Boaz,

In our discussions I always referred to the source that all Muslims believe in which is the Quran. Not sure what do you mean by scholarly opinion? You are quoting a scholar who died 1,110 AD. This scholar was made a ‘movie star’ by French missionaries in the 13th century because he promoted partial belief in the Quran and basically claimed that all love, peace and tolerance are void or expired.
Quoting him in Western culture helped the propagandists create and market a negative image of Islam and it is now biting everyone in the bum with terrorism because most of his work should have been burnt or buried. French missionaries contribution to world peace I guess.

Islam in one line is: belief in one God, all prophets and messengers, pray 5times a day, pay the alms (poor dues) and pilgrim once in your life time if you can afford it. Stop.
You need neither scholar nor hierarchy to understand the above.
You are trying to look at Islam from a Christian framework, the complexity of your faith requires expertise, philosophy and hierarchy, especially to explain the first commandment (God =1 = 1+1+1= 3 = 1).

Scholars/ Imams can only give an insight or opinion in day to day matters like donation of body parts, etcc.

And whats with the “hope you believe Jesus is the messiah” Doesn’t the Quran states that he is? (3:45-47). I thought you claimed expertise on Islamic faith.

On the free masons:
I was googling the web and found at least 40-50 churches warning Christians of their charitable activity on the basis that they (FMasons) believe Quran is also a revelation of God. I found it an odd reason to warn people about a charitable organisation.

The crescent of fear
Rod Liddle, The Spectator, 12 November 2005
"As France burned, the mullahs arrived on the scene, shook their heads sadly and immediately issued a fatwa. However, for the many Frenchmen who may have shuddered inwardly when they heard the term so invoked, this was a good fatwa, a nice fatwa, a fatwa to be proud of. The mullahs swung by and ordained that Allah would be extremely cross if Muslims torched any more cars, shot any more policemen, lobbed any more petrol bombs or murdered any more elderly white people. Allah wanted Muslims instead to stay at home, potter about the house, maybe watch a little TV. The fatwa was issued on day 11 of the rioting, which by then had spread to about 300 towns and cities across France, from Toulouse to Lille, and was already nosing its way along the North Sea coast into Belgium and Holland and north as far as Denmark. And while the French public - or at least the majority of it, those not on the streets with the chavhoods pulled over their heads shouting Allahu Akbar and the like - may have been pleased with the mullahs for taking the time to address this pressing social problem, they may also have been a little confused. Because the arrival of the mullahs made explicit what had scarcely even been hinted at before...."
At http://www.spectator.co.uk/article_pfv.php?id=6899

If the mullahs could influence these terrorising youth to stop after their passions were arroused; why couldn't they have influenced them to behave before any action had commenced?

Taqiyya Alert! How very useless is the concept of the "moderate" Muslim -- because it is impossible to know when someone's "moderation" is real or feigned. Experience shows that Muslim dissimulation -- whether called taqiyya, kitman, or simply dissimulation -- comes naturally. Irf Yusef writes:
"Liberal backbenchers doing Al-Qaida’s work by making mainstream Aussie Muslims feel marginalised."
"doing Al-Qaida’s work"? Al-Qaida tell us that they want a global caliphate, sharia law, subjugation of all non-Muslims etc. How is calling for a ban on hijabs (totalitarian political symbols) in schools helping to achieve this? As for Aussie Muslims feeling marginalised - see Qur'an 5:51- Islam forbids Muslims to assimilate or have unbelievers for friends, how can they NOT be marginalised in a non-Muslim country? You can't have it both ways (unless you're a grievance-monger/'victim'). Could this be that there is something in Islam itself that explains the inability of Muslims to "integrate" into Western societies? Could it be that they cannot "integrate" into Western societies without dropping Islam altogether, and that they have no intention of dropping Islam? Could it be that rather than dropping Islam, in the end they intend to islamize the societies that they live in? (See Europe). Have Muslims anywhere in the world ceased to try to promote Islam or its constant expansion?
Another way to avoid discussing what Islam is really about is to use scare-words like rednecks, shock jocks, tabloid columnists (Andrew Bolt?), racists (Islam IS NOT a race), bigots ( look the word up in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of Muslims), prejudice (ditto), Islamophobia etc. Anything to try and silence critics of the global jihad who have bothered to study the Qur'an/hadith/sira. Irf is merely being a good Muslim by trying to deceive unwary Infidels that "Aussie Mossies (an ingratiatingly disgusting phrase) fit in quite well to mainstream Aussie society." Nothing could be further from the truth. CONTINUED.

