Jaami'at StackExchange al-Islamyya

since that's general enough that it would cover a lot of situations (eyebrow plucking, tattoos, prosthetics, dying hair, etc..), but focussed enough that the rulings are clearly related.

Ershad

fitrah would be a good tag?

Al Ummat

5:12 PM

fitrah means the thing Allah put in us to lead or worship Him

Asalamu wa alaikum @Dynamic

Dynamic

@AlUmmat Wa alaikum assalam

goldPseudo

fitrah could work. i'd say add it, and let the community judge whether to use it.

it's easier to remove a tag that isn't useful than it is to go back and add a tag to questions that would need it.

Ershad

okay :)

goldPseudo

"No child is born but upon Fitra. He then said. "Recite: The nature made by Allah in which He created man, there is no altering of Allah's nature; that is the right religion."

sunnah.com/urn/264250

Ershad

@goldPseudo Linguistic meaning doesn't relate much to tattoo

Natural disposition, inclination

or instinct

Dynamic

5:18 PM

@ashes999 Just saw all of the congrats while reading the transcript and thought I'd throw mine in there :-). You're really doing a great job contributing to the site and have played a major role. Thanks!

Ershad

Is it okay to ask a question which might be haram according to Sunnis but halal according to Shia?

I mean the question about something

Al Ummat

what is the question?

Ershad

Say for example the Mut'ah Marriage

Dynamic

@Ershad I don't see why not, but if you know there will be a difference, then make it two seperate questions.

Ershad

So I should ask "....according to Shia?" and ".... according to Sunni?"

two questions?

goldPseudo

5:23 PM

personally, i would focus the question on the controversy itself.

Ershad

I would like to do that as well.. but I fear the storm

Dynamic

@Ershad I agree with @goldPseudo. Ask about the differences. A storm will not happen if it is not asked for a debate.

goldPseudo

i.e., rather than saying "Is mut'ah marriage permissible", word it more like "Why is there a difference of opinion regarding mut'ah marriage?"

or even just "Why do Shi'as allow mut'ah marriage?", with the body of your question explaining the sunni position.

Dynamic

Yes

Ershad

Okay that sounds good idea @goldPseudo Thanks

Dynamic

5:31 PM

@goldPseudo How long have you been using SE?

goldPseudo

almost since the beginning.

Dynamic

@goldPseudo Really? Like '08?

goldPseudo

StackOverflow: member for 3 years, 4 months

Dynamic

@goldPseudo Wow...

Stackoverflow: member for 10 months

:P

goldPseudo

don't post a lot, but i've been around.

Dynamic

5:35 PM

I have very low rep there too. I'm not a great programmer. I've only been doing it for about a year or less.

goldPseudo

i've got a +48 answer on there, but it's more about explaining stuff to newbies than about actual knowledge about programming.

the amount of expert-tier knowledge on that site is intimidating. i just know enough to do my job, and i'm happy.

Dynamic

@goldPseudo Most-all of my answers are basically to Perl newbies.

And yeah it is intimidating...

But you've gotta admit, the fact that SE was able to bring together a bunch of people like that is pretty impressive

goldPseudo

it is.

Al Ummat

0

Q: how many wars had prophet Muhamad PBUH?

during limited time of government of prophet how many wars prophet participated? and does not it hav conflict with peace? Islam is religion of peace or religion of war? if religion of peace so why so much war had prophet? why today peace has found so much importance? is not the peace adverti...

Dynamic

That really needs to be multiple different questions.

Needs more close votes.

Al Ummat

5:44 PM

why?

Dynamic

It is not a real question. It is multiple questions jumbled into one. plus, it is asking for a lot of opinionated answers.

Al Ummat

I think it might be a troll

Dynamic

All I know is that the question needs closing.

Al Ummat

before we go around closing questions, i need to request everyone think about why they are closing it

goldPseudo

i explained my reasons in comment on the post.

Dynamic

5:47 PM

@AlUmmat I left a comment.

goldPseudo

the point of the 5 vote process is that i don't have solitary power to close it. if four other people don't agree with me, then it'll stay open.

