Ibn Al-Ja'abi

What exactly is the point of this?

An interesting article relevant to this thread: Viruses and Certain Religious Beliefs: What is Deadlier? It was almost impossible to predict how the events of the coronavirus pandemic would unfold. To many, what began as propaganda or scaremongering soon morphed into a living nightmare - some eventually even losing their lives to it. A virus that ravaged China, eventually set its sights on Iran, and in the space of a few weeks, it would terrorize the entire country. At the time of writing, three cities, Qom, Gilan and Mazandaran were placed on ‘red alert’, an ominous sign of the deterioration within, and a portent warning of the dangers awaiting everyone in the future (as Iranian health ministers and experts have repeatedly alluded to themselves if people do not abide by their advisory announcements). Every day, we wake up to the news that a famous politician or a government official or a big scholar has passed away or has contracted the virus. Alongside these notable personalities, are the unsung heroes, who a fortnight ago, could have never pictured what the future would hold. A number of doctors, nurses and medical staff have also succumbed to the virus; the virus evidently not selective with his victims. One can only pray that things change for the better sooner rather than later. Amidst all the chaos, a fervent debate has been sparked. What happens when the religious beliefs of some conflict with established medical teachings and what health experts of the country are advising since day one? Further, what happens when these very beliefs have the potential to expose others to grave danger? My teacher Shaykh Haider Hobbollah – who has been sending us audio recordings of both Fiqh and Uṣūl lessons since the outbreak of the virus in Qom – today (lesson #105, March 7th, 2020) dedicated the Uṣūl lesson on the on-going situation, briefly shedding light on the aforementioned dilemma. Continue Reading: https://www.iqraonline.net/viruses-and-certain-religious-beliefs-what-is-deadlier

Dhu -- possessor of (masc. sing.) (a)l-Fiqaar -- the vertebrae (masc. pl. -- sing. fiqrah) This style of writing is pretentious and rather annoying. You need to present things and learn to discuss with people more maturely.

It's hard for me to buy that the group of Muslims who are apathetic at the murder of Ahlul Bayt -- other than those who've began imitating Shii practices, and I can respect that there is an effort being made though it will naturally be imperfect -- and would rather have carnivals and celebrations on Ashura share in the love of Ahlul Bayt (عليه السلام) mourning their miseries. In any case, la'nah is the siira of God, the Prophet, and Ahlul Bayt and is rightly practiced on those إنقلبوا على عاقبيهم after the death of the Prophet and were cursed by the ones they oppressed. When put to the test after his death they demonstrated a decided lack of ḥeseδ/חֶסֶד, rather its opposite. I think Dr.. Sheikh Idris Samawi Hamid got it right when he said wilayah is a two-winged bird, one is walayah/tawalli and one is bara'ah/tabarri. If you clip one of the wings then the bird goes the way of the dodo.

Salams, For any useful discussion on Fiqh and Usul al-Fiqh we need to understand the terms we're using. I never recite the third shahada in tashahhud, and I don't really recite it in Adhan either, but when using terms like Bid'ah we need to have a good conception of them. What exactly is a bid'ah in the context of Shii Usul, you'd need to bring precedence for your definition from the works of major scholars of Usul and with reference to any relevant hadith -- this further requires you to be able to read in at least Arabic and ideally also Persian. You also would've ideally referred to works by scholars on this, such as Sh. Sanad's al-Shahadat al-Thalitha, although this is a book defending the recitation of the third shahada. Liyakat Takim's article is a good starting point, and that's really where reviving al-Islam's blog post seems to also jump off of, but it's one article on the history and development of it, not the modern discussions in Usul as it's developed (we're not really following the same principles of Usul the Qudama did anymore, it's evolved quite a bit in the past 500 years). This certainly seems to be a bit above what the people on this thread are going to be capable of doing, but this would be the most productive discussion on the topic.

Salams, Just curious, what do you understand regarding why Sunnis would believe that?

It's not a Hadith, it doesn't exist in any compilation of hadith.

It's from a site by an apostate who writes satirically as a hardline salafi (who would quote Shafi'I fiqh authoritatively for some reason).

