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Salutations,
submission.org
By Ijaz Chaudry
Dear Submission.org and
fellow readers,
Good will to all
mankind!
Asalaam O Lakum (Peace)
Submission.org;
Dear submission.org,
this is not one way communication, I fully intend to listen to what you have to
say and even put it on my website.
Intro:
For any new reader who
is not aware of Submission.org, here is brief intro. It is a website
representing a community called Submitters in USA. This community came into
existence in the 20th Century, led by the messenger of the covenant Dr Rashad
Khalifa mentioned in (Quran 3:81). This community follow the Quran, mainly
stemmed from the understanding, by this messenger. Unfortunately this messenger
was martyred late last century by the disbelievers.
Quran is clear in its
message "to obey God and the messenger" (Quran 3:132) since the messenger is
dead how can one follow his orders (obey)? For this community the death of this
messenger is still very raw, and they are latching on quite profoundly to the
basics of what this messenger taught them.
However, the religious
environment has significantly changed from the time when Dr Rashad Khalifa was
alive and now. And with that lot of new information has come about from the
Quran, which challenge the basic concepts of what this community believes in.
Some of the issues presented by this change has been discussed in the following
pages.
I have been follower of
Dr Rashad Khalifa, for a long time and all my work initially started from his
work. I have been involved in Quran research for over 30 years. My involvement
in this project of creating these pages have come from search for the ultimate
truth in the Quran. I don’t have all the answers but I have some to offer, and
in return I will learn more from you through this dialog (Quran 12:76) … Above
every knowledgeable one, there is one
who is even more knowledgeable.
All of us have
opportunity to grow our souls by worshiping God alone, and I do not want to
hinder that for anyone, every individual has his/her individual relationship
with God, that is the beauty of Islam. However, all believers want to follow the
right path, so I request the reader to consider this fact and peruse rest of my
pages. If I lack in guidance than let me know, but if you find some thing useful
in these pages than you are also welcome to it. I am hoping it works both ways.
Ultimately God is our guide.
Investigating the whole
submission.org website is beyond the scope of scalability. Therefore only
precious few topics have been discussed. With a caveat in place that further
investigation of submission.org is always a possibility.
Intro to Quran and
Interpretation:
I know from past that Dr
Rashad Khalifa encouraged all believers to follow Quran alone. This focus came
from the "Role of Prophet Muhammad", who was understood to only gave the
"message" and the "message" was the Quran. This topic is further discussed in
one of my pages called "*Role of Prophet Muhammad".
This meant that Quran
cannot be interpreted. And as I understand that, this criteria still is main
ethos for the followers of Dr Rashad Khalifa to day.
However, all believers
in one form or another interpret the Quran, without realising that they are
doing it. Look at your site for example; the author of your site encapsulates
the verses of the Quran into subheadings, phrases or statements. This is done
quite rightly to show the full significance of the verses in question. There is
nothing wrong with that. However, there is contradiction in terms, by saying
that they do not interpret the Quran while they are doing it. In the following
pages I have referenced some of your material, including these interpretations.
The truth is that one
cannot avoid interpreting the Quran, in order to put ones point of view across
based on the verses of the Quran. In the following pages I'll go behind this
concept and by using the Quran, I will prove that the interpretation of the
Quran is allowed by the word of God the Quran.
But briefly for now
consider the issue of interpretation of the Quran. The question to ask is. Is
the interpretation of the Quran permissible or not?
Support for
interpretation of the Quran & messengers set precedents for the believers
(6:34):
We know that all
translators, including Dr Rashad Khalifa interpreted the Quran to some extent.
As you know, Quran is revealed in such a way that one cannot avoid putting
additional words within the verses of the Quran, during the translation of the
Quran. This constitutes an act whereby the translator is promoting, explanation
of what that verse means. No matter how small the interpretation might be, it
still is interpretation by definition. Quran does not do half baked! Either the
Quran can be interpreted or it cannot be interpreted. Having both is not an
option. Therefore using common sense and logic of truth, we can deduce equably
that interpretation of the Quran, is part of the structure of the Quran.
This fact is based on
two factors, factor one is that if the Quran is read without adding additional
words to the verses of the Quran, the meaning of the verses give confusing
message, therefore inclusion of additional words in the verses of the Quran is
an absolute must.
Factor two is that all
the translators add words to the verses of the Quran, which includes the
Messenger of Covenant Dr Rashad Khalifa. We know that messengers set precedents
for the believers (Quran 6:34) …The history of My messengers thus sets the
precedents for you… Therefore based on this overwhelming evidence which is that
Dr Rashad Khalifa The Messenger of the Covenant interpreted the Quran, it
appears that interpreting the Quran is acceptable.
Therefore,
if one can add words to the verses of the Quran to remove confusion, one can do
more. One can combine verses from different areas of the Quran to reveal more
information from a verse or verses of the Quran using the Miracle of 19. One can
also use geometric values of various entities from outside the Quran and bring
the outside world into the Quran. The possibilities are enormous and suddenly we
can see that the Quran becomes fully detailed.
My advice to the reader
of this page is to carry on reading the remaining pages because it is better to
live with knowledge, rather than die in fear!