Al Ummat

shouldn't we remove the bad questions and leave the good?

goldPseudo

i'd call it argumentative rather than trolly. i think most of the individual questions are legitimate, just not all at once with no elaboration.

Dynamic

@AlUmmat I can do a "Superhero Edit" :P

goldPseudo

if it was focused a bit, with the linked articles summarized to support the actual question, it would be fine.

Dynamic

5:49 PM

Then maybe it'll stay open.

Al Ummat

:P

Dynamic

If we stuck to the question in the title, it'd be good.

goldPseudo

agreed. the title question is excellently on-topic.

Dynamic

@goldPseudo What do you think? Shall i make the edit.

goldPseudo

i wouldn't. i'm not really comfortable with any edits that so fundamentally change the nature of a question.

except that it's made (or approved) by the poster himself.

the poster knows best what he's actually asking (and what answers he's looking for).

Dynamic

5:52 PM

@goldPseudo Take a look at this post:

9

Q: What's all this about heroic edits?

I've heard there's a way to get questions reopened by doing something called a heroic edit. What is it, how can I do it properly, and how does it help?

support closed-questions faq-proposed

He was a mod for a while... he knows what he's saying :-)

goldPseudo

i would still wait for the questioner to fix the question himself before pulling out the big guns.

Dynamic

@goldPseudo I posted a comment.

Would you mind changing the question to cover one area, instead of a wide array? — Dynamic 32 secs ago

goldPseudo

and as it is now, the question definitely should be closed before it's answered. doing a heroic edit after it's closed and then voting to reopen it remains an option.

Dynamic

In that case, we need close votes

Al Ummat

what should we pick?

goldPseudo

6:04 PM

it's been edited.

Al Ummat

look at this question

1

Q: Hairstyle in islam

Does islam say anything about hairstyles? Can I keep anything i want to like spiky hair or even colour my hair? Or does it have to be cropped to a small size.

citation-needed islamic-rules

goldPseudo

it's a good question.

Al Ummat

yes

goldPseudo

not ecstatic about the tags, but the question is good.

Dynamic

He seperated the questions :

0

Q: what should do Muslims about Palestine according to Quran?

prophet had many wars. (some say 70 and some say 80 and some say more than 100 wars) should Muslims avoid war? (defensive war) why today peace has found so much importance? is not the peace advertised all over by media is some kind of plan do Muslims remain silent and do not defend themselves?...

jihad war

I still think it's too much, but it may just seem that way because of poor grammar.

goldPseudo

6:11 PM

it's definitely better. i think the new question is good.

i don't see anything that a good edit won't fix.

(a very good edit)

still would be better if the "please read these first" links were summarized.

(well, no point to summarizing the first one, since it's a link farm. probably mistyped.)

Al Ummat

how is my answer

0

A: Hairstyle in islam

http://muttaqun.com/hair.html extra: http://islamqa.info/en/ref/3364 Hadith - Bukhari 4:668, Narrated Abu Huraira , see also Bukhari 7:786 Allah's Apostle said, "The Jews and the Christians do not dye (their grey hair), so you shall do the opposite of what they do (i.e. dye your gre...

goldPseudo

this is a good podcast episode, worth a listen for everyone in the beta:

Blog - Stack Exchange: SE Podcast #30 – Robert Cartaino & Rebecca Chernoff

Alex Miller on December 08, 2011

Guests this week are Robert Cartaino and Rebecca Chernoff. Yeehaw! They’re members of our Community Team.

The original Joel on Software forums were sort of a progenitor for Stack Overflow. They had strict rules: nothing off-topic was allowed – and discussing the forums themselves was off-topic. So a Joel on Software Off-Topic discussion group was created for all of That Stuff. Joel’s forums are still going strong!

What happens if we let a community go on forever? If it’s stagnating or not really growing, it’s not necessarily making the internet worse. It’s jus …

about an hour long, mostly discussion on what sort of criteria make a site succeed or fail, examples of other sites that failed and how not to make the same mistakes, stuff like that.

