1. Ask A Question About Islam And Muslims
  2. Ask A Question About Islam And Muslims

Ask A Question About Islam And Muslims

9 Questions

I am interested in learning about Shia Islam of Iranians and their leader Ayatullah Khamenei and aspects of their religious worldview in terms of political turmoils around the world especially that of Gaza and Palestine. Can you help me?
Sayyed Mohammad Al-Musawi

You can ask your local Aalim to help you to learn or to have useful websites.

Wassalam.
Is it permissible in Islam to borrow money in a Western country to purchase a house in Iran?
Sayyed Mohammad Al-Musawi

Yes it is permissible to borrow money to use it in buying house or in any other lawful cause.

Wassalam.
I have heard that Iranians were Sunni's who were forced by the sword to accept the Shia faith. Is this authentic history or propaganda?
Sayyed Mohammad Al-Musawi

This claim is baseless. Those who claim this false story say that Safawi ruler forced Sunni to follow Shia faith. Millions of Iranians are still Sunnis and no one forced any one to accept Shia faith. Safawis ruled over many countries including Iran, Afghanistan and parts of Indian subcontinent but history never recorded any force on any one in the matter of faith. Till today Sunnis of those areas are still Sunnis. This fact itself is a living evidence against that false claim.

Wassalam.
Why do the Shia condemn the Shura system of early Khulafa while they have adopted similar systems in Iran and Iraq?
Amina Inloes

Shura, as done during early Islamic history, is not the same thing as modern voting, a modern parliament, or modern democracy. Modern democracy developed recently in history, and some Muslims back-project it and claim it has roots in Islam by saying it is like shura. However, modern democracy is different from shura, and this is not an accurate analogy; rather, it is a form of apologetics.

In any case, the Shii belief is that the succession to the Prophet (S) was appointed by Allah and people did not have the right to choose it - neither by shura nor by a one-person-one-vote system - just as people do not have the right to choose how many times a day they say formal prayers, or what month to fast in.

However, Allah has not appointed specific individuals to be our political leaders presently, so we use other systems of governance and selection of leaders.

Furthermore, when you read the history of what actually happened during the selection of the first three caliphs, you see that some things happened that were questionable or politically motivated for an agenda, and it was not that everyone got together and simply discussed with sincerity and equality who should be the next leader. The scenario was different for each caliph. When you read what happened, you see it is nothing like voting today where every person has a single vote and the majority wins. You can look into that in history books.