To be precize, it's the responsibilty of the scholars of Islam to study and Explain the word of God to ordinary people! ordinary and not specialized people are not allowed to make Fatwas, because they will make mistakes!

Ask what you want dear nonsqtr, next are my answers:
1- Yes Muslims consider and KNOW that Mohammad (pbuh) is the lat prophet! but they believe and know that Jesust (pbuh) will come again because he wasn't killed, he will help the good people against the bad ones!

2- the Hidden Imam?? Ah! you are talking about a shiist concept! We sunnis don't believe that there is a hidden Imam, but we believe that this "Imam" will come one day (born like any other child) and he will be the leader of Muslims, and with Jesus (pbuh) he will fight the bad people and leberate Jerusalem!

3- No, it's not! only the shia believe that this Imam is alive in an unknown "cave" under the ground!!! the believe he is alive since hundreds of years!!! this is just silly!

4- No my dear, God will not choose an other messenger!! the Imam that we call 'the Mahdi Montathar" (the expected Guided Imam)! So he is just a rightous guided Imam! he will guide people with the real and true Islam! he is not a messenger or a prophet!

Just checking in - I'm still here, just been a little busy, is all....

This is one of the threads I want to read "in detail", so thanks for being patient with me, and I'll get back to you here very shortly.

My question is why don't you all control your Islamic extremists. If you did so then there wouldn't be such bad feelings toward muslims, many are seeing you all as people who danced when the World Trade Center fell. When a christian ruler of the christian nation of Serbia was killing a bunch of Muslims in his country then we all banded together and bombed Serbia until they handed over Milosevic for us to imprison and make him pay for his trespasses against humanity. Why don't you control your extremists and we won't have to do it and therefore there would be less anger in this world if religions would take responsibility for their kind and keep them in line.

Okay - but the people still have to choose between the fatwas, right?

So, let's say, one scholar says in relation to a passage of scripture, "this verse means this", and the other one says, "no, it means that" - and the two interpretations don't agree.

So, what would happen in that case? You made mention of a Council, and I understand that, but such a mechanism takes "time" to work, right? So, what do the people do in the meantime? Do you "expect" that there will be some confusion while the question is being decided? And then, once it's decided, what happens to the people who "don't agree" with the decision? (Do they have any "appeal", or do they then "submit" to the correct interpretation as it's chosen by the Council, or ..... I guess what I'm asking is, what is the "spectrum" of things you'd expect to see in that case - what kinds of things would you expect to happen? Heated discussions in coffee houses? Armed conflicts? what?)

Okay, I understand. Thanks.

Number one is especially interesting - I've never heard it phrased quite that way before.

Hey, people..... check this one -

===> Jesus and the Guided Imam working together on the side of good, against "the evil ones"......

(whoever those latter may be).... hmm.....

Well, all right then!

Thank you for your clear and helpful answers, Mr. Borkan. I hope some others are reading them too. This level of dialog is very helpful - "anything" that brings our cultures closer and builds bridges between us, is helpful. We're both good peoples, we both "mean well", it's just that we have different sets of (mostly cultural) boundaries, and sometimes those boundaries come into philosophical conflict, or whatever -

But I believe in "dialog", that's usually a good thing. My son is a year and half old, he's just learning to say what he wants, and so he already has a mix of a bunch of different languages, like he'll say "ama" 'cause he has a Chinese nanny, and he'll say "agua" when he wants water, 'cause we were playing games with him one day and it just so happened that his brain must have been developing "right then" so he remembered that particular word - so he never says "water", he always says "agua", except he can't pronounce the "g" so he just says "awa" - but we know what he means, right?

So yeah, thanks for the dialog, brother. I feel like I learned a thing or two. I hope you'll join us permanently here on PF, it would be very helpful to have your perspective and input, here.

Aha! I understood what you mean now!! loll! you are talking about the interpretation of the verses of the Quran? Ok, let me explain this to you:
- The Quran has some explanations done by old great scholars, they are about 14 explanations (we call them books of Tafsir)! but the most know and used are about 5!
- All the books of Tafsir have the same explanation of the Quran, no one say that the other explanation is wrong and that his explanation is the true one! but the diffrenece is that some explanations are more detailed than others! some of them use more quotes and refrences! this is why we have diffrent books of Tafsir!
- Now the Fatwa!! the Fatwa don't explain the Quran but explain to people what to do in some issues! the scholars who make the Fatwa uses many informations from the Quran, the Hadith and the Ijtihad of big scholars to make the Fatwa! the mission of the Fatwa is to guide people and tell them what to do in some cases when people fear to do some thing that Islam refuses!
Example: In Ramadan we Muslims don't eat, drink or have sex during the period from about 5:30 to 19:20 every day for all the month! but some people can't do that! there are some cases when people can eat or drink! some people don't know what to do if they are sick, the ask a Fatwa from a scholar! the scholar ask them some question about their health, how fasting affect them, have they medecine, what their doctor say.. and then he give them a Fatwa! yes you must fast or no!
I hope my idea is clear no! the Fatwa don't interpret the Quran!

The council is done for the newest issues and we have ready Fatwas for the normal cases that most of people know and they can just ask an Imam of a mosque about the normal issues that happens every day! the council take some time for the new and big issues (Cloning, donate organs..) and ordinary people don't ask about these issues everyday!

when the Fatwa is decided, people must do what the scholars said! and nothing happens if some people refuses to follow the scholar's Fatwa!! it depends of how much you are religious and pious! but I can say that 80% of Muslims follow the Fatwa because they have no reason to not follow it! the scholars don't oblige any one to follow their fatwas! they just say: "this is the nearest thing to the teachings of Islam that our human brain found! we ask and advice good and true Muslims to follow it". and that's all!

Dear nonsqtr,
I was very glad by this dialog with you and the other memebers! we just need to talk! we just need to know each other and acsept the diffrence between us! we are all human, we all love peace, we all love to be respected by others, we all love to see our children live in peace in a safe and clean place! we just need to talk and undestand that every one of us has a diffrent way of life! it's the same life that others have, but every one wants to live it in his way!
thanks again for this dialog and never hezitate to ask waht you want.
Salam

This is a great piece about the truth and I even copied it since it so told of what Bush really did and how he crooked us so. I was all for the war to get Osama bin Laden but you are right he hijacked the military away with his lies to get who he want to get. Hard to believe our own leader would do us like that but he darn sure did. I wish for others to see this, especially Boogie and Glitch. Thanks so much for writing the truth and I treasure it,