Ashu

6:27 PM

@goldPseudo they have podcast too

goldPseudo

they don't update very frequently.

especially not since Jeff left.

(which was the episode after the one i linked)

Ershad

@AlUmmat Is the answer you mentioned both for permanent or temporary tattoos?

*and

Al Ummat

@Ershad yes, for temporary tattoos they come off over time, so you should remove them and not get tattooed again, I will edit my answer to say that

Ershad

@AlUmmat islamqa.com/en/ref/99629/temporary%20tattoo

Al Ummat

can I just put the link in my answer, is that alright?

Ershad

6:35 PM

Of course. You can. I am just trying to make the answer perfect. Since for temporary, there is a difference - I mean it is okay to have them as long as it doesn't depict anything haram like picture of animal, basically anything with ruh. islamqa.com/en/ref/8904/temporary%20tattoo

My only concern for this site is that it shouldn't overburden people by restricting to only one opinion. For e.g. something might be completely haraam according to some school of thought.. or scholar and there might be special cases according to other scholar.. we should provide all of them or direct them that way so that they can take which they trust (sometimes which seems easier to them)

Al Ummat

I agree

goldPseudo

I generally agree (so long as there's always a place for people looking for opinions from specific schools as well)

the trick is making the question itself not be too broad that it doesn't get any good answers.

Ershad

@goldPseudo I agree. Asking question is a skill too :)

Okay, I am going to ask a question about Mut'ah Marriage. like @goldPseudo said " Why do Shi'as allow mut'ah marriage?" This is why Sunnis prohibit it :

In the Two Sahihs, it is recorded that the Leader of the Faithful `Ali bin Abi Talib said, "The Messenger of Allah prohibited Mut`ah marriage and eating the meat of domesticated donkeys on the day of Khaybar (battle).'' In addition, in his Sahih, Muslim recorded that Ar-Rabi` bin Sabrah bin Ma`bad Al-Juhani said that his father said that he accompanied the Messenger of Allah during the conquest of Makkah, and that the Prophet said,

goldPseudo

6:51 PM

it's good.

Al Ummat

good Alhamdulillah

goldPseudo

might be better to word the closing question as more like "What evidences are used by the Shi'a to allow mut'ah marriage?"

otherwise there's a risk that you'll get answers attacking your evidences, rather than answers providing their own.

(of course, it depends on what you're looking for in an answer)

Ershad

@goldPseudo okay.. We are thinking the same

goldPseudo

1

Q: how to detemine and fight the Baqiyah Muslims according to this verse?

this verse of Quran says if two group of Muslims fought each other, Muslims should fight against the Baqiyah group. but problem is usually both group claim the other side is Baqiyah group. according to this verse we as Muslims should fight to Baqiyah group. so how the baqiyah group should be det...

jihad war civil-war

this is a very good question.

Al Ummat

7:23 PM

0

Q: is Islam a political religion or a non-political religion?

what elements in Islam make it political or non-political? please provide Quran verses about your answer. is the word politics used in Quran? can verses talking about war be considered political verses of Quran? there are some verses about Qisas in Quran. is Qisas a political law?

politics

Asalamu wa alaikum @BB1

BB1

is it true that the prophet muhammad was a merciless warrior who killed innocent people? Someone told me this and I would like to prove them wrong.

Al Ummat

@BB1 no it is not true, are you muslim?

BB1

no, but i have muslim friends.

Al Ummat

salaam then [peace] welcome to to this site, no it is not true

BB1

Is it possible that Jesus and Mohammad are really the same person? Does anyone argue this?

Sometimes I wonder if Buddha and Jesus and Mohammad knew each other. Is it possible?

Al Ummat

7:38 PM

no they are not the same person, it is actually impossible for them to be the same person in a sense. no no one argues this, I would say that all Prophets knew each other but God knows best

goldPseudo

I have heard theories that Buddha was a prophet, but it's merely speculation that I know of.

Al Ummat

All Prophets are brothers

goldPseudo

There are definitely reports in the hadith literature where Muhammad met the earlier prophets in visions.

Al Ummat

yes like the night of the isra'

BB1

Did mohammad say anything about Jesus?

