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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Aaaahhh, so you pointed out that many Muslims are African American and from ghettos to provide valuable demographic and marketing information in case DCUMers wish to market products to them? People are chuckling right now, particularly the African Americans and those from ghettos. I never mentioned the race or economic status of converts because it's irrelevant. No matter how dark their complexion or fat their wallets, they still count as converts. In fact, I actually can not confirm or deny your assertion that most converts are African American or from ghettos as it was never importnat enough a factor for me, as a Muslim, to research or learn about. [/b]

No, silly.  I will explain.  Islam is the product.  Converts are the customers.  "Who is buying what we're selling?" - is a question reasonably asked by any product sponsor.  In that context, the information on who are the converts and where they are hailing from is an essential piece of information. The spread of Islam in prisons and ghettos is a part of your religion's history in this country.  There are many other parts.  This one exists as well. It doesn't look good for you to deny that, or to say that it's irrelevant, because if most of Muslim converts were MIT graduates, we'd hear about it non-stop.

You don't need to confirm or deny it, Pew Center has done it for you.

[b]Realistic criticism is welcome. Calling our beloved prophet a pedophile is not a realistic criticism. It's an insult. And the accusation that our prophet was a pedophile was flung early on in this thread by some. Not a good way to begin a sober discourse if people's intent is simply to understand Islamic principles, is it?[/b]

I never called your prophet a pedophile; his marital history is not a concern to me.  Both Aisha and her family benefited from that marriage so if they are happy, who am I to say they shouldn't be? Aisha was Abu Bakr's daughter. Abu Bakr was one of the prophet's nearest companions and one of the rulers who came after him.  Intermarriages in powerful families are common enough, and so was that marriage. I think of this as the next president offering his daughter to the current president. Common.

[b]Was it you that also said Islam commands death for apostasy? If so, once again, you are wrong because you resort heavily on your cliff notes version of the Sharia and insist on doing so, despite my telling you that Sharia is man made law, not God's law. Only the Quran is God's law. Thus, rely on the Quran only and rely on reputable scholarly work to interpret it if you are confused about anything. Living with three Muslims has obviously not been enough to help clarify your misunderstanding about Islam. Why did you not contact a reutable scholar or Imam to better understand Islam then? Why get on DCUM and repeat the false and vile accusations about Islam?

Since it appears you may not have sought authoritative sources to clarify your misunderstanding about Islam, I will provide it. Hamza Yusuf is a very reputable Islamic scholar in the US. He's an American convert. Btw, he's caucasian and from a well established, wealthy Californian family…just providing this information for the DCUM marketers out there. lol lol

Hamza Yusuf may be accessible via a phone call. If you are truly interested in clarifying your misunderstanding you would call him. 
[/b]

This is the real part of your comment that needs to be addressed.  You explained your theological position clearly. You are a Quranist, the follower of the Quran-only movement that discounts all other sources except the Quran. That's a legitimate position.  You don't see Shariah as a valid source of information about Islam's views on life.  That's OK. (You aren't yearning to become the next Muhammad Asad, are you? He didn't really end well, you know.)

What is not OK is your position that anyone who looks, and finds Shariah and OTHER interpretations of Islam that are less pretty than what Zaitouna's peacenik crowd preaches must be doing it from cliff's notes.  My dear, you are not the first person in the world to crack open the Quran.  You are not the first person to think about it. And you aren't the first person to write about it. You don't have a secret eye. The study of Islam did not begin with Hamza Yusuf, he is simply the guy you like best.  Whether you like it or not, there exists a body of Islamic theological law - well yes, that's Shariah! -  and scholarship underlying it that was built since Islam came on the scene.  You think Shariah's illegitimate; that's OK.  But for every one of you, there are millions of people, including people in turbans, who believe it is divine - are they all ignorant? Or learning from cliff's notes?  (Also, I think it's cute that you get all frothy with "despite ME TELLING YOU Shariah is manmade".  Who are you exactly? Why does your position on Shariah - which is markedly different from the position of the Islamic establishment - matters or is in any way authoritative?)

