Is God in Islam Just and Rational as Mutazillah believed or Arbitrary and Despotic as Hanbali-Zahiri-Ashari-Maturidi postulate? Does Quran Support Both Positions?

By Sultan Shahin, Founding Editor, New Age Islam 28 Aug 2018 Dear Naseer Saheb, I am bringing our discussion to a separate thread as it has gone beyond the scope of the earlier article where we started our conversation. You consider Mutazillah “atheists of their time” who were “more wedded to philosophy than to the Quran.” Also, you think that Asharis have “through their misinterpretations of otherwise very clear Muhkamat verses, made Islam an unjust and immoral religion, only because they imagine Allah to be like themselves." But if you study their literature you will find that the mainspring of thinking of both these groups, indeed all Islamic scholars of all schools of thought was Quran and except in the case of Mutazillah,...

Did Islam Change Its Policies From Inclusivism Of Early Madina To Exclusivism And Intolerance Of Religious Minorities In Later Madina Days? Ask New Age Islam Readers

By Sultan Shahin, Founder-Editor, New Age Islam 16 November 2018 I am receiving calls from agitated readers of an original NewAgeIslam.com article published on 2 August, 2018, reproduced by Urdu daily Inqilab today, of course, without acknowledgement, as is the custom with Urdu Press in India. This was written by our regular columnist Mr. Ghulam Rasool Dehlavi and is titled: How Imran Khan Will Set Up Medina-Like Islamic Welfare State? The paragraph which is troubling readers is the following: “Some would argue that Meccan Islamic principles, as compared to the Madinite period of Islam, was more pluralistic, peaceful and inclusivist, though under compulsive circumstances. However, the Islamic...

Division of Knowledge between Religious and Secular in the Madrasas Must Be Abolished to Stem the Tide of Islam’s Continued Decline

By Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam 30 October 2017 (Co-author (Jointly with Ashfaque Ullah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA, 2009 It is well known that Islamic civilization had seen phenomenal advancement of knowledge during the Abbasid Period (roughly mid-8th to mid-13thcentury) - known as its Golden era. The Muslims drew on the resources that came to their hands – the Greco-Roman heritage and the scholars of other religions who were either native citizens or gravitated to Baghdad from different parts of the world to study universal sciences and fields of knowledge that were forbidden in their lands. Thus, they inaugurated and sustained an intellectual revolution...

Quoting Qur’an’s Fighting Verses In Isolation To Promote Violence Or Defame Islam Amounts To Treacherous Misrepresentation Of Its Message Of Peace And Reconciliation

By Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam 19 October 2017 (Co-author (Jointly with Ashfaque Ullah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA, 2009) The verse 8:60 exhorts the Prophet’s followers “to prepare against them with whatever strength and war mounts you can muster by which you may deter the enemy of God and your enemy “But the very succeeding verse of the Qur’an declares: “And if they incline to peace, then you (O Muhammad) too incline to it and rely on God. Indeed, it is He who is the Hearing, the Knowing” (8:61) Read together 8:60-61 make it abundantly clear that the exhortation of 8:60 was in relation to defending against an army. The instruction was to make all possible preparations to engage with it, but if...

Reflections on Qur'anic message - Part-13: Broader Dimension of Zakah - ‘Purifying ‘One’s Thoughts by Dispelling Defilements of Mind

By Muhammad Yunus, New Age Islam 07 October 2017 (Co-author (Jointly with Ashfaque Ullah Syed), Essential Message of Islam, Amana Publications, USA, 2009. This is in sequel to the reflections on institutional Zakat in Part-12 of this series. Human mind is constantly stalked by evil thoughts and there is a perpetual tug of war between depravity (Fujurah) and moral uprightness (Taqwa) in man’s sub-conscious mind (Nafs) (91:8, Reflection 7). The depravity of mind can trigger a whole series of mental defilements such as anger, jealousy, greed, arrogance, hatred and contempt of others, cruelty, vengeance, and other negativities, and disturb the equanimity of mind and keep it locked in futile...

Indian Secularism: Non-Religious, Irreligious or Anti-Religious?

By Ghulam Ghaus Siddiqi, New Age Islam 14 July 2018 A self-confessed Secular fundamentalist Mani Shankar Aiyar writes,  “First, Indian secularism cannot be anti-religious or irreligious, for the bulk of our people are deeply religious. Unlike in Christendom, where the word originated, secularism in India is not about pitting the state against the religious authority but about keeping matters of faith in the personal realm and matters of the state in the public realm. Second, in a nation of many faiths, where people take their faith seriously, secularism must be based on the principle of equal respect for all religions (and for those who choose not to follow any religion). As Nehru once said, ‘[Secularism] means freedom of...