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Let's start a reading list for people who want to learn more about Islam.

The main motivation for me starting this thread is that I am getting tired of all the propaganda and want to bring out balanced information that helps people understand Islam (including myself!).

RULES OF THIS THREAD

1. No content other than the info. for the reading materials is allowed. (Yes, this includes discussion that is on or off-topic, and flaming.)

2. No posting of propaganda or materials that incite hatred against Islam (or any other religion or group of people).

3. If you want to discuss something on the reading list, start a new thread about it.

4. It is expected that the moderators will strictly enforce these rules by deleting posts that break any of the rules.
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ReligiousTolerance.org

Info about the site and its purpose

Religious tolerance means:
to extend religious freedom to people of all religions, even though you sincerely disagree with their beliefs and/or practices.

Religious freedom means that you can:
Believe, worship and witness as you wish;
Change your beliefs or religion; and
Join with others to express your beliefs. 1

Our site mandate:
"To promote religious tolerance and freedom.
To describe religious faiths in all their diversity.
To describe controversial topics from all points of view."

Our two mottos:
"Study of the world's religions will lead
to an understanding of religious diversity.
Understanding will lead to inter-religious dialogue.
Dialogue will lead to peace among religions..
Peace among religions will lead to peace among nations." 2

"Whenever someone deviates from reality, others usually get hurt."


Why the website is different than many others...

This website is unlike almost all other religious sites:
It promotes religious freedom, and diversity as positive cultural values.

* We do not promote our own religious beliefs. We can't because we are a multi-faith group. We try to explain the full diversity of religious belief in North America, from Asatru to Zoroastrianism, including Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Taoism, Universism, Wicca, other religious groups, and spiritual/ethical groups.
* We try to describe all viewpoints on controversial religious topics objectively and fairly. We cover everything from abortion access to equal rights and protections for homosexuals and bisexuals, including same-sex marriage, and dozens of other "hot" topics.

ISLAM

About Islam:

Estimates of the total number of Muslims range from 0.7 to 1.2 billion worldwide and 1.1 to 7 million in the U.S. 3 About 21% of all people on earth follow Islam. The religion is currently in a period of rapid growth.

Christianity is currently the largest religion in the world. It is followed by about 33% of all people -- a percentage that has remained stable for decades. If current trends continue, Islam will become the most popular world religion sometime in the mid-21st century.

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Topics included in this section:

About Islam:
- "The Truth About Islam": A description in about 600 words
- Introduction to Islam:
- Part 1: Its origin, Muhammad, texts, beliefs, etc.
- Part 2: Its practices, schools, holy days, etc.
- Comparing the beliefs of Islam and Christianity
- Comparing their growth rates
- How many Muslims are there in the U.S. and in the rest of the
world?
- Books, web sites, and web rings
- Links to web sites featuring clothing, cards, etc.

Quotations:
- Quotations from the Qur'an
- Hadiths: sayings of Muhammad
- Comparison of Qur'an verses with the Hebrew Scriptures' Ten
Commandments

Beliefs and Practices:
- Apostasy (Irtidãd) -- abandoning Islam
- Status of women:
- Female genital mutilation among Animists, Christians, and Muslims
- The role of women in predominately Muslim countries
- The Hajj -- pilgrimage to Mecca
- The significance of Eid-Ul-Adha
- Holy days of Islam -- seasonal days of observance and celebration
- Homosexuality
- The concept of Jihad
- Paradise: life after death
- When is killing innocent humans permitted? Terrorist attacks and
the principle of tattarrus
- Punishment for non-marital sex
- The fast of Ramadan

Tolerance items:
- Accommodating Islamic prayers in public schools
- Senate/House resolutions promoting religious tolerance towards
Muslims.
- A prayer for peace and unity
- Why do "they" hate the West?
- "Terror has no faith" An essay by Ibraham Hooper of CAIR

Conflicts:
- Verbal attacks on Muslims by Fundamentalist and other
conservative Christian leaders
- Beliefs about Islam by the American public
- Is Islam a religion of violence or peace?
- Hate crimes against Muslims and mosques
- Sharia law as practiced in Ontario
- A joint Senate/House resolution promoting religious tolerance
towards Muslims.
- A book about Islam on the University of Northern California reading
list
- Terrorist attacks in America 2001-SEP-11, not by typical Muslims,
but by extremist, radical, fundamentalist, Muslim terrorists.
- The Washington-area sniper
- Al Qaeda's beheading of Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia
- An excerpt about Iran from a book by Reza Aslan titled "No god but
God"
- A sampling of fatwas and other statements during 2005 condemning
terrorist acts
- Radical Muslim group(s) in U.S. Prisons

Religious terms:
- "Fundamentalism" within Christianity and Islam
- Names given to the "Holy Land"
- Religious terms used to refer to Islam and Muslims

In addition to the above, we have short passages on:
- Virgin birth of Jesus (pbuh)
- Jesus' (pbuh) sinlessness

Muslim Women's League
http://www.mwlusa.org/

Since religion and law are closely tied together...

