Four questions for my moslem step brethren?

Question

1. What does the word "Islam" means?
2.Why in many verses of the quran, Allah refer to Himself by the word "We" Does it mean plural??
3. How do you guys view the Hadith? What is it actually?
4. My moslem friend told me that the Quran is the Last Testament, what does it mean?

Answer 1

ISLAM literally means submitting voluntarily your own will and putting it under God's DIVINE WILL in perfect obedience to the Almighty!! This broader definition of ISLAM applies to Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David and Jesus who all obeyed the Commands of the MOST HIGH. Anyone who puts his will under the Will of God by that definition is a Muslim. Although more specifically people believe that the followers of the Prophet Mohammad alone are Muslims, which is not true. We consider ourselves MORE FULLY MUSLIM as we obey the Final Testament as well, but technically anyone who sincerely believes and follows God's command is technically a Muslim.

Quran uses the REGAL "I" or WE as Kings do. As the LORD ALMIGHTY is indeed the KING of KINGS, it is most appropriate for him to say WE. Generally Kings used the word WE as the King represented not only themselves but their administration also. When President Bush uses the words we plan to do this or that, it does not mean he has somehow developed a dual personality!!

Hadith are the sayings of the Prophet. Hadith is more like the Gospels, which are the sayings of Jesus, whereas the Quran is considered the exact words of God directly communicated and fully reproduced by the Prophet. In the case of Hadith the sayings are not always exactly communicated from what the Prophet said, but are interpretations by those around him. Thus we have many hadith or sayings of the prophet that have differences as people have recorded what they THOUGHT was said. In some cases sayings of the Prophet were also coined by men who had ulterior motives. If a king wanted to do a wrong, he could have someone coin a saying of the Prophet to justify what he wished to do. Therefore all sects accept that many lies were created in the name of the Prophet by various parties, some of them hated the Prophet and Islam, to give a bad name to Islam and the prophet or for personal and ulterior reasons. The Prophet himself told us to use the Quran to compare his hadeeth as the Quran was not going to change. If the hadeeth or hadith contradicted the Quran, we are not to believe it.

In our belief Quran is the Last Testament in the sense that all the divine laws are completed and no need for any new laws to come remains. In a nut shell, Abraham laid the foundation of monotheism formally, Moses brought the laws of JUSTICE to rule society, Jesus brought the Laws of Mercy to soften the laws of Justice once they were fully implemented. Jesus said not one letter of the Law of Moses will go away until Judgment Day. Yet, people who disliked the Jews (especially the Roman converts who had a contempt for these people who would not bow to Rome) made it out that the laws of Justice are inferior to the laws of Mercy, when in fact Mercy can not be done until justice first proves that a wrong was done. When this imbalance occured, in our belief the Lord Almighty sent our Prophet with the FINAL TESTAMENT, which brought back the balance between Justice and mercy and added a few additional laws so that all of mankind may come together in worshipping our COMMON CREATOR. Ultimately, Mohammad (pbuh) turned his entire nation to monotheism, when the arabs were polytheists. Not only did he do that, he turned them to love and respect all the great ones of Israel FIRST. Him being a gentile, he laid the foundation for all gentiles to turn to the great ones of Israel. It would have been inappropriate for a Jewish man to put the Jews on a pedestal. Mohammad did that for his own nation first, before asking other nations to follow him.

God has promised that anyone who has blessed Israel shall be blessed. Remember that God has never blessed the evil among Israel. Korah is a good example of an evil Israelite, who was killed during the time of Moses. Muslims venerate the good of Israel and thus God blessed Mohammad and has kept his religion alive to this day, and thus his is the FINAL TESTAMENT.

Jewish folks in my personal belief had made and still make the Nation of Israel to be a parallel god of sorts. Many of the Jews do not believe in God, yet claim to be Israelites, which completely distorts the meaning of Israel. Korah was an Israelite, but he was not blessed. I hope I am making sense to you.

Thus Islam brings the fact to the fore that it is not what nation or race you belong to, but whether or not you OBEY the ALMIGHTY, which is the key distinction between our faith, Judaism (you are Jewish even if you are an atheist) and Christianity (you accept Christ as your Messiah and you are assured salvation. Obedience is not a requirement. Acceptance of Jesus is the primary criteria).

I hope this makes sense to you.

Answer 2

1. Islam means submitter as in (submit to god)
2. Allah is God in Arabic, in this case God is referring to Himself and the angles
3. some Muslims follow the hadith I don't I can read the Quran myself.
4. it is the final testament.

Answer 3

Islam means "TO SURRENDER" but we take its meaning as "submission to GOD"... we all believe in MOSES, JESUS, ABRAHAM as Muslims and prophet of GOD because they submitted to GOD.. and we call JEWS + CHristians as PEOPLE OF THE BOOK.....

Thats another thing that we dont believe that Jesus was Son of GOD.... the whole bible was changed.. and today its text is not the same as 2000 years ago... But quran is 100% same as 1400 years ago... recently ..... QURAN found in turkey when taken to laboratory revealed that it was 1200-1400 years old.. and the text was almost the same as in today's Quran!

Allah is singular.. first of all you need to know the meaning of WAHID... ALLAH said that he is not 1 but WAHID.... now you will be wondering what does the word wahid means... 1 can be divided .50 + .50 = 1 or .25+.25+.25+.25= 1... but wahid means ONLY... Its almost impossible to translate QUran into anyother language because QURAN is written in a POETIC way.... which make it the most different book... thats why!! A german doctor at age 60 learned whole arabic to understand quran and after that he converted to ISLAM.......

Hadith means the sayings and guidlines given by MOHAMMAD (PBUH)... Hadith means stories taken from Prophet's (PBUH) life and his guide lines about certain issues!!

Quran is the Last testament... i think it means that it is the LAST holy book from the GOD (ALLAH).... we believe in Bible, Torah and all 5 books... but we say that QURAN is the final Revelation from GOD (ALLAH)......

thats it!!
Dont care what people say just see your self.. GOD has given you eyes... brain .. hands and everything... GO READ Quran yourself and find the right way..!!

Answer 4

well i agree with all the above and NQV give a very good elaboration..

try read this web to know more about islam:-

http://www.true-islam.tk/
http://www.usc.edu/dept/MSA/fundamentals/tawheed/
http://www.islam.gov.my/portal/
http://www.harunyahya.com/

Answer 5

well u can go to www.islamtomorrow.com or u can ask the head of mosque near ur area..i think he knows better than any of us.