u/Proper_Cost2094

One of the things why I cannot ever identify myself as a Sunni is because very often Sunni teachers will tell me that hadith are part of the revelation. How can I accept this? These collectors lived 200-300 years after the Propeth.

People in Bosnia influenced me a lot to not declare myself a Shia or Sunni or anything other than just a Muslim. They also told me hadith are NOT a revelation, only the Qur'an is. Hadith are historic documents and records.

So this really made sense to me and whenever there is understanding in my head that the Qur'an tells me to do action A and the hadith Sunni/Shia tell me to do action B, I just do whatever I understood from the Qur'an and I keep it simple.

For example, look at the inheritance of Fatima a.s.

Qur'an tells us do action A

Abu Bakr tells he heard the Propeth say do action B.

Why should we do as Abu Bakr says?

Or

For example, look at the Kerbela.

Qur'an tells us not to kill the innocent.

Yazid orders us to kill the innocent.

Why should we do as Yazid says it?

Or

For example, the Qur'an tells us not to be divided

These Salafi tell us to hate Shia.

Why should we do as these Salafists say?

Or

For example the Qur'an tells us marythers are alive.

No hadith tells us they are dead.

Salafists tell us they are dead.

Why should we believe these Salafists say?

So for me in my understanding:

1. Follow the Qur'an

2. Then take something from the hadith if it doesn't violate the Qur'an

3. Then listen to other people like idk... Sahabas or Imams.

But what if a Shia person understands somehow that the teaching of Imams in one instance tell him to do action B whereas the Qur'an tells him to do action A?

What do they do?

(I am not saying that the teachings of Shia Imams or Bukhari hadith contradict the Qur'an. I am just proposing that our understanding maybe sometimes tells us to do opposite actions if we read the Qur'an and if we read these Hadith).

So what do you?

What do you choose?

It's a theoretical question and please understand I am not even proposing or questioning Shia vs Sunni.

I am just trying to understand.

Whenever I read about Syria I see some really weird stuff and I just wonder why?

1. Syrian ruler Yazid massacred the family of the Messenger. There are reports he hit the face of Hussain with a stick and shoved a stick into his teeth.
2. On top of that I read that the main collaborators of the British against the Turks were the Syrians.
3. Now I saw in the news Syrian president with Trump and Trump spraying him with some perfume of "victory".

I just wonder like what do Syrians believe in?

Is your religion or interpretation of moral and Islam the same like we have in Bosnia? Or what would be main differences from your ideology from us?

I just wonder if regular Syrians support these actions done by your leaders or your country?

(I am not a troll and don't have any intentions, and I never met a single Syrian in my life, I just want to know what a regular Syrian thinks?)

Whenever I read about Syria I see some really weird stuff and I just wonder why?

1. Syrian ruler Yazid massacred the family of the Messenger. There are reports he hit the face of Hussain with a stick and shoved a stick into his teeth.
2. On top of that I read that the main collaborators of the British against the Turks were the Syrians.
3. Now I saw in the news Syrian president with Trump and Trump spraying him with some perfume of "victory".

I just wonder like what do Syrians believe in?

Is your religion or interpretation of moral and Islam the same like we have in Bosnia? Or what would be main differences from your ideology from us?

I just wonder if regular Syrians support these actions done by your leaders or your country?

(I am not a troll and don't have any intentions, and I never met a single Syrian in my life, I just want to know what a regular Syrian thinks?)

Whenever I read about Syria I see some really weird stuff and I just wonder why?

1. Syrian ruler Yazid massacred the family of the Messenger. There are reports he hit the face of Hussain with a stick and shoved a stick into his teeth.
2. On top of that I read that the main collaborators of the British against the Turks were the Syrians.
3. Now I saw in the news Syrian president with Trump and Trump spraying him with some perfume of "victory".

I just wonder like what do Syrians believe in?

Is your religion or interpretation of moral and Islam the same like we have in Bosnia? Or what would be main differences from your ideology from us?

I just wonder if regular Syrians support these actions done by your leaders or your country?

(I am not a troll and don't have any intentions, and I never met a single Syrian in my life, I just want to know what a regular Syrian thinks?)

Whenever I read about Syria I see some really weird stuff and I just wonder why?

