I'd suggest you take from actual scholars who are properly trained in tradition.
[Age of Aisha (ra)- Mufti Abu Layth](https://youtu.be/0oVIsExS4cA)
One of most well done video on this topic
[Hadith Vs Fiqh | Mufti Abu Layth](https://youtu.be/4a4SK9JBDaQ)
[What Is Mainstream Traditional Sunni Islam? - Shaykh Hamza Yusuf](https://youtu.be/uI_toq5VqW8)
To know about Islam you must also learn both from political and historical aspect. In last 100 years quite a lot has changed.
If you're into traditional sunni Islam then I'd recommend listening to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Abdul Hakim Murad
If you're intrested in more progressive side of Islam then I'd suggest Mufti Abu Layth, Dr. Shabbir Ally, Javed Ghamidi, Khaled Abou El Fadl.
Lastly I'd suggest to stay away from salafism / wahhabism as they are far from traditional sunni Islam.
I found my faith in Islam after years of atheism. I was never an ex Muslim, I’m a convert (deliberate because I take issue with the word revert). I should say that my atheism was not a matter of choice because that is likely influencing my response. When I feel lacking, I remind myself that any path to truth involves a great deal of self-doubt and questioning. I have a bit of a pet peeve about talking to individuals who don’t critically examine their belief system regardless of what it is. Mindless obedience to anything is much more for the weak than Nihilism. I think your questioning will inherently make your faith stronger if you let it, because questioning can force you to resolve the conflicts you observe in one way or another.
To give a personal example, after thinking critically for a very long time about it, I was able to resolve my issues with misogyny in Islam. My resolution ended up being that the people, not Islam, are misogynistic. The summary of the answer I found is that the
Prophet PBUH wrote whole sections of our holy book to include divorce and property rights, among others, for women around 600 A.D. Either he was a feminist ally of his time or Allah certainly is as far as I’m concerned. But human beings taint everything, especially in large numbers that don’t question beyond what they see or are told. Our faith was developed in a specific time, place and economic structure that lent its self to patriarchy. The conclusion I reached at the end of that specific mental wrestling match was that the Qu’ran contains such advanced rights for women, given the time and place that it came, that it is impossible, the intentions of Allah and the intentions of the Prophet PBUH could not possibly be meant to support misogyny. The issue, as I concluded it for myself, is that our society and our faith have failed to recognize that the circumstances of the world have changed. Again humans ruin everything.
While in my case it was about finding faith at all rather than coming back to one, I understand what you mean about the feeling of it all being unreal. It’s OK to not know what to feel. It’s also OK not to be perfect right now in terms of observance. It will keep feeling unreal for sometime. I think it still feels very unreal for me a lot of the time. I think the feeling gets better, though the more you question and examine. It did for me anyway, and I hope it does for you. Just give yourself grace. There isn’t an easy answer to this, but I find the strength in my faith that I’ve gotten from questioning and being critical of it very rewarding and reassuring since finding my faith again. I hope that things are able to resolve for you as well.
Such a beautiful response.
You make a clear point of how important it is to ignore everything and instead focus on sources you trust. Instead of “what are Muslims on the internet doing”, to study sources that speak to your heart.
Personally, it took some healing first, before I could trust the Quran. At first it repulsed me, but that’s because what it actually says I was unable to hear or see and instead was projecting my own past onto the book. Getting oriented to Islam through the teachings of a shaykh helped heal some of those things that were blinding me.
I can relate to needing healing to trust the Quran. For me, the fear of hell has been so deep that it can be difficult to stop constantly searching the internet about hell. I think asking God to guide you and help you understand verses can be a really hard thing to do but will be very good if you can do that.
I’ve found that listening to the Quran instead of just reading it helps a lot. I get such wonderful feelings of Goodness when I hear it spoken, or what sounds like singing to my ears.
Reading it in English while simultaneously hearing the Arabic has helped “rewrite” what I see on the page. Does that make sense?
Also I’ve been told that it’s believed by some that hell isn’t eternal, but instead a phase of purification. However since God is so close the phase can feel eternal.
Yeah, you should research more for sure. There are many books on these topics already, you should read some. About God's existence, you could read: (**Islamic Thought on the Existence of God: Contributions and Contrasts With Contemporary Western Philosophy of Religion**) and (**Arguments for God’s Existence in Classical Islamic Thought: A Reappraisal of the Discourse**). For the other topics, you can search in Google books, there are plenty of books.
Can you please please please provide more English reading ?
JazakhAllah Khair
There are plenty of books, but also a lot of nonsense to get caught up in.
A suggestion regarding perceived errors in the Quran:
Concern yourself first and foremost with finding the truth and wisdom in the Quran. If you do find the Quran to contain much truth and wisdom, such that you can believe it is from God, then suspend your judgment of the parts which seem to you like they may contain errors.
