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Published: October 6th 2010
It’s been a crazy few days. I’ve had the obligatory stomach troubles the last two days so straying too far from Home Base (i.e.: the bathroom) has not been a good idea! Both Heidi and Ina have been pretty sick too but with a respiratory infection. Heidi is just back from a CCS placement in Delhi so it could be something she picked up there. There have also been a few other volunteers down with some stomach ‘issues’. When you have 27 people in one house it is bound to happen!
On Tuesday afternoon Mohammed gave a lecture on Islam. I have to say I was fascinated throughout the entire lecture. I really didn’t know much of anything and in a 2 hour lecture I feel like I still don’t know much but I am very interested.
A few facts:
- What does Islam mean? “Peace achieved through surrender to God”
- Islam is the world’s 2nd largest religion trailing only slightly behind Christianity
- What is the percentage of Arabs among Muslims - only 18%
- The largest Muslim country? Indonesia
- The largest Arab country? Egypt
- What specifically is the Qur’an (Koran)? It is literally interpreted as the recitation. The Qur’an can only be in Arabic. A Qur’an in English/French, etc is only an interpretation.
- The Qur’an is a sacred work and only the word of God. The Hadeeth includes the sayings/words of the prophet Mohammed. The Qur’an was written as he was receiving the message from God and only includes God’s actual message. It does not include any thoughts/interpretations of Mohammed. The Hadeeth was written years later.
About Mohammed:
He was born in 571 A. Mohammed was an orphan and raised by his grandfather. He was illiterate but was a good person and had a reputation for being very trustworthy. He was just a normal citizen of Mecca. He would frequently go to the mountains of Mecca to meditate (Hira).
Khadja was a wealthy businesswoman who heard about Mohammed and his reputation for being trustworthy. She asked him to take care of her business going from Syria in the summer to Yemen in the winter. They fell in love and were married when she was 40 and he was 25. They lived in Mecca normally for 15 years. At age 40 (610 AD), the angel Gabriel came to him in the mountains of Mecca with the first verse to read. The first verse was to worship and believe in only one God.
This new religion began to take hold with the 2nd class citizens…women and slaves. The wealthy began to be threatened by this view to only worship one God since they worshiped inanimate objects, etc. They began to torture the believers. God told Mohammed to move everyone to Medina in 622. The year 622 is the first year of the Muslim calendar. We (Westerners) follow the Gregorian calendar - Muslims follow the Muslim calendar. The year 2010 is 1431 in the Muslim calendar.
Between 610 AD and 632 AD the words of God were written down. This is the Qur’an. Mohammed asked that his words not be recorded only God’s. He didn’t want to happen what happened with the Christian bible - sometimes it is God talking, a prophet, a narrator, etc. 125 years after his death the Haddeth was written which is Mohammed’s words/sayings.
More interesting Islam facts:
- Muslim’s believe in 124, 000 messengers sent to earth by God
- The first messenger was Adam (of Adam and Eve) and the very last was Mohammed
- Basically Muslims believe in the Old Testament… Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Job, Jonah, John the Baptist, etc…they were all messengers of God.
- Muslims believe in Jesus as a prophet but not the literal son of God.
- There is a story in the Qur’an about the Virgin Mary and the Virgin Birth.
- Muslims believe Jesus is the Messiah - he was born without a father
- Muslims do not believe in the crucifixation and resurrection.
- Since Muslims believe you are responsible for your own sins --- not the sins of your mother, father, children, etc then that means that Jesus would not have to die for our sins. There is no original sin.
- Muslims believe that Jesus was on the cross and we think he was crucified but God saved him and brought him to heaven where he awaits judgment day as a Messiah and will return to Earth. Jesus is referred to as Issahl Masseh in the Qur’an.
- The basic definition of being a Muslim - believe in God - one good
- Muslims do not believe in the trinity (God, Jesus, Holy Ghost) since that would polytheism
- The whole 72 virgin’s thing that American media/comedians have made so popular does not exist in the Qur’an. People here think that is ridiculous.
I was really quite surprised as to how similar Islam and Christianity really are….
We went over quite a bit more that was equally as fascinating but that is more than I think most people may want to read. I wish there was another talk because I have more questions and really only covered the first pillar (first of five) of Islam.
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Woody
non-member comment
Very interesting. It is really to bad that islam gets a bad wrap. It sounds like a beatiful religion. So does that mean you have to learn arabic to read the Quar'an?