This seems to be the case. In the case of many Muslim areas this seems to have been the case. You could also have two levels of conversion, bottom-up and top-down. A ruler can instate Islam as a state religion and it can precipitate downwards. In the Ottoman Empire, while the Christians and Jews of the Balkans were accommodated religiously, such as with the Millet system, there was still incentives to convert since it was only Muslims who could enter the highest strata of society -- at least in most cases. Note that this obviously doesn't align with modern sensibilities of having different classes of citizen, however it hardly is that violent and repressive process you would imagine. You might also have traders interacting with Muslim traders or through mystics and missionaries, as was the case in Indo-China or the Indian subcontinent. In any case though, the process of conversion was often slow in the Muslim heartlands -- surely slower than it would've been through mass conversion. Dr.. Jim Brown presents some demographic figures in this talk, I'm not sure where he's gotten them -- I'm hoping to find out, I can't remember him citing a source, but in the case of Iran it was still 60% non-Muslim 860 AD and became 80% Muslim by 1000 AD. One must also remember that Zoroastrianism in Iran wasn't monolithic. Zoroastrianism is a very ancient faith having roots in the Iranian plateau prior to the migration of the Iranian peoples into Iran -- not in the mid first millennium like people tend to mistakenly place it following after ancient Greek estimations. A number of varieties must have developed throughout the region (not just Eran-Shahr). In the Sassanian period there was a native Zoroastrian schism which was being dealt with a considerable lack of tolerance -- read more on the Mazdakite "heresy" in Parvaneh Pourshariati's Decline and Fall of the Sassanian Empire and Touraj Daryaee's Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. You can also read a bit more about Zoroastrianism in Iran in late antiquity and Zoroastrian reactions to the advent of Islam in Patricia Crone's The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran.

Salams, I've spoken with the owner of the website that he had to update the website during which the users were deleted, so anyone who is a user needs to reregister. Wassalam

Salams, Addressing just how the tetragrammaton might be pronounced and not the argument you might be trying to get at -- because I'm not exactly sure what it is. There's two popular suggestions and the theory of Jehovah (or Yehowa for that matter) isn't one of them. Jehovah is a reading of the way the tetragrammaton is commonly vocalized, יְהֹוָה, with a schwa under the first yodh, a holam after the first he, and a qames gadhol under the second yodh. This however is what might be referred to as a qere in the study of the Hebrew text, it's an intended reading different from the written word (the kethib) indicated by its vowels. A common instance of this in the vocalization of the pronoun hu (he) as hiw (nonsense) to indicate reading it as hi (she), this is due to the practices of the Masoretic reading tradition. YHWH being vocalized as the Hebrew word "Adonay" (literally, "my Lords", a pluralis maiestatis -- often translated as the LORD) is a sort of qere since the vowels are indicating a different pronunciation. The vowels of Adonay are a (patah compound-)shwa, holam, then a qames gadhol, the same as the tetragrammaton. So Jehovah is not how the name is intended to be pronounced by the vowels are meant to remind the reader to say Adonay, less commonly Elohenu, and often nowadays Jews say hash-shem (the name). Now, the correct vocalization of the name is definitely not Yahuwa either -- if that was the implication. You'll commonly see it written as Yahweh, and there is some weight to that theory. In compound names you often find the name of God as "yah" or "yahu", e.g., Elijah/Eliyahu (My God is Yahu), or Abijah/Abiya (My father is Yah), and, famously, Hallelujah (Praise ye all Yah!). You also have some extrabiblical evidence, e.g. a Phoenecian inscription saying El Du Yahwi Seba'ot. El who creates the armies. You also have evidence in the Septuagint, the tetragrammaton is written ιαω (iao). Alternatively, and a theory I personally am drawn to, is that it was pronounced like Yihweh. When Moses speaks to the burning bush and asks its name, God answers ehye asher ehye (I am who I am/I will be who I will be), you have ind impf 1s hayah (to be)=I am/I will be+relative pronoun asher+repetition of the verb. If Moses were to speak about God he would use the third person, and the third person of ehye is yihyeh (he is/he will be). If the yodh mutates to a waw (which isn't unheard of), or was a waw in another non-standard dialect it just changes from yihyeh to yihweh. There's actually a sort of neat etymology there -- though not without its own problems. But it can't be yahuwa because that's Arabic, not Hebrew/Canaanite. In fact that's not even how Northern Arabic is commonly constructed. The vocative particle "ya" is found in Hijazi varieties of Arabic and spread, but in Northern Old Arabic dialects -- the Safaitic variety is the one with the most data -- the vocative particple was a ha (fa-hallaat is a commonly found phrase meaning "So, o' Laat"). In Hebrew as well the vocative particle was a ha (with a compound schwa under it as opposed to a patah). Huwa is also the Classical Arabic 3rd person masculine singular pronoun. Wallahu A'lam wassalam

