[Religion] being friends with the kuffar (non-believer)

There are parts of the Koran that speak really favorably about Christians as being friends and "People of the Book."

I can only speak from experience...I have friends who are Muslim. I don't think they're trying to trick me!

 

I have Muslim friends as well. In fact, I've never met one that I didn't think was a nice person.

 

Maybe that's true for some of the extremist or deeply religious, but it isn't for any of the Muslims I know/am friends with.
A lot of people from my neighborhood are from the Muslim World (2 in 5 are foreign), so naturally a majority of my friends are Muslims. I don't care too much for religion myself. I guess I'm either atheistic or agnostic.

 

There are nice people and not-so-nice people in all religions...Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hindu, Shinto....you name it.

It all depends on the person, not the religion.

 

I wonder what ATWs Muslim friends think about this.

 

This is true.

I have a Muslim friend who had a phase in which he was ultra-religious, did the Haj and everything. He took my ribbing in good fun. Since he moved from London to Istanbul, he has become a lot more relaxed and I visited him and we had a lot of beers together. It seemed like he was more "fanatic" while he was still in London, not sure why. I guess my few other Muslim friends aren't like that or they wouldn't want to be friends with me.

 

The GARM is all like




The mods are all like



Unsorted is all like

 

Woops, wrong thread.

 

We will never survive in a world that primitive.

I am a religious person but I struggle with my religious friends who think similarly to the idea in the OP. The majority of my best friends are atheists, because everyone is searching for their own answers to questions and it's stupid to draw lines between ourselves in our professional / social lives.

 

Well, We are allowed to marry Christians and Jews, and eat from their food (ie Kosher). I am pretty sure if I was to marry a Christian, she would have to be my friend... or at least I would hope we'd be friends. :grin:

 

Is that passage from the Quran?

 

Interpreting the Qur'an literally into English often presents a bit of a problem. Just for starters, English translations of the Qur'an and its verses are not direct word-for-word translations but are the translators best attempt to depict the meaning of the verses. This is because Arabic is a very rich language.

So one cannot just go off any old English translation of the Qur'an and suddenly is an expert on all of its connotations. One would have to be a scholar in the Arabic language to be able to understand and interpret the verses properly. For example a word in Arabic may have multiple literal meanings, it just depends on the context and how the word in used in the sentence that clarifies how the word or phrase was intended to be used.

The following excerpts come from answering Christianity, a website designed to address criticisms and verses of Islamic scripture in order to answer misconceptions and clarify on the meanings of controversial/misunderstood verses. You can take a look at this page and it lays it down pretty well.http://www.answering-christianity.com/friends.htm

Long story short, when it says "friends" it literally means "alliance or allegiance"

There is nothing wrong with A Muslim developing a personal friendship with a non-Muslim to help him/her understand and appreciate Islam and to ultimately embrace it if they themselves chose to. You can be friends, hang out, share and get along with one another just like with any other person you befriend. In the Qur'an, God Almighty commands all Muslims to treat with kindness and justice all of the good non-Muslims.

Allâh does not forbid you to deal justly and kindly with those who have not fought against you on account of religion nor drove you out of your homes. Verily, Allâh loves those who maintain justice. (Quran 60:8)

Hope this helps. I am a practicing Muslim and have plenty of non-Muslim friends, my best friend happens to be a Jew. Doesn't bother me and I don't feel like I'm disobeying a tenet of Islam, cause I'm not.

 

So it's only "ok" for the purpose of proselytizing?

 

That's not the sole reason to be a friend of a non-Muslim. And even if it was so, it would be indirect. But I will say that it is the duty of every Muslim to give Dawah or "invite" people to LEARN about the religion, for no other reason than to at least to have better awareness and tolerance for those who are of the faith.

However that doesn't mean start hitting people with pamphlets and "What is Islam?" brochures and hitting them over the head with the Qur'an. You can give dawah and spark interest to the religion of Islam just by your conduct and good actions. Answering questions, clearing up misconceptions if they're ever brought up. Being a good neighbor etc.

A Muslim can be a friend with a non-Muslim guy and through that friendship they can learn about eachother's faith and cultures and values and all that good stuff. They may not ever even talk about religion, but if the Muslim is still doing his thing, getting up to go pray in the middle of a hangout, refraining from alcohol, guarding his eyes when women are present, among other things, just through these acts a non-Muslim would develop an understanding and awareness of the faith without them barely even talking about it.

If you and I were chums outside the virtual world, I wouldn't want to jump into religious debates all the time with you. I'd much rather talk basketball (go Rockets!) or movies/video games, or football or wrestling with you. If you ever have a question that happens to be about Islam, I'd gladly answer it. When prayer time comes by, I'll excuse myself for 5 minutes to go perform my prayer and return. You wanna go to a strip club, I'd politely decline, you go have fun though. A beer? No thanks. Pork sandwich? Nah, I'll have turkey instead. I wouldnt be trying to proselytize, but my duty is to be a walking, talking kiosk for Islam if you ever want to engage conversation.

 

That's all your choice and I would be respectful of it. I don't discuss religion much in real life, which is probably why I feel the need to discuss it here under the protection of relative anonymity.

One part I find interesting about your description above, however, is that there is an undertone of "it's my duty to invite people to learn about the religion and give dawah"...it seems like a one-way street. I'm sure you would be polite and everything, but it seems like it is etched in stone that if someone else were to try to do the same thing about his religion to you, you might be polite enough to listen, but you would never consider changing your mind about anything that is part of the core pillars of what you have been taught. Again, that is obviously your choice to make, but it seems to me that there is some kind of expectation that "non-believers" have to have an open mind and respect Islam, while the same is not extended to "non-believers" to the same degree.

 

How is this any different from Evangelical Christians or Mormons? Part of the underlying belief is to share and spread the faith. I think his description as a "walking, talking kiosk" is probably the perfect way to describe an evangelical Christian.

 

AWLIYAA from WALI and is the plural of "representative or ally". When shiite Muslims say, for exaple, that Ali is their Wali, they are obviously not saying "friend". I have never known it to be used as "friend" except in this explanation you've posted. The most common useage of the word is to refer to a child's guardian.

ZALIMOON from ZOLM. Zalimoon means "comitters of injustice" and zolm means "injustice".

Now, basic definitions aside..

- Kuffaar or Kaafir does not mean non-Muslim. Jews and Christians are not Kuffaar.
- Muslims are not even allowed to be friends with "sinful" Muslims.
- The translation you posted (known as Hilali Khan) is a Wahabbist translation. Yes they do believe that to this day. This is the most widely available English translation now, thanks to sponsorship from people who follow Wahabbism.

Here is the most commonly accepted translation, which in itself can be considered an extremist one:

If I were to interpret it knowing the full context of what was going on at the time and having read several early explanations, I would read it as:

Don't let your business income be concentrated on clients who currently have contractual disputes with people that share your core principles. If a person is responsible for all your income, they will own you. Fortunately, God will not be on their side.

Now if you tweak a few words and add Carmina Burana to the background, it sounds a lot more sinister lol.

I'm fairly certain that if you do some research you'll come to the same conclusion. After all, the Quran was compiled 100 years after the Prophet. Hadith another 100-200 years after that. Explanations of the Quran and Hadith started thereafter. Much of them were set ablaze. They continued for a few hundred years with various conflicting interpretations which led to dozens of "schools" of interpretation. The translations, which were done in the early 1900's, are already dependent on heaps of old and questionable materials and various kings of empires so take it all with a grain of salt.

Besides, who the F cares? Would you even want to be friends with someone who believes what's in your first post?

 

I agree that it is very similar.