Metal Reviews

Was it? This one seems bigger. Besides, I'm not having you spread your dastardly propaganda around here. It's a crescent and a star, ffs, it doesn't need to be that big.

Can you elaborate? I'd love to know how a single experience could make a person cast everything they did and didn't believe aside and replace it with a cast-iron belief in soimething they hadn't up until that point known more than superficial details about.

You couldn't understand for certain unless you had one yourself, but the basic gist is that I was reading up on Islam and decided to read the Qur'an for the heck of it. I couldn't stop thinking about it after I read it. I would wake up at 1 AM and just think about the Qur'an for hours before I could go back to sleep, and then despite that, I wouldn't feel at all tired. Then one day I felt it for certain- 'it' meaning the presence of Allah, and it was... wonderful. It was like I was plugged into the world's biggest electrical outlet. It was soothing and energizing and sobering and exciting and everything, really. I could barely speak above a whisper until I reverted, and I don't know why that's the case to this day. I kept promising myself that I'd 'think about it,' but ultimately I threw that down the well and just went to the MSA (Muslim Student Association) at my college. An Indian brother there accompanied me to the 96th Street Mosque, and the Imam there helped me to formally revert and become a Muslim.

And aight Goat, I'll trim it down in IrfanView or something soonish.

Yup, trolling.

*shrug* your belief or disbelief in what I have come to formally realize is the beautiful truth matters nothing at all.

Cheers for the resize.

Taking the massive, massive assumption that you're not trolling... are you sure it was the presence of Allah and not, like, the Ribono Shel Olam or Jesus or a ghost or drugs or something? Because reading a book -> feeling great =! convert to religion. I read one of L Ron Hubbard's sci-fi books once and thoroughly enjoyed it, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start Scientologising myself up. If this is real, you've changed your philosophical and religious beliefs enough that I know of to make me think that you really don't know what the fuck to believe. In which case, may I recommend you get into Theosophy, because it's vague and peaceful and you can learn magic powers.

I bet your Jewish relatives are loving this change, incidentally.

I've had precisely two large shifts in my philosophical beliefs in the past year, including the current; that is to say, from the 'communist' strain to the 'Muslim' strain. How precisely does that constitute having changed your beliefs 'enough so that I can blah blah blah?'

This, in fact, represents the only shift that I've ever had in my religious beliefs, given that I had been an atheist for many years.

Similarly, I already explained that what I felt was impossible to transcribe into words, fully. That is still true; language is inadequate, unfortunately. I know what I felt and reacted appropriately; doing so challenged a belief I had held (that there was no God) for years and years, but I know what I felt and reacted accordingly. To misquote the venerated philosopher Stephen King, "The definition of an asshole is a guy who doesn't believe what he's feeling."

Ain't told them. Not yet.

Well, pro-Israel Jew -> pro-Israel Atheist -> anti-Israel Atheist -> anti-Israel Commie Atheist -> Muslim is quite a few hops.



You remind me of a typical movie Atheist -> lost his/her belief in the divine through personal tragedy and regains it after something extremely tenuous happens. Now it may not come as a surprise to everyone reading, but I've struggled with depression and alcoholism for a few years now, and it's left me with the sort of mood swings that you could push a child on. Considering that all it takes to change my mood is to change my playlist from Sunn O))) to Hammerfall and that I get fairly intense emotional experiences from listening to Alsvartr alone, it's going to take something pretty blow-out to count as a religious awakening for me. I've toyed with religions and cults, been a Christian, a Jew and an Atheist, and considering that the major religions are more or less rip-offs of each other, I've never been remotely tempted towards Islam, not least because it's the newest of the big three. I suppose what I'm asking is, have you actually thought about this, or are you just doing what your emotions tell you? My emotions told me to jump off a bridge once, and as much as I love Stefano King, basing my life's philosophy around something he said which is bullshit a good amount of the time is not what a sensible person should do.



Ouch. It'll come as a massive shock, assuming they're like every other Jews I know. I predict shiva being sat, bluntly.

I don't wager that 'pro' or 'anti-Israel' is really a large shift in ones philosophical spectrum because it's not something one spends a lot of time thinking about and it's not something that really -changes- one's overall worldview; on another note I had essentially been an atheist since the age of eleven or whereabouts, so I don't think you can really include that in those hops. Philosophies you hold prior to fourteen are never important, and even the ones after fourteen are often unimportant.



There were no tragedies. Similarly, while it may be tenuous to you I can assure you most definitely that it is in no way tenuous to me.



I will be blunt: my emotions are dissimilar to yours. I have never been very expressive and my moods have always been very consistent; the one time I struggled with depression it was largely over within months. Ever since then I've been stalwart and rock-steady in those terms; had no overly depressive thoughts or incredible mood-swings. My reversion has been genuine and I believe my experience was genuine as well, and given that I used to view people who claimed to have religious experiences with the same eyeglasses as I used to view people who claimed to have been abducted by aliens, my own experience was quite frankly very mind-blowing.

So while I understand your skepticism, in no way is your own experience very applicable to my own. I hope at the same time that you find the faith that is waiting for you one day, and that your inner voice guides you to the truth as mine has.



I'm trying to ease them into it by first hinting that I do believe in God and then saying that I'm looking into all the Abrahamic religions, which is unfortunately a falsehood, but I have to tell them eventually.

