Imagine yourself as a 50 year old man on a mission, in the deserts of Australia, a thousand years back. You have single handedly challenged the entire social-economic-political-religious system of your nation. Your community is mad at you for what you are doing. For 10 years or so, you are fighting against all odds with no signs of any breakthrough in your mission. You have staked your life on a mission that no one believes in! Only a handful of people believe in you. Amongst them, your wife and your dear (paternal) uncle. Your wealthy wife being the first person…

Another way how the 6-9 thing could have come into the reports is by mere downward exaggeration of the age of Aishah by the narrators of the reports. As an example, take the Prophet’s first wife Khadija’s age at the time of her marriage to the Prophet. It has been exaggerated from 28 to 40. While the more authentic reports say she was 28, the more popular narrative is that of 40! And the reason why that could have happened is when people reported that she was older than the Prophet (who was 25), someone would retort ‘how much older?!!?’, the narrator would reply ‘let me tell you how much older’ and then to make the point stronger exaggerate the figure upward and eventually take it up from 28 to 40.

Suppose you are a master chef who’s just concluded a one month long cooking training program in your city for a small cohort of 10 students. You provided your students with a cooking manual that lays down the essential theory, the principles, the necessary do’s and don’ts of the art of cooking. You dictated the manual directly to your students and they wrote it down and memorized it by heart! You also gave them hands-on training that taught them the actual cooking of, say, 10 dishes, practically implementing the theory and techniques of the manual. You trained them in the…

Thousands of people had committed the Quran to their memories in the lifetime of the Prophet itself. A massive, live teaching and learning movement, a mammoth collective mission, was undertaken by the Prophet and his companions to ensure that the Quran reaches every Muslim with the utmost degree of accuracy, so much so that at the time of expiry of the Prophet, the Quran had been memorized by thousands of keen learners (huffaaz). But, the transmission of ahadith was not a project undertaken, supervised, and completed by the Prophet……….

………..All surahs put together in one book, the Quran forms a complete wholesome text that explains itself, a self explanatory document in one small volume! On the contrary, in the corpus of tens of thousands of ahadith, now scattered across dozens of volumes of books, not every hadith was contextual; since it was easy for anyone after the Prophet’s demise to simply say that he heard the Prophet say so and so, and then for this isolated report get recorded without the background or context as to why and when was the so and so thing said!……..

Thousands of philosophers, mystics, scientists, and thinkers; brainstorming since thousands of years, still stand divided on three sides of the spectrum as atheists, agnostics, and theists! Members of all the three camps present strong and passionate arguments, and the debates end in stalemates all the time as there are numerous issues pertaining to God’s existence that these people simply cannot agree upon! Experts have no consensus on this matter! To witness the never-ending debate, just take a look at the numerous academic websites and blogs, books, journals/papers, videos and podcasts that are still being widely published on this issue! And…

So how to identify the core Islam?

It’s the Islam that’s derived from its explicit primary sources, that is, the clear verses of the Quran and the concurrently agreed upon/established Sunnah.

Hence it consists of all those things over which there is no disagreement amongst any of the schools of any of the three sects of Islam. Sunni, Shia, and Ibadi being the three sects. And then within these three sects, many different schools of thought.

Thus it is the same in all the different versions of Islam. Hence absolute consensus/ijmaa is the identifier of the core Islam.

It contains only the primary matters of Islam and can be dubbed as the Shariah. 

Non-core Islam consists of all those matters over which disagreements/ikhtilaaf exist as it is extracted/derived from the ambiguous verses/text of the Quran and from the secondary sources of Islam like the historical reports (akhbaar-e-ahaad/ ahadith), analogical reasoning (qiyas), customs (urf) of a community/nation, etc.

These include only the secondary/trivial matters and are contained in the vast secondary corpuses of Islam like the secondary legal opinions (fiqh), detailed theology (aqeedah or kalaam), mysticism (tasawwuf), history (taareekh) or ahadith/akhbaar-e-ahaad/riwaayaat, etc.