Islamic and Middle Eastern Law Materials on the Net

http://www.soas.ac.uk/Centres/IslamicLaw/Materials.html

MSA-USC Qur'an Database

Warning (especially for Muslims)

Today, technology is helping bring Islam into the homes of millions of people, Muslim and otherwise. There is a blessing in all this of course, but there is a real danger that Muslims will fall under the impression that owning a book or having a database is equivalent to being a scholar of Islam. This is a great fallacy. Therefore, we would like to warn you that this database is merely a tool, and not a substitute for learning, much less scholarship in Islam.

Classic MSA-USC Search:

* This database supports searching for complete words only. A query for the word "eat" will only return data containing that word, and not data containing "eaten", "eating", etc.
* Queries can only contain characters from the following set: alphanumeric characters, dash "-", left parenthesis "(", and right parenthesis ")".
* Boolean operations are supported: "and", "or", and "andnot".
* Searches on this database are very fast, however the disadvantage is that more complex types of queries are not supported. In particular, if you need to use wildcards, please try the Verity Search below.
* The results of searching on this database is a list of individual verse numbers. Each number is a link into a chapter from the Qur'an. By clicking onto the link, your browser will be positioned directly on top of that particular verse.
* An example of a classic MSA-USC query string is: (kingdom and see) andnot dominion

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/searchquran.html

Glossary of Islamic Terms and Concepts

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/reference/glossary.html

10 Misconceptions About Islam

http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/notislam/mi ... tions.html

This is a very Good site.

(Islamway.com)

http://english.islamway.com/


You will find almost everything you need to know about islam
About Islam Way


Attentively following the traces of our (al-salaf as saleh) Righteous Predecessors , the site, among others with similar approaches, aims at sound and clearer perception of Islam.

Globally transmitting for all Muslims , no affiliation or restrictions of a political party, group or any other governmental guardianship are behind.

Four years ago, Islamway broadcasting service has primarily been - launched shouldered only by two persons. they were able to occupy some cheaper space on some server –on rent basis – then stuffed it with the available few ceremonies.

150 international volunteers now has co-operatively – with the grace of Allah –assisted in developing the site up to its present tangible fine excellent look.

Becoming the most popular known Islamic broadcast in the web is another witness to the fervent continuous efforts crowned with the devotion , dedication and honesty of both founders and volunteers as well.

The Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding.

In Dubai there is a session conducted every Sunday and Thursday at 10am at Jumeriah Mosque.

The person who conducts the Lectures is a lady from Switzerland i think or somewhere around there.

Some info about the Centre:

http://www.uae.gov.ae/Government/culture.htm

http://www.pbs.org/muhammad/ma_america.shtml

http://www.islamway.com/mohammad/
For people want to understand why the outrage for the cartoons, read about who is our prophet to us.

http://www.amaana.org/ismailim.html
Interesting insight by non-muslim

http://www.convertstoislam.org/

People converted, stories, real people, logic which lead them.

Hope it was beneficial

This seems like a useful site, but let me know if it is a lousy one.

King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an

http://www.qurancomplex.com

Is Koran available in english newhere...
Dont laugh if you think the question is too stupid....just answer

cadmus wrote:Is Koran available in english newhere...
Dont laugh if you think the question is too stupid....just answer

I have CD , I did see pdf..it depends on who is translating

kanelli wrote:This seems like a useful site, but let me know if it is a lousy one.

King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Qur'an

http://www.qurancomplex.com

Cadmus, you can buy and English version of the Quran in some bookstores, but also the the link above has English translations.

Thanks Kanelli,i generally dont prefer reading ebooks....hard covers are better...i will try for it in bookstores here...guess magrudy's will have it.

I CAN SEND YOU ONE cadmus...
I CAND SEND YOU A TRANSLATED QUR'AN TO WHATEVER LANGUAGE YOU NEED... THERE IS A BOOKSTORE THAT SELLS QUR'AN TRANSLATED TO MORE THAN 70 LANGUAGES...

http://www.themodernreligion.com/videoaudio.htm

Great link to videos for non mulsims. i do recommend Debate between prominent scholar Ahmed deedat "may god mercy be upon him" and Jimmy Swaggart. One of the heads of the church who converted after watching the video "a former Minister and elder of a Christian church, Kenneth L. Jenkins CONVERTED after watching this debate"

http://www.themodernreligion.com/convert/convert_KLJ.htm
Kenneth L. Jenkins
Former Minister and Elder of Church, Indiana USA

Peace

Here is one very good site: http://www.muslimheritage.com/

The King Fahd version is a scary piece of Saudi version of Islam propogation, i.e. Salafi propogation, by Dr. Mohsen Khan. If you can understand Arabic you can see how gross liberties are taken with translation asserted through loads of parenthetical comments. Though there are no problem free translations, Yusuf Ali is still probably the best.

