From: cl056@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Hamaza H. Salah)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.arabic
Subject: Re: To Aziz Faris
Date: 21 Dec 92 20:06:35 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: hela.ins.cwru.edu



A. Faris writes:

>Dear Hamza:
I am surprised you changed your tone of speech.  Where is
the "stand-up comedian" thing :-)

>Let me start by saying that the statements above do not apply here. I and all
>Christians do not want you to abandon Islam and do not desire you to go hell
>for not having faith. In one of your posts, you challenged Ibaa to give you
>proof that the religious books do not offer accurate historical evidences and
>have contradictions with archaeological findings. I gave you examples as any
>well read person could have given regardless of his faith. However, those
>archaeological evidences are not the works of Jews and Christians and infact
>contradict those religions also. I suggest that you read about the ancient
>civilisations and see for youself.

I have to admit first that I am not an expert in these archaelogical findings.
However, the one example you posted didn't make much sense to me. I didn't even
bother to find if it is correct or not.  It was not something that
could be checked easily to be true or not.  There are so many theories about
archelogical findings that don't make any sense and just hot air.

Your second sarcastic comment about me diving into the dead sea doesn't deserve
answering it.  But I read and heard very often about a big research that is
taking place over there to locate some archaelogical evidences on the village
of "Lut."  If you insist to give you the source, I will try to find it.

>Please note that ignoring those facts is also against Islam and all other
>religions as I understand. I could go on tell you more stories, however, I
>prefer you read on your own and see for yourself as Islam teaches you to
>fulfill your part of Ijtihad.

That is one of the biggest mistakes that people are doing, that is non-muslims
are not in a position to teach what is Islamic and what is not unless they
quote the source: either Hadith or Quran.  Otherwise, they are telling lies
on Islam.  Ijtihad is not for every one.  It is only for qualified knowlegeble
muslims, not christians nor jews.  I am not one of these qualified knowlegeble
muslims either, however I can check whether matters are islamic or not by
reading quran and hadith.

>Hamaza, as a Christian I desire to have the same right as you do in the country
>of my birth. I do not desire to destroy your faith as you seem to think.

I cherish the fact you love your country and want to go back.  I really do!
Lots of arab muslims don't do that.  However, I would consider falsifying
Islamic facts and making fun of people is not destruction of faith per se,
rather it is an injust offensive action that has to be defended.

>We
>have come along way and learned alot and I hope not to judge each other based
>on personal faith and conviction.

As a muslim, I judge things by Quran and Sunnah.  If I try to do elswise,
I will be judging things according to how I see it, which means I am
inventing my own religion.  Sorry if you do not like that!

> My postings have always made that point and
>you continue to ignore them.

I am not ignoring them.  Sometimes "a no answer is an answer."
Is that an Australian proverb too?  :-)

>A.Faris
-- 
                  ___________________ cl056@cleveland.Freenet.Edu _____________
                 (______   _  |   _  |_
_____ H A M Z A ________) |-| |_ |-| | |