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"The medieval Islamic world offered vastly more
freedom than any
of its predecessors, its contemporaries and most of its
successors."
Bernard
Lewis
In the name
of the merciful and compassionate Lord.
0 thou who
art enwrapped!
Rise
by night except a little the half, or deduct there from a little, and
chant the sacred text.
Verily, we
will cast on thee a heavy speech.
Verily, the early part of the night is
stronger in impressions and more
upright in speech!
Verily, thou hast by day a long employment; but
mention the name of thy Lord,
Devote thyself thoroughly to Him; there is
no Allah but He; then take Him for a guardian!
And
endure patiently what they say, and
flee from them with a decorous flight.
And leave those who say it is a
lie, who are possessed of comfort; and let them bide for a while.
Those who bear the throne and
those around it celebrate the praise of their Lord,
Believe in Him,
and ask pardon for those who believe.
'Our Lord, thou dost embrace all
things in mercy and knowledge, then pardon those who turn repentant and follow
thy way, and guard them from the torment of hell!'
'Our Lord make them
enter into the Garden of Paradise
which thou hast promised to them, and
to those who do well of their fathers, and their wives, and their seed; verily,
thou art the mighty, the wise.
Guard them from evil deeds, for he whom
thou shalt guard from evil deeds on that day, thou wilt have had mercy on, and
that is mighty bliss!
IN the name of the
merciful and
compassionate Allah.
By the
night when it veils!
And the day when it is displayed!
And by what
forged male and female!
Verily, your efforts are diverse!
As for him
who gives resources
and
stands in awe of Allah,
And believes in
the best,
We will send him easily to ease!
As for him who is
closefisted,
And longs for wealth,
And calls the good a lie,
We
will send him easily to difficulty!
And
his wealth shall not avail
him!
Verily, in the creation
of the heavens and the
Earth, and in the succession of
night and day, are signs to those possessed of minds;
who remember Allah standing and sitting
or lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the
Earth.
'0 Lord! Thou hast not forged it all in vain.
We celebrate you Lord!
610 AD
The archangel
Jibril (Gabriel) reveals Islam to Muhammad.
The first three years of his
ministry Muhammad shared Islam privately among relatives and close
acquaintances.
Vehement opposition arises in Mecca.
615 Muhammad
sends emissaries to Aạḥama ibn Abjar in Abyssinia.
622
Muhammad makes 26 day trek to Medina - Hijrah.
The Hijrah marks the
beginning of the Islamic calendar
 
The word 'Islam' is defined as the
submission
and/or
surrender to the Will of Allah.
Those that submit to the Will of Allah
abandon the unnatural desires of
Agency.
Apostasy in Islam
In some interpretations
of an Islamic state, conversion
by Muslims to other religions is forbidden and is termed apostasy.
In Muslim theology, apostasy
resembles the crime of treason, the betrayal of one's own country.
Penalties may include ostracism or even execution if they live or have
lived in an "Islamic State" and are deemed enemies of the state.
By analogy, in the age of nation states, an individual who
commits treason (turning state's
secrets to a foreign power, or spies for a foreign power, etc) is subject to
severe penalty - historically, death.
A well
known example of a Muslim "apostate" undergoing persecution is that of Salman
Rushdie, whose novel The Satanic
Verses prompted Khomeini to issue
a fatwa (religious opinion) for his execution.
Even though some
suspect that Khomeini issued this fatwa more because of the lampooning
of Khomeini himself it could be argued that Khomeini's
motivation for issuing the
fatwa is irrelevant as Rushdie's apostasy was the formal ground for the
imposition of the death sentence.
"Some of us are righteous, and
some are less than righteous; we follow various
paths.
We knew full well that we can never run away from Allah on Earth
and escape.
When we heard the guidance, we believed therein.
Anyone who believes in Allah will never fear any injustice, nor any
affliction.
Among us are the submitters, and among us are
the compromisers.
As for those who submitted, they are on
the right path.
As for the
compromisers, they will be fuel for Gehenna.
If they remain on
the right path, we will bless them
with abundant water.
We will surely test them all.
As for
him who disregards the message of Allah, Allah will direct him to ever
increasing retribution. "
Qur'an Jinn 72:11-17
The language of the Qur'an has been described
as "rhymed prose" as it partakes of
both poetry and prose; however, this description runs the risk of failing
to convey the rhythmic quality of Quranic language, which is more poetic in
some parts and more prose-like in others.
Cutural excellence
revolved exclusively around eloquent speech and the
composition of beautiful and
attractive poetry and literary excellence.
Muhammad found attentive
ears among his contemporaries, who not only were articulate users of the
language but held
those skilled in the arts of linguistic composition in high
esteem.
Before the rise of Islam, Arabic was mainly a spoken
language with an oral literature of elaborate poetry and, to a lesser extent,
prose.
