Brian wrote:

[quote of email]

"Anyways, in your last response to my question on how one gets to heaven according to Islam, you said that you would never know if you are going, but that's it's through Allah's decision on whom his forgiveness resides.

Does this mean that Allah will forgive some but not others....and if so, based on what? Forgiveness means the forgetting or whiping away of someone's sin penalty. So WHO Allah forgives can't be based on how good they are, for that's why they would desire forgiveness in the first place, because they need it. If they were good enough, then they wouldn't need forgiveness. So does this mean that some people have sin yet others don't. Now if we all have sin, how does Allah decide whom he forgives?

You say that Allah is merciful and gracious, and this is backed up by the starting of every surah in the Qu'ran. Yet, wouldn't that mean that that is his character, and that it can't change. ....So, why wouldn't everyone be forgiven? Obviously, according to Islam many are going to hell, and many are going to heaven. Does Allah forgive whoever just because he feels like it? Would this then mean that Allah is not a just god, because he doesn't deal with everyone with the same standard?

Al-Qur'an says that 'eveyone will receive his just reward' (Surah 3:161). Accordingly, if one does bad, he has to be rewarded bad, ultimately Hell...for Allah will have to give him his just reward. Is there any criteria that gives that Muslim assurance of being forgiven, would then be the next and most important question one would ask.

Basically, is there SALVATION in Islam?

If one person was 51% good, yet 49% bad, would he go to heaven, because on the scales he weighed out good? If it's true that he would, then it seems this person is earning heaven on his own merit, and has no need for Allah's forgiveness. Would every person who is 51% good and 49% bad earn heaven? If they don't, then how can Allah be just?, for his standard would be different for everyone. If it is true that we earn heaven on our own merit, then what is our need for God? For all we have to do is make sure we are more good than bad. I wouldn't have to be a Muslim then , or believe in Mohammed's message, or even get to know God - because all I have to do is be good. But we know Islam teaches we this is not so.

So, then where is our salvation? How do we get it?

Do we earn it? ...according to the last paragraph, we don't. Is it based on whom Allah forgives?.., meaning it would ultimately be his choice and not our own, leaving us paying the penalty in hell yet without anyway to avoid it on our own account.....ultimately being the question of his character, if he is a just god or not.

Sir, does, or can, Islam answer the question of Salvation? I've been reading the Qu'ran like you told me to. However, I have come across no solution to our sin problem. If there is one, please reference me to those passages in the Qu'ran.

Thank you so much for spending the time trying to answer my questions. I know you are truly seeking God's truth, as I am. Keep in strength friend.

Pursuing God,
brian lucero
www.angelfire.com/realm2/truth/islam.html

Taqee wrote:

Dear Brian,

I hope this letter finds you well. I'm responding to your inquiry about salvation in Islam. To answer your questions best, I would ask you a little bit of clarification. You mentioned at the end of your last letter that you hadn't come across a solution to "our sin problem." To be sure, this phrase is a bit unclear because I was not sure to what you were referring. Please clarify, if you would.

In a general response to your last letter, though, Muslims believe Allah has many attributes, as you know. He is the one who originated mercy, forgiveness, love, justice, etc. As a Muslim, I have trouble answering your line of argument in the last letter because I believe that Allah is the wisest of all judges and omnipotent in every way. This sort of inherently precludes my ability to question whether He is being fair with anyone--because I am sure He is fair.

Your questions about 51% good and 49% bad are not anything that anyone really has the ability to answer, to my knowledge. Not with certainty, that is. But what we do believe from what Allah has said and what His prophet has said, peace be upon him, is that those who believe in God alone (His one-ness, His day of reckoning, etc.) and do righteous deeds for His sake and who seek to keep themselves from committing forbidden acts are those who will enter paradise.

I have probably not answered anything you wrote, so please correct my tangential response when you have time.

Sincerely,
Taqee @#$%^

Brian wrote:

Greetings Taqee in the name of the True God,

Thanks for writing me with your concerns. Keep praying and asking God to show your the right path, with an open heart, for in that you will find the truth.

In response to your email, I will start with the comment on Allah attribute of mercy manifested in forgiveness towards man. My analogy with the 51% good and 49% bad man was to show whether Allah had a clear standard of criteria for which he would judge mankind with. If Allah is fair as you claim, then the question really isn't that hard - for according to the theology of surats 7:8-9 and 21:47 in the Qu'ran, fairness would be to forgive everyone in the same manner with the same criteria, leaving every man with the above merit residing under the forgiveness of Allah, not just some but not others.

