Islam as in the Quran Many people know Islam only from the news: bombings, oppressed women, harsh punishments. Is this Islam? No. It is an image built by human beings over centuries. The Quran, the only book all Muslims agree on, presents a religion of mercy, freedom, justice and peace. Here it is, ruling by ruling, with the evidence and the reason. 1. Independent Reasoning, and How It Was Suppressed Ijtihad means using your own mind to understand religion. The Prophet encouraged it: “When a judge reasons and is right, he has two rewards; when he reasons and is wrong, he has one reward” (al-Bukhari and Muslim). Muslims never had one reading of Islam: the Mu’tazila, the Qadariyya, the Jahmiyya, the Murji’a, the four Sunni schools, and the Shia schools all differed. Christianity and Judaism are the same: Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants; Orthodox, Reform and Conservative Jews. No one owns the absolute truth. The problem was power, not disagreement. Ghaylan al-Dimashqi, al-Ja’d ibn Dirham and Jahm ibn Safwan were killed for their opinions. Al-Hajjaj killed the scholar Sa’id ibn Jubayr. When the Mu’tazila ruled, Ahmad ibn Hanbal was imprisoned and flogged; later the Mu’tazila were crushed in turn. Rulers used religious extremism to make people fearful and obedient, so that opposing the ruler felt like rebelling against God. Around 300 years after the Prophet, people were told “the door of ijtihad is closed”. Neither the Quran nor the Prophet said this. Today the Quran is in every phone, and no one can close that door again. 2. Why the Quranist Approach Is the Strongest Every earlier school built on the sayings of men. The Quranists build on the Quran itself: one preserved text, read with the same letters by every Muslim. The hadith collections were compiled 240 to 290 years after the Prophet. Most narrations are “solitary” and yield only probability. Some contradict each other (“There is no contagion” and “Flee from the leper”), and some contradict the Quran: the Quran says “There is no compulsion in religion”, a narration says “Whoever changes his religion, kill him”. The rule is simple: what agrees with the Quran is accepted; what contradicts it is rejected. Aisha, the Prophet’s wife, did exactly this when she rejected a narration with a verse of the Quran. And the Quran’s own measure is: “God intends for you ease, not hardship” (2:185). 3. Freedom of Religion No one is forced into Islam, and no one is punished in this world for leaving it. “There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256). “Whoever wills, let him believe; whoever wills, let him disbelieve” (18:29). The Quran mentions people who believed, disbelieved, then believed again (4:137), which would be impossible if apostates were killed. The reason: faith lives in the heart, and the heart cannot be forced. 4. Jihad and Non-Muslims Fighting is for self-defense only, and stops when the enemy asks for peace: “Fight those who fight you, but do not transgress” (2:190); “If they incline to peace, incline to it” (8:61). The “great jihad” in the Quran is with words and argument (25:52). The verses of fighting are not cancelled; they are conditional on real aggression, like the right of self-defense in every country’s law: it exists, but no one uses it unless attacked. With non-Muslims, the rule is peace, kindness and justice (60:8). The Quran even made protecting churches and synagogues a purpose of defense (22:40). God made us “peoples and tribes so that you may know one another” (49:13). 5. Prayer The Quran makes two prayers obligatory, at dawn and sunset: “Establish prayer at the two ends of the day” (11:114). No verse mentions five prayers; that number came from narrations recorded centuries later. Establishing prayer is a shared duty of society: like brothers cleaning a house, if some do it, the house is clean and the tired one is not blamed. At its root, prayer is supplication and rest for the soul: “I am near; I answer the call of the caller” (2:186). Even al-Bukhari and Muslim report the Prophet saying that whoever says “There is no god but God” enters Paradise, “even if he commits adultery and steals”. God’s mercy is wider than our rules. 6. Fasting Fasting in Ramadan is better, but whoever is able and chooses not to, feeds a poor person for each day: “Upon those who are able is a ransom: feeding a poor person... and to fast is better for you” (2:184). Hunger is not the goal; mercy to the poor is. 7. Alcohol The Quran advises avoiding alcohol because it causes enmity and turns people from God (5:91), but it sets no worldly punishment for drinking. The companions themselves disagreed on the number of lashes, and Abu Hanifa permitted some drinks that do not intoxicate. 8. Women Women are equal to men in dignity and rights: “He created you from a single soul” (4:1). Modesty is one standard for both: the Quran tells men first, then women, to lower their gaze and guard their chastity (24:30–31). It asks women to cover the chest, not the hair or the face. 9. No Beating of Wives The word “daraba” in 4:34 has many meanings in the Quran: to travel, to set an example, to open a path. Here it means to separate. Hitting contradicts “affection and mercy” (30:21) and “live with them in kindness” (4:19). Aisha said the Prophet never struck a woman (Sahih Muslim). 10. Aisha’s Age The “age nine” narration appears in al-Bukhari, compiled over 200 years after the Prophet. History says otherwise: her sister Asma was ten years older and died in 73 AH at 100, which makes Aisha about 18 or 19 at marriage. The Quran ties marriage to maturity (4:6). 11. Marriage and Living Together Marriage in the Quran is a public covenant between two consenting adults, with commitment and the woman’s financial right (4:4, 4:21). A stable, openly declared relationship built on consent and responsibility fulfills its essence. The Quran forbids only secret relationships without commitment (5:5). Requiring a guardian or witnesses came from jurists; Abu Hanifa allowed a woman to marry herself. And no verse forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a Christian or Jewish man. 12. Punishments No stoning: the Quran’s only punishment for adultery is flogging, with four eyewitnesses (24:2, 24:4), and a married slave gets “half” the punishment (4:25); death cannot be halved. No cutting off of hands: “hand” in the Quran often means power (48:10), “cutting” means stopping (29:29), and the next verse opens the door of repentance (5:39). Prison, fines and restitution achieve the deterrence. 13. Ethics Before Rituals The Quran condemns “those who pray” yet withhold kindness from others (107). Worship that does not make a person honest and merciful has no value. 14. Extremism Is Not Islamic The Kharijites were the first to declare Muslims unbelievers and kill them. The Quran says: “Do not say to one who offers you peace, ‘You are not a believer’” (4:94). Extremism is made by politics and injustice, not religion. Christianity had the Crusades and the Inquisition. The Tamil Tigers and the IRA, who were not Muslims, carried out bombings over what they saw as injustice. Muslims are no exception. Understanding the cause does not justify it: “Whoever kills a soul, it is as if he had killed all of mankind” (5:32). The cure is justice, and returning to the Quran itself. Conclusion The Islam of the Quran forces no one, fights no one who lives in peace, does not oppress women, and does not make worship a burden. The invitation is simple: read the Quran yourself, and think with your own mind. Links https://libral.org/vb/showthread.php?t=194841 https://libral.org/vb/archive/index.php/t-195186.html https://libral.org/vb/showthread.php?t=283284