Understanding Islam through the Western conventions

Scholars of Islam stress that every Muslim believer is required to testify for this religion a testimony supports the right of this religion to survive and supports the values held by the religion for the people.

A testimony testifies for this religion with perfection and superiority of all concepts, terminologies, regulations, and conditions on earth, therefore anyone calls himself a Muslim then acts in contrary to its teachings does not deliver this testimony and would prefer his life and his interests to the interests of the religion.

Moreover, he fails to deliver this testimony and delivers a testimony against this religion.

This testimony cannot be delivered except when the deliverer realizes that pure monotheism is the partition between the Muslim creed and other creeds and to realize that when he deviates from the pure monotheism even an inch, he will go in this track forever.

Specialization and distinction are important for a Muslim whether in perception, belief, the obligatory acts or by appearance, clothes, movements, and behavior. Islam has forbidden to imitate non-Muslims even in their appearances which reflect their inner concepts.

That was not superficial but because these appearances distinguish a group of people from another, a mentality, a manner, an attitude, and an approach from another approach.

Of the most prominent features of this deviation from monotheism and causing confusion is what has been noticed during the last three decades and which dominated some aspects of academic life under the pretext of understanding Islam and believing in the Prophet (peace be upon him) through the Western concepts and conventions.

That matter has ended 800 years ago by a group of scholars who considered it a mistake and plain error because using these terms require other matters which are against Islam and these matters may affect a Muslim.

Scholars interpreted that by saying that Western concepts and terminologies are not totally true and not totally false but they may include the truth and falsehood, so the one who uses them mixes between right and wrong either deliberately or by mistake.

Modern researchers asserted that the language itself not the terms reflect in most of the time values and preferences, especially they are not characterized by impartiality as claimed.

The gap between pure monotheism and the point of deviation gets widen by rooting these concepts and terminologies in the Islamic education and searching for its bases in Islam.

That was called by the Righteous Predecessors "Replacing the Qur'anic and Hadith texts by non-Muslim concepts then use them to address the people as being concepts revealed by Allah and His Messengers, then many Muslims fall into confusion while it is a distortion to the texts."

These tries did not happen or experienced by the Righteous Predecessors, and scholars analyzed that by saying: "Either those people understood the religion in a way that the Pious Predecessors did not understand it or understood the religion properly but distorted it."

The most correct is the latter because the Pious Predecessors were on the right track and understood religion as delivered to them from the Messenger (peace be upon him) and these new matters did not take place in their time.

Therefore, those scholars set some rules in this regard which we can refer to as follows :

1- Every person should understand the religion as the Pious Predecessors understood because it is better and more correct and anyone believes that he is better than the Pious Predecessors in understanding the meanings of texts and directing them to other than their real meanings, or may understand it wrongly and attribute theses meanings to them did not understand the religion and attributed lies against the Pious Predecessors.

As a result, they called the Pious Predecessors as ignorant although they are the most knowledgeable of Allah's Religion and the teachings of His Messenger.

They believe the Pious Predecessors are dummy and did not know the teachings of Allah, His Religion, and the teachings of His Prophet and that the Successors gained all the knowledge which others missed.

2- Shari`ah was written in Arabic and there is no place for non-Arabic tongue in the Qur'an or Sunnah.

The Qur'an was revealed in Arabic and there is no way to understand it except by Arabic.

A non-Arabic speaker cannot understand it in any language because there is a big gap between the Arabic and foreign languages because of styles, the use or words, and the meanings; that was the view of Ash-Shafi`y in his book (Ar-Risalah) which is a book on Islamic Jurisprudence.

3- It is not permissible to add additional meanings to the Qur'an that are not included, and nothing of its rulings can be ignored, moreover we should understand it through the knowledge of Arabs and their books.

Anyone tries to understand it through any foreign language will miss the proper meanings and shall attribute lies to Allah and His Messenger because the Shari`ah should be understood properly and according to known information and with eloquent language.

4- When dealing with the Qur'an and the Sunnah, we must search for the proper meanings which Allah and His Messenger meant.

