This blog is more for Sunnis–the ones who hesitate to becoming Submitters. It is also more of a reflective piece; some thoughts I had of what Submission really is and what the purpose of Submission really is. All that really matters to me is the worship/remembrance/supplication to God alone. All that Submission has really done is remove the idolatrous practices from Sunni Islam. By this fact alone, I was drawn to Submission (among other things like literal proof of the divine origin of the Quran lol and literal proof of the divine decree that assigned a new messenger).
To prove to Sunnis and some Quranists how much we have in common: If Submitters were to become Sunnis now, here is what they would have to change:
(1) Add Muhammad to the Shahada
– I personally do not even think this is required in Sunni Islam, despite the protest of Sunnis. Many Sunnis hold the position the first part of the Shahada (the one without Muhammad) is all that you need and some hadiths include the Shahada without Muhammad too. And the Quran already tell us the proper Shahada, and there is no ‘Muhammad’ mentioned there, so there is no need for us to deviate from God’s literal words:
[3:18] GOD bears witness that there is no god except He, and so do the angels and those who possess knowledge.
[47:19] You shall know that: “There is no other god beside GOD,”
(2) Recite Quran during the Salat (contact prayers)
– Actually, this is not even required in Sunni Islam. Many Sunnis believe you don’t have to read anything in the prayers except Al-Fatiha (which Submitters already do).
(3) Recite the “Attahiyat” (Tashahhud) during my Salat (contact prayers)
All submitters do is say the Shahada during this phase of the Salat. What’s interesting is many schools of thought in Islam have different variations of what one should say during the Tashahhud.
The first tashahhud is considered obligatory. The remaining schools consider it mustahabb and not obligatory. The second tashahhud is considered obligatory by the Shafi’is, Imamis and Hanbalis, and mustahabb by the Malikis and Hanafis (Bidayat al-mujtahid, v1, p125).
(4) Accept Hadith
You might think this is a big deal, but in my opinion, hadith don’t really change much in our personal life and practices–most of it is historical context and all that stuff I don’t care about anyway–those companions and those people have a judgement with God, and I don’t care about the politics and disagreements they had.
(5) Accept 9:128-129
What’s interesting is 9:128-129 doesn’t really add anything the Quran doesn’t already state. I already accept the message of these false verses: they are just copy paste verses from other themes and concepts of the Quran and they’re not really saying anything new–other verses of the Quran say the same thing. There’s a verse about Muhammad grieving over the disbelivers (Quran 26:3)–so I’m sure he cares about and feels for the believers, I’m sure he was very kind and loving to the believers. So as far as the message of 9:128-129, nothing is rejected, I just reject these 2 verses were sent from God in the first place. Throughout the Quran, what God really cares about is accepting and believing the message He sends. 9:128-129 doesn’t offer anything new or any new information–with or without them, no new beliefs or understandings are made–the message of the Quran with or without these verses is the same.
It is however interesting that many of the words that occur in 9:128-129 are “coincidentally” up by 1 from being a multiple of 19 (thus deviating from the expectations of Code 19), the fact they are reported to be Meccan verses in a Medinan chapter, the fact that there are hadith reports putting them into question, the fact there is a double naming scheme in these verses of God’s names that are used to refer to Muhammad when all other occurrence of them in the Quran reference only God, the fact this chapter (9) lacks the Bismillah is yet another red flag. It’s interesting to think God would give us all this evidence these verses are false and demand that we accept those verses. But regardless, those verses don’t add anything new–the message of those verses is not really rejected by Submitters–its only the authorship of those specific verses in their form are rejected by Submitters. (6) Reject Code 19 and the Math miracle of 19 including those pointing to Rashad as a messenger
I almost laughed as I was typing this up. I don’t think Sunnis have to reject Code 19, some of them accept it, but I was trying to imagine myself reject them and I laughed (praise God). I don’t think I can imagine rejecting Code 19 even while I was trying to imagine myself as a Sunni, so forget about that lol. I can’t even see it happening, I’d have to be really good at lying to myself to make that happen somehow. All praise and thanks to God for the firm guidance he has bestowed upon us.
Conclusion: It’s just so weird how little we disagree with Sunnis and many Quranists. It’s just so wild.
Something about it though makes me wonder–does God care that much about the nitty gritty practices? It seems like God just wants us to avoid idol worship and disbelief, and to just mention him alone in our worship practices, and put Him at the center of our life. That seems to be the root of the whole point of Submission–all submission did was remove the idolatry and falsehood of Islam as it was practiced. God created Submission because he just wants us to worship God alone. All of these above differences, all of these changes Submission imposed on our practices stems from that one principle: God just wants us to worship Him alone. That’s the whole point of Submission. The Sunnis and many Quranists are doing idol worship, they don’t recognize how subtle idolatry is and most are not dedicating their entire life and worship practices to God alone. That is why Submission exists. The whole reason it exists and the whole reason for these differences is God just wants us to worship Him alone.
Nitty gritty differences in practices are not as significant:
[2:177] Righteousness is not turning your faces towards the east or the west. Righteous are those who believe in GOD, the Last Day, the angels, the scripture, and the prophets; and they give the money, cheerfully, to the relatives, the orphans, the needy, the traveling alien, the beggars, and to free the slaves; and they observe the Contact Prayers (Salat) and give the obligatory charity (Zakat); and they keep their word whenever they make a promise; and they steadfastly persevere in the face of persecution, hardship, and war. These are the truthful; these are the righteous.
Disclaimer: These blogs are not meant to be authoritative for Submission, but instead, informal documentation of my evolving thoughts. I do not claim ‘truth’ to anything I say or write, even if I currently feel like it is likely true based on my current reasoning and knowledge–anything and everything I say is subject to revision or complete abandonment of the theories/concepts/thoughts discussed in any of these blogs. See the about this blog section. Join our discord server, where you can chat with us or ask any questions (there is frequent activity in the voice channels):Https://Discord.gg/Submission
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