Yes, even by the Prophet. Zainab bt. Jahsh was his paternal cousin, his father's sister was the mother of Zainab. In later generations this was also practiced. I've myself heard him say on the mimbar that it is permitted though not necessary to do it in every generation when there are genetic diseases associated with it -- you can make of that as you will. I'm not sure any scholar has ever identified cousin marriages to be among the things to Imams permitted under taqiyya.

Salams, I can only sympathize with your situation, it's a dissonance of sorts. You act Muslim but in your mind these things which are apparently Islamic are irreconcilable with your conception of morality. Within a normative Shii framework these points you mentioned remain law with some nuances. The punishment for a fitri apostate is stated as execution in the majority of Shii fiqh, we have narrations that the Prophet ordered the execution of someone who blasphemed him which Sayyid al-Khoei deemed authentic. Sodomy, even if it is something which homosexuals and their ilk are naturally inclined to do is a punishable offense of discovered and is a grave sin regardless, as is adultery and as it seems a number of other offenses. Even if these are suspended in the time of the ghayba we must accept that these were legislated at least at some point. Slavery is permitted and is dealt with as a fact of life in the Qur'an, even if there seems to be a Quranic virtue in freeing slaves it isn't forbidden or even disliked to own them. And even if we reach the conclusion that the period for owning slaves in human history is over, we are forced to accept that this was once a practice which was legislated and considered acceptable morally. These points are perhaps a bit more nuanced than as you stated but essentially all true within a normative Shii framework. I would say that there is quite a bit of history being glossed over in the "conversion by the sword" narrative, it's frankly just bad. Empires expand and war is the natural tool for expansion of a state, the religious mosaic in these empires often changes, but there are factors involved in it -- e.g. that Christianity remained the predominant religion in Iraq for four centuries after its conquest during the Arab expansions. And that a natural imperative exists in proselytizing as a state or as individuals if one has conviction of truth. Nevertheless, none of the above is going to be reconciled with the modern western framework of morality you're operating with -- likely not a complex one either but simply a laissez-faire system as I like to call it. It's just not possible, you begin with different axioms and will naturally arrive at different conclusions.

That's fair that you think it's gross and completely immoral. But then we have to consider how it is narrated from the Imams in such a high number of mu'tabar reports and the early Shia scholars and their successors all acted on these reports and gave fatawa accordingly. Considering such a wide number of reports it seems more likely these are from the Imam than such a mass conspiracy was engaged. And to what end did it work? To delineate what was already an unquestionable fact of life (using slaves for sexual pleasure and the institution of slavery as a whole) but something the Imams would have apparently found wrong even though we have nothing to the contrary? We are sort of forced to accept there's a good chance that these might be from the Imams or just arbitrarily say these can't possibly be at all. But if we arbitrarily reject these hadith as not from the Imams even though they have wide circulation, seem to be what the early Shia were acting on, and are reliable in chain, then we can be justified in arbitrarily accepting or rejecting anything. Alternatively we can accept that at least in this instance this is from the Imams rather than choosing to arbitrarily reject these ahadith as truly from the Imams. But then in that case since you began with the assumption they're immoral then you'd be forced to accept the Imams legislated something qabeeh -- though that is a matter for you to reconcile with yourself.

In what sense is it dry?