Kufr

Q: Recently I bought a new phone that is designed to be waterproof and it is designed to be such that if it falls from a table it doesn’t break or crack the screen.

A problem, however, is that the designer of the phone placed two steel platters over the phone’s back (I think it is intended to protect the battery and the back of the phone). I know picture making is haraam so I did not take a photo for you to inspect. The two steel platters cross each other and it looks like a cross (two steel platters crossed together, with the upper part of the vertical platter shorter, which is similar to a cross). I personally don’t think the company intended to make a cross shape to appeal people rather the designer probably just thought that this design is either safe or “cool” (it is a Chinese phone company and they are likely not Christians).

Should I return the phone or keep it? Returning it makes me feel a bit guilty as there is no product defect. But keeping it also makes me worried. If I keep how do I destroy the shape (it is made for safety so I don’t know how to remove the platter)?

Q: Is it haraam to put kolam (Rangoli designs) in front of our house or inside our house?

Q: In India there are many festivals of false gods. Everywhere people celebrate it. In the IT Company that I work in people also celebrate these festivals. The company makes one entertainment program in which they say to the employees to come the next day with constumes. Then they worship false gods and dance in that program.

Many Muslim people, mostly girls, get involved in that. They wear clothes like the non Muslims. I tell them not to get involved in that, they tell "we are just going to have fun. We are not going to worship any false gods." Are they doing shirk?

Q: I'm a computer scientist and in my learning and use, there are often libraries of codes which are very popular and heavily used. They often contain a lot of math or pre built software. The problem is that the library sometimes might have a haram name like jupyter, greek mythology names much like the names of several planets. What should a Muslim to do in this situation?

Q: Allah is known as "eel" in a language but in English it looks funny. If I laughed at it, is it kufr? I know we should avoid it, but if done is it kufr?

Q: I read this on the internet about the Sabeans: In brief, they did not reject the Prophets or regard it as obligatory to follow them. In their view, whoever followed (the Prophets) is blessed and saved, and whoever follows a path similar to that of the Prophets by virtue of his own reasoning is also blessed and saved, even if he did not follow the Prophets in specific terms. In their view, the call of the Prophets was true but there was no one specific route to salvation. Isn’t it all kufr? Also was a specific prophet sent to them?

Q: I came across a video on facebook in which a Hindu woman was converting to Christianity. It was a ritual, some words were exchanged between the priest and the woman and then he baptised her. I forwarded this clip to many people in my contact list with no intention to inspire anyone to convert to Christianity (ma'aaz Allah) nor did I intend to promote Christianity, it was purely out of curiosity and sharing knowledge. What does Quran and Hadith say about this?

Q: We all know that qadayanis are not Muslim as they do not believe in khatm-e-naboowat sallallahu alaihi wasallam. If a qadaayani becomes hafiz of the Quraan, what would happen to him/her in this case as he is not a Muslim?

Q: What is illuminati?

Q: One of my Hindu friends asked how God decides if someone will be wealthy and others will be poor. Similarly, how will someone be born healthy and others disabled. etc. Is this decision randomly made by God or is there some logic behind it? I understand this life is a test but why do some people have relatively easy tests and others really hard tests?