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From: zama@midway.uchicago.edu (iftikhar uz zaman)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Questions regarding Israel
Message-ID: <1990Nov1.205936.13307@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 1 Nov 90 20:59:36 GMT
Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
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Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu

In article <1990Oct30.161757.31233@wpi.WPI.EDU> yaser@uxh.cso.uiuc.edu writes:
>It seems that zama is interested in philosophical discussions which is
>not my interest and to my believe does not relate at all to the subject.
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Actually I am not at all interested in "philosophical discussions."  But
it does concern me when I hear a Muslim attribute "fate" (qadar) to himself.
And I feel a kinship towards someone who feels forced towards taking this
position: believing in "La hawla wa la quwatta illa billah"  ("there is
no power over performing [good deeds] and no ability [to avoid bad one]
except by the will of God" along with a lot of the other sentences in the
Quran which suggest that all good and evil circumstance are from Allah
("ma asabakum min musibatin fa min Allah"--whatever difficulties come to
you are from Allah...); believing all these things seems to be a part of
believing "la ilaha illa Allah." THIS, I think, is important.  THIS
should not be given up.  And it is this which I see people as being forced
to give up when faced with the dillemma of "well if Allah destined it,
how can you fight against it?" 

One solution is to say, Allah did not destine it--we caused it.  *This*
is something which I think no Muslim should allow himself to think.  
And, I was offerring a way of understanding La ilaha illa Allaha which
would *not* force people to abandon, what seems to me, to be a direct
demand of la ilaha illa Allah.

I think one has to be careful, even commit the crime of thinking
"philosophically" when it comes to questions that relate so closely
to belief in la ilaha illa Allah.  And especially when it comes to
questions that *are* philosophical. You say:

>I strongly reject the idea that mankind has no will of himself. This idea 
>degrades humans to the level of animals. 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
You see, this, too, is philosophising.  And I was trying to show that
this conclusion is *not* necessary.  

Everything we disagree with is not necessary something Israel, America
and the Zionists have foisted on us.  Everything we do not understand is
not necessarily something which Israel, America and Zionists have foisted
on us.

Iftikhar

Wa assalam u aliykum wa rahmatullah wa barakatuhu

--
La yajrimannakum shan'anu qawmin `ala an-ta`dilu; i`dilu huwa aqrubu li
al-taqwa...
zama@ellis.uchicago.edu        xpszama@uchimvs1.uchicago.edu