Allah no longer has 99 most beautiful names

During the last weeks, scholars at al-Azhar have agreed to dump some of Allah's most beautiful names. The firebrand sheikh Yusuf al-Badri has even started a courtcase in Egypt to forbid any singing of the 99 most beautiful names.

What is happening to Islam? Are the foundations shaking? Ah.. it is this Coptic-Orthdox priest Zakari. On his daily TV program on LifeTV (owned by Joyce Meyer by the way...) he has been tearing these 99 names apart. And Islamic scholars had to agree with him. How can you call Allah, just to give a few examples, The Hurtful (al-Dharr), or the Useful (al-Nafia).

About 20 more names are now seen as too problematic to be used. A clear proof that the Christian TV broadcasts to the Arab World are not in vain; beside leading many to Christ (see HERE for instance), they are obviousuly impacting Islamic theology. Here the 99 names, on a Sufi website, as long as it lasts.

Islam Lite

The Coptic priest, Abuna Zakaria, has a bounty on his head of 60 million dollars by al-Qaida, it seems. Read more on him HERE. It is interesting how one evangelist on TV in the Arab World can upset muslims so badly. I guess this is because he invites Muslims to read their own sources, Qur'an and ahadith, and asks them whether what they read is credible. Oh, the doubts he is sowing in Muslim minds!

Until the 1950s, hadly any Muslim in teh Arab World coud read Arabic, and you can argue, that this was a main reason for Islam to be rather heterodox in the Arab World. Then many people became literate, and Islam became more a fundamentalist religion of the book. Bad habits and beliefs were rejected. And now, these literate Muslims are facing the darker sides of what Islam officially teaches. Very upsetting for many. Is that maybe why at the moment, a more 'evangelical' style Islam is in vogue? An Islam that hardly looks at its sources, but that is a sort of 'Islam lite' that can speak of loving God, the love of God, serving other people, and where Muslims sing a sort of praise and worship music for Allah, thei beloved?

Is this Sufism revived? Look on the website of one of the very popular Islam Lite preachers, Moez Masoud, and you see him quote Rumi. Moez is miles apart from what Islam considered traditionally a preacher - he speaks to his audiences in a very conversational style, brings in musicians, and gives his young audiences a great evening in which they realize again that Islam is a religion of peace and love for God, and that Muhammad al-rasul allah is truly to be loved, and that critics like Abuna Zakaria are totally wrong.