My recent visit to a Muslim Center

[wil]

FYI when everything is bolded nothing is bolded

when one chooses a font which increases the difficulty of reading, less are likely to read

So if one is working to convey a thought, it is most beneficial to make it easy for the other parties to read and understand.

[bananabrain]

sheesh, can't you write in a normal font? you're making my eyes ache.

I do not follow Sheikh-ul-Islam Muhammad Bin Abdul-Wahhab I follow the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and his companions as did Sheikh Muhammad Bin Abdul-Wahhab.

with all due respect, that is pure semantics. i'm not accusing you of shirk! why are you splitting hairs about abd al-wahhab? is he not a reliable and trustworthy authority?

now, to the shia (and it would have been nice for you to actually edit this stuff, or even summarise it, as opposed to a ginormous quote job - and a lot of this looks like it's a direct paste from salafi 101). so, if i understand you correctly, the shia consider this book "al-kafi" and the other three books to be authoritative, thereby making the authors reliable - and it contains statements that you consider to be problematic. fair enough, i can see why you'd object to the ones you've quoted, particularly the ones about the alid succession and the esoteric doctrine of the imam. the thing is, i can't see how you could justify saying that they are not muslims. they would certainly call themselves muslims - it seems to me unnecessarily harsh and, moreover, a matter of opinion - they also seem to say the same thing about the 73 sects and identify themselves as the correct group. and, more to the point, i can see why you'd think the shi'a are wrong, but not why the salafis are therefore the *only* group who are correct.

as for the sufis, again, i can see why you'd have a problem with the things you quote - but only if you take it really, really literally. i think, for example, you are hairsplitting when you categorise a naqshbandi utterance as a belief that the sheikh's actions are not part of the Divine process, whereas the development and application of fiqh are not in some sense a continuation of a similar Divine process, that of the revealed Qur'an. it seems to me that you're failing to appreciate the *metaphorical richness and poetry* of the texts concerned, which seems crazy considering the outstanding , even unique, poetic qualities of the Qur'an itself! in particular here i think your insistence that "G!D Is above the sky" suggests that there are places in which G!D Is not - and this to me is far more problematic in terms of tawhid, which is a principle of judaism as well as islam. it also seems to me that if someone can be demonstrated to be wrong - as the "last day" question would seem to indicate, that this ought not to disqualify them from being called a muslim - which brings me to my other quibble.

this other quibble is with inflexibility. it seems to me that there is a question about reliability for given authors. if a given scholar is 99% reliable, is that the same as him being *un*reliable? say muhammad sadiq al-sadr or khomeini, for example - can you consider them muslims or are they apostates? can you abide by a ruling of theirs, or does a single mistaken, unreliable or incorrect opinion disqualify them entirely? is someone either right or wrong? is it not possible, say, to consider the two figures i refer to as authoritative in non-theological fields? are they - or any other non-salafi scholar - worthy of respect and study? and, if so, doesn't that mean that the 'umma is basically just the salafis and that the rest, even if not kafir, are to be considered as equivalent to dhimmi? i believe something like that is the position of shi'a in, say, saudi arabia. is that correct? in judaism, of course, we record our disagreements, including the minority opinions, in case one day they become the authoritative majority opinions. famous and authoritative scholars such as rashi, maimonides, nahmanides and ibn ezra are routinely criticised and corrected by each other and their disagreements can get pretty severe - but nobody would dream of calling someone else an "apostate" or "infidel" or whatever. it's simply taken to be an incorrect decision which can be reversed.

now, to the j4j similarity or otherwise. thank you for including your definition of bid'ah - it's very helpful. i would absolutely agree with you in terms of how it applies to them. however, it may be helpful to point out that judaism does not discourage *all* innovation per se - just innovation that is, as you say "not supported by any authentic proof - neither in its foundations, nor in the manner in which it is performed." for example, the prosbul of hillel, which allows loans to be made over the sabbatical year, or the introduction of relatively new fasts and holidays, like hannukah. these sorts of things, agreed by the consensus of the community, are considered to be permissible innovations, just as the modern electrical devices such as time-switches and hotplates can be employed to improve the observance of the Sabbath. i believe there are numerous examples of this kind of beneficial innovation in islam as well, so the translation of "bid'ah" as innovation tout court i think is incorrect and, incidentally, allows obscurantists to label anything they don't like, particularly anything modern, as an "innovation". i think it's cutting off your nose to spite your face and, moreover, i find it impossible to believe that a man so inspired and outstanding as muhammad, let alone that G!D would prohibit *all* innovation.

I have talked with non Hasidic Orthodox Jews so I know what you have said is false a lot of Orthodox Jews don't like or even hate Reform Jews. You seem to want to paint a picture that all the Jewish sect get along lol what a joke.

not at all. and, yes, the jewish community is extremely divided, which is a terrible problem - our sages say that the Temple was destroyed because of sinat hinam - baseless hatred. however, in many organisations, reform, conservative and orthodox jews are able to work together, quite apart from living together, being friends and so on, so the fact that you may have met orthodox jews that hate reform jews is hardly conclusive or even particularly representative. i myself am from a reform family, grew up reform and would now be considered quite orthodox; whilst i would certainly point to numerous examples of prejudice on both sides, it is almost never anything worse than a snide remark. as for the struggle over r. teitelbaum's inheritance, that's not news to me - it's actually an internal satmar struggle, so not about different sects. the point is that the violence involved is mostly verbal, with the occasional bout of fisticuffs. unpleasant as this may be, i don't think you can equate this with, say, death squads, sectarian murder and the bombing of mosques. there simply isn't moral equivalence and to suggest that this squalid little power struggle in a chasidic sect is as bad as, say, blowing up that mosque in najaf, is quite ridiculous. i do not have rose-coloured spectacles as far as jewish communal politics are concerned, but discrimination is not the same as murder. i do not advocate anything but respect for all jewish denominations from liberal to ultra-orthodox, nor do the vast majority. you may very well and fairly enough point out that it is only a tiny minority of extremists that behave like that, but the fact remains that we do not have an equivalent.

apart from this last paragraph, i am very much enjoying this conversation and have learned a great deal. thank you.

b'shalom

bananabrain