islamic tradition of non-violence?

There is more than enough room for Muslims to be non-violent. At certain times total pacifists would be totally destroyed, if there were noone to defend them, I think that might have been the reason for the rules on self defense in Islam.
But at the heart of the Quran, is the idea that Allah is merciful. The laws of the Quran in a sense are expressing Allahs mercy. Muslims acknowledge that verses should be taken in there context. And perhaps historical context is valid also. After all the stories of the past prophets show that spiritual law is expressed in different forms in relation to time. There also is the story where Muhammad suggested that the heads of each clan raise the Black Stone on a cloth, so that all had the honor of lifting it. A perfect expression of resolving a situation non-violently with all participants satisfied. So with this example in mind, along with the knowledge that Allah is merciful, andawareness of the growing necessity for peace during our times, Islam has a solid foundation for being representatives and workers for peace as well as defenders of those suffering injustice.
 
Does anyone remember folks converting to Islam in the 60's and 70's and avoiding the Vietnam War due to the non-violent non-compbatant Muslim ways, and dictates of the Koran which proved it?

Seem Cassius Clay and Lou Alcinder both attempted that...
 
Re: Islam is most peaceful amongst all the Revealed Religions

can we stop turning this into a discussion about ahmadis, please - let's get back to the proper subject. and, incidentally, if you think that everything is generally rosy between sunni and shi'a, you probably haven't read this thread:
http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/sunni-vs-shia-5375.html - it gets very nasty. it is pretty obvious, even if you ignore iraq, lebanon etc, it is still far from happy families.

karim abdul ghaffar khan has already been brought to my attention, thank you.

Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, G!D does not allow you to harm them.] (An-Nisaa' 4:90)
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this isn't non-violence, as it relies upon "them" offering you peace.

at Eteraz.org || this discussion has resulted in a particularly interesting insight:

Ultimately, Islamic Tradition has focused not on "non-violence" but on "who gets to have the power of violence." That power it has always limited with the state. There has never been any state in the history of mankind which has been pacifist or non-violent.
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i've also been pointed at the following:

"He who overthrows people is not strong and has no power. The strong among us is he who controls himself when he is angry."

in both Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, 42:40-43

The Prophet said: "Moses asked G!D:"Oh my Lord!, Who in thy sight is the most honoured of thy servants?"

"G!D Answered: "He who forgives when he is able to avenge".'
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i am told that (and i quote) 'Both [of these] are reported by Abu Huraira, the second appears in the collection "Baihaqi". I'm no expert in the subject but both are qawl, i.e. the Prophet said.'

b'shalom

bananabrain
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Re: Islam is most peaceful amongst all the Revealed Religions

bananabrain said:
can we stop turning this into a discussion about ahmadis, please - let's get back to the proper subject. and, incidentally, if you think that everything is generally rosy between sunni and shi'a, you probably haven't read this thread:
http://www.comparative-religion.com/forum/sunni-vs-shia-5375.html - it gets very nasty. it is pretty obvious, even if you ignore iraq, lebanon etc, it is still far from happy families.

b'shalom

bananabrain
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Sallamaleykum

I think we really need a little more than one thread on a message board.

At the moment the Sunni v Shia stuff is big news due to Iraq, BUT as I have pointed out previously this is as much a result of poor reporting and sloppy journalism than of any reality.

How many of the 30 plus armed groups in Iraq actually define themselves as Shia or Sunni? How many of those are in fact tribal groups hiding behind Religion? I think a proper examination of the facts would help and a little disbelief of disinformation that clearly serves the invading powers agenda and a little study of the situation would help.

There are millions and millions of Shia and Sunni who have no problem with each other.
 
hello abubakar,
thanks for your courteous reply, i feel you are right to some degree that my opinion is not really based on an understanding at whats at stake here, but i don't want to side. if inhumility is "lost" as you point out, then he needs your grace as opposed to to your vehemence, though i accept possibbly the sensibilties that led to it. hope you have a great holiday - africa...nice, regards jase
 
chakraman said:
hello abubakar,
thanks for your courteous reply, i feel you are right to some degree that my opinion is not really based on an understanding at whats at stake here, but i don't want to side. if inhumility is "lost" as you point out, then he needs your grace as opposed to to your vehemence, though i accept possibbly the sensibilties that led to it. hope you have a great holiday - africa...nice, regards jase
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Sallaam Jase

I agree that you shouldn't take sides, as for you it must be pretty much ones persons word against anothers.

I am afraid that Ahmadis are a little like Jehovahs Witnesses, they are well trained to prothletize so it becomes difficult to have an honest conversation with many of them. Tackling them and opening them up for debate is quite difficult, you tend to get formula replys and links to one of their websites.

