TJ

@SYED_A_L_I This is a Sunni program, 100% free. Runs on pubic donations. seekersguidance.org

@TJcban The hawza programme of AMI is the only one that I find interesting : study.almahdi.edu/visitor_class_…

Bro’s lowkey right, ofc the experts & scholars teaching these courses deserve to charge a reasonable amount for the valuable content they provide but it should also be fair for the consumers (students) as well 😬🤐

@SYED_A_L_I full time BA? that's $2600 for a Quranic Arabic Certificate. A Certificate! The cost is clearly being set by the platform people in this case Blogging Theology and Mufid.

@TJcban He is but we cannot fault him for setting the high prices, can we ? + A full time BA still has more value than a mere creedal text

@SYED_A_L_I you think he is not getting paid at all? I mean I am all for paying and getting cash to scholars. So I don't use that as any criticism.

@TJcban but ig he was just teaching there as a guest faculty i.e he does not have any ownership / managerial roles From what I am aware ,all of his courses that he has recorded are uploaded on his YT channel

@SYED_A_L_I mufidseminary.org/financial-aid

@TJcban Link ?

@SYED_A_L_I I mean this guy charges too. $2600 for Quranic Arabic. Big deal.

@omar_dddg Beautiful post. I don't think this type of analysis has been done before.

How Salafi were the Salaf? Let’s look at the example of one of the greatest figures of the Salaf, Muawiya bin Abi Sufyan (RA), first generation, Sahabi, and a Salafi icon. His personal physician was a Christian. His court poet, the celebrated Akhtal, was a Christian who wrote panegyrics in his honour and was permitted to enter the caliph's presence wearing a cross around his neck and smelling of wine. His finance minister and close advisor Sarjun ibn Mansur was a Christian, and this man's son John of Damascus, later canonised as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church, grew up in the Umayyad court and became one of the most important Christian theologians of the medieval world. These are all easy to check historical facts in classical books like Ibn Asaker’s Tareekh Dimashq and Al Aghani by Abdulfarak al Asfhani. Muawiya's wife Maysun bint Bahdal, the mother of his son and successor Yazid, was a Christian Arab from the Banu Kalb tribe who is reported to have remained Christian or to have returned to Christianity, depending on the source. The question of Yazid's religious formation under a Christian mother is one the sources dance around but never fully address. The Salaf were not very Salafi? Contemporary Salafi discourse on wala' wal bara' (loyalty and disavowal) treats close personal, professional, and domestic relationships with non-Muslims as deeply problematic, often citing Quranic verses enjoining believers not to take disbelievers as awliya against Muslims (allies, intimates, protectors). Muawiya's governance model, in which Christians occupied positions of real administrative and personal trust, would generate serious questions in Salafi circles. Not very Salafi? Muawiya also rose to the caliphate involved armed conflict against Ali ibn Abi Talib, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law, whom the overwhelming majority of the community had recognised as the legitimate caliph. He was basically the OG of going against the Waliy al Amr. He maintained the Byzantine administrative system in Syria for decades after the conquest, adopted elements of court protocol from Persian and Byzantine models, and built what was in effect a hybrid Arabo-Christian administrative culture in the Levant that bore little resemblance to the imagined simplicity of the Medinan polity. The Umayyad caliphate, which was built by the Salaf and governed by their immediate successors, produced the Dome of the Rock, one of the most magnificent buildings in human history, constructed with Byzantine craftsmen using Byzantine artistic conventions, with figurative mosaics covering its interior walls. It administered a vast pluralist empire in which Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians held positions of real importance. It patronised the translation movement that brought Greek philosophy into Arabic. None of this fits the template of the movement that claims to embody the Salaf's legacy. Not very Salafi? Muawiya would not merely fail a few peripheral tests of contemporary Salafi orthopraxy. His entire mode of being in the world, his relationships, his governance model, his political methods, his cultural environment, represents something that the movement named after his era has largely defined itself against.

@Tsunalyst it has everything - history preserved and remembered, art and architecture that's human scaled, literature and books, public transportation, mosques 😉

@TJcban Yeah it’s one of the reasons I love visiting there especially. A well-developed public transportation system is necessary in any decent city.

Part of the beauty of traveling to another country is that I don’t have to drive. I love driving across scenic routes, but for the most part cars are a cancer whose invention has set us back—there’s nothing civilized about them. Trains are a hallmark of true development.

@Tsunalyst This why should have more physicists and doers/builders etc. than islamic diplomas from Birmingham.

Amazes me how people see everything that’s occurred over the past few decades, and now look very clearly at Gaza, and still parrot “International Law” nonsense. You either get bombs to drop when needed or have bombs dropped on you. The beginning and the end revolves around power.

@rupasubramanya You don't need to speak about Canada and China relations, continue to focus on India's lack of relations with China, US and its even its old allies like Russia and Iran.