1. Syrian ruler Yazid massacred the family of the Messenger. There are reports he hit the face of Hussain with a stick and shoved a stick into his teeth.
2. On top of that I read that the main collaborators of the British against the Turks were the Syrians.
3. Now I saw in the news Syrian president with Trump and Trump spraying him with some perfume of "victory".

I just wonder like what do Syrians believe in?

Is your religion or interpretation of moral and Islam the same like we have in Bosnia? Or what would be main differences from your ideology from us?

I just wonder if regular Syrians support these actions done by your leaders or your country?

(I am not a troll and don't have any intentions, and I never met a single Syrian in my life, I just want to know what a regular Syrian thinks?)

Hello, as someone who

1. comes from Europe (Bosnia)

2. whos mother was catholic and my father a communist

3. who speaks only European languages, Russian, Bosnian, German and English

4. Someone who has never been to any Arabic country

I maybe lack some cultural background on this issue.

But I converted to Islam and from my understanding I learned that Qur'an is the ultimate word from God.

However, yesterday a person calling himself a "Salafi" attacked me for rejecting another book in one instance.

I was reading about how the daughter of the Messenger was left without inheritance based on narration of a single person Abu Bakr and the narration was in a clear violation of the Qur'anic orders on inheritance. I in my heart I felt that I cannot judge who was wrong or right since confusion just appears like that out of nowhere but I believed that our duty is to follow what we understand from the Qur'an at that point. So I believe Fatima was right and we should have obeyed or justified the Qur'an and not rely on human transmission or memory >> to feel free to violate the Qur'anic command.

He then attacked me ?!?! Called me a Shia?!

He told me I will burn in hell?

He sent me a bunch of lectures by some imam called "Safet Kuduzovic" who started claiming that this book Buhari came as a "lid to cover the Qur'an" and that it ultimately "judges the Qur'anic rules". He went on to claim that the memory of this peron was so great it was clear he was Got sent to note down and classify the revalation.

I am started and puzzled by these claims?!

1. Since when are we supposed to take another book and follow it above the Qur'an itself?

2. Since when were were to expect another person to come after the Messenger to "classify" what is the revelation and what not?

These things go to the very core of the Shahada I took and to the core of Tewhid.

I am puzzled that this person or this teaching is so arrogant to claim that I am an infidel ? Yet he makes such claims about the Qur'an and about the new person after the Messenger that made blood in my arteries freeze.

Please understand that I do not reject this book by Buhari collector but I just subordinate it to the Qur'an and if it tells me to do something opposite of Qur'anic rules, I'll politely decline. That's all...

Can anyone clarify why was I attacked?

Which part am I missing here?

For example in the famous case of inheritance: Abu Bakr vs Fatima, Ali, Abbas, wives...

We clearly imposed an exception to Qur'ans rulings because we believe Abu Bakr and we believe that he remembers correctly what the Messenger a.s. told him.

We believe the science of chain of transmitters and the classification of Bukhari that labels it as sahih.

My question is:

- Do you allow human memory, human transmission and science of hadith to override Qur'anic laws?

- If yes, Is that not Bidʿah? In fact, wouldn't that be technically shirk?

As an ex-Sunni, I ask this question primarily towards the Sunnis and especially the Salafists who attempt to imitate the historic records of the Salaf (early generations)

For example in the famous case inheritance of Abu Bakr vs Fatima, Ali, Abbas, wives...

We clearly imposed an exception to Qur'ans rulings because we believe Abu Bakr and we believe that he remembers correctly what the Messenger a.s. told him.

We believe the science of chain of transmitters and the classification of Bukhari that labels it as sahih.

My question is:
- Do you allow human memory, human transmission and science of hadith to override Qur'anic laws?

- If yes, Is that not Bidʿah? In fact, wouldn't that be technically shirk?

I was born in Bosnia and grew up in Germany and the U.S. I speak only European languages Russian, Bosnian, German and English... so I might lack the linguistic and cultural background on these issues.

The people who are most harsh towards me are migrants/refugees from Syria and some Egyptians.

In Bosnia however, majority of people call themselves "just Muslim" and many if not most of us believe that calling yourself and especially dying as anything else other than just a Muslim is a sin.

