From: mmdh@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Mazen Mokhtar)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam
Subject: Re: Adam's children, Daajal, Tabligh
Date: 6 Jan 1993 23:40:36 GMT
Organization: AT&T
Reply-To: mmdh@cbnewsf.cb.att.com (Mazen Mokhtar)
NNTP-Posting-Host: geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu
Originator: gwydion@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu

Assalamu `alaykum,

In article <1id9r1INNvf@life.ai.mit.edu> ka@hardy.inf.rl.ac.uk writes:
>Hi,

  Wa 'alaykum assalam.

>Q1. Eve was made from Adams rib bone; they had children. Whom did the
>children marry??

  The children married their siblings.

>Did one of the brothers kill the other?? What is the islamic version of this?

  Yes, Habeel killed Qabeel. I don't have the details of the story right now,
so I don't want to post something of which I am not sure.

>Q2. I recently read "Daajal" by Ahmad Thompson; in one paragraph he states
>that a persons going to hell or heaven has already been decided *before*
>they are born (!!). If this is the case then what is the point of *trying* to
>do good or bad if it is *already* decided where one will go? Please shed some
>light on this.

  A person's ultimate fate, and every other detail of the universe and out of
it is completely known to Allah. Allah knows who is good and who is bad, and
thus he knows whose fate is paradise or hellfire. If a person is destined for
hellfire it is because he is not a good person; if his deeds were good, he
would have been destined for paradise. You don't know your destiny, if your
behaviour is good you will discover that your destiny will have been paradise
all along; but if your behaviour is evil you will have been destined for
hellfire all along.

  The problem with your first statement above arises because of the word
"before." Allah is timeless, he created time and is not helplessly subject
to the passing of time as we are. Allah is _outside_ the frame of time; so
technically speaking, Allah does not know people's fate _before_ they die,
He know people's fate in a manner outside of time.

  To put it another way, from our point of view, we have to wait for tomorrow,
but from Allah's point of view, tomorrow has already come, we have already died
and gone where He chooses us to go. He doesn't have to wait, He is in the
future and in the present.

  For people who know a little about math, imagine a being G who draws an
t-axis and calls it time and a y-axis and calls it displacement. Then,
this being draws a few curves. At t=+3, the point on curve 1 talks to the
point on curve 2 and asks: "I wonder if G knew at t=+2 where we are today."
The reality is, G was never at t=+2, he is always looking at the whole graph
and can see all the curves at any value of t. He is not part of the curve
and thus he is subject to neither the t-axis nor the y-axis.

>Q3. On the night of power (worth 1000 months) the angels come down and write
>down the names of all who will be born in the coming year and all who will die.

  I never heard of this.

>Q4. I have come across the Tabligh movement (HQ Raiwand, Lahore, Pakistan).
>I know that they do the work of Dawah all across the globe. What do other
>brothers and sisters think of their method of work and about them in general??

  I don't know much about them. What I have been told is that they are good,
but they have been criticized for sticking to Da`wah and they have put no
effort in other aspects of Islam, namely the aspects which involve practical
work or public policy. A person once gave me an analogy and said that what they
are calling for is good, but it is only a part of Islam, you cannot take
part of a cup, its handle, and call that a cup. Tablighis argue that the state
of the Muslims is so bad today that we need to call Muslims to Islam first,
before we can hope to move on to practical action.

  I personally feel that Muslims can't suspend part of their duties (practical
work) in favour da`wah. Both are duties, do we must do both. I would like to
repeat that I don't know much about them, so I may be misinformed. In any
case, I never heard anyone claim that they are doing something bad, I only
heard that they have concentrated on one aspect of Islam and left another.


Assalamu `alaykum,

Mazen Mokhtar

Newsgroups: soc.religion.islam