Remember when Canada’s tiny delegation of five ministers went to China to revive a very limited “strategic partnership,” and MAGA plus MAGA North had a collective meltdown, accusing Canada of selling out? The funny thing is, I always suspected Trump, like Carney, would ultimately be pragmatic about China. The outrage was always more about mocking and putting Canada down than anything else.

@omar_dddg @ismaellini For all practical purposes Shia 12ers have become Sunnis till the arrival of the Mahdi.

I mean whats the point of it? You say it was ordained by the Prophet (pbuh), but the Sunnis disagree, and that debate will never be agreed on, but what remains is: why? We can both explain the reason for Islam, for tawhid, for Salat, for not following the Trinity and how it reflects on the individual, but I am struggling to understand what the Imamat adds or has been adding to Shias? It’s your entire separating doctrine, so you should surely be able to explain why you’re better off as a Shia than being a Sunni because of the Imamat?

A genuine question to Shias. What’s the point of the concept of the Infallible Imamat? In what way is the average Shia a better Muslim than the average Sunni because of the Imamat? Does it make them a better a Muslim? Do they give more charity? Do they pray with more Khushuu’? Genuinely, what is the point of the whole concept?

@Whitedr26188014 @omar_dddg u moved goal posts here. I asked how u preserve from the imams since no Imam is present to confirm/deny. u don't have a response as it's the same method others use. u claim Sunni's claim divine knowledge is lost, not true as it goes against Quranic principles and Gods promise.

@TJcban @omar_dddg You’re missing the point. The question is why an infallible Imam is needed. According to your sect, the divine knowledge was effectively lost. We say nothing was lost, it remains with al-Mahdi (a.s), and that is why he will fill the earth with justice & implement TRUE Sharia.

@Whitedr26188014 @omar_dddg How do you know what an Imam said? And that it is indeed true and not a fabrication?

@TJcban @omar_dddg Our hadith corpus preserves all the Islamic laws a person needs, as they were written down directly during the time of our Imams. We don't need isnads. Ismailis & 12ers maintain a route to a living Imam . Your sect has no such route, lost tafsir, laws, all info, simply GONE.

@ibnace3 @sajjadkaswani @omar_dddg Zaydi's are practically Sunni.

@sajjadkaswani @omar_dddg Musta'lis too they have same incoherent argument. You Nizaris are at least consistent. You have your Imam and Zaydis don't beleive in a specific hereditary line.

@Whitedr26188014 @omar_dddg you r basically proving Omar's point. How do u know what the Imam's said? Is there a living one amongst u to confirm or deny? So u rely on Isnad? Exactly following the Sunni approach thereby being no different today. Only exception would be Ismailis who can claim what you said.

@omar_dddg According to your own sect, only around 5,000 Sahih hadith remain. That means the knowledge passed from Adam to Prophet Muhammad ﷺ , tafsir, deeper teachings, guidance is just lost. Unless, Allah left a divinely guided representative on Earth to preserve it. Imamat is essential

@azizhp @omar_dddg Good response. Omar's point though, clearer in his follow ups, what's point of it and how does it separate Shia's from Sunnis in a meaningful way when Shias are relying on Isnad etc. Basically following a similar methodology in the absence of an Imam. Only diff being Ismailis.

i cant answer your question because the use of the word "better" and "more" is just not knowable. I am 100% sure there are "better" Muslims than me but Allah knows best. You just have to do your best and keep trying to rctify your deficiencies in Deen im not even sure what you are asking honestly

@siaro313 @omar_dddg Zaidis, Ismailis, Bohra Shia are present and alive and in large numbers.

@TJcban @omar_dddg If you're gonna count extinct groups then Sunnism has 100,000 groups

@siaro313 @omar_dddg He is questioning the concept of the infallible imam. its not just a twelver thing. you know that. Ismailis believe in it too. And even in your one fiqh school you have differences of opinion btw marjas, like the Sunnis. Again, how are you any different with the imam not present?

@TJcban @omar_dddg If you took time to use some reading comprehension you would realize he is obviously referring to Twelver Shiism as he's talking about the infallible Imams. 95% of people who identify as Shia are Twelver so it's obvious he's talking about us. We have the largest main sources too

@taktakhgf2 @omar_dddg I mean if you want to by pass logic so be it. But logically you do not have an argument. Your argument is based on isnad of revelation, which is the point all along. It's a matter of belief.

@TJcban @omar_dddg You can't use my logic against me. Because you don't understand this logic or the very essence of the Imamate. You see the Imamate and the Imam only as superficial, as an ordinary person who governs only his followers.

@siaro313 @omar_dddg But you don't. You have the 12'ers, Ismailis, Bohris, Zaydis, and many others that went extinct.

@omar_dddg You have a clearer and more coherent religion in all aspects, 1 theological school, 1 fiqh school, 1 akhlaar school. Of course there will still be some matters which can cause differences of opinions but it's minute compared to the Sunnis. Read thaqalayn.net/book/9 it's short