Dear friends, we have already debated islam v religion and secularism in the other thread. I proved beyond a shadow of doubt that islam is for ever and for all. I also explained what islam is. However, debate now needs to concentrate on what islam is not.
Islam is not what mullahs claim islam to be. Why? Because they deliberately misinterpreted islam as well as misrepresented it.
If one visits various muslim forums one will soon find out that there are debates going on there about differences between sects eg shias v sunnies or brelavies v deobandies or sunnies v wahabies etc etc.
These debates are about books of ahadith, books of fiqh and about all aqaid based on these books eg tawheed and shirk, sunnah and bidah, halaal and haraam, taqleed, ijtihad etc etc.
All these discussions and debates are based on circular arguments ie no basis whatsoever.
One sect's definition of sunnah or bidah is not accepted by the other sects. One sect's definition of tawheed and shirk is not accepted by the other sects. All this shows what mullahs have done to islam over the centuries and worse how they damaged the ummah as a people.
People who go about understanding the quran by rules have no problem but people who use random arguments remain in confusion.
Even on this forum I see people have different views about islam but have no ability to explains them. This clearly shows they never studied islam properly. The conclusion, they do not know islam. They are followers of mullahs ie what some molvi told them, that is islam for them.
If molvi said dressing like this or that is islam, then that is islam and dressing any other way is unislamic.
These people have no idea what is concept of islamic state or what is to be taken as islamic law.
Molvi comes along and tells them anything and because they themselves have no idea they just go long.
These are the major reasons that muslims are killing each other in the name of islam. It would be better if people learned basic about islam so that they were not taken advantage of by mullahs or secularists.
It is for this reason knowing about sir seyyid ahmed khan is very important because he interpreted the quran by rules and not by baseless reports.
It is for this reason knowing about iqbal is very important because he too understood islam as per rules laid down by sir seyyid. jinnah too was convinced by iqbal because he explained islam to him in accordance with rules and not by baseless ranting of mullahs over the centuries.
If one looks at videos of alaama parwez he too is talking about same thing. So all people who are educated and use rules to live by look at islam the same way and all mullah like people look at islam the way mullahs do.
So the task for people who claim to be muslims and are educated is to educate the rest of muslim ummah. So that muslims could see what islam is and what it is not. So long as we do not take a stand on this the real islam will remain hidden and mullahs and the ruling elite will carry on as usual.
To help start debate on islam here is my question for all those who claim to be sunnies or shias, please define what is meant by sunnah of the prophet?
good luck, regards and all the best.