أحمد الرواس

المزيد

 The famous misconceptions

about Islam 2/2

Ahmed Rouas

Most of verses that tackled and mentioned Jihad have clearly stated its motives and reasons or implied them within the context. Have the Holy Quran mentioned those motives one time it would have been more than enough to confirm its characteristic and its merit as a major promoter of  peace in the world

Jihad has nothing to do with “ war” as it has been known to man throughout the history

The West has for instance, launched most of its notorious wars during its ill-famed and disreputable long colonial history for satisfying its devouring hunger. Millions of poor and feeble people had to die in Africa Asia and Latin America for the unholy reason of satisfying the West ever-hungry greed. Jihad has nothing to do with such wars. Its cause is much different than these greedy wars

 I know that there are many tendentious and counterfeiters of reality out there who are taking the advantage of the  modern cyber communication and work night and day in spreading lies and misinformation about Islam through repulsive and loathsome means. Their strategy, however, is stupidly masked behind silly generalization. A lot of  miserable anti-Islam websites premeditatedly snatch pieces of Quranic texts away from this chapter and that, and disentangle them from their necessary contexts, and rash to add to them the forged meanings that they mislead people with.

Some of them would, for instance, take some horrible photos of dead people taking fromsome Hotbeds of tension and war zones in the Islamic world and try to paint Islam and Muslims with that and deliberately accuse Islam as a whole of Barbarism!!

It is very often for instance, to find some scheming people spreading some barbaric bloody religious celebrations of the shiat cult and try to stain Islam with it, while everybody knows that those barbaric and shameful and satanic acts have nothing to do  with Islam nor with the vast majority of Muslims in the world. Shiats are a tiny sect compared to Muslims and most of them had deviated from the true Islam.

  Such propaganda, however, can only fool the most gullible and simple-minded people, that we probably think that we should not be worried about, but the concern grows when knowing that many people in the west nowadays proved to be manipulated by some anti-Islam controlled media, owned by some political  influential groups .The most efficacious media in the west today, is owned and controlled by certain anti-Islam groups. Nevertheless, If we are to compare between those barbaric acts committed by some ignorant Arabs in some war zones  and what America and Israel or the  western countries in general have committed either in their notorious wars in Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan, or during the first and second world wars, we will be left short of any ground for comparison. The west alone has killed more than 100 million people-most of them were innocent civilians- in one century alone. Many more millions of innocent and poor people were perished by western colonial countries in previous wars to satisfy their greed from other people natural resources and yet no Muslim would accuse Christianity of Barbarism or the Prophet Jesus peace be with Him of brutality.

Such shameful conduct of those tendentious cunning people is like taking pictures of  innocent people and children killed and mutilated  by American shells and missiles in Iraq or Afghan villages and accuse Christianity as a religion of terror.!!

Jihad is clear of all those claims and it has a very constructive goal and it aims at the good welfare of all humanity had it just been understood properly.

Equally absurd is the claim that Islam was spread at the sword point! Those who spread this outcrying lie stay speechless when confronted with some concert facts in the history such as how did Islam spread in the most populous country in Islamic world Indonesia ? because no Islamic or Arab army known to have reached those islands of Indonesia or Malaysia or many other southern Asia countries. The only Muslims known to have travelled to those remote islands were merchants             

Also, how can little number of Arabs and Muslims who entered many countries in North Africa or mid-Asia for instance be able to force all those masses by which they were far out numbered, to convert to Islam.And stay adherent to Islam

Let us now read what one of the even-handed Westerner historian wrote:

 Misconception: Islam was spread by the sword

Historian De lacey O’Leary states “History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.” There is no record in history that shows people being forced by sword point to convert to Islam. When Islam spread through countries they would set up private churches and synagogues for the non Muslims they were governing and because of the good treatment they had received they themselves would convert. If one considers the small number of Muslims who initially spread Islam to the west all the way from Spain and Morocco and into east from India and China .one would realize that such a small group of people could not force others to be members of a religion against their will. It is also interesting to note that when the Mongols invaded and conquered large portions of the Islamic empire, instead of destroying the religion they adopted it!” Islam at the Crossroads 

The following verses of the Quran highlights the nature of Jihad in Islam

Baqara 190. Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors.

