What happens to Iblees/Satan upon hearing the call to prayers (Athan)? Bukhari 1231

 What is the meaning of Bukhari 1231?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqIUX2VctRI

Is insulting Islam protected under ‘Freedom of Speech’?

 From Abdullah Andalusi blog

The purpose of free speech, when expressing opinion, is the pursuit of truth. That is all, nothing more. For it has no other rational purpose it can serve. All speech that expresses opinions must be allowed so that all ideas can be heard and to give the best chance for one of them to contain a weight of truth. Based upon this undisputed reason, how can anyone justify the right to use their speech to insult, degrade and humiliate another human being (and their identity)? Gratuitous insult offers no truth, or intellectual weight, and offers nothing to society except hate, rancour, emotional suffering, harassment, depression and divisiveness.What rational benefit can gratuitous insult serve humanity? To what good does it direct us towards? Surely if something yields no benefits, and only offers harm and negative experience to human life, should it be tolerated amongst a society of civilised human beings?

The Fallacy of the Liberal Counter-Argument of Free Speech due to Individualism

Some Liberals argue that insult should be allowed because it is an expression of ‘individuality’, and ‘individuals must be allowed to flourish outside of social constraints’. If this is so – why does the individual require other humans in order to manifest their ‘individuality’? Surely, according to this logic, the individual would not require a legal right to insult others, because ‘as an individual’ they could simply insult people and their beliefs in their own head and be content with that! As Liberal theory states, ‘Individuals’ do not need society to make them individuals. So in essence, why can’t they just be happy keeping their insults to themselves, why need a right to express their vitriolic language in public?

I could even counter that ‘freedom to insult’ actually hampers the flourishing of individuals according to Liberal theory itself! Surely an individual who wishes to express their ideas and opinions, but is fearful of public backlash and insults, has their individuality restricted? One could also say that giving people the right to gratuitously insult others and their beliefs causes unnecessary suffering to the targets of these attacks, and also diminishes their social respect in society from others. Of course, this is but one of the many contradictory issues with Liberalism. This is primarily due to Liberal theory being deeply flawed in its dogma about humans being ‘individuals’ and not also social creatures. Anyone who has studied psychology and sociology would obviously realise how humans are not not ‘individuals’ in the Liberal sense. Humans neither made themselves, nor educated ourselves from first principles – but relied on others for theses things. Humans still rely on others for social comfort, material help and intellectual help – hence humans are by nature, social creatures. If our true nature was to be anything but social creatures who ‘need to be freed from social constraints’ (as the Liberal Utopia desires), then solitary confinement would be the happiest place on earth for the human! (I know Liberals may argue that being in a prison is a restriction of Liberty. However, would life be happy for a human to live alone in a deserted wilderness, even if they had food, water, heating and entertainment?).

There is no argument to show that people should be given the right to insult and abuse others. However, the unrestricted freedom in their speech to express a sincere intellectual opinion should be granted to everyone – but no one should have the right to insult others or their beliefs – which as we know, define who they are more than superficial things, like skin colour. Insulting a belief does not change people’s minds about it when they believe their ideas are right – instead, it only makes them more entrenched to defend it, and retaliate – since it is human nature to demand respect for oneself, and one’s beliefs are a fundamental part of someone’s personality. So knowing this, how do Liberals see any benefit coming from a state of affairs more akin to a school playground, than to a noble and enlightened human society?

Did the religion of Islam developed as a coping mechanism?

 Written by mlife.org

The opponents of the religious life argue that religion was put together as a sort of outpouring of man's feeling of powerlessness in the world or of his feelings of relief and gratitude when rescued from powerlessness. In summary form, the argument goes like this:
Certain natural phenomena proved impenetrable to man's understanding and control and so he attributed them to a creator. Or, man attached to certain natural phenomena an aura of sacredness because he derived an unreliable benefit from them. Indeed, he went so far, in some cases, as to deify such phenomena. Thus it was, they say, that the river Ganges came to be held sacred by the people of India, or the Nile by the people of Egypt, and, in different ways, the cow by both. Confronted by fearful insecurity in the world, they say, man sought to secure himself by revering and appeasing what he supposed to be the source of his security or insecurity. The division, in some cultures, of this aura of sacredness between two deities, one good the other evil, led to the attribution of love and mercy to one, and of terror and punishment to the other. The argument carries on to 'explain' in a similar way the concept of hell and heaven, and eventually concludes with the observation that religion became, for the middle classes of people in society, a comforting illusion, and for the men of power in that society, and most especially for the men of religion, a means of manipulating the masses in short, 'the opiate of the people'

Does this argument have any real foundation?

