Converting to Islam

[We Dont Negotiate]

(i was advised to Re-post this)

Hello there recently over the course of the past several months i have been reading into Islam, its traditions practices and the Qu'ran itself.
The more i read the more it makes sense to me and the more it agrees and consoles a lot of doubts and problems i had previously, what started as an attempt to simply generally educate myself, ive found has resulted in me questioning a lot of my Christian belifes and i find i am very seriously considering Converting to Islam(something that i veiw as no light thing and have also been heavily thought upon)

There is a small thing, that being Arabic i do not speak it or read it
((and while i would like to learn my job would make this very difficult in terms of the time and fascilitys available to do it in)).

Question one:I have come across many sources which tell me that Any Qu'ran not in Arabic is veiwed as an Annotated version and not Holy or acurate, i am confused as to wether this is A) True and if so B) If speaking/reading in Arabic exclusively ,applies also To the daily Salah , general Prayer and the Shahaadatayn or any other articles of Faith.

I am not saying that language will effect my decision of faith(im not that fickle heh) just i would like to know how it would effect the actual practice of faith and how important a grapse of Arabic be it written or verbal it plays in the great scheme of things.

Question two: One extra note, when browsing one of many sites, i came acoss one which had an extremely large section about how to Convert to islam, mentiond in passing was that you could not be a member of a Non Muslim country's Military, i belive the reasoning was that it was not in aid of the Greater Muslim community. I am currently in the British Military, and have an obvious dependancy on my job to pay for well..you know..living, and a good career ahead of me which i fully enjoy.

Would this be the opinion of this one writer, or is it the opinion of the larger Muslim Community, or mentiond specifically in the Qur'an itself

i appologise if they are trivial questions.
Thank you very much!

(Bolded as apparently the question wasnt clear enough)  

[The Dead Terrorist Achmed]

We Dont Negotiate

Question one:I have come across many sources which tell me that Any Qu'ran not in Arabic is veiwed as an Annotated version and not Holy or acurate, i am confused as to wether this is

True. Arabic is the language of Allah (swt). Any translation is an interpretation, not the real thing.

We Dont Negotiate

B) If speaking/reading in Arabic exclusively ,applies also To the daily Salah , general Prayer and the Shahaadatayn or any other articles of Faith.

Prayers are to be done in Arabic, as well as certain greetings and farewells.
3nodding

We Dont Negotiate

Question two: One extra note, when browsing one of many sites, i came acoss one which had an extremely large section about how to Convert to islam, mentiond in passing was that you could not be a member of a Non Muslim country's Military, i belive the reasoning was that it was not in aid of the Greater Muslim community. I am currently in the British Military, and have an obvious dependancy on my job to pay for well..you know..living, and a good career ahead of me which i fully enjoy.

Um, well then all of the USA military members that are Muslim are bad Muslims. rolleyes
What site did you get it off of?
Have you checked about Muslims in the British military?

We Dont Negotiate

Would this be the opinion of this one writer, or is it the opinion of the larger Muslim Community, or mentiond specifically in the Qur'an itself

It may be just a hadith, but if its in the Qu'ran, I'm not entirely sure. Everybody gets so disagreeable about these types of things. So annoying.
neutral


PS. Wouldn't the Brits like you for learning Arabic? You would be picking up an immensely important language...  

[XeroRyn]

q1 the answer is yes

q2 it is just an opinion because after the war in Iraq it seems like the western military are against the Muslim

i believe is does not matter if you are in the British military as long as you are sincere for the faith because it is the way of Islam

and also the reason for the opinion maybe because they are afraid you will against other Muslim in war  

[We Dont Negotiate]

Quote:

True. Arabic is the language of Allah (swt). Any translation is an interpretation, not the real thing.

Ill accept this mostly on Cultural standard, but i would have presumed Allah speaks all languages, especailly since Allah was the first of all things and Arabic is not one of the oldest langauges.

Quote:

Prayers are to be done in Arabic, as well as certain greetings and farewells.
3nodding

Thank you, i belive that it would be no great stretch to learn certain prayers

Quote:

Um, well then all of the USA military members that are Muslim are bad Muslims. rolleyes
What site did you get it off of?
Have you checked about Muslims in the British military?

1)I belive it was www.muslimconvert.com or something along those lines
2)And i do not actually know any Military Muslims in my area , to be fair i preumed it was an opinion, as with any faith i presumed certain interpritations are taken from person to person

Quote:

It may be just a hadith, but if its in the Qu'ran, I'm not entirely sure. Everybody gets so disagreeable about these types of things. So annoying.
neutral

Yes i can imagine hah!, thank you for clearing it up!


PS. Wouldn't the Brits like you for learning Arabic? You would be picking up an immensely important language...

You would think as much, but from what i gather the majoity of speakers are Civilian Contracters, people who knew it before they joined up, or people who manged to grab basics while on Tour in etiher Iraq or Afghanistan, We are enocuraged in the British Army to go on courses and always learn new Skills, but at the same time we allso have general Dutys and unpreditcable shift patterns, and not all the time we would like  

[XeroRyn]

yes definitely Allah understand all language that is why we can pray (du'a) in our own language

the Arabic language is a symbol of unity in Islam
so it is easier if we use one language like English is use all over the world as Arabic is use for Islamic world

i still remember one of my christian friend go to a church and pray but she could not understand the prayer because it was in chinese and then she transfer to another church and they pray in local dialect and she still could not understand so it is hard for her to pray

but in islam we can pray any mosque it s still the same so it is easier

another reason is to neglect misinterpretation of the Quran let we understand the Quran the way it is really said

such example is the Bible...original language of the Bible is what? hebrew? i ve seen in latin and so on and we all know due to translation and procees of time change the bible bits by bits

i mean how many Bible do they have know? how many gospel? which one is true?

lets take a look at the quran, the Quran is remain solely as one the way it is  

[We Dont Negotiate]

Thank you! this help's quite a bit i shall continue to read and clarify my knowledge and understanding of certain aspects, hopefully i will feel ready to go the whole way in time.

But i think i need more understanding what im getting myself into first!

Thank you