I am not saying they are bad people, just a little disengenuous.

I do not hold any ill-will towards Inhumility. Sometimes it is neccessary to be a little strong towards someone in order that they and those 'watching' understand exactly how offensive and hurtful they are being.

Peace
 
zaim187 said:
Thus, if they let you be, and do not make war on you, and offer you peace, God does not allow you to harm them.] (An-Nisaa' 4:90)


If even a little sparrow has been killed unjustly, it will appear before the Lord of the worlds crying for justice!"(An-Nasa'i, Ad-Darami, and Ahmad) Books of hadith



Take not life, which Allah hath made sacred, except by way of justice and law: thus does He command you, that ye may learn wisdom.) (Al-An`am 6: 151)

any one slew a person - unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land - it would be as if he slew the whole people: and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people.) (Al-Ma’idah 5:32)

Allah commands justice, the doing of good, and liberality to kith and kin, and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, that ye may receive admonition." (An-Nahl: 90)


Just a few quotes from the Quran and Hadith
you may also find this helpful
Non-Violence and Islam
Salaam
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Very good post and quotations from Quran and Hadith ( the Hadith books quoted are from Sunni sources, to the best of my knowledge). May GodAllahYHWH bless you.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam, working for unity of all religions by peaceful means, reason, rationality, discussion, dialogue and Revelation.
 
Promethium said:
There is more than enough room for Muslims to be non-violent. At certain times total pacifists would be totally destroyed, if there were noone to defend them, I think that might have been the reason for the rules on self defense in Islam.
But at the heart of the Quran, is the idea that Allah is merciful. The laws of the Quran in a sense are expressing Allahs mercy. Muslims acknowledge that verses should be taken in there context. And perhaps historical context is valid also. After all the stories of the past prophets show that spiritual law is expressed in different forms in relation to time. There also is the story where Muhammad suggested that the heads of each clan raise the Black Stone on a cloth, so that all had the honor of lifting it. A perfect expression of resolving a situation non-violently with all participants satisfied. So with this example in mind, along with the knowledge that Allah is merciful, andawareness of the growing necessity for peace during our times, Islam has a solid foundation for being representatives and workers for peace as well as defenders of those suffering injustice.
Click to expand...

Hi
It is a useful post indeed. But BB wants quotations and references from Quran and Hadith ( for Hadith kindly mention if it is from a Shia book or a Sunni book so that he is not confused) which please provide to him, he needs urgently.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi - a peacefulf faith in Islam working for unity of all revealed religions the world over.
 
Re: working for unity of all the Revealed Religions, peacefully

Seeker_of_truth said:
If i may humbly ask, does that include the Baha'i Faith?
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Hi
I admire many things of the Baha'i Faith and their organisations. The peace projects are for everybody to work, hand in hand like friends, brothers and sisters. My priorities are first to unite Abrahamic faiths, then the revealed religions, then others. You could work for that and I know socially instituitionally the Baha'is are already at work towards that end.
Thanks for showing good intentions.
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam
 
wil said:
Does anyone remember folks converting to Islam in the 60's and 70's and avoiding the Vietnam War due to the non-violent non-compbatant Muslim ways, and dictates of the Koran which proved it?
Click to expand...
wil said:
Seem Cassius Clay and Lou Alcinder both attempted that...
Click to expand...


Hi
My friend/brother; how correct you are?
Salam from me.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam
 
Hi
I have checked the articles
Non-Violence and Islam
Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The first article is written by a Sunni moderate religious Muslim famous personality of India , and I admire him for his moderate thinking. He has quoted from Quran correctly which is common to every Muslim faith, but the Hadith quoted by him in his good article are from Sunni Books, to the best of my knowledge, please correct me if I am wrong.
The second person a Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a political leader, he and his sons were principled persons, but not religious scholars, have no bearing on BB's requirement.
That proves my point.
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam
 
In everey prophet,s life there are two phases, one is of peaceful preaching, & other is of non-peace full stuff. Noah preached for 500 years , those who didn’t submit to God were killed by God . Moses preached to the Pharoah, he refused & died. In Islam Jihad (struggle!!) is against Zulm & Udwaan (Opression/Injustice & Animosity)(See:8:39, 2:217). In the above examples, people were killed for the same reason. Sometimes rather then sending a flood, God asks his followers to attack (called Qital not jihad) the unjust & oppressors. It’s a double test, for both parties. This is what happened under Joshua & David. (Or what failed to happen under Moses). The only exception is Jesus, but he will be coming back to to fulfil his mission. This time he won’t practice “turn other cheek” philosophy.

