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Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

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Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#231

Post by hd4 »

twojacobtwo wrote: post #211
hd4 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds like you're coming at this from a similar standpoint to one of the other major religions which I would rather not mention as I don't want to start a religious war here. In Islam you're not hated or judged for what you call your true feelings. You are however instructed to gain mastery over those feelings and make them subordinate to you rather than the other way around. Fasting is one of the things that c…

>you are seen as a blank slate To me, this is just another angle of what the parent comment was talking about. We are not blank slates. We have millions of years of evolutionary instinct and genetics/epigenetics built into us AND we have everything we are fed (literally and figuratively) affecting us before we even get a chance to start thinking about 'who' or 'what' we are. The blank slate line of thinking is what c…

> Genuine question: How is this different from saying "it's not bad to be gay, it's just bad to not repress your feelings and never act on them", as is a common (paraphrased) refrain among those who are anti-lgbt

I'll admit it's probably not hugely different though to my understanding Islam's purpose is more about guiding a person to have a relationship with God rather than being anti-anything, and about doing what is within one's ability to move towards that goal. Like I said in a different reply it's not like you are being singled out for hatred or anything like that, the purpose is for everyone to get themselves right with God.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#235

Post by hqudsi »

codersfocus wrote: post #139
elashri wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes there is two main opinions for scholars. The first one is obvious, people in this place follow the fasting time of the nearest place that have sound sunrise/sunset times. The other is to follow the fasting times of mecca.

[flagged]

Islamic tradition values reason and rationality. It doesn’t say to blindly follow stuff. You still have to reason through new situations. The Quran is more for spiritual guidance even though it has some prescriptions. But most of the "rules" come from hadiths or the prophetic tradition which has been passed down orally before it was compiled into books by famous scholars.

For example, the Quran says to pray but doesn't spell out how to pray. We learn how to pray from the hadith. Same thing with fasting. The Quran just says fast like Abraham fasted but it doesn't spell what that was. So we follow the way the Prophet did and he's human - he probably wasn't thinking how it would affect people in higher latitudes. He doesn't have supernatural powers or foresight. We say he's the best of us within human limits. Hence why there's a rich scholarly tradition to work these edge cases. It's also why we traditionally break our fast with dates because that's how the prophet did it. But the choice of dates is pretty arbitrary. There's nothing inheritly special about it. It's a staple food in the middle east so it's what he had access to. If the prophet lived in east Asia, then he probably would have broke his fast with rice and then that we would be the thing we break our fast with.

Also the Quran is not like other texts when it comes to structure. It was "revealed" (or authored for the non-religious) over a span of 20+ years and usually in response to something that happened. It's really more a dialogue between god and the prophet and his companions in response to events (someone is being mean or trying to kill them) or if they need guidance or reassurance on something. That's why sometimes taking verses literally is often wrong.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#236

Post by uthinter »

dang wrote: post #101
islotr wrote: post #72

Just a reminder that Mohammed raped a nine-year-old girl, and women and girls under Islam are still suffering to this day under this perverse, misogynistic belief system. Eid Mubarak.

Please don't take HN into religious flamewar. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

This greeting shouldnt be on HN in the first place.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#237

Post by mkoubaa »

mardifoufs wrote: post #219
mkoubaa wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I and many others use calculations but some folks prefer the traditional method

Ah so it is just a preference? Is there usually an actual difference on when Eid is between the final "traditional" observation and the predicted calculations?

There are no official Muslim institutions, most people follow their congregation or teacher. The choice of who or what to follow is also a personal preference.

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#238

Post by uthinter »

dang wrote: post #176
b800h wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

That comment is still in the flamewar style. Score-settling is not in keeping with the spirit of intellectual curiosity that is supposed to animate this site: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html . As it happens, you could answer your question in a few seconds: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que... . But the idea of measuring these things to draw conclusions about who supposedly…

[flagged]

Re: Tell HN: Eid Mubarak

#240

Post by mkoubaa »

names_are_hard wrote: post #225
mkoubaa wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no Muslim authority or institutions, it's decentralized

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but my understanding was that GP is partially correct, in that the lunar sighting is not an individual thing, but done at the communal level by the central authority. It's just that like most religions, Islam has multiple streams, and this there are multiple central authorities. Is this not how it works? I'm not Muslim, this is what I understood from a Muslim coworker. He also implied…

The choice of which community or authority to follow is also a personal preference. People often express their preferences in a way that aligns them tribally in one sphere or another when given the choice, and the lunar calendar is (humorously) not an exception to that.

There are no central authorities, only a menu of organizations and traditions that one can choose from. In some cases there is social pressure to choose one, and that social pressure is sometimes intense enough so that it feels like there is a central authority.

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