Writing had not yet fully
developed and memorization was the most common means of preserving the
literature.
Prophet Musa
had the power to divide the sea with
his hand and rod, and to let the rock burst forth with water in the desert,
and all his other signs in
a time of magic.
Prophet Isa had the power to
bring the dead back to life, to make birds out of clay, to cure those who had
been blind from birth and the leprous, and all his other signs
in a time of medicine.
Prophet Muhammad had the book and his other signs in
a time of
eloquence.
Sharia, Shari-'ah, Shari'a, Shariah,
Syariah,
Islamic law or the Law of Allah
Shariah controls, rules and regulates all public and private
behavior.
Shariah has regulations for personal hygiene, diet,
sexual conduct, and elements of child
rearing.
Mainstream Islam distinguishes between
fiqh, which means ' understanding of details' and refers to the
inferences drawn by scholars, and
sharia, which refers to the principles that lie behind the fiqh.
Scholars hope that fiqh and sharia are in harmony in any given case,
but they cannot be sure.
Sharia has certain laws which are regarded as
divinely ordained, concrete and timeless
for all relevant situations (for example, the ban against drinking liquor as an
intoxicant).
Sharia also has certain laws which are extracted based on
principles established by Islamic lawyers and judges (Mujtahidun).
The
sharia as interpreted by Islamic
lawmakers is believed by Muslims to be merely a human approximation of the true
Sharia, which is understood as the
divine and eternal correct path.
In deriving Sharia law, Islamic
lawmakers are not, therefore, actually creating divinely correct or
incorrect actions beyond question,
but rather attempting to interpret divine principles.
Sharia in general
is considered divine, but a lawyer's or judge's extraction or opinion on a
given matter is not.
Again the process and intention of refering to the
Law of Allah is divinely sanctioned.
An Islamic lawyer or judge's
attempts to rule according to Sharia, can be described as 'ruling by Sharia',
but this ruling is not beyond question.
For
Sunni Muslims, the primary sources of
Islamic law are the Qur'an, the Hadith or directions of the Islamic prophet
Muhammad ibn 'Abdullāh,
the unanimity of Muhammad's disciples on a certain issue
(ijma), and Qiyas (drawing analogy from the essence
of divine principles).
Qiyas -
various forms of reasoning,
including by analogy - are used by the law scholars (Mujtahidun) to deal
with situations where the sources provided no concrete rules.
The
consensus of the
community, public
interest, and others were also accepted as secondary sources where the
first four primary sources allow.
In Imami-Shi'i law, the sources of
law (usul al-fiqh) are the Qur'an, anecdotes of Muhammad's practices and those
of the 12 Imams, and the
intellect (aql).
The practices called Sharia today, however, also
have roots in local customs (Al-urf).
Islamic
jurisprudence is
called fiqh and is divided into two parts: the study of the sources and
methodology (usul al-fiqh - roots of the law) and the practical rules (furu'
al-fiqh - branches of the law).
The authority of Sharia is drawn from
two primary sources, as well as two secondary sources.
The first major
source is the specific guidance in the Qur'an, and the second source is the
Sunnah, literally the 'Way', i.e.
the way that Muhammad ibn
'Abdullāh lived his life.
(The compilation of all that
Muhammad ibn
'Abdullāh said, did or approved of is called the Hadith.)
A
lesser sources of authority is Qiyas, which is
the extension by analogy of
existing Sharia law to new
situations.
Finally, Sharia law can be based on ijma, or consensus.
Justification for this
final approach is drawn from the Hadith where Muhammad states; "My nation
cannot agree on an error."
The
role of ulema, i.e. scholars, is critical, since they are the ones who study
the Islamic law and therefore have authority to represent it.
Sharia
has largely been codified by the schools (madhhabs) of Islamic Jurisprudence
(Fiqh).
The comprehensive nature of Sharia law is due to the belief
that the law must provide all that is necessary for individual spiritual and
physical well-being.
All possible actions of a Muslim are
divided (in principle) into five categories: obligatory, meritorious,
permissible, reprehensible, and forbidden.
Fundamental to the
obligations of every Muslim
are the Five Pillars of Islam.
Sharia is the social equal to English
common law,
Roman civil law,
Hindu law and the Law of Moses.
There
is a striking legal contractual difference between Sharia law (Islam) versus
English common law and
Roman civil law (Christian).
In both English common law and Roman civil
law lawfully executed and valid contracts can not be revised without
the consent of both parties.
At the apex of
legal protection for people of the descendent Western legal systems a number of
laws give consumers a legal right
to cancel contracts in specific transactions within a short time after the
consumer signs the contract without giving the seller or other party a reason
or having to show "legal cause."
"Buyer's Remorse" clauses in consumer
contracts are not universal.
