A first posting

David Gould

New Member
I come in peace to learn. Like Labrat I disagree with what my government (UK) has been doing for the last several years...walking into others countries for no ggod reason. I am sickened by their lack of action over the present crisis that has resulted in untold pain and suffering.
My other reason for being here is that I lost a very dear member of my family in the London Bombings (7/7)...my step-daughter Helen. I need to try to understand why...not to attack blame but to know more. I am not sure if you can help me in my search for truth and answers.
Above all I come in peace with my hand unstretched in friendship. I am not a Muslim but I have come to learn about your faith, your scriptures and your way of life. Will you have the patience to teach me?
 

Mabsoot

Amir
Staff member
Hi you are welcome David, I am the Admin here, and i will do my best to help you. Infact, im glad you came here as inshaAllah we will help you according to the original teachings of Islam.

I hope i can write a good reply, even though i am kinda tired, inshaAllah will write something better later on and will answer any questions you may have. I will try to explain as concise as possible motive as to why a person could be driven to do such terrible things.

Firstly, I would like to express my sorrow for your loss. It is extremely sad for any loss of linnocent life. It was an indiscrimate attack and could have been anyone. Many of my family and friends work in Central London. It makes me very angry to see what is happening in our country and outside. Those who did the London bombings were criminals and murderers without a doubt. And Islamically they would be counted as having murdered people.

Like any crime, there is often a motive. To stop the crime it is important to understand the root cause and hopefully get rid of any underlying problems. This is not condoning or justifying the criminal, but ensuring these things do not happen again. We must realise that there is a lot of injustice happening and that this can make people think in irrational ways and drive some people to do wrong and desperate things.

We need to judge the actions of the people according to Islam, and not judge Islam according to the actions of some people. I believe any fair minded person would agree to this point.

Islam as followed by the Quran and the Hadith (which are sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad) does not condone killing of innocent people.

The Following is a hadith:
It is narrated by Ibn 'Umar that a woman was found killed in one of these battles; so the Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) forbade the killing of women and children.

Please read the following link where there are various quotations from the Quran and Hadith where Allah and his Messenger :saw: forbid it.

Of course, not everyone follows Islam properly and some have various misconstrued ideas as to what Islam is. Sometimes people either have incorrect guidance or they do not follow various issues with correct understanding. The latter comes from actually studying the sources of Islam with a scholar... or at the very least not making any judgements without refering back to a good Islamic scholar.

It would be foolish for someone to ignore the presence of extremism. It exists in all cultures, races, countries and religions. I believe the terrorism we see from some people who call themselves Muslim is due directly to the foreign policy of the Western countries. The latter have had a very long and bloody history occupying various Muslim countries. And, i feel that 7/7 came about because of the Iraq war and the UK participation in that.

The Muslim world has had many 7/7 and 9/11 of its own for centuries. From the crusades, which George Bush said he had begun again... through to the various 19th and 20th Century colonisation and bigotry done by various Western powers in the Middle East, Africa and Asian subcontinent. So, even those these things do not feature much in our Western media, it is extremely fresh in the memory of the Muslims who endured the pain.

Today, the Muslim world is extremely weak. Firstly because their is little understanding of Islam. Secondly, we are weak militarily. There are no Muslim states willing to adequately defend the people who are abused or hurt. So, states such as Israel are allowed to continually bomb and kill women and children at will (using US/UK supplied weaponary).

This opens the ground for certain extremist groups to begin operating and brainwashing young, emotional and basically ignorant youth. Ignorant to Islam that is.

As this site is a public forum you may get some people talking about various conspiracy theories. But, what they fail to realise is that there do exist people who would do such things. They are called "takfiris". They do not look at who they kill, it matters not if a person is a Muslim or a non Muslim, they just do it. This is due to their ignorance of ISlam and them being brainwashed into doing these things and having a lot of emotion. They see what happens in Iraq and other places and their mind gets blinded by hate. This opens them up to be susceptible to extremist ideas.