Is Jesus even mentioned in the Koran?

goldPseudo

7:41 PM

yes. he is mentioned numerous times.

BB1

interesting.

what do they say about him?

could you give an example

Al Ummat

@BB1 He is mentioned by name more than Muhammad if you want to know

BB1

Interesting. Is his philosophy spoken of?

Al Ummat

you mean His message?

BB1

yes.

goldPseudo

7:44 PM

The Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, was but a messenger of Allah and His word which He directed to Mary and a soul [created at a command] from Him. So believe in Allah and His messengers. And do not say, "Three"; desist - it is better for you. Indeed, Allah is but one God. [Qur'an 4:171]

BB1

But who is Allah in the Koran?

Al Ummat

@BB1 His message was the same as all Prophets, belive in one God, worship, and do do good

@BB1 Allah is the Arabic state for God

goldPseudo

the god of Abraham, and Moses, and Jesus, and all the prophets. We believe in the scriptures that were revealed to us, just as we believe in that which was revealed before us.

BB1

So Allah isn't a person?

goldPseudo

not in the least.

Al Ummat

7:47 PM

@BB1 no Auzubillah

BB1

What is it?

Al Ummat

@BB1 He is not a it He is not a male or female He does not resemble the creation in any way

BB1

This is very interesting.

Al Ummat

@BB1 good :)

BB1

Have you read the Bible? The Gospels?

goldPseudo

7:49 PM

I have.

BB1

Have you read the Gospel of Mark?

goldPseudo

I have.

Al Ummat

@BB1 I have only read the first few Ayahs of the Psalms, i have read a few Aahs from the book of Barnabas

goldPseudo

i quoted it just the other day, actually.

BB1

I am interested in all religions. For some reason I like the gospel of mark in particular. It is very poetic. What are your favorite parts of the Koran?

What do you think of the Gospel of Mark?

Al Ummat

7:52 PM

@BB1 The whole Quran

BB1

The whole Quran is equally beautiful and poetic?

Al Ummat

@BB1 yes it is unimaginable

BB1

There aren't certain passages you admire more?

have you read shakespeare or Milton's paradise lost or Goethe's Faust?

Al Ummat

@BB1 each verse has its own beauty, it is bottomless, once you get a understanding of something you get another and again and again

@BB1 I am not familiar with that

BB1

You've never read Shakespeare?

Al Ummat

7:55 PM

@BB1 I have heard of Him, but I have never read Him

BB1

You should read Hamlet and King Lear. Everyone should.

That is my opinion anyway.

Al Ummat

@BB1 OK I will look into it :)

BB1

Great! It is great poetry. Do you think I can understand the poetry of the Koran without speaking Muslim?

Al Ummat

@BB1 :) of course you can read some here quranexplorer.com/Quran/Default.aspx

goldPseudo

oh nice, we got our second 1k user already.

BB1

8:00 PM

ok. I'll read that if you read Hamlet ;) shakespeare-online.com/plays

goldPseudo

that happened a lot quicker than i'd expected.

BB1

ma'a salama

1k?

goldPseudo

1000

reputation

BB1

thats alot of rep

Al Ummat

@BB1 bye I will read it

BB1

8:01 PM

bye

goldPseudo

and a few more who might break 1k before the end of private, God willing.

hrm. a downvote on the beard question, with no explanation. i wonder why.

Al Ummat

I didn't give it

goldPseudo

1

Q: Question quality

What do people think of the question quality so far on the website? My two cents: I fear it is quite low and it may just be the reason this becomes just another forum where Muslims hang out and hash out the same old topics, rather than attracting experts on Islam (Muslim and non-Muslim) and bec...

discussion

Ansari

8:27 PM

@goldPseudo thanks for posting that question - I was about to do it myself but was skimming the chat since last night to catch up :)

@Ershad @AlUmmat @ashes999 @everyone-else

what do you think re. the question quality

Al Ummat

Medium

goldPseudo

i'd say it's getting better. still "beginnery" but definitely better than day one.

i think the baghiyyah one is interesting.

which was only posted an hour ago.