Deception of unbelievers is taught by the Qur’an itself. “Let not the believers take for friends or helpers unbelievers rather than believers. If any do that, in nothing will there be help from Allah; except by way of precaution, that ye may guard yourselves from them” (Qur’an 3:28). Revered Qur’anic commentator Ibn Kathir explains that this verse teaches that if “believers who in some areas or times fear for their safety from the disbelievers,” they may “show friendship to the disbelievers outwardly, but never inwardly.” That’s deception. Also, Qur’an 16:106 even allows a Muslim to deny his faith under pressure.
"the crazy theology espoused by thick-sheiks." Crazy?! Is he saying that the Qur'an/hadith/sira are WRONG?
Exactly how are the 'terrorists' misunderstanding Qur'an 9:5, 8:39, 9.29, Ishaq:204 etc etc (No fewer than 26 chapters of the Qur'an deal with holy war/terror and the rewards for martyrs, or shaheeds)?
The unpleasant truth is, Muslim terrorists are getting all these terrible ideas — from violent jihad to self-immolation to even the beheadings we've seen in Indonesia and Iraq — straight out of the text of their 'holy' book.
And that is the important point about the issue of Islam’s true nature: understanding it is not rocket science. One has only to read the historical record, read the words of the Qur'an and the hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet), and read the centuries of interpretations in Muslim theology and jurisprudence, to know that today’s jihadists have not “highjacked” or “distorted” Islam but are simply traditionalists, squarely in line with Islam’s historical identity.
Muslim leaders/mouthpieces (Irf, Waleed Aly, Keysar Trad etc) today live out Mohammed's dictum that "war is deceit."
What are you Irf? Some kind of Infidelophobe?

Skid Marx,
Wow! I see where the rubber hits the road, huge black tracks over Muslim theology.

I recognise their obsession with the Qur'an and Mohamet blinds them to the principles of true revelation in the 21st century. They have a belief that the ancient revelations and ideas are superior, so we must return to how it was in the mind of the prophet. According to them we must put our society under the controll of one man's ideas. At least Biblical revelation covered 3,000 years of human history demonstrating developments in thought and practise, much the reports of evil leaders we ought not follow. Those that believe we must go back to living under Mosaic or Shari'ah laws are retrogressive and obsessed that the past had it right.

God has given each generation its thinkers and social reformers and though they examine the history of the past they want us to move foward to better relationships and society. However not all free thinkers are responsible builders of good societies, because they fail to recognise the nature of being human as demon-strated by the past. The base attitude of many social reformers desire control and power over others and find their disidents dispensible.

Skid Marx,

You seem to show up every month or so with the usual ‘copy & paste’ and don’t understand approach.
To make sense of it all, here it is:

- Taqeyya (believed by Shiite Muslims) belief is an option to hide your faith when you feel that your life is in danger simply because of your faith.

- This concept was invented by Abu Hammid Al-Ghazali (1058-1110) during the crusades wars. We all know about their history and what they did to Muslims.

- Abu Hammid (who died nine centuries ago) created his own philosophy on Islam under the influence of crusades wars. It is not relevant to today. He basically put expiry on all peaceful tolerant verses of the Quran and claimed that Islam is ‘always at war’. He also claimed that good treatment in the Quran for people of the book is reserved to Dhimmi (local Christians and Jews but not the European versions) does apply only to local people of the book because he saw people with large crosses and larger swords murdering Muslims and group raping Muslim girls of all ages in the streets.

- Most forward scholars since the 18 century like Imam Mohamed Abdou who carried to torch of modernization ago, clearly stated that this ideologies are no longer valid and there are no crusades against Muslims. He is the one who said: “In Europe, I have seen Islam with no Muslims” which means westerners have good values.

- “Hiding your beliefs out of fear” was used by Hungarian Jews during the Nazis, by early Christians during the Byzantine empire.. It was also used by early Christians to avoid persecution of the Roman Catholicism during the 4th century.

Philo,

One correction: Islam for us is the Quran and the Quran in our belief is God’s word. Not Mohamed (PBUH) teachings. Hadith is not part of the Islamic faith and its collection was ignored by the early founders of Islam including the prophet (PUBH).

Hadith was only collected 200 years after the prophet death and some stories kept coming up another 150 years later.