The Shia hold the Shahada and it is not the same as the one the Alawites has. the Shia's Shahada is identical to the Sunni, except with an addition at the end that Ali is the friend of Muhammad. getting from friend/imam to god is pretty drastic i might say and usually imply needing a new religion.
Shahada and Tawhid are not identical, it's the whole reason for the different meanings of Imams in Sunnism and Shiite religion. Meaning here, means everything.
I quoted the Shia "Pillars of the Religion" and if you are not playing semantics on me, then that's exactly what they are, only they named them Roots of the Religion. the difference is that the Shia still hold the Sunni pillars, but as secondary duties. this is totally besides the point, because as i said if the Alawite's core belief contradicts with any one of these "Pillars" or "Roots" then they can't be called Shia. since Alawites contradict the first pillar (Which in this case is shared both by Sunni and Shia as the Sunni Shahada is identical in essence to Al-Tahwid), they can't even be called Muslims. as for the other pillars, sorry, but this discussion is not interesting enough for me to waste time on it since it doesn't really matter.
You quoted the Sunni pillars of Islam and said they're identical to the Shiite Principles. If you were being honest, you would've posted the Shiite principles, and you would've also noted the Nusayri hold onto the pillars in addition to their exegetic tradition that does not hold scripture literally as fundamentalists do and add spiritualism to it. The Hajj is not just a physical journey from one place to another, for them it is as much a spiritual journey from a place of one understanding to a higher one. There are similarities, but the differences are the reason why Sunni and Shiite are not both Sunni or both Shiite, why Alawite are not Twelver. That is before even taking into account the different prescriptions and emphasis on the Sunni pillars vs the Shiite principles and the sect differences. So far you have demonstrated that Alawites are not Sunni, which is besides the point, because they are not Sunni. If we are to believe you, then the Zaidiyyah, the Ismali - heck, even the Twelvers would be non-Muslims, which is completely ludicrous. And they don't contradict the first principle, and if you haven't taken care, you will learn that the meaning of words prescribe beliefs which are at the core of the interstrife, you are yet to demonstrate so without resorting to comparisons to polytheists when they're clearly monotheists who believe in one God. If this discussion is not interesting enough for you, why did you start it by posting lies in a politics thread? This was not an academic point of interest, you posted this in the politics thread to alter the political discourse. Now the big question is why would you have any motive to reduce sympathy for Alawites by declaring them non-Muslim polytheists in a politics thread when the topic is Alawites fighting a life or death struggle against Salafists who use the line that they're non-Muslim polytheists to justify ethnically cleansing them? You either cared so little about your words that you unthinkingly reposted ISIS propaganda from /pol/ or you are actually being malevolent here, my faith in humanity leads me to believe it's the former.
Now, you can argue philosophy all day long, but what we are debating is religious theology and in this case Islam totally and unconditionally rejects any sort of Trinity, emanations or god incarnated and it doesn't matter to them nor me if you can't seem to grasp the difference between Islam's monotheism and the Alawites Trinity.
Lecture me all day if you actually know what you're talking about, but by your own admission you don't give a crap about the topic and you don't know the basic differences between even Sunni and Shiite, let alone between the sects of Shiite Islam. The Alawite triad is not the same as having three Gods, it is not even the same to the Christian Trinity. It is the emanation of one God, it is divinity that originates from one God. That you're using Sunni mainstream Orthodoxy to attack a sect within the Shiite branch already has alarm bells ringing.
Alawites are called Alawites because the French decided to call them that seeing how they were a separate religion from Islam that follows Ali as a god. (The Alawites officially requested the french to look at them as such, a request signed by no other than Bashar Al Assad's grandfather)
I really think this discussion has ran its course.
1. They do not follow Ali as a god, so no. They follow Ali as the emanation of the essence of God, through which they can grasp the essence of God. "I turn to the Gate; I bow before the Name; I adore the Meaning" - the Gate, the Name, the Meaning, all are emanations of God, no single one is a God, treated as a God or can even be treated as a God.
2. They've been called Alawi since the 11th century and asked foreign visitors to refer to them as Alawi before the French mandate in the 19th century, so no.
3. I wonder, of the Jews who believe in reincarnation despite it never being mentioned explicitly in the Torah, are they Gentile or Jews, or is it possible that they are all Jews? In the modern world, one that has learned from the devastating purges Christianity wrecked upon itself in purging heretics according to mainstream Orthodoxy in the year of our Lord -2000 and the years since, I would say yes, they are all Jews, trying to find the correct interpretations in texts so multilayered they demand many interpretations.
Put another way, the human civilization has long learned the peril of defining Scotsmen as false when it suits the majority's fear. They would do well to not forget those lessons.
So, some kind of ceasefire was decided on (slightly more detailed BBC article). I'm assuming that it's supposed to be between the Syrian government and the rebels, but neither article actually says who the ceasefire is between or if it's a blanket ceasefire.
Complicating matters is the fact that Al-Nusra front is a rebel group as well as a terrorist group and last I recall, the Kurds were left out of it entirely. Also, I'd have gone with within 24-48 hours, not a week.
Ah, pleasing news. Progress. Sadly one can't be too hopeful, but it's one step, one of a thousand to be taken to rebuilding Syria
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Topic: The Let's go back to Iraq, now without WMDs Thread. About the IS(IS) threat. (Read 208264 times)