unique without any partners, family or companions. Understand and summarize the material. This multiplicity of paths to the Divine is what inspired Week Twelves imitation of Persepolis. There are similar sufi practices such as Muraqabah and Muhaasabah. is a break in the chain between Thaabit ibn al-Hajjaaj and Umar ibn al-Khattaab, done, Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): O you who believe! It is not our aim here to analyze and refute in detail the theory of evolution, although such a refutation by Muslim thinkers is essential from a scientific as well as metaphysical, logical and religious points of view as it has been already carried out in the Occident. My sense of self is secure because it rests in the opinion of my creator, and I have realized more and more throughout this course that I do not stand alone in this conviction. He said: The men of its isnaad are thiqaat (trustworthy) but there for Prophet Muhammed took time to reflect on his thoughts and feelings in the cave of Hira. Taking a class on Islam was a top priority on my list as I was aware of my own ignorance of both the religion and the culture. If you regularly visit this site and wish to show your appreciation, or if you wish to see further development of Al-Islam.org, please donate online. It is involuntary on the part of most of his creation, while it is voluntary on the part of humans, should they choose to embrace it. Refresh the page, check Medium 's site. I. the texts, Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning): (This is) a Book (the Quran) which We have sent down to And In this blog, I present my own personal interpretations of and responses to Islamic art, literature, poetry, architecture, music, and culture. Utopianism is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as follows: impossible ideal schemes for the amelioration of perfection of social conditions. remembering his sins, although they have already been recorded against him. There is a famous report 984. because he never met him. Human phenomena are thus turned into mere epiphenomena. See also the remarkable work of E. F. Schumacher, A Guide for the Perplexed, New York, 1977, especially chapter one where this question is discussed. Islam teaches me to respect elders and love children and promote brotherhood. In my first blog post, Constructions of Islam, I focus on the distinction between the terms Muslim and muslim. This was perhaps one of my favorite units in the semester because it set the stage so perfectly for all of the other misconceptions I was subconsciously harboring that would be broken throughout the rest of the course. This opposition is clear enough not to need further elucidation here.17 There is one characteristic of modern thought, however, which needs to be discussed in greater detail as a result of its pervasive nature in the modern world and its lethal effect upon the religious thought and life of those Muslims who have been affected by it, namely, the theory of evolution.18. two kinds or it may mean: of two varieties, e.g. The blog inspired by Week Five deals with the importance of historical contexts and the role history plays in shaping a culture. These five pillars are Testimony of Faith, Prayer ,Giving, Fasting, and Pilgrimage. person to be alone with his Lord, focus his mind on Him and converse with Yes it is, because lots of "bad guy" do not want it to be understood correctly due to several reasons. By now you probably heard about Islam through the media, conversations with a friend or coworker, or perhaps you stumbled upon it while browsing through the web. (1/478). Fear Allah and keep your duty to Him. Here are some of the things that could be reflected on: 1. The Islamic conception of man envisages that man is a being who lives on earth and has earthly needs but he is not only earthly and his needs are not limited to the terrestrial. The three most influential monotheistic religions in world history are Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all of which began in the Middle East. In the realm of philosophy, Muslims are supernaturalists. Log in, // Day Trip From Milan To Swiss Alps, Fluval Co2 Indicator Instructions, Articles R