Coming back to the topic , Gandhi as I have heard, developed Satyagarha after studying Meccan life of Prophet Muhammad . It was the time when he was forbidden to fight. (4:76). Scholars give a lot of reasons for this. People who have described Jihad say it starts with fighting ego. Not fighting back, not cursing back, not killing back was a part of this . Preaching peace fully & not stumbling upon some kind of “mine is better than yours” arguments were also highly recommended (6:68). Jihad & Purification with Quran were prescribed . (25:52).

Other than being a cleansing of ego for believers, this is also a clear sign for non-believers . Its clearly visible to them that these people are oppressed not because they want money or power, but because they obey one God. Muslims were taunted a lot by the Mekkan elites for teachings like “slaves are equal”, “women should be given rights” & “come back to Abraham’s God”. But for people who were not ruled by their ego, Muhammad’s teachings made perfect sense.

Later on after a lot of torture, killings, a two year old social boycott (during which Muslims had to boil sticks & eat them) & failed assassination attempts on Muhammad, they migrated to Medina. The state was formed. Meccans confiscated all Muslim property. Meccan muslims didn’t have much knowledge of agriculture. Trade routes were blocked. This lead to caravan raiding. Meccans attacked (Badr), & failed. Meccans reattacked (Uhad) & partially succeeded (Quran says this happened because they followed their wishes rather than the prophet). Meccans gathered all Arabia & went to Medina to annihilate everything. Muslims came to realize there is no point of fighting this huge army & dig a trench around medina, except for the portion under Banu Quraiza. In the middle of this horrible situation, BQ broke their treaty & changed their alliance (we know the rest). Later on after a failed attempt to perform haj lead to Hudabiah treaty. Breaking of which lead to Conquest of Mecca . Again there was no fight . Heraclius , after taking Syria from Persians was planning to attack Medina , which lead to Tubuk.

So if you see Meccan period, it was all peaceful struggle. In Medinan period, muslims were faced with fight or die situations, so obviously they had no option other than fighting. If Muhammad didn’t fight at that time, Muslims’ fate would have been same as the fate of Christians . There are a lot of people who bring up this Jesus vs. Muhammad debates . Fact of the matter is, that Jesus didnt preach Christianity. He asked people to “keep the commandments” & “be vigilant as a snake”. Finally he asked his followers to take up swords (Luke:22:35-38). I don’t know how Christian scholars interpret this . In the end , he left his followers without power, stability & security. They suffered a lot . Israeli Spirituality was taught to gentiles who didn’t have the slightest comprehension of these things (unlike jews who had experienced 2000 years of spiritual evolution). Some people had to live, some people had to rule. Obviously teachings had to be changed, commandments had to be abrogated. We all know who was born of a virgin on 25th December. This is what happens when a prophet leaves his people without power. This is what wasent supposed to happen after Muhammad.

Later on Christianity spread into Europe by power & preaching. Three continents were ethnically cleansed. Two were enslaved. We don’t see this with Islam. India is still Hindu after 1000 years of Muslim rule. Andalusia was Christian after 700 years of Muslim rule. Native Americans were still breathing despite frequent contact with Arab traders.
 
A few sayings that I was able to get from my harddrive.

The mujahid is he who makes jihad against himself (jahada nafsah) for the sake of obeying Allah.’’ Tirmidhi, Ahmad, Tabarani, Ibn Majah, al-Hakim, and Quda`i also relate it. The contemporary hadith scholar Shu`ayb al-Arna'ut confirmed that its chain of transmission is sound in his edition of Ibn Hibban, Sahih 11:203 (#4862). Al-Haythami related the following version in the chapter on Jihad al-nafs in his Majma` al-zawa'id and declared it sound

"'What kind of jihad is better?' Muhammad replied, 'A word of truth in front of an oppressive ruler. (Nisai)

`Umar narrated that a man came to the Prophet asking for permission to go to jihad. The Prophet asked: "Are your parents alive?" He said that they were. The Prophet replied: "Then struggle to keep their rights"(The hafiz Ibn Abu Jamra al-Azdi al-Andalusi(d. 695) in his commentary on Bukhari entitled Bahjat al-nufus)
 
BTW Your first quote, scholars interpret it as prophet’s mercy & vision. As I remember, he replied to Gabriel, “I am send as mercy for humanity, how can I ask for their destruction. I will pray for them so that they might come to the right path.”. His prayer fulfilled a decade later. The second one is not from any hadith that I know of. Most probably it is some Sufi parable that might have originated in Turkistan. The third quote is interpreted as being kind to neighbors, not as struggle.
 
