Are “Muslims” really Muslims?

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It is calculated at 2.5% of net income and given away on the ‘day of harvest’ (like when you receive a paycheck) to parents, relatives, orphans, poor and the traveling alien, in that order. It is such an important practice that God specifies His mercy for those who give it, but the Muslims insist on doing it all wrong. They calculate their Zakat only on gross assets, once a year during the month of Ramadan, and do not distribute it in the specified order of recipients. Their corrupted practice is not practical because:

• Calculation on gross assets instead of net income causes inaccurate and unnecessary deliberation on arriving at the Zakat amount to be distributed. If the gross assets have appreciated greatly, it may encourage cheating in the accounting basis, or force the giver to sell assets to fund the high amount. On the other hand, smaller amounts calculated only when net income is received, place no burden on the giver. Islam is an extremely practical religion and God wants His servants to have convenience, not hardship, in practicing it.
• A large amount given only once a year may cause overspending by the recipient and not leave enough reserve for the rest of the year. Additionally, if the Zakat is lost, stolen or destroyed, the needy recipient will have to wait one whole year to get relief again!

Seyam (Fasting): Fasting throughout the month of Ramadan is a great opportunity to develop the soul by practicing self discipline, besides its scientifically proven health benefits by giving the digestive system some rest. But the Muslims have innovated so many complex rules around it that it appears difficult and takes away from the significance of the practice.

Some of their illogical rules include; not swallowing saliva when fasting, not watching TV for the whole month, starting and ending the month only after physically sighting the moon, ending the fast only with date fruit or salt.

Hajj (Pilgrimage): The pilgrimage to Mecca is decreed once in a lifetime only for those who can afford it. It cannot be performed by one person for another person who is alive or dead. Yet many poor Muslims sell off their assets or go into lifetime debt to make it, because they believe that performing Hajj wipes out all past and future sins. God has decreed four months in which to do Hajj but local Governments restrict it to a few days for their convenience. The consequent overcrowding results in constant dealing with crowds rather than spending those precious few days in concerted worship of God alone.

Besides a variety of complicated rules never decreed by God, most pilgrims also visit Medina to pray at Prophet Muhammad’s tomb. The Prophet, like every true Submitter (Muslim), dedicated his worship practices absolutely to God alone and preached that everyone should do the same. He never visited his own tomb (obviously), and never asked or expected anyone to reverence him before or after his death. He could not help people when he was alive so how will it help to commemorate him after his death?

Abandonment of Quran

The Quran is a perfect, easy-to-follow manual of religious guidance for every generation, if only people would just kill their egos and follow it for their happiness and salvation. In it, God has outlined a comprehensive system that deals with and provides a solution for every aspect of a human’s life from birth to death. Besides the prescribed religious practices, there are also specific laws and guidelines for people to establish a free, fair, and progressive society to live in.

But the Muslims have abandoned the Glorious Quran in favor of conjecture, personal opinions (mostly for their convenience), and sources not authorized by God, such as the Hadith and Sunna, which they believe are needed to explain the Quran.

In reality, the Hadith (narrations) and Sunna (actions) are gross falsehoods attributed to Prophet Muhammad which appeared about two hundred years after his death. In Quran, God mentions the word Hadith by name several times and commands Muslims to study and follow no other Hadith except His Hadith – the Quran. The Quran is totally free from any nonsense or contradictions, unlike what is found in the many books of Hadith. It is also an acknowledged fact that the Hadith compilers abandoned over 90% of their own collections because they could not confirm them to be accurate or authentic. Strangely, when the Muslims insist that the Hadith books are needed to explain the Quran, the Hadith passages never tell you which verses of the Quran they are supposed to be explaining!

Because they do not study the Quran, the Muslims do not realize that the prophet’s role was only to deliver the Quran, not explain it. Even the religious practices of Salat, Zakat, Seyam and Hajj were not taught to him as commonly believed. These practices were taught to Prophet Abraham many centuries earlier and were already in existence when the Quran was revealed. However, as a religious and political leader, the prophet was authorized by God to issue certain instructions for the proper functioning of the society and responsible dissemination of God’s message. Whenever he issued such instructions, the people were required to obey him and carry out those instructions.

So in Quran, when God says, ‘obey the messenger,’ it is with reference to those specific instructions when he was alive, not after his death.

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