Chelles interview with Dr. Ahmad Sakr. |
Post Reply | Page 123 4> |
Author | |
seekshidayath
Senior Member Female Islam Joined: 26 March 2006 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 3357 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Posted: 21 November 2007 at 10:50pm |
As'Salamu Alaikum, Chelle is a member of IC boards. She interviewed Dr. Ahmad Sakr. I thought to share it over board, so that we benefit from this interview. Before pasting it, i would like to thank Chelle for sharing it with us. Here's the interview -- Which denomination of Islam do you belong to? There is no denomination. Islam is only a religion for everyone who believes in the oneness of God and the words of all the prophets and the messengers. Mohammed is the last one that has been sent by Allah to the Christians, to the Jews, to the Buddhists. And it (Islam) is the summation, culmination and purification of all the religions that came before. Because people were confused among themselves �is it this or that?� I mean, European Christians and the Roman Empire invaded them through the Crusades and told them, �no, you have to believe what we tell you.� When God sent Mohammed to the Christians and Jews�either you want to believe what our God is telling me, Mohammed, or it�s up to you. God is one, is neither male nor female, and the only way we recognize God is through his adjectives. He is the merciful, he is the source of peace, he is the forgiver, he is the creator, he is 99 beautiful names and Muslim memorize them. See on the door? That is the 99 names of God. We learn them, in order to mimic them. So there is no denomination of Islam. Either Islam, or no Islam. Although tradition, or custom, there might be. There is something called Sunni and Shia, but in Islam there is no Sunni or Shia. That happened after Prophet Mohammed. Some people said, �No, we belong to the family of the Prophet so we should take over.� I said, �What?� In Islam there is nothing called family, father, son, grandson taking over as a king or kingdom. It�s a matter of democracy, by voting who should take over, and therefore the majority of the Muslim in the world now, they believe that no child, grandchildren should take over. Prophet Mohammed had children, 3 boys, and Allah made them to die, all of them, so nobody later on would say, �My father was the Prophet, so I have to take over.� Therefore it happened some 200 years later, the idea of Sunni and Shia. Still, Sunni and Shia, they pray together. They have the same principles, the 5 pillars of Islam: the declaration of faith, prayer 5 times a day, fasting during the month of Ramadan, Z???, donation to the needy poor people, pilgrimage to Mecca. So Sunni or Shi�a, they do the same things. Within Sunni also, there are other school of thought. They build it themselves, their students made it. Like now, you make a school of thought to your teacher (laughs). How did your denomination get started?
I don�t have one, actually. I don�t blame you. You are like Prophet Abraham. He saw people praying to statues, sun, moon, fire�he was shocked. He went on the roof of his house, �Oh God, where are you? I�m confused.� He saw Venus, he thought maybe this is God, but in the morning it went out. When the full moon was there, he thought hmmm maybe God, but in the morning it went out. Sun? Oh! This is much better! But at sunset, it went out. He said, �God, please guide me!� and God sent him Angel Gabriel who showed him the way. Prophet Mohammed was also confused. People were praying to God through statues and he said no, filthy dirty, no. You know what he did? Instead of the roof of the house, he went on the top of the mountain to the cave there�imagine, it took me an hour and a half to go to the cave there, you sit inside and you see kabbah, you see it from the top of the mountain�and he used to sit overnight, crying, �Oh God, where are you?� day after day after day, for 15 years. After 15 years, Angel Gabriel came from God and told him �start, you are the prophet, and hurry up, go and deliver the message to them.� Every day he came to him, every day for 23 years, daily coming to him revealing verse after verse, chapter after chapter and telling him �recite it for me� to make sure he didn�t mess it up (laughs). So the idea of Islam is not how we talk about it now, it is from day one. But of course from the day Mohammed accepted the revelation from God, so whoever believes in Mohammed, have to believe in Jesus, otherwise I�m not a Muslim. I have to believe in Mary, the virgin, the mother of Jesus, otherwise I�m not a Muslim. I have to believe in Moses, David, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham, Noah, Adam�all of them are prophets. God sent 140,000 prophets and messengers. Can you memorize their names? No. For that reason, God said I reveal only 25. It�s easier to remember 25. These are the ones I was mentioning, with Mohammed. Either you believe in all of them, or forget about it. |
|
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
|
|
seekshidayath
Senior Member Female Islam Joined: 26 March 2006 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 3357 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
2. How many members are there worldwide? 1.9 billion, worldwide. In America, 10 million. In California, 1 million. 3. Do you actively seek converts? How widespread are your missionary efforts? What percent of your members worldwide are converts? Would any person willing to convert be accepted? Anytime I go to any university, I speak, I say let me make it clear several points: we am not here to convert you, we are not here to proselytize, we are not here to baptize, we are not here to reach you hallelujah, we are not here to teach you, I am not your teacher, I�m not here to debate with anybody, I�m not here to convince anybody. I am here to talk about commonalities. I will tell you what we believe we have, you tell me what you believe you have. Let�s share it together and complement each other. I was invited by the Vatican, with the previous Pope, and I gave a lecture for one hour to the Cardinals, Bishops, Archbishops, nuns and priests. They spent the whole morning discussing my talk and we spent 5 days there and I have picture with the previous Pope (shows me the picture) So, you have no missionary efforts? No, we have no missionary efforts, but when people like you ask us we answer them. Whether you believe what I say or not, it�s your business. I�m not here to convince you. And I told the Cardinals there, no proselytization. I saw how they did it in Nigeria, I