BintAlHoda

salaam welcome :) 1) although you will find a diversity of views on 'seeing god' among both sunni and shi'i ulama throughout history, you can take from quran and hadith that god will be 'seen' spiritually (not physically) on the qiyamat. so the shia view is that, as an infinitely complex Being, god will never be physically visible (aka visible like the Creation) but will be spiritually apparent. you could refer to the hadith from imam ali (A) where he was asked whether he saw god, and he replied that he would not worship what he couldn't see. NOT that he was saying that he could see god the way we see a tree, but with his spiritual senses he could see god. 2) a name like 'abd al husayn' is an indication of respect to these people and wanting to serve the message that they stood for and acknowledging that they were very great people whom we don't match up to, although we would like to. it's not meant as shirk, and god knows people's intentions best. i am sure if most of us were alive during the time of the prophet (S) we would want to serve him in his mission too, not because it would be shirk but because we believe in what he was doing. 3) shia judge sahabah like sunni scholars judge any subsequent narrators of hadith.... based on their recorded deeds and biography, as much as it is possible. if they did something wrong then that is noted; if they are known for good character then that is also respected. however, unlike among many sunnis, there is no assumption that someone was automatically good just because he/she was a sahabi; instead, that person is seen like a human being with the same potential of doing good or bad. hope that helps

I was agreeing with this article... until I got to that point. We all know Sweden's views on Muslims and the Middle East. If we're going to solve our social problems, we'd ought to do it ourselves... not look to those who look down upon us and who don't share our values to solve them for us.

I doubt this could seriously be considered 'propaganda' as most people (especially people not literate in English) would have no idea what that means. Although I can't say I would feel that God is smiling upon the American crusades, I would agree that it would be natural for a soldier to take solace in religion at a time of killing and being killed. I would totally be against that. Abolishing God from other societies hasn't really had any great benefits. Life and death are all about God, and what more important place to remember God than a war zone. At least in the US there is still enough respect for religion to keep chaplains in the military. As a person who would like to be a person of faith, I would respect anyone's remembrance of their faith in difficult times,even if it's not my faith However..... you know and I know and everyone else knows that fundamentalist Christianity is not just about 'going back to the fundamentals and being Godly'. It's also a racist, white supremacist, global-dominationist, superiorist movement (that is also, incidentally, Muslim-hating). Obviously not all Christians are like that, but it is worth remembering that this is the context of this nowadays and that it's not only about piety and godliness. So as for what was going on here, who knows.

I think it is a trauma upon another trauma; certainly, it isn't going to make what happened any easier. A female is instinctively designed to protect her own child even if she hates the person who conceived it. Of course people sometimes, as you say, circumstances are unbearable, but that doesn't make this an easy solution. I don't think most female scholars who have children would look at it as something preferable, although again I am sure most compassionate people are sympathetic to the hard decisions that people have to make sometimes. Anyway this is a woman's POV lol although I am not a scholar at all

There are Shia organizations that will distribute kaffarah on your behalf. You could contact www.imam-us.org and say you want to give kaffarah for your missed fasts and they will say how much and where they are distributing it

Salaam I have to say, when I read that post, I was uncomfortable with skirt length being the #1 issue of discussion. The basis of Islam is belief in Allah - and then, secondarily, good character and social interactions, and avoiding the major sins. As an example, tawhid was the first thing mandated in the prophetic mission, and hijab came much later. I am uncomfortable with the thought that this would send the message that the most important thing in Islam is a lady's style of clothing (or else, that it is ok to follow the outer of the shariah even if a person does not believe). I think Islam loses a lot of 'converts' because of this emphasis on the material at the expense of the spiritual. (Of course both are important, but without the spiritual, the material is meaningless) The most important thing in Islam is God, and if a person does everything else 'Islamically' but does not believe in God, the other actions are not useful. It goes without saying that this also plays on a lot of stereotypes of Muslims as being overly focused on female dress, etc That being said, if she has some traditional Chinese values, it might be possible to draw on some similarities. Modesty in clothing is also a traditional Chinese value, as are famliy values, and probably other values and ideas as well. But if they are married and in their 40's or 50's, then this probably isn't the #1 issue of concern anyway

If she has the patience for it, you might also share this book with her (it is by Sachiko Murata and her husband William Chittick). It is one of the better "Introduction to Islam" books that I've seen that attempts to describe the essence of Islamic belief (which, in my opinion, is something most books fail to do). For that matter, it's worth reading for anyone. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vision-Islam-Sachiko-Murata/dp/1845113209

