The Quaran: 'If you go to the text looking for violence, you will find it. I go looking for nonviolence, and I find it!'

Today of all days, I sat in the lounge room of Sheikh Zuhair Dubee at his home in Nablus. He is a Muslim preacher who...
Posted by Father Chris on Saturday, 14 November 2015

Funny that! 
The same could be said of the Holy Books of the Jews and the Christians. 

More for Ramadan 2015 - Ramadan Reads

From The God Article

Ramadan 2015

Ramadan Mubarak!  Ramadan is now in full swing, a month-long holiday on the Islamic calendar to commemorate the first revelation of the Quran to Muhammad.  Patheos Muslim bloggers are pleased to share their 2015 Ramadan journeys  with you on the Patheos Muslim channel, where you'll find the special #30Days30Writers project  and great Ramadan reads like these: When Online Muslim Friends Provide Love and Community: A Convert's Ramadan Story by Sarah Ager Fasting in Ramadan to Strengthen the Will for Social Justice by Hakeem Muhammad Growing Up Mosqued, Away From the Masjid by Hind Makki You can also learn more about this holy time on the  Ramadan: Awaiting the Return of the Crescent topic page.

Faith and Finance: is finance a morality free zone?

Last year, I attended a one-day conference on Islamic Finance.  I learned a lot.  The Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity, Islam - each have injunctions against usury yet only Islam, now in these modern times, refuses to have anything to do with the levying of interest.  How this is handled across the world in Islam is most interesting - and it is attracting increasing interest from the mainstream non-Islamic world.

http://www.latrobe.edu.au/courses/islamic-finance/postgraduate 

http://islaminaustralia.com/2013/12/29/australias-first-guardian-to-launch-islamic-pension-in-january/

http://www.smh.com.au/business/westpac-to-offer-islamic-banking-20100211-nv86.html

The world has suffered much during the Global Financial Crisis. One would have to go a long way in the world to find societies and individuals who have remained unaffected by the GFC.  This means that communities of faith have had to live out their beliefs, consider their beliefs in the light of the impact of the GFC on the world.  There are periods when matters of money are put to one side and remain in the shadow of more emphasis on the core teachings of faith and spirit.  However, communities of faith have highlighted during this dismal economic period issues of justice and ethics and the living of a good life.  Communities of faith have hardly tried the financial centres of the world at a religious court but they have increasingly, around the world, spoken out on the GFC and related economic matters.

God's economics: a pastoral letter for 2014

The Church and the Global Financial Crisis

False profits: a Jewish response to our financial crisis

The economic crisis and the crisis of character

Archbishop of Canterbury calls for debate with Islam to establish "just" interest rates

Solution to financial crisis is in the Quran

Global economic crisis and economics of faith (2)

Monetary moral guidance basis for inter-faith religious dialogue

Taking a hint from the last of the links above,

is it time for a wide-ranging interfaith dialogue 

on the topic of

Faith, Morals, Finance?

Virtue, Fortune and Faith

Faith & Finance: Value Guided Pursuit of Interests

The moral debt of finance

Finance: a morality free zone

THINKING POINT >>>

Religion does think about money.

Consider the linked images

based on a the search terms

faith finance

Mixed messages?

Women of Islam - 6

Laleh Bakhtiar (USA, 1938-Present)

 

Laleh's Quran translation, "The Sublime Quran" (2007), is the first translation of the Quran into English by an American woman.

 

Her translation incorporates alternative meanings to Arabic terms that are ambiguous or whose meaning scholars have had to guess due to the antiquity of the language.

 

Notably, her translation of Chapter 4, Verse 34 has gained a lot of attention. She translates the Arabic word daraba as "go away" instead of the common "beat" or "hit."

 

Her Quran translation is used in many mosques and universities and has been adopted by Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad of Jordan.


From Huffington Post



Women of Islam - 1

 

Nusayba bint Ka'b Al-Ansariyah (Arabia, unknown-634 C.E.)

Nusayba was of one of the first advocates for the rights of Muslim women.

 

Notably, she asked the Prophet Muhammad,

"Why does God only address men (in the Quran)?"

Soon after this exchange, the Prophet received a revelation in  Chapter 33, Verse 35

that mentions women can attain every quality to which men have access.

The verse also conclusively settled that women stand on the same spiritual level as men.

She was viewed as a visionary who transcended her own generation.

From Huffington Post