Some imams however did tell me we are officially Sunnis. That prompted me to research Sunni beliefs and after realizing a few things**, I distanced myself declaratively from Sunnism primarily because of shirk understanding.**

My main points about shirk with Sunnism that were concerning to me:

1. Sunnis accept a hadith even if it clearly contradicts Qur'an and even if only one person (trustworthy companion) transmitted it. A famous example of this is Abu Bakr vs Fatima, Ali, Abbas and wives on inheritance. In my opinion this is a huge violation of our core understanding of what is a Gods word and what not.

2. Sunnis also consider sahih hadith to be a form of a DIVINE REVALATION. Hadith were transmitted by humans and classification was done by humans and to consider that divine is yet another serious violation against Gods words. I am not saying that hadith are useless or all wrong. But a human scientific made up classification cannot be divine or it cannot decide what is divine and what not. Such thinking makes my inner chest upset.

3. Recently some Sunnis in my opinion consider everything to be shirk. For example, if a Shia calls living and the dead to worship and pray to Allah, they say that's shirk. From my understanding, the shirk would be "Don't pray to Allah, you without Allah Mr. XYZ can give me this or that, so please give me that". That would be shirk right? Asking others to worship and pray only to Allah is not shirk. If for example I ask that to a DEAF or BLIND person and that person cannot hear me or see me, yet I believe he somehow will, did I commit shirk? No... I am just asking him to pray and worship only Allah.

This lack of understanding of what is shirk is scary to me and I believe it can easily lead to conflicts and us actually doing shirk and also accusing others of doing shirk who are actually NOT doing it. Please note I do not accuse anyone of doing shirk, only Allah knows what is in our hearts.

So I have two questions:

1. Am I mistaking somewhere?
2. If I am not mistaking, how can I respond to this harrasment in mosques? I am hiding my beliefs now as if I am some criminal or something now and it feels wrong. But these people attacked me just last night after I stated my opinion.

So essentially I was raised a Sunni but most Bosnians actually think it's at least mekruh if not haram to call oneself a Sunni or Shia or anything other than just a Muslim. In Bosnia more than 60% of the population considers the unity as maybe one of the most important things in faith.

I recently was exposed to more information about the whole Sunni vs Shia conflict and there are some points that Sunnis keep bringing up as a reason why Shia are not Muslims.

1. They seek help from Allah by asking shaheeds and the Messenger to make dua for them. They call it tawasool.
2. They consider their 12 imams to be "protected from any sin".
3. Shia consider Muawiya and Yazid to be criminals of worst kind and they are often skeptic of Abu Bakr. Some extreme ones, often on a pay roll from the west will incite hate and insult Abu Bakr and curse him. That is mostly forbidden by their imams. However I did discover that they are skeptic of Abu Bakr when I talked to them. They did not use bad words like they did for Yazid.
4. Most people pick up what Alewites are doing and they blame the entire Shia for that. I will not discuss this because I believe anyone with 2 brain cells left and an atom of honesty in his heart will not claim such a false thing.

So I would like to ask Sunnis, why do these points make them not muslims or mushriks or guilty of shirk?

1. Tawasool as they call it is essentially just thinking that the Messenger s.a.w.s is there for them to make shefaat just the way he was there for all the other early Muslims. In essence, if the people were told to ask Messenger to pray for them, why should we stop? Just because he passed away? This is a mere technical question rather than trying to say the Messenger s.a.w.s is omnipresent and all-knowing and powerful without Gods willing. In essence, they are just saying that the Islam and the Messenger are equally good to us the way they were to the early Muslims and we are not deprived of his shefaat.
Through my research as well I discovered multiple hadith stating that the dead can hear us and also multiple ayat stating that if the Messenger asks for our forgivness, we would discover that God forgives. So why jump and scream shirk? I really try to be honest here and to understand their belief because it's a matter of beliving and they don't believe that the Messenger a.s. or Ali r.a. can do anything for them other than pray. So really, how is that shirk? They do not claim that 100% Ali will hear them or the Messenger a.s. will hear them and make dua for them. Instead they hope next to their grave or that Allah might send meleks to bring the message to our Messenger a.s. So really... On top of that, even if we are 100% sure that Shaheeds are "dead" as so many people claim here and state in the comments and they 100% cannot hear us, then we hope that on the day of judgement, it will be shown what we did and that we tried to preserve their deeds in hopes of shefaat? So really.... there are so many explanations why this is not shirk. We tent to ignore all of those explanations and we try to insert a belief into the Shia mind with our own words "Oh you BELIEVE ALI CAN HELP YOU!!". I really think that Sunnis are wrong. If you can explain to me why you think otherwise, I'm glad to listen.

