Can Muslims question their faith and what they perceive as God's rules?

I agree with you. But most Islamic believer are taught(and forced) to not question their ritual,culture,God,etc. It’s all about faith. When people are blinded and heavily manipulated by what they called as “faith” evidence won’t be necessary anymore.

I live in a country with the largest Muslim population in the world and one of the most religion-fanatic country. No one dare to question Islamic people about their faith and their God(You could be killed here if you do that). In my opinion it’s simply because they have been heavily brainwashed by their parents(and other authorized ‘saint’ Ulama/priests) from generation to generation that limit/prevent the believers from early ages to become more critical toward their religion.

Direct punishment and other authorized physical abuse are usual and would be given to those who violate the rule of their religion(Islam). Pacifism is the way they taught people all around the world from ancient times.

I believe each religion has many branch and each fraction has its own differences. What I explain here is the way Islam(majority branch) took its place in Indonesian community.

I really wonder if there are any devout branches of Islam would allow questioning of the teachings.

Yes, there are more secularised Muslims to whom this might apply, but they consider themselves Muslim primarily in cultural terms rather than religious terms.

A good example of this would be the family of the young woman who was recently crowned a Beauty Pageant winner.

Someone here posted a Q about whether she was concerned about a fattwah being issued against her for appearing in a bathing suit.

But reading interviews with her, it became quite clear that she and her family described themselves as cultural Muslims but not devout or beholden to narrow minded interpretations of Islam.

But I have a close friend who is a practicing Orthodox Jew who once told me that he considers himself an agnostic as to whether God even exists.

This really blew my mind, as I was aware of all the ways that he arranged his life to accompdate all the details. This affected everything from what foods he bought and the extremely limited number of restaurants at which he could eat all the way to his job hours.

Because he worked as a computer consultant, frequently switching companies, he constantly had to negotiate getting off early on Fridays to be able to make it to Temple prior to Sundown.

Because he was not allowed to drive or cook, he had to make arrangements to be within walking distance of the temple he attended and have meals until sundown on Sat. Plus numerous other accompdations around special holidays, etc. etc. It was no small thing in his life.

But, he told me that Judaism has a long history of study and questioning everything.

And that’s certainly true. There is a deep reverence for rigorous learning and equally rigorous questioning within Judaism ( the film Yentl is but one example which springs to mind) so I could see his point.

But I then asked him why he would go to the trouble of rearranging so many of the details of his life in order to follow all the exacting rules and regulations to please a God that one is not even sure exists.

His answer was classic. He just shrugged and said, “it never hurts, just in case”.

I’m not sure how many other Orthodox share his agnostic stance, but he had obviously discussed this with Rabbis and other Orthodox for much of his life and felt quite comfortable with it.

I just don’t think there is an equivalent corollary within Islam, but I would be most interested to know if I’m mistaken about that. I just have difficulty picturing a devout Muslim being able to get away with a stance such as that without being totally ostracized (or beheaded).

Most Muslims I know have questioned their faith much more than people I know of any other religion.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – Me too, but do Imans actually support them in their quest or do they have to keep this to themselves and just mention it to westerners like us…

@mattbrowne No, they don’t just ‘mention it to Westerners like us’ – I’ve been privvy to Muslim gatherings and workgroups where it accepted that, historically, Islam was a religion of questioning, of hundreds of ways of thinking and interpreting and that’s how it truly ought to be.

Although Islam as a religion is more oriented toward submission—Islam means “submission to the will of God”—enlightened, educated Muslims can and do question their faith as do enlightened educated Jews and Christians. The core tenets, however, discourage this more than those of Christianity, which discourage questioning more than Judaism.

Judaism emphasis on law,
Christianity emphasis on faith,
Islam, emphasis on submission to the will of God.

Many of the stricter Islamic rules are very similar to the strictest rules of orthodox Judaism and born of the same formative cultural circumstances.

@Simone_De_Beauvoir – I’m impressed. And that’s a very good sign. These Muslim should speak out, for example when imams in other countries discourage questioning Islam.

@anartist – What about Talmudic Judaism and the endless debates, for example as shown in the movie Yentl?

Yentl?? are you talking about rabbinic pilpul [or hairsplitting debates—aka a slow and painful way to develop and define Talmudic law] —I don’t remember Yentl that well—Barbara Streisand in drag as a young male Talmudic scholar???

@anartist – Well, I’ve also read about this approach in Rabbi Michael Lerner’s book “The Left Hand of God”. Questioning is being encouraged in his view.

Have any Muslims weighed in on this Q?
Surely Fluther must have a few Muslim jellies?
Or are you just hanging back and watching the rest of us spew hot air?

@mattbrowne yes, I have heard of that work, and am somewhat interested in it.

Not yet. There’s at least one sticking around (Theby?). Another one left because of the Draw Muhammad debate.