Explaining it to an American Friend sattar2 #97 On hero worship: I believe I have already made my point clear in my earlier post below where I wrote ``The focus of the Quran is clearly on Allah, his creation, man`s responsibilities and so on. Prophet Muhammed is mentioned in terms of circumscribing his role to that of a ``warner``. The focus of many muslims - sunnis, shias, ahmedis - is on man, not on Allah. It is this shift in focus that amounts to hero-worship.`` You claim that I have am merely presenting baseless opinions or am joking when the above cutandpaste is neither baseless nor a joke - indeed it calls for studying the Quran with a clear mind and honestly drawing conclusions on what the basic thrust of the message is: Rather than simply going round and round on the same issue with me, I suggest you review the Quran with a view to seeing overall how many references there are to Allah, his creation, man`s responsibilities vs. towards Prophet Muhammed. It is indeed a sign of the greatness of the Prophet Muhammed and an indication of his honesty that he did not change the message delivered to him to exalt himself. It is the lowness of today`s muslims that they ignore the message delivered to them to exalt a human being. If the Prophet Muhammed was alive today, I have no doubt that he would be deeply saddened at the depths to which the muslims have fallen, and to the superstitious ways of the masses (who pray to men in graves to intervene with God on their behalf, and who refer to prophets as if they were demi-gods) and the evil ways of those who claim to be closer to God than ordinary people (these are the people the Quran specifically refers to as hypocrites and condemns in the strongest of terms) or (to take the worst cases) those heartless individuals who kill innocent people in mosques and churches and places of work in the name of religion.

Again, I am not saying that by holding different views than the one presented above you become a non-muslim or anything - you are free to hold your interpretations, but please do not keep trying to make me change mine when you have presented nothing convincing so far other than a definition of the term ``seal`` that I find is quite forced. I have iterated and reiterated (above) the basis on which I have formed my opinions.

I think at this stage we should just agree to disagree, and end this discussion. You have shown me no disrespect I agree, nor have I shown you any disrespect I hope you will agree. In case you felt hurt by anything I said (even jokingly) you have my regrets.

Explaining it to an American Friend sattar2 #68 You write ``...comments on hero-worship will be much appreciated.``, and here are my two-taka views on this:

1. The focus of the Quran is clearly on Allah, his creation, man`s responsibilities and so on. Prophet Muhammed is mentioned in terms of circumscribing his role to that of a ``warner``. The focus of many muslims - sunnis, shias, ahmedis - is on man, not on Allah. It is this shift in focus that amounts to hero-worship. Only yesterday I saw on TV a man singing praises of Muhammed as the ``Lord of the Worlds`` and to my mind this was a travesty of Islam. Shias add other men to Muhammed and ahmedis add another man. But, as I have repeatedly said, regardless of whether you are sunni or shia or ahmedi, the moment you start talking personalities and forget the message, you have gone off course.

2. In secular terms, we have hero-worship too. Men in power are venerated, poor men are rubbed into the dust.

3. What remains to be answered is this: Why are we unable to focus on concepts (like Allah) or principles (fairness, forgiveness, peace and so on) when the Quran emphasizes that, and find it easy to slip into worshipping (in de facto terms) ordinary men? The answer is simple: small minds focus on other people, better minds focus on principles.

As I have said, you have a right to be considered a muslim if that is what you think you are (since these are matters where even the Prophet is told in the Quran are not for him to decide), you do not have a right to claim that your interpretation of the Quran cannot be questioned. If we can agree on this, we can end this discussion.

Explaining it to an American Friend sattar2 #79 you write ``You accuse Ahmadi-Muslims of having a narrow definition of “seal”.`` and proceed to take me to task on this``. You are wrong since very clearly this is NOT what I wrote. Please read carefully what I wrote in post #66, which I am cutting and pasting for your convenience: ``I am being hard only on one very narrow specific point, namely USE of the term ``seal``. As should be clear to anyone, I consider the ISSUE OF THE SEAL to be ``one very narrow specific point``. Please think about it, since this is OUTSIDE THE BOX in which this issue is often discussed by both sunnis and ahmedis, and that is probably why you did not interpret what I wrote correctly.

You continue: ``Furthermore, you once again incorrectly accuse Ahmadis of hero-worship.`` Again, you are wrong. To continue my cut and paste from #66 this is what I wrote: ``And on one very broad point, namely that of hero-worship (in any form, secular heroworship of ataturk or jinnah, or ``religious`` heroworship of pirs, fakirs, prophets). `` As should be clear, this does not apply to ahmedis only.

It is impossible to have a discussion if you dont read what I have carefully written, and to interpret what I have written to match you preconceived notions rather than to what I have actually written. I should not have to cut and paste my posts (as I have had to do here) and spend my time trying to explain what you should have provided me the courtesy of reading properly the first time.