To Lady Marva,
Your right in Islam we don't accept salvation the way that Christians accept it. I will offer you some quotes from "The Complete Idiots Guide To Understanding Islam" written by Yahiya Emerick, so that you can better understand how we are "saved" as Muslims.
"Islam does not accept the Christian idea that you need to ask a priest to forgive you or pray to a Son of God for deliverance. Even more incomprehensible to Muslims is the Christian belief of being "saved" in which a person who asks Jesus into his or her heart automatically goes to heaven no matter what the person does later in life, good or bad. Islam teaches that you save or damn yourself every day through your belief, or lack of it, your actions, good or bad, and your overall record. God's mercy will play a part on Judgement Day because no human can ever hope to be perfect enough to earn heaven. God, in His mercy, will forgive much and overlook much, but this doesn't absolve us of our responsibility to try to be as virtuous as possible. The Muslim is taught that there is an open line from each of us to God, and when we pray for forgiveness we must each ask God ourselves, every day, until the day we leave this earth."
"Our sins, if we don't repent of them, will be held against us. Likewise, good deeds are considered the hallmark of our true faith. Every time we do a good or bad deed it is recorded with God and will be a part of our record come Judgement Day. Islam, however, does not teach that you earn your way to heaven, as some Christian theologians have charged. Salvation in Islam is founded on believing in and surrendering your will to God and nothing more. Avoiding sin and leading a righteous life are merely proofs of your faith. A Muslim would respond to the false accusation that Muslims get to heaven by deeds by quoting the Apostle Paul who said, "Faith without works is dead." So the emphasis on good deeds in Islam is for another, more noble purpose."
"Christianity teaches that people are already doomed to Hell unless they believe that God's son died for their sins going back to the sin of Adam and Eve. Islam, however, does not teach that people are born sinful. Rather, Islam teaches that we are all born spotless and that throughout out lives we can do either good or bad based on the interplay of our fitrah (which means your inner nature or moral compass. It steers you to seek out religious experiences and ultimately directs you to accept the existence of God), intelligence, and God's revealed guidance versus satan and our lowly animal desires. Salvation in Islam comes from making the choice while alive to accept Allah and mold your life according to the way of life He has established. That life is based on morality, daily and annual rituals, and repentance for your weakness or misdeeds."
You said that you think that Allah exsists only in Mecca. This is wrong, Allah exsists everywhere. The reason we pray towards Mecca is because the Kabba is there. Muslims do not worship the Kabba however, we pray towards the Kabba because we believe it was the origonal house built for God, built by Abraham. So it has a symbolic meaning kinda like the cross does in Christianity. Also you make it sound as if praying to God often and following the rules that God wants you to, is a bad thing. If praying and following the rules that God gave you is a bad thing to you I would say you have a long way to go in your relationship with God.
You also stated "EXCEPT by committing the ultimate self-sacrifice when infidels need to be killed. Thus you get the suiciders. That's their one and only best shot of getting the rivers flowing with wine and all the virgins. Well, the men do." Let me just bust out some quotes from the same book again.
"The rules for the conduct of war in Islam forbid the killing of noncombatants. The Prophet Muhammad never allowed any Muslim soldier to harm women, children, or the innocent. The trouble with bombing a bus or library is that soldiers are not the ones who are killed. Thus, the people who engage in this type of attack are going against the teachings of Islam. According to the Qur'an, "If you kill a life unjustly it is as if you killed all life." (Qur'an 5:32) Suicide bombers are also guilty of ignoring Islamic teachings, because suicide is forbidden in Islam. The Prophet Muhammad said, "Whoever kills himself with a weapon will have that weapon in his hand, and will kill himself forever in the fire of Hell," and yet this is exactly what these men do when they detonate bombs strapped to their bodies. Are there some religious leaders in that part of the world who condone these actions? Yes, there are, but remember that they, too, have been shaped by the same sense of injustice as the rest of the people there. Muslim scholars in other parts of the world condemn these actions as being against the letter and the spirit of the religion."
"So we can say that there is no such thing as terrorism allowed in Islam. harming innocents is forbidden in Islam, so those who engage in this type of activity cannot rightly call upon religion to justify their actions. Be that as it may, there are some misguided Muslims with legitimate grievances who seem to do everything in the world to make themselves, and Islam, look bad in their pursuit of redress. They say they are doing jihad; however, in reality they often break all the rules for carrying out one. Even as Christianity and Judaism have sometimes been wrongfully used to justify the actions of extremists, a small minority of Muslims is doing the same with Islam. The overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support, condone, or engage in such reprehensible acts."
And yes women get to go to Heaven just as the men.
