Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Does Islam really exists?

This is something I just realized, watching on CNN how Suni and Shia Muslims masacre each other. It comes down to two separate hospital systems in the same capital city, one Shia and one Suni, one supported by government and one not. To get to the wrong hospital might be signing your death warrant. Yes.

Remember, all monoteistic religions are unanimouse in that there is exactly one God, and naming him differently doesn't makes him different. So we have Shia and Suni that both believe in god named Allah, but if we leave the name alone, there is probably more in common between Buddists and Hindus then between Shia and Suni.

Of course, lets not forget that Shia and Suni are not the only ones. There are many other different "Muslims" in the world. For example Pushtun Muslims still keep millenia old Jewish traditions. Sufi "Muslims" came before Islam, and are very different from both Shia or Suni in their beliefs (although Suni consider them as their own). Then there are the Ahmadiyya "Muslims", who are still very different from other "Muslims", and remind more the Bahai sect then anything else, who are not considered Muslim at all, although were initially formed as an extension of Islam.

Of course, this list is far from complete, but you get the picture. Who can be considered true Muslim? I can say from personal expirience that Muslims themselves cannot agree on this. So is there such a religion?

10 comments:

Irina Tsukerman said...

Well, the Muslims do have some common core beliefs. Just like there are many different denominations of Christians, extremely far-ranging in some instances, same with Islam. The Sunni-Shi'a split started with political differences, if you recall.

Irina Tsukerman said...

And the format is still boring. It's just yellow.

Irina Tsukerman said...

Oh come on. And what happened to your picture? And profile? And links?

: (

Unknown said...

How "core" really are they? i think if we look close we might find out that whatever is left after the differences are discarded is what you can find in other religions.

The split started with political/religious differences, and the two have always been synonymous in the Muslim world.

Christians can indeed be far-ranging, which begs the question if Christianity is a religion as either. How different were the views of Templars from Catholics? How different are the Copts and the Baptists? Are they less different then Russian Orthodox and... Muslims? Think about that last one.

Unknown said...

PS. Compare this to different denominations in Judaism. The only differences here are technical, i.e. interpretation of rules of conduct. Not far ranging either, mostly degrees of adherence. Everything else - solid agreement. This is one religion.

Irina Tsukerman said...

Russian Orthodox and Muslims? Not sure what to think about that, since my grasp of RO is not very solid. Would you care to write a post on that? Sounds like an interesting comparison. By the way, who's the dude above your picture?

Unknown said...

I will see if I can write something about this.

The dude is just a Killer Person.

Woland said...

To your question, "Does Islam exists?" the short answer is "It does".
The fact is that there are millions of followers who state that their religion is called Islam.

What you really wanted to ask, whether is there a single religion called Islam.
That is a more interesting and correct question.
I believe that a more suitable comparison would be Christianity, rather than Judaism.
While in Judaism there is relatively little diversity in beliefs, in Christianity the diversion is at least as big as in Islam.

So from a "scollars point of view" I would say there is.
From a point of view of a religious person, then there is only one true Islam/Christianity. His own.

Unknown said...

Indeed, just a little above I compared to christianity :)
If people can't agree on what Islam is, then what exactly exists? The outer shell, the name? In current situation Islam is devoid of any meaning, so even if you can say it exists is because you can also say that "nothing" exists. But how much there is of it? Nothing.

Anonymous said...

great Yury Puzis!!! I do agree with you, I also think Islam is like outer shell there is nothing exists such like ISLAM. it is only name.