2. I disagree with their belief of imams protected from sin. But sunnis believe Prophet Yahya a.s. was protected from sin as well. This is not a GODLY feature to be protected from sin. Some Sunnis believe that Mohammad a.s. was sinless as well, despite being ordered to pray for forgivness for his sins. So really they are just saying, our imams are as sinless as Prophet Yahya a.s.. Is this wrong? Probably it is... But is it shirk? No. Claiming that one human is as good as the other, is not shirk. It might be injustice or disrespect to the Prophet Yahya a.s. or Gods words about our sins, but still, it is not shirk nor something godly that human cannot possibly be. Clearly Prophet Yahya a.s. was that since God made him that. So no matter how wrong this belief might sound, isn't it false to call it shirk?

3. This is THE most controversial part about Sunni claims I really cannot accept. In Shia Islam for example, despite claiming that Ali is sinless, if their hadith opposes Qur'an, they flat out reject it, irrelevant of how accurate the chain of transmission is and how many transmitters there were. They would never follow a word of Sahabas over Qur'an to do something opposite. In Sunnis however, a hadith is accepted EVEN if it clearly opposes Qur'an and there is ONLY 1 transmitter. A famous hadith is when Fatima, Ali, Abbas and Messenger wives all wanted inheritance and Abu Bakr claimed that the Messenger told him, no one can inherit the Messenger. At the time, there was not a single person who heard the Messenger state so. Some people years after stated "they knew about the hadith". But that hadith clearly opposed Qur'an and there was just one person who claimed it, Abu Bakr. The others however including the entire family of the Messenger a.s. stated otherwise. Could it be, really that all of them remembered incorrectly? Or were not informed about this? Could it be that not a single one of them actually came out and said "Yes Abu Bakr is right..". This is my problem with Sunni methodology. This in my opinion literally equates to shirk, when you not only accidentally or for evil means follow the word of a man over Gods word, but you instead develop a belief system and a methodology that ensures mans word can top the Gods word. I believe this is very very dangerous and a very sloppy way to validate hadith. It borders with shirk. Your only line of defense in this case would be "I didn't think it through deeply, had I thought about it, I would have rejected Abu Bakrs word and accepted Gods word".

And it only gets worse... Sunnis claim that the transmission of hadith along with the classification conducted by Bukhari indeed is a divine revelation. This is an extreme form of shirk in my opinion because the classification itself is a human made construct done precisely because hadith were so chaotic and illogical. To give DIVINE power to human invented methods is in my opinion the biggest occurrence of shirk within the Ummah.
I don't want to state that hadith are bad. I for example follow hadith. But I keep that 1% of the doubt always when I read hadith and yes even if it comes from Abu Bakr r.a.

So in my opinion, as someone who was raised a sunni then transitioned to just be a muslim, honestly... I see Sunnis as much closer to shirk than the Shia.

I would have more things to ask but the post would simply be too big and I really want to get clear answers if some of you are knowledgable.

Please understand I was born in Bosnia, grew up in USA and Germany and then lived in Bosnia again. I speak only European languages, Bosnian, German, Russian and English. So a cultural and a linguistic barrier might be making it harder for me to find answers on my own. Arabic is a rich language.

Thank you in advance for whoever participates and helps us all maybe find some path out of this catastrophic state we're all in as Ummah.

I passed STEP1 and STEP2 and I was hoping to match next year.
However, I was offered a residency spot by a professor who I worked with in the past in Switzerland.
Yes in Switzerland, Germany and Austria, professors have the authority and power to sometimes just offer you a place and even if you interrupt or leave your old residency position, no one will care later.

But knowing how much I studied for the steps, I am having second thoughts now... Is it better in the States or CH?
I studied at Heidelberg, Germany.
My English is really good but I do have a thick accent.
My German is perfect of course and German is the official language in Switzerland.

Where is it better to work and practice? USA vs Switzerland?
Where do you make more?
What is your opinion in general?