Ok, first of introducing myself I'll let you know that I'm not an orthodox Muslim and if you guess by the title of my thread, I have something to do with Hinduism. I am a syncretic spiritual person, Sufism has always been a strong part of my path to God (Allah), even before discovering Islam for myself. My name "Frater" implies an interest or involvement with the western occult tradition (namely the Golden Dawn and more relevantly Thelema), which too is correct. Some here may expectedly scoff at this but I accept if I am considered heretical but this isn't why I am here. 

I believe that the Quran is a true message (or dictation) from God, I believe similarly with Liber AL Vel Legis (another cryptic sacred text of massive importance to man's spiritual development and growth with God).

I am here to learn more and more, I am a seeker of knowledge, true knowledge and wisdom - Gnosis. I study the Quran daily, pray to Allah but am not as of yet a practitioner of Salat or the Five Pillars.

There is a large aspect of cynicism that I have towards the heavily religious (as opposed to spiritual) aspects of Islam (including Law) but most of all, I want to learn from those with more experience and time in these areas of Islam (and study of Hadith).

Thank you, blesses 

Hallo,

I am also new here and reading you makes sense to me, i.e. we seem to be on the same "trip" which for me basically means "exodus" (the road to freedom).

How do we get there? By god recognizing us as "mature souls" because a immature soul can never be free, i.e. must obey. These are the two basic concepts, but *knowing* ourselves and our creator is above being obedient, where we never can know if we are really obeying god or those that only claim to represent him or some demons.

We are all believers (agnostics), in case of revelations we can believe that they come from god (theistic agnostics / seekers) or that they are product of fantasy (atheistic agostics). So it's on our minds to decide if they make some sense and by that are credible.

For me the difference of creation vs. evolution is not in the question of evolution, but whether it is something coincidental or something where the outcome is determined by god. Even in the bible there is the greatest proof of evolution in Matthew 13 (parable of the sower). There it says that we are different in our understanding of god. If there were no evolution we'd all be the same, clones of Adam which is our st**id ancestor. But many are more the likeness of Adam and some more the likeness of god, in the end only god knows and will decide when we are complete or whether it's only about our soul salvation.

Because I had a personal revelation and rather special views, I went to this quiz ( http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx" rel="nofollow - http://www.beliefnet.com/Entertainment/Quizzes/BeliefOMatic.aspx ) to find out in which "box" to put myself. I expected the computer to get confused, but to my surprise it gave me 100% "liberal Quaker". That is a liberal (tolerant) part of protestant Christianity, but I'd say that my dogma is *soul first* and then eventually the body, so I feel myself close to the Cathars/Bogomils, early Christians (Origen of Alexandria) and of course also the Islam, that in itself is diverse, so all that is "inward jihad" because fighting to survive in a doomed world is a bit weird. ;-)

Greetings