It does not.

Religion is not by any means a consequence of infirmity in reason nor does it depend upon any infirmity of will.

Among the meanings of the term religion are obedience, recompense, and a way or path. These meanings are interlinked. The path is the way that leads, through obedience, to God, the All Mighty, and at the end of life man will have to render full account of his good and bad deeds, all that he did on the way. In a more technical sense, religion may be defined as 'the whole of the Divine Law as it guides any person possessed of reason to do good'. Just as the Law distinguishes a legally responsible person from one who is not, so also the demands of the religious life are addressed to a being capable of reason and not to one incapable. Religion is not there because man cannot reason or because of what he cannot understand; rather, it is there because, by God, he can reason and because of what, by God, he can understand. Further, man obeys or disobeys God by exercising his free will. Obedience is required of him, it is not imposed. The notion that religion happens simply because man desires to obtain a good harvest and to avoid a bad one, in other words simply because he has no choice, no control, in his affairs, is utterly absurd. The true religion does not negate free will. On the contrary, it most particularly points out that nature was not created to impose upon man but to benefit him and enlarge his potential, and it emphasizes that man was endowed with the ability to choose his way by exercising the freedom to do so.

Did Religions Cause All/Most Wars in History?

Do religions really cause violence? Is religion the cause of most wars?

Throughout history religion has been tied to massive tragedy and loss of life but is religion truly at fault for events like the Crusades, the Holocaust, and extremism in the Middle East? It is a very common claim that "Religions caused most of the wars in history".

Many atheists and agnostics will often cite the Crusades, 9/11, and other such conflicts to back up their claims. "Look at Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, ISIS, 911!" they say.

But are there alternative views and explanations? Perhaps religion doesn't cause as many wars as you think.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxXkMnJdwy8

 

The Encyclopedia of War proves that only seven percent of wars throughout recorded history were religious wars. What about all of the other (non-religious) ideologies, political regimes, and tyrants that have tainted human history?

Western scholars: Islam was not spread by violence and swrods.

One of the bizarre myths perpetuated about Islam is that Muslim armies forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword. Unfortunately this myth survives among Islamophobes and ignorant disbelievers to this day.

Many Western scholars have now repudiated this myth.

The historian De Lacy O’Leary wrote in “Islam At the Cross-roads”:

Gustave le Bon

He was a French Orientalist and researcher in sociology and psychology. Among his famous books is La Civilization des Arabes (The Civilization of the Arabs), one of the most fundamental books written in Europe in the modern age.

He wrote:

Absolute toleration

“With the flourishing of Arab civilization, religious toleration was absolute – a fact for which we have brought more than one indication. It would not be verbose to refer to what is translated by monsieur Dousi about one of the Arab scholars who devoted himself in Baghdad to many lessons in philosophy attended by Jews, atheists, Magians, Muslims, Christians and others. Whenever anyone of them spoke, attention would be paid to him with great respect and he would be asked to rely only on a logical rather than textual proof. Such toleration had not been attained in Europe even after suffering along one-thousand years of destructive wars, deep-rooted resentments and bloody carnages.”[2]

They have never seen its like
“The reader will see, in our discussion of the conquests of the Arabs and the causes of their victory, that force was not the main factor of the spread of the Qur’an. The Arabs left the conquered free to practice their religions. If it happened that some Christians embraced Islam and took Arabic as their language, this was due to the justice they saw from the victorious Arabs the like of which they did not see from their previous masters, in addition to the ease of Islam which they knew not before.”[3]

Religions could not be imposed by force
“It has been proven throughout history that religions cannot be imposed by force. When the Christians conquered the Arabs of Andalusia, the Arabs favored to be killed and driven out entirely rather than to leave Islam. Nevertheless, the Qur’an did not spread by the sword. On the contrary, it spread only by invitation and by invitation alone was it embraced by different peoples who later conquered the Arabs, like the Turks and Mongols.”[4]

Does Feminism Really Oppose Islam? - Dr. Sami Ameri

Do Muslims just follow their fathers' religion without thinking for themselves? Dr. Sami Ameri