246 al Baqara

المزيد

1/2 The famous misconceptions

about Islam

 Ahmed Rouas

It is probably not a secret that one of the most famous misconception about Islam is the Jihad, It is not unfamiliar to find people in Western media ranting that Jihad’s goal is to spread Islam, and from this fallacy came the famous propaganda that Islam was spread by sword! And that people converted to Islam on the knife point!!.   This rumour however, easily vanishes and rapidly evaporates as soon as it is exposed to the reality beams!

Those misled people don’t know that the Holy Quran made it crystal clear that:

“Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.

Al Baqara 256 translation Yusuf Ali   

So, Let us ask this direct question: what is Jihad in Islam?                                             Jihad literally means struggle, working hard, do one’s best, to endeavour, to strive, to fight in a legitimate cause.These are some of synonyms of Jihad, they have been all used in the Holy Quran. For example: In Surat Loqman Quran says:                 Now [among the best of righteous deeds which] We have enjoined upon man [is] goodness towards his parents; yet [even so,] should they endeavour to make thee ascribe divinity, side by side with Me, to something which thy mind cannot accept [as divine], obey then, not: [for] it is unto Me that you all must return, whereupon I shall make you [truly] understand [the right and wrong of] all that you were doing [in life].Muhammed Assad 

  We have enjoined on man kindness to parents: but if they (either of them) strive (to force)thee to join with Me (in worship) anything of which thou hast no knowledge, obey them not. Ye have (all) to return to me, and I will tell you (the truth) of all that ye did. Yusuf Ali

  We have instructed man to honour his parents, but if they endeavour to make you associate with Me something about which you have no knowledge, do not obey them. It is to Me you will return and I will inform you about the things you did.  Aish Bewely.                    "[Revere thy parents;] yet should they endeavour to make thee ascribe divinity, side by side with Me, to something which thy mind cannot accept [as divine], obey them not; but [even then] bear them company in this world’s life with kindness, and follow the path of those who turn towards Me. In the end, unto Me you all must return; and thereupon I shall make you [truly] understand all that you were doing [in life")   Mohammed Assad.                         "But if they strive to make thee join in worship with Me things of which thou hast no knowledge, obey them not; yet bear them company in this life with justice (and consideration.                                                                          "But if they try to make you associate something with Me about which you have no knowledge, do not obey them. Keep company with them correctly and courteously in this world Yusuf Ali

From the above-mentioned translations we find out that the Holy Quran used the same source of the word Jihad to mean : to strive to struggle.to try hardly,  Now we know that Jihad is a neutral word that could mean fight and same time mean other meaning as I stated earlier

Some mainly western writers however, translated Jihaad as a Holy war! This is a big fallacy. There is no such concept as holy war in Islam at all. A war as it is known to humans can’t be considered holy in Islam

The most uses of Jihad in the Holy Quran was for fighting the Muslim’s various enemies; mostly pagans of the Arabia, Byzantines who used to  occupy the western part of Arabia and Palestine who mobilized themselves to eradicate the Deen of Islam in the Arabia after the ¨ Prophet Mohammed PBUH asked them to answer the call of Islam and enter in peace, They amassed in their tens of thousands and decided to conquer the whole Arabia has not the Prophet aborted their plans and nipped it in the bud. And the Persian invaders who killed the Prophet’s messenger  who carried the peaceful message to them. And to fight any tyrant who is persecuting and oppressing innocent people

So, al Jihad is mainly to defend Islam and Muslim against all those deadly enemies who wasted no chance trying to uproot it.                                                                              We can more

المزيد

The Quranic Miracles

The Big Bang theory

Between science and the Holy Quran

Ahmed Rouas

The scientific discoveries about the developments of the universe after the creation, is consistent with what the Holy Quran has notably mentioned 

 This is a quick tour on the development of the universe according to what the cosmologists and astrophysicists ended up after centuries of researches

Scientists agree nowadays that the universe has started in a specific point of time which goes back to some13.7 billions years ago; some other estimates put that time point as earlier as 16 billion years ago. The once long aged absurd idea of the timeless and eternal universe, is no more attractive in the theories auction market anymore. Science proved, beyond any doubt, that the universe has a beginning, and thus should have an end. 