Inhumility, Muslim problem with Ahmadis are based on facts. Quran calls Muhammad as khatamun nabiien. Now in Pre-Ahmadi Islam, every Rasul was a Nabi & every nabi is not a rasul. So when Quran says no nabi after Muhammad, by default it means no rasul after him too.
Mr. Qadyani’s life was also much different fom what is prophecised in Hadith about Jesus. Jesus will come in bilad assham, he wont bring any new teachings & he will fight dajjal. Mr.Qadyani cant be Mahdi either. His life contradicts the ahadeeth.
Ahmadis don’t comit Shirk, so they should get a good afterlife. Other then that, no matter they pray & fast & give alms, with a belief in wahi/nabi/rasul/kitab after Muhammad , person goes outside Islam .
You seem to be a nice guy, I hope you weren’t offended. We have been taught a prayer by our prophet, that goes something like,”O God, show me things the way they really are”. So ask God for truth, who else but him.
 
Hi
Further to my above post:
If one opens the home page of alislam.org, one sees:
Digital Media Library
Search Engine
dml.gif

more...
by clicking on the word more.... above one opens up the digital meida library:
hdr-search.gif

(e.g. Islam, Jesus, Jihad)

Keyword List Keyword List
By selecting word Jehad from the Keyword List and clicking the search button we get.
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Question: What is the real Islamic Jihad and what is the stand of Amadiyyat with respect to Jihad? [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad(ra) - 07 Dec 94 - 57 minutes - Liqama'al Arab - Eng/Ara[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]show synopsis text - windows audio - windows video - show all program files[/FONT]
by clicking show all program files we get:
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Program: In this program Hudhoor discusses the concept of real Islamic Jihad [/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hazrat Mirza Tahir Ahmad(ra) - 12/7/1994 - 60 minutes - Liqama'al Arab - Eng/Ara[/FONT][FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]download mp3 - windows audio - windows video[/FONT]
By listening or viewing the above audio/video windows one could understand the real convincing concepts (Ahmadia Muslims), once that is clear; references of sources are no problem.If one is interested one could do that, otherwise ignore, please.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam,working for unity of all the revealed religions
 
farhan said:
Mr. Qadyani’s life was also much different fom what is prophecised in Hadith about Jesus. Jesus will come in bilad assham, he wont bring any new teachings & he will fight dajjal. Mr.Qadyani cant be Mahdi either. His life contradicts the ahadeeth.
Click to expand...


Hi
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad 1835-1908 rightly and truthfully claimed to be PromisedMessiahImamMahdi in Islam. There is no contadiction in Hadith if seen,understood and resolved in the light of Quran, the very first source of Islam common to all faiths in Islam.The PromisedMessiahImamMahdi has not come in Christians or Jews, he is a truthful follower of Muhammad SAW, he has brought no new religion, follows the Sunnah of Muhammad SAW, so this is in short the meaning of Khatamun-Nabiyyeen. He came at the right time for reformation of the Muslims and to unite all the Revealed Religions by peaceful and truthful means.Please try to understand and realize it, no compulsion.
Thanks
I am an Ahmadi - a peaceful faith in Islam
 
inhumility, stop hijacking the bloody thread. i'm starting to believe the rest of these guys are right - everything with you eventually turns into "mirza ghulam ahmad is the answer to everything, please understand and believe it" - now for feck's sake, shut up about it. we're talking about something else.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Hi Bananabrain,

The Sunni perspective on what the incidents involving where the Prophet [saw] 'forgave', and 'showed patience and forebearance rather than retaliate', and 'return good for evil', is that, it is best to follow the aforementioned examples, but a person still has a right for eye for an eye and if he chooses to implement the 'eye for an eye' he'd be doing no wrong, as it's his right.

For example, if a person unjustly slaps me in the face, then I could decide to forgive him and not retaliate for the sake of Allah, or I could return him good for evil, i.e, I do not retaliate and when I see him another time, I offer him a sweet, be nice to him, etc, and that would be the best actions that I can do in the circumstances [I'd get a greater reward for these actions, than the one of retaliating]...but if I want, than I have the right to slap him back and that would be me 'equalising up' with the person and that would be considered as justice.

So basically..Islam encourages Muslims to do the 'greater good' which is, 'forgive and forget', and 'return good for evil'...and it also teaches them that, although retaliation is a 'lesser good' than the former, it still is a right of the person as it will only serve the course of justice.

The Islamic principle of 'obeying the law of the land' will supercede any Islamic rights that are not in accordance with it..., so therefore Muslims living in Britain can act in self-defence, as the law allows, but as far as 'seeking retaliation' is concerned, when it's not done in the spur of the moment and as a defensive/extenuating act, than it has to be taken through the courts and physical retaliation in this circumstance will not be allowed.

hope this helps

Peace. :)
 
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