Please do not make this yet another thread about whether the 'regime' is good or bad. There are plenty of other discussions here where you have all expressed your opinions. Otherwise the thread will yet again devolve into a morass of argument. I deleted the above posts which did not directly relate to the first post.

actually caffeine addiction is not too hard to break. i think people usually take about a week or two to get over it. you will feel very, very bad during that week, but then after that your body will feel normal. i stopped once or twice when i was in my 20's. (i am unfortuately a big caffene consumer myself; however, it doesn't really make me hyper. i wish it did) if you want to go 'cold turkey' i'd recommend taking some aspirin for the first few days because you will have major headaches :) you might switch to decaffeinated coffee for a while to help yourself because it might be a psychological thing too. or, you could take the advice on the thread and perhaps limit yourself to one cup in the morning, and then drink decaffienated or other coffee substitutes during the day. that would probably be easier than trying to stop all at once, because you will get to day two and be like 'forget it!' it might be good to take vitamins too, especially since coffee does hinder absorption of vitamins so you might be vitamin deficient and this will make you even more tired.

it's ok as long as it's not drinkng alchol. usually they make it with industrial alcohol (aka not the kind you'd find in a bar/pub). sometimes the super expensive brands are made with drinking alcohol (eg bourbon) so you shouldnt eat those fake vanilla usually doesnt have alcohol asit is cheap and synthetic

Salaam Sorry to hear you are having problems. In general, I think it's difficult for a person that age to change. People usually have one of three beliefs about God: yes, no, or maybe. If she's in the 'maybe' category (even 'probably not... but maybe') there might be some possibility. You might also try to get her to see some of the negative effects this material progress is having on China (like destroying the environment, huge social inequities, breakdown of culture, etc) If she feels linked to Taoist belief at all, you might try sharing some of Sachiko Murata's writings in which she compares Islam and Taoism, such as The Tao of Islam. (That one's rather difficult to read; there are some articles online which might be easier; you could google Sachiko Murata) You might focus on the spiritual aspect of the human being and her beliefs in that as well as regarding the goal of life.

salaam as a female, i do find it curious that you would think a female scholar would be more in support of abortion than male scholars. abortion is extremely traumatic for women, since they are making the choice to kill their own child and they have to live with that for the rest of their life. however, if a situation is absolutely unbearable, god is merciful

salaam this is more of a human issue than a sharia issue. we all have the 'right' to do many things; however, we choose not to do them out of respect for others. (there are millions of examples of things we choose not to do so that we don't bother people) the problem here is not whether it is lawful versus sharia, but that it seems to be harming your marriage. since his behavior is hurting you, and he is not willing to change it, nor does he sound concerned about your feelings, you should try going to a religious professional aware of shi'a law for marriage counseling. regarding consent i believe it is only necessary if it invovles an ahl al-kitab (non muslim) lady

no but if you really want to you can. however it doesn't have any sharia validity.

it's haraam and if they find it weird, just tell them that you're really into your 'personal space'. works for me. really? that sounds weird. are they the 'we hate islam but we're muslims by name so we're going to do everything against islam just out of spite' type? maybe you should find other people to spend time with?

guys, let's tone down the anger and hatred here. there is only a minority of ahl al-sunnah which has this boiling hatred and anger towards shi'a (or other 'deviant' muslims) true, saudi is represented by them however, historically, it hasn't always been like this and i can't think of any other time in history when anyone would have suggested the idea that shi'a people should be banned from hajj because they are shi'a (or sufi, or whatever) (i am just thinking off the top of my head; perhaps someone can correct me on this) we don't improve the situation by buying into the 'hate game' and either sending hateful messages back (such as 'lanati dogs') or else internalizing the hate and telling ourselves how much 'they' hate us. there are quite a lot of sunnis and most of them really don't care about shi'a at all. i went on sunniforums.com for a while and the sunni-shi'i dialogue was just a trash pit of hatred and ignorance. so i wouldn't recommend spending time on there. if you really want to get a feel for the 'sunni vibe', why not actually spend some time with some sunni people and explore a diversity of opinions.

rest assured there are no problems with the domain name guys, don't start rumors!

[Note: At one of the poster's requests, a sub-thread of this discussion was deleted. So no you're not imagining that there are a lot of missing posts!]

Just out of curiousity, what is that law?