A good website that gives ayaat in various translations is:

http://www.searchtruth.com/freecode.php

If you wanna know what I mean about Salafi parenthetical comments presented as real Quran in the Fahd approved Dr. Khan translation, look up how verse 24:31 (Annoor) is translated in Fahd and then look at it in Yusuf Ali and Shakir, for example.

Anyways, there are some really good books about Islam but non-Muslims as well as Muslims here in DXB have to weed through a lot of Daar-Us-Everthing is Haraam pseudo Islamic information pamphlets.

That leaves me with a question, what is a simple and good book about the basics of Islam that is not filled with all the weird stuff of some of these pamphlets available. Like, what would be one title to give a good introduction of Islam?

Intimacy, do you agree with luckybee? If yes, let's remove the link to the King Fahd Quran page.

The site is mildly skewed towards the Saudi version of Wahabi Islam endoresed by the Royal Family of the House of Saud.

Thant being said, most site that attempt to explain Islam and the Quran, even when their intentions are benign, tend to explain it (when we look into the obscure details or Hadiths of course) throigh their own point of view.

Such point of views can conflict with your own or another Muslims. The only way to fully understand the Quran is to pick up the basics from these sites and learn the Hadith's yourself. The ones from the Prophet are pure and from Ashab al Nabi are pure too. The others are open to contention.

Read them, look at the sites, and make your own judgement. That is the notion of self Jihad as prescribed by the Quran. The internal "battle" to determine the truth.

I have nothing against this site.

My God be with you all.

Why the King Fahd version is scary ? Concerning the translation's example done, can you put the verse in arabic (what Allah said) and the 2 translations and we'll see where is the problem.

al fransi: please follow the link I posted and choose any verse, for example, the verse I mentioned 24:31 and read

1. first the Arabic (if you understand Arabic) for God's word
2. Then the Dr. Khan translation
3. Then the other translations

u will see the bizarre liberties that have been taken with God's holy word.

for example: verse 24:31 says (sorry I can't paste it clearly, but look it up):



وَقُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ وَيَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ وَلَا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا مَا ظَهَرَ مِنْهَا وَلْيَضْرِبْنَ بِخُمُرِهِنَّ عَلَى جُيُوبِهِنَّ وَلَا يُبْدِينَ زِينَتَهُنَّ إِلَّا لِبُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَائِهِنَّ أَوْ آبَاء بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَائِهِنَّ أَوْ أَبْنَاء بُعُولَتِهِنَّ أَوْ إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي إِخْوَانِهِنَّ أَوْ بَنِي أَخَوَاتِهِنَّ أَوْ نِسَائِهِنَّ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَانُهُنَّ أَوِ التَّابِعِينَ غَيْرِ أُوْلِي الْإِرْبَةِ مِنَ الرِّجَالِ أَوِ الطِّفْلِ الَّذِينَ لَمْ يَظْهَرُوا عَلَى عَوْرَاتِ النِّسَاء وَلَا يَضْرِبْنَ بِأَرْجُلِهِنَّ لِيُعْلَمَ مَا يُخْفِينَ مِن زِينَتِهِنَّ وَتُوبُوا إِلَى اللَّهِ جَمِيعاً أَيُّهَا الْمُؤْمِنُونَ لَعَلَّكُمْ تُفْلِحُونَ



Dr. Khan translates this as meaning:

And tell the believing women to lower their gaze (from looking at forbidden things), and protect their private parts (from illegal sexual acts, etc.) and not to show off their adornment except only that which is apparent (like palms of hands or one eye or both eyes for necessity to see the way, or outer dress like veil, gloves, head-cover, apron, etc.), and to draw their veils all over Juyubihinna (i.e. their bodies, faces, necks and bosoms, etc.) and not to reveal their adornment except to their husbands, their fathers, their husbands fathers, their sons, their husbands sons, their brothers or their brothers sons, or their sisters sons, or their (Muslim) women (i.e. their sisters in Islam), or the (female) slaves whom their right hands possess, or old male servants who lack vigour, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex. And let them not stamp their feet so as to reveal what they hide of their adornment. And all of you beg Allah to forgive you all, O believers, that you may be successful.