They think it is justified to kill British and American civillians because civillian people in Iraq and Palestine are dying. Their emotions get in the way of thinking about Islamic issues properly.

Their logic is incompatible with ISlam. As the Prophet :saw: forbade peopel to take revenge against civillian people. Islam has many rulings concerning how we do warfare, and terrorism has no part in it. Nor is there any precedence for such actions. Another point is that its not upon an individual to make up his mind to take up arms without consulting with the leader of the Muslims.

There are many who do take a lot of benefit from terrorism including the Bush regime in US and Blair. It strengthens their position to do with their foreign policy in the Middle East, and helps them invade and stay there to ensure they get their lucrative oil and weapon deals :(.

We are meant to live in democracies, but our leaders have interests in petroleum, armaments and military equipment, and they decide to go to war... they lie to us and fabricate evidence... and end up killing a quarter of a million people in Iraq. There is also a big Christian Fundamentalist religious movement behind the scenes which also guides the Middle East policy.

So, if one is to attach blame, it can not go to Islam or to the Muslim people. Like i said before, we do not judge Islam, but judge the actions of a people according to Islam.

But, the blame can definately go to the people who carried out the attacks and those who kill on a much larger scale, i.e the politicians who decide to invade and kill people in Iraq. State Terrorism is a much greater reality than any other forms of terrorism. And if there was to be true justice in the world, than people like Blair, Bush and Israeli leaders would be tried for War Crimes.

For the war in Iraq, the biased pro-Israeli stance the UK and US take with Israel, by supplying it with weapons, makes the world a very dangerous place.

The vast majority of Muslims know that the people in UK and US or anywhere else have absolutely nothing to do with the deaths of those in Muslim countries. And we are opposed to any form of revenge attacks such as 911 or 7/7

Unfortunately, the media has kept on putting disinformation about Islam and Muslims as well as feeding hatred.. Other groups have stepped up their campaigns such as the BNP and other groups.
 

David Gould

New Member
Dear Mabsoot,

Thank you for your very thoughtfull and welcoming reply. I was afraid I might not be welcome! I have many questions to ask about the faith and about the life of the Prophet (Peace be upon him).
I will be away for a few days so won't be able to read the site...where we are going has no electric and my phone is not an internet one. I look forward to returning and starting my long journey of exploration into the beauty of Islam. As I said before I have much to learn.
I particularily liked your phrase about not judging Islam by the actions of people and instead judging people by the standards of Islam. I shall hold onto that till we can commune further.
Thank you again. (I will learn the proper greeting even if I have to learn Arabic to do so in the correct way)
 

Muslim-

Junior Member
Hi David,

Ofcourse you are welcome here! and deffinitely feel free to ask anything you want.

hope you enjoy your stay.
 

ashah

Junior Member
:salam2: Brother Mabsoot,

I really liked reading your answer to this question and now I can think that we youth generation of Islam are going to the right Path. Please keep on shedding light like this.

:wasalam:
 

zarah

Islam
Staff member
Assalamu Alaikum

:bismillah:

Hiya David,

Welcome to this website!:biggrin:

Feel free to ask any questions!:bananabb2in: :bananabb2in: :bananabb2in:
 

David Gould

New Member
A first question

How should i go about finding out about the Muslim Faith? Are there books I need to get or do I have to read the Quran?
I am aware that there are different translations...which one is recommened?
Sorry to ask such basic questions but I want to know how to start the learning process.
 

Mabsoot

Amir
Staff member
David Gould said:
How should i go about finding out about the Muslim Faith? Are there books I need to get or do I have to read the Quran?
I am aware that there are different translations...which one is recommened?
Sorry to ask such basic questions but I want to know how to start the learning process.

Hi, you should read the Quran thats a good start, i recommend buying the translation by Muhsin Khan.