Furthermore, it is not permissible to understand the words of Allah and the words of the Messenger according to the idioms and usages of people or interpreting the Qur'an with one's reason. Most people who went astray used to interpret the Qur'an with their own reason and understood the words of Allah and the words of His Messenger improperly.

Therefore, they did not depend much on the Qur'an, the books of the Sunnah, and traditions and starting from a false premise says that there is no knowledge in the Quran and Sunnah, but they only contain preaching and guidance.

The one whom Allah granted knowledge will realize that the Successors did not have the same knowledge of the Predecessors and whoever has experience in theories, reasoning, and processes will realize that the doctrine of the Companions is always more correct.

Anyone innovates a new view that was not mentioned by the Predecessors will be wrong and the most correct is the view of the Predecessors.

Asking for guidance from deviant people is the greatest kind of ignorance, and this religion is not served by abolishing any of its static principles.

Religion cannot be served by leaving its facts to facts invented by scientists who are affected by historical, psychological, and political factors and according to a directed method to destroy the basic fundamentals of religion.

The basic rule says: Religion is the revelation of Allah and not human thoughts. The West depend on some principles, but how do they produce good results based on wrong principles?!

This principle says: Man is the center of the universe, and solving the problems of man lies within himself and in his understanding to himself not in outer factors. Moreover, they say that there is nothing absolute in this world and it is just a fake idea and the only absolute is that everything is relative.

Religion in the Western thought generally based on atheist assumptions, human inventions, human experience, great deception, or imaginary tale...etc.

The entire Western thought does not consider anything but the world.

Moreover, thinking about the world only does not give a full picture about the human existence, the reality of life, and their charges.

It does not establish a correct perception about conditions, values, and balances. The worldly life is only the half of life because there is an afterlife, and depending on this half will not avail in the Hereafter. "They know only the outside appearance of the life of the world (i.e. the matters of their livelihood, like irrigating or sowing or reaping, etc.), and they are heedless of the Hereafter."

It remains to refute the claim that it is permissible to use the Western terminologies and conventions in understanding Islam on the basis of the Prophet's saying: "The words of wisdom are the lost possession of a believer. So, whoever finds them is more entitled to take them."

This claim is refuted by two things :

The first is what the Abu `Isa said: "This Hadith is not known except from this way and Ibrahim ibn Al Fadl Al Makhzumy (the narrator of the Hadith) is a weak narrator in terms of memorization. "

On the other hand, we find the word wisdom in the book of Allah either comes alone or correlated with the word "book".

As for the single word, it means prophethood, Qur'an, knowledge, and understanding.

In another interpretation, it means correctness in speech and action or understanding the meanings of things. It was said that it means piety in Allah's Religion.

As for the wisdom which is correlated with the book, it means the Sunnah.

Imam Ash-Shafi`y and others said: It means judging according to revelation. Mujahid said: It is the knowledge of the truth and acting accordingly and that cannot be away from understanding the Qur'an, the teachings of Islam, and the facts of faith.

Wisdom also is divided into two: Scientific and practical; the scientific is knowing the core of things and connection between things and their causes, and the practical is placing things in their proper positions by giving everything its due rights and due time.

So, the wisdom is "Doing what should be done as should and in the proper time."

The second is: Western scientists admit that the knowledge which they have is not part of wisdom and that their knowledge, which is connected by human and society, contains large number of ambiguous terms and their views are not superior but every ordinary person knows them for sure.

However, the only difference is that the West reformulates what other people say in a way that is not understandable.

They confessed that their sciences are not universal and do not depend on enough base to suit all human societies.

Moreover, they confessed that their theories are not only different, but they are contradictory, superficial, and not in harmony with one another.

They are standalone ideas and thoughts that are not supported by facts which only few of them are reliable and can give logical explanation.

Their theories cannot understand realistic problems and cannot identify the problem in an organized way and do not exert efforts to solve the problem.

If this is the confession of Western scientists, where is the wisdom that can be taken from them? How could we seek their help in understanding our Islam or rooting their concepts in our Islamic education?!