Al Ummat

Medium it is getting better but it is still in the middle we are still beginning so just like the quality of a computer is not good without some programming, the quality of the questions on this site aren't going to be good until we progress a little further

goldPseudo

i'm doing what i can in here, breaking down why a question is bad and how to make it better.

so just pointing people to the chat where they can discuss how to make their questions better is probably a good start.

it might even be worth it to open a new room just for question discussion.

Al Ummat

I can do open a new room right now one moment

Ansari

8:33 PM

@goldPseudo i agree the baghi question is interesting. it requires some thought to answer

@AlUmmat well i think since we're still in the private beta, it's easier to steer now and set the tone now rather than later. so how can we do the steering?

goldPseudo

and all the questions by that goldPseudo guy are worth looking at.

(note: i may be biased)

Ansari

once more people arrive, they will go with what they see - the kinds of questions and answers they see

@goldPseudo i agree goldPseudo's questions are interesting

(note: i may be less biased)

goldPseudo

of course, the problem is it's a lot faster to post a weak question, so good posts are numerically at a disadvantage.

Ansari

yeah

what i'm more worried about though

Al Ummat

@Ansari I do not totally understand you?

Ansari

8:36 PM

is that some of us actually want those types of questions that are encyclopedic, or "meant to answer questions that someone who might want to convert might have"

those questions that aren't really questions but statements of the islamic position on something

you know what i mean?

the way i think of it, there are plenty of sites out there for that.

goldPseudo

even those type of questions have their place.

the decisive factor would be, can our answers be better than the other sites?

Blog - Stack Exchange: Are Some Questions Too Simple?

Jeff Atwood on February 22, 2011

On Podcast #58, Joel and I had a disagreement. Not the first, and certainly won’t be the last:

Joel says that the only bad simple question is a duplicate simple question. I say simple questions are OK as long as they’re actually interesting (in some way) for other users to consider and answer. To prove his point, Joel actually asks the question on Stack Overflow: How do I move the turtle in LOGO? Do you think this question adds value?

We still have this disagreement. Our community is now struggling with the very same issue across multiple network sites: …

Ansari

i see what you're saying

Al Ummat

ok here us the room

chat.stackexchange.com/rooms/3869/question-discussion

@ashes999

goldPseudo

another question that seems a bit interesting, despite getting bad answers, is the suicide bombing question.

Al Ummat

I agree

goldPseudo

8:45 PM

since the question, as phrased, is asking for the evidences for suicide bombing.

but the basic google test tends to only pull up arguments against.

Dynamic

I made my answer on the meta question about quality

Ansari

@Dynamic thank you for answering - and sorry, I didn't mean to pick on you or single you out! It was just an example.

Al Ummat

Asalamu wa alaikum @muntoo

goldPseudo

right now, i think we can wait to see how much "question discussion" traffic we get before trying to break off into a new room.

since as it is, it doesn't seem to be too obstructive.

and keeping it all in the main room (for now) helps expose it to new users.

Al Ummat

9:06 PM

so keep it here in the main room?

goldPseudo

for now, yeah.

Al Ummat

ok

we are 2 days away from public beta:)

@Ansari you asked me "well i think since we're still in the private beta, it's easier to steer now and set the tone now rather than later. so how can we do the steering?" what do you mean

Dynamic

@Ansari I pointed myself out :-)

Ansari

Sorry @AlUmmat I didn't realize that was directed at me when you first asked. What I meant is, when we get more participation, those people will look at the current questions and answers and that will influence what they do or don't ask, and how they ask it

goldPseudo

9:21 PM

the "front page" theory. people will base their behaviour on what they see on the front page.

Dynamic

@AlUmmat Basically "Monkey see, monkey do" :P

goldPseudo

so when the site goes public, we ideally want the front page to be exactly how we want the site to grow.

Al Ummat

ok

well than the public beta is in 2 days

so we are going to need to work extra hard

muntoo

@AlUmmat Walaikum assalam. :)

Dynamic

@AlUmmat Doesn't have to be... it says at least 7 days of private beta right?