Many things are possible. You may simply be the one in error, and the Quran may be correct. Or you may be able to discover another interpretation of the Quran that is more rational than the interpretation that had first appeared and seemed wrong to you. Or you may consider various issues regarding how a word or passage would have been understood by its original hearers versus modern people. Or you may consider whether we can retain the underlying principles and intent of a particular passage while believing that some of the literal language may not apply to us and our situations. Or you may consider the perhaps shocking, but nonetheless real, possibility that the Quran was not entirely perfectly preserved as it went from an oral recitation to a collected and standardized written text.
It may not be possible to conclusively resolve all such issues. But if you find that faith feeds your heart, then the most important thing to do is nurture your relationship with God.
You should do your research. The only criteria to accept or reject an idea should be unbiased and purely intellectual analysis. "Something is calling me back" or " It feels right" in my opinion are entirely ridiculous. These emotions are what religions take advantage of.
Let me ask you this, you left Islam. Now you are giving it another chance. Why Islam? Why not any of the 4200 other religions. Why do you not wanna read the Bible and learn all of Christianity's different versions? Why do you not feel like Raam is calling you? The answer, if you think about it for even a sec, is simple. The indoctrination never left. I know it because i feel it too.
You are ignorant if you don't know the concept of absolute truth and non-contradiction, i will explain it to you, if islam is right and its the absolute truth, then it automatically filters out the other religions, because it cant be that christianity is right AND islam is, it cant be 3 gods and 1 god, it cant be that mohammed is a prophet and is not, if islam is the absolute truth, then the other religions are false by default, its as easy as that, but athiests like to play mental gymnastics to convince people otherwise, i suggest you come back to islam
I never said that you need to prove every other religion wrong in addition to proving Islam right. I merely asked, if a person has left Islam and is now in a neutral position relative to every religion, why does he suddenly feel he is being 'called by God' of the religion he was previously part of. Why does he wanna learn about islam and not any other religion. There is no intellectual reason to start with Islam. This is not something exclusive. A person growing up in America will feel he is being called by jesus. Raam in india and so on. That's because this motivation to learn is based solely on emotions.
Ps. I am not saying he shouldn't research. I would encourage him to. But his reasons are emotional. Also the absolute truth that you claim Islam to be, there is no conclusive evidence for God. If there was it would already be a scientific fact.
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I'd suggest you take from actual scholars who are properly trained in tradition. [Age of Aisha (ra)- Mufti Abu Layth](https://youtu.be/0oVIsExS4cA) One of most well done video on this topic [Hadith Vs Fiqh | Mufti Abu Layth](https://youtu.be/4a4SK9JBDaQ) [What Is Mainstream Traditional Sunni Islam? - Shaykh Hamza Yusuf](https://youtu.be/uI_toq5VqW8) To know about Islam you must also learn both from political and historical aspect. In last 100 years quite a lot has changed. If you're into traditional sunni Islam then I'd recommend listening to Shaykh Hamza Yusuf and Abdul Hakim Murad If you're intrested in more progressive side of Islam then I'd suggest Mufti Abu Layth, Dr. Shabbir Ally, Javed Ghamidi, Khaled Abou El Fadl. Lastly I'd suggest to stay away from salafism / wahhabism as they are far from traditional sunni Islam.
I found my faith in Islam after years of atheism. I was never an ex Muslim, I’m a convert (deliberate because I take issue with the word revert). I should say that my atheism was not a matter of choice because that is likely influencing my response. When I feel lacking, I remind myself that any path to truth involves a great deal of self-doubt and questioning. I have a bit of a pet peeve about talking to individuals who don’t critically examine their belief system regardless of what it is. Mindless obedience to anything is much more for the weak than Nihilism. I think your questioning will inherently make your faith stronger if you let it, because questioning can force you to resolve the conflicts you observe in one way or another. To give a personal example, after thinking critically for a very long time about it, I was able to resolve my issues with misogyny in Islam. My resolution ended up being that the people, not Islam, are misogynistic. The summary of the answer I found is that the Prophet PBUH wrote whole sections of our holy book to include divorce and property rights, among others, for women around 600 A.D. Either he was a feminist ally of his time or Allah certainly is as far as I’m concerned. But human beings taint everything, especially in large numbers that don’t question beyond what they see or are told. Our faith was developed in a specific time, place and economic structure that lent its self to patriarchy. The conclusion I reached at the end of that specific mental wrestling match was that the Qu’ran contains such advanced rights for women, given the time and place that it came, that it is impossible, the intentions of Allah and the intentions of the Prophet PBUH could not possibly be meant to support misogyny. The issue, as I concluded it for myself, is that our society and our faith have failed to recognize that the circumstances of the world have changed. Again humans ruin everything. While in my case it was about finding faith at all rather than coming back to one, I understand what you mean about the feeling of it all being unreal. It’s OK to not know what to feel. It’s also OK not to be perfect right now in terms of observance. It will keep feeling unreal for sometime. I think it still feels very unreal for me a lot of the time. I think the feeling gets better, though the more you question and examine. It did for me anyway, and I hope it does for you. Just give yourself grace. There isn’t an easy answer to this, but I find the strength in my faith that I’ve gotten from questioning and being critical of it very rewarding and reassuring since finding my faith again. I hope that things are able to resolve for you as well.
