The Baha'i Studies Listserv On Wed, Sep 15, 2010 at 10:10 PM, Susan Maneck <[email protected]> wrote: > The Baha'i Studies Listserv > Just as from an outsider's perspective it is >> weird to call Mormons non-Christians or to call the Ahmadiyya >> non-Muslims. > > Are you willing to accept Ahmadis as Muslims, Gilberto?
Your question makes me think don't really understand my point. But to answer your question, I'm basically of two opinions: Based on a fairly widespread definition it is my understanding that the Lahoris are but the Qadianis probably aren't. This is because for many Muslims an absolute condition for being Muslim is to believe that Muhammad (saaws) was the chronologically last prophet. (The Lahoris say Mirza Ghulam Ahmad was the mahdi and a mujaddid but they don't call him a prophet). On the other hand, last year I also read "On the Boundaries of Theological Tolerance in Islam" which is Sherman Jackson's commentary and translation of Al-Ghazali's Faysal al-Tafriqa. In any case, Ghazali seems to argue for a much more inclusive definition of "muslim" which would probably include the Qadianis as well. Either way (and this is my point) a non-Muslim is less inclined to care about the fine details and would probably consider anyone "Muslims" who says they believe in Muhammad, the Quran and calls themselves Muslim. An interesting note: In the middle of this "Ground Zero Mosque" issue and examples of Islamaphobia which are reminiscent of anti-Black racism, a group has formed calling itself the Coalition of African-American Muslims. Something I found interesting is that the gathering included several different Black Sunni Muslims meeting on a panel along with Louis Farrakhan. > I don't think it is weird to consider Mormons non-Christians at all, > because their beliefs very clearly depart from any standard definition > of Christianity. They certainly have distinctive beliefs but every church has their own distinctive beliefs or practices ... that's why at some point they split off from some other church. And when those splits were fresh, some of the mutual recrimination was certainly intenses. When the Reformation was going on, I'm sure Catholics were saying Protestants were non-Christian and vice-versa. But then over time Catholics started to have a more mellow notion of the Church which included non-Catholics. The only reason I might call them Christians is > because that is what they call themselves, but I'm certainly not > critical of Christians who says they are not. At least in this thread, I'm not criticizing Bahais for refering to groups like the Orthodox Bahais or Bahais Under the Provision of the Covenant etc. as non-Bahais. But I wouldn't expect outsiders who don't have a dog in the fight to follow the same rules. __________________________________________________ You are subscribed to Baha'i Studies as: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe: send a blank email to mailto:leave-526921-27401.54f46e81b66496c9909bcdc2f7987...@list.jccc.edu Subscribe: send subscribe bahai-st in the message body to [email protected] Or subscribe: http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=bahai-st Baha'i Studies is available through the following: Mail - mailto:[email protected] Web - http://list.jccc.edu:8080/read/?forum=bahai-st News (on-campus only) - news://list.jccc.edu/bahai-st Old Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] New Public - http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