See here:
http://www.al-sunnah.com/call_to_islam/quran/index.html

Also i recommend you watch the first three videos in this section of our website:
Learn About Islam Videos

The articles here are good read:
Introductory Articles About Islam

Muslim Belief and the Declaration Of Faith

If you have any quesstions feel free to ask, inshaAllah.
 

bilshb

New Member
bilshb

As Salamu Alaykum to the world.

Very good site. Be patient with new web surfers. I thought i needed
TTI 101. IT has to take much time to maintain . Originally born in Central
America (Belize) ,practiceing Al Islam since early seventies.
Working on IT skills, will use tags in the future Insha Allah
Allah the All Seeing is surveilling us all.
Hold your position.

Wa Alaykum As Salam
 

muslim

Junior Member
good question

Welcome Dear David.

You asked a very good question and never be sorry for asking any questions.

I would suggest you to read the Quran first as it is the word of GOD.

This(Qu'ran) is a clear statement for men, and a guidance and an admonition to those who guard (against evil). - [Qu'ran 3:138].

Alif Laam Raa. A book which we have revealed to you (Muhammad) so that you may lead the people from out of the darknesses into the light by their Lord's leave to the path of the All-Mighty, the Praiseworthy. [Qur'an 14:1]

you can read Quran translation from this website.
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/quran/
As per my knowledge is concerned the most popular is the yusuf ali's Translation which you can find on above website.

And we would love to hear more questions from you, Thanks.



Say (O Muhammad): We believe in Allah and that which is revealed unto us and that which was revealed unto Abraham and Ishmael and Isaac and Jacob and the tribes, and that which was vouchsafed unto Moses and Jesus and the prophets from their Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and unto Him we have surrendered. [Qu'ran 3:84].
 

David Gould

New Member
Some progress I hope

Hi, I have made some progress with my quest. I have today bought a copy of the Qur'an (the J M Rodwell translation) which I intend to start reading once I have been through the introduction and forword. I must admit to being rather thrilled by the opening Sura.
Sura 2 is a lot longer and will need to be read over several days. I will let you know how I get on...I think my family think I am a little mad to be setting out on this voyage of discovery.
 

Mabsoot

Amir
Staff member
David Gould said:
Hi, I have made some progress with my quest. I have today bought a copy of the Qur'an (the J M Rodwell translation) which I intend to start reading once I have been through the introduction and forword. I must admit to being rather thrilled by the opening Sura.
Sura 2 is a lot longer and will need to be read over several days. I will let you know how I get on...I think my family think I am a little mad to be setting out on this voyage of discovery.

Hi, thats good. However, J M Rodwell was a non-Muslim who wrote the translation over 130 years ago from the top of his head and with his own ideas... I was reading the introduction he wrote on the net, it was very inaccurate and his ideas were anti-Islamic.

There are many better and more accurate translations that have been written by Muslims.

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Interpretation Of The Meanings OF The Noble Quran [/FONT]
http://www.simplyislam.com/iteminfo.asp?Item=1026

Keep in mind that the Quran in its original Arabic form is unchanged since the day of revelation.

byeeee
 

br_rizwan

Slave of Almighty
Serching for Peace..Come to Islam Learn Islam..

Hi David ,
Welcome to TTL.

You are most welcome to ask any kind of question doesn’t matter it is against Islam hope we tried to give you satisfactory answer at our level of knowledge.

Thanks very much indeed. For searching Truth..

Rizwan
 

AishaR

Junior Member
Welcome to the site David

Please dont feel shy to ask any questions, we are all friends here & will try to help you the best we can, mashallah.
I know how daunting it can be at the start, I reverted 5 mths ago & to begin with my head was swimming with questions. Alot of them I was afraid to ask for fear of being laughed at. Wot I have learnt though, no matter how dumb you think the question is there is someone who wants the same answer & without asking we will never learn.
I wish you well with your quest, please keep in touch & ask away.