visit other countries as a public speaker at religious conferences, I saw with my own eyes how they do proselytization and I assure you neither Jesus nor Mary would like to see proselytization. What percent of your members worldwide are converts? Well, I can tell you about America. Out of 10 million Muslims in America, 42% are those who accepted Islam�we do not call them converted, we use the word reverted. Why? Because you were born the way God wanted it. This means that you were born Muslim, with that concept of Muslim I told you before. It�s your parents who made you Christians, Jews, Hindu, Buddhists. Now, it�s your choice to do whatever you want. There are also 40 million Americans who are Agnostic. Yes, that�s what I would say I am as well. Whenever you are Agnostic, be grateful to God. God loves you so much, he put a brain in your skull, he put faith in your heart and made you to be confused. Because he loves you, because you love him, he says don�t worry, even if you were raised to be Christian denominations, luckily it is good that you have seen other denominations and luckily you study other religions, now he told you he wants you to study Islam�maybe, maybe, maybe not�it�s not my business, it�s between you and God. I tell Muslims, when you talk to God, talk to him directly, don�t talk to him through Jesus or Mohammad or Moses. They say, �ok, I will wait until the day of judgement and He will tell me�� I say why don�t you talk to him directly, now, direct telephone call without operator� (laughs) and honest to God, immediately angels on your shoulder will take it (your prayer) and give it to Him. And sometimes it just goes directly to Him without any angels. You put your face on the floor and talk to God, He said, I don�t want any angel to bring it to me, this is enough for me. Then He pick it up immediately and say, yes I listen to you and you shiver, this means God touches you, his angel touches you saying don�t worry I am with you. Would any person willing to convert, or revert, be accepted? 42% of American Muslims reverted to Islam. Some of those were priests, ministers, medical doctors, lawyers. All those who have reverted, many are highly educated, NASA, some of NASA accepted Islam. You know the woman astronaut, the one who is on the space shuttle? This morning I received an email saying she wanted to accept Islam. Why? Because she said she was up there and they looked down upon the Earth, everything was dark, except two places light, light, light. They could not believe it, they took pictures. It turned out to be Mecca and Medina. When she came down and found this out, she accepted Islam. 4. To what extent does your denomination maintain that it is the only group that will be saved? �Saved� hmm, for what? I will be �saved� if and when I believe in God and my deeds and actions are right and I will not harm anybody. Then I be saved. To be saved by God, I have to believe in Him. If I don�t believe in Him, how can he save me? I have to accept whatever he tells me through all the books of the religion. The Quran itself is the summation, the culmination, the purification of all the revered books that were revealed from God to his prophet. Something has been misguided here and there, translated and lost the original meaning. The Quran is being memorized by millions of Muslims in Arabic. You can downstairs, children, non-Arabs, are memorizing the Quran. Anywhere you go, to any Muslim country � China, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Iran, Turkey � these are non-Arab people and you will find them memorizing the Quran like Arabs of Mecca. In Arabic. 114 chapters, 6236 verses, 700 pages, in Arabic. And you tell them one verse here and they�ll tell you that verse is found here on such a page and they�ll start telling you the rest of the page. By memory. Children, 12 years old. You can test anybody downstairs (laughs). The Quran is the summation, culmination and purification. If you want to see the originality of the Bible, I feel sorry. They told us, the Cardinals there, �don�t compare Quran with the Bible. Your Quran is still the same, right down to the letter.� The Quran has been translated many times, but that is not Quran, could be right 100%, could be 90%, but then when they ask us, the Arabs, (about the translations) �is it true, what I�m reading?� I don�t know. When you go back to the Arabic text there are certain letters that are not in the other languages. Certain words and phrases have no translation. I cannot say if what you are reading in your language is correct. It�s better to go and study Arabic so as not to lose the originality of meaning. |
|
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
|
|
seekshidayath
Senior Member Female Islam Joined: 26 March 2006 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 3357 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
5. What sacred books and devotional literature do you have? We have the Quran. And we have the sayings of the Prophet. Because suppose you want to study medicine, and there are books of medicine, you read them, but you can�t understand them by yourself without teacher. But the one who wrote the books, if he is the one to be your teacher, is it not better? So our teacher is the one who received the Quran, Mohammed. So we have sayings of the Prophet. It is called Hadith. Now, more than that who is Mohammed? So I have to know more about his life, from babyhood to 63 years. This is called Surah. It�s the life history of the Prophet. As a child, what did he do? As a business man, what did he do? As a husband, what did he do? As a father, what did he do? As a prophet, what did he do? How did he manage himself? In order to mimic his personality, as a role model. We study him as a role model. 6. Do you require members to support the denomination financially by contribution or tithing? No membership, whoever wants to donate donates. 7. What moral issues are most important in the official teachings of your denomination? (You do not have to cover all of these areas, just those most pertinent to that denomination�s distinctive stands.) the place of women? Dignity and respect for women is more than for men. The teaching of Islam is that even paradise is a defeat of mother. I tell the young boys and girls, go and sit by the feet of your mother. It is as if you are sitting in paradise. And there is a tradition in the Muslim world, the more respect you earn. If you sit on the chair, no one else in the family will sit on the chair. They will sit on the floor as a sign of respect to you.