Where have we come from? How did the universe originate? How did ‘life’ originate? What’s the purpose of our lives? Where do we go after death? What’s the nature of ‘death’? How do we get our morality from? How do we decide what’s right and what’s wrong? How do we attain knowledge? What are the tools of reaching the truth? What is the ultimate reality? Is there a GOD? If yes then how do we know it? What’s the nature of GOD? Can we communicate with it? Can we establish a relationship with it? If yes then how?  These are…

“Tasawwuf ek mutawazi deen hai.” – Javed Ahmad Ghamidi.1,2,3,4 Translated as: “Mysticism is a parallel religion (method/approach to Truth, separate from Islam)”. This saying of Ghamidi sahib ruffles a lot of feathers! The millions of diehard fans of Sufism aren’t able to digest this opinion of his. Isn’t he wrong? Doesn’t mysticism, along with philosophy, history, politics, constitute the core of the religion of Islam (Deen-al-Islam)? Not really! Mysticism, philosophy, history, politics, are all independent streams of knowledge, like science, with their own separate domains, methods, and discourses. The domain of science is the physical world. And its method of…

Will Mother Teresa go to Jannat (Paradise)? “NO!” This was the answer given to us, vehemently, by the speaker at a jamaat-e-islami enclave in Kolkata, way back in 2008. “No matter how good and saintly you are, if you are not a Muslim, you are doomed to hell for eternity!” Dr.Zakir Naik and other popular Wahhabi/Salafi speakers and writers  say the same! And this is the mainstream stance too, although the scholars, like Yasir Qadhi, state this as a general rule, without passing judgments on individuals (like Mother Teresa in case here). So is Shirk (worshipping others besides Allah) and/or…

All the knowledge of physics, despite being only probabilistically true (due to its inductive nature), provides us enough practical certainty (when used) in aerospace technology to allow us to board a flight unflinchingly, to cruise to dizzying heights at breakneck speeds to travel thousands of kilometers across continents!

No matter how big the human errors plaguing a matter, if the matter is inherently clear then it inevitably emerges out of all the clutter and eventually gives way to consensus! Although the consensus could still not be a decisive proof for the truth of the matter, as sometimes consensus is garnered even over falsehood! A consensus would nevertheless be decisive evidence for the unambiguity/clarity of the matter (see my previous article for a detailed discussion on the role of consensus in finding the truth)!

Thus, if the Quran still lends itself to differing interpretations, despite millions of man hours spent on its analysis, it’s implied that the Quran itself is inherently malleable/interpretable, that is, there are verses that can genuinely have multiple valid interpretations! That’s what the Quran too hints at in 3:07!

But then, doesn’t this contradict the Quran’s claim that it is a clear book? If multiple interpretations can be extracted from the same verses then doesn’t it imply that the Quran is vague/unclear? So then, does the Quran make a false claim?!!? One false claim should disqualify it from the label of the Book of God!

“in an era when it was normal or economically necessary to do so, the mindset of the scholars was in tune with the ethics and needs of that era and hence allowed them to interpret the sources to support taking of war captives as slaves. While today, when it’s outlawed and people’s sensibilities abhor it, the mindset of the modernist scholars is attuned accordingly and hence they are confidently interpreting the sources against slavery! Plus the influence of different approaches/methods of interpreting the Quran (through ahadith or without it; with abrogation or without it; etc.). Thus, a combination of one’s mindset and methods, determines one’s interpretation of the Quran. And none can be considered to be the only correct way since there’s no objective and universal criteria to do so!”

“Thus slaves (kept as concubines) are a second category of women (below the wives in rank) with whom sex is allowed.

This has been the prevalent traditionalist interpretation of these verses since the beginning of Islam. And this interpretation is made in light of the historical reports (ahadith) that mention the sahaba (companions of the Prophet), the scholars, the warriors and rulers, all having engaged in sex with:

War captives taken as slaves and turned into concubines,

and/or slaves purchased from slave markets and turned into concubines,

and/or with slave women gifted to one another; for example the Prophet himself is reported to have (allegedly) fathered a child with his concubine/slave girl, Maria the Copt, gifted to him by Maqawqis, the ruler of Egypt, according to the vast majority of scholars of Islam!”

Despite many philosophers not believing that killing innocents is objectively wrong, it doesn’t equate to them saying it’s okay to kill innocents. If they kill innocents, they soon come to realize the wrong in what they did when someone kills their own beloved ones! Even immoral people, despite doing evil acts, would concede that morals are needed for order amongst humans when they are on the receiving end of evil perpetrated against them! None can truly go against the golden rule.