Kind regards
 

Mahmoud Amin

New Member
As-slam Alikom wa rahmat Allah wa Barkatah (May peace, Blessings and Mercy of God be with You)
this is my 1st post here in such a good forum like that we ask Allah to blessed the team of the work and ask the team to do their best.

David you r welcome here and it's a good work from you to search to the truth by yourself not like others anyway... we r ready to give you all the info u need to know about islam......
http://www.icsfp.com/QuranTranslate...icsfp.com/QuranTranslated/QuranTranslated.zip


Right click then save target as
and you can listen to the qura'an by arabic sound and an English translation in this link :http://english.islamway.com/bindex.php?section=echapters&recitor_id=171


Wa As-slam Alikom wa rahmat Allah wa Barkatah (May peace, Blessings and Mercy of God be with You)

*edited by Mods, removed contact details.. Read the Rules*
 

husainahmed154

New Member
Aslam-o-Alikum,
I would also suggest some light reading regarding Islam. "The Road to Mecca, by Muhammad Asad" would be a very good option. Muhammad Asad was a European, Austrian, Jew, who later converted to Islam. I have just read this book, and have also heard a lot about this book. Its really worth spending time upon.

The intial few pages of the book are placed at
http://road-to-mecca.blogspot.com/

In my personal opinion, after some time, when you have done some initial reading of the quran translation, do go for the detailed description of quran (Taseer). These details descriptions of Quran help understand the Quran much more better. It includes, the historical background in which the particular verses are revealed, the direct and indirect addresses of the particular Verses of Quran, and few other important details.

Again, you will find translations and commentaries by various different scholars. Currently i am listening to the following.

http://scholaris.com/islam/video/tafseerenglish/index.htm (Translation and Commentary of Quran in English by Dr Israr Ahmad) (Video Lectures)

http://www.tanzeem.org/broadcast/audio/eng/mne/mne1.asp (Introduction, What is Quran, Its subject, Its mode of speech, Who are its addresses, Its collection and Compilation ... ) (2 Audio Lectures in English)


You will be getting various suggestions about which translation or detailed commentary of Quran you should follow. There exist a difference of opinion on few issues amongst various Islamic Scholars. But this difference of opinion is infact a blessing. As the prophet once said "The difference of opinion (ikhtilaaf) among the learned men of my community are [an outcome of] divine grace".


For more details you can also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam
There is a lot to know about Islam. You will have to go slowly and gradually; but with consistency. Don't ever press yourself too hard.

Since i am a new user to this site, i would like to thank the Moderators and Owners of this site for such a wonderful site. I have seen various videos regarding the new converts and the history of Islam, and all of them are really superb. Jazakallah Khairan.


Regards
Husain
 

Abu Sarah

Allahu Akbar
Staff member
Hello David Gould

u wellcome Here..

if u wanna learn More about islam..

wellcom here....


insha` Allah...Allah 'll direct u to right path.....

is islam easy....

yeah that is islam.....A-Z of Islam

Islaam! The Modern Alternative

ISLAAM - The Call to Submission

The 20 Most Commonly Asked Questions About Islaam


Is the Religion True or False?

The Status of Women in Islaam



if u have some Question.... "You ask and The Quran answers..

sister .....u know that !! if u converted to islam.... Forgiveness for All Previous Sins


for more....introduction articles about islam

just click here

islam is the religion of Allah



Surely the (true) religion with Allah is Islam, and those to whom the Book had been given did not show opposition but after knowledge had come to them, out of envy among themselves; and whoever disbelieves in the communications of Allah then surely Allah is quick in reckoning. (3 :19 )


islam is the religion accepted by Allah


And whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted from him, and in the hereafter he shall be one of the losers. ( 3 :85)


insha` Allah u'll find....Real Happiness and Inner Peace ...

and insha` Allah...Salvation from Hellfire

due to islam is....The Door to Eternal Paradise

after that......if u find the reality of islam by urself....

that is the start

<wasalam Alaykum>
 
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