Dr. Aslam Abdullah, wrote a note this morning, that woke me up, and I wrote my response, it sounds radical, but I am sure, some of you wanted to say it, but did not have the time to do that.
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These prophets of darkness have their followers even now:
St. Francis Xavier, May, 1546: “The evil [of Islam] was introduced by some Mahometan caicizes (ministers of religion), who came from Mecca in Arabia, where the accursed body of Mahomet is honored with great superstition.”
St. Francis of Assisi (+ c. 1210): [To the Muslims] “We have come to preach faith in Jesus Christ to you, that you will renounce Mohammad, that wicked slave of the devil, and obtain everlasting life like us.”
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:
“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”
St. Francis Xavier, May, 1546: “The evil [of Islam] was introduced by some Mahometan caicizes (ministers of religion), who came from Mecca in Arabia, where the accursed body of Mahomet is honored with great superstition.”
St. Francis of Assisi (+ c. 1210): [To the Muslims] “We have come to preach faith in Jesus Christ to you, that you will renounce Mohammad, that wicked slave of the devil, and obtain everlasting life like us.”
Pope Eugene IV, Council of Florence, “Cantate Domino,” 1441, ex cathedra:
“The Holy Roman Church firmly believes, professes and preaches that all those who are outside the Catholic Church, not only pagans but also Jews or heretics and schismatics, cannot share in eternal life and will go into the everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels, unless they are joined to the Church before the end of their lives; that the unity of this ecclesiastical body is of such importance that only those who abide in it do the Church’s sacraments contribute to salvation and do fasts, almsgiving and other works of piety and practices of the Christian militia productive of eternal rewards; and that nobody can be saved, no matter how much he has given away in alms and even if he has shed blood in the name of Christ, unless he has persevered in the bosom and unity of the Catholic Church.”
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I have elaborated the following notes from the original content posted on Dr. Abdullah’s facebook.
Indeed, those prophets of darkness have followers and I dealt with one live on Television, Radio and Dallas Morning News. Pastor Jeffress said, “Koran is a false book, written by a false prophet….” And his audience in the Church gives him a standing ovation! Please resist from stereotyping any one, for one Jeffress, I have three Baptists pastors of who completely oppose his views, and one of them participated in Quraan Conference. It is not the denomination, it is the individual. Details atwww.Quraanconference.com
The biggest shocker to me is St. Francis of Assisi, whose prayers are recited continuously; it's part of my repertoire as well. This has been difficult for me, his prayers, the Lord's Prayer is one of the most popular prayers around. I believe he was a contemporary of Rumi, and somewhere (not verified) I read that he was influenced by Rumi's thoughts and I am having difficulty in seeing him as a bigot.
Let's be critical, for every bigot in Christianity, we have one in Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism and other faiths.
How different are these prophets of darkness from Imam Bukhari, Hanbali and Shafi'i, who have done a lot of great work, but in between there are Hadiths quoted by them or ascribed to them, that do not meet a simple criteria - that Allah and Muhammad were for Aalameen, universe and not for Muslims alone. Quraan begins addressing Allah as Rabbul Aalmeen [universe] and end with Sura Naas, addressing the whole humanity. Ibn Tamiyya, Ibn Kathir, Banna, Maududi, Qardhawi and a host of scholars are treated almost like prophets.
To many a Muslims, their word almost equals to God, even though they will not say it, but will defend them vigorously and will not take criticism. Those scholars are no different than the ones mentioned above; hateful, and punitive towards anyone who is not a Muslim, eager to sell their religion not on its own merits, but selling against others.
To many a Muslims, their word almost equals to God, even though they will not say it, but will defend them vigorously and will not take criticism. Those scholars are no different than the ones mentioned above; hateful, and punitive towards anyone who is not a Muslim, eager to sell their religion not on its own merits, but selling against others.
As Muslims, we need to strip the titles like Maulana, Allama and many such coveted tittles from all of them. We should not be loose with titles, unless they have shown in their wirings that Allah is Rabbul Aaalamen (Universality of the Creator) and Muhammad is Rahmatul Aalameen, and have not presented them as zulmutal Aalameen. Just like the prophets of darkness in other religions. No one owns God, and it is idiotic to believe that God showers favors one over the other, in which case, you are demeaning God to be bigot. God has not signed a deal with any one behind others back, and he will be just to everyone, whether you believe in it or not.
To Christians, Jews, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Bahais and others, Allah and Prophet are made to appear Zulmutal Aalameen by a few Muslims, even though it is not in the Quraan. They plain cooked it up, like the Pope and few of the Saints in Christianity, Rabbis in Judaism, Pundits in Hinduism, and yes, even the Monks at the Buddhist Monasteries. All it takes is a few dudes to make statements, and we the public will conveniently ascribe it to their religion, instead of seeing if it is truthful. Religion is sold as an exclusive ideology by many of these men.
How many of them would qualify to be a Saint, Allama or a Maulana then?
We need to fix our house and I know several of us are daring it, and we need to gather momentum, we have a tremendous supply of true Muslims scholars today in the market, among may are Tariq Ramadan, Hamza Yusuf, Ziauddin Sardar, Wahiduddin Khan, Javed Ahmed Ghamidi, Asghar Ali Engineer, Chandra Muzaffar, and a host of other critical Muslim thinkers.
The average Muslim does not have the time to question and be critical, and buys into what is dished out for generations, unless, collectively, we the Muslims come with revised Ahadith to reflect the character of the Prophet, they will stick with what is familiar and written in the books and we cannot blame them but ourselves.
Insha Allah my article Criticism of Islam and Muslims will be published at Huffington post this coming week.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-ghouse and I pray that no one will issue a Fatwa, it was attempted once, and I told them to “go ahead and make my day” and they did not.
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Mike Ghouse is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day. He is a professional speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, civic affairs, Islam, India, Israel, peace and justice. Mike is a frequent guest onSean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News and regularly at Huffington post, Smirking Chimp and several other periodicals across the world. The blog www.TheGhousediary.com is updated daily and MikeGhouse.net indexes all his activities.
There aren't only two choices. There are lots of brave, respected Islamic scholars today but perhaps people who don't believe in ijtihad wish to acknowledge them like Abdul Aziz Sachedina, Omid Safi, Amina Wadud, Khaled Abou El Fadl, Abdullahi Ahmed An Naim, Laleh Baktiar and many more.
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