The trend in Western corporate
culture is to eliminate consumer rights.
One method is to write contracts with
arbitration clauses.
Arbitration clauses wave
the right of redress through the legal system of the jurisdiction.
Under
Sharia law if one party to a contract feels the contract is unjust he may ask
the Sharia law authority to change the terms, modify or invalidate the contract
on the grounds that fairness and justice under Sharia law requires the equal
enrichment of both participants to the contractual
obligation.
According to the Quran, marriage is intended to be
unbounded by time, as indicated by its characterization as a "firm bond" and by
the rules governing divorce.
The relationship between the spouses
should ideally be based on love compassion and important decisions concerning
both spouses should be made by mutual consent.
When marital harmony
cannot be attained, the Quran allows and even advises the spouses to bring the
marriage to an end, although this decision is not to be taken lightly, and the
community is called upon to intervene by appointing arbiters from the two
families to attempt a reconciliation.
In ancient Islam
all it took for either a husband or wife to divorce was to repeat the phrase
"I divorce thee" three times.
The Quran establishes two means to avoid hasty divorces.
It
prescribes two waiting periods of three months before the divorce is final in
order to give the husband time to reconsider his decision.
A man who
takes an oath not to have sexual intercourse with his wife, which would lead to
automatic divorce, is allowed a four-month period to break his
oath.
Crime and Islam Sharia requires a very high level of proof for the most serious
crimes and punishments.
If proof is not as specified then the crime
must be considered a lesser crime.
A major myth is that judges in
Islamic nations have fixed punishments for all crimes.
The judge under
Sharia is not bound by precedents, rules, or prior decisions as in English
common law.
Hadd crimes, the most serious crimes in
Sharia law, are murder,
apostasy, making war upon Allah and His
messengers, theft,
adultery,
defamation,
false accusation of adultery or
fornication, robbery and
consumption of
intoxicants.
These are considered crimes against
Allah.
Tazir crimes are acts which are
punished because the offender
disobeys the word and Law of
Allah.
Tazir crimes are
crimes against humanity.
A
Qesas crime is one of retaliation.
If you commit a Qesas crime, the
victim has a right to seek retribution
and retaliation.
The concept of retribution was found in the first
statutory "Code of
Hammurabi" and in the Law of Moses in the
form of "an eye for an eye."
Muslims add to that saying "but it is better to forgive."
Contemporary common law is filled with the assumptions of
retribution.
The American justice system has adopted a retribution model
which sets fixed punishments for each crime.
The American federal code
contains "mandatory minimum" sentences for drug dealing.
Many states
have fixed punishment for drug, violence and the use of particular
weapons.
Qesas crime is simple retribution: if one commits a crime he
knows what the punishment will be.
Diya has its
roots in Islamic law and dates to the time of the prophet Mohammad when there
were many local families, tribes and clans.
The prophet Mohammad was
able to convince several tribes to take a monetary payment in retribution for
damage to the clan or tribe.
Diya is paid by the offender to the victim
if he is alive.
If the victim is dead, the money is paid to the
victim's family or to the victim's
clan or tribe.
The
assumption is that victims will be compensated for their loss.
Under
English common law, the victim or family must sue the offender in a civil
tort action for damages.
Qesas law combines the process of criminal and
civil hearings into one, just as the "civil law" is applied in many nations on
Earth.
Qesas crimes are compensated as restitution under common law and
civil law.
Qesas crimes require compensation for each crime committed.
Math and Islam
"Mechanical methods can suggest the truth of
mathematical propositions, which
then may be rigorously proven by mathematical
methods."
Archimedes
Decimal system is dependent upon
the Arabic numerical system.
Algebra was first fully developed by Al
Khwarism, the "father of algebra".
Al-Tusi is the "father of
trigonometry".
Al-Khashi, from
Persia, invented
decimal fractions.
Sunni Islam is the world's
largest religious denomination, followed by
Catholicism.
Sunni and
Shi'a culminate centuries
of competition between ideologies.
Both sects used each other to
further cement their own identities and doctrines.
The schism occurred
in a debate over who were the true adherents to the Sunnah, the prophet’s
tradition.
A caliphate is a state under the leadership of an Islamic
steward considered to be the successor to Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah.
Sunni rulers embarked on sweeping
conquests that extended the caliphate.
The last caliphate ended with
the fall of the Ottoman
Empire.
Sunni emphasize the all encompassing power of Allah in the
material world while
Shi'a value martyrdom
and sacrifice to turn the dark into light.
2009 Sunni Muslims constitute 90% of the world's Muslim
population.
The color green has a
number of traditional associations in Islam.
Green is used in several
national flags as a symbol of Islam.
These include:
Afghanistan, Algeria,
Azerbaijan, Comoros,
Iran, Mauritania, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka. |
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