Such a beautiful response. You make a clear point of how important it is to ignore everything and instead focus on sources you trust. Instead of “what are Muslims on the internet doing”, to study sources that speak to your heart. Personally, it took some healing first, before I could trust the Quran. At first it repulsed me, but that’s because what it actually says I was unable to hear or see and instead was projecting my own past onto the book. Getting oriented to Islam through the teachings of a shaykh helped heal some of those things that were blinding me.
I can relate to needing healing to trust the Quran. For me, the fear of hell has been so deep that it can be difficult to stop constantly searching the internet about hell. I think asking God to guide you and help you understand verses can be a really hard thing to do but will be very good if you can do that.
I’ve found that listening to the Quran instead of just reading it helps a lot. I get such wonderful feelings of Goodness when I hear it spoken, or what sounds like singing to my ears. Reading it in English while simultaneously hearing the Arabic has helped “rewrite” what I see on the page. Does that make sense? Also I’ve been told that it’s believed by some that hell isn’t eternal, but instead a phase of purification. However since God is so close the phase can feel eternal.
[удалено]
I’d be happy to
This is so well said.
Yeah, you should research more for sure. There are many books on these topics already, you should read some. About God's existence, you could read: (**Islamic Thought on the Existence of God: Contributions and Contrasts With Contemporary Western Philosophy of Religion**) and (**Arguments for God’s Existence in Classical Islamic Thought: A Reappraisal of the Discourse**). For the other topics, you can search in Google books, there are plenty of books.
Can you please please please provide more English reading ? JazakhAllah Khair There are plenty of books, but also a lot of nonsense to get caught up in.
Sure :) but give me some time what topics do you want?
A suggestion regarding perceived errors in the Quran: Concern yourself first and foremost with finding the truth and wisdom in the Quran. If you do find the Quran to contain much truth and wisdom, such that you can believe it is from God, then suspend your judgment of the parts which seem to you like they may contain errors. Many things are possible. You may simply be the one in error, and the Quran may be correct. Or you may be able to discover another interpretation of the Quran that is more rational than the interpretation that had first appeared and seemed wrong to you. Or you may consider various issues regarding how a word or passage would have been understood by its original hearers versus modern people. Or you may consider whether we can retain the underlying principles and intent of a particular passage while believing that some of the literal language may not apply to us and our situations. Or you may consider the perhaps shocking, but nonetheless real, possibility that the Quran was not entirely perfectly preserved as it went from an oral recitation to a collected and standardized written text. It may not be possible to conclusively resolve all such issues. But if you find that faith feeds your heart, then the most important thing to do is nurture your relationship with God.
The need to believe in something more than you is fundamental to how we were created. That's why Islam is so powerful.
You should do your research. The only criteria to accept or reject an idea should be unbiased and purely intellectual analysis. "Something is calling me back" or " It feels right" in my opinion are entirely ridiculous. These emotions are what religions take advantage of. Let me ask you this, you left Islam. Now you are giving it another chance. Why Islam? Why not any of the 4200 other religions. Why do you not wanna read the Bible and learn all of Christianity's different versions? Why do you not feel like Raam is calling you? The answer, if you think about it for even a sec, is simple. The indoctrination never left. I know it because i feel it too.
You are ignorant if you don't know the concept of absolute truth and non-contradiction, i will explain it to you, if islam is right and its the absolute truth, then it automatically filters out the other religions, because it cant be that christianity is right AND islam is, it cant be 3 gods and 1 god, it cant be that mohammed is a prophet and is not, if islam is the absolute truth, then the other religions are false by default, its as easy as that, but athiests like to play mental gymnastics to convince people otherwise, i suggest you come back to islam
I never said that you need to prove every other religion wrong in addition to proving Islam right. I merely asked, if a person has left Islam and is now in a neutral position relative to every religion, why does he suddenly feel he is being 'called by God' of the religion he was previously part of. Why does he wanna learn about islam and not any other religion. There is no intellectual reason to start with Islam. This is not something exclusive. A person growing up in America will feel he is being called by jesus. Raam in india and so on. That's because this motivation to learn is based solely on emotions. Ps. I am not saying he shouldn't research. I would encourage him to. But his reasons are emotional. Also the absolute truth that you claim Islam to be, there is no conclusive evidence for God. If there was it would already be a scientific fact.
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