I am Mixed About Islam.

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FIve Pillars of Islam

The Sufis seem pretty mellow.

Aaaand... What is the source of the Five Pillars of Islam?

The Qur'an. It's throughout various of the verses, but not listed explicitly as five pillars necessarily.

I'm sorry but I completely disagree with what you have said. Yes, there are many people who follow Islam and are perfectly moral people, unless you wish to define suppressing scientific truth immoral, however there are also many moral Christians however there are also a small minority of people who have interpreted the bible to justify violence, pedophilia, slavery and sexism. The same is with Islam. Yes, the majority of followers are perfectly respectable however there are a few who have used the Koran to justify acts of religious terrorism. Of course you bring up the argument 'yes but they are not really Muslim' but it depends how you interpret their holy book and since so many passages in the Koran are highly abstract, vague and quintessentially meaningless, they can be easily interpreted to justify violent behavior just like the bible can. You could then bring up the argument 'but Jihad is not meant to be taken literally' but then who are you to decide what is literal and what is not? There is no concrete authority and there can never be since God is not an empirically tested hypothesis and thus such religious texts can be utilized in a variety of ways. Yes of course people are people are they will find reasons for going to war but there have been many wars that have not been caused just because 'people are people', they have been caused due to religious conflicts and theological disputes. Terrorist attacks do not happen because people are people but because they have been influenced in a very real way by their religious faith.

Is it funny that many of my moderate Muslim relatives are just as extreme in their views as the extreme Muslims?

You're not suppose to take the Koran literally? Well obviously some parts you are supposed to take literally and have their basis in physical reality otherwise there is no real purpose in following it. As for the more vague parts of the book such as Jihad, who are you decide what bits should be taken literally and what you should not? There is no authority on such an issue because there can never be one since Allah is an empirically untestable hypothesis . This of course leads to abstract phrases that can be taken literally or cannot be taken literally, either way they are vague, abstract and essentially meaningless and because of this it means that people can use them to justify all kinds of violent behaviour. Yes of course there are terrorists in other religion but that shows you the problem with religious interpretation and how dangerous religion faith is. It doesn't in anyway make the terrorism of Islam any less immoral.

An honest read of the Qur'an would suggest that jihad refers to both physical violent war against the Kaffar and spiritual verbal war. Depends on what verse/passage you're checking.

Yes, I would assume so but when you are discussing something as abstract as a 'holy war', an honest read seems very difficult to define. Assuming what you say is true, it would therefore be safe to assume that the Koran is an inspiration to those seeking out to participate in violent religious behaviour? By the way, this is in no way saying that every Muslim is supportive of Jihad or wishes to partake in it themselves.

False... In fact, If you had followed AGhostWriter's wiki link, you would have found the *original* source in the second sentence in the article.

The Five Pillars of Islam are found in the famous Hadith of Gabriel, which is part of the Sunnah/Hadith, not the Qur'an.

... Which was my entire point in the first place.

A lot of people tend to ignore many of the violent teachings in Islam (which are legion in the Sunnah) because they completely disregard the Sunnah. This selective account of Islam is invalid, however, as many of the core tenets of the faith (and - evidently - the most basic ones) are described in the Sunnah, and not the Qur'an. Oh, and this applies to Sunni and Shia alike, since both denominations rely upon Hadith (although the Shia derive their Hadith from the Imamah).

And there is also a tendency to disregard the abrogation of the peaceful Qur'anic verses in favour of the violent verses (Naskh), which has been a fundamental aspect of Qur'anic interpretation (tafsir) for more than a millennia.

Biblical literalism is just as bad as Quaranic literalism.

Actually, I'm not wrong. The Qur'anic verses do have these instructions, just not explicitly listed as five pillars. In fact, they are repeated over and over again in almost every sura.

And of course there are other instructions as well. So why five pillars, who knows.

I agree but there is nothing to suggest what can be taken literally or not literally when there is no empirical validation involved. It is problematic deciphering what is literal and what is not when they can both be open to such a wide-spanning multitude of interpretations.

I know the verb "Jahada" means "struggle, fight for something". Can't confirm exactly what the related word "Jihad" means exactly through my own limited knowledge.

But you're right. The Qur'an is so damn vague it's hard to decipher a coherent view of what the Qur'an is getting at. But then again, the same with many of the laws and commandments in the Bible.

Someone pray correct me if I'm wrong (since I'm not Arab myself and am by no means an expert) but I believe "Arabic" refers to the language, not the race. It annoys me when I keep hearing people refer to "Arabic" people. I think the word you're looking for is "Arab."

Maybe no one else cares, but language is one of my special interests, so I will just rant about it here for a bit. Arab can be either an adjective or a noun. Hence, you can say "an Arab" or "an Arab person." However, you cannot (or at least you should not) say "an Arabic person," because Arabic is a language, not a race.

Incidentally, people also confuse the word "Arab" with the word "Muslim." "Arab" identifies race and "Muslim" identifies religion. You can be Arab without being Muslim, and you can be Muslim without being Arab - just as you can be Caucasian without being Christian, and you can be Christian without being Caucasian. But try telling that to the press. They're always going on about people being "racist" towards Muslims, when actually they are talking about religious discrimination.

Where in the Qur'an does it say that Muhammad must be included in the Shahada (First pillar)? - (Or for Shia Muslims, the inclusion of Ali as well)
Where in the Qur'an does it say that Muslims must pray (Salat) five times a day (Second pillar)?
Where in the Qur'an does it say that the Zakat must be 2.5 percent (Fourth pillar)?