However, as I stated in my last forum conversation, there is no clear standard for forgiveness by Allah that is homogeneous throughout, or the same for every man, in other words - fair. If Allah was just, then the standard that he would judge everyone by would be impartial, immutable, unchanging, ....just also. However, the Qu'an makes it clear that this is not so. Let me list a few verses which emphasize this:

Sura 3:129 - "Unto Allah belongeth the heavens and the earth. He forgiveth whom He will and punishes whom He will."

Fakhr Al Razi writes in explanation of this verse, "Our colleagues allege in support of this verse that seeing as Allah is above all, He has the right to bring into Paradise through His divine judgment all unbleievers and rebels, and He has the right by His divine judgment to send all the upright to Hell. There is no protest against Him in the doing of this." Further he says, "The verse clearly indicates this meaning and the intellectual proof supports it also, because the deeds of man depend on the will, and that will is Allah's creation. If Allah created that kind of will, man obeys, and if He created another kind of will, he disobeys. Man's obedience and his disobedience are alike from Allah. As for the acts of Allah there is nothing obligatory for him. Obedience does not necessarily bring reward, nor disobedience of necessity deverse punishment. Everthing is from Allah, and is according to His divine will and compulsion and power."

The point that Allah is not obligated to keep his words or promises is shown in this verse:

Sura 2:106 - "Whatever communications We abrogate or cause to be forgotten, We bring one better than it or like it. Do you not know that Allah has power over all things?" See also: 13:39 ; 17:86 ; 16:101.

Sura 7:178 - "Whomsoever Allah guides, he is the one who follows the right way; and whomsoever He causes to err, these are the losers."

Sura 16:93 - "And if Allah please He would certainly make you a single nation, but He causes to err whom He pleases and guides whom He pleases." See many more at

Sura 6:25 - "And of them is he who hearkens to you, and We have cast veils over their hearts lest they understand it and a heaviness into their ears; and even if they see every sign they will not believe in it; so much so that when they come to you they only dispute with you; those who disbelieve say: This is naught but the stories of the ancients."

Sura 18:101 - "The infidels whoes eyes were veiled from my warning and had no power to hear."

Sura 81:27-29 - "It is but a reminder to the worlds to whomesoever of you chooses to go straight; but ye will not choose, except God, the Lord of the world, should choose." And many, more: [9:87,93], [10:75], [16:108], [30:59], [40:35], [47:16], [63:3].

According to these verses it seems that Allah is not fair in his judgment, but that he is capricious in his choosing, and forgives only those whom he "feels" like, for there is no set standard. And even if there were one, Allah has the power to abrogate or change it whenever he feels. This is a very shifty and unstable "god of mercy" to base one's eternal salvation on.

Now if one does seem to 'find' a standard in Islam, say that of being good verses bad, then salvation is of self merit and works alone, not salvation as the term generically means nor forgiveness. For one has to be perfect to escape the punishment of even one trasgression:

Sura 99:7,8 - "...and whoso doeth ill an atom's weight wil see it then." Sura 3:161 - "Then shall every soul recieve its due, - whatever it earned, - and none shall be dealt with unjustly."

From these we see that God will punish even the smallest of sins committed. Therefore we all fall short of the glory, of the perfection needed to escape punishment, to escape hell. This is the sin problem that we all have. Yet Islam gives no solution to it.

However, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." .....He made a way out, a sacrifice for our sins, so that justice would be paid and sill, all our sins would be paid for, leaving us THE WAY to heaven cleared. Jesus solved the sin problem for man. Just as animal sacrifices attoned for the sins of the Jews, so did Jesus' blood attoned for ours. "Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life." - John 14:16.

In sincerety,
Brian Lucero
(12-03-02)

Taqee wrote:

Dear Brian,

I hope you are well. If any of my following responses are correct, then all praise is due to God alone--and if any are incorrect, then the error is from myself.

First of all, I will openly tell you that I will not willing to discuss any exposition of scholars with whom I have no familiarity. Thus I do not know much about ar-Razi, but I am familiar with, say, Ibn Kathir. But basically, I do not believe it is befitting of me to discuss scholarly theory without that adequate background in it. This I would ask you to accept of me unconditionally, because I will not venture into areas of which I have no knowledge or understanding. The principle is simply that I am ignorant of the vast knowledge that a given scholar may have and my superficial assessment of a paragraph of his/her work is at best nominal because of my lack of knowledge.