There is nothing about "palms of hands" or "only one eye to... see the way" in Arabic, juyoob does not mean "bodies, faces, necks, and bosoms", it means neck to chest area (bosom), khimaar means head cover, it does not mean gloves apron, etc. All of this stuff is added in as if this is Allah's word. It does NOT say these things in Arabic. This is not Allah's word, this is a Salafi understanding of how to dress modestly in Islam, i.e face must be covered, gloves should be worn, which it does not say here. Dr. Khan has ADDED these parenthetical comments to further the Saudi/Salafi view.

Here is the Yusuf Ali and you can see here how he has stayed as close as possible to the Arabic:

And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands, their fathers, their husband's fathers, their sons, their husbands' sons, their brothers or their brothers' sons, or their sisters' sons, or their women, or the slaves whom their right hands possess, or male servants free of physical needs, or small children who have no sense of the shame of sex; and that they should not strike their feet in order to draw attention to their hidden ornaments. And O ye Believers! turn ye all together towards Allah, that ye may attain Bliss.

I don't think Dr. Mohsen Khan or King Fahd or the scholar who approved the book (though he isn't fluent in English) Dr. Muhammad Taqi uddeen Al Hilali, have intentionally mistranslated to deceive people. But they have added their own interpretations, which happen to be very puritanical Salafi type interpretations directly INTO the Quranic text as if that is what Allah says. They are reinforcing their own Salafi interpretations by doing this though they may have the best of intentions. So for unfortunate people who don't know the difference, they think that the Quran really says what they say it does.

All Quranic-meaning books have problems because the Quran as a text is impossible to translate exactly. The best thing is to look at the Arabic and look at multiple translations, read tafseer, etc.

The King Fahd stuff scares me so I call it scary because I think their take on things is very extreme.

Please test a few of their translated Ayaat to see what I mean. Especially anything to do with women, non-Muslims, etc. you definately get the Salafi flavor tainting the meaning.

In true Sunna, a man should be covered from his belly button down to his knees.

A woman should be covered in a non-suggestive way around her torso, her arms to her wrists, and her legs till her ankles.

Her hair should not be displayed in a s.e.x.u.a.l manner so as to arouse (ie. there is no direct nontion to fully cover the hair of a woman). Modestly is key in Islam and vulgarity is out.

Like I said before, part of Jihad is to improve one's self and see the truth for one's self. No one can tell you what the truth is or how to think except the Quran that you read and of course, Allah.

Concerning the Coran, don't be afraid, it's my prefered book and as muslim, I read it every day. The Khan translation (translation of the coran meaning) is closer to the Coran, and what he wrote in brackets is commentaries (tafsir). 2 examples :
1
قُل لِّلْمُؤْمِنَاتِ يَغْضُضْنَ مِنْ أَبْصَارِهِنَّ

And tell the believing women to lower their gaze (Khan)
And say to the believing women that they should lower their gaze (Yusuf Ali)
It's an order in the Coran, so "should" is not the good choice.

2
يَحْفَظْنَ فُرُوجَهُنَّ

protect their private parts (Khan)
guard their modesty (Yusuf Ali)
farj (singular of fourouj) in arabic is not modesty but private parts.

Sorry, I could explain that in arabic more clearly but I don't use to speak about Islam in English. And I'm french.

yes obviously i know the rules of hijab. my point is that Khan adds in parenthetical words which are not said in Arabic into the translation, furthering the salafi ijtihad about face veils and gloves as if that is what is meant in the Quran. That isn't even the majority opinion. Though I respect a person's right to hold that opinion, and I respect women who veil their faces and wear gloves, it is clearly deceptive to weave those words into the Quran as if Allah has said that when translating into English. The Khan version is FULL of that kind of thing. Based on the initial question about what to show people who want to know more about Islam, Muslim or non-Muslim, I would say completely avoid the King Fahd approved Khan version because it has these errors in translation. No tranlation is foolproof, but Yusuf Ali is better than the Khan version.

peace

Salam Aleykum brother,

Its all subject to opinion and interpretation. In transaltion many things are lost. The important part is that within you, you know who and what you are and what awaits you in life and death.

Allah is Great and He will show us the right path in due time.

Liban

But interpretation is important, because it is what divides people when it comes to god's word.

This discussion should remain in the thread, even though it breaks some thread rules. It is beneficial that people are aware of the translating differences and can choose the translated version of the Quran based on their own opinions about the translation quality and accuracy.

Hi,

I beleive that loving your next person is the greatest religion.

Difficult and a challenge all the time.

Regards
Madhav
http://www.vkinfotek.com

the definitive guide to questions and answers which covers the 4 Madhabs - www.sunnipath.com