What do you like about Islam?

Salam sister Chrysalis and thank you for your warm welcome.

Well here's the opinion of an Agnostic, to be Islam seems to be a religion of education and social progress put back in the context of the Dark Ages. I like that mosques weren't meant to be just place of prayers but also place of educations where people learned to read and write, to count etc...

I like how it also set the basis of a social system (the mandatory social tax) and a jurisprudence (the Shari'a, although today it's not really a solid judicial system, was nevertheless a progress compared to the anarchy it replaced).

cloud777 wrote: So what do I like about Islam?� Hmm, well I still much to learn but I know for sure that I like the architecture of Islamic Mosques.� I've never been inside one yet, but I really want to see the inside sometime.� I also like claigraphy, and the way the arabic script looks in the Qur'an.�

That was a very interesting share cloud777! I enjoyed reading.

The literal meaning of Jihad happens to be effort or struggle...Anywhere you have to exert extra effort becomes jihad and biggest effort or jihad is to control the selfish, gluttonous, corrupt leanings of any ones personality!

Someone posted this response in another thread, and I found it quite appropriate to the founding premises of most legitimate religious endeavors ("religious," that is, within the meaning and context of the original definition of the word religiare which means "to bind back; to bind together").

I find little to argue with such statements when in comparison to other statements, such as the following uttered by Siddhattha Gotama:

"Mind is the forerunner of all actions. All deeds are led by mind, created by mind. If one speaks or acts with a corrupt mind, suffering follows, as the wheel follows the hoof of an ox pulling a cart.

"If one speaks or acts with a serene mind, happiness follows, as surely as one's shadow.

" 'He abused me, mistreated me, defeated me, robbed me.' Harboring such thoughts keeps hatred alive. Releasing such thoughts banishes hatred for all time."

Or:

"Just as an arrowsmith shapes an arrow to perfection with fire, so does the wise man shape his mind, which is fickle, unsteady, vulnerable, and erratic."