Life is the most important moral issue. If we kill one person it is as if we have killed humanity at large. And if we save one person, it is as if we have saved humanity at large. The top priority is the respect of life, even animals, unless it is for the sake of eating, surviving. But to go and learn how to shoot, that�s the worst thing to do. Dignity and respect of all human beings. birth control? homosexuality? Morality is a top priority. No homosexuality. sex before marriage?
The most hated concept in the book of God is divorce. Marriage is not only between man and woman, it�s between the families. They come together to make one single family. If there is a dispute between the young couple, both families should come and settle the problem.
|
|
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
|
|
seekshidayath
Senior Member Female Islam Joined: 26 March 2006 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 3357 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
8. What are the principal rituals, sacraments, or ceremonies distinguishing your denomination from others? Rituals, we have every Friday, the congregation prayers. Why not Saturday or Sunday. Jews�Saturday. Christians�Sunday. Hindus�.Tuesday. Muslim�Friday. Why, God, why? He said, �I created Adam on Friday. I made him to enter paradise Friday. He joined his wife Friday. The day of judgement is going to take place on Friday. When the whole planet Earth is going to be upside down and the day of judgement will start it will be Friday. So you go and pray Friday and say, �oh God, while I am alive, don�t bring it down.� (laughs) But God wanted Friday for everyone, for Christians, for Hindus, for Jews, but (shrugs) it�s up to the people. Then we have 2 celebrations, after we fast the month of Ramadan�by the way we have 2 calendars that we use, solar and lunar, we pray 5 times a day, we use the solar system for the times, and the feast, the month of Ramadan and the Pilgrimage is with lunar (shows me his watch which was specially designed with both solar and lunar systems, 5 times of prayer, direction of Kabbah)�We have rituals of fasting of Ramadan and after we finish we have celebration. 9. What is the teaching on such topics as (Again, you do not have to cover all of these topics) salvation? Christians have salvation, that is not a Muslim concept. You are obedient to God and do whatever he tells you to do and whatever all the prophets are telling us to do, that is our salvation. the end time? The whole planet is going to turn upside down, no one is going to be alive, not even the angels or Satan. Then God will bring a special angel who will wake us and all of us will be regenerated biologically. Every human being has a seed in the lower part of the sacrum. That is the seed and God is going to bring rain from heaven to regenerate us, recreate us. You, women, will be recreated as you were when you were 18. Men at age 25. Exactly as you were, even down to your fingerprints. And then we will go in a line waiting how we are going to be judged. And everyone has to look into Hell, through the window, to see what is inside.
We have people in the Muslim world, there are different levels appointed by the government. There are imams, sheikhs (they lead the community in their prayers), mufti (higher level), quadi � judge, grand mufti (top leader) 11. What is the procedure by which your denomination can change its teaching on something? Does one person get a revelation? Do delegates at a convention vote on it? Any religious decision has to be discussed with the grand mufti and he will give the final decision 12. To what extent does your denomination seek to develop inter-denominational ties with other churches? If so, which ones? We have many. We have been asked that we have interfaith meetings with everybody. During the month of Ramadan we do it at a hotel and we invite Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, all of them. There is no proselytizing, no teaching, just meeting together and sharing commonalities. How did 9-11 affect you? This has nothing to do with Islam. But, honest to God, from Sept 11 up until now, more Americans have accepted to Islam than ever before. The more they hear negative about us, the more they read, and then they see us, the more contrary it seems. If we are terrorists, and every place there are gun stores, we could have gone there, bought them, put snipers on every corner, on every church, every university�did we do it? No. Because we want to live in peace and harmony. I am not a Muslim if I am not in peace and harmony with myself and with God, with my family, with my neighbor, with my society. True Muslim would not even know how to carry a gun. What about the extremists who use Islam to justify their actions? You may think so, but terrorists and extremists are not truly Muslim. bin Laden died a long time ago and still they say he is alive. They bring someone who looks like him, or his voice sounds like him, to scare everybody. They are not Muslim |
|
Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: �All the descendants of Adam are sinners, and the best of sinners are those who repent."
