72 Sects and Core Values of Islam

Islam is indeed a Deen of fitra, of human nature.  When Prophet said, eventually my Ummah will splinter into 72 groups – it was a metaphoric number to mean many. This reflects the human nature, which is to differ from each other. God has intentionally created us to be unique – with our own thumb print, eye print, DNA, taste bud … and religion bud.

He said one tribe among you will be perfect, what does it mean? It does not mean 71 tribes will go to hell.

Take the class room analogy - when the teacher asks students to do well in the tests, obviously everyone can score 100 in factual sciences, but when social sciences are in the mix, only one or two will score 100. It does not mean the other 71 will fail, it simply means one was perfect, and all others scoring from 99 down to 70 will pass, a few will make D and few will have difficult times.

Remember the most dominant characteristics of God, the creator is Mercy.  Indeed, it is one of the five core values of Islam; Justice, equality, truthfulness and humility being the other.

There is something wrong with the idea of only one is going to Janna and others don’t. That is not human nature and that is not fitra. Most everyone will make it with an exception of a few... who still got the time to seek forgiveness.

Allah will not forgive Shirk! That is baloney!

Allah will forgive shirk if one seeks forgiveness. 

What is Shirk?

The simplest way to understand Shirk is to understand Tauheed. Tauheed is clarity about responsibility and accountability of your actions to one God, and one conscience, indeed God is closer to us than our jugular veins.   Shirk on the other hand is confusion about responsibility to accountability to who?

God is not a thing or a being to be counted as numerical one, number # 1, it is an idea – it is the Noor and it is the existence of unseen energy that permeates all of the creation.

I hope Dr. Nauman Anwar can share his scientific views on that.  If we cannot think, we don’t need to live as humans and become farishta’s and Jins and do what they are programmed to do. We are human and we are given the freedom to think, and we must.
  

 

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Mike Ghouse is a speaker, thinker and a writer on pluralism, politics, peace, Islam, Israel, India, interfaith, and cohesion at work place. He is committed to building a Cohesive America and offers pluralistic solutions on issues of the day at www.TheGhousediary.com. He believes in Standing up for others and has done that throughout his life as an activist. Mike has a presence on national and local TV, Radio and Print Media. He is a frequent guest on Sean Hannity show on Fox TV, and a commentator on national radio networks, he contributes weekly to the Texas Faith Column at Dallas Morning News; fortnightly at Huffington post; and several other periodicals across the world. His personal site www.MikeGhouse.net indexes all his work through many links.
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