The believer without a book

To understand the koran you need two things, read it with the fear for Allah and hope for His mercy, if you have these two things you can not go wrong in whatever you do.

There are undoubtedly more than "two things" that you need to understand the Qur'aan. And the ones that you mentioned are very important, indeed.  

I will start a new thread dedicated to Tafsir, under Discussions: Basics of Islam, insha Allah. Perhaps we could continue there, specifically on the subject of Tafsir, if you are interested.

Bismillah

Thank you for your openness, sister herjihad,

If we were to be sitting and chatting in "real-life" setting, like while waiting for the turn at a Doctor's, I could only imagine you sitting with a pair of twizzers looking in your little mirror without establishing an eye-contact, plucking your eyebrows and telling us all politely off with the message above.  

It helps. In a way.

Salams to all,

I am also a revert to Islam (I was born Christian and have been muslim for 12 years). I am not here to tell anyone what to do or what to believe or who is right and who is wrong. As you know, in our religion, everyone is responsible only for him or herself. I am doing these postings only for myself. If someone else wants to take knowledge from them or take issue with them that is up to them.

When I first converted, as is the case with most converts, you are adopted by a community (some are adopted more than other , lol, you converts know what I'm talking about). I happened to be in contact with some brothers and sisters from South Lebanon when I converted. These muslims were Shia 12vers , as is the majority in the South part of Lebanon. I was around these people almost exclusively for the first 4 years that I was Muslim. Then I started to get curious.What if Shiaism is not the right way ? What if there is another school of thought that is more correct. I was convinced that Islam was the truth but there were so many different schools of thought, I wanted to find which one was the closest to the original message of the Prophet Muhammed (p.b.u.h) whom all muslims look to as their leader. I deliberately distanced myself from my Lebanese friends and started to hang around some Saudi and Kuwaiti brothers who were attending the University of California with me. After my independent research and my discussions with my Sunni brothers, I concluded that the Jaafari schools (Shia 12ver) was the most authentic Islamic tradition in line with the original message of Prophet Muhammed(p.b.u.h). This is still and ongoing project for me, that is why I am posting to this forum.

This is the bottom line,

We will all be questioned in the grave. We will be asked by the angel who is our Lord, who is our Prophet, what is our Book, and who is our Imam. Some think that we will just repeat these answers like a parrot, then strait to the Jinnah. But if this is the case, then why do we deserve to go to Jinnah, and not the Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc. They can also memorize and repeat answers.  There is a fine point here, because even if you are not a muslim, your good deeds will be accepted, but not your religion. So if we want to be safe on that day of trial, we must really KNOW! We must know the WHY, in addition to the who, what, where, and when of our religion. If you are 100% confident that you know the WHY to all these questions, then you are excused and may go to recess (a little joke). If not, then we all need to sit in class a little longer. Wa Salama

Salams to all,

It is your duty as a muslim to seek knowledge of your religion  as much as you have the ability. There are many hadith from both Shia and Sunni sources that verify this. I don't think I need to include, because the br. and s. are probably already familiar with them. Allah (s.w.a) knows best and none of us are in a position to judge someone else on this point. I would like to say, however, that this information is much easier to find nowdays with all the modern implements of information technology (such as the Internet and forums such as this) so it follows logically that we will be much more accountable before Allah(s.w.a) for this knowledge than our anscestors were.

Respectfully and with Salams,