The universe before this time was just one huge massive ball of sediments, with immense heat and extremely hot gazes, cosmic clouds, and smoke. Surrounded by neck-breaking pressure which eventually led to the biggest ever “explosion” called the Big Bang! Such explosion marks the start of the universe that we know today

Such theory has become almost a scientific fact, after being supported by all researches and scientific experiments, and the modern discoveries derived from Hubble space telescope, and other telescopes and sources around the globe. The last of which was the LHC scientific giant project which was called : Large Harold Collieder run by the European Organization for Nuclear research and which took place underneath the Alps mountains between France and Switzerland, in a 27 kilometre tunnel. More than 1700 of scientists and engineers from 60 countries participated is this project  which aimed at getting a glimpse of the nature of the physics of the high energy by imitating  the Big Bang through  accelerating the electron speed around this long tunnel, and at the same time accelerating protons in the opposite direction. 

The goal being head-on collisions of protons that can offer clues to the origin of mass, and new forces and particles in the universe. The second beam made one turn around the LHC.

Some scientists expressed their concern about the possibility of creating a tiny black hole which may arbitrarily endanger the life on earth!

Many Muslim scholars agree that the Big Bang theory perspective is clearly supported in the Holy Quran. In Surat al Anbia (the Prophets)We read

“ Do not the unbelievers see that the heaven and the earth were joined together( in one unit of creation ) before We clove them asunder ? and We made from water every living thing. Will they not believe

Some unbelievers seem to have been taken by surprise to find such facts in the Holy Quran; they hastened to accuse the translators of the Quran with forgery! and thought they made these claims up!. However, going back to the original text of the Quran Arabic, We find it even clearer. Let us examine the vocabulary used in this particular Aya

The words and verbs used are: Fatq and Ratq

Ratq is an infinitive and verbal noun derived from the verb Rataqa which means: to mend to patch, to sew up, to darn. to join together etc. this description gives us a glimpse of  how the  universe was initiated  before it developed to the way humans see it today. The description clearly indicates that the universe was one entity before and that the earth belongs to the same matter as other celestial bodies that we see in the heavens. Some may wonder why would Quran compare between the heavens and earth, or pair and usually links between heavens and earth? While we know today, that earth is nothing compared to other celestial bodies and galaxies.The answer to that is that this collation is nothing more than an emphasise that both heavens and earth came from the same matter and origin. Nothing in the Quran,or the Saheh Sunna and sayings of the Prophet suggests earth, for instance, is equal, in its volume or size to the universe! as viewed by old civilisations. Is it not enough  proof of the Quranic divine origin, the fact that it is completely free of all the- once overwhelming- legendary theories concerning earth shape and position in this universe!? Such ridiculous concepts companied humanity all the way, and they are still around even today, and we all know, for instance, the story of that old British lady which wrangled with Alfred Russel  (1823 –1913) as he was explaining to his audience the orbiting of  earth around sun , and the sun around galaxy, she said

‘What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ The scientist gave a superior smile before replying: ‘What is the tortoise standing on?’ ‘You’re very clever, young man, very clever,’ said the old lady, ‘But it’s turtles all the way down
(ST: Steven Hawking, A Brief History of Time)

A lot of people are still turtling all the way down in various legends even today

In the contrary, the Quranic repeated confirmation that the heavens are  seven facing one earth, makes us strongly sense and perceive that heavens are not to be compared in their size to the planet earth. Plus, there are many sayings

المزيد

Quranic Miracles/ The Universe expansion

المزيد