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From: nnk@cs.wayne.edu (Nasir Naseem Khawaja)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: HOW I REVERTED TO ISLAM
Message-ID: <1990Dec9.012023.21931@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Date: 9 Dec 90 01:20:23 GMT
Sender: bes@nntp-server.caltech.edu (Behnam Sadeghi)
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena
Lines: 75
Approved: bes@tybalt.caltech.edu

In article <1990Dec5.082914.2315@nntp-server.caltech.edu> mayne@sun10.scri.fsu.edu (William (Bill) Mayne) writes:

>I am curious about the use of the word "reverted" in the title
>of this thread and the text of the article in question........
>Does it have some special significance to Muslims, suggesting 
>something like the soul "coming home" even if they weren't a 
>Muslim before?


    I believe this WAS (as you speculated) a case of a non native
    English speaker who used "Reverted" where it should have been
    "Converted", which is what we Muslims call those who accept Islam.


>How do other Muslims regard the separate (but equal?) black
>Muslim groups?


    Personally (and people may disagree), I believe that the black
    Muslims have a slightly different view of Islam as compared to 
    the Islam found in the rest of the world. I would like to believe
    that this conclusion of mine is a consequence of non-muslim 
    propaganda which shows the black muslims viewing their leaders 
    (malcom X, FaraKahn etc) as more than just people who led (yes. 
    I'm insinuating prophethood).



>There have been a few articles which though written in English (sort of) 
>contained so many unusual words I couldn't figure out what the author was
>writing about!


     Though I am not a native Arabic speaker, I think that we people
     of the middle-eastern countries (Muslim) know some tid bits of
     the language which are enough to get us by at a congregation
     given in English by an Arabic speaker.

     Here are a few of the words you will most likely hear (or read)
     in a discussion on Islam.

   * SAW -- Sal' Allah 'O' Alayhey Wasallam  [same (as you said) as PBUH]
     
   * Insha-Allah -- with Allah's grace; or, If Allah so wills

   * Salaa' -- Muslim Prayer

   * Iman -- pronounced "eemaan" meaning faith

   * Shahadah -- better understood if written "sha-ha-dah" meaning
                 bearing witness. Sha-ha-dah is also the death a
                 Muslim encounters while striving in the name of Allah
                 thus becoming "Sha-heed".

   * Jihaad -- Unlike the usuall negative meaning given to it, Jihaad
               literally means "a strive". Jihaad ranges from a the 
               very basic- a Jihaad on oneself (controll over bad habits),
               to the ultimate- a Jihaad on Evil.

     I hope this small collection would be helpful to you in understanding
     the discussions on Islam better.


>Bill Mayne


     Nasir.
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