THE institutional voices of Sunni Islam have been slow to respond to the orgy of beheadings, mass-executions and sectarian cleansing promoted by jihadists of Islamic State (IS) in their so-called caliphate. So slow, in fact, that King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia last month publicly chastised the ulema, the body of clerics and scholars to whom ordinary Muslims are meant to turn for religious guidance, for their silence and “laziness”.

One group of liberal-leaning British preachers issued a warning for Muslims to shun the group, which it described as heretical, extremist and poisonous. Saudi Arabia’s senior official cleric, who represents the puritan Wahhabist school of thought, pronounced IS “the number-one enemy of Muslims”.
Several prominent sheikhs, who in the past have loudly championed jihadist groups including al-Qaeda, dismiss IS as modern-day Kharijites, a reference to fanatical “seceders” who in the first century of Islam declared all other Muslims to be infidels, and waged war against them. Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi, a Jordanian preacher recently released from prison, accuses IS of driving a wedge between Muslims. His comments are striking because he was once spiritual mentor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who led the forerunner of IS and was killed in an American air strike in 2006.

In a recorded “debate” over walkie-talkies with IS fighters that was broadcast on radio stations of rival rebel groups, a Syrian cleric, Sheikh Hussam al-Atrush, made every effort to expose their ignorance of Islam. Their so-called caliphate, he said, “has done nothing but incite hatred and disgust for the mujahideen.”

Raising the ante still further, Sheikh Nasser al-Shithri, an ultraconservative Saudi preacher, recently blasted IS, in effect excommunicating its adherents as “apostates worse than Jews, Nazarenes [Christians] or even heathens” who, he alleged, failed correctly to enforce Islamic law or even the proper veiling of women. Sheikh Saleh al-Fawzan, another prominent Saudi cleric known for extremist views (such as sanctioning slavery and counselling that Arab Muslims should be banned from marrying non-Arabs) decried the would-be caliphate as a creation of “Zionists, Crusaders and Safavids”—the last of which is an insulting reference to Shias. Other Wahhabist sheikhs have similarly claimed that IS leaders are secret agents of Iran, or of a broader Western-Shia conspiracy.

Alhpdoti,

Alphdoti,

Alphdoti.

Why should I produce the torah when I have the Qu'ran and I am talking to a muslim? Sit down and read the Qur'an first, you muslim! You are straining at your tethers to go elsewhere but we will dwell only in the Qur'an, thank you very much.

I present the Qur'an. It is the book under our focus. Are you not familiar with these verses in the Qur'an? Do you read the Qur'an?



What you have said about the atonement is what I expect you to say, so its not really a new thing to me.

Then the only conclusion you can agree with is that that verse (37:107) should not have been there in the Qur'an. Because if the boy was ransomed with a great sacrifice (and which is symbolic), why not another, why not you? Why not me? Why not all of us?

Why do we have to die when Allah can pay a price for us and we live? He did it for the boy why not all of us?

Therefore either
1. this is a mistake in the Qur'an, so the Qur'an is not Allah's word -it is lies, mohammed is a liar or
2. Allah made a mistake, he told mohammed a lie, Allah is a liar.

Which one is it, Alphdoti?

And you have not answered one of my questions. You said the sacrifice was symbolic.
1. So who did the boy symbolize?
2. Who did the fine sheep symbolize?
3. What did the great sacrifice symbolize?

1. Literally it means a fine sheep or ram was substituted.
2. symbolically, it is his willingness, it symbolizes his own sacrifice i.e. sacrificing the ram, because this animal is his, and he is making the sacrifice.
3. Why momentous? This figurative sense is even more important. It was indeed a great and momentous occasion, when two men, with concerted will, demonstrated self-sacrifice in the service of Almighty God. We see this sense when Jesus (pbuh) said, "he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it", (Matthew 10:39 )

And We ransomed him with a great sacrifice,