They're not Orthodox, so I don't anticipate Shiva. I expect a lot of arguments with my stepfather, though, and will do what I can to alleviate them.

Still see no contradictions between Marx and Muhammad. Economic justice can equal religious justice, no? Being a Marxist doesn't mean you have to be an atheist. You can remove the Feuerbach and keep the alienation even though the one is kinda based on the other.

Given the number of times the religious have fucked me and my life over, any religious revelations will be very personal. The moment things started to change for the better re my depression came when I took the then-radical step of realising that there was no higher power to submit to and I was to all intents and purposes my own god. The only reason I'm not a member of the Church of Satan is because of all the libertarianism bollocks that goes with a rejection of standards of morality made up in the dark ages. That and they're ridiculous, of course. I think I'm too cynical to allow myself to believe in much apart from my own grumpy self, so if I do Have A Moment it's going to have to be pretty darn amazing.

Well, I hope you're happy - how religious a Muslim are you? Do you eat pork or drink alcohol? Is a Haj planned? Beard? Wearing traditional garments? Learning Arabic? Listening to Saxon?

...mercilessly oppressing the fairer sex?

I want to Hajj so badly. Is Hajj a verb or a noun? Maybe one of these years I'll grow a beard and Hajj it up. It seems like such an intense experience.

Marxism does like its women. So DM enlighten us why it's alright to stone a woman for trumped up charges of infidelity?

Just to ramble on about what I said above a little, I don't mean to reject the divine altogether, just that I reject it as something apart. There's something spiritual in everyone - not a floaty invisible thing that flies off to heaven, but a sense of an other existing. The realisation that this other is inside us, part of us, and can be contacted (without trying to sound too new-age) without Judaism, Islam or Christianity is part of the path to enlightenment, and whilst those religions can get you there through various ways, the fact that spirituality rests on the individual rather than the group is what cinches the (personal) pointlessness of organised religion for me. Theosophy is basically hippy Buddhism with a very open and inquiring nature, and if I had to choose a philosophy that most fits with my view at the moment, that would be it.

I'm a special case, I suppose; music and alcohol are more vital 'worship' experiences to me than going to a synagogue or whatever - God as an idea is everything inside ourselves that we can't explain, and as much as it annoys me that people have taken the human desire to cleave to the ineffable and made slaves of people with Christianity and Islam etc, if that's what gets you there who am I to judge? But yeah, those questions about the nonessential aspects of Islam pertaining to what you think of women, homosexuals, adulterers and so on do need answering.

Excellent question! let me refer to my treatise on the finer points of Shariah law as applied by tribal loonies who get everything wrong. And if anyone says 'Honor killing' I'm just going to ignore them.

What does 'mercilessly oppressing' mean? The Niqab is not a Qur'anic requirement and neither is the burqa. The hijab is, but the hijab is the sign of the covenant between yourself and Allah; it is the sign of your commitment to Allah.

Sharia is the law you accept if you become a Muslim. If you are not a Muslim, it does not apply.

Zina (extramarital sex) is punishable by flogging, not stoning. Stoning is applicable in the cases of rape, or buying prostitutes, or when the accused confesses and repents and wishes purification; the stoning at such a time acquits them of the sin for the Last Day.

In any event, why are you taking me to task for what the Taliban do? I have no posters of Mullah Mohamed Omar in the house.

The duty of the Islamic state is to guide the people to spiritual purity. This cannot be done if principles of Sharia are not enforced, as Sharia is essential to the spiritual condition of Islam. If you wish to live in 'freedom' as the liberals would have it, then run away to the Netherlands and become Ayaan Hirsi Ali #2. But there is no escape from Allah.

And yes, one day I hope to perform the Hajj. I have not shaved my beard since conversion, and I do not eat pork or alcohol or alcohol-based foodstuffs. Traditional garments is a no, but once I tell my family I plan to celebrate by fulfilling the Sunnah of covering one's head. Recently decided to fast Mondays and Thursdays, which is another Sunnah.

Oh, as for homosexuality- the Sharia has a judgment on this. All of us have urges we should not act on; but if we repent and recuse ourselves, then Allah will forgive us; truthfully, if we did not sin, Allah would destroy us and create a new people that sinned. The point is the repentance.

Calling a point of Sharia 'non-essential' is a nonsense statement, it is like calling a vital part of a machine 'non-essential.'

Also, what does 'what do you think of women' mean. I think they are women! I think if they are Muslims, they should submit, as the men do, to the will of Allah, as outlined in the Qur'an and Hadith. I would remind you that Muhammad (Peace be unto him) conferred most often with his wives when he needed advice; that Abu Hanifa, a wise scholar whose school of Islamic law (Fiqh) is most followed in the world, stated that there is nothing in Islam which states a woman cannot hold any such position that she wishes; that she can be a judge even if she can get the position, and that when Muhammad died, women voted with the Ummah to elect the new leader of the Caliphate.

*Wanders off to buy Ibn Warraq*

That's the worst thing about it all - true enlightenment should not be achieved through submission. I could write paragraphs but I'll come back to this later.

'Muslim' translates to essentially 'one who submits to God.'

You can write all the paragraphs you want about why you think Islam is whatever you think it is, but that really is unnecessary given you are writing to a choir and one dissenter who will not, in this case, listen to your opinions.

True. But this thread is about debate; I think people are criticising the reliance on dogma more than anything. Besides, if your religious awakening was so recent then you can't know more about it than us.