A Muslim Convert Once Before

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Abraham ( a.s. ) was Chaldean.  Jethro ( a.s. ) was allegedly Midian.  Jonah ( a.s. ) was Assyrian.  Aside from that, they were all from the same Greater Near East geographic region.  It does not mean that there were no prophets sent elsewhere.  It just means we do not know their names, or that they have not been positively identified as such.  The reason why these were named is because they were the names most familiar to the people of the two Houses of God: Jerusalem and Makkah.   The Upanishads, which were written before the sixth century before common era had a prophet named Manu who saved his people from the great flood in an ark.  Could Noah ( a.s. ) have been Aryan?  Various Islamic scholars have proposed, based on the earliest portions of their scripture, that Gautama Siddartha Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius and the composite characters that made up Lao Tzu were prophets.  Buddha emphasised t...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ   The following is my answer to a Quora question: “ If to achieve Nirvana, all my desires must go away, should not all the goals in my life go away, and I live a life without meaning or purpose? ”   In Buddhist thought, Nirvana is not “Heaven”, but the absence of desire.   The absence of desire is essentially the absence of self.   It is a concept shared in all spiritual traditions from Hinduism to Christianity to Islam.   The reason behind this is because the self is a veil between the apparent reality of Creation to the Real.   And that “Real” is God. That is why in Buddhism, in the tenth precept, which is not well-known, Gautama Siddharta Buddha said, that once you have Nirvana, “Behold the Supreme One.”   As for your meaning in life, the entire idea is to reach a state of realisation that everything that you have chased in this world is temporary and eventually worthless.   The people of the world ar...

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ Gautama Siddharta Buddha said, “Craving and desire are the cause of all unhappiness.   Everything, sooner or later, must change, so do not become attached to anything.   Instead, devote yourself to purifying your mind, and finding true, last happiness.”