All these people read the Quran too.  They came to conclusions that are different from you.  You aren't inventing this thing from scratch.  Tons and tons of books have been written on the subject; multiple schools of thoughts exist, and they have very definite position on plural marriage, on slavery, on apostasy, on treatment of polytheists that didn't come from Sheikh Google.   There's Ibn Taymiyya. There's the whole Al Azhar crowd.  There is a Bin Baz crowd. There's a bunch of universities named after King something.  There's the mufti brigade behind islamqa.com.  There's the Muhammad Abdelwahhab cooperative.  There's Yusuf Qaradawi, god bless his heart. There is, somewhere, a group of turbans servicing ISIS and handing out rulings that what they do is OK.  I get that you disagree with them.  I get that you think they are manmade, reactionary, backwards, whatever.   (I think the whole thing is manmade).  But one thing that you cannot say about them is that they learned Islam from cliff's notes.  They read the same Quran you do.  They read it differently from you.  You can disagree with their conclusions, that's your right.  What you cannot do is say they aren't learned people.   They are all Islamic scholars, to a man. And just like you refer people to Hamza Yusuf, I can refer people to the Bin Baz folks on islamqa.com - aren't they learned? aren't they reputable? aren't they authoritative? Isn't Qardawi? You're shopping for sources, which is perfectly fine, you found the one you like. But don't act like every OTHER source comes from ignorance because they can take up Hamza Yusuf degree by degree, and come out on top.  [/quote]

I find it absolutely abominable that you actually had the audacity to criticize Islam by essentially saying that the best that Islam can do is acquire African Americans and people from ghettos. I was just thinking about what you wrote and could not get it out of my mind. I realized the gravity of what you wrote. You may as well as have said "You Muslims may be increasing in number, but the best you guys can do is get the poor folks or n*****." You basically got busted, couldn't edit or delete what you wrote, and so you began to backpedal because you had to save face.  And then you immediately accuse Muslims of caring very much about the color of people's skin. It's pretty clear YOU do. We do not. Our prophet was middle eastern so he may have been dark complected himself. Many, if not most, Muslims are olive complected or dark complected. Yes, the American Muslim face is changing to blend in more with American society, but generally speaking, most Muslims are not blonde and blue eyed or caucasian looking. So why on earth would we discriminate against people who look like us? That just makes no sense at all. In fact, I think when you realized your mistake in posting something so obviously racist, you tried to hurl the racism accusation back at Muslims to deflect from your mistake. Not cool at all.

And I didn't shop around to find a scholar for you or others that could provide a more palatable version of Islam. I grew up with him. Hamza Yusuf is just one scholar I respect. There are many reputable Islamic scholars to choose from in the US. Take for example, Dr.  Jamal Badawi of Halifax. He's older than Hamza Yusuf but  he's extremely knowledgeable also. Here is a fantastic link to one of his lectures, [b]Commonly Misunderstood Quranic Text, which I think you and others should watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4D9aB21DwM[/b]

Of course there are other scholars in other countries but why am I or Muslims in the US obligated to follow or believe their interpretation of the Quran? Why would I choose a scholar to follow that hails from any other country than the one I was raised and reside here? That makes no sense to me. In Catholicism the Pope is the religious leader of the world. In Islam, there is no world leader of our religion. Each person is expected to study the Quran well and learn on his or her own. Other Muslim countries may follow Sharia law but the Sharia may differ from Muslim country to Muslim country. Moreover, simply because some people interpret Islam much more harshly it does not follow that therefore Islam must indeed be unreasonable. That would be a naive conclusion. Scholars are not perfect, they make mistakes. And remember that Islamic scholars here in the US are not restrained by the old cultural traditions and patriarchal mindset of other countries. As such, the kind of Islam they preach is TRUE Islam, free of any cultural influences. In fact, Islamic scholars from other countries might have a very hard time escaping their cultural influences because if they did, their followers might denounce them. [/quote]

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