Category: Catholicism

Islamic Glossary

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Turkey, Istanbul, Suleymaniye Mosque, crowd praying

If you regularly read this blog, you’ll know that at the moment I’m reading through the Qur’an, chapter by chapter. Each day I have been posting a brief entry discussing the material I’ve read that day. I’ve also been recording my questions about the text which I will ask when I meet one of the local San Diego Imams.

Since these posts contain words from Islam which may be unfamiliar to many Christians, this blog entry will act as a glossary of terms. I’ll be updating this post as I continue my reading each day.

UPDATE: Since this glossary is starting to get a little big, I’ve going to put the more obscure glossary items in a lighter font so that it’s easier to see which terms are more important.

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 4 (“The Purity of faith”, …)

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islam

Another day, another collection from the Qur’an…

Surah 112 -“The Purity of faith” (Al-Ikhlas)
In the hadith (collections of stories about Muhammad’s life), Muhammad said that this surah is equivalent to a whole third of the Qur’an. It asserts tawhid (Islamic monotheism), saying “He is Allah, [who is] One”, but also appears to specifically challenge Christianity and Jesus as the status of the only begotten Son of God (“He neither begets nor is born”).

Questions

Q1. Would you agree that “He neither begets nor is born” is a statement referring to the Christian belief that Jesus is the Son of God?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 3 (“Abundance”, …)

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abundance

Continuing through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters:

Surah 108 – “Abundance” (Al-Kauther)
A three-verse chapter in which Allah tells Muhammad that He has granted him the most abundant good and cut off Muhammad’s enemies from good things in this life and the next.

Questions

Q1. Muhammad is told to “offer sacrifice to [Allah alone]”. What sacrifices did Muhammad offer?

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Book Review: The Way of a Pilgrim

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screen-shot-2016-12-09-at-1-54-03-pmI’ve been getting through lots of books recently. I’ve been intending to write reviews for each of them, but have been procrastinating. Therefore, over the next few days I will be publishing a review for each of the books I have recently read.

Today I’d like to begin by talking about “The Way of a Pilgrim”. This review is also published on Amazon.com.

This book is well-known in eastern Christian circles and had been recommended to me by Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic friends for several years, but I somehow never never quite managed to find the time to read it.

However, soon after returning to San Diego last month, it was announced that my parish would be beginning a study of this book during the Advent season. This gave me the extra bit of motivation I needed to buy this book and was subsequently very quickly hooked, finishing it in just a few days. Here’s how the book begins:

“By the grace of God I am a Christian, by my deeds a great sinner, and by my calling a homeless wanderer of humblest origin, roaming from place to place”

– The Way of the Pilgrim

I’m sure you can understand why this Restless Pilgrim loved these opening words!

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 2 (“The dawn”, …)

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sunrise

Continuing with my chronological read through the Qur’an, today I read the following chapters: 87, 92, 89, 93, 94, 103 and 100.

Surah 87: “The most high” (Al-Ala)
Allah tells Muhammad that he will make him recite the Qur’an and remember it…unless God wants him to forget it. This relates to the rather troublesome subject of abrogation in the Qur’an where, even within the lifetime of Muhammad, some chapters were overridden or replaced.

Allah promises to lead Muhammad and his followers to true religion, but the wretched to the fires of Hell.

Questions

Q1. The text says “…the Hereafter is better and more enduring. Indeed, this is in the former scriptures. The scriptures of Abraham and Moses”. Where does the Pentateuch teach about the afterlife?

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Qur’an Cover-to-Cover: Day 1 (“The clinging substance”, …)

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unborn

As previously mentioned, I am going to read through the Qur’an in chronological order from beginning to end. I will be writing up my notes from the chapters (“suwar”) each day, starting today with the chapters which were composed at the beginning of Muhammad’s ministry in Mecca: 96, 68, 73, 74, 1, 111 and 81.

Surah 96 – “The clinging substance”/”Recite” (Al-Alaq)
This short surah accuses a man of sinning because he sees himself as “self-sufficient”. We are reminded that God made man (with a vague description of human development), that God sees everything and that if the man does not repent, God will drag him by the hair and angels will throw him into Hell.

Questions

Q1. “Created man from a clinging substance”. Is this a reference to a fetus?

Q2. “Who taught by the pen”. Is this a reference to the Bible?

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