PROGRESSIVE VS. REGRESSIVE

Is your faith regressive or progressive?

1. God forbids that it is the former, then the answer is obviously the latter. Progress, however, can only be powered by knowledge gained via reasoning, questioning, research & sharing.

2. The Almighty, more than the Lord of the Worlds, is the Lord of Knowledge and we give praises & thanks to Him and submit to His Truth which can only be attained via knowledge.

3. Consider the following root words -

"h-m-d" - to praise, commend, laud, extol (hamīd, mahmūd, muhammad, al-hamdulillāh);

"a-l-h" - to adore, deify, turn to another with intense feeling (ilāh, ilāhī);

"r-b-b" - to bring up, to foster, to nourish, a master, lord, owner (rabb);

"a-l-m" - to know, have knowledge, be informed, teach, notify (al-'alīm, 'ilm, 'ilmiya, 'allam, u'lūma).

4. Which would rightly translates the FIRST verse of the FIRST chapter of the Quran into -

"All praise to the Almighty, the Lord of KNOWLEDGE." 

5. The history, plight & reality of the Muslims today would have been shaped very differently if at the very least, the First verse of the first Chapter of the Quran have been understood as such.

6. Surely, a belief system that (1) enforces people to be good, cannot be better than the one that (2) enjoins people to be compassionate, which in turn, cannot be greater than the one that (3) encourages people to be knowledgeable.

7. Knowledge is the foundation of any progressive way of life, lest it be subverted by the self-serving, mass-controlling, mind-constricting state-funded agencies and instituted into an unquestioning, blind-following, ritual-laden, exclusive and divisive religion that it never was.

8. Far from an organised religion as such, Islam is strictly a progressive Way of Life based on knowledge whereby learning is not a phase in life, but rather the meaning of life itself.

"Wallahu'alam.."

Verily, Allah knows best.