Al Ummat

9:24 PM

@muntoo wa alaikum salam

goldPseudo

yeah, i think the SE team can extend it if they figure we're not quite ready yet.

not sure how often they do that in practice though.

Dynamic

From the About page:

Private betas typically last about 7 days. For more information, see the Area 51 FAQ.

Al Ummat

so how long should we extend it than

I believe we are going to need a tad bit more time

goldPseudo

that's up to the SE team, afaik. we just have to do as good a job at getting this site ready as we can.

Al Ummat

ok

muntoo

9:25 PM

Aren't we healthy? area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/14922/islam

(For private beta.)

goldPseudo

i think the numbers look good myself.

average question quality could stand to use some improvement, but it's getting up there.

we've got two users with over a thousand rep already, which is nice.

so getting things in shape in the next two days shouldn't be too difficult, God willing.

Al Ummat

perhaps we can get 150 users with over 200 rep before we go public

and from what I read we need 10 users with over 2,000 rep and 5 with over 3,000

Ansari

that's for a public beta i believe

Al Ummat

oh

so what about 150 users with 200 rep, what do you guys say about that?

goldPseudo

we only have 133 total users so far. can't do much better than that until others respond to their private beta invites.

Al Ummat

9:36 PM

ok than perhaps we should have all of the committed users before we go public

goldPseudo

we're at about an 18% "Avid" user ratio, which i think is actually pretty good.

Ansari

i think we're doing great on all those metrics alhamdulillah

for 5 days in business

getting half of all committed users participating is really really good

Al Ummat

Alhamdulillah

Dynamic

I think we can do a lot better with unanswered questions...

goldPseudo

judaism.SE, for example, has only a 15% Avid ratio, and they're already released.

Dynamic

9:38 PM

Besides that, we're great Alhamdulillah

Ansari

i wonder why christianity.SE is still in beta

it's been at least a year or two

Dynamic

@goldPseudo Well, they also have a lot more users, which throws off the metric.

Al Ummat

now before we go public we should get all the users ready

Dynamic

@Ansari They only have 3.8 questions per day...

@AlUmmat You can't really prepare much besides be ready to stay active, edit as many posts as possible, and flag a lot more.

And close more questions... we can't let anything slip

goldPseudo

christianity.SE is basically split into two sites already, that's a likely cause.

Ansari

9:41 PM

good call @Dynamic - hadn't checked out the proposal

@goldPseudo they've split up into what exactly?

goldPseudo

hermeneutics.SE

Dynamic

@Ansari :-) Thanks! They have a Biblical Hermeneutics site.

That''s the other half

goldPseudo

they're both in beta. wouldn't be surprised if they merged just to get their counts up and get a full release.

Ansari

area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/2732/atheism interesting

i guess it's really the #questions and #visits that make or break a beta

goldPseudo

2

Q: Can we change our destiny by "dua"?

On one hand, I've learned that our destiny is fixed and does not change. On the other hand, I've learned a concept called "dua" which I use to talk to Allah, complaining and such. So would my "dua" change my destiny? If not, what's the use?

dua

Al Ummat

9:45 PM

should we get our elevator pitch?

goldPseudo

that's a fairly interesting question.

Ansari

i agree - i saw it a while ago, then it was deleted!

goldPseudo

or, at least, it's a question which could get a fairly interesting answer.

Al Ummat

we should resolve what our elevator pitch is going to be before we go into public beta

This is the one swati suggested " 2 down vote

A non-biased site where I can ask questions and receive information on Islam backed by references to scripture. There is no proselytizing and any scholarly question about Islam is welcome.
" And this is the one we shortened here in chat from Swati's suggestion " non-biased site where I can ask questions and receive information on Islam. There is no proselytizing question about Islam is welcome."

3

Q: What’s the “elevator pitch” for our site?

Since no one has asked yet, permit me to be the first. What do you think should be the elevator pitch for islam.SE? More about what an elevator pitch is: Imagine you’ve just gotten on an elevator with a friendly stranger. You have precisely one floor to describe your community to them. Wh...