Secondly, and more importantly, you must be honest with me and yourself as to the purpose of this discussion. Your email has a point which is clear by the end of it, in the final paragraph. Your website also has a clear prerogative, as I have viewed it. If you can be honest with yourself and say that Islam may hold the truth, then I say let's keep talking. But if your goal is to show me why Islam is wrong and that Christ is the way, then I am not sure if our discussion will be productive. If the latter is your goal, I would refer you to two suras, al ikhlas (112) and al kafirun (109).

However, if you do wish to proceed after all that, I am actually interested in a preliminary question--how can anything be guaranteed, especially when it comes to paradise? For instance, even though as Muslims we say that the prophet Muhammad peace be upon him brought the final testament from God, we do not by any means claim that we cannot possibly enter hellfire. In fact, the prophet peace be upon him has told us about Muslims who will enter hellfire. With a mass of good deeds, the heart of a philanthropic person can still be evil. This goes back to the idea of intentions and that a person can have good deeds but their intentions can be entirely wrong. Thus a person can be 90% (apparent) good deeds and 10% bad deeds and they can enter hell because of other reasons.

Allah, we believe, looks at a person's heart, the residence of his/her sincerity, soul, etc. A person's deeds are important, but if the heart is ill-inclined in such deeds, then Allah will judge accordingly. But without a doubt, a true good deed and a true bad deed will receive just recompense. But with regard to Him promising justice and fairness, etc., He says on several occasions that His promise is true to it's word. (sura al ankabut, 29, for one.) We don't question Allah's "intention" or "whimsy"--He is not limited to human emotional constructs. The verses you cited by no means imply that he will arbitrarily throw a pious, well-intentioned, righteous person into hellfire--at least not without a just reason. The verses about abrogation--they have nothing to do with judgement, but a precise Islamic science of new promulgations superceding older ones. That is another issue entirely.

In considering what it takes to judge deeds and intentions together, I believe that a formulaic gold standard for paradise is nonexistent. How can each person have the same standard of judgement if each person's deeds and intentions, circumstances in life, wealth, poverty, etc., are different? Allah is the wisest of judges, as written in sura at-teen (95). I honestly do not question His ability to deal fairly with each person. Each of us has a different palette of deeds, intentions, background and life story and it is, contrarily, unfair that just believing in one, single element should bring us to heaven.

This is my current train of thought.
Please let me know if you wish to continue our discussion.

May Allah guide us both to the straight path.

Sincerely,
Taqee

Brian wrote:

Thank you for your desire for my well-being. I mean the same for you also. Many people build a hatred for those who seem to be attacking the foundations of their beliefs. I am trying to sift through much muck and bias to find truth in this world, as I assume you are too. Islam may hold the truth, and that's why I am spending much of my free time sifting through its theologies and philosophies to see if they hold any of it. Would you concede also that the truth may be in the Words of Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by me." ? If so, then may God lead us both to the right path as we converse, pray, and open our hearts for His love and truth.

In response to your self taken position on Al-Razi, I say that one does not need to know much about one's scholarly work to conclude that his argument holds water. Those two quotes are the only ones I know of him, yet I believe they make so much sense in light of the will of Allah.

Let me make my analogy clear: when I say 51% good and 49% bad, I mean not solely in deeds, but through one's whole being, intentions, and heart, all from the perspective of God's eyes, the ALL-knowing.

When something is guaranteed by God, I believe that He is telling the truth, and therefore conclude that it IS guaranteed.

Romans 10:9-10 says: "That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [10] For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." also....

John 3:16 - "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life."

To understand WHY this is so, I invite you to study the 9th chapter of the book of Hebrews of the Holy Bible.

I agree in totality with you that God will look at all those things (intentions, heart, circumstances, deed..ect.) on the day of judgment, and not just judge one solely on His deeds. As you said, God is all-knowing and all-wise and just, as I agree. In light of these qualities of His character, could not God, the all-knowing, create a standard that would fit all? Is God limited in doing this as you say? Since God is all-wise and just, would not this standard suffice, for His standard would of a surety suffice to give justice to everyone in judgment in judging everyone on intentions, circumstances, and deeds. Is not God powerful enough to do this. And, of course, I agree with you, God will always be just in His judgments.

In response to your statement that the verse on Allah abrogating 'does not apply to judgment', I disagree totally - it would apply. For if Allah cannot keep his word, then his character of being 'just' falls to the ground. If Allah is not just, then judgment, which of necessity is about justice, would not be just. Another note: if the Qur'an is perfect in its entirety, and has always been perfect, then why would Allah have to change or 'make better' a revelation? Perfection cannot improve.

In love,

Brian Lucero