|
|
Walid
Groupie Joined: 10 October 2007 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 58 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
"There is something called Sunni and Shia, but in Islam there is no Sunni or Shia. That happened after Prophet Mohammed"
Sh. Ahmed Sakr need to update his readings. I'm sure he will excel it as his fundraising activities if he pay attention to this topic
Walid Edited by Walid |
|
rami
Moderator Group Male Joined: 01 March 2000 Status: Offline Points: 2549 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem
In Islam there is nothing called family, father, son, grandson taking over as a king or kingdom He should do more than update his reading, he should at least read the quran, where Allah recognises righteous kings and monarchs, or even the ahadith where our prophet has said Islamic rullership will be in the hands of monarchs. Its very funny his extremist ideology according to him has denounced the very monarchs that fund them i.e the saudi family or used to at any rate...a real contradictions in beliefs. Is he denouncing himself now? isnt he a sunni? Within Sunni also, there are other school of thought. They build it themselves, their students made it. Like now, you make a school of thought to your teacher (laughs). Plain ignorance, So the madhhabs are made up are they? To actually believe this you would have to be bereft of the slightest amount of knowledge to your own Legal system and history, OUR QURAN was preserved by these people he is laughing at, OUR AHADITH where collected and categarised by the people he is LAUGHING at. If he doesnt accept them dont accept there works or anything that came from them then see how much he would be able to practice his religion. They will give anyone a PHD these days subhanahllah, intelligence and research used to be a prerequisite to speaking about a subject now every person with a few letters next to his name has opinion he needs to share. If he isnt a sunni, he doesn't follow a madhab, he doesnt take rulings from any madhhabs mixing or otherwise what does he follow and what qualifies him to speak about islam when clearly by process of elimination he belongs to a group that would make up less than 1% of all muslims shia or sunni. I feel sorry for this siter he seems to have treated her like a child when clearly she was asking serious and critical questions. Edited by rami |
|
Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.
|
|
Sign*Reader
Senior Member Joined: 02 November 2005 Status: Offline Points: 3352 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Brother Rami: We know very well how many kings the Muslims have had and currently have! And so is the case with every other non muslim nation. But I hope you are not implying that Prophet(s) somehow approved the hereditary kingdoms for his followers? My understanding is that after Prophet Sulaiman's request for the same kingdom for his favorite son's rejection from Allah; the divine approval for the hereditary kingship has been abrogated. It is fact of history that Rehoboam turned out to be as awful a ruler as Allah had shown him as dead man on the throne to Sulaiman(a) as true vision! It is quite obvious what is in the following hadith; Volume 8, Book 73, Number 225: Narrated Abu Huraira: The Prophet said, "The most awful (meanest) name in Allah's sight." Sufyan said more than once, "The most awful (meanest) name in Allah's sight is (that of) a man calling himself king of kings." Sufyan said, "Somebody else (i.e. other than Abu Az-Zinad, a sub-narrator) says: What is meant by 'The king of kings' is 'Shahan Shah.," Edited by Sign*Reader |
|
Kismet Domino: Faith/Courage/Liberty/Abundance/Selfishness/Immorality/Apathy/Bondage or extinction.
|
|
rami
Moderator Group Male Joined: 01 March 2000 Status: Offline Points: 2549 |
Post Options
Thanks(0)
|
Bi ismillahi rahmani raheem
The point is the doctors inconsistent and contradictory views. Allah has praised righteous monarchs in the Quran, Muslims have had many in this ummah. Whether you can or cant establish a monarchy for yourself in islam i am not debating but once one has been established usually by force [i.e you have no choice in the matter] there is nothing to say you cant follow a righteous monarch or that you need to overthrow his ruler ship. King of kings is not the same as saying you are a king or queen, you are stretching the matter a little to come up with some quick daleel that doesn't really exist. Bilquees was a righteous queen mentioned in the Quran. An Nabi Dawood was monarch who passed ruler ship onto his son Suleiman there is nothing wrong with a righteous monarch period some of allahs prophets where kings If it was haram they wouldnt do it. Edited by rami |
|
Rasul Allah (sallah llahu alaihi wa sallam) said: "Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord" and whoever knows his Lord has been given His gnosis and nearness.
|
|
Post Reply | Page 123 4> |
Tweet
|
Forum Jump | Forum Permissions You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot create polls in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum |