Courtesy of Adamslist

“There is none amongst the believers who plants a tree, or sows a seed, and then a bird, or a person, or an animal eats thereof, but it is regarded as having given a charitable gift [for which there is great recompense].” [Al-Bukhari, III:513].

The idea of the Prophet Mohammed as a pioneer of environmentalism will initially strike many as strange: indeed, the term “environment” and related concepts like “ecology”, “environmental awareness” and “sustainability”, are modern-day inventions, terms that were formulated in the face of the growing concerns about the contemporary state of the natural world around us.

And yet a closer reading of the hadith, the body of work that recounts significant events in the Prophet’s life, reveals that he was a staunch advocate of environmental protection. One could say he was an “environmentalist avant la lettre”, a pioneer in the domain of conservation, sustainable development and resource management, and one who constantly sought to maintain a harmonious balance between man and nature. From all accounts of his life and deeds, we read that the Prophet had a profound respect for fauna and flora, as well as an almost visceral connection to the four elements, earth, water, fire and air.

He was a strong proponent of the sustainable use and cultivation of land and water, proper treatment of animals, plants and birds, and the equal rights of users. In this context the modernity of the Prophet’s view of the environment and the concepts he introduced to his followers is particularly striking; certain passages of the hadith could easily be mistaken for discussions about contemporary environmental issues.

Three Principles

The Prophet’s environmental philosophy is first of all holistic: it assumes a fundamental link and interdependency between all natural elements and bases its teachings on the premise that if man abuses or exhausts one element, the natural world as a whole will suffer direct consequences. This belief is nowhere formulated in one concise phrase; it is rather an underlying principle that forms the foundation of all the Prophet’s actions and words, a life philosophy that defined him as a person.

The three most important principles of the Prophet’s philosophy of nature are based on the Qur’anic teachings and the concepts of tawhid (unity), khalifa(stewardship) and amana (trust).

Tawhid, the oneness of God, is a cornerstone of the Islamic faith. It recognizes the fact that there is one absolute Creator and that man is responsible to Him for all his actions: “To God belongs all that is in the heavens and in the earth, for God encompasses everything [4:126].”  The Prophet acknowledges that God’s knowledge and power covers everything. Therefore abusing one of his creations, whether it is a living being or a natural resource, is a sin. The Prophet considered all of God’s creations to be equal before God and he believed animals, but also land, forests and watercourses should have rights.

The concepts of khalifa, stewardship, and amana, trust, emerge from the principle of tawhid. The Qur’an explains that mankind holds a privileged position among God’s creations on earth: he is chosen as khalifa, “vice-regent” and carries the responsibility of caring for God’s earthly creations. Each individual is given this task and privilege in the form of God’s trust. But the Qur’an repeatedly warns believers against arrogance: they are no better than other creatures.  “No creature is there on earth nor a bird flying with its wings but they are nations like you [6:38]”; “Surely the creation of the heavens and the earth is greater than the creation of man; but most people know not [40:57]”.

The Prophet believed that the universe and the creations in it – animals, plants, water, land – were not created for mankind. Man is allowed to use the resources but he can never own them. Thus while Islam allows land ownership, it has limitations: an owner can, for example, only own land if he uses it; once he ceases to use it, he has to part with his possession.

The Prophet recognized man’s responsibility to God but always maintained humility. Thus he said: “When doomsday comes, if someone has a palm shoot in his hand, he should plant it,” suggesting that even when all hope is lost for mankind, one should sustain nature’s growth. He believed that nature remains a good in itself, even if man does not benefit from it.

Similarly, the Prophet incited believers to share the earth’s resources. He said: “Muslims share alike in three things – water, herbage and fire,” and he considered it a sin to withhold water from the thirsty. “No one can refuse surplus water without sinning against Allah and against man” [Mishkat al Masabih].

The Prophet’s attitude towards sustainable use of land, conservation of water and the treatment of animals is a further illustration of the humility of his environmental philosophy.

Sustainable Use of Land

“The earth has been created for me as a mosque and as a means of purification.” [Al-Bukhari I:331] With these words the Prophet emphasizes the sacred nature of earth or soil, not only as a pure entity but also as a purifying agent. This reverence towards soil is also demonstrated in the ritual of tayammum, or “dry wudu” which permits the use of dust in the performance of ritual purification before prayer when water is not available.

The Prophet saw earth as subservient to man, but recognised that it should not be overexploited or abused, and that it had rights, like the trees and wildlife living on it. In order to protect land, forests and wildlife, the Prophet created inviolable zones known as hima and haram, in which resources were to be left untouched. Both are still in use today: haram areas are often drawn up around wells and water sources to protect the groundwater table from over-pumping. Hima applies particularly to wildlife and forestry and usually designates an area of land where grazing and woodcutting are restricted, or where certain animal species are protected.

The Prophet not only encouraged the sustainable use of fertile lands, he also told his followers of the benefits of making unused land productive: planting a tree, sowing a seed and irrigating dry land were all regarded as charitable deeds.“Whoever brings dead land to life, that is, cultivates wasteland, for him is a reward therein.” Thus any person who irrigates a plot of “dead”, or desert land becomes its rightful owner.

Conservation of Water

In the harsh desert environment where the Prophet lived, water was synonymous to life. Water was a gift from God, the source of all life on earth as is testified in the Qur’an:  “We made from water every living thing” [21:30].  The Qur’an constantly reminds believers that they are but the guardians of God’s creation on earth and that they should never take this creation for granted: “Consider the water which you drink. Was it you that brought it down from the rain cloud or We? If We had pleased, We could make it bitter” [56:68-70].

Saving water and safeguarding its purity were two important issues for the Prophet: we have seen that his concern about the sustainable use of water led to the creation of haram zones in the vicinity of water sources. But even when water was abundant, he advocated thriftiness: thus he recommended that believers perform wudu no more than three times, even if they were near to a flowing spring or river. The theologian El-Bukhari added: “ The men of science disapprove of exaggeration and also of exceeding the number of ablutions of the Prophet.” The Prophet also warned against water pollution by forbidding urination in stagnant water.

The Treatment of Animals:

“If anyone wrongfully kills even a sparrow, let alone anything greater, he will face God’s interrogation” [Mishkat al Masabih]. These words reflect the great reverence, respect and love that the Prophet always showed towards animals. He believed that as part of God’s creation, animals should be treated with dignity, and the hadith contains a large collection of traditions, admonitions and stories about his relationship to animals. It shows that he had particular consideration for horses and camels: to him they were valiant companions during journey and battle, and he found great solace and wisdom in their presence as the following tradition reveals: “In the forehead of horses are tied up welfare and bliss until the Day of Resurrection.”

Even in the slaughter of animals, the Prophet showed great gentleness and sensitivity. While he did not practice vegetarianism, the hadiths clearly show that the Prophet was extremely sensitive to the suffering of animals, almost as though he shared their pain viscerally. Thus he recommends using sharp knives and a good method so that the animal can die a quick death with as little pain as possible. He also warned against slaughtering an animal in the presence of other animals, or letting the animal witness the sharpening of blades: to him that was equal to “slaughtering the animal twice” and he emphatically condemned such practices as “abominable”.

Conclusion

It is impossible to do justice to the full scope and significance of Prophet Mohammed’s environmental philosophy in this short article. His holistic view of nature and his understanding of man’s place within the natural world pioneered environmental awareness within the Muslim community.

Sadly, the harmony that the Prophet advocated between man and his environment has today all too often been lost. As we face the effects of pollution and overexploitation, desertification and water scarcity in some parts of the world and floods and violent storms elsewhere, it is perhaps time for the world community as a whole, Muslims, Christians and Jews, Hindus and Buddhists, atheists and agnostics, to take a leaf out of the Prophet’s book and address the current environmental crisis seriously and wisely.

http://kalkhausar.wordpress.com/2011/02/18/prophet-muhammed-a-pioneer-of-the-environment/

by Islamweb.net

From Adamslist compiled by A. I. Seedat

The heart is like a fort and Satan the advancing enemy, who is intent on infiltrating and occupying it.

Hence, only by guarding the gates, entrances and vulnerable positions, will it be impenetrable.

Yet, a person who is unacquainted with the structure of the fortress, particularly its access points, cannot adequately defend it.

By the same token, the obligation of guarding the heart from the whispers of Satan cannot be fulfilled and he cannot be warded off, unless a person knows the gates to the heart that Satan may take.

These gateways are, generally, personal characteristics, of which there are many but, here, we will only refer to the ones that are so wide so as to accommodate all the numerous soldiers of Satan:

- Anger and desire: Anger is the ghoul of the psyche; when it weakens the guards of one’s mind, Satan’s soldiers immediately seize the opportunity to attack. Furthermore, when a person becomes enraged, Satan toys with him in the same way children play with a ball.

- Envy and greed: No matter how careful man is, his covetousness makes him deaf and dumb. The light of insight reveals the gates of Satan; when envy and greediness mask this light, man becomes at risk. Hence, Satan seizes that opportunity and adorns for an acquisitive person whatever leads to his or her desires, even if it is heinous and evil. The Prophet, peace be upon him, spoke of avarice:

“If two starving wolves were left in a flock of sheep, they would not be as harmful [to them] as a person’s hunger for money and status is to his [or her] faith.” (At-Tirmidhi)

- Satiating oneself: This is one of Satan’s gateways to the heart; although lawful, eating in excess strengthens one’s desires, which, in turn, are his weapons.

- Impetuosity: Haste and recklessness are among the widest gates of Satan to one’s heart, as the Prophet, peace be upon him, said:

“Hastiness is from Satan and deliberateness is from God.” (At-Tirmidhi)

- Miserliness and fear of poverty: They prevent a person from giving in charity, instead justifying hoarding, which only leads to a painful punishment.

- Bigotry toward a specific school of thought or an inclination toward a desire, bearing grudges against opponents or treating them with contempt: This destroys the immoral and pious alike. Defaming people and calling attention to their faults is one of the predatory characteristics inherent in human nature.

- Thinking ill of Muslims: {O you who have believed! Avoid much suspicion, indeed some suspicions are sins.} (Al-Hujurat, 49: 12). Indeed, only hypocrites seek out flaws in others, whereas believers seek excuses for them.

A person may now ask: “How can one ward Satan off? Is it enough to be in constant remembrance of God or to utter [phrases like] ‘Laa hawla wala quwwata illaa billaah (There is no power or strength except in God)’?” The answer is that you must know that the course of treatment to save one’s heart from the whispers of Satan is to block the gateways [he takes] and to purify the heart from the aforementioned bad characteristics.

The remembrance of God should indeed suffice in stopping Satan from passing by or whispering in one’s heart. However, that cannot happen unless the heart itself is already of a pious nature and purified from evil characteristics. If not, words of His remembrance will be no more than mere thoughts without any impact on the heart or substance to deflect Satan: {Indeed, those who are pious – when an impulse touches them from Satan, they remember [Him] and at once they have insight.} (Al-A’raf, 7: 201).

Therefore, since this is only confined to the pious, once a person manages to uproot evil traits from within, Satan may pass by or whisper, but will never be able to reside in the heart.

You see, Satan is like an approaching starved dog; if a person has neither bread nor meat, it will move away just by your voice which commands it to “go away”. However, if you have meat in your hands and the dog is hungry, it will attack the flesh and your mere words will not be enough to keep the animal at bay.

Similarly, if the heart is free from anything Satan can feed on, Dhikr (remembrance of God) will be enough to fend it off. On the other hand, if a person’s desires dominate his or her heart, the influence of Dhikr is restricted to the outer edges of the heart and instead, its core becomes a residence for Satan. The Prophet said:

“The heart is touched twice: [one of it is] a touch by the angel [which constitutes] a command of goodness and an acceptance of the truth. So, if a man experiences this, he should know that it is from God the Almighty and he should consequently thank Him. On the other hand, [there is] a touch from the enemy [Satan, and that constitutes an] insinuation of evil, disbelief in truth and being barred from good. So, if a person experiences this, he should seek refuge with God from the accursed Satan.” Then, the Prophet recited the Saying of God: {Satan threatens you with poverty and orders you to immorality.} (Al-Baqarah, 2:268).” [An-Nasa’i and At-Tirmidhi]

Expounding on this, Al-Hassan, may God have mercy upon him said: They [i.e., the two touches] are actually two concerns that occur to the heart: one from God the Almighty and the other from the enemy [Satan]. May God have mercy upon a slave who examines his concerns and lets that affect him which is from God, and strives against whatever he deems from the enemy.”

You Decide

By nature, the heart equally accepts both the inspiration of an angel and the incitement of Satan, such that there is a balance. However, the latter aspect dominates when a person acts ravenously and indulges in desires, whereas the former overrules it if a person turns away from wants and whims, and resists them.

When man becomes subservient to his desires and his actions become driven by rage, the influence of Satan will prevail via whims, which are his haven, and the heart will become Satan’s nest and pasture.  On the other hand, if a person strives against his or her desires, barring them from impacting him or her and adopts some angelic traits, his or her heart will become the dwelling and station of angels. Thus, the soldiers of angels and of Satan are in an epic struggle, until the heart opens to one of them, allowing them to reside within and dominate; the other party, then, will only be able to pass with stealth.

Unfortunately, most hearts are conquered by the soldiers of Satan, sustained by obedience to desires and whims, and, therefore, the organs are riddled with base notions that give preference to this temporary life, with clear disregard of the Hereafter. The heart cannot be recaptured except when it is purified from the nutrition of Satan and is supported with the remembrance of Allah the Almighty, which is the haven of angels.

Responses of the Heart to Temptation

Hudhayfah ibn Al-Yaman, may God be pleased with him, narrated that the Prophet, peace be upon him, said:

“Temptations are presented to hearts in the same way as a reed mat is woven, stick by stick. Any heart which is saturated by them will receive a black mark, whereas any heart that rejects them will have a white mark put on it. The result is that there will be two types of hearts: a black and dusty heart, which is like an uneven vessel that neither recognizes good nor rejects evil, except what is impregnated into it of desires; and a white heart that will never be harmed by any temptation, as long as there are heavens and the earth.” (Muslim)

Heart Types

When the lure of desire and doubts are presented to the heart, it transforms into either of two types:

1- A heart that absorbs temptation in the same way a sponge soaks up water. This one will get a black stain every time it gives in to a temptation, until it becomes wholly dark and uneven. When this happens, the heart will be susceptible to two dangerous diseases: firstly, it will be unable to differentiate between good and evil, to the extent that it will not recognize either of them. Thereafter, the illness will pervade the organ until a person believes that good is evil and evil is good, the Prophetic Sunnah (the lifestyle of the Prophet p.b.u.h) is a religious innovation and vice versa, and that truth is falsehood and the opposite holds true as well. Secondly, the heart will begin to be subservient to its whims, making them a criterion for judging the teachings of the Prophet.

2- The second is the white heart that is illuminated by the light of faith. When temptations are presented to it, it will immediately deny and reject them, thereby increasing in brightness and radiance.

As for the temptations themselves, they are categorized into two: desires and doubts. While the first leads to the corruption of both intentions and one’s will, the second taints a person’s knowledge and belief.

Heart Diseases

Accordingly, diseases of the heart are also of base desires and doubts; the former can be interpreted by the verse in which God the Almighty Says (what means): {Do not be soft in speech [to men], lest he in whose heart is disease should covet.} (Al-Ahzab, 33: 32)

Unlike a healthy person, a patient is more sensitive to the slightest changes in heat, cold or movement; likewise, when the heart suffers from an illness, even a small amount of whims or doubts harms it and it is unable to ward them off. On the other hand, a sound heart powerfully fends off these temptations, even in the face of more attacks.

As for the other kind, God referred to the disease of doubt, when He said: {In their hearts is disease, so God has increased their disease.} (Al-Baqarah, 2: 10) Commenting on this verse, Qatadah and Mujahid, may Allah have mercy upon them, stated that “disease” here refers to misgivings.

Remedy

Although illnesses of the heart come in these two forms, the Glorious Quran is a remedy for both. It includes decisive proofs that distinguish between truth and falsehood; with them, the disease of doubt, which corrupts a person’s knowledge and intellect, is removed, and a person can perceive things in their real form. Thus, the Quran is the true cure for malicious allegations and doubts. Yet, its effectiveness is contingent on understanding the Quran and comprehending its essence. And, if God grants that to a person, his or her heart will as clearly distinguish between truth and falsehood, as it does between night and day.

Additionally, the Quran heals the other of the two diseases: desire; for, it includes wisdom, admonition and encouragement. It also contains verses warning people against indulging in the worldly life and instead urging them to work for the Hereafter. Furthermore, it has parables and stories that illustrate various lessons and warnings. Contemplating all this, a sound heart will surely incline towards what benefits it in both worlds and turn away from what will be of harm. The heart will then love guidance and detest vice.

Thus, the Glorious Quran removes diseases that result in corrupt yearnings; it reforms the heart, and so, reforms its wants, thus restoring it to the natural, pure state that it was created in. Referring to this, God says:{And We reveal of the Qur’an that which is a healing and a mercy for believers though it increase the evil-doers in naught save ruin.} (Al-Isra, 17: 82)

{O mankind, there has to come to you instruction from your Lord and healing for what is in the breasts and guidance and mercy for the believers.} (Yunus, 10: 57)

The heart feeds on faith and the Quran, taking from it what purifies and strengthens it. Both the heart and body require growth and development until they become perfect and sound. Hence, just as the body needs nutrients that build it and a healthy diet that protects it from harm, so does the heart. But, it can only obtain its nourishment from the Quran; and if it attempts to get something similar from another source, it would be provided with very little and not be able to reach its potential. Similarly, plants do not grow or become ripe without nutrients and proper environment; only when those are available, can we say they do.

Therefore, a person should study the signs of an ill and a sound heart, so he or she is able to discern which type he or she possesses. If the heart is sick, a slave of God must do his or her best to treat it before he or she meets Him with a sick heart, which will deprive him or her from entering Paradise. If the heart is sound, then he or she must nonetheless continue to safeguard its soundness until he or she dies in this state. If, however, the heart is dead, he or she can take solace in the fact that God gives life to the dead, as He Says (what means):{Know that God gives life to the earth after its lifelessness. We have made clear to you the signs; perhaps you will understand.} (Al-Hadid, 57: 17)

Source: Islamweb.net - http://www.islamweb.net

http://www.onislam.net/english/reading-islam/living-islam/growing-in-faith/453891-satans-gateways-to-the-heart.html

Letter from Prophet Muhammad to Heraclius, King of Byzantium

The Prophet wrote to the Caesar of the Byzantine Empire, inviting him to Islam, sending a letter to him with Dihya al-Kalbi. The Prophet directed him to present the letter to the governor of Busra, who would forward it to Caesar.
When God had relieved him of the Persian armies, Caesar walked from Emesa [in central Syria] to Jerusalem, out of gratitude to God for having inured him to trial. So when the letter of the Prophet reached him, Caesar read it and said, “Look for someone from his people around here, so that I may ask about this Messenger of God.”

Now, it happened that Abu Sufyan was then in Syria with some men from the Quraish tribe who had come on business during the truce that then existed between the Prophet and the disbelievers of the Quraish.

Abu Sufyan later said, “The emissary of Caesar found us in a part of Syria, and he took me and my companions to Jerusalem. There we were brought to Caesar, who was sitting at his royal court, his crown on his head, around him the grandees of Byzantium.”

Now, Caesar said to his interpreter, “Ask them who among them is closest in kinship to this man who claims to be a prophet.”

Abu Sufyan [who was not a Muslim at the time] responded that he was nearest of them in kinship.

Caesar asked, “And what is the relationship between you and him?”

Abu Sufyan said, “He is a son of my paternal uncle.” Then Caesar said, “Bring him closer,” and had Abu Sufyan’s companions placed behind him, at his shoulders. Then he told his interpreter, “Tell his companions that I am going to question him about this man who claims to be a prophet; so if he tells a lie, immediately repudiate it as a lie.”

Later Abu Sufyan admitted that he would have lied when asked about the Prophet, if not for the fact that he would have been shamed to have others spreading reports that he was a liar. So he told the truth.

Now, Caesar asked through his interpreter, “How is the lineage of this man among you?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “He is of noble descent among us.” Caesar asked, “And has any one of your people previously said what he has said?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Had you found him a liar before he said what he has now said?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Was any among his ancestors a king?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “No.”

Caesar asked, “And do the highborn people listen to him, or the powerless among them?”

Abu Sufyan answered, “Rather the powerless.”

Caesar asked, “And are they increasing or decreasing?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “Increasing.”

Caesar asked, “And does anyone turn away discontent with his religion after having gone into it?”

Abu Sufyan said, “No.”

Caesar asked, “Is he treacherous?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “No, but we are in a truce with him now, and we fear he may betray us.” Later on, Abu Sufyan admitted that this was the closest he was able to come to putting in a bad word against Muhammad.

Caesar went on, “Then have you fought each other?”

Abu Sufyan said, “Yes.”

Caesar asked, “And how did your wars turn out?”

Abu Sufyan said, “Our contests have had alternating results; sometimes he wins over us, and other times we win over him.”

Caesar asked, “What does he enjoin upon you?”

Abu Sufyan replied, “He enjoins us to worship God alone, not associating anything with the sole divinity. And he enjoins us not to worship the fetishes of our ancestors. He also enjoins us to pray, to give charity, and to be chaste; and to fulfill promises and discharge trusts.”

When Abu Sufyan had said this, Caesar told his interpreter to say to him, “I asked you about his lineage among you, and you stated that he is of a sound lineage. And so were all prophets called forth from sound lineages of their people.

“Then I asked if anyone had said what he said before him, and you stated that none had. I would have said, if someone had said this before, that he was a man following something that had been said before him.

“And I asked you if you had found him a liar before he had said what he has said, and you stated that you had not. So I knew he would not lie about God if he did not lie about humans.

“And I asked you if any of his ancestors was a king, and you stated that none had been. I would have said, if any of his ancestors had been a king, that he was seeking the kingdom of his ancestors.

“And I asked you if the highborn people followed him, or the powerless ones; and you stated that it is the powerless. And they are the followers of the Messengers.

“And I asked you if they were increasing or decreasing, and you stated that they were increasing. And so it is with Faith, until it is complete.

“And I asked you if anyone turns away disaffected with his religion after having gone into it, and you stated that none did; and so it is with Faith, with which no one is displeased when its cheerfulness mixes into hearts.

“And I asked you if he acts treacherously, and you stated that he does not. And so it is with all Messengers; they do not act treacherously.

“And I asked you if you fight with each other, and you stated that you did, and that your fortunes in war alternated, now in his favor, now in yours. And so are all Messengers tried, and final victory will be his.

“And I asked you what he enjoins upon you, and you stated that he enjoins you to worship God, and not to associate anything with God, and not to worship the fetishes of your ancestors. And he enjoins you to pray, to give charity, to be chaste, to keep promises, and to fulfill trusts. And this is the description of a prophet.

“I knew he would appear, but I did not know he would be from among you. If what you have said is true, he will soon rule the ground beneath these two feet of mine. If I could expect to reach him, I would take it upon myself to go and meet him; and if I were with him, I would wash his feet.”

Then Caesar called for the letter of the Prophet, and it was read aloud. In it was this:

In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful. From Muhammad, slave and messenger of God, to Heraclius, ruler of Byzantium. Peace upon all who follow Guidance.

Now then, I call you with the call to submission to God. Surrender to God, and you will be safe. Surrender to God, and God will give you a double reward. If you turn away, then the misdeeds of the peasants will be your fault.

And, people of the Book, come to a Word common to both of us, that we worship only God and do not associate anything with God, and that none of us takes any for lords but God. And if they turn away, then say, “Witness that we have surrendered to God.”

Excerpted from “The Wisdom of the Prophet” by Thomas Cleary.

Afghan calligrapher Mohammed Sabeer Hussani, center, and nine student apprentices work on a page for the world's largest Quran - the Islamic holy book - at the Hakim Nasir-e-Khusraw Balkhi Cultural Center in Kabul, Afghanistan. (Credit: Hakim Nasir-e-Khusraw Balkhi Cultural Center)

From WorldWatch, CBS News www.cbsnews.com

The world’s largest Quran has been unveiled in the Afghan capital, Kabul. The cultural center that commissioned the work wanted more than just to own the largest Muslim holy book — it wanted to show the world that despite more than 30 years of war, Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage has not been destroyed.

Afghan calligrapher Mohammed Sabeer Khedri Hussani, 52, and nine student apprentices spent five years working 18 hours a day, seven days a week, to create the enormous masterpiece. Hussani, a devout Muslim, tells CBS News it was a labor of love, and he is proud of his accomplishment.

“My happiness is when I see each and every group of people coming everyday to see my calligraphy, it makes me feel proud,” he says.

The lavish holy book, with pages measuring more than seven feet tall and five feet wide, has been certified as the world’s largest Quran by the Afghan Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, according to the cultural center which houses it.

It weighs 1,102 pounds, and has 218 pages of cloth and paper bound inside an embossed leather cover made from the skins of 21 goats. Hussani says the book cost a million dollars to create, and was paid for by Islamic spiritual leader Alhaj Sayed Mansoor Naderi.

The Quran combines gold script with millions of tiny colorful dots, forming highly symbolic decorations around the giant pages.

“I wanted to use as many tasteful colors as possible to make this holy book look beautiful,” Hussani says. The book was completed in 2009, but a room at the cultural center had to be built to house it.

The cultural center was originally founded in the 1980s, and was once home to 50 thousand books, a medical center and schools teaching traditional Afghan crafts like carpet weaving, but it was largely destroyed in the 1990s during the Civil War that followed the Soviet pullout.

The founders have been reviving the center since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001, and the new Quran is its showpiece.

By the time I gathered the courage to email my friend Mariam for recommendations on local mosques, I had been keeping my secret for weeks. I was a half-closeted Muslim. My conversion to Islam came about with blinding speed and by accident.

For years I felt my emotional connection to God decay, despite all of my Catholic-sanctioned attempts to reawaken even the smallest degree of fervor. Out of desperation, one spring I began to read an English interpretation of the Quran hoping for a fresh perspective on the familiar Judeo-Christian stories. Since I had lost my ability to focus on or feel moved by well-worn Bible passages, I reasoned that if I just read a few chapters of the same stories narrated in a different way, then surely I would find my Catholic faith revived and would return, newly energized, to reading the stories the “right” way.
I never expected that in less than a week I would develop a powerful craving to read to the oft-repeated promises: God is the All-Knowing, the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing, the most Forgiving, the Dispenser of Grace. I never imagined that the poetic articulations of God’s bounty and the precision of His creation would appeal so vividly to my analytical nature, or that the breathtaking language would stand out as supreme above anything I had read before. I am an avid reader and, as an attorney, have been trained to critique language and spot the weaknesses in arguments. And yet by the time I was halfway through the Quran, I realized I could no longer read it as a cultural experiment or as an idle intellectual pursuit or as a gateway back into my Catholic faith.
I was simply reading my book. Even across centuries of time and strained through English interpretations, I knew I was reading words sent down by God. In mere days of reading the first chapter the Quran, my transformation began. I fought it for only a few more weeks, devouring the Quran a second time to be sure, before I said my shahada.
Telling non-Muslim friends was the easy part. Most of my friends were ivory tower progressives who exalted spiritual independence and disdained Islamophobic political rhetoric. A handful of Christian friends offered a few gentle, respectfully worded concerns, but far more often the news was met with excitement and encouragement for my personal journey of discovery. The accolades were ill-fitting and the attention intimidating. In fact, the more I was commended for my bravery, the more it sank in what a scary thing I had done.
Having given the news of my conversion to non-Muslim friends, I then reached out to a few Muslim friends who I was likely to see in the coming months but who remained outside of my closest circle. Here, my apprehension grew into a sense of inauthenticity. Was it even appropriate to contact them out of the blue to say I converted? “Good luck in your new apartment, hey, I converted to Islam!” Or, “How’s the job hunt going? By the way, I’m a Muslim now!” To mollify my awkwardness, I raised the issue flippantly, deflecting my fear with self-deprecating humor, holding myself out like a spectacle to be judged on their terms. I took what had been a deeply personal decision and did my best to downplay it for their consumption.
After I survived those blundering phone calls, there remained the problem of telling Mariam. She had been one of my best friends since our law school years. I had long admired Mariam for being one of the most incisive thinkers I knew, and for devoting so much of her energy to women’s issues in Islamic countries. Over countless lunches, she would recite in detail the latest injustices occurring in parts of the world that had no connection to my suburban American upbringing. Our friendship including bonding over our own versions of feminism, but she seemed to be fighting two battles: the usual sexism of daily American life to which I could relate, and an entirely different arena of patriarchy in the “community” that remained foreign to me.
After years of seeing Mariam as a complex individual, as my smart and interesting friend who could skewer those who support injustice and yet relate compassionately to my mundane complaints about long hours at the office, I pigeonholed Mariam as “my Muslim friend who doesn’t know I’m Muslim.” She became a prototype of what it meant to me to be a Muslim-American woman. From the political causes she undertook to the effortless way she draped a scarf across her shoulders, from the superficial to the meaningful, I saw her as a full and true Muslim. Islam was her right, and no one could take it away from her. In comparison, I was an outsider, a fraud, a silly little girl who jumped into something headfirst and in utter ignorance of the social consequences.
On some level, converting to her religion without her input or blessing called my entire identity as a new Muslim into doubt. I transposed all of my insecurities on her and feared she would question my choice in the same keen way that she analyzed her cases. And I, of course, would lack the answers to defend my conversion. What if I had misunderstood the Quran? Scholars spend lifetimes pouring over this layered text, and here I had sped through it in a matter of weeks and embraced it instantly. I had never even stepped foot inside a mosque! Would she expect me to say “inshallah” around her, or would I sound ridiculous for suddenly speaking Arabic phrases?
Every aspect of my struggle with my new spiritual identity found a foil in Mariam, and I was too intimidated to approach my friend until months had passed. I was going nowhere on my independent hunt for a mosque, for something beyond reading in my solitary apartment and browsing websites with incomprehensible prayer instructions. I hadn’t required any help in deciding whether to convert, but now that I identified myself as a Muslim (however ill-fitting the description felt) I needed guidance on how to be one. And so I sent Mariam an email with no explanation. “I’m looking for a recommendation on a mosque in the area. Any ideas?”
My phone rang shortly after. I knew it would be her and my voice was unsteady as I answered. Never one to mince words, Mariam asked me outright why I inquired about a mosque. I remember responding in the light, laughing tone I’d used with my more casual Muslim friends but my voice caught in my throat. Mariam asked me why I converted. My reasoning sounded inadequate to my ears, “I read the Quran…and…it seems true to me. Especially by the time I got towards the end, where it’s so powerful and even in English the words are unlike anything a human being could create, I realized this had to be divinely inspired. It couldn’t be from man, it had to be from God.” I remember my words spilling out one over the other and my voice trembling. I cut myself off for fear of sounding even more naïve that I felt sure I already did.
A few moments of silence passed, and when she spoke again I heard the emotion in her voice. She told me how ecstatic she was to hear the news and immediately a weight removed itself from my chest. At last, I could freely discuss my conversion with a friend who understood the beauty and the mystery of that miraculous book.
In time, Mariam became my Quran study buddy and living Cliff-Notes guide to “the community.” She invited me to celebrate my first Eid with her family, and provided an anchor of sanity when all of the adjustments grew overwhelming. Of all our shared moments, I always remember that first day we spoke openly about our love for the Quran as one of the turning points of my conversion. I entered that conversation lacking any claim to my own “Muslimness,” and while it would be misleading to suggest that with a snap of Mariam’s fingers I cemented a new identity, it did mark the first time that we talked as two lawyers, two women, and two friends, like always, but now also as two Muslims.

(Photo Credit: Yutaka Tsutano)
Natalie Abraham is an attorney and a recent convert to Islam. She wrote this article using a pen name.

http://www.altmuslimah.com/a/b/mca/4542/

Last year, I had a chance to see the film The Imam and the Pastor about Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye, two Nigerians, one Muslim, one Christian, who have been able to put aside their differences and come together to fight communal violence in Northern Nigeria. This film really gives me hope. It is also a great example of what real interreligious dialogue, with a vision towards reconciliation, can achieve. It was also just great seeing a documentary about Nigeria, this place I long to see, where my father lives, but which I have yet to journey to.

According to Imam Ashafa: ‘Religion is a candle to light the house or to burn down the house. It is an energy, and like nuclear energy, it can be used for good or destructive purposes. Our task is to see religion used for positive purposes.’

According to Pastor Wuye, ‘Nigeria is a very religious country. The conflict entrepreneurs use faith as the medium to inspire violence. We’re using faith to de-programme violence.’

I really recommend seeing the film. It premiered at the United Nations in New York and was screened at the House of Commons in the UK.

The following in an excerpt from an interview with Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa by Africa Today:

I put it to Pastor James that there are those – and there is an extensive list – who do not believe that after vowing to kill each other and confronting each other murderously for a long time, all is now forgiven and that they have kissed and made-up. Is this a match made in heaven or a match made in Hollywood? Pastor James replies, almost shouting: “This is your journalist instinct running wild,” but he admits there are ghosts to be exorcise. “I know some people would find the documentary too good to be true. But I truly believe that this is a marriage. From time-to-time we’ll disagree on things, however, I love this guy and we’ll never get a divorce,” stressing: “Imam and I are in this together, to promote co-operation for the long term in Nigeria and wherever we are called upon.” “I am no quitter. What our story proves is that communication is best,” he adds.
Ashafa told E K’ABO about how they faced opposition from their respective religious groups when they first came together to promote their inter-faith initiatives and local reconciliation in their communities. There was strong rejection. Some incensed people branded them compromising traitors. “Sceptics mocked us and our idea. But today we have majority support in my country and we are being called upon by other countries, organisations and small communities to sort out conflicts before they get out of hand and sometimes to quench already smouldering conflicts threatening to engulf communities.

The source for the following profiles of Imam Muhammad Ashafa and Pastor James Wuye and the description of their initiative come from Ashoka.org
Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa believe the only way religious violence can be reduced or stopped in Nigeria is by having leaders of each faith promote religious teachings of peace and non-violence. Their organization, the Interfaith Mediation Center of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum, deals with the psychology of religious violence and addresses its causes and effects. Wuye and Ashafa are influencing schools, houses of worship, and community centers to prevent violence and intervene when conflicts erupt. Their education and media outreach strategies have afforded them unprecedented, widespread support and legitimacy for their efforts to promote peaceful coexistence.

The son of an Islamic scholar from a long line of Muslim clerics dating back 13 generations, Mohammed Ashafa grew up in a conservative family that espoused Islamic socio-cultural values and held deep suspicion for all things Western and Christian. As a young man and the eldest son, he followed the family vocation and became an Imam. To promote his family tradition of Islamic custodianship, Ashafa joined a fanatical Islamic group committed to completely Islamizing the North and chasing away all non-Muslims from the region. Ashafa became the leader of this militant group and also the Secretary General of the Muslim Youth Councils. The Muslim Youth Councils incited great violence in the North, which resulted in the Christians creating their own counter organization, the Youth Christian Association of Nigeria, led by Pastor Wuye.

Born in Kaduna State, Pastor Wuye, an Assemblies of God Pastor, was the son of a soldier who served in the Biafran War. From a young age, Wuye was fascinated by battle and war games. In the 1980s and 1990s he was involved in militant Christian activities and served as Secretary General of the Kaduna State chapter of the Youth Christian Association of Nigeria, an umbrella organization for all Christian groups in Nigeria for 8 years. He recounts that his “hatred for the Muslims had no limits”. He hated seeing people being intimidated and abused, so when Muslims were blamed for inciting a violent conflict in Kaduna, he immediately volunteered to lead a reprisal attack. He lost his right arm during one of the battles against Ashafa’s militant group in Kaduna; increasing his vengeance and deep hatred for Muslims in general and Ashafa in particular.

Ashafa also experienced loss at the hands of Pastor Wuye. In one of the violent clashes between Muslim Youth Councils and Youth Christian Association of Nigeria, two cousins and Ashafa’s spiritual mentor died while fighting Pastor Wuye’s Christian group. For years, both Ashafa and Wuye vowed to avenge the deaths and injuries of their loved ones by killing each other. However, a chance meeting in 1995 brought the two clerics together and through intermediaries and months of soul searching, both leaders decided to lay down their arms and work together to end the destructive violence plaguing their country. This chance meeting and Imam’s extension of the olive branch to Wuye led to the formation of the Interfaith Mediation Center of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum.

Their collective work in peace building began in 1997, and they have since managed to spread their messages of conflict-resolution to all corners of the globe. Their work has earned them numerous accolades including the Peace Activist Award of the Tanenbaum Center of Interreligious Understanding; a joint Honorary Doctorate degree in Philosophy bestowed upon them in Kolkata, India; a Heroes of Peace Award from Burundi; Search for Common Ground on Interfaith Cooperation Award USA; and the Bremen Peace Award from the Threshold Foundation on interreligious reconciliation, among others.

Imam Ashafa and Pastor Wuye have designed a strategy to both prevent religious and political violence and resolve it when it happens. Their early-warning mechanism, developed in 1996, helps communities identify inflammatory situations and provides the means to reduce tensions. For instance, Ashafa and Wuye defused potential violence surrounding the 2006 Dutch cartoon fiasco, which inflamed many communities around the world. Sensing danger, they immediately asked the heads of the Christian Associations of Nigeria to appear on radio and television to publicly condemn the negative depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in the cartoons, and asked the Chief Imams to accept the condemnation and ask for calm. Their tactic of publicly encouraging Muslim and Christian leaders to support each other and sign peace agreements has proven successful in building ties between the two communities and towards their shared goal of mitigating violence.

Another early-warning technique is the “deprogramming” of violent youth through Christian and Islamic instruction that emphasizes forgiveness and non-violence. To reverse a “theology of hate” that is often taught to children at home and in school, Ashafa and Wuye set up Peace Clubs in pre-school, primary, secondary, and tertiary institutions. The Peace Clubs have peace-building and peer-mediation components and involve class representatives who mediate conflict between classmates and teach their peers how to resolve conflicts peacefully.

Students throughout Nigeria receive religious instruction, and particularly in conflict prone states learn that one religion is superior to others. So in 1998 Ashafa and Wuye developed a curriculum entitled “The Ethical Code for Religious Instructions in Schools” which is now used in schools and by other organizations interested in promoting peace. Coupled with Peace Clubs, the curriculum is reducing religious violence in schools. To date, over 30 schools in the majority Muslim Kaduna state, and primary schools and universities in Plateau, Kano, and Bauchi states have Peace Clubs and peace curricula.

They also created “deprogramming” Youth Camps which bring together militant youths from different communities for 5 days of intensive interaction. Camp participants are involved in activities that replace demonization of those of a different faith with the humanization. These militant youth attend skill-building activities such as financial and computer literacy classes. Ashafa and Wuye have also trained youth leaders from across the country to become trainers in their communities.

In addition to their preventive work, Ashafa and Wuye also focus on peace building and resolution. Since 1997, they have been training religious leaders of both faiths on conflict mitigation and organizing peace-building workshops for community members. They organize seminars with opinion leaders and elders that encourage dialogue about differing views on politics, society, and law. There are also practical workshops that encourage good governance, legislation, budget tracking, and building bridges between communities and political and religious leaders.

Ashafa and Wuye also help communities use peace building methods that may have been forgotten or abandoned. They train women of both faiths to monitor elections and educate their communities on the electoral process. Their studies have shown a sharp decline in rigging and violence at polls where the women operate.

The pair offers trauma counselling for those who have suffered losses at the hands of religious violence and trains religious and community leaders to assist those affected by violence. Ashafa and Wuye use scriptures from their two holy books to help people deal with suffering and tragedy. They also force men to deal with the ramifications of trauma; challenging African notions that men should not show emotion.

Media outreach is their main approach to spreading their work beyond the areas where they operate directly. Both clerics have television shows dedicated to preaching the tenets of their respective faiths as well as peaceful co-existence. They are featured in a documentary on conflict resolution which was showcased at the UN headquarters, at the House of Commons in the UK, and in Washington DC. This was made into a case study by the Tanenbaum Center of Interreligious Understanding.

The Center comprises a Secretariat of 14 people (7 Muslims and 7 Christians) with joint deputyships, coordinators, and program managers. Ashafa and Wuye have a rotating portfolio of responsibilities and enjoy an equitable division of labor. The sensitive nature of their work requires participation of both the Imam and Pastor in the programming the Center offers. Due to the dangerous nature of their work, they have succession plans in place for appointed deputies to assume executive leadership positions should anything debilitating happen to them.

They have set up offices in three states in Nigeria, two in the North and one in the East, and have partnerships with various religious groups in other areas. To ensure widespread impact, Wuye and Ashafa set up committees and advisory councils made up of religious and community leaders to monitor peace-building efforts and provide feedback, using a hotline to report religious violence nationwide. At least two people (1 Muslim and 1 Christian) from each of Nigeria’s 36 states are trained in conflict resolution (with more staff in conflict-prone states) and stay in close communication with the Center’s headquarters in Kaduna state. Their work has also spread beyond Nigeria to Northern Ghana, Burundi and Kenya. Their Center is sustained through support from international donor and religious organizations, and local and regional governments in Nigeria.

Ashafa and Wuye want to bring peace to all nations plagued by religious violence. They have assisted organizations in Northern Ireland, Rwanda, and Native American communities in the United States. They also work with Muslim and Christian entities in conflict areas outside of Nigeria. They have partnered in Sudan with the New Sudan Islamic Council and the New Sudan Church Council and in Kenya with the Kenyan Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs and the Kenyan Council of Churches. Their goal is to work with organizations in the Niger Delta region, Middle East peace groups, and are building an office with the African Union staffed with Muslim and Christian practitioners.

Their next steps include the construction of an Interfaith Peace Village, with land donated by the Kaduna state government. They are planning to host a summit on peace and religious harmony which will convene religious leaders and peace practitioners from across Africa. Because they believe peace building without development is ineffective, they have organized Muslim and Christian women rice farmers to work together as an effective peace building and income generation scheme.

http://woyingi.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/film-review-the-imam-and-the-pastor/

Hundreds of thousands of piligrims pray at Mecca's Grand Mosque. Photograph: Fayez Nureldine/AFP/Getty Images

From: The Guardian, Tuesday 24th January 2012

The hajj, subject of a new exhibition at the British Museum, shows that a respect for other faiths is central to Muslim tradition

Karen Armstrong

Ever since the Crusades, when Christians from western Europe were fighting holy wars against Muslims in the near east, western people have often perceived Islam as a violent and intolerant faith – even though when this prejudice took root Islam had a better record of tolerance than Christianity. Recent terrorist atrocities have seemed to confirm this received idea. But if we want a peaceful world, we urgently need a more balanced view. We cannot hope to win the “battle for hearts and minds” unless we know what is actually in them. Nor can we expect Muslims to be impressed by our liberal values if they see us succumbing unquestioningly to a medieval prejudice born in a time of extreme Christian belligerence.

Like Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Sikhs and secularists, some Muslims have undoubtedly been violent and intolerant, but the new exhibition at the British Museum – Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam – is a timely reminder that this is not the whole story. The hajj is one of the five essential practices of Islam; when they make the pilgrimage to Mecca, Muslims ritually act out the central principles of their faith. Equating religion with “belief” is a modern western aberration. Like swimming or driving, religious knowledge is practically acquired. You learn only by doing. The ancient rituals of the hajj, which Arabs performed for centuries before Islam, have helped pilgrims to form habits of heart and mind that – pace the western stereotype – are non-violent and inclusive.

In the holy city of Mecca, violence of any kind was forbidden. From the moment they left home, pilgrims were not permitted to carry weapons, to swat an insect or speak an angry word, a discipline that introduced them to a new way of living. At a climactic moment of his prophetic career, Muhammad drew on this tradition. Fleeing persecution in Mecca in 622, he and the Muslim community (the umma) had migrated to Medina, 250 miles to the north. Mecca was determined to destroy the umma and a bitter conflict ensued. But eventually Muhammad broke the deadly cycle of warfare with an audacious non-violent initiative.

In March 628, to general astonishment, he announced that he was going to make the hajj. This meant that he had to ride unarmed into enemy territory, yet 1,000 Muslims accompanied him. The pilgrim party narrowly escaped being massacred by the Meccan cavalry, and eventually entered the sacred territory of Mecca where they simply sat down beside their camels and refused to move. Knowing that they would lose all credibility if they slaughtered pilgrims on this holy ground, the Meccans negotiated a truce and Muhammad accepted humiliating conditions that filled the Muslims with dismay. But the Qur’an proclaimed that this apparent defeat was a “clear triumph” because, like Jews and Christians, the Muslims had acted in a spirit of peace, self-restraint and forbearance. Two years later, hostilities ceased and the Meccans voluntarily opened their gates to the prophet.

Clearly the Qur’an did not despise Jews and Christians; this affinity with “the people of the book” was also central to the Muslim cult of Mecca. The Arabs firmly believed that they, too, were children of Abraham, because they were the descendants of his eldest son Ishmael – a regional view shared by the Bible. It was said that Abraham and Ishmael had rebuilt the Ka’bah, the sacred shrine of Mecca, when it had fallen into disrepair, had dedicated it to their God, and then performed the rites of the hajj. Many Arabs thought that Allah, their high God, was the God worshipped by the people of the book, and Christian Arabs used to make the hajj pilgrimage to the Ka’bah alongside the pagans.

The Arabs had no conception of an exclusive religious tradition, so they were deeply shocked when they discovered that most Jews and Christians refused to consider them as part of the Abrahamic family. The Qur’an still urged Muslims to respect the people of the book and revere their prophets, but decreed that instead of facing Jerusalem when they prayed, as hitherto, they should turn towards the Ka’bah built by Abraham.

Like Abraham, who had not belonged to a closed-off cult, they would take no pride in an established institution and, as Abraham had done, focus on the worship of God alone. Hence the Muslim hajj is all about the Abrahamic family – not Muhammad himself. Pilgrims re-enact the story of Hagar and Ishmael, symbolically returning to the era that preceded religious chauvinism.

Alas, all traditions lose their primal purity and we all fail our founders. But the British Museum’s beautiful presentation of the hajj can help us understand how the vast majority of the world’s Muslims understand their faith. Socrates, founder of the western rational tradition, insisted that the exercise of reason required us constantly and stringently to question received ideas and entrenched certainties. The new exhibition can indeed become a journey to the heart of Islam and also, perhaps, to a more authentic and respectful western rational identity.

by Irshad Hussain

(reproduced, with his kind permission, from his blog; www.islamfrominside.com )

Man and Ecology: An Islamic Perspective

Added October 20, 2004

Environmental Crisis

“When the earth is shaken with a (violent) shaking,
And the earth reveals what burdens her,
And man says: What has befallen her?
On that day she shall tell her story….” (Qur’an 99:1-4)
In light of today’s environmental crises, many secular and religious  scholars have begun to look into underlying philosophical causes for man’s rapacious attitude towards his environment. Part of this search involves a look at root philosophies affecting the human outlook and interaction with the world and the responsibility religion shares in creating the attitudes and philosophies that have led to the desecration of nature that has occurred in the past few centuries and which seems to be accelerating in our times. As Ziauddin Sardar writes;

“The roots of our ecological crises are axiomatic: they lie in our belief and value structures which shape our relationship with nature, with each other and the lifestyles we lead.” (Sardar, Ziauddin. Islamic Futures. New York; Mensell Publishing Limited. 1985. pg.218)
For this reason traditional religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam are held accountable as they supposedly espouse an anthropocentric (human-centered) reality. Writers like Lynn White Jr. see this as being the root cause for the ecological/environmental problems of today. He decries not only the dualistic nature of man’s relationship with nature but also the idea “that it is God’s will that man exploit nature for his proper end…” as “Man shares, in great measure, God’s transcendence over nature.” (White, Lynn. The Historical Roots of our Ecological Crises. Science, 155. 1967)

Note: Lynn White refers specifically to the problem inherent in the Christian tradition, but in a general sense extends it to all the monotheistic religions, as opposed to the pantheistic ones. About blaming Christianity, Parvez Manzoor, in The Touch Of Midas, writes: “…Christianity does not bear the blame for our environmental problems. It is the divorce of Christian ethics from the pursuit of knowledge, in fact what is known to be the age of ‘rationalism’ that ushered us into the era of environmental degradation.”

This short essay is a sincere effort to investigate the validity of White’s view that the disrespect for nature is inherent in the very nature of these religions. Dealing only with the Islamic tradition, it will take into consideration the nature of man, his place in relation to God, his rights and responsibilities before God, and his relationship to the rest of the world with regard to his rights over it. In other words the world-view of Islam is to be the starting point for the examination of man’s relation to the world of external nature.

“All religions, customs, schools of thought, and social philosophies rest on a world view. A school’s aims, methods, musts and must nots all result necessarily from its world view… A world view can become the basis of an ideology when it has attained the firmness and breadth of philosophical thought as well as the…sanctity of religious principles.” (Mutahhari, M. Fundamentals of Islamic Thought. Berkeley; Mizan Press. 1985)

The primary basis of an Islamic world view is the idea of Tauhid, or the oneness of God. A world view based on tauhid  sees this universe as originating from God, returning to Him, and centered around Him. It is a world created and sustained by God with a purpose, and a design. As this entire universe is a product of His divine wish, it is a universe unfolding with a divine purpose. The reference point, the center of all things is God.
“…Tauhid  is the matrix for human thought and action, it is all pervasive and penetrates every aspect of our endeavour.” (Sardar, Ziauddin. Islamic Futures. New York; Mensell Publishing Limited. 1985. pg.225)

The essential prerequisite, in Islam, is the belief in this absolute oneness and unity of God.

“God the Ultimate reality is One, and everything other than God comes from God and is related to Him. No true understanding of anything is possible unless  the object in view is defined in relationship to the divine. All things are centered on God.” (Chittick, William. Article, ‘The Concept of Human Perfection.’ from, The World & I. New York; News World Communications. Feb. 1991. pg. 500)

Tauhid  is the point of origin of a theological doctrine of ecology. All things seen or unseen are God’s signs (ayat) and act as witnesses to His existence. All things in the universe are manifestations of Him, all are from Him.

Human nature is the other key facet of the world-view of Islam. Man fulfills a very important role in this cosmos. Although all things are made by God and identified with God in as much as their being created by Him, man enjoys a role as God’s vicegerent (his representative) having a freedom and far-reaching power latent within him. In the Qur’an God says He has breathed His spirit into man.

“When thy Lord said unto the angels: lo! I am about to create a mortal out of mire, And when I have fashioned him and breathed into him of My Spirit, then fall down before him prostrate.” (Qur’an. Ch 38- vrs 72, 73)

This verse provides essential insights into man’s position and nature in this universe. Although he is a creation of God he is superior to the rest of God’s creation as he has within him the Spirit of God. In this way he is unique among the creations of God. It is only man to whom the angels  are commanded to prostrate themselves.
Another aspect that separates him from the rest of creation is his acceptance of the trust offered by God. This trust was offered to all of creation and man was the only one who accepted it.

“We did indeed offer the trust to the heavens and the earth and the mountains; but they refused to undertake it, being afraid thereof. But man undertook it (the trust);…” (  Qur’an. Ch.33 vr.72)

In a matter of trust and trusteeship, the giver of the trust is giving a responsibility to the trustee. In other words the guardian of the trust has a high degree of freedom and accompanying responsibility in the use (or misuse) of the given trust.

The trustee is expected to fulfill the trust in the manner that the giver of the trust would expect of him.  If man did not have the power to either use or misuse this trust given to him by God, then the whole idea of offering the trust, in the first place, would be futile. Abdullah Yusuf Ali, a commentator of the Qur’an says of this verse;

“There is no trust if the trustee has no power, and the trust implies that the giver of the trust believes and expects that the trustee would use it according to the wish of the creator of the trust, and not otherwise.” (Ali, A.Y. The Holy Qur’an; Text, Translation and Commentary. Maryland; Amana Corporation. 1989. pg. 1080)

Note: This is not an attitude that is unique to Islam as can be seen in the following quote from the Bible “When a man has had a great deal given him, a great deal will be demanded of him; when a man has had a great deal given him on trust, even more will be expected of him.” (Luke: 12:48). It is, however, an attitude that is all pervasive in the Islamic world-view.

Thus man has the freedom to do what he wills with the power invested in him through these two means. One is his closeness to God in spirit and second is his acceptance of the trust. Man’s superiority, control and power over nature and the rest of creation was thus a part of this trust. After having taken the responsibility man had to show that he was indeed worthy of keeping it. If he forgets about the responsibility of the trust and instead takes full and destructive advantage of the power conferred upon him, the other side of his  superiority takes over. Because he has the spirit of God within him, he now deems to set himself up in rivalry to God. He wishes to take control of the destiny of the world not as a trustee but as a demi god.

“…He was indeed unjust and foolish. “ (Qur’an. Ch.33 vr.75 & 76)
When the power of his relationship to God is applied without the temperance of the responsibility of the trust, man misuses and abuses the abilities, potentials, and rights given to him by God. Nature has been given to man as a trust and nothing more. His right of domination over it (is) only by virtue of his theomorphic make up, not as a rebel against nature.’ (Nasr. S.H. The Encounter of Man and Nature. London; George Allen and Unwin Ltd. 1968. pg.96) God has given revelation, and the law (shariah) derived from the revelation to assist and guide man in fulfilling this trust. Ziauddin Sardar writes:

“The ultimate consequence of man’s acceptance of  trusteeship is the arbitration of his conduct by divine  judgment. To be a Muslim is to accept and practice the  injunctions of the Shariah. Thus the Shariah is both a consequence of one’s acceptance of Tauhid and it is a path.”(Sardar, Ziauddin. Islamic Futures. New York; Mensell Publishing Limited. 1985. pg.228)

The Shariah gives practical shape to the ethical norms in Islam. No moral or ethical issue is only an abstract idea in Islam. They are codified in the Shariah to be preached, practiced and incorporated into the laws of the land. The Shariah seeks to provide a framework, an environment within which men as individuals and as a society can fulfill the role of trustee. This Shariah sets the limits and parameters and the practical guidelines for giving shape to an ethical principle and when ignored causes the kind of disruption in human life, which can now be seen in the form of severe ecological crises. This is because that part of the Shariah pertaining to nature has been completely ignored. Instead of working in subservience to God as his vicegerent, man has developed an axiology that invites him to dominate nature rather than act as a protector over this aspect of God’s trust. Rather than fulfill a trust, man elevates himself to the status of dominator – deciding the fate of nature without reference to revelation. He has set himself on par with God and about this type of an action the Qur’an says:

“Indeed you have put forth a thing most monstrous! As if the skies are ready to burst, the earth to split asunder and the mountains to fall down in utter ruin.” (Qur’an. Ch.19. vr.88-89. This verse actually deals with the attribution of Jesus, son of Mary, to be the son of God. In this context it is being used to demonstrate the abhorrence of any equal being set up with God.)

In the Islamic world-view the relationship of man with nature should be like that of a just ruler with his subjects. Although the ruler has power over his subjects, his subjects are a trust over which he stands guards. He is expected to act in a responsible way (as defined by the revelation) toward them. Misuse and abuse of his power would shift him from being a leader to being a tyrant. The end result of tyranny is nothing but a revolt against the tyrant. This is precisely what is happening between man the tyrant and nature the tyrannized. Tyranny is effective only in the short term.

Among the works of Zain-al-Abideen (the fourth Imam of the Shi’ites), is his “Treatise on Rights”. Among the many  types of rights described he puts forward the rights of the subjects over their ruler. In this context they can be extended to form a value system for the formation of an ethic toward the environment or any other aspect of the world over which man has power or dominion.

All acts towards the ruled should be imbued with mercy and justice; the ruler’s disposition should be like a father toward his child.

“The right of your subjects through authority is that you should know that they have been made subjects through their weakness and your strength. Hence it is incumbent on you to act with justice toward them and to be like a compassionate father toward them….” (Zain al Abideen.  The Psalms of Islam. London; Mohammadi Trust. 1988. pg.286.)

Man, being above material nature due to his theomorphic make-up and the burden of the trust, must deal in a similar way with the environment. The “Treatise on Rights” also describes the rights a subject enjoys over his ruler through the aspect of the ruler’s knowledge. Taking knowledge to be synonymous with intelligence, man is endowed with a higher intelligence than the rest of creation. Because of this he must assume a role of guardianship over the rest of creation and interact with nature in a way that is worthy of this intelligence. If man does what is befitting of his high station, then God will increase His bounties toward man. If he does not, then whatever he was blessed with is withheld or taken back. Imam Zain-al-Abideen states it as follows:

“The right of your subjects through knowledge is that you should know that God has made you a caretaker over them only through the knowledge He has given you and His storehouses which He has opened up to you. If you do well…, not treating them roughly or annoying them, then God will increase His bounty toward you. But if you … treat them roughly…, then it will be God’s right to deprive you of knowledge and its splendor and make you fall from your place…” (Zain al Abideen. The Psalms of Islam. London; Mohammadi Trust. 1988. pg.286.)

Zain-al-Abideen then goes on to talk of the rights of those over whom you are in a position of mastership, such as a servant.

“…you should know that he is the creature of your Lord….You did not create any of his limbs, nor do you provide him with his sustenance; on the contrary, God gave you the sufficiency for that…and deposited him with you so that you may be safeguarded by the good you give to him. So act well toward him, just as God has acted well toward you.” (Zain al Abideen. The Psalms of Islam. London; Mohammadi Trust. 1988. pg.286.)

Nature has been made subservient to man, but it is as much a creature of God as man is. Neither has man created nature nor is he in any way able to sustain it. It is only because God has given him the sufficiency and capacity can he in any way do so. If he is able to plant a tree and administer its growth or manipulate its genetic characteristics, it is only because of the intelligence placed within him by God. Just as God has been good to man so also man must act with the same beneficence toward nature so that he may safeguard  himself when facing God.

Another key aspect of the Islamic world view is its immense stress on eschatology. Belief in a day of judgment is essential to the faith of an adherent. It creates an action guide arising from an awareness that actions have consequences far beyond their immediately apparent effects. Since man will be called to account for how he looked after the trust bestowed upon him, he is forced to not only consider present gains but to plan for the future in order to fulfill the responsibility with which he has been invested. His acts have repurcussions that ripple out horizontally from himself affecting what surrounds him in this world as well as vertically since his substance has a presence in the higher worlds. So the consequences of his actions accumulate within his substance and after his death he faces the reality of what he has done and what he has become.

“Then on that Day, Not a soul will be wronged in the least, And ye shall but be repaid the meeds of your past deeds” (Qur’an. Ch.36 vr.54)

Eschatology is the policing force within Islam which guides the believer to fulfill the trust that he had taken on. The thought of an impending judgment stops him from taking actions according to his own whims and fancies. It puts a brake on self-centered aspirations.

Man’s role of vicegerency, his mantle of superiority and his responsibility of trust are laid bare before him in the Qur’an, it is then his decision to choose which path to take. On the one hand he has before him all the treasures of nature to use and exploit as he wishes through the fulcrum of his knowledge. On the other hand is the temperance of the responsibility which coexists with the trust and intelligence given to him by God. The world-view of man and the conceptual foundations which underlie that world-view decide which course man will take.

“Can we…check this threat to our planet simply by introducing stricter legislation against pollution, industrial waste and nuclear spill? Can we reverse the degradation of our environment by adopting conservationist policies on both national and international levels? Or could it be that the whole ecological imbalance betokens the spiritual and teleological crisis of modern civilization itself? Does it require fundamental revision of our own way of life, our cherished goals, indeed our very conception of ourselves and the world?” (Parvez Manzoor, Touch of Midas)

It has been the contention of this brief essay that the roots of the man made environmental crises, and therefore their resolution, lie in man’s conception of his role in the overall scheme of creation. The crises that are being faced today are approaching a point of critical mass such that man is forced to confront certain basic questions about his relationship to the environment. These are not questions of technology, but questions about the fundamental nature of man, the nature of the universe he exists in, and of the ultimate nature of Reality.

- Atiya and Irshaad Hussain (1991)

Amir Arain, an associate professor of neurology and spokesman for the Islamic Center of Nashville, says, “The only competition (between faiths) is to do good to others.” / George Walker IV / The Tennessean

From: The Tennesean

(kindly Sent by Adamslist, Adam I Seedat)

It could be a call about a patient in crisis. Or a member of the local Muslim community in need of help. Or a reporter seeking comment after another public official has accused local Muslims of being a threat to America.

Arain takes a deep breath and then responds in a calm, clear manner, no matter what the crisis. It’s a trait his colleagues noticed years ago.

“He is pretty unflappable,” said Dr. Tom Davis, who works with Arain in the neurology department at Vanderbilt University. “I don’t think I have ever seen him lose his cool.”

The past few years have been a handful for Arain, an associate professor of neurology and the spokesman for the Islamic Center of Nashville. Local Muslims have faced an organized campaign that has accused them of having ties to terrorism and that claims their faith should be illegal.

His response to critics is calm and straightforward: Nashville’s Muslims love America and are law-abiding citizens. Their faith teaches them to respect their neighbors and be good people.

Arain believes Christianity, Islam and Judaism share common values about how to live as good citizens.

“I don’t think there is a race or competition between our faiths,” he said. “The only competition is to do good to others.”

That’s a lesson his father, a civil engineer, taught him early on. When Arain was growing up in Pakistan, his parents respected their Hindu and Christian neighbors and taught their children tolerance. They also taught Arain and his four siblings — two brothers and two sisters — the value of education.

Arain and his brother Fazal, a doctoral student at Vanderbilt, are both neurologists. Another brother, who lives in Calgary, Alberta, is an architect. One sister is a geneticist in Oman, and the other is a biochemist in Pakistan.

His wife, Aneeqa, has a master’s degree in sociology. She hopes to get a doctorate once their children — Jinan, 7, and Nidal, 11 — are a bit older.

Arain’s interest in neurology also started at a young age. His aunt had epilepsy, and he first saw her have a seizure when he was about 7.

He studied medicine in Karachi, Pakistan, and did a yearlong residency in Flint, Mich., before moving to Nashville in 1995. Michigan was too cold, he said. He finished a residency and then a fellowship in neurology at Vanderbilt before joining the faculty in 2000.

Today, he studies the disparity in care for epilepsy, especially for patients who don’t have access to medicine, and how the disease affects people with developmental disabilities.

As a fellow, he began caring for patients with epilepsy at Clover Bottom Development Center in Nashville and continues to do so today.

“That’s been a very humbling experience,” he said. “I feel like I can contribute to their quality of life.”

An arranged marriage

Aneeqa and Amir Arain first met on their wedding day back in 1997. Their parents arranged the match, and the couple hadn’t so much as spoken to each other before that day.

“All my friends were shocked,” Aneeqa Arain said. “They asked me, ‘You didn’t even talk?’ ”

The couple say their parents did a good job in matching them up. Before their wedding, Aneeqa lived in Karachi, not far from Amir’s hometown. Her aunt knew Amir’s family and recommended the couple’s parents to each other.

Aneeqa said her husband is a giving man who never says no to anyone who needs him. Sometimes that means taking late-night phone calls about patients or being out in the evenings at interfaith events.

“He’s always ready to help anyone,” she said. “If someone tells him they need help, he will go.”

Finding balance is not easy for Arain these days. Along with his teaching and clinic duties at Vanderbilt and volunteering at the Islamic Center, he serves on the board of the Epilepsy Foundation of Middle and West Tennessee and volunteers for regular medical clinics at a local mosque. Weekends are for his son’s soccer games and spending time with his wife and daughter.

His face lights up when he talks about Jinan and Nidal.

The walls of his basement office at Vanderbilt Medical Center are covered with drawings from his daughter. There’s a castle straight out of a fairy tale, a heart that reads “Dear My Family, I love you guys,” and a smiling portrait of Arain.

“If you ask her what she wants to be in her life, she says she’s going to be an artist,” he said, smiling. “I am OK with that, but my son tells her that she cannot take art history as a profession because you won’t earn much money.”

He hopes his son will follow in his footsteps as a doctor, but Arain won’t push him if he chooses a different career.

“That main thing is that he is a good human being,” Arain said.

Interfaith curiosity

The Arains’ home is filled with books on politics, poetry and religion, many in Urdu, one of five languages that Amir Arain speaks. His library includes copies of the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu scripture, along with Christian and Jewish versions of the Bible.

Those books and his own curiosity about the beliefs of the other people also drive his interest in interfaith issues.

Davis, Arain’s colleague, has taken part in interfaith events with Arian. He said he respects Arain for both his clinical knowledge and his calm demeanor.

Davis said he is most impressed with how Arain lives his faith and values in day-to-day life.

“He’s like the church member who taught Sunday school and volunteered for everything, and who is big on believing that the best witness to your faith is how you live, not what you say,” he said.

by Abu Hamid Al-Ghazali

(Courtesy of www.islamicity.com)

In an environment with increasing distractions how do we make our prayers more beneficial for our selves? Following is an excerpt from “Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship”, a compilation of Imam Ghazali’s works that can inspire us to develop humility and become closer to God through prayer.

……………………………………………

God, Allah,  says in the Quran:

‘And perform the Prayer in remembrance of Me.’
[Ta Ha, 20:14]

‘Do not be one of those who are neglectful.’
[al-A'raf, 7:205]

‘Do not approach the Prayer when you are intoxicated, until you know what you are saying.’
[al-Nisa', 4:43]

Some say that ‘intoxicated‘ means inebriated by many anxieties, while others say it means drunk on the love of this world According to Wahb, the meaning is obviously a caution against worldly attachment, since the words ‘until you know what you are saying’ explain the underlying reason. Many are those who pray without having drunk wine, yet do not know what they are saying in their Prayers!

Prophet Muhammad said:

‘If a man performs two cycles of Prayer without the distraction of any worldly thought, all his previous sins will be forgiven.’ (al-Bukhari/Muslim)

‘Prayer is nothing but submissiveness, humility, supplication, sighing and remorse, holding out your hands and saying: “O God! O God!” Otherwise it is fruitless.’ (al-Tirmidi/al-Nasai)

In the earlier scriptures, we find these words attributed to God, Glorified is He: ‘I do not accept the Prayers of everyone who prays. I accept the Prayers of none but those who are humble before My Majesty, who are not arrogant towards My servants, and who feed the poor and hungry for My sake.’

Prophet Muhammad also said:

‘Ritual Prayer was made obligatory, Pilgrimage and circumambulation were ordained, and the rites of sacrifice were instituted, all for the purpose of ensuring remembrance of God, Exalted is He. If your heart is devoid of awe and reverence for the One Remembered, who is the aim and the goal, what is your remembrance worth?’ (Abu Daud/al-Tirmidi)

This advice was given to someone by the Prophet, on him be peace: ‘When you pray, pray like a person who is saying farewell,’ (Ibn Maja/al-Hakim/al-Baihaqi) i.e. saying farewell to himself, to his passions and to his life, before setting off on the journey to his Lord.

Again God Almighty reminds us in the Quran:

‘O Man, you labor towards your Lord laboriously, and you shall meet Him.’
[al-Inshiqaq, 84:6]

‘Be aware of God, for it is God who teaches you.’
[al-Baqarah, 2:282]

‘Be aware of God, and know that you are going to meet Him.’
[al-Baqarah, 2:223]

Prophet Muhammad reminds us: ‘If a man’s Prayer does not deter him from indecency and mischief, he gains nothing from God but remoteness.’ (al-Tabarani)

Since Prayer is intimate communion, how can it go with heedlessness? Bakr ibn Abdullah said:

‘O believers, if you wish to enter the presence of your Lord without permission, and to speak with Him without an interpreter, you have only to enter!’

When someone asked him how this could be he said:

‘You do your ablution correctly and enter your prayer-niche … There you are! You have entered your Lord’s presence without permission and may now speak to Him without an interpreter.’

Said Aisha, may God be pleased with her:

‘God’s Mes senger would talk to us and we to him, but when it was time for Prayer it seemed as though he did not know us, nor we him.’ (Azdi – mursal) This was because they were completely in awe of God the most Great and Glorious.

The Prophet said:

‘God has no regard for a Prayer in which a man’s heart is not present as well as his body.’

It is said that when Abraham , God’s special friend, got up to pray, the throbbing of his heart could be heard from a distance.

When Said al-Tanukhi (Muslim jurist 776/854 CE) was praying, tears used to flow incessantly down his cheeks and onto his beard.

God’s Messenger once saw a man playing with his beard during the Prayer, so he said: ‘If this man’s heart was submissive, every part of his body would also act with humility.’ (al-Tirmidi – daif)

It is related that al-Hasan noticed a man playing with pebbles as he prayed: ‘O God, marry me to the maidens of Paradise!.’ Al-Hasan said ‘A poor suitor you are. You propose to the maidens of Paradise while playing with pebbles!’

Someone asked Khalaf ibn Ayyub (Islamic scholar and poet from Al-Andalus 1013/1081 CE):

‘Don’t the flies bother you so much during your Prayer that you have to chase them away?‘

He replied:

‘I do not make a habit of anything that would spoil my Prayer.’

When asked how he had acquired such patience, he said:

‘I have heard that culprits patiently endure the Sultan’s whip, because this gives them a reputation for being “able to take it.” They boast of their patient endur ance. Here am I, standing before my Lord in Prayer. Am I going to budge for a fly?’

It is related of Muslim ibn Yasar that, when he wanted to pray, he would say to his family:

‘You may talk, for I shall not hear you’.

It is said that he was praying one day in the Great Mosque of Basra, when a corner of the building collapsed. This attracted a crowd, but he was quite unaware of what had happened until he had finished his Prayer.

Whenever the time of Prayer approached, Ali ibn Abi Talib, may God be pleased with him and ennoble his countenance, used to quake and change color. They asked him:

‘What is the matter with you, Commander of the Believers?’

To this he would reply:

‘The time has come for a trust which God offered to the heavens and the earth and the mountains, but they refused to carry it; they were wary of it, but I have taken it on.’

It is said of al-Husayn ibn Ali that he used to turn pale when he made his ablution. When his family asked him what came over him during his ablution, he would say: ‘Do you realize before Whom I wish to stand in Prayer?’

According to Ibn Abbas, may God be pleased with him and his father, the Prophet David, God bless him and give him peace, used to say in his intimate Prayers:

‘My God, who inhabits Your House? And from whom do you accept the Prayer?’

Then God told him by inspiration:

‘David, he who inhabits My House, and he whose Prayer I accept, is none but he who is humble before My Majesty, spends his days in remembrance of Me and keeps his passions in check for My sake, giving food to the hungry and shelter to the stranger and treating the afflicted with compassion. His light shines in the sky like the sun. If he invokes Me, I am at his service. If he asks of Me, I grant his request. In the midst of ignorance, I give him discernment; in heedlessness, remembrance, in darkness, light. He stands out among ordinary people as Paradise towers over earthly gardens, its rivers inexhaustible and its fruits not subject to decay.’

It is related of Hatim al-Asamm, may God be pleased with him, that he said, in answer to a question about Prayer:

‘When the time for Prayer is at hand, I make a proper ablution, go to the spot where I intend to pray and sit there till all my limbs and organs are in a collected state. Then I stand up to perform my Prayer, placing the Kaba between my brows, the Bridge- over-Hell beneath my feet, Paradise to my right and Hell to my left, and the Angel of Death behind me, thinking all the while that this is my final Prayer. Then I stand between hope and fear. I carefully pronounce “Allahu Akbar!” Then I recite the Quran harmoniously, bow in humility and prostrate myself submissively. I then sit back on my left haunch spreading out the top of my left foot and raising my right foot on the toes. I follow this with sincerity. Then I wonder whether or not my Prayer has been accepted.’

Ibn Abbas (Cousin of the Prophet), may God be pleased with him and with his father, once said:

‘Two modest cycles of Prayer, performed in full awareness, are better than a whole night’s vigil when the heart is inattentive.’

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (450-505 AH / 1058-1111 AD) Also known as Imam Ghazzali is a prominent Muslim jurist and theologian of the 12th Century. He wrote on a wide range of topics including jurisprudence, theology, mysticism and philosophy.

Muslims and Jews in Holland and in California united in 2011 in opposing two political attacks on their joint religious traditions of circumcision, and their religious ways of killing animals for use as food.

In San Francisco anti circumcision forces were seeking to made it illegal to “circumcise, excise, cut or mutilate the whole or any part of the foreskin, testicles or penis of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years.” Under that law, any person who performed circumcisions would face a misdemeanor charge and have to pay a fine of up to $1,000, or serve a maximum of one year in prison.

The ban on circumcisions was opposed by a coalition of Jewish and Muslim organizations as well as many Christian groups that support religious rights and toleration. They were victorious when a Superior Court Judge ruled in July that the measure to criminalize circumcision must be withdrawn from the November ballot because it would violate a California law that makes regulating medical procedures a state — not a city — matter. The judge then ordered San Francisco’s election director to remove the measure from city ballots.

In Holland, a bill that would effectively ban the traditional religious way both Muslims and Jews slaughter animals, sponsored by the Party for Animals, was approved in the Dutch lower house, where it was backed by the anti-Islamic Freedom Party, and opposed only by Christian parties that took a stand in defense of religious freedom. In January, 2012 it goes to the upper house of the Dutch parliament, where most observers expect it to become law.

Positions on religious slaughter vary around the world – in the US, for instance, it is specifically defined as a humane method in the Humane Slaughter Act (1958) – but elsewhere several countries have already restricted or banned slaughtering unstunned animals. Stunning of livestock:

l Introduced in England in 1929 with mechanically operated humane stunner device

l Mandatory in EU since 1979, but member states can grant exemptions for religious slaughter

l Method enables abattoirs to process animals more quickly at lower cost

l Mis-stuns involving captive bolt occur “relatively frequently”, according to 2004 European Food Safety Authority (Efsa) report – which leaves the animal conscious and in pain

l Animals can also regain consciousness after being stunned

Animal rights groups see the Dutch bill as a stepping stone towards further bans on religious slaughter. “The Netherlands is a very important example, but for us it’s just a battle, not the war,” says Dr Michel Courat of Eurogroup for Animals, a federation of animal protection groups. “We need to win lots of other battles after this one to make sure more countries stop this practice.”

If the Dutch bill becomes law, Jewish and Muslim leaders say they will fight it in the European Court of Human Rights, arguing that it is a violation of the right to freedom of religion. “If the Party for Animals proposed a law which said there shouldn’t be any slaughtering of animals any more, and everyone should be vegetarian, I could understand it better,” says Rabbi Jacobs. “But it’s a vote against religion.”

A Dutch Muslim umbrella group, the Contact Body for Muslims and the Government (CMO), accused the Party for Animals of leading an “emotional” campaign based on misleading information which “wrongly created the impression that Muslim and Jewish methods of slaughter are barbaric and outdated”. “We’re afraid that other countries in Western Europe will follow the Dutch example,” says Mr Altuntas from CMO. Jewish and Muslim leaders see a worrying global trend, with the Netherlands a critical test case. They are fighting a battle on two fronts – to dispel the idea there is anything inhumane about their traditional methods of slaughter, and to defend their right to live according to their religious beliefs.

Both faiths put great emphasis on animal welfare, and adhere to a one-cut method of slaughter, intended to ensure the animal’s rapid death. Under Jewish and Islamic law, animals for slaughter must be healthy and uninjured at the time of death, which rules out driving a bolt into the brain – though some Muslim authorities accept forms of stunning that can be guaranteed not to kill the animal. Under Orthodox Jewish law, or shechita, the animal’s neck is cut with a surgically sharp knife, severing its major arteries, causing a massive drop in blood pressure followed by death from loss of blood. Supporters say unconsciousness comes instantaneously – the cut itself stunning the animal. A similar procedure is used in Islamic slaughter, or dhabiha. Both Islam and Judaism stress that diet should not just be about calories. A religious diet is an exercise in spiritual discipline and in God consciousness. We do not eat only to ‘fuel up’. Nor should we eat only to enjoy ourselves.

From the Jewish point of view, God has given us a diet that is good for us physically and spiritually. That diet is found in the Bible, in the later Jewish writings, and in the Qur’an.  Non-Jews can also gain many benefits from following most or all of this diet. Like all diets, a Kosher Holy Diet must be followed daily, to be effective. Like all diets, you should not become a fanatic in following this diet. Moral issues are more important than any one particular part of the diet. Thus, as a Liberal Reform Rabbi, I would say that honoring a parent while visiting at home, is more important than strict observance of a Kosher Diet. Nevertheless, like all diets, and all forms of spiritual exercise and meditation, the more frequently you fail to keep your Kosher Holy Diet, the less you will benefit from it.

Food is the most important single element of animal life. But unlike all other animals humans do not live by bread alone. The act of eating is invested with psychological and spiritual meanings. The Torah asserts that we should  “EAT!;  BECOME SATIATED/SATISFIED!;  AND BLESS THE LORD!” (Deut. 8:10) This is how I, as a Reform Rabbi interpret these words.

EAT! Humans, like all animals need to eat in order to live, but unlike all other animals some humans will not eat certain foods that other humans will gladly eat. This universal human trait proves that “humans do not live by bread alone, but humans may live on anything that God decrees.” (Deut. 8:3) Thus by periodically not eating at all (fasting) Jews, Muslims and Christians live by God’s words. But some people reject the enjoyment of eating and add extra days of fasting to their diet. Other people carry vegetarianism to far and stop eating all egg and milk products. The Torah commands a moderate path between on one hand simply killing and eating any thing you want, and excessive fasting and/or rejecting broad categorizes of food such as vegetarians and vegans do.

BECOME SATIATED/SATISFIED! If we only eat foods that we enjoy, we end up with a physically unhealthy diet. Obesity accounted for almost 26,000 deaths in the year 2,000 and it gets worse each year. Our natural tastes do not lead us to good health. Maximizing enjoyment in the short run leads to disaster in the long run. Self-discipline leads to longer life. Religious self-discipline leads to a higher spiritual life. If you eat your fill you will become satiated. If you eat according to God’s decrees you will become satisfied.

BLESS: The Sages rule that we should say a blessing even if we eat only a small piece of bread the size of an olive. If that is all you have, be grateful you have that. One person can be satiated and not be satisfied, while another can be satisfied yet not satiated. “Who is wealthy? Those who are satisfied with what they have.” (Avot)  The blessing after the meal is a Mitsvah from the Torah. The Sages also ruled that we should say a blessing-the Motzi, before we eat. The Motzi ends “who brings forth bread from the earth.” This phrase from Psalm 104:14 is preceded by “who makes the grass spring up for cattle” to reminded us every time we eat that we are part of the animal world and need to be considerate of their needs too. Thus it is a Mitsvah not to eat until one’s animals have been fed. (Deut. 11:15)

THE LORD: We should also thank the cook, the baker, the miller, the farmer and everyone else involved in producing our food. But the four fundamental elements for producing food are sun, rain, earth and seed; none of which we create. Usually we are so caught up in using the end products that we forget our dependence on the fundamentals. That is why we so blithely harm our environment. The Motzi helps us remember what life is really based on, and why we should be both grateful and reverent to God.

by Irshad Hussain

www.islamfrominside.com
A book is not simply words on a page – it is one mind crafting an effect upon other minds – it does not assume its true form except through the action of reading. By this it creates a world of image and story within our minds like software running within the engine of our imagination. In this way, the text becomes capable of lifting off the page as the words construct elaborate landscapes within the domain of our mind’s eye.
The Qur’an is not words on a page – the Qur’an is not the Qur’an until its verses take shape in the mind, connect and confirm one another, and its unfolding contents settle into the heart – only then does it begin to speak its magic within us. It speaks its content not with words and sounds but through a transformative alchemy arising from layered meanings which work one over from the inside out, taking what lays within in a dormant, unrealized, embryonic state, out of potentiality towards actuality. Descended from a high Reality revelation is coded in this lower world into letters, words, and verses each of which are a sign of its origin and a transforming catalyst for the one who absorbs its reality into themselves. It shapes and forms the clay of our being through its instructive commands which, like the compressed, encoded language of a geonome, can build the spiritual edifice that otherwise lays only partially or haphazardly constructed within our hearts.
This Qur’an is a book meant to be read for what it is – a Messenger from higher worlds speaking directly to us. With such a message, reading is only an initiation of intent, a drawing back of the bow; the message is aimed at the heart – we must bare our chests to receive it, and let it fly from the bow of the intellect to the heart which receives and absorbs it. Let it pierce with sincerity and intensity into the center of our being – that center, that heart through which all the streams of consciousness and awareness flow – open ourselves to it – seek understanding, seek transformation, seek resurrection – a truer self.
This is not an emotional endeavor, it is not simply wishing to achieve understanding, it is shaping and re-shaping one’s life in all it’s aspects so that life itself becomes a straight path that leads to comprehension, to knowledge that is internalized in the heart and clear in the intellect. God spoke to the Prophet through the angel, sending the Qur’an down upon the Prophet’s heart as a guidance for us all – the Prophet received it in his innermost heart and so became the “speaking Qur’an”, the one who actualized within his personality it’s transformative reality. The Prophet in turn passed on to us the alchemical words of the Qur’an. It is for us (with help and guidance) to lift them from the written page and apprehend something of their reality – to approach it as a revelation from God sent down to lift up. He is speaking to us through this Qur’an – our provision lies within it. We activate the Qur’anic speech when the words lift from the page by means of our intellects, settle into our hearts, manifest in our actions, and rise again, lifting us from the dust of the earth towards the “ways of ascent.” Till then, we are slaves of our lower nafs, orphans veiled from the One who made us, the spiritually destitute lying in the dust.
“…and what will make you comprehend what the ascending path is? (It is) the setting free of a slave, Or the giving of provision in a day of hunger, To an orphan, Or to the poor man lying in the dust.” (Qur’an 90:12-16)

- Irshaad Hussain 

British and Afghan forces on patrol in Afghanistan's Helmand province. Photograph: Sean Smith for the Guardian

by Simon Jenkins

The Guardian 27 December 2011

What do Britons “want” in the coming year? An ambassador to Washington was once asked the question on radio and replied, “That’s very kind of you, a box of candied fruits would do.” Such humble responses are now out of date. As the season of goodwill slithers into that of New Year’s resolution, the urge to tell the world how to behave seems uncontrollable.

We can suppress a yawn at David Cameron’s sermon on Christian values and Ed Miliband claiming the Helmand army is making Britain “secure, peaceful and happy“. More troubling is the foreign secretary,William Hague‘s, declaration on Facebook of a Christmas ambition to increase “international pressure on Syria … push Burma in the right direction … improve the situation in Somalia … and protect women’s rights in the Middle East” among other uplifting goals.

The phraseology may seem in place beneath portraits of Pitt and Palmerston, but how must it play with its intended recipients? Imagine the Indian foreign minister sending Britons a Christmas message deploring their addiction to knife crime, or Japan’s expressing his dismay at Britain’s broken homes, or Pakistan’s decrying Ulster sectarianism as “unacceptable”. I am sure Hague would tell them to mind their own business.

Britain’s assumption of an ancestral role in passing judgment on Kipling’s “lesser tribes without the law” seems genetically embedded. Hague might as well have been quoting from The White Man’s Burden, how he must “fill full the mouth of famine / And bid the sickness cease”, even if it meant watching “sloth and heathen Folly / Bring all your hopes to nought”. His tour of the horizon boasted of “saving lives” in Libya, but he was more detached over Syria. He glided past Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, preferring the clearer ethical waters of Sudan, Somalia, Burma and Muslim women’s rights.

None of the areas of Hague’s concern had anything to do with Britain, let alone being within Britain’s sovereign domain, nor have they been for over half a century. The power has gone. The legitimacy has departed. Only the language of implied command echoes through the Foreign Office’s post-imperial dusk.

That echo is far from an irrelevance. It has conditioned surely the most catastrophic decade in British foreign policy since the 1930s. Another soldier died in Helmand over Christmas, where soldiers will go on dying, to no clear purpose, until 2014. Another hundred Iraqis died in Baghdad bombings, the outcome of Britain’s shared incompetence in restructuring Iraq. Meanwhile, around 5,000 have died in Syria, screaming against the double standard that toppled regimes in oil-rich Iraq and Libya but leaves Syria to empty sanctions and emptier rhetoric.

Over this last decade Britain’s national sovereignty has not been remotely threatened by any other state, yet its government has adopted a stance of hectoring and often open belligerence towards much of the Muslim world. British forces have been sent to ill-judged and ineptly fought wars that have left British cities in a state of perpetual terrorist alert. It is hard to think of any gain to Britain’s foreign interests that has come from these wars – apart from a possible anticipated oil deal in Libya.

The reason goes back in part to Lady Thatcher‘s commitment to “hug close” to Washington in the later years of the cold war. The hug came to be a suicide embrace, since most of the subsequent mistakes have derived from America’s over-reaction to 9/11, leading to mendacious excuses and wars of regime change and destabilisation. Whatever the evils of the Ba’athist and Taliban regimes, they cannot have justified such colossal loss of life, dislocation and destruction. Today we hear the same warlike language towards Iran. Do we really think the security of the region or the lot of the Iranian people can possibly be improved by future British or US military action? The Libyan intervention removed a dictator at relatively small cost, but how is that Nato’s business, any more than it is to dispose of dictators in Africa and Asia?

With the end of the nuclear threat, a revived resort to war as a foreign policy response seems to run deep in British and American psyches. Television programmes and bestseller lists are fixated on the two world wars. Britons consume tales of past horror and cruelty. We excuse a harping on the trenches, on Hitler, on D-Day and on the blitz as a warning to each generation that these were “the wars to end all wars”. Like the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they are portrayed as exemplary deterrents against the use of such dreadful weapons ever again.

I begin to wonder. The west’s readiness to resort to violence in the aftermath of the cold war suggests something more sinister. The publicity now accorded to political oppression anywhere in the world is a standing casus belli for the military elites of Nato, the UN, the US and Britain. Not a day passes without some global horror being presented to the west’s interventionists with a demand that “something must be done”.

Pity is a noble urge, but its effect is not always wise. Contemplating the outcome of the second world war, Hannah Arendt warned pity could “possess a greater capacity for cruelty than cruelty itself”. It becomes the ubiquitous pretext, the excuse. How often is the cruelty of Saddam or the Taliban used to justify western atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan? How many more Syrians must die, a BBC reporter asks, “before we do something?” The something is, of course, the ever desirable war.

Most citizens regard war as a car crash, a random, irrational event that just happens. They do not see it as the outcome of a political process to which as democrats they are party. War may still be occasioned by pity, clothed in the language of humanitarianism, but it has become a casual, media-guided and exploited pity. A lot of people have a lot of money at stake in pity, and it goes far beyond the UN’s emergency relief fund.

Hence the suspicion that the obsession of so many Britons with past violence and present cruelty is no longer deterring them from risking its repetition, but the opposite. It makes them ready, almost eager, for more. The path from the cosy interventionism of a Christmas-tide foreign secretary to the sabre rattling, drone-killing, suicide bombing and destruction of the last decade is not as wide as might seem. Such intervention is not so much the white man’s burden as his morbid thrill

A few years ago, when Cardinal Ruini, the head of all Italian bishops,  warned Italian Catholics about marriage with  Muslims , some  politically correct  people said it was a Catholic overreaction to Muslim political extremism.  In reality , Cardinal Ruini was only giving young people some good advice, by saying that in addition to the problems any couple faces setting up a family, Catholics marrying Muslims have to reckon with extra difficulties arising from deep cultural as well as religious differences. To a Rabbi who has worked with couples in mixed marriage situations for over 40 years, Cardinal Ruini’s warning was simply a wise caution.

Teenage  marriages have a divorce rate double the rate of those married in their 20′s. Should a religious educator try to influence teenagers against early marriage? I think so! Should a youth worker who hears about a couple age 18 or 19 planning to get married  urge them, or encourage others to urge them, to stretch out their engagement and delay their marriage date? Again I think so! Should a priest, minister, imam or rabbi urge them to enroll in a pre-marriage counseling class? Definitely!

Mixed religion marriages also have a high divorce rate. Disagrement over raising   children is the number one issue. If a couple is of mixed religious background should a priest, rabbi, minister or imam insist that they reach a clear understanding on the issue of the children’s religious identity prior to marriage? Should religious educators try to influence teens and pre-teens to avoid dating people of a different religion, because dating leads to marriage and mixed marriages have so many extra difficulties involved that the chance of divorce is substantially higher? Many people who answered affirmatively to the questions in the first paragraph will be ambivalent about those just raised because we live in an open society that believes that love conquers all.

When a young couple is in love, they do not want to hear of poten­tial difficulties in their relationship and most rabbis, priests, imams and ministers do not want to be seen as negative. Yet we do have a duty to inform people of the facts of married life; and urge them to try to do something about the issues that will arise in a mixed marriage, even if it is late in the game.

Of course, the best time to make people aware of these unnecessary difficulties is before they are in love”, better yet before they first start dating. We have a duty to reduce the incidence of divorce if we can. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure! The best time to educate against smoking is before kids start smoking. The best time to educate in favor of selective dating is before kids start dating. Love does not overcome all obstacles! People planning marriage should be challenged to face the facts. Kids should be informed of the difficulties before they get involved.

What are the facts? It has long been known that Catholic/Protestant and Jewish/Christian couples have a well above average divorce rate. A study of over 3,000 non-Hispanic white, first time marriages that occurred in the 1960′s, 70′s and 80′s, reported in the August 1993 issue of Demography, found that “First five year dissolution probabilities” increased by 55% for Jews who marry out and by 80% for Catholics who marry out. Similar increases were reported for both Liberal and Fundamentalist Protestants. Extra high divorce rates for religiously mixed couples have been well known to sociologists and marriage counselors for several decades. However, the new research found that for all religious groups, conversion no matter which way it went, reduced the extra-high divorce rate substantially. A national survey of American Catholics in 1999 found that 29% of Catholics have or had a non-Catholic spouse. The divorce rate for the mixed marriages was 22% compared to 10% for marriages of two Catholics, an increase of 120%. However, this cloud has a silver lining. While Catholics who marry non- Catholics have a divorce rate of 22%, Catholics who have a spouse that converts had a divorce rate of only14%, a 1/3 reduction of the chances of divorce. The same reduction (or more) in divorce rates probably takes place for Jews and Muslims.

Alas, most mixed couples do not try, or do not succeed, in unifying their family religiously, and thus do not reduce their extra-high probability of divorce. Jews and Muslims are the least likely to convert to the other spouse’s religion, less than 4% do. Catholics and Protestants are more likely to convert or to influence their partners to convert. Unfortunately, in the last few decades the percentage of Catholic-Protestant couples that unify their religious identity has declined substantially. The 1999 study of American Catholics found that almost half of the generation of Catholics who married out in the 40’s and 50’s unified their families. In the 60’s and 70’s only a little over a third did, and in the 80’s and 90’s only a little over a fifth did. Thus, one of the most important contributions that an Imam, Priest, Minister, Rabbi or religious educator can make to a couple who are planning a mixed marriage is to stress the importance of religious agreement. Delaying their marriage plans for a year or two is much better than a quick marriage and a quick divorce.

How to raise their children is the most important decision facing a religiously mixed couple planing a marriage. Some couples frankly admit that they do not intend to give their children any religious education or spiritual direction. Most people do not find this solution to be acceptable since usually one or both of the parents believe that it is important for children to believe in God and have a religious identity.

Exposing the children to both religions sounds better to most people. It sounds more liberal, evenhanded and even spiritually richer, but it risks really confusing the children. Catholics and Protestants both believe in the Divinity of Jesus. Jews and Muslims do not. Marriages between Christians and Jews or Muslims are much more problematical than marriages between different denominations of Christians. Since Christianity teaches that Jesus is the Son of God while Judaism and Islam deny Divinity to Jesus, the children will be caught between two contradictory beliefs.

Although some couples do try hard to give their children a good Jewish education and also a good Christian education and a true experience of both religions, very few actually go through with it. After a few years they sink to the lowest common denominator; celebrating Hanukkah plus Christmas, and visiting the grandparents for Easter and Passover. To be honest, a few superficial practices engaged in a couple of times a year will hardly be spiritually enriching for anyone. In effect, these couples are not doing both: they are really doing neither. They usually don’t like to admit this, because it sounds like they are depriving their children of any real religious identity. For parents to admit they do nothing is to admit that belief in God and a positive religious identity for their children is unimportant to them. Nevertheless, the both/neither option is the most popular one in Jewish/Christian marriages. It should not be surprising therefore that the most popular religious category for the children of Jewish/Christian marriages is “none”.

I analyzed a nationwide study of college freshmen conducted by UCLA for the American Council on Education. More than 290,000 college freshmen were surveyed. Of them, 3661 were children from mixed Jewish/non Jewish marriages. 41% of the children of Protestants married to Jews, and 32% of the children of Catholics married to Jews claimed no religious identity. This is not surprising, for as I stated before, most couples who plan to do both, end  up doing neither. However, I was surprised to find that from 7% to 18% of the children of these mixed marriages reject both parents’ religion, and have identified with another religion. Thus, 9.6% of the offspring of a Roman Catholic mother and a Jewish father identify as Protestant, Moron, Jehovah Witness, Buddhist or some other religion and 17.9% of the offspring of a Catholic father and a Jewish mother also identify with these other religions. The figures for Protestants married to Jews are similar but somewhat lower.

There is a reasonable explanation for the children’s rejection of both parents’ religion. Most mixed-couples that decide to raise the children as both/neither also say they will let the children decide which way to go when they are old enough. But such a decision is not based on an academic study of theology. Inevitably it means identifying with one parent’s religious heritage, and rejecting the other parent’s. Even if the parents say that whatever the child chooses is acceptable, most children feel uncomfortable in preferring the religious identity of one parent and rejecting the other. Many react by avoiding any decision, and thus have no religious identity. Some who are probably angrier, react by rejecting both parents equally, and select a third alternative for themselves. It is really unfair for parents to ask for a child to make such a decision, when they themselves have been unable to decide between the two of them, what the best course would be.

Although it is initially harder, it is better in the long run for the parents to decide themselves how their children should be raised. The children of course will know that their parents have different religions, but they will be told that their parents have decided that they should be one or the other. Thus the parents accept the responsibility for the choice, and the children do not have to struggle with the choice or be caught in between competing loyalties. Unfortunately, the number of parents who say they will do both has been increasing in the last two decades. Again it is important to urge people to really think through the consequences of a mixed marriage and its effect on the religious identity of the children.

These are some of the problems facing a religiously mixed couple seeking to marry and raise a family. They can not always be solved (that’s why the divorce rate more than doubles) but the only hope a couple has is to face the issues and decide to accept their responsibility for making the hard and sometimes sacrificial decisions that are called for. It may not be pleasant for a couple, their parents or clergy to confront these issues, but they cannot be resolved by denying them. If teachers of religion influence even a small percentage of their students to avoid all these problems by selective dating they may be able to save many couples from divorce and many children from marginal or conflicted religious identities. This would be one of the most important lessons they will ever teach.

There are some people who smoke and get away with it. There are some couples who seem to have no problems as a result of their mixed marriage. But in most cases these few exceptions only prove the rule. Everybody thinks they can beat the odds; that’s why so many people gamble. Very few people actually beat the odds,; that’s why they have so many giant hotels in Las Vegas. Teaching young people that marriage and children are too important to gamble with should be our goal.

Rabbi Maller’s web site is: rabbimaller.com

Jesus in Islam and Christmas

From www.Islamicity.com

Many Christians are unaware that the true spirit of reverence which Muslims display towards Jesus  and his mother Mary spring from the fountainhead of their faith as prescribed in the Holy Quran. Most do not know that a Muslim does not take the name of Jesus , without saying Eesa alai-hiss-salaam i.e. (Jesus peace be upon him).

Many Christians do not know that in the Holy Quran Jesus is mentioned by name twenty-five times.  For example:

.. We gave Jesus the son of Mary Clear (Signs) and strengthened him with the holy spirit. .. Quran 2:87

Behold! the angels said: “O Mary! Allah gives thee glad tidings of a Word from Him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and of (the company of) those nearest to Allah. Quran 3:45

.. Christ Jesus the son of Mary was (no more than) an apostle of Allah .. Quran 4:171

And in their footsteps We sent Jesus the son of Mary, confirming the Law that had come before him .. Quran 5:46

And Zakariya and John, and Jesus and Elias: all in the ranks of the righteous: Quran 6:85

The Quranic Titles of Jesus

Though Jesus is mentioned by name in twenty-five places in the Holy Quran he is also addressed with respect as: “Ibne Maryam” – son of Mary; as Masi (Heb) Messiah – translated as Christ; “Abd-ullah” servant of Allah; “Rasul -Ullah” – Messenger of Allah.

He is spoken of as “the word of God”, as “the spirit of God”, as a “Sign of God”, and numerous other epithets of honor spread over fifteen different chapters. The Holy Quran honors this great Messenger of God, and over the past fourteen hundred years Muslims continue to hold Jesus as a symbol of truth.

Christmas and 25th of December

Jesus  is commonly considered to have been born on the 25th of December. However, it is common knowledge among Christian scholars that he was not born on this day. It is well known that the first Christian churches held their festival in May, April, or January. Scholars of the first two centuries AD even differ in which year he was born. Some believing that he was born fully twenty years before the current accepted date. So how was the 25th of December selected as the birthday of Jesus ?

Grolier’s encyclopedia says: “Christmas is the feast of the birth of Jesus Christ, celebrated on December 25 … Despite the beliefs about Christ that the birth stories expressed, the church did not observe a festival for the celebration of the event until the 4th century…. since 274, under the emperor Aurelian, Rome had celebrated the feast of the “Invincible Sun” on December 25. In the Eastern Church, January 6, a day also associated with the winter solstice, was initially preferred. In course of time, however, the West added the Eastern date as the Feast of the Epiphany, and the East added the Western date of Christmas”.

So who else celebrated the 25th of December as the birth day of their gods before it was agreed upon as the birth day of Jesus ? Well, there are the people of India who rejoice, decorate their houses with garlands, and give presents to their friends on this day. The people of China also celebrate this day and close their shops. Buddha is believed to have been born on this day. The great savior and god of the Persians, Mithras, is also believed to have been born on the 25th of December long before the coming of Jesus .

The Egyptians celebrated this day as the birth day of their great savior Horus, the Egyptian god of light and the son of the “virgin mother” and “queen of the heavens” Isis. Osiris, god of the dead and the underworld in Egypt, the son of “the holy virgin”, again was believed to have been born on the 25th of December.

The Greeks celebrated the 25th of December as the birthday of Hercules, the son of the supreme god of the Greeks, Zeus, through the mortal woman Alcmene Bacchus, the god of wine and revelry among the Romans (known among the Greeks as Dionysus) was also born on this day.

Adonis, revered as a “dying-and-rising god” among the Greeks, miraculously was also born on the 25th of December. His worshipers held him a yearly festival representing his death and resurrection, in midsummer. The ceremonies of his birthday are recorded to have taken place in the same cave in Bethlehem which is claimed to have been the birth place of Jesus .

The Scandinavians celebrated the 25th of December as the birthday of their god Freyr, the son of their supreme god of the heavens, Odin.

The Romans observed this day as the birthday of the god of the sun, Natalis Solis Invicti (“Birthday of Sol the invincible”). There was great rejoicing and all shops were closed. There was illumination and public games. Presents were exchanged, and the slaves were indulged in great liberties. These are the same Romans who would later preside over the council of Nicea (325 CE) which lead to the official Christian recognition of the “Trinity” as the “true” nature of God, and the “fact” that Jesus  was born on the 25th of December too.

In Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Gibbon says: “The Roman Christians, ignorant of his (Christ’s) birth, fixed the solemn festival to the 25th of December, the Brumalia, or Winter Solstice, when the Pagans annually celebrated the birth of Sol ” vol. ii, p. 383.

Christians opposed to Christmas

There are several Christian groups who are opposed to Christmas. For example, they take the verse from the Bible in Jeremiah 10:2-4 as an admonition against decorating Christmas trees.

The King James Version reads: “Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen…. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.”

In order to understand this subject, it is helpful to trace some of the history of Christmas avoidance, particularly its roots in Puritanism.

The Puritans believed that the first-century church modeled a Christianity that modern Christians should copy. They attempted to base their faith and practice solely on the New Testament, and their position on Christmas reflected their commitment to practice a pure, scriptural form of Christianity. Puritans argued that God reserved to himself the determination of all proper forms of worship, and that he disapproved of any human innovations – even innovations that celebrated the great events of salvation. The nameChristmas also alienated many Puritans. Christmas, after all, meant “the mass of Christ.” The mass was despised as a Roman Catholic institution that undermined the Protestant concept of Christ, who offered himself once for all. The Puritans’ passionate avoidance of any practice that was associated with papal Rome caused them to overlook the fact that in many countries the name for the day had nothing to do with the Catholic mass, but focused instead on Jesus’ birth. The mass did not evolve into the form abhorred by Protestants until long after Christmas was widely observed. The two customs had separate, though interconnected, histories.

As ardent Protestants, Puritans identified the embracing of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine in the early 300s CE as the starting point of the degeneration and corruption of the church. They believed the corruption of the church was brought on by the interweaving of the church with the pagan Roman state. To Puritans, Christmas was impure because it entered the Roman Church sometime in this period. No one knows the exact year or under what circumstances Roman Christians began to celebrate the birth of their Lord, but by the mid-300s CE, the practice was well established.

Islam requires Muslims to respect the faith of others

Regardless of historical facts and theological differences that Christians may have among themselves or theological differences Muslims may have with Christianity we cannot disregard the sentiments of practicing Christians who use this occasion to revere Jesus .

Prophet Muhammad  was always very respectful towards the Christians. According to Islamic historians, Ibn e Saad and Ibn e Hisham, once there was a delegation of Byzantine Christians, who were traveling from Yemen to Madinah. The delegation was lead by a bishop by the name of Zqyd al-Usquf, who came to discuss a number of issues with Prophet Muhammad . When the time of their prayer came, they asked the Prophet if they could do their worship in the mosque of the Prophet. He answered, “Conduct your service here in the mosque. It is a place dedicated to God.”

We should never ridicule the religious beliefs of others, no matter how much we disagree with them. God says in the Quran: “And insult not those whom they worship besides God, lest they insult God wrongfully without knowledge. Thus We have made fair-seeming to each people its own doings; then to their Lord is their return and He shall then inform them of all that they used to do”.  Quran, 6:108

By Gary Younge

The Guardian, 18 December 2011

Every effort must be made to thwart those who seek to embellish and distort America’s lamentable legacy in Iraq

On 19 November 2005 a US marine squad was struck by a roadside bomb in Haditha, in Iraq’s Anbar province, killing one soldier and seriously injuring two others. According to civilians they then went on the rampage, slaughtering 24 people. They included a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair and a three-year-old child. It was a massacre. “I think they were just blinded by hate … and they just lost control,” said James Crossan, one of the injured marines.

When he heard the news, Major General Steve Johnson, the American commander in Anbar province at the time, saw no cause for further examination. “It happened all the time … throughout the whole country. So you know, maybe, if I was sitting here [in Virginia] and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and done more to look into it. But at that point in time I felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement.”

Eight soldiers were originally charged with the atrocity. Charges against six were dropped, one was acquitted and the other is awaiting trial. We know this because a New York Times reporter found documents from the US military’s internal investigation in a rubbish dump near Baghdad. An attendant was using them to make a fire to cook smoked carp for dinner.

The article ran on the same day that Barack Obama announced the withdrawal of American troops last week, hailing the almost nine-year war a ”success”, resulting in “an extraordinary achievement” that the troops can look on “with their heads held high”. And so it is that America moves on, casting evidence of its war crimes in the trash, holding nobody accountable and choosing to understand defeat as victory and failure as success.

While the departure of American troops should be greeted with guarded relief (guarded because the US will maintain its largest embassy in the world there along with thousands of armed private contractors), every effort must be made to thwart those who seek to embellish and distort their lamentable legacy. You’d think that would be easy. The case against this war has been prosecuted extensively both in this column and elsewhere. (The argument that the removal of Saddam Hussein somehow compensates for the lies, torture, displacement, carnage, instability and humans rights abuses is perverse. They used a daisy cutter to crack a walnut.)

This war started out with many parents but has ended its days an orphan, tarnishing the reputations of those who launched it and the useful idiots who gave them intellectual cover. Nobody has been held accountable; few accept responsibility.

In any case, they could not have done it alone. It was only possible thanks to the systemic collusion of a supine political class and a jingoistic political culture, not to mention a blank cheque from the British government. When the war started, almost three-quarters of Americans supported it. Only politicians of principle opposed it – and there were precious few of those. When Nancy Pelosi was asked why she had not pushed for impeachment of Bush when she became speaker in 2006 she said: “What about these other people who voted for that war with no evidence … Where are these Democrats going to be? Are they going to be voting for us to impeach a president who took us to war on information that they had also?”

Today, withdrawing the troops is about the only truly popular thing Obama has done in the last two years. Polls show more than 70% support withdrawal, roughly two-thirds oppose the war, and more than half believe it was a mistake. But there is a difference between regretting something and learning from it. And while there is ample evidence of the former, there is little to suggest the latter.

According to Christopher Gelpi, a political science professor at Duke University who specialises in public attitudes to foreign policy, the most important single factor shaping Americans’ opinions about any war is whether they think America will win. This solipsistic worldview is hardly conducive to the kind of introspection that might translate remorse into redemption.

It’s a mindset that understands the war in Vietnam as being wrong not because an independent country was invaded, flattened, millions murdered and thousands tortured. It was wrong because the US lost.

And it pervades the political spectrum. Even when the war’s critics slam the blood and treasure squandered, they usually refer only to American lives and American money. This is also the way pollsters frame it. A recent CBS poll asked: “Do you think removing Saddam Hussein from power was worth the loss of American life and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?” (50% no, 41% yes), and “Do you think the result of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American lives and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not?” (67% no, 24% yes). The cost to Iraqis simply does not feature.

“It is the end for the Americans only,” wrote Emad Risn, argued an Iraqi columnist in a government-funded newspaper. “Nobody knows if the war will end for Iraqis too.” And few Americans seem to care. It’s been some time since Iraq featured at all on the nation’s priorities, let alone high. Rightly Americans fret about the fate of veterans returning to a depressed economy with a range of both physical and mental disabilities. But Iraqi civilians barely get a look-in.

According to the New York Times report, among the discarded testimony was an interview with Sergeant Major Edward Sax. “I had marines shoot children in cars, and deal with the marines individually, one on one, about it because they have a hard time dealing with that.” When they told him they didn’t know there were children on board he told them they were not to blame, claiming killing would impose a lifelong burden on them.

Progressives, seeking to link the economic collapse to military misadventure, often argue that nation building should begin at home, not in Iraq, thereby – wittingly or not – transforming Iraqis in the public imagination from victims of illegal warfare to recipients of illicit welfare. Without any apparent irony, Obama marked the end of the occupation by calling on others not to meddle in Iraq’s internal affairs.

The combined effect of all of this is like breaking someone’s jaw with your fist only to bemoan the excruciating pain that has been visited on your hand.

America is not alone in this. Amnesia and indifference are the privileges of the powerful. It is for the Kenyans and Algerians to recall the atrocities committed by the British and French under colonialism while the colonisers remain in flight from their history. “The essential characteristic of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common,” wrote the 19th-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, “and must have forgotten many things as well.”

No wonder then that a recent Pew poll found that despite all the evidence to the contrary 56% of Americans said they thought the invasion had succeeded in its goals while the number of those who think the invasion was the right decision stands at its highest in five years. The cost of doing business always seems more reasonable when someone else is paying the price.

By Daliah Merzaban

Before I genuinely began to cultivate and nurture my relationship with God, I regarded the five daily prayers that Islam enjoins on believers as laborious. It seemed impractical to expect that I would be able to stop what I was doing during my busy work schedule to take time out and pray.

Working as a news wire journalist, I was often spending upwards of 10 hours a day in the office or at conferences, interviews and meetings, barely able to make time for a lunch break. If I wasn’t working, my time was divided between house chores, errands, family and friends, and exercise. I was punctual with everything in my life, except that I was late five times a day.

In my mind, it was not viable to expect that I could wake up before the crack of dawn to pray the early-morning prayer, fajr, otherwise I would be too tired to work effectively later that morning. It also seemed inefficient to interrupt my work meetings to pray duhr, the mid-day prayer, and asr, the afternoon prayer.

Making the sunset prayer maghrib was often a challenge because the window to pray is typically quite short and coincides with the time between finishing work, having dinner and returning home. So, in effect, the only prayer that was feasible for me to pray on time was isha, the evening prayer. For most of my life, thus, I would at best pray all five prayers in the evening, or skip prayers here and there to accommodate my immediate commitments.

Without realizing it, my inconsistency and approach to praying trivialized the principle behind performing prayers throughout the day. I believed in God and loved Him, but on my own terms, not on the terms very clearly set out in the Quran and Prophetic teachings. Yet praying the five daily prayers, at their prescribed times, is the backbone of being a Muslim; we cannot stand upright in our faith without them. It is one of the essential practices that God has called on those who endeavor to live in Islam, a state of existence whereby a human strives to live in submission to God.

When I came to truly understand the importance of prayer, the realization was both overwhelming and quick. It dawned on me that if I was not fulfilling this precondition, then I really could not claim to be Muslim. Even if I desired to have a solid connection with the Almighty I was not taking the necessary steps to do so. I promptly reoriented my life and it has now been a year and a half that I have not intentionally missed a prayer time, whether I am in the office, mall, grocery store, out with friends or travelling.

Looking back, I see how wrong I was about the impracticality of Islamic prayers, which are succinct and straightforward notwithstanding their resonance. When I moved from trying to fit prayers into my life to fitting my life around my prayer schedule, I instantly removed a great deal of clutter from my daily routine. Since regular prayer promotes emotional consistency and tranquility, I began to eliminate excess negativity and cut down on unnecessary chitchat, helping me be more focused, productive and patient.

Over a short period of time, what amazed me was how easy and fluid the prayers became. Performing the early-morning prayer actually gave me a burst of energy during the day and, gradually, the prayers that I had initially perceived as cumbersome became an essential facet of my routine. With God’s help, I would find ways to make a prayer regardless of the hurdles. While in Canada for the summer, I would often catch duhr prayer in a department store fitting room, with the help of a handy Islamic prayer compass application on my iPhone.

“‘Verily the soul becomes accustomed to what you accustom it to.’ That is to say: what you at first burden the soul with becomes nature to it in the end.”

This is a line drawn from a magnificent book I am in the process of reading by great Islamic thinker Al-Ghazali, entitled “Invocations and Supplications: Book IX of the Revival of Religious Sciences.” Al-Ghazali describes a series of formulas, drawn from the Qur’an and Hadith, which we can repeat to help us attain greater proximity to the divine and purify our hearts.
At each turn in my quest to enrich my faith, I have found that what at first appears difficult becomes easy when performed with sincerity. Soon after I reoriented my life to revolve around prayer, the five prayers felt insufficient in expressing my devotion. I examined Hadith, or the traditions of Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, and discovered there were optional prayers I could add to my routine. Since then, I have not let a day pass without praying them.

To supplement my prayers, I have integrated various zikr, or remembrance and mentioning of God, into my days. Zikr, including repeating such phrases as “la illa ha il Allah” (There is no God but God), habitually draws our attention back to God.

Among the many rich invocations mentioned in Ghazali’s book is this one which I have started to incorporate. As we leave our houses each day, if we say “In the name of God” (Bismillah), God will guide us; when we add “I trust in God” (Tawakalt al Allah), God will protect us; and if we conclude with “There is no might or power save with God” (La hawla wa la quwwata illa billah), God will guard us.

I suppose to an outsider, these acts of devotion can appear a bit obsessive, and I have had a couple of people say this to me. Yet it is an obsession with the greatest possible consequences that can improve rather than disintegrate one’s disposition. The more time I devote to God, the greater the peace of mind I find filling my life and the more focused I become on what is important — such as treating my family and friends honourably, working hard in my job, giving charity with compassion and generosity, and maintaining integrity.

Remembering God throughout the day, through prayer and invocation, truly does polish the heart as Hadith teaches; you erase obstructions that would impede faith in its purest form.

“Truly when a man loves a thing, he repeatedly mentions it, and when he repeatedly mentions a thing, even if that may be burdensome, he loves it,” writes Ghazali.

Daliah Merzaban is an Egyptian-Canadian journalist, editor and economic analyst with a decade of experience in the Gulf region, Egypt and Canada.

Source: Dew Point

Christian missionaries are interested in proving the superiority of the Bible to the Qur’an. They say that the Christian Bible (the Old Testament and the New Testament) is the true word of God: the Qur’an is not. They try to prove this by asserting that when the Qur’an’s narratives differ from the Bible’s narratives about the same event; the Qur’an must be wrong. It is sad that these missionaries, who claim to be the disciples of Jesus, ignore his teaching to love not only your neighbors, but also your enemies. They would reply that the search for God’s truth is so important that it justifies insulting other peoples prophets and sacred texts even when they also teach monotheism. These Christian missionaries are ignorant of, or simply reject, two very important Ahadith, that I, a Reform Rabbi who considers himself to be a Muslim Jew, always respect.

I am a Muslim Jew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi. (Reform Jews are now the largest of the Jewish denominations in the U.S. In the U.K..Reform Judaism is called Liberal Judaism.)  As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Abraham, the first Muslim Jew, and I submit to be bound by the covenant and commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Rabbis should modify Jewish traditions to prevent them from making religion to hard to practice. This is an important teaching in the Qur’an (7:157) and one that prophet Muhammad taught 12 centuries before the rise of Reform Judaism in the early 19^th century. As Abu Huraira related: The Prophet said, “Religion is very easy and whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way.  So you should not be extremists, but try to be near to perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded.” (Bukhari book 2 #38)

The two Ahadith that every Christian missionary should learn and abide by, teach respect for the Sacred Scripture and the Prophets of other monotheistic religions. A  hadîth Narrated by Abu Huraira   says, “The people of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and then explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. Allah’s Apostle said (to the Muslims). “Do not believe the people of the Book, nor disbelieve them, but say, ‘We believe in Allah, and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever is revealed to you.’ ” (Bukhari book 92  #460 and book 93  #632)

Following Muhammad’s teaching I too neither believe nor disbelieve in the Qur’an. I do respect the Qur’an very much as a kindred revelation, first given to a kindred people, in a kindred language. In fact, the Arab people, the Arab language and Muslim theology are closer to my own people, language and theology than that of any other on earth. Islam teaches clearly that God does not have just one people or one true religion. Rather, God chose not to create human beings as one nation or with only one religion so that each religion could compete with all the others in order to see which religion produces the highest percentage of moral and loving people; and which people best embody in their personal and communal lives the moral teachings of their prophet. As it is written in the Qur’an [5.48] “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way. If Allah had pleased He would have made you one people, but (He didn’t) that He might test you in what He gave you. Therefore compete with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds; for all return to Allah, so He will let you know that in which you differed.” This is a wonderful further development of the teaching of the Biblical prophet Micah (4:5) that in the end of days-the Messianic Age “All people will walk, each in the name of their own God, and we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever.”

In terms of respect for the prophets of other religions I have not seen the equal of the following  hadith: Narrated Abu Huraira: Two persons, a Muslim and a Jew, quarreled. The Muslim said, “By Him Who gave Muhammad superiority over all the people! The Jew said, “By Him Who gave Moses superiority over all the people!” At that the Muslim raised his hand and slapped the Jew on the face. The Jew went to the Prophet and informed him of what had happened. The Prophet sent for the Muslim and asked him about it. The Muslim informed him of the event. The Prophet said, “Do not give me superiority over Moses, for on the Day of Resurrection all the people will fall unconscious and I will be one of them. I will be the first to gain consciousness, and I will see Moses standing and holding the side of the Throne (of Allah). I will not know whether (Moses) had also fallen unconscious and got up before me, or Allah has exempted him from that stroke.” (Bukhari  book 76 #524)  The people of the book; Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, should learn humility from this profound teaching of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh).

But missionaries are not the only ones who denigrate the prophethood of prophet Muhammad. Academics do the same thing when they assert that Muhammad took (stole) things from Jewish post Biblical literature; and that he got things wrong when the Qur’an relates different things about events in the Hebrew Bible (what Christians call the Old Testament). An example of these false accusations is the  Qur’an’s account Cain’s killing of Able Qur’an 5:27-32: “²⁷Tell them the tale of the two sons of Adam as it really was. Both presented an offering. It was accepted from one of them, but it was not accepted from the other, who said, “I’m going to kill you!” The former answered, “God only accepts from the conscientious.” ²⁸Even if you stretch out your hand to kill me, I am not stretching out my hand to kill you, for I fear God, the Lord of the worlds. ²⁹I would rather you bring on my sin as well as your sin, so you will be one of those destined for the Fire, for that is the reward of the unjust. ³⁰But he (Cain) did not hold back from killing his brother (Able). He murdered him and became one of the lost.

³¹Then God sent a raven to scratch up the ground to show him (Cain) how to hide his brother’s naked remains. He said: Woe is me! Am I not able even to be like raven to hide the naked corpse of my brother? So he (Cain) regretted (what he had done). ³²Because of that, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a human being for other than murder or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all humankind, and whoever saves the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all mankind.”

The first difference is one of style. The Torah loves details and contains a vast number of names of people and places. The Qur’an contains very few names.  The Qur’an does not name which of his two sons Abraham took with him for the sacrifice; the Torah does (Genesis 22). The Qur’an does not name the two sons of Adam; the Torah does. For Jews the names were very important because all these people were like family or tribal members. For Muslims the names were not so important because the Muslims were destined to be a multinational multiethnic community.

The second difference is in emphasis.   Both the Qur’an and the Torah relate the same event; but they point to different aspects of it. The Qur’an does not describe what the two offerings were, but states. “God only accepts from the conscientious.” making explicit the religious lesson that intent is more important than the specific ritual material offering, and this is why God accepted one and not the other. The Torah (Genesis 4:3-8) relates that, “Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the soil; ⁴and Abel, for his part, brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock. The Lord paid heed to Abel and his offering, ⁵but to Cain and his offering He paid no heed. Cain was much distressed and his face fell. ^{6 T}he Lord said to Cain, “Why are you distressed, and why is your face fallen? ⁷Surely, if you do right, there is uplift. But if you do not do right sin crouches at the door; its urge is toward you, yet you can be its master.” ⁸Cain said to his brother Abel…and when they were in the field Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him.”  The Torah does not explicitly state the reason one was accepted and the other one was not, as the Qur’an does, (it does state “Cain brought an offering” while Abel “ brought the choicest of the firstlings of his flock”) because the lesson is not just why God chose one over the other. The real issue for Jews is how do people in general handle rejection and failure. We are all going to lose or be rejected sometimes; do we yield to frustration, envy and anger or do we control ourselves-”be its master”. This is why the Torah states that Cain said something to Abel and then doesn’t tell us what he said. It doesn’t matter what he said; there are no words that justify murder. Both  lessons; the importance of intentionally in religious behavior, and the importance of avoiding anger and violence through mastering our self control, are important, and both Judaism and Islam teach both of them.

The third difference is the account of the raven teaching Cain how to dispose of his brother’s corpse and the final lesson that killing one person, results in all that persons future descendants never having life. This is not found in the Written Torah of Moses, but it is found in the Oral Torah of the Rabbis. A Rabbinic text from the sixth or seventh century, Pirkey deRabbi Eli`ezer chapter 21 relates that “Adam and his helpmate (Eve) were sitting, weeping and mourning for him (Able), and they did not know what to do, for they were unaccustomed to burial. A raven whose fellow-bird died said, “ I will teach this man what to do.” What did he do? He took his fellow and dug in the earth, covered him and buried him before their eyes. Adam said, “I’ll do what this raven did.” And he took the body of Abel, dug in the earth and covered it.” Academics say this is one of many examples of Muhammad borrowing material from Jewish sources. As a rabbi I can tell you this is not true. Rabbinic texts are usually  collections of many different Oral Torah traditions passed down orally over the generations. The early parts of this book may date from the 5^th century and the latest parts may date from the 8^th century. The lesson from the raven might preceded the birth of Muhammad by 100-150 years, or it might date from a century after his death. It doesn’t matter because if you believe that there is only one God who has sent prophets to all the nations of the world, the fact that some material from one holy text is similar to material in another holy text is to be expected. Indeed, you might expect there to be much more duplication when every prophet is reciting from the same source.

The ending conclusion about the cumulative sins of murdering one person is clearly stated for Jews, in the Mishnah, the first written edition of the Oral Torah c.200-250 CE, and for Muslims in the Qur’an. The Mishnah and the Talmud are collections of Oral Torah, similar in function as another source for  God’s law, to the Ahadith and the Sunna of  Prophet Muhammad. Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5 states, “We observe [in the case of] Cain who killed his brother, “the bloods of your brother call out.” The word is in the plural [to teach] his blood and the blood of his descendants. Therefore Adam was created alone, to teach you that anyone who destroys one human soul [or, in another reading, “one Israelite soul”] is considered as if he destroyed an entire world, and anyone who establishes one human soul is as if he has saved an entire world.” And the Qur’an states, “³²Because of that, We decreed for the Children of Israel that whoever kills a human being for other than murder or corruption in the earth, it shall be as if he had killed all humankind, and whoever saves  the life of one, it shall be as if he had saved the life of all humankind. Our messengers came to them with proofs, but many of them throughout the land are still excessive.” Note that the Qur’an states explicitly that God decreed  “for the Children of Israel” by messengers (plural) the same lesson the Qur’an is teaching right now to Muslims. Notice that in the Oral Torah tradition the original ‘mankind’ has been replaced by ‘ Israelite’ due to the two big wars that the Jews fought and lost with the Romans (66-70 CE and 132-135 Ce) and then three centuries (330-634 CE) of persecution of Jews in the Byzantine Roman Empire until they were liberated by the Arab conquest of most of Byzantine Rome. Thus parallels between Muslim and Jewish texts do not disprove the Divine origin of the Qur’an. These parallels prove it.

The differences in details between the Torah and the Qur’an, and the parallels between the Qur’an and the Oral Torah,  do not in any way prove that the Qur’an is not the word of God. They only show that the Holy One shapes the message of each prophet to fit the circumstances of the people he is sent to. What we have in common is what we should focus on. As the Qur’an (3:64) states: “Say; “O People of the Book! come to common terms between us and you: That we worship none but Allah. that we associate no partners with Him; that we erect not, from among ourselves, Lords and patrons other than Allah.” If then they turn back (reject) you. say: “Bear witness that we (at least) are Muslims (who accept all the previous prophets).

Allah’s Apostle was a messenger for all nations and not just for Arabs or Muslims: “We have not sent you but as an unequalled mercy for all the worlds” (Anbiya 21:107). I think of myself as a Reform Rabbi who is a Muslim Jew. Actually I am a Muslim Jew i.e. a faithful Jew submitting to the will of God, because I am a Reform Rabbi. As a Rabbi I am faithful to the covenant that God made with Abraham – the first Muslim Jew, and I submit to the covenant and its commandments that God made with the people of Israel at Mount Sinai. As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Jewish spiritual leaders should modify Jewish law and tradition as social and historical circumstances change and develop. I also believe we should not make religion difficult for people to practice by adding an increasing number of restrictions to the commandments we received at Mount Sinai.. These are lessons that prophet Muhammad taught 12 centuries before the rise of Reform Judaism in the early 19th century.
Although most Jews today are no longer Orthodox Jews, if the Jews of Muhammad’s time, had followed these teachings of prophet Muhammad, Reform Judaism would have started 1,400 years ago. (In the U.K. Reform Jews are called Liberal Jews. Reform Jews in the U.K.are what we in North America call Conservative Jews.)

I believe that Muhammad was a prophet of Reform Judaism to the Orthodox Jews of his day; although he was 1,200 years ahead of his time. During the six centuries between the birth of Jesus and the arrival of Muhammad in Yathrib (Medina), almost all Jews became Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Rabbis added many extra prohibitions to Jewish law and everyone became increasingly strict in the observance of the laws of Shabbat and Kashrut (dietary laws). Orthodox Rabbis did not follow the example of Muhammad as narrated by his wife ‘Aisha: Whenever Allah’s Apostle was given the choice of one of two matters, he would choose the easier of the two, as long as it was not sinful to do so, but if it was  sinful to do so, he would not approach it. ‘Aisha also said:  Whenever Allah’s Apostle ordered the Muslims to do something, he used to order them to do deeds which were easy for them to do.

Although the Torah of Moses prohibits adding to the commandments (Deuteronomy 4:2 and 13:1) over the centuries Orthodox Rabbis added many restrictions to the laws of prohibited activities under the theory of building a protective fence around the Torah’s laws. Also, whenever Orthodox Rabbis were in doubt if an animal had been slaughtered correctly according to Jewish law, or if one could eat a new species of bird, it was ruled prohibited. They were not guided by Muhammad’s principle as narrated by Sa’d bin Abi Waqqas: The Prophet said, “The most sinful person among the Muslims is the one who asked about something which had not been prohibited, but was prohibited because of his asking.”

The Torah also teaches:”When a woman has a discharge, her discharge being blood from her body, do not come near her for seven days; she is taboo for her menstrual period ” (Leviticus 15:19). Orthodox Rabbis extended the period of no intimate contact by several extra days and demanded no physical contact at all during that period (again making a fence around the Torah;s laws). Muhammad supported the Torah’s ban on sex during a woman’s period, but opposed the additional restrictions enacted by Orthodox Rabbi. As Thabit narrated it from Anas: “Among the Jews, when a woman menstruated, they did not dine with her, nor did they live with them in their houses (they slept in separate beds). The Companions asked the Apostle, and Allah, the Exalted revealed: ‘They ask you about menstruation; say it is a pollution, so keep away from woman during menstruation  and do not approach until they are clean again.’ (Qur’an 2: 222). The Messenger of Allah said: ‘Do everything except inter
course’. Jews heard that and said: This man does not want to leave anything we do without opposing us in it.” Reform Rabbis advise a Jewish Couple today would be much closer to what Muhammad said than to what Orthodox Rabbis would say.

Unlike Orthodox Rabbis, Reform Rabbis accept the doctrine of nullification, which teaches that one verse in scripture can nullify another, and that rulings can be changed due to changed circumstances. Muhammad provides an excellent example of this principle in the following account. The Prophet originally told women not to visit graveyards, but toward the end of his life, he said to them: “I had told you not to visit graves; now I am telling you to visit them.” The reason was that Arabian women used to wail at graves. The Prophet wanted this practice to be stopped. Therefore, he banned women from visiting graves to start with. After sometime, when Muslim women were better aware of how Islam wants them to behave in different situations, he allowed them such visits. In fact, the Prophet encourages visiting graveyards because such a visit reminds the visitor of his or her own death and the fact that they would have to stand in front of God when their actions are reckoned to
determine their reward or punishment. Scholars like Ibn Qudamah, of the Hanbali school of law, make it clear that since this is the purpose of visiting graveyards, both men and women need such visits.

Another important teaching of the Qur’an for people all over the world today is that God chose not to create human beings as one nation and bestowed upon them free will to believe or not to believe. As it is written in the Qur’an [5.48] “For every one of you did We appoint a law and a way. If God had pleased He would have made you one people, but (He didn’t) that He might test you in what He gave you. Therefore compete with one another to hasten to virtuous deeds; for all return to God, so He will let you know (after Judgment Day) that in which you differed.” This is a wonderful further development of the teaching of the Biblical prophet Micah (4:5) that in the end of days—the Messianic Age—“All people will walk, each in the name of their own God, and we shall walk in the name of the Lord our God forever.”

A Muslim is one who submits to the will of God and believes that God has sent thousands of  different prophets to the many peoples of the world. As a Reform Rabbi I believe that Muhammad is a Prophet.  I believe the Qur’an is as true for Muslims as the Torah is true for Jews. Indeed, I love the Hadith also narrated by Abu Huraira that says, “The people of the Book used to read the Torah in Hebrew and then explain it in Arabic to the Muslims. God’s Apostle said (to the Muslims). “Do not believe the people of the Book, nor disbelieve them, but say, ‘We believe in God, and whatever is revealed to us, and whatever was revealed to you.’ ” Following Muhammad’s teaching I too neither believe nor disbelieve in the Qur’an. I do respect the Qur’an very much as a kindred revelation, first given to a kindred people, in a kindred language.   In fact, the Arab people, the Arabic language and  the Qur’an’s theology are closer to my own people, language and theology than that
of any other on earth. Of course, more than 80% of Muslims in the world today are not of Arab decent. But Arabic is the sacred language of all Muslims, as Hebrew is the sacred language of all Jews, and the tradition that Arabs and Jews are cousins is widely accepted.  This makes the present conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis especially tragic. It is very important to realize that the conflict is a political one and not a religious one. There can be no religious conflict between religions like Judaism and Islam because neither of them declare that their scriptures are the only ones from God. The strong support that the Qur’an gives to religious pluralism is a lesson that is sorely needed by religious fundamentalists of all religions in the world today. It should also be a decisive guide to political and political-religious leaders to avoid maximum claims of righteousness and instead seek to find ways to share with, and care for, other nations, peoples and religions.

Wadah Khanfar

from The Guardian, Monday 28 November 2011

Ennahda, the Islamic party in Tunisia, won 41% of the seats of the Tunisian constitutional assembly last month, causing consternation in the west. But Ennahda will not be an exception on the Arab scene. Last Friday the Islamic Justice and Development Party took the biggest share of the vote in Morocco and will lead the new coalition government for the first time in history. And tomorrow Egypt’s electionsbegin, with the Muslim Brotherhood predicted to become the largest party. There may be more to come. Should free and fair elections be held in Yemen, once the regime of Ali Abdullah Saleh falls, the Yemeni Congregation for Reform, also Islamic, will win by a significant majority. This pattern will repeat itself whenever the democratic process takes its course.

In the west, this phenomenon has led to a debate about the “problem” of the rise of political Islam. In the Arab world, too, there has been mounting tension between Islamists and secularists, who feel anxious about Islamic groups. Many voices warn that the Arab spring will lead to an Islamic winter, and that the Islamists, though claiming to support democracy, will soon turn against it. In the west, stereotypical images that took root in the aftermath of 9/11 have come to the fore again. In the Arab world, a secular anti-democracy camp has emerged in both Tunisia and Egypt whose pretext for opposing democratisation is that the Islamists are likely to be the victors.

But the uproar that has accompanied the Islamists’ gains is unhelpful; a calm and well-informed debate about the rise of political Islam is long overdue.

First, we must define our terms. “Islamist” is used in the Muslim world to describe Muslims who participate in the public sphere, using Islam as a basis. It is understood that this participation is not at odds with democracy. In the west, however, the term routinely describes those who use violence as a means and an end – thus Jihadist Salafism, exemplified by al-Qaida, is called “Islamist” in the west, despite the fact that it rejects democratic political participation (Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida, criticised Hamas when it decided to take part in the elections for the Palestinian legislative council, and has repeatedly criticised the Muslim Brotherhood for opposing the use of violence).

This disconnect in the understanding of the term in the west and in the Muslim world was often exploited by despotic Arab regimes to suppress Islamic movements with democratic political programmes. It is time we were clear.

Reform-based Islamic movements, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, work within the political process. They learned a bitter lesson from their armed conflict in Syria against the regime of Hafez al-Assad in 1982, which cost the lives of more than 20,000 people and led to the incarceration or banishment of many thousands more. The Syrian experience convinced mainstream Islamic movements to avoid armed struggle and to observe “strategic patience” instead.

Second, we must understand the history of the region. In western discourse Islamists are seen as newcomers to politics, gullible zealots who are motivated by a radical ideology and lack experience. In fact, they have played a major role in the Arab political scene since the 1920s. Islamic movements have often been in opposition, but since the 1940s they have participated in parliamentary elections, entered alliances with secular, nationalist and socialist groups, and participated in several governments – in Sudan, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria. They have also forged alliances with non-Islamic regimes, like the Nimeiri regime in Sudan in 1977.

A number of other events have had an impact on the collective Muslim mind, and have led to the maturation of political Islam: the much-debated Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979; the military coup in Sudan in 1989; the success of the Algerian Islamic Salvation Front in the 1991 elections and the army’s subsequent denial of its right to govern; the conquest of much of Afghan territory by the Taliban in 1996 leading to the establishment of its Islamic emirate; and the success in 2006 of Hamas in the Palestinian Legislative Council elections. The Hamas win was not recognised, nor was the national unity government formed. Instead, a siege was imposed on Gaza to suffocate the movement.

Perhaps one of the most influential experiences has been that of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) in Turkey, which won the elections in 2002. It has been a source of inspiration for many Islamic movements. Although the AKP does not describe itself as Islamic, its 10 years of political experience have led to a model that many Islamists regard as successful. The model has three important characteristics: a general Islamic frame of reference; a multi-party democracy; and significant economic growth.

These varied political experiences have had a profound impact on political Islam’s flexibility and capacity for political action, and on its philosophy, too.

However, political Islam has also faced enormous pressures from dictatorial Arab regimes, pressures that became more intense after 9/11. Islamic institutions were suppressed. Islamic activists were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Such experiences gave rise to a profound bitterness. Given the history, it is only natural that we should hear overzealous slogans or intolerant threats from some activists. Some of those now at the forefront of election campaigns were only recently released from prison. It would not be fair to expect them to use the voice of professional diplomats.

Despite this, the Islamic political discourse has generally been balanced. The Tunisian Islamic movement has set a good example. Although Ennahda suffered under Ben Ali’s regime, its leaders developed a tolerant discourse and managed to open up to moderate secular and leftist political groups. The movement’s leaders have reassured Tunisian citizens that it will not interfere in their personal lives and that it will respect their right to choose. The movement also presented a progressive model of women’s participation, with 42 female Ennahda members in the constitutional assembly.

The Islamic movement’s approach to the west has also been balanced, despite the fact that western countries supported despotic Arab regimes. Islamists know the importance of international communication in an economically and politically interconnected world.

Now there is a unique opportunity for the west: to demonstrate that it will no longer support despotic regimes by supporting instead the democratic process in the Arab world, by refusing to intervene in favour of one party against another and by accepting the results of the democratic process, even when it is not the result they would have chosen. Democracy is the only option for bringing stability, security and tolerance to the region, and it is the dearest thing to the hearts of Arabs, who will not forgive any attempts to derail it.

The region has suffered a lot as a result of attempts to exclude Islamists and deny them a role in the public sphere. Undoubtedly, Islamists’ participation in governance will give rise to a number of challenges, both within the Islamic ranks and with regard to relations with other local and international forces. Islamists should be careful not to fall into the trap of feeling overconfident: they must accommodate other trends, even if it means making painful concessions. Our societies need political consensus, and the participation of all political groups, regardless of their electoral weight. It is this interplay between Islamists and others that will both guarantee the maturation of the Arab democratic transition and lead to an Arab political consensus and stability that has been missing for decades.

• By Syed Hamad Ali, Special to Weekend Review

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad was voted Britain's most influential Muslim by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Jordan

For a man who is apparently Britain’s most influential Muslim, Shaikh Abdul Hakim Murad has rather unorthodox views on the way Islam is presented in the Western media. “I don’t think Islam is ever covered,” he tells Weekend Review.

“I have never actually seen an article in a Western newspaper that covers the core aspects of Islamic religion that are of significance to Muslims themselves. The focus is exclusively on social, economic and political dimensions of the religion. I have done interviews with journalists who say they don’t want to talk about the religious dimensions of Islam. That’s just the nature of modern Britain, unfortunately — we are going through a very secular period.”

Is there an Islam fatigue in Britain? “I think it’s not just an Islam fatigue,” he says. “It’s that people have been told everything about Islam except what makes it significant to Muslims themselves, which is often why they are so mystified.”

I am sitting with Murad — also known as Dr Timothy Winter — in his office at the Faculty of Divinity, Cambridge University. Around us on both sides are shelved an ocean of books, including many on Islam and religion with titles such as Ibn Batuta and Islam and Taoism, some in distant foreign languages (Murad speaks Arabic, Persian and Turkish).

While he is speaking, I wonder whether this rather bookish, almost quintessential scholar of the Oxbridge type could really be Britain’s most influential Muslim, as voted by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre, based in Jordan. It has compiled a list of 500 most influential Muslims in the world.

Murad himself dismisses his lofty new title. “It’s a little bit of silliness, isn’t it?” he asks. “I don’t know how you could rank such people. I am sure if you would ask most Muslims in England they would certainly name other people. They wouldn’t have heard of me.

“My interests are rather abstract, philosophical and academic. Most Muslims in Britain are interested in more practical bread and butter issues. So I think it was probably a curious misunderstanding that led them to put my name on the list.”

A Muslim celebrity he may not be like the boxer Amir Khan or singer Yousuf Islam, but Murad is certainly a well-respected figure among Muslims, not only in Britain but also internationally, as a leading Islamic scholar. He holds a number of prestigious titles, including director of the Sunna Project, secretary of the Muslim Academic Trust and director of the Anglo-Muslim Fellowship for Eastern Europe.

Last year he helped set up the Cambridge Muslim College, which trains imams for mosques in the United Kingdom. Murad is also very active in the local community and is heading a new mosque-building project in Cambridge, set to replace the present one which is stretched to capacity, with worshippers being forced to pray on the street outside.

Born in 1960, Murad converted to Islam at the age of 19. Back then, many people in Britain did not know much about the religion. The reaction from others to his new faith was one of curiosity. “The main concern was that I might have joined a cult,” he says. “That I was being manipulated by some evil puppet master, which was a fear among middle-class parents at the time. It was an age when cults were spreading very fast in Western countries. But as soon as it became clear that’s not what I was interested in, I think their anxieties receded.”

Compared to Britain’s total Muslim population, estimated at 2.4 million, converts form a small percentage at an estimated 60,000 to 70,000.

However, one odd bit of fact about converts in this country is that they sometimes keep their Islamic faith a secret by not telling others, according to Murad.

He attributes this strange phenomenon partly to an English sense of reticence. “We call them submarines,” he explains. “People who are under the surface and are practising the religion, including praying and fasting. But their close friends and family don’t know.”

For instance, Murad knows one professor at Cambridge University who has been a Muslim for 30 years and comes to the mosque when he can but his colleagues at the university aren’t aware he is a Muslim. Then there is a Christian clergyman who converted to Islam but hasn’t told his wife because he is sure she wouldn’t understand and would divorce him and he would end up losing the children.

But while the case of some converts can at times be rather awkward, Murad himself has lived quite a colourful life as a Muslim. Since graduating from Cambridge University with a first-class honours in Arabic in 1983, he travelled to Egypt, where he studied Islam at the renowned Al Azhar University. He lived for three years in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, before returning to London to study Turkish and Persian. Murad is at present the Shaikh Zayed Lecturer in Islamic Studies at Cambridge University.

Muslims are sometimes criticised for apparently having developed a “victim mentality” — and some prominent Islamic thinkers have also kind of agreed with this. Does Murad concur?
“I don’t find that particularly among Muslim communities,” he says. “The kind of Muslim leaders who the media notice may well think that Muslims are being unfairly singled out. That the West didn’t come to their rescue in Bosnia, the West has been indifferent to their fate in Palestine, the West did something to Iraq that it would never have done to, say, Spain under General Franco. That it is behaving in a cavalier fashion in Afghanistan. That it supports unpopular autocratic regimes throughout the Muslim world — and therefore the West is generically hostile to Muslims and victimises them. I think that is a ridiculous oversimplification.

“There are some Muslims who resent the fact that so many of the victims of Western foreign policy have been Muslims. But I don’t think that is the prevailing view of most mosque-going Muslims in the UK. They are more interested in immediate bread and butter issues of getting jobs, educating their children and finding their way into society.”

Alongside his passionate defence of Britain’s Muslim community, Murad is known for speaking eloquently about those who have gone to the extreme within the religion. I ask him how he would argue, using religion, against these people who find themselves at the radical fringe?

“Well, one has to do it using the traditional instruments of Muslim debate, which are Quran and Hadith quotations with reference to the past consensus of the scholars of the religion,” he says. “That debate is easily won because the radicals very seldom have a very proper religious education.

“Bin Laden is an engineer, Zawahiri is a medic. The typical profile of the radical Islamist is not that he is an expert on Islam, rather it is that he is somebody with a Western technical type of education who is sufficiently incensed by Western policies that he is using an Islamic language misunderstood to justify what is essentially a temper tantrum.”

In Bombing Without Moonlight: The Origins of Suicidal Terrorism, Murad argues that an Islamist suicide bomber is very much a by-product of a Westernised mindset and is in fact an alien phenomenon to the religion of Islam when viewed from a historical context. In the book, he notes how many on both sides will furiously deny an “Islamism with Western roots”. Suicidal militancy is, he points out, entirely absent from the Islamic scriptures. But shouldn’t one be weary of labels such as “moderate” Islam because it gives the impression of some type of “Islam lite” that people should be following? In other words, it is as if there is something wrong with following the religion in its fullness.

“Yes, you may say we have two alternatives,” he says. “We have the alternative of being Muslim extremists or being extremely Muslim. And I don’t accept the category of moderate at all because it is far from clear. Because when it is used usually by Western pundits and politicians, what is intended is anything other than a form of Islam that politically doesn’t obstruct present Western policies. And I don’t think that is a helpful way of developing a meaningful sense of priorities within a religion. So I don’t use this category ‘moderate’ Muslims at all. I think the ongoing face-off between radicals and the mainstream is a face-off between heresy and orthodoxy. Those are the terms which are more indigenous and authentic than ‘moderation’ and ‘extremism’.”

This brings the discussion back to where this interview started: the great Islam debate in the media. Murad believes there is little point in expecting a more accurate account of Islam in the British tabloid press. Instead, he tells me what worries him is that among the educated classes in the UK, who, to some extent, conduct their conversation through the more respectable broadsheets, there is an unwillingness to acknowledge that non-Western cultures may have definitions of happiness and human flourishing which could be worthy of respect and have a right to exist.

“There is something implicitly totalitarian about the assumption that the value set esteemed by Westerners must alone be right,” he says. “This comes from the universalism of the Enlightenment, which thought that ‘man’ was a single sort of subject and about whom large generalisations could always be offered.”

More recently, he acknowledges, such thinking has come under a good deal of attack. “But that does not seem to have percolated to the public sphere,” he says, “where it is assumed that the West alone can define ‘universals’, such as ‘universal human rights’, even though philosophically Western thinkers have an increasingly hard time establishing any universals at all. Some thinkers, such as Gavin D’Costa, Geoffrey Stout — and, I think, Slavoj Zizek — are very aware of this paradox. D’Costa’s new book holds that everything Westerners say to other cultures can be reduced to variations on ‘Be like us’. That’s not entirely accurate, of course.”

Clearly, it would be wrong to put the entire burden of blame on the shoulders of the West. Murad believes part of the problem is the reluctance so far of Muslim states and agencies to encourage a broader and more thoughtful cultural discussion in the West which is rooted in a better understanding of Muslim culture.

He gives the example of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, whose Alliance of Civilisations at times seems to attempt such an effort. But if Middle Easterners really wish to be better respected in the West, he believes they need to engage in deep and extensive cultural investment. “The Arab League, or the OIC, should direct resources to creating something like the British Council,” he says, “or the Goethe Institute, with landmark institutions in Western capitals which promote a correct understanding and a healthy dialogue. At the forefront should be teaching the Arabic language. Unless the Muslim world engages in better public diplomacy on behalf of its culture, it cannot expect to be better understood and respected.”

Syed Hamad Ali is an independent writer based in Cambridge.

For more information or to make donations, log on to www.cambridgemosqueismoving.org.uk

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

From: The Guardian 12 October, 2009

O you who believe! Let not your wealth nor your children distract you from remembrance of Allah. Those who do so, they are the losers. (63:9)

This verse in the Qur’an is an invitation for humanity to make a relatively small effort in this world, in return for the eternal reward of the hereafter. It is a call to save ourselves from becoming fixated on our wealth and on providing our children with the latest gadget and games, which ultimately are mere distractions from our remembrance of the creator.

But humans are short-termist; we think primarily of our pleasures now rather than the harmony and serenity of the world to come. Chapter 102 of the Qur’an says that we are distracted by competing in worldly increase, until we finally end up in our graves where we will be questioned about our excesses.

Does this mean that it is wrong to own things? Of course not, as money and offspring can be positive things in the life of a believer, and we do of course have basic needs which need to be met. But we must remember that the pleasures of consumption are quickly gone, while lasting benefit comes only from using our wealth to uphold the rights of others; namely the orphan, the traveller, and the needy. Wealth is thus truly ours only once it has been given away.

Those who are genuinely distracted by worldly increase, and who make it an end in and of itself rather than as a means towards something better are in effect guilty of a form of idolatry. Ours is an age that has made idols of the great banks and finance houses, driven to frenzy by competition amongst billionaires who are kept awake at night by the thought that a rival might make a business deal more quickly than them. A banker who can asset strip companies and throw its employees out onto the street is someone who is in the grip of an obsession that has thrown him beyond of the normal frontiers of humanity.

Neo-classical economics has traditionally focused on four things: land, labour, capital and money, the first three of which are finite, while the fourth, money, is theoretically infinite, and is therefore where human greed has been particularly focussed. Thus arose a system where someone could, with approval, set up a bank with only £1, and then lend £100 using property and other assets promised by others as security.

The lender now has £100 including interest, which they earned by just sitting there and doing nothing. On the basis of this £100, they can then lend £1000, and on and on, until the cancerous growth lubricated by greed becomes so huge that it leads to a fundamental breakdown in the system. Such a system based on usury, with interest as the bizarre “price of money” which itself becomes a commodity, was once prohibited by all faiths. People had a simple and natural intuition that the commoditisation of a measurement of value would open the door to trading in unreal assets, and ultimately to a model of finance that would destroy natural restraints and even, potentially, the planet.

In the classical Islamic system, by contrast, money is the substance of either gold or silver. With a tangible and finite asset being the only measure of value, there is a great deal more certainty about the value of assets and the price of money. This basic wisdom was though not just a theoretical ideal; it succeeded. Muslim society at its height was mercantile, and it was successful. Never was money assigned its own value and never was it seen as an end in and of itself.

Since the abolition of the gold standard however, theoretical limits on the price of money were removed. Last year’s meltdown, whose final consequences were unguessable, was a sign of the inbuilt dangers of a usurious world. Humans are naturally short-termist but in times of crisis we must take stock. As with the related environmental crisis, now is the time to be smarter and more self-restrained. The believer is in any case allergic to the mad amassing of wealth, since he or she expects true happiness and peace only in the remembering of God and in the next world.

Now is the time to think seriously about finding an economic system to replace the one whose dangers have just been revealed. Upon the conquest of Mecca, a verse of the Qur’an was revealed commanding people to give up what remained of their interest-based transactions, upon which a new system based on the value of gold and silver was initiated.

Those who relied so heavily on the old system would of course have been unable to understand a system without banking charges, but not only was such a system created but a successful civilisation was created using these ideas.

Last year we peered into the abyss; now we must apply self-restraint and wisdom, before complete catastrophe ensues.

The Guardian, Wednesday 23rd November 2011

Bemusement at the findings of Muslim pride in Britain stems from stereotyping about religious groups

Crowds in London with Union flags welcome the Queen on her jubilee tour in 2007. Illustration: Tim Graham/Getty Images

The finding in Demos’s report A Place for Pride that 83% of Muslims said they were proud to be a British citizen, compared with the national average of 79%, has been met with surprise in some parts of the press. Clearly many British citizens have both a strong religious identity and a strong national identity. Yet it also seems clear that many people see these identities as mutually exclusive. Why is this the case?

That 83% of Muslims are proud to be British does in fact make sense. Many British Muslims come from families that have sought the opportunity and refuge offered in this country. The Demos report suggests that “People who are religious are more likely to be patriotic than are those who self-define as atheists or nonbelievers”; 88% of Anglicans and Jews agreed that they were “proud to be a British citizen”. Many British Jews have a family history of refugee status and it follows that this leads to a sense of pride in their British identity. People with a strong religious identity are also often part of a strong community, and benefit from the co-operation and collective goodwill that can come with this. Patriotism, the report suggests, isn’t only concerned with Queen and flag, but also with community values.

There is a lot of misinformation about the British Muslim community. In 2009 the Gallup Coexist Index found that only 36% of the British public thought that British Muslims were “loyal to this country” as opposed to 82% of the British Muslim community. The surprise at the findings of Muslim pride in Britain is rooted in a prejudice that leads people to believe that it is paradoxical for someone to hold both their religious and national identities as important. Lazy caricatures of Islam as contradicting many of the rights and values that are seen as quintessentially British – particularly freedom and democracy – only exacerbate this problem.

So, how do we tackle the prejudice that leads to this view? We must start by challenging perceptions of faith groups that rely on broad stereotypes, and instead provide people with opportunities for meaningful engagement, where they can meet and learn about each other as individuals. The report quotes a student who participated in Three Faiths Forum’s Undergraduate ParliaMentors programme, which gives young people the opportunity to work with students of different faiths and non-religious beliefs on social action projects, and to be mentored by MPs and peers.

The “people I worked with, neither of them had even met a Jewish person before. I found it quite daunting but it was good and it helped me in a way to understand who I am as well as to know more about Islam and Christianity. In the end, the things we sometimes fell out about were what we were doing on the project – not God.”

Finding out that the difficulties that come with working with others are often simply the usual interpersonal challenges is an important part of seeing others as individuals, not just a Muslim, Jew, atheist etc.

What we need are more opportunities for this humanising process. If we can find these while people work together on a social cause then this is all to the good. One of the clear implications of the Demos research is that public pride is linked closely with “social engagement, interpersonal trust and volunteerism”. If we embrace opportunities to work with people of all faiths and beliefs then we can start to overcome the prejudice that leads to surprise that other people are also proud of Britain. We will, in turn, also give ourselves more reasons for civic pride.

Added February 17, 2008
“And He it is Who created the heavens and the earth in six days (periods/phases) – and His dominion/throne (extends) on the water – that He might manifest to you, which of you is best in action….” (Qur’an 11:7)
Six periods of creation
Time has a mysterious existence, a nature that is, as yet, unfathomable to us. It does not have any immediately evident, firmly graspable reality such as that found in material objects (and even our understanding of matter succumbs to mystery as we peer deeper into its innermost structures).
Time has variously been regarded as “a dimension in which events occur in sequence” or else as a “mental measuring system” rather than a dimension or an objective thing having its own independent reality. It has sometimes been viewed as a way consciousness has of measuring motion or change (with the (Qur’anic) proviso that everything in existence has some degree of consciousness (some way of interfacing with and perceiving or detecting it’s surroundings), however infinitesimally minute). Our consciousness of time exists primarily as a retention in memory and an anticipation of the future since the immediate “now” (the present moment) is of ungraspable granularity. It slips away even as we experience it. No matter how finely we slice our measurement of time (into nano or pico seconds), there is never an instant we can claim as now since each moment is endlessly sliding away leaving only an imprint in our memory and an anticipation of the moment still to come. We only see what has slipped past and wait for what we project into the future, but can never grasp the present moment although we may have an illusion of doing so because of the retention of a succession of moments in our memory like the persistence of vision. And it is the constant slipping, the endless change from moment to moment in external and internal worlds that makes possible our perception of time – the awareness of the difference between one instant and another.
Our perception of time’s attributes and characteristics can vary, depending on the motion of things and their relationship and interaction with one another (time exhibits a quality of relativity). Our own circumstances, the region of space we inhabit, the motion inherent in the system we inhabit and interact with, and the link between our individual consciousness and the larger societal consciousness that surrounds and impacts us – all of these have a bearing on time and our subjective perception of it.
According to Mulla Sadra “…time is not an independent realm for things and phenomena, so that is has a separate existence and temporal things are contained in it. Rather, like the volume of a body, it (time) is an essential and internal characteristic of body, and naturally, every phenomena, will possess a specific time for itself which is considered to be an aspect of its existence.” (Amuzish Falsafah) So each object is wrapped in its own cloak of time and space and if our perception of time was sufficiently keen we would be individually aware that we each possess our own specific experience of time. Nevertheless, humans on earth share a sufficiently close proximity and similarity such that we experience a common way of measuring time – we share a more or less common idea of what constitutes a day based on characteristics of our local environment (e.g., the period of rotation of the earth). However, there are strange pointers in the Qur’an, that appeal to us to transcendthe common view of what constitutes time. These indicate that time and it’s perception varies greatly not just within the material universe but across levels and gradations of reality. It is possible for humans, whose being is capable of spanning different realms, to experience these different gradations (such as the experience of the Prophet during his mir’aj – his ascension).
While some of the Qur’an’s verses emphasize our shared sense of time and the orderliness visible in the universe, other verses hint at the limits of our understanding and point to borders beyond which a transformation of the order and patterns that we take for granted occurs. Certain verses provide oblique metaphysical glimpses of this shift in time and its perception. For example, the Qur’an speaks of “aday whose measure is a thousand years of what you count.” (Qur’an 22:47) and of “a day whose measure is fifty thousand years.” (Qur’an 70:4) It also speaks of a day so short as to be immeasurable – this isyawm al-sha’n, the day of the task - “And in every day(moment/instant) He exercises universal power” (Qur’an 55:29).

Note 1: In a hadith, the Prophet says that in the time of al-Dajjal (an anti-christ like figure) there will be a day like a year, a day like a month, a day like a week, and the rest of his days are like your days.” So in our own world, time or its perception or the interpretation of time and our perception of time during the period of the dajjal’s manifestation may seem to transform and change. Or, an alternate interpretation may be that the appearance of the Dajjal in this world occurs gradually, like a slow but accelerating descent away from the divine. As the metaphysical underpinnings of religion weaken and humankind’s connection with the divine fades into the realm of myth and skepticism, a Dajjal-like system begins to manifest and its elements strengthen and solidfy over time until eventually it establishes and manifests powerfully in this world (“the rest of his days are like your days” ) establishing its dominance and the apparent overthrow of all genuine religious systems.

Note 2: As well, the Prophet (s.a.) and Imams (a.s.) speak of other realms (levels of reality) in which time and being have an altered aspect and in which they exhibit metamorphosed qualities. So there is a higher archetypal world exhibiting a flow of time, “…dimensions, and extent other than that of the material sensible world. Infinite are its marvels, countless its cities, each with a thousand gates. They are peopled by countless (intelligent) creatures who are not even aware that God has created terrestial Adam and his posterity….” In these cities “seven million languages are spoken, each different from the other….seventy thousand communities dwell in the city called Jabalqa. Not one among them but symbolizes with (and indicates the existence of) some community in this lower universe….” (Hadith from Imam Hasan and Imam Husayn (a.s.))

So each level of existence, each realm, has it’s own “day”. Which day the days of creation correspond to we do not know, which is why many translators render it as six periods of creation, in which each period is an unknown length of time during which an emergent process engendered, sustained, and suffused with God’s creative command is at work. Time flows at a different rate, with an altered quality, within each realm. Each realm has not only its own quantitative time but also differs in the essential quality and priority of what exists within it (see sidebar text).

The other question that arises is why it refers to six periods. Why six? No really definitive answer can be given to this beyond a reference to other verses which mention the days of creation. However,  symbolic congruences with the six days have been suggested by some commentators. One such congruence (suggested by Ibn Arabi’s writings) is that human beings journey through six realms, six levels of existence. Their creation, life, death, and afterlife offers the possibility of travel through six matrices involving different manifestations of human life  across different levels of reality. Within these there are many sub realms, but in general, there are six dominions, six demarcated levels and intervals in which human existence can manifest in some manner and in which different intensities of the experience of reality occurs, and in which time manifests in varying ways.

1st interval
The first is the pre-existence in which every configuration of the human soul destined to be born in this universe was drawn out from Adam and brought before God Who asked them, “Am I not your Lord?”

“And when your Lord brought forth from the children of Adam…all their descendants, and made them bear witness against their own souls: Am I not your Lord? They said: Yes! we bear witness. Lest you should say on the day of resurrection: Surely we had no inner knowledge of this.” (Qur’an 7:172)
This indicates a pre-existence at some level for every human being who has ever been born or ever will be born. The recognition of God’s Lordship lies in the original human nature (the fitra) since God took this shahada (testimony) affirming His Lordship from all human beings before they entered into existence on the earth. They are asked, “Am I not your Lord?” and they affirm God’s Lordship. So this recognition and affirmation is woven into a human being’s very substance. The implication is that everyone who is born into this world has agreed in substance (in the essence of their soul) to this covenant, and that although we may have no conscious knowledge or memory of this pact, its reality is woven into our very nature. This world is a place of distraction and forgetfullness but at our core lies the metaphysical truth of this covenant and one of the purposes of religion is to awaken to consciousness an awareness of this bond between God and man as well as all the concealed potentials that flow from this bond.

At that time our existence was of a different nature, dwelling in a different reality – our conception and birth (the beginning of our physical existence) took us out from that realm and injected us into the world of matter.

2nd interval
The second world is the universe in which we now live. This is the world where we write the book of our individual lives. Death will lift us out from this world.
3rd interval

The Third is the world of the barzakh, also known as the world of the lesser resurrection or the world of the grave – it is one in which the human soul tastes its own nature and inner reality.
4th interval

The fourth world is the world of the greater resurrection – when we awaken on an earth that has been remade, spread out, and extended to accommodate every creature that ever existed and to usher in the judgement. It is a world illuminated by the light of clear and deep perception so that every soul perceives in a penetrating manner its own reality and the realities underlying its every action.
5th interval

The fifth world is the world of paradise and ghenna, the world in which actions and natures and their consequences return to their owners and only God’s mercy provides relief.

6th interval

The sixth world is the heights/the raised places (upon the dunes) a place elevated above paradise  - “…and on the most elevated places there shall be men who know all by their marks….” (Qur’an 7:46-48) – this is a place of intimate proximity to God and for those granted special insight.

In each of these worlds there are lesser realms, and realms within realms but in general there are six broad categories and levels.

Each one has its own unique days, its own unique measure of time. So this is one possible indication of some congruence with the six days of creation – human existence in its totality maps onto the various levels of reality through which the human essence can journey.

But this present world in which we are now living was created as the place of trial, testing, and responsibility – so it is (as Ibn Arabi indicates) with our conduct here that we have to concern ourselves. The many levels of existence are all part of the totality of human existence – but, as the verse says, the crux of it is within this realm of testing, that He might “…determine which of you has the most beautiful conduct (actions).” (Qur’an 11:7)

Note: In some verses the Qur’an enumerates the breakdown of the six days (a total of four for the creation of the “earth” and what is in it, and two for the “heavens” and what is in them (Qur’an 41:9-12). The two periods for the heavens would then perhaps encompass the heaven of the covenant, and the seven heavens of the gardens of paradise. The four periods for the earth would perhaps encompass this material universe (including our earth), the earth of the barzakh, the earth of the resurrection (of judgement day), and the earth of the dunes (the elevated heights). However, all interpretation is at best nothing more than speculation and possibility and most commentators refrain from any absolute mapping out of the six days of creation.

Note: Another (esoteric) interpretation of the six days of creation includes a seventh day in which the purpose of creation is revealed and fulfilled – the seventh day is said to be alluded to in the ascension to the throne which follows the process of creation. “Lo! Your Lord is God Who created the heavens and the earth in six days. Then He ascended the Throne…” (Qur’an 7:54) This interpretation is detailed by Shafique Virani in his paper “The Days of Creation in the thought of Nasir Khusraw”. He writes that according to Khusraw… “This account of the genesis of the cosmos, shared by the Abrahamic faiths, does not concern the creation of the physical universe. Rather, the tradition refers to the genesis of a spiritual cosmos governed by God’s emissaries. This creation commenced with Adam, who represented the first day…and continued with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Jesus….The cycles of creation were brought to their completion by Muhammad….Yet to come was the last and final day (the sign of which is the advent of the Mehdi), which would consummate the entire spiritual creation. This was the…cycle of the Lord of the Resurrection or Qa’im-i qiyamat. It is through the Lord of the Resurrection that the divine unity and grandeur of God would be revealed and the purpose of creation fulfilled.”

The Throne on the water

“…and His dominion/throne (extends) on the water….”

Water here perhaps refers to the primordial substance from which all things emerge – the liquidity suggests that it is full of potential but not yet manifested into specific creations. It is the perennial, foundational substance out of which the physical universe is created. It is described as water – fluid, liquid, able to be poured into any form, as yet formless, but able to flow into any form. The life giving properties of the water of this lower universe is a symbol of this primordial water.

The “water” over which the throne extends perhaps represents “undifferentiated reality” – ‘every potential is within it but as yet it has not given birth to any specific forms.’ As a “liquid” it is unified, one substance, and not yet articulated into separate creations. But it contains the ability to give birth to myriad creations.

God’s Arsh, His throne – that is to say the realm from which His commands issue forth, is above the water. In other words it is a realm that has dominion and control over this water. A throne is a symbolic place from which a King’s commands issue forth to the kingdom over which he rules. The commands, the Divine Will issues forth from the throne and the potential that is in the water begins to be realized. Creation in all its forms manifests itself – the perennial foundational substance articulates into infinite varieties of creations.

Elsewhere the Qur’an refers to the emergence of all life from water. This can perhaps also be tied to this primordial substance whose water is like a fountain of life issuing forth form after form, creations of every variety emerging into existence. The Qur’an is not concerned with detailing the mechanism by which this happens – it is not a science book. It is concerned with telling us the higher reality behind the creation that we witness. Our science will explain a portion of the process – that portion that is visible to us in this material world. The Qur’an is concerned with making us aware of the deeper, concealed realities that underlie the mechanisms we witness at work in this world. Science can show us a limited “how” as it is restricted to the observable methods and mechanisms of this universe and it can show us how to put this knowledge to instrumental use – it illuminates, at its own level, the subtle mechanisms of this world. The Qur’an points out to us the invisible realities which are the intelligence and the underlying substrata that drive the mechanisms of this world.

The water, is perhaps then the ground of all being, all existence. Mulla Sadra speaks similarily of a “sort of invisible background that we do not ordinarily see because it is everywhere – because we see with it – and ultimately because we are it….” (pg 63, Wisdom of the Throne) because we are articulated forms arising within it.

According to the traditional scholars, human existence is unique in that it has a presence that extends beyond this world – because the nature with which humans are created reaches from this earth to the Throne. The innermost heart or reality of man is connected to the Throne of God. Those few human beings who have perfected their nature, who have purified their nafs – their hearts are consciously awake to this reality and God bestows ability upon them through this conduit. He bestows upon them a presence and a power and issues through them His commands – they can (to the extent allowed) shape, influence, and direct the mechanisms of this lower world whose substrata is the water upon which the Throne rests – they have a seemingly miraculous influence in this world.

That water, that deep and subtle substance from which we are created is within us even now and it is amenable to being shaped by God’s command. It is a deep well which we can draw upon to give life, vitality, correct form, and real presence to our inner configuration and to the actions which arise from this configuration. It is as if God has allowed us a hand in our own creation, in our shaping our own selves – He has (through our turning to Him) given a portion of the command to us. So no human is closed to transformation, to reaching elevated stages except through their own turning away and petrifying their own inner substance and nature. The human journey through the various realms of existence will display for us our inner configuration and our actions and the nature of the Divine realities within which we journey “…that He might manifest…which of you is best in action (conduct).” (Qur’an 11:7)

-Irshaad Hussain

By Fahad Faruqui

Altmuslim, 22 August 2011

KARACHI, PAKISTAN One can learn many lessons at a graveyard. I once found myself helping carry the corpse of a stranger, an old woman, to its final abode. At the time, I was a 20-year-old on a family trip to the Holy City of Medina in Saudi Arabia. Following theish’a (night) prayers at the Prophet’s Mosque (Al-Masjid al-Nabawi) and the recitation of obligatory funeral prayer, I came across a middle-aged man searching for help to transport the coffin of the woman, who I later learned was his mother. She had passed away a few hours earlier and her son was eager to fulfill her final wish: to be buried immediately after death.

The son was the only family member present. He was anxious to hastily transport the steel coffin, containing the corpse of his mother wrapped in a white shroud, to the Garden of Heaven or, as it is called in Arabic, Janatu l-Baqi’, a graveyard adjacent to the Prophet’s Mosque. (Photos of the Prophet’s Mosque and the Garden of Heaven are below.)

Since it was late at night, the mosque had emptied quickly and there weren’t many eager beavers to lend a hand. A few men on their way out of the mosque regrettably declined the man’s pleas for assistance, saying they had far travel before reaching home. I wanted to help, but I was unsure if I would be able to carry the coffin all the way to the grave situated a couple of hundred meters away. After a handful of men gathered to move the coffin, four men including me lifted it in unison and rested each corner on the shoulder. As we proceeded toward the graveyard, the coffin was tilted toward my side since I was relatively shorter than the other three.

“She isn’t heavy,” I thought to myself in relief.

A man behind me yelled blessings to the dead as we commenced our walk towards the Medina graveyard. We all joined in enthusiastically, chanting blessings to the dead.

Our voices started to get dimmer as we ran out of breath. The farther we moved away from the mosque, the darker it became. In the sunlight, the sands of Medina graveyard vary in color from orange to a shade that borders on red, with volcanic rocks scattered throughout the grave marking the grave. But at night, it was pitch-black. Our pathway was lit only by the light illuminating from the towering minarets atop the mosque, where Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him, rests along with Abu Bakr, the first caliph, and Umar ibn Al-Khattab, the second caliph, may God be pleased with both.

After a few uneven steps, the buckle of one of my sandal’s broke, forcing me to push it aside as we continued forward. The ground was warm, even at this late hour. I could barely see where my feet were stepping in the wide graveyard around us. I was granted some relief when a man volunteered to help, seeking only reward from the Creator.

We walked aimlessly for a bit, trying our best not to trample over the other graves as we searched for the woman’s resting spot. Once we located it and rested the coffin beside the dugout, I took a peak at the grave. It was remarkably dark — the darkest shade of black that I have ever seen.

As I stood among these strangers with death before my eyes, and a six-foot deep grave that felt suffocating from above, the importance of my worries drifted away, and I began reflecting on the temporality of life. It dawned on me how near we are all to death, our inevitable fate, although many of us think about death very rarely.

Quite out of the blue, I felt I was granted clues and answers to questions that had been filling my mind: Why am I here? And where will I go from here?

I had little to no sense of time. My startled parents went out looking for me when they saw all the doors of the Prophet’s Mosque closed from the window of our hotel room. I arrived back at the hotel more than an hour later than usual, yet the impression the experience left on me has been lasting. It was a moment of clarity, an hour that changed the very foundation of my existence.

“A moment of true reflection is worth more than ages of heedless worship,” Faraz Rabbani, a leading Islamic scholar, said recently on Twitter.

His words reminded me of that night. At certain points in our lives, we have experiences that shake us to the core and compel us to question our outlook on existence and, if we cultivate them properly, bring us nearer to the Almighty. Even many years later, in times when anger, distress, tribulation or temptation has attempted to sway me, my mind returns to that graveyard.

When you become mindful of death, you think and act differently. It becomes difficult to lash out in anger when we know how near death could be. A person conscious of death would think twice before defrauding and deceiving another human being. By remembering that we will all perish and be buried in dirt, taking none of our possessions with us, it becomes undesirable to wrong or hurt someone intentionally. But one has to realize that death is inevitable.

My recollection of the funeral procession that night is vivid. I remember how time seized for me in the midst of that graveyard. I recall the haunting feeling of suffocation and discomfort that kept me awake that night. Back in the hotel, as I rested my head on the plush pillow, in an arctic air-conditioned room, I thought of the rock-hard walls encircling that meagre grave.

We need not reflect on death at all times to keep us on track. Paying attention to life — to the wondrous creations of the universe around us — can always draw us near to God and prompt us to be grateful. But also reflect on death, since it turns you away from the superficiality of the world and curbs your ego.

I would not say I am a man of immense knowledge. I haven’t spent an adequate amount of time fully uncovering the miracles of the Quran as deeply as I should. I have my ups and down. My faith, at times, dangles, and then I have to realign my thoughts. It happens more often than I am ready to confess here.

Yet I find remembering the inevitability of death from time to time is one way to stay grounded. During a course on Buddhist ethics I took a decade ago withRobert Thurman, the professor related a tale of a newlywed royal couple who went to a celebrated monk, Atisha, for marriage advice.

Initially hesitating to offer any since he had never been married himself, the monk finally yielded, giving some of the soundest marital advice I have heard: “Eventually, husband and wife, each will die. So now while alive, you should strive to be kind to each other.”

Thoughts of death need not flood our minds with sorrow and negativity, as we should understand that death is a natural part of the journey of life.

If we work on making every prayer count as if it’s our last and set aside time from our busy schedules, including the social media that consumes a measurable chunk of our day, to unwind the thoughts and worries entangled in our minds, we may become better humans and will indeed have a greater chance of living with peace.

Fahad Faruqui is a journalist and an educator. He studied Philosophy of Religion (with a particular interest in Sufism) and Middle Eastern Studies as an undergraduate at Columbia University and then pursued an M.S. in Journalism from its Graduate School of Journalism. Follow him on twitter athttp://twitter.com/fahadfaruqui. This article was originally published at theHuffington Post

http://www.altmuslim.com/a/a/a/4422

Faithful believers, who worship the One and only God, and sincerely follow the teachings of their religion, find it very hard to understand how other people who worship the same God and follow the same religious teachings, can engage in acts of corruption, coverup, and deliberate terrorism. Perhaps we think that people of other religions can do such things; because we do not know in much detail what their religions actually teach them. But we do know our own religion, and we know that it does not permit the sexual exploitation or murder of women and children. Yet we frequently read of such activities, not only being done by members of our own religion, but condoned or covered up, by some leaders of our own religion. How can this be explained?

All religions condemn hypocrisy. Almost always this refers to those who claim to be believers, and yet do less than they should. But what about those who do more than they should? Examples of condemnation of religious fanaticism and extremism as hypocrisy within ones own religion are much less frequent. It is not easy to tell your own pious followers that more isn’t always better, or that pious intentions do not justify evil deeds. The Talmud records a good example of this rare type of criticism of the more is better philosophy. Rabbi Isaac condemned the extremism of some super pious Jews who advocated extra self-imposed abstinence saying, “Aren’t the things prohibited by the Torah enough for you, that you wish to prohibit yourself additional things?” And as I said above. Muhammad told Muslims, “Religion is very easy, whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So do not be extremists, but try (only) to approach perfection, and receiv
e the good tidings that you will be rewarded (just for that).”

If self-imposed extremism is condemned, how much more the extremism that hurts others. Indeed, all disgraceful activities by religious people reflect negatively on their religion and on God. In Judaism this is called Hillul Hashem- profaning God’s name/reputation. In recent years religious riots in India, the slaughter of innocent Muslims at prayer by an Orthodox Jew in Hebron, Muslim suicide bombers throughout the Middle East and in Pakistan, and the cover up by Bishops of molestation of young boys by some Catholic Priests in the U.S. and Europe, brought terrible disgrace upon organized religion’s reputation. One way to understand these terrible events is in the light of a saying by a Hassidic Rabbi (Michael) who taught, “When the Evil Urge tries to tempt people to sin, it tempts them to become super righteous.”

God tells us that such activity must not be covered up or sanitized by religious believers. It must be vigorously and publicly condemned since it undermines the very ability of God’s religion to influence people to live according to God’s directives. We all know that religious people are human and sometimes religious people can do dastardly things. But when piety influences religious leaders to attempt to rationalize, sanitize, or cover up, rather than to publicly condemn these activities, people will increasingly reject organized religion and God. A religious piety that does not require morality and kindness is valueless and hypocritical, and thus as serious a sin as worshiping other Gods or idols, the first two of the Ten Commandments. The third commandment applies to pious religious hypocrites ‘DO NOT MAKE VALUELESS THE NAME OF ADONAI YOUR GOD, FOR ADONAI WILL NOT SANITIZE ONE WHO MAKES HIS NAME VALUELESS.’ Exodus 20:7 and Deuteronomy 5:11 (My translation) This commandment doesn’t refer to the important issue of perjury, or to the trivial issue of profanity. Perjury is prohibited in the ninth commandment and profanity by itself isn’t serious enough to be placed in the Ten Commandments.
This commandment refers to the great harm done to religion, and to God’s reputation, when religious people do despicable deeds in God’s name and/or religious leaders try to cover up or sanitize the sins of religious people to preserve the institution’s name. The burning of witches, the Inquisition, and Jihad suicide bombers, are examples of the misuse of God’s name by some segments of organized religion. This commandment warns religious people and their leaders that, “Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.” (Pascal)

Fanatics believe the ends justify the means, thus subordinating God’s goal to their personal or political goal. Extremists believe that more is always better. To them the Talmud says, “If you (try to) grasp too much, you don’t grasp anything.” Our Rabbinic sages extended the prohibition of misusing God’s name even to taking unnecessary oaths i.e. not required by a court, and making unnecessary blessings i.e. not required by Jewish law. Personal piety and sincerity do not justify excessive behavior even if self-limited. How much the more so if extremists judge others by their perfectionist standards?
Religious people should not misuse their piety by going beyond normal community limits, and then try to justify it in God’s name. This is a religious principle that Islam, Judaism and Christianity apply to both excessive personal, as well as political behavior. As the Bible says, “Do not be overly righteous.” (Ecclesiastes 7:17): and as Muhammad told Muslims, “Religion is very easy, whoever overburdens himself in his religion will not be able to continue in that way. So do not be extremists, but try (only) to approach perfection and receive the good tidings that you will be rewarded (just for that).”
Rabbi Allen S. Maller retired after serving for 39 years as Rabbi of Temple Akiba in Culver City, Ca. His web site is rabbimaller.com.

The Kaaba at night

In the center of Masjid al-Haram you see the Kaaba. A simple cube like structure made of dark rough stones with white chalk filling the fissures. At the first sight a shiver runs through you and you wonder in amazement … This plain and empty structure is the center of our faith, prayers, love, life and death?

You question in admiration; Where have I come? What is this place?

What you see is the antithesis of your visual imaginations of the Kaaba. Some might perceive a sacred place to be an architectural splendor whose ceilings are covered in silent beauty or it could be a sacred tomb housing the grave of an important person – a hero, a leader or prophet! But No! – instead it is an empty room. It reflects no architectural skill, beauty, art, inscription or quality; and no graves are found here. There is nothing specific that captures your attention or feelings except a yearning pulling you towards the Kaaba.

You will realize that there is nothing here to disturb your thoughts and feelings about God. The Kaaba, which you want to embrace, is a gateway for your feelings to ascend to the heavens and connect with your creator. This is something you were unable to achieve in your world filled with distractions and fragmentation. Before you could only theorize, but now you can see the “absolute”, the one who has no direction – Allah! He is every where.

How fortunate it is to that the Kaaba is empty! It reminds you that you are at the Kaaba to start a pilgrimage. It is not your destination. Moreover, it is a guide to show you the destination.

Having decided to move toward eternity, you begin the Hajj by moving around the Kaaba. It is an eternal movement towards Allah not towards the Kaaba. The Kaaba is the beginning and not the end. It is the place where Allah , Ibrahim , Mohammed and other great people will meet you. You will be present there only if your mind is not preoccupied with self-centered thoughts. You must be one of the people! Everyone is dressed in the same special garments and is being honored as guests of Allah. He has more enthusiasm toward humanity than any one else. However, the Kaaba the house of Allah is called the “house of people”.

“Behold! The first sanctuary appointed for humankind was that at Bekka (Mecca), a blessed place, a guidance to all people.”  (Quran 3:96)

If you enter this house while still being attached to your material self you will miss the sacredness of this house.

Mecca is called “Baite-Atiq”. Atiq represents being free! Mecca belongs to nobody. It is free from the reign of rulers and oppressors; therefore, no one controls it. Allah is the owner of Mecca while the people are its residents.

Under the provisions of travels, a Muslim is allowed to shorten his prayers if traveling at least forty miles away from his home. But at Mecca, regardless of where you are from or how far you have traveled, you devote yourself to the complete prayer. It is your land, your community and you are safe. You are not a visitor, but you are at home.

Before coming to Mecca, you were a stranger, exiled in your own land. But now, you have joined the family of humanity. Humankind, the dearest family of the world, is invited to this house. If you as an individual are “self centered”, you will feel like a homeless stranger lost with no shelter and no relatives. Therefore, shed the self distinctive tendencies. You are now prepared to enter the house and join this family. You will be welcomed as an honored guest of  Allah.

As you enter this house visualize Prophet Ibrahim  who was considered a radical for his times. Rejecting all the idols of his forefathers, he oriented his loved and obedience to the One True God. With his own hands and along with his son, Ismail , he built the Kaaba. A structure that symbolizes the singular nature of Allah in the world.

The building is uncomplicated. Black rocks of “Ajoon” are laid on top of each other. There is no design or decoration involved. Its name, Kaabah, means a “cube” – but why a “cube”?

Why is it so simple and lacking in color and ornamentation? It is because Almighty Allah has no “shape”, no color and none is similar to Him. No pattern or visualization of Allah that man imagines can represent Him. Being omnipotent and omnipresent, Allah is “absolute”.

Although Kaaba has no direction (because of its cubic shape), by facing the Kaaba when performing prayers, you choose Allah’s direction and face Him. Kaaba’s absence of direction may seem difficult to comprehend. However, universality and absoluteness prevails. The six sides of the cube encompasses all directions and simultaneously their sum symbolizes no direction!

“Unto Allah belongs the east and west, and wherever you turn you will be facing Allah.” (Quran 2:115)

When praying outside of Kaaba you must face it. Any structure except the Kaaba directs north, south, east, west, up or down. Kaaba is an exception; it is facing all directions while it is facing none. Truly a symbol of Allah, it has many directions yet it has no particular direction.

Toward the west of Kaaba there is a semi-circular short wall which is arching towards the Kaaba. It is called Ismail’s Hagar. Hagar signifies lap or skirt. The semi lunar wall resembles a skirt.

Sarah, the wife of Ibrahim had an Ethiopian maid called Hagar. She was a poor and humble servant of Sarah, who was given to Ibrahim  in order to bear him a child. Here was a woman who was not equal to Sarah’s noble stature yet Allah connected the symbol of Hagar’s skirt to His symbol, Kaaba.

The skirt of Hagar was the area in which Ismail was raised. The house of Hagar is there. Her grave is near the third column of the Kaaba.

What a surprise since no one, not even prophets, are supposed to be buried in mosques but in this case, the house of a maid is located next to Allah’s house! Hagar, the mother of Ismail is buried there. The Kaaba extends toward her grave.

There is a narrow passage between the wall (Hagar’s skirt) and the Kaaba. When circumambulating around Kaaba, Allah commanded that you must go around the wall and not through the passage.

Those who have submitted them selves to the oneness of Allah and those who have accepted His invitation for Hajj touch this skirt when circumambulating the Kaaba. The grave of a maid and a righteous mother is now a part of the Kaaba; it will be circumambulated by man forever!

Allah, the Almighty, in His great and glorious Divinity is all self-sufficient. He needs no one and nothing. Nevertheless, among all His countless and eternal creatures, He has chosen one, humankind, as the noblest of all of them.  and from among all slaves: a black maid!

The weakest and most humiliated one of His creatures was From among all humanity He has chosen: a woman, from among all women: a slave, given a place of dignity next to His own house.

The Unknown Soldier has been so chosen in the community of Islam!

The rituals of Hajj are a memory of Hagar. The word Higrah (migration) has its root in her name as does the word Mahajir (immigrant). “The ideal immigrant is the one who behaves like Hagar.” (Saying of Mohammad )

Higrah is what Hagar did. It is also a transition from wildness to civility and from denying the truth to accepting the Ultimate Truth.

In Hagar’s mother- tong her name means “the city”. Even the name of this Ethiopian slave is symbolic of civilization. Furthermore, any migration like hers is a move toward civilization!

Hagar’s grave is in the midst of man’s circumambulation of Kaaba. You, the mohajir (immigrant), who has detached himself from everything and accepted Allah’s invitation to go to Hajj, you will  devote your circumambulation of the Kaaba to Allah and at the same time you will be paying homage to the grave of a African maid.

It is difficult to realize. But for those who think they live in freedom and defend humanism, the significance of these incidents transgresses the scope of their understanding!

Adapted from a section of the book “Hajj” by Dr. Ali Shariati. Translated by Dr. Ali A. Behzadnia

Imam Suhaib Webb, left, talks with an attendee at a Chicago festival last year. Webb's time in the Middle East convinced him that not all religious practices there make sense for U.S. Muslims. (Chris Salata / Chicago Tribune)

At the pulpit of an inner-city Chicago mosque, the tall blond imam begins preaching in his customary fashion, touching on the Los Angeles Lakers victory the night before, his own gang involvement as a teenager, a TV soap opera and then the Day of Judgment.
“Yesterday we watched the best of seven…. Unfortunately we forget the big final; it’s like that show ‘One Life to Live,’ ” Imam Suhaib Webb says as sleepy boys and young men come to attention in the back rows. “There’s no overtime, bro.” The sermon is typical of Webb, a charismatic Oklahoma-born convert to Islam with a growing following among American Muslims, especially the young. He sprinkles his public addresses with as many pop culture references as Koranic verses and sayings from the prophet. He says it helps him connect with his mainly U.S.-born flock.
“Are we going to reach them with an Arab message or with a Pakistani message? Or are we going to reach them with an American message?” asks Webb, 38, of Santa Clara. He is a resident scholar and educator with the Bay Area chapter of the nonprofit Muslim American Society, but reaches others in lectures and through his popular website, which he calls a “virtual mosque.”
Webb is at the forefront of a movement to create an American-style Islam, one that is true to the Koran and Islamic law but that reflects this country’s customs and culture. Known for his laid-back style, he has helped promote the idea that Islam is open to a modern American interpretation. At times, his approach seems almost sacrilegious.
Although the call to prayer at a mosque is always issued by a man, Webb once joked about it being made by one of his favorite female R&B artists: “If Mary J. Blige made the call to prayer, I’d go to the mosque; I’d be in the front row.”
At a Muslim conference in Long Beach last year, he suggested that mosques adopt a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy toward gays. Afterward, he was accosted by a local imam who accused him of poisoning Muslim youth. “I told him, ‘Quite frankly, you’re going to be irrelevant in 10 years,’ ” Webb says.
He is fluent in Arabic, the language of the Koran, and studied for six years at one of the world’s leading Islamic institutes, Egypt’s Al-Azhar University. His time in the Middle East convinced him that not all religious practices there make sense for Muslims here.
As recently as a decade ago, U.S. congregations readily accepted immigrant imams who had arrived straight from Islamic universities, often with a traditional approach to preaching. Many spoke little English and were unable to communicate with non-Arab congregants or connect easily with youth.
But increasingly, U.S. Muslims expect their religious leaders to play a broader, more pastoral role, says Hossam Aljabri, executive director of the Muslim American Society, a national religious and education group. “Communities want imams who can come in and go beyond leading the prayer and reading Koran. They want them to fill the social role of counseling and dealing with neighbors.”
Religious scholars say the faith’s basic tenets would not change but much of the law that governs Islam may be interpreted differently in various communities.
Webb believes, for example, that barriers between men and women in U.S. mosques are not necessary, although they continue to be used in many traditional congregations. Unlike some imams, he does not object to music and believes Muslims here should be free to celebrate such secular holidays as Mother’s Day and Thanksgiving.
But given the ethnic diversity of U.S. Muslims, finding a consensus for a single American Islam could be difficult. Some favor major reforms that would alter the faith’s core beliefs. Others oppose any change.
In 2007, Webb stopped teaching at SunniPath, an online academy of traditional Islamic education, tussling verbally in the process with a few of its scholars, who are critical of what they term “modernist Islam.”
“Modernists are doing a disservice to Islam…. They validate things that are slack in Islamic practice,” Sheikh Nuh Keller, a teacher at the academy, said at the time. “We say to the modernists, nothing needs to be modernized.”
Although Webb has spent much of his time in Egypt in recent years, his U.S. following has grown. His website, where he posts writings on such topics as relationships, personal development and Islamic studies, gets more than 10,000 visitors a day, and sparks extended conversations.
In November, one reader asked if it was OK for Muslims to celebrate Thanksgiving. Webb’s response that the holiday was allowed upset some who thought that could lead to more questionable practices.
“Soon it will be [permissible] for me to take that ‘Santa Claus’ gig at the mall…….or it is already????” asked one commenter, Ahmed.
Others appeared to appreciate Webb’s effort to balance Muslim teachings with life in the West. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-american-imam-20110527,0,5640663.story

A Muslim Foodbank... because some people can't eat

by Abarahim Appel

September 30, 2011

from www.altmuslim.com

It was announced recently that 40,000 Bank of America employees are being laid off. My heart feels broken over the news. It seems like every time there is a chance that we as a country can pull together and work through this, something else knocks us back down a couple of notches.

The economic news is compounded by the fact that before these layoffs, 15 percent of our country was already in poverty. That is 46.2 million people. It is the highest number in 52 years. Also, statistics are showing that 2 million more Americans slipped into “deep poverty”, defined as making a mere $11,000 a year. And while 7 percent of the United States currently lives in this statistic; the 15 percent above that line live in “normal” poverty, while close to 10 percent of the country is without any work at all.

Studies also showed this week that in my own beautiful California, the poverty rate rose for the fourth straight year. 16.3 percent of the state is in poverty, the highest in the nation. Across the country, Mexican-Americans and African-Americans have been hit the hardest by this economic downturn. Forbes magazine calls this time in history “the great African-American depression.” Today The African-American community has a staggering 1 out of 5 people unemployed.

I remember when I converted to Islam, just after 9/11. We talked often, back then, about how the majority of Muslims in the US were African-American. We wanted America to see the hypocrisy of the War on Terror. But the recession is now starting to show our hypocrisies.

To be clear, African-Americans and Mexican-Americans are part of their own American history. But we as American Muslims need to decide if we are one ummah or not. I remember a popular Muslim t-shirt that proclaimed Malcolm X’s defense of equality for Palestinians. I have not seen anything recently about Malcolm’s life work of equality for the oppressed, especially considering that the non Afro-Muslim community is especially affluent. The result is racism, as well as economic prejudices fighting for more influence within the community’s thoughts.

Perhaps now we need to talk about how our Muslim community carries some guilt in being greedy and not caring about the poor. Not just the really poor, but even the poor who work for you. And lets talk about the poor who visit your Masjid, the one you donated to help build. The one you pay hundreds of dollars to send your kids to. Now you may not want to hear it. You may now be looking to find the article blasting Mubarak and his corruption. But this is our corruption. We are making our American Muslim identity now. And how we relate to ethics, society and the poor will create more of our identity than will almost anything else we do as a community.

We as a community have ignored the growing sections of Muslim greed. I have heard more Muslims talk about kicking out black people from their homes in Detroit, then serving the poor. We often forgive, or look the other way. Maybe we are seduced by the beautiful masjid that these same rich donors helped build. We think “anything for Dawah.” But I feel Islam is being corrupted by the “bling”. We praise the Saudis more than we praise Abdul Sattar Edhi who devotes his whole life to the poor, and without any support from an “Islamic state.” We have lost track of what is really Islamicly important: being a source of comfort to the oppressed. Not just in Palestine, but the orphans, homeless and the poor nearest you.

Let me pray Jummah in a shack if it means we have more resources for the poor, the sick, the hurt the unemployed, the addict. Let us stop building beautiful walls and start building a more beautiful Ummah.

We speak of the Sunnah, but follow only what makes us powerful and comfortable. What ever happened to the part of the sunnah where prophet Muhammad gave away everything. Ate little so others could eat? Is it more convenient to have beards on men and cloth on females heads then to follow a life’s passion of improvement and service? But the poverty and service is the sunnah.

Let us instead work to be a humble and one with those ignored and devoured by their own economy. That would be sunnah.

Abrahim Appel is a writer currently covering Mexico and Mexico City for the California paper, Mundo Latino World. He studied Ethnic studies and Journalism at Cal State Fullerton, in Southern California. He spends too much on hookah to be a scholar of Islam, but believes his opinions are still valid.

By Laurna Strikwerda

Altmuslim, 10 July 2011

How would you respond if someone tried to kill you because of who you are? I know what my own responses would be: anger, fear, rage. For Rais Bhuiyan, the answer was different: forgiveness. When I first heard Rais’ story, I could hardly believe it. A Muslim victim of a post-9/11 hate crime was fighting to save the life of his attacker. And one of the reasons that Bhuiyan was targeted – his faith tradition – is also the motivation for trying to save his attacker’s life.
Ten days after the September 11 attacks in 2001, Bhuiyan, an immigrant from Bangladesh, was working at a gas station in Dallas when a man walked in with a gun. Thinking the store was being robbed, Bhuiyan opened the cash register. Instead, the man asked him where he was from. “Excuse me?” Bhuiyan responded. Mark Stroman, a white supremacist who was targeting men who appeared to him to be Middle Eastern, then shot Bhuiyan in the face.
Stroman is scheduled to be executed by the state of Texas on 20 July for the murder of Vasudev Patel, an Indian immigrant killed on 4 October 2001; evidence was also presented at trial that Stroman shot and killed Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani immigrant. And Rais Bhuiyan is fighting to save Stroman’s life.
I had the chance to speak with Bhuiyan briefly after learning about his campaign through Amnesty International.
Talking about his current campaign to convince the parole board to overturn the death penalty in Stroman’s case, it was clear that his faith was the primary motivating factor. In 2009, Bhuiyan completed the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca, where he saw an amazingly diverse group come together to pray and worship. He recalled growing up as a young man in Bangladesh in a religious family, where his family prayed five times a day and his grandfather would visit every Thursday to read the Qur’an and tell his family stories from Muslim tradition, especially about the Prophet Muhammad.
One of the stories that impacted Bhuiyan the most was that of Muhammad’s visit to Ta’if, a valley near Mecca, to spread the message of Islam. The people of Ta’if reacted cruelly, forcing him to leave. In the version of the story that Bhuiyan learned growing up, the angel Gabriel appeared with the angel of the mountains, who said to Muhammad, “If you like, I shall cause mountains surrounding Al-Ta’if, to fall on them, and crush them into pieces.” But Muhammad declined, saying that the children of those who had been responsible for casting him out might someday embrace the message he had come to spread.
The message of forgiveness and redemption at the heart of this story rings powerfully true today in the lives of Mark Stroman and Rais Bhuiyan. When Stroman learned about Bhuiyan’s work for his case, he broke down in tears. If Stroman is not executed, Bhuiyan says, “I believe he will be able to reach out to others. If he can touch one life, that would be a success. If he is gone, we lose the opportunity to educate others.”
This faith in the future, and in the belief that we can positively impact the lives of others by sharing our stories, is a powerful anecdote to the fear that has gripped our country in the years since 9/11 – fear that has sometimes sparked violence. What is at the root of Stroman’s crime, Bhuiyan believes, is hate. And he believes that the antidote to this hatred is education and compassion, not further violence. Despite what has happened to him, Bhuiyan believes that the United States is “still a beautiful country.”
After hearing Bhuiyan’s story, I realised I had gained a deeper understanding of forgiveness and compassion, some of the highest principles of my own faith tradition as well as his. His story should compel us to look at our country and its future.
Will we choose fear? Or will we choose to reach out to those who are different from us, to hear their stories, to begin to dismantle our fears and choose instead to have faith in our future?

Laurna Strikwerda is a programme coordinator with the Muslim-Western dialogue programme at the international conflict transformation organisation Search for Common Ground. This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).

In the latest development to this story Mark Stroman was eventually executed on 20 July 2011.

http://www.altmuslim.com/a/a/a/4368

from: The Guardian, Monday 17th October 2011

Half of all hospitals are failing to meet basic standards in care for the elderly. The Care Quality Commission’s recent findings are, shockingly, no shock to anyone. As a letter to the Guardian the following day pointed out, these were exactly the findings of a report commissioned by the secretary of state for health in 1998. Thirteen years later, nothing has changed. Outraged reports accumulate on the shelf, gathering dust.

Extraordinary advances in medical technology continue, but we make painfully little progress – even some signs of deterioration – in something much cheaper, and surely much easier in healthcare: the quality of relationships. As the commission’s chair ruefullycommented, “kindness and compassion cost nothing”.

Inevitably, the report prompted soul-searching in the days afterwards; many members of the public described very painful stories of the care their elderly parents received in their last years.

Joan Bakewell, interviewed on Radio 4′s Today programme, pondered the impact of the decline of religion, asking who now teaches kindness as she learned it in Sunday school.

It’s an interesting point, but sadly not one I suspect that stands up to scrutiny. Religious institutions have been revealed to have a patchy – and that is being charitable – record on kindness. No, I think there is something very important at stake here that is not about secularisation but about marketisation – how all our patterns of thought are now modelled on the transactions of the market.

“What do I get out of this relationship?” is now regarded as a perfectly legitimate question, as if relationships are simply a kind of investment portfolio. The language of trade, finance and commerce has infiltrated how we understand our lovers, our friends, our neighbours and those for whom we work. Social capital, social skills – this is using the language of the market to describe relationships and the values and the inspiration that sustain them.

Much of this marketisation has neatly reinforced individualism’s aspirations to freedom and autonomy. But there is a problem. It’s blindingly obvious and yet ignored: it doesn’t give a full account of human experience. There are large chunks of our lives when we are either being cared for or we are caring for others. Caring for others cannot be totted up according to a calculus of cost and returns.

Dependency – others on us or us on others – is a central part of life. It is not something to be ashamed of and avoided at all costs. Care cannot always be easily shoehorned into the gaps in a busy life of consuming and working. This is why ultimately this cultural pattern of marketisation is so cruel: it makes shameful what is an inescapable part of human experience. It denigrates and belittles the qualities needed to care, such as patience and gentleness. Worst of all, marketisation ensures that everyone arrives at the challenge of being a carer with an almighty shock, and often a sense of “Why did no one warn me?”.

That’s what having children felt like for me. I felt I had been ambushed by something for which I was totally unprepared emotionally: the 24/7 dependence of a child and how that compromised all my aspirations to independence and achievement.

Now, it feels my age group is being ambushed again; we are all wondering and worrying about how one cares for elderly parents, how one deals with their dying and deaths. Their needs are often far more unpredictable than, but just as emotionally fraught as, the first experience of parenthood.

All of this hits women particularly hard because their socialisation for centuries has been bound up with expectations to care; only in the past few decades have some of those assumptions been unpicked.

But in their place, marketisation’s model of care is to buy it at the lowest possible cost. It says everything about our culture that caring is paid so badly and requires minimal training.

Compare how the two forms of care have been treated over the past 20 years: there has been a gradual and grudging reluctance to make the adjustments necessary to care for children (increased leave and part-time working), while the care of the elderly in an ageing society has been doggedly postponed – we simply don’t want to think about it.

Care for children fits into a marketised understanding of relationship: we talk of “investing” in our children. The state sees children as important because of their future worth to the economy as labour. But in this marketised mindset, the elderly have no economic value; they are perceived as a burden. The only values ascribed to the elderly are found – as recently celebrated in some grey power list – in silver-haired celebrities still working such as David Attenborough.

That’s a harsh form of exceptionalism in a culture of implicit contempt for the elderly’s frailty, dependence and intense vulnerability. What we have lost is the perception of the value of human experience beyond the busyness of the peak years of life; something captured by Milton in the final line of On His Blindness, “they also serve who only stand and wait”.

As the numbers of elderly increase and their last years are dominated by chronic ill health, their care will become ever more demanding in terms of resources and time. But tackling the policy implications is dependent on challenging these deeply ingrained cultural attitudes.

There is another set of reasons why we don’t find it easy to talk about the care of the elderly: many of them are in the final years of their lives. They are living very intimately with death. And that is the one big taboo of our age. We are the opposite of the Victorians: we are very open about our fascination with sex and very closed about death.

So, many of the elderly end up in hospitals – many with conditions for which there is no cure – and face only a protracted decline. A health system fixated on cure and prevention struggles inadequately with the process of dying, with the needs for kindness and comfort rather than for complex medical intervention, and with dying’s enormous repercussions for relationships. A fifth of all NHS beds are taken up by end-of-life care at huge cost, yet surveys show that hospital is often the last place where the frail and dying want to be. It is also where people are often most dissatisfied: more than half of all complaints to the NHS are about end-of-life care.

What we have lost is any concept of honouring the elders, respect for their frailty, and recognition that supporting their final years before death is important for all of us – that death is a part of what makes all of our lives meaningful.

This is what Steve Jobs so bravely articulated in his remarkablespeech to Stanford graduates in 2005 when he put death centre-stage. First, he referred to death as “useful”, and then he went on to remind his audience about something that these young adults were probably reluctant to acknowledge on the day of graduation: that they would all age and die. It is the one universal human experience. And, finally, he claimed that death “is very likely the single best invention of life. It’s life’s change agent.” Coming from an inventor fascinated by change, there could be no higher praise. It’s the kind of insight which challenges the cultural blindness which is crippling our capacity for compassion.

Translated by Webb Translators

Principle 1: Have a sincere, unwavering intention.  Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said, “each person will be rewarded for what he intended” (Muslim). This calls for determination in the heart to continuously act or to abstain from something only for God’s sake. A sign of having sincere intentions is that one does not change his resolve for fleeting reasons; what is done for God, the Truth, should not be forsaken to please His creation.

Principle 2: Work purely for God, (the One) without partners or associates. Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said: “worship God as though you see Him, but if you do not see Him (know that) He sees you” (Muslim). A sign of working purely for God is to not accept anything except the truth, and to see everything else besides the truth as vain and fleeting. As the prophet ﷺ said, “Let the slave of the dinar perish” (Bukhari). One should also beware of falling into doubtful matters. As Prophet Muhammad ﷺ: “Leave what is doubtful for what is not doubtful” (Tirmidhi and Nasa’i).

Principle 3: Align one’s desires with the guidelines and rulings of the Shari`ah (Islamic law). Be patient in times of hardship and difficulty, when struggling with personal desires, and in avoiding sinful acts and pleasures. Whoever practices this regularly reaches a state whereby he is in his sleep as if he were awake [worshipping], in his mixing with people as if he were in seclusion, in his fulfillment as if he were hungry, in his pride as if he were humiliated, and in talking to others as if he were silent.

Principle 4: Base one’s actions on following [the prophet’s way and scholarly opinions], and not on innovation. This prevents the following of one’s own desires and becoming proud of one’s own opinion. Surely, a person who takes himself as his own ruler will not succeed.

Principe 5: Have high ambitions, and do not procrastinate. It is said: “do not leave today’s work until tomorrow,” because actions are built on each another; and whoever is content with a lower [status] will be deprived of a higher one.

Principle 6: Be aware of one’s incapability and insignificance. This is not referring to laziness in worship or lack of productivity in work. It is about realizing that one is not capable of doing any action without support from God, the Most Capable, and Most Generous. This awareness is also manifested in viewing other people with respect and reverence, for people are means and helpers of one another on the path to God, the Exalted and Most Bountiful.

Principle 7: Have fear and hope, and do not be sure that your good deeds are accepted until you have witnessed this [on the day of Judgment]. One should have hope not because of the good deeds themselves, but because God Himself is the Most Benevolent and Generous.

Principle 8: Be consistent in one’s wird (regular litany of worship), for the one without a wird does not have additional source of support from God.  With a wird, the soul opens up in public and private; it becomes more mindful of the rights of others; it increases in loving and hating for others what it loves or hates for itself.  Also, having that wird makes one work more for God in order to please Him, just as a person would love that God does for him what he finds pleasing.

Principle 9: Be constantly observant of your actions and do not stray away from the remembrance of God even the blink of an eye. For the one who is always observant of his heart for the sake of God, and does not let other than God enter his heart besides, is one who has truly found God, experienced His Benevolence, and has reached ‘ilm al-yaqeen (certain knowledge). This is manifested in seeing God as the Enabler or Mover of everything that remains still or in motion around us. One’s mindfulness then increases from there until he recognizes that God is the Sustainer of everything, so His interaction with the creation is characterized by the best of manners. (Exemplifying this), the Prophet ﷺ said: “My Lord taught me good manners, and He gave me the best of manners.”

Principle 10: Know what one should be occupied with, both internally and externally for whoever thinks that he is not in need of obeying [God and His messenger] is a broke man who is in opposition to God’s words: “…Say ‘If you love Allah, then follow me, Allah will love you’ ”(Qur’an 3:31).  This is the foundation upon which have been built castles like no other.

http://www.suhaibwebb.com/personaldvlpt/character/excerpts-from-imam-ghazali%E2%80%99s-ten-principles-for-those-seeking-the-path-of-allah/

The Muslim Day is part of a nation-wide effort to serve more than 20,000 homeless and people in need in 15 cities throughout the United States

MINNEAPOLIS – Serving their community, Muslims in north Minneapolis are extending a helping hand to the needy and vulerable Americans in a new bid to develop a better understanding of their faith.

“Coining it the ‘Day of Dignity’ really says a lot and sums up what we’re trying to do — is be of service to the community,” Makram El-Amin, the Imam at Masjid An-Nur mosque in North Minneapolis, told KARE II website.

Standing ready for help, several local Muslim organizations, along with Masjid An-Nur, helped put on the event.

The Muslim program, Day of Dignity, which went nationwide seven years ago, aims at serving homeless and vulnerable Americans, whether Muslim or not.

It is part of a nation-wide effort to serve more than 20,000 homeless and people in need in 15 cities throughout the United States.

People receive health screenings, free food, and a variety of goods depending on their particular city.

In Minneapolis, about one thousand men, women and children came to the event for free food, clothing, entertainment, bathing supplies and medical, job and housing advice.

“It’s really is giving back to the community, what they say to us often this is what they need,” said Kamillah El-Amin, one of the local organizers.

Well-known hip hop artist Brother Ali was among the event’s featured entertainment.

Though there are no official statistics, the US is believed to be home to 7-8 million Muslim.

Bridge Differences

By serving the poor and the needy, Muslim residents are sending a message of hope and unity to bridge differences.

“It really is an expression of our faith tradition, which I think we share in common with other faith traditions — to really be of service to humanity, to mankind and the fundamental belief that everyone should be able to live a dignified life,” Makram El-Amin said.

Reaping the fruits of these events, the outreach was regarded as a way to help people to better understand Islam.

For Nell Davis, a mother of five, it was a profound opportunity to get ends meet for her family and other needy people in the community.

“[We've] had to overcome a lot, so this is a big help,” Davis said.

Since the 9/11 attacks, US Muslims have complained of discrimination and stereotypes because of their Islamic attires or identities.

Despite the frenzy, they seized the opportunity to introduce a true message of Islam, through activism.

Extending new bridges into the community, new groups were established, such as American Muslim Voice, founded by Samina Sundas of Palo Alto.

There is also the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which was founded to help Muslims engage with their neighbors in civic life.

by Luqman Karuvarakundu

Islam Sight [Malappuram, Kerala, India], 15 August 2011

Kamran Pasha is a Pakistani-born screenwriter and author. He was co-producer and writer on the 2005-06 Showtime Network series Sleeper Cell. He has published two novels on Islamic themes, Mother of the Believers (2009) and Shadow of the Swords (2010). He worked on two NBC series, Bionic Woman andKings.

I read your travelogue to Medina. Readers welcomed it with great zeal when it was translated in The Risala, the most popular Islamic weekly in India. How did Medina come to attract you so much?

I went on Hajj in 2008 with my mother. It was a very special experience. I found my time in Medina to be especially uplifting. There is genuine sense of peace there. And visiting the grave of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) was very emotionally moving. Even today, whenever I am stressed, I remember my experience in Medina at the Prophet’s Mosque and feel myself becoming calmer, more at peace. The continuing baraka [blessings] of our Holy Prophet (pbuh) are very much in evidence there, and I hope to return again in the near future.

You have mentioned that there were people opposing the visit to Prophet’s tomb. They are Wahhabis, (originating with Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab in Najd). What are the defects that Wahhabism cast on the spirit of Islam?

I reject any form of religious extremism or fundamentalism, whether it be labeled Wahhabism, Salafism or anything else. Islam is a beautiful religion that is founded on compassion and gentleness. There is a hadith where the Prophet (pbuh) said “Islam is like water.” Water is pure, clean and gives life. It refreshes the body and the heart. And it is not rigid – it flows and adapts to the world, always cleansing as it passes through. That is what true Islam is like. These fundamentalist groups want to turn Islam into a stone – a dead rock that they can use to hit people over the head. The only way they can make Islam a rigid and harsh religion is to erase from the Muslims the memory of what our Holy Prophet (pbuh) was like – a gentle, compassionate man who did not raise his voice and smiled warmly. They want to erase our love for him, so that we do not become like him.

They want Islam to be a religion of angry rules. That is why they don’t like Muslims visiting the grave of the Prophet (pbuh), his family and Sahaba [Companions] (may Allah be pleased with all of them). That is why they destroyed the cemetery of Medina, Jannat al-Baqi and turned it into a barren waste. The fundamentalists hate what Islam really is, and they want us to stop loving our Prophet (pbuh), to forget his character and simply follow rules they make up and project onto Islam. But insha’allah they will fail. The true Islam of love and beauty is what mankind wants and needs. Nobody wants the fake Islam of the fanatics, except people who themselves are angry and miserable, and want everybody else to be miserable alongside them. I pray that Allah protect our beautiful deen [faith] from the fundamentalists.

Cultural denial is the official seal of Wahhabism. It is for that reason that these people destroyed all the cultural monuments of Islam especially in Mecca and Medina. How do you see the cultural destruction by Wahhabism?

The destruction of the cultural and archaeological sites of Islam is part of the fundamentalists’ evil plot to destroy all memory of the origins of Islam, and to remove from our hearts the love for our Holy Prophet (pbuh). The Muslims always raise a huge outcry whenever non-Muslims damage Muslim sites or graveyards – but they remain silent when the Muslim fanatics destroy the Prophet’s house! It is a terrible tragedy and I can only pray that Allah will remove the foolish from power over the holy sites and return people of wisdom who will protect the Muslim cultural and archaeological legacy.

You are a Sayyid [lineal descendant of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)]. The Islamic spirit has been nurtured by the families of Sayyids. Please describe some aspects of the relations between the Sayyids and ordinary people.

What I love most about Islam is that it is an egalitarian religion. Every man and woman is equal in the sight of Allah, regardless of their race or ancestry. Allah only cares for what a person does, not who they are descended from. There is a hadith where the Holy Prophet (pbuh) said: “If a man slows himself down with bad deeds, his lineage will not speed him up.” Yes, I am a Sayyid, descended from the Holy Prophet (pbuh) through Imam Ali, Sayyida Fatima, and Imam Husayn (may Allah be pleased with all of them), but I am no better on that account than any other person on this earth. In Muslim cultures, Sayyids are often given special courtesies, but I am always uncomfortable with that myself. I am a flawed Muslim with many sins, and my ancestry should not raise my social standing in the eyes of the people. In fact, my sins are worse because I dishonor my ancestors by failing to be a good example like they were. I believe that all Muslims should act as if they are descendants of the Prophet (pbuh) because in a spiritual sense we all are one family as an Ummah, with the Prophet (pbuh) as our father, and with Allah as our Lord. We should all act with the same dignity and ethical conduct of the Holy Prophet (pbuh), his family and his Sahaba (may Allah be pleased with all of them).

Wahhabism has alway been allied with imperialist powers. While traditional scholars were contending with the British, Wahhabis were trying to work under the British, during the war of independence in India. What is the relationship of Wahhabism with imperialism?

The relationship between the imperialist powers and the religious fanatic movements has been heavily documented by historians. The British colonialists supported these fundamentalists against the Ottoman Empire, which was the house of the Caliphate and the champion of mainstream Islam. With the help of the British, these fanatics defeated the Caliphate and then took our holy cities of Mecca and Medina, and have been using the holy sites as a platform for spreading their false vision of Islam. A look at the news today reveals that such fanatic groups remain political allies of the enemies of Islam, despite their outward rhetoric. I pray that Allah removes them from power and replaces them with wiser people with clean hearts.

Do you celebrate the birthday of the Prophet in America? In what ways has it been celebrated?

Yes, we celebrate the birthday of our Holy Prophet (pbuh) in America in most Muslim communities, except for the few that are being influenced by the fundamentalists. People tend to gather at mosques where they will hear talks about our beloved Prophet’s life, and in some communities you will have poetry readings and other forms of art to inspire love for the Messenger of God (pbuh).

Your novels are historical fiction. Why did you follow this method?

I write historical fiction because I am trying to reach the younger generation which rarely reads dry history books. Most Muslims I know have a biography of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) on their bookshelf, but have never bothered to actually read it, because they think scholarly books are dry and boring. They don’t know what an amazing life he had. So I chose to tell the Prophet’s story in Mother of the Believers as an exciting and fast-paced novel. I did a similar thing for the great Muslim leader Salahuddin Ayyubi who freed Jerusalem from the Crusaders. I wrote about him in my novel Shadow of the Swords. By presenting these great stories of Muslim heroes through the lens of novels, I am hoping to not only entertain but to educate my readers about the great men and women of Islamic history.

How did readers in America welcome the novels Mother of the Believers and Shadow of the Swords?

By Allah’s mercy, both books continue to do well in the United States and all over the world. The greatest thing is that my books spread through word-of-mouth. People read my novels and then recommend them to others. That speaks to their popularity.

You are the most famous screenwriter in Hollywood. What are the cultural virtues spreading through Hollywood films?

I am by no means the most famous screenwriter in Hollywood! I am one of a few Muslims that has begun to have some success in Hollywood, and I thank Allah for whatever progress I have made. Hollywood movies have tremendous ability to influence how the world sees things. I had grown tired of all the Muslim terrorists in the movies and on television, because these images were spreading a false idea of Islam to millions of people all over the world. That is why I came to Hollywood, to change that image and show the true Islam of love, beauty and friendship.

How is Muslim life presented in Hollywood films?

Hollywood is slowly beginning to change the predominant image of Muslims from angry terrorists to more real characters, people who have families, people who love others and struggle to make their loves work. It is a long process that has only just begun…

But there is a lot of work still to be done.

The Muslims have been presented as terrorists in many films. Have you tried to create an alternative to this?

I am working on many projects to show Muslims in a more accurate light. I produced a TV series in America called Sleeper Cell which showed a Muslim FBI agent fighting terrorists. I sold a script to Warner Brothers on the Taj Mahal and the love story of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. I am currently writing a movie on Ibn Battuta, the great Muslim traveler, and his adventures as he journeyed from Morocco to China in the 14^th century, A significant portion of that movie is actually set in India, where Ibn Battuta worked as a judge for the Muslim leader Sultan Tughluq.

What are the means of Islamic propagation in America?

Islam spreads in America like it does everywhere else – through human interaction. People meet Muslims and become impressed by how their religion shapes their character. That leads people to learn more about Islam, and if Allah wills it, their hearts embrace our beautiful religion. The best way for Muslims to propagate Islam is to actually live it in their lives rather than preaching. Nobody wants to be preached at by someone trying to convert them. But when people see a Muslim of good and noble character, they become drawn to Islam out of their own spiritual longing.

Muslim Writer on U.S. TV Program “Sleeper Cell” [Excerpted]

This is an abridged version of the interview. The complete interview can be accessed at:

http://www.islamicpluralism.org/1864/interview-with-kamran-pasha

Photo: http://bookchase.blogspot.com/2010/07/shadow-of-swords.html

The superstar uses pop music to praise Islam and advocate for political change in the Middle East. [facebook.com/maherzain

By Sean Foley

The Atlantic, 10 August 2011

Ramadan 2011 coincides with two significant events for the people of the Middle East. The first—Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s appearance in a Cairo courtroom—has received plenty of coverage and was seen as emblematic of a new Egypt in which even the highest officials are accountable to the law. The second event will get less attention in the West, but also comes out of the political movements that have transformed the Arab World in the last seven months: Lebanese superstar singer Maher Zain is set to release his new music video, “Ya Nabi Salam Alayka” (“Oh Prophet Muhammad, Peace Be Upon You”).

Washington analysts have overlooked the political significance of the pop singer, who—like the Bob Dylan of the ’60s—represents a new generation of Arabs: Young people who want a new society and a newnizam (political system) in which Arabs no longer have to choose between modernity and Islam, and where neither Islam nor the West can be used to justify autocracy. The importance of a change of nizam can be seen in the chief demand of demonstrators from North Africa to the Persian Gulf: “al-sha’b yuridu isqat al-nizam,”which means, “The people want to overthrow the system.”

Few artists understand the yearning for change in the Arab World better than Maher Zain. Born in Lebanon but raised in Sweden, Zain studied aeronautical engineering and partnered with an Arab singer/songwriter who had also migrated to Sweden, Nadir Khayat (known as “RedOne”). The two men traveled to New York, where they worked in the city’s music industry with some of its brightest young stars. Khayat played a key role in the rapid emergence of Lady Gaga and went on to become one of America’s top music producers, working with Akon, Lionel Richie and Michael Jackson.

On the album’s cover, Zain is dressed as if for an R&B concert—but is seated in quiet Islamic prayer.

Zain’s New York period and his work with Khayat served him well when he produced his debut album,Thank You Allah. Released in November 2009 (little more than a year before the start of the Arab Spring) and featuring a good many songs sung in Zain’s excellent English, it was a surprise commercial success. In a musical competition organized in January 2010 by Cairo’s Nogoom FM (the most-popular radio station in Egypt), the album’s second track, “Ya Nabi Salam Alayka,” was voted as the best religious song for 2009, beating out work by more-established singers. Zain’s March 2010 concert in Cairo drew fans from Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and the United Kingdom. Many leading personalities in the Egyptian music industry also attended the concert.

Thank You Allah went on to sell well throughout the Muslim world, from the Middle East to Southeast Asia, in 2010 and 2011. In Malaysia, the album earned eight platinum awards from Warner Music Malaysia in 2010 and was declared the top selling album in the country for the decade. (Approximately 120,000 albums were sold in a country of approximately 27 million people.) That same year, Zain was the most googled personality in Malaysia. In 2011, Thank You Allah earned a double platinum award from Sony Music Indonesia. By May 2010, the record had earned the top position on Amazon.com’s digital charts in the world music category.

On the album’s cover, Zain wears jeans, a black jacket, and a dapper cap—all items appropriate to a rhythm and blues concert—but is seated in quiet Islamic prayer. That combination is emblematic of the theme of the album that faith in Islam, God (Allah), and personal dignity are the answer to the systematic challenges facing modern Muslims. But the moral message of his music is clothed in a pop idiom immediately recognizable to the young. While Zain sings in Arabic and has released songs in French, Malay and other languages, most of his work is in English. These songs are integral to a global marketing campaign that seeks to reach fans via social networking sites, YouTube, and other internet media platforms. In a July 2011 interview in the British lifestyle magazine Emel, Zain noted that the internet was both “revolutionary” and the “biggest blessing” for Muslim artists, since they face considerable obstacles in getting Islamic-themed music on radio and television. The internet allowed him to bypass traditional media and publicize his work directly to people around the world.

Deftly taking advantage of opportunities offered by the internet, Zain was the first Muslim artist to reach a million fans on Facebook; today, he boats 2.5 million fans. Collectively, his YouTube vides have received more than 50 million hits. Released in 2010, “In Shah Allah” (“God Willing”) has been downloaded more than 11 million times on YouTube. Two other videos—“The Chosen One” (2010) and “Palestine Will Be Free” (2009)—have been downloaded more than 4 million and 2.5 million times, respectively. He harnessed this popularity offline with an ambitious touring schedule in 2010 and 2011, that has seen him regularly performing to sold-out concert venues throughout Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and, interestingly, North America.

In his videos and songs, Zain eschews the traditional, glamorized image of pop stars, instead presenting himself as an ordinary person standing out from the crowd only because of his musical talent—given to him by Allah. He also specifically calls on Muslims to avoid blaming all of their problems on the West and to realize their own role in shaping their situation. Indeed, as he very clearly realizes, his music has deep roots in the West.

One of his most striking songs is “Palestine Will Be Free.” The video uses animation to depict an apocalyptic urban landscape torn apart by Arab-Israeli violence, with live-action Zain singing amid the carnage. In the penultimate scene of the video, we see a young school girl holding a stone in front of an Israeli tank. The image is meant to invoke a clash between David and Goliath or might versus right. But it also has specific meaning for many Arabs: It is a reminder of the famous picture from the First Palestinian Intifada of a Palestinian child holding a rock above his head to throw at a nearby Israeli tank. But in Zain’s video, the girl drops the rock, stands defenseless in front of the Israeli tank, and implicitly puts her faith in Allah that her personal will is stronger than the mighty Israeli tank. Her faith is rewarded. As she moves forward, the tank withdraws.

Within months of the release of Thank You Allah and Zain’s concert in Cairo, revolts began throughout the Arab world. These revolts employed strategies akin to those laid out in Thank You Allah. Through the sheer size of their demonstrations, protestors challenged governments in Tahrir Square and elsewhere, and forced police to withdraw in a manner recalling the way the little girl forced the withdrawal of the Israeli tank in “Palestine Will Be Free.” Nor did the protestors insist on blaming the West. Their message was not the message of Osama bin Laden. They also used Facebook, other social media, and YouTube to “market” their message (and circumvent mainstream media) in a manner reminiscent of the campaign Zain used to market his songs. On February 12, democracy protestors achieved their goal in Egypt when Hosni Mubarak had to leave office—an event that signaled the birth of a new nizam, one in which even powerful politicians may be brought into an Egyptian court of law to defend their official actions.

None of this is to suggest that Maher Zain’s work caused demonstrations or the trials of former Egyptian officials, but Zain’s songs clearly reflected a widespread feeling of discontent and a desire for a different future. His awareness of that discontent and of the need for hope is an element of his popularity—epitomized by an Egyptian fan at his Cairo concert in March 2010 who was quoted saying that she loved the “revolutionary feel” of his music.

Zain tapped into this same feeling of discontent and the need for hope in the first song he released after the start of the Arab Spring, “Freedom.” He premiered the song in Malaysia in March 2011 and dedicated it to peoples fighting for freedom in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and all other countries. Sung in English, the song thanks God for giving friends and neighbors—young, old, women, and men— strength to hold hands and demand an end to oppression. The song enunciates a dream for a new Muslim society, in which people will no longer be prisoners in their homes or be afraid to voice their opinions in public. While Zain acknowledges that the dream of a new society has yet to be fulfilled, he promises his listeners that they are on the verge of achieving it, that God is with them, and that He will not let them fail. Throughout the video of the song, we see images of Arab flags and protestors peacefully challenging their governments in the Arab World.

Significantly, Zain’s call for reform extends to the United States. In “The Chosen One” we see Zain singing about the Prophet Muhammad while walking through Bakersfield, California. According to the website of Zain’s record label, Awakening Records, the video is intended to educate the world about the Prophet Muhammad and to respond to attacks on him through cartoons and on Facebook. In a striking scene, we see a young boy with a baseball cap and glove race across a living room and catch a baseball thrown to him by his veiled mother. The city is filled with social problems: homelessness, alcohol and drug addiction, impoverished elderly, abandoned animals, and ethnic tensions. (In the opening scene, Zain’s neighbor, a blonde white woman, dumps garbage on his front porch.) Yet, up until the concluding scene, it is not Zain who addresses these problems: others do. Finally, however, Zain notices that his unfriendly neighbor is sick. He makes vegetable soup for her. Zain is of course displaying his compassion and humanity here, but he is also invoking a well-known story about the Prophet Muhammad. For years a woman dumped garbage on his home until one day it stopped. Rather than rejoicing, the Prophet sought to see what had happened to the woman and offered to help her when he realized that she was sick.

The Prophet Muhammad and the hope he offers the world are central to Zain’s second video shot in the United States, “Ya Nabi Salam Alayka,” which is set for its official premiere this week. In it we see Zain sporting his trademark dapper hat and hip-hop clothes while walking through the major streets and railroad tracks of one of America’s premier cities, the hometown of President Barack Obama: Chicago, Illinois. He is flanked by the city’s famous skyline and he sings a salutation in Arabic to the Prophet Muhammad—a salutation widely known as salawat. By choosing a city that is in many ways at the center of the nation’s geography and nizam, Zain is implying that Muslims and their faith have something tangible to contribute to the world’s lone superpower—despite the ongoing presence of Islamophobia in American life.

As analysts and scholars seek to better understand the Arab World in the twenty-first century, they would be well advised to pay close attention to the lyrics of Zain and other artists whose words embody the aspirations of millions of Muslims in the Middle East and the wider world. If in a sense what the media has dubbed “The Arab Spring” is a replay of the West’s 1960s, Maher Zain is the Bob Dylan of this new situation. Zain understands that Western music has entered the consciousness of all the world’s young, and he realizes further that Western “love songs” can easily be transformed into sacred music—just as, once long ago, the deeply erotic “Song of Songs” was transformed into a poem about the soul and its longing for God. For Zain, the road to “revolution”—to a new nizam—is not to be found in politics or in angry rhetoric. Rather, surprisingly, it is deeply embedded in the themes, structures and chordal sounds of the West—so long as the listener understands that this music has undergone, via Zain’s lyrics and Muslim identity, a profound change of subject.

http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/08/maher-zains-hip-but-pious-soundtrack-to-the-arab-spring/243191/

UK Muslim community groups issue joint statement for first time on poignant anniversary

More than 50 Muslim community groups the length and breadth of Britain have united on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 to express their solidarity with victims of terrorism and to tell the terrorists that a decade on ‘they failed’ in seeking to divide society on religious grounds.

The message will be reflected today in Mosques throughout the UK, where Friday Sermons will be held to remember the victims and their families, as well as others affected by terrorism.

In the strongly worded statement issued by a diverse coalition of British Muslim organisations, the signatories claim that the terrorists’ violence has been counterproductive to their aims. “Those who seek to divide society have failed. Indeed their destructive actions have only brought communities closer together,” it states.

“Ten years on from the 9/11 attacks, our communities are growing stronger and more resilient. Communities have come together to find common ground and resolve differences,” it continues.

In a further rejection of terrorist means, the statement points out that the recent Arab Spring demonstrated the power of ordinary citizens standing in peaceful protest to secure greater political participation and freedom. It also draws attention to the recent riots in the UK and the social solidarity it engendered, stating: “We will continue to stand together in troubled times, not just against terrorism but against all forms of criminality that pervade our society.” It adds: “Only together can we defeat such problems.”

This is the first time such a large number of Muslim organisations have sought strength in numbers, coming together to use the opportunity of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 to express their sympathy for the victims and to look forward to the future with greater optimism. Among the organisations spearheading the initiative are the Islamic Society of Britain, Radical Middle Way and Inspire.

Dilwar Hussain, President of the Islamic Society of Britain said:
“Terrorism is an evil that no Muslim should feel the need to defend, or make excuses for. Terrorists are not ‘on our side’ – they are in fact our opponents. They are an obstacle to our cause, which is to be a force for good, to spread peace amongst our people – all the people of this country.”

Kalsoom Bashir of Inspire said:
“Today we resolve with greater commitment to demand a world that does not rely on violence as a solution to its ills. We need to acknowledge our common bonds and to work with civil society and governments to make the next ten years those that are based on respect for our common humanity. It is only through actively working towards peace that we can rightly honour those that have died.”

Fuad Nahdi, Executive Director of Radical Middle Way said:
“The tenth anniversary of 9/11 should be marked as a time of celebrating the triumph of our humanity over the politics of hatred and violence. A decade later we should all be the wiser and work towards creating a world that is not dominated by the politics of despair and extremism, but strive for a future which has a stake for all – a future full of hope, compassion, love and mercy.”

Click here to view the statement

Notes:
1. Inspire is a UK based award winning consultancy helping Muslim women to reach their full potential in life. Ultra-conservative theological interpretations of a woman’s role have become a barrier to many Muslim women today. Inspire challenges these interpretations with a progressive and contemporary interpretation of Islam within the context of 21st century Britain.
For media enquiries please contact Tahmina Saleem on +44 (0) 770 806 5150; email: info@wewillinspire.com; website: www.wewillinspire.com.

2. ISB is a national not-for-profit community-based organisation set up in 1990 to support new generations of Muslims growing up in the UK. It seeks to evolve a uniquely British flavour of Islam and encourages Muslims to engage positively with the wider British society. Dilwar Hussain of the Policy Research Centre was recently elected the organisation’s new President.
For media enquiries please contact Julie Siddiqi, Executive Director, on +44 (0) 7956 132035; website: www.isb.org.uk.

3. Radical Middle Way are a grassroots initiative aimed at young British Muslims, founded following the 7/7 attacks. They aim to promote a mainstream, moderate understanding of Islam that young people can relate to and provide a safe place for people to ask difficult questions and explore challenging issues. By working alongside grassroots partners, they create platforms for open debate, critical thinking and deep spiritual reflection. They run public lectures, seminars, workshops and facilitate dialogue with Islamic scholars. They use religious and intellectual arguments to form a counter narrative and have national and international reach, having run programmes and events in the UK, Pakistan, Sudan, Indonesia, Mali and Morocco.
For media enquiries please contact Fuad Nahdi, Executive Director on +44 (0) 7791066572; website: www.radicalmiddleway.org.

'As we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I tire of the negative stereotypes and constant suspicion and hostility that members of British Muslim communities have had to endure.' Photograph: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

From The Guardian, Friday 9th September 2011.

On 17 September 2001, George Bush paid a visit to the Islamic Centre of Washington. “The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam,” declared the US president. “Islam is peace.” Muslims might have been its biggest victims, but the war on terror wasn’t conceived as a war on Islam. In recent years, however, a growing number of rightwing ideologues have exploited the terror threat to push the argument that Islam is as at war with the west. Backed by well-funded thinktanks, these individuals are no longer “fringe” voices. Take Patrick Sookhdeo, a Christian pastor who reinvented himself as a terrorism expert after 9/11. He is quoted approvingly four times in the 1,500-page “manifesto” of the Norwegian killer Anders Breivik. Why? Sookhdeo has dismissed the “myth of moderate Islam”, says Islam is a “religion and political ideology that puts our British way of life in grave danger” and believes “everything about the west is inimical to Islam”.

The ravings of a crank? In fact, Sookhdeo’s book, Global Jihad, is on a recommended reading list for the UK Defence Academy’s higher command and staff course 2011. The pastor himself has been used by the MoD to give “higher level training” to British military commanders preparing to deploy to Afghanistan.

Then there is Robert Spencer, the co-founder of the EDL-linked organisation Stop the Islamicisation of America which, according to the Anti-Defamation League, “promotes a conspiratorial anti-Muslim agenda”. Breivik’s manifesto cited Spencer 64 times. Yet the latter has been invited to advise the FBI on counter-terrorism and his book, The Truth About Mohammed: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion, has featured on the FBI’s reading list for new recruits.

It is easy to blame crude, anti-Islam propagandists like Sookhdeo and Spencer for the increasing levels of alienation, disillusionment and distrust inside Muslim communities across the west. But the real question is why have the US and UK governments given such influence to preachers of hate and division? Whatever happened to winning hearts and minds?

Western Muslims have been seen exclusively through the prism of counter-terrorism. Sensitive issues of integration and community cohesion have become entangled in the securitised discourse of the war on terror. Here in the UK, the effect has been a chilling of speech inside Muslim communities. I have lost count of the number of British Muslim students, activists and imams who have told me of their fear of being labelled as extremists or terrorists if they dare take an unconventional, unorthodox or radical position on a political or religious issue. It is ironic, if depressing, that a doubling of the number of Muslim MPs in parliament and the appointment of a Muslim woman to the cabinet has been matched by a narrowing of the range of opinions and views expressed by ordinary British Muslims in public.

For example, many Muslims have melted away from the antiwar movement, which they collaborated in creating. There is a growing belief that dissent by politically active Muslims has not just been stigmatised, but criminalised. From new laws cracking down on the so-called “glorification of terrorism”, to the excessive sentences handed out to British Muslim teenagers protesting against Israel’s Gaza war, to the use by counter-terrorism police of 150 surveillance cameras in just two Muslim areas of Birmingham, the past decade has seen ordinary Muslims disproportionately targeted by the authorities. A damning report by the Institute of Race Relations in 2009 described the last government’s prevent counter-extremism strategy as “an elaborate structure of surveillance, mapping, engagement and propaganda. Prevent has become, in effect, the government’s ‘Islam policy’.”

Meanwhile, the media’s coverage of British Muslims has been particularly pernicious. In 2008, a Cardiff University study of 1,000 newspaper articles revealed that references to radical Muslims outnumbered references to moderates by 17 to one. The most common nouns used in relation to British Muslims were terrorist, extremist, militant and Islamist.

The term “Islamist” – one I have, admittedly, used myself – is especially problematic. It obscures more than it illuminates. The tyrannical Taliban government of Afghanistan was Islamist – yet so too is the elected government of Turkey; Hizb ut-Tahrir is an Islamist organisation – but so is the Muslim Council of Britain. I too have been lazily denounced as an “Islamist” by my critics – despite having long ago declared my opposition to an “Islamic state” – and subjected to a barrage of Islamophobic abuse online. I am often told by anxious and fearful Muslim friends to “be careful” or to “stop being so outspoken”; they worry for my safety and job security.

I love this country. There is no better place in Europe to live as a Muslim. But, as we approach the 10th anniversary of 9/11, I too tire of the negative stereotypes and constant suspicion and hostility that members of British Muslim communities have had to endure.

Perhaps all is not lost. Last month, Tariq Jahan, whose son was murdered during the riots, won plaudits for his calm and dignified response. What made Jahan such an unlikely British hero – especially on the pages of the Daily Mail and the Daily Express – is that he is a British Muslim (and a former supporter of Hizb ut-Tahrir). After I visited his home in Birmingham, a friend of the family told me: “Thanks to Tariq, we’re all seen in a different light now – not in a negative light, not just as terrorists.” But there is still a long way to go. Ten years on, British Muslims must stand up and be counted. Our struggle against demonisation is far from over.

“]

The welcome sign that stood in front of Heartsong Church. [Michelle Worth/Heartsong Church

It’s Ramadan, the month-long holiday when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk as a way to cleanse the soul and reflect on their relationship with God. The faithful usually flock to their local mosques for prayer during the holiday, but last year, the Muslims of Cordova, Tenn., just outside Memphis, didn’t have a place to go.

That’s when Pastor Steve Stone put an unusual sign outside his church.

“It said, ‘Welcome to the neighborhood, Memphis Islamic Center,’” he laughs. “It’s been seen all over the world, now.”

Stone invited the Muslim community to celebrate their holiday inside his church while their own cultural center was under construction nearby. It was the beginning of an unusual alliance that’s still strong a year later.

“Obviously we were taken aback, but in a very positive way,” says Danish Siddiqui, a board member of the Memphis Islamic Center. “Muslims, we tend to think of ourselves as good neighbors,” he tells weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan, “but Steve beat us to the punch and put up that sign — and all we had to do was knock on the door and introduce ourselves.”

The Muslim community was building a new mosque, but it was a delicate time. Proposed Islamic centers were kicking up controversy from New York to Murfreesboro — another Tennessee town just 200 miles away from Cordova.

“We were looking at some close-by halls and rental spaces and none of them were available,” Siddiqui says. They asked Stone if they could borrow a small space inside his Heartsong Church. “He said, ‘No. You’re going to pray in our main worship space.’”

“]

Members of the Memphis Islamic Center pray at Heartsong Church in Cordova, Tenn., last year. [Nikki Boertman/The Commercial Appeal

“We were so honored to be asked, because we knew that if they ever had any thought that we would say no, they would not have asked us,” Stone says.

Not everyone was as thrilled as Stone however. He received criticism from colleagues — and even members of his own church — who felt that he was blending Christianity and Islam. Ultimately, 20 members left his church, out of a congregation of 550.

“We had tried to work with them and think their way through it,” Stone says, “but at the end of the day, if they really believed what they said they believed, we’re kind of glad they left, because we didn’t want them going out into the community and saying, ‘We have these hateful feelings and we go to Heartsong Church.’”

Although the Memphis Islamic Center is now complete, the Muslim community keeps a strong relationship with Stone and Heartsong’s members. Once a month, they get together to help the homeless in their neighborhood, and there are also plans to build a new park that would sit on both congregations’ property.

“We have different faith traditions,” Siddiqui says. “But at the same time, we know that we can get along, we know that we can work together. And we have respect for one another, because we are people of faith.”

http://www.npr.org/2011/08/21/139831309/a-ramadan-story-of-two-faiths-bound-in-friendship

by

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad (Tim Winter)

[Based on a lecture given to a conference of British converts on September 17 1997]

It is said that the 19th century French poet Mallarm can only be fully understood by those who are not French, because they read him more slowly. Converts to Islam, the subject of this essay, can perhaps claim the same ambiguous advantage in their reading of the Islamic narrative. Several consequent questions impose themselves: can the clarity of vision brought by novelty outweigh the absence of a Muslim upbringing? Is adoption a more culturally fertile condition than simple son ship? Has the dynamism of Islamic culture after the initial Arab era owed everything to the energy of recent converts, with their own ethnic genius: the Persians, and then, pre-eminently, the Turks; and if so, might the appearance of converts in the West presage a larger revival of the fortunes of an aged and tired Islamic ummah.

I hope to return to these interesting queries at a later date. Here, I shall confine myself to the issue that presents itself most sharply to those British people who, like myself, have boarded the lifeboat of Islam. The issue is the question of British Muslim identity.

Who is a British Muslim is an easy question: it is anyone who follows Islam and holds a U.K. passport. This is at once the easiest and probably the only workable definition. The more teasing question, which I wish to raise in this article, is: what is a British Muslim? The query raises two problems related to belonging. What does it mean to be a British person who belongs to Islam? And, what does it mean to be a Muslim person who belongs to Britain? How do we map the overlap zone in a way that makes sense, and is legitimate, in terms of the co-ordinates of both of these terms?

Clearly, by virtue of the first definition, the British Muslim population, all 1.5 million of it, divides into three groups. Firstly, and least problematically, there are men and women whose cultural formation was not British, but who have migrated to this country. This essay will not touch centrally on their own particular struggle for self-definition, which is quite different to that addressed by converts.

Secondly, there are the children of the first group, and occasionally now their grandchildren. These people are usually seen to be torn between two worlds, but in reality, the British world has shaped their souls far more profoundly then they often recognise. Modern schooling is designed for a culture that puts an increasing share of acculturation and upbringing, as opposed to the simple inculcation of facts, on the shoulders of schoolteachers rather than of parents. Muslims who have moved to this country have done so at precisely the time when British education is also going into the business of parenting; most Muslim parents do not recognise the fact, but Muslim children in this country always have a third parent: the Education Secretary. Even those second-generation Muslims here who claim to have angrily rejected Britishness are in fact doing so in terms of types of radicalism, which are deeply influenced by Western styles of dissent. Most noticeably, they locate their radicalism not primarily in a spiritual, but in social and political rejection of the oppressive order around them. Their unsettled and agitated mood is not always congenial to the recent convert, who may, despite the cultural distance, feel more comfortable with the first rather than the second generation of migrants, preferring their God-centred religion to what is often the troubled, identity-seeking Islam of the young.

Thirdly, we have the smallest group of all: the convert or so-called revert community. This group is highly disparate, and it is not clear that one can make any meaningful generalisations about it at all. Almost by definition, a British person who is guided to Islam is an eccentric of some kind: one of the virtues, perhaps, of the British is that eccentrics have always been nurtured or at least more or less tolerated here. But the overall pattern is confusing. One can offer certain sociological generalisations about British people who become Buddhists, or evangelical Christians, or Marxists. But the present writer’s experience with new Muslims is that no discernable patterns exist which might shed light on the routes by which people awaken to the truth of Islam. This failure to discern patterns can only be described as lamentable, for were we to discern such patterns, they could immediately be exploited for d’awah purposes. The most we can say is that a clear majority of converts to Islam in Britain are from Catholic rather than Protestant or Jewish backgrounds. Within this group, in my experience the only clergy that convert are Jesuits; I am not aware of a single member of another religious order that has become Muslim.

Other than this very general and not terribly helpful observation, few patterns are discernable, and our missionary efforts, never very coordinated, flounder accordingly.

But whatever the processes, and we may be wise to accept traditional invocations of divine providence and guidance, which transcend and make irrelevant any sociological pattern-finding, this third group among British Muslims confronts certain sharp problems of self-definition. Egyptian, or Indonesian, or Indian Muslims becoming British do so slowly, perhaps over two or three generations. The identity problems can be sharp: in particular, there can be painful challenges to the hopes and expectations of parents. But the process is gentle in comparison with the abrupt jolt, which typically welcomes the convert. The signposts of the universe are not adjusted slowly, but all at once.

The initial and quite understandable response of many newcomers is to become an absolutist. Everything going on among pious Muslims is angelic; everything outside the circle of the faith is demonic. The appeal of this outlook lies in its simplicity. The newly rearranged landscape upon which the convert looks is seen in satisfying black and white terms of Them versus Us, good against evil.

This mindset is sometimes called “convertitis.” It is a common illness, which can make those who have caught it rather difficult to deal with. Fortunately, it almost always wears off. The only exceptions are those weak souls who imagine that the buzz of excitement caused by their absolutist, Manichean division of the world was a necessary part of Islamic piety, or even that it has some spiritual significance. Such people are often condemned to wander from faction to faction, always joining something new, in an attempt to regain the initial excitement engendered by their conversion.

Most new Muslims, however, soon see through this. A majority of people come to Islam for real spiritual or intellectual reasons, and will continue with their quest once they are inside Islam. Becoming Muslim is, after all, only the first step to felicity. Those individuals who adopt Islam because they need an identity will be condemned to wander the sectarian and factional hall of mirrors, constantly looking for the perfect group that will give them their desperately needed sense of specialness and superiority.

But actions are by intentions. A hundred years ago the founder of the Anglo-Muslim movement, Imam Abdallah Quilliam in Liverpool, was writing that those British people who convert for Allah and His Messenger would, by the grace of God, be rightly guided. Those who convert for any other reason are in serious spiritual trouble. Just as the namaz [salaat] prayer is invisibly invalidated if the niyya [intention] at its outset is not correct, similarly, Islam will not work for us unless we have entered it in faith, out of a sincere questing for God’s good pleasure. If things are not going right for us, if we find no delight in our prayers, if Ramadan simply makes us hungry, if we cannot seem to find the right mosque or the right company to take us forward, then we would do well to start by examining our intentions. Did we become Muslims only, and purely, to bring our souls to God? Other reasons: solidarity with the oppressed, admiration for Muslims we know, desire to join a group, the love of a woman – none of these are adequate foundations for our lives as Muslims deserving of Allah’s grace and guidance. Imam al-Qushayri says that spiritual aspirants are only deprived of attainment when they neglect the foundations. So we need to look within, and if necessary, renew our faith, following the Prophetic Sunnahh. Renew your iman, a celebrated hadith enjoins.

So what are we? Statistically, perhaps fifty thousand people. But once we have taken the plunge, and enjoyed the feel of Islam, and come to know through experience, rather than through reading books, that Islam is a way of sobriety, dignity, poise and rewarding spirituality, what exactly is our self-definition? When we meet family and friends who are not Muslim, how do we carry ourselves? Do we treat Islam as a great secret? A discreet eccentricity that we hope people will not be so crude as to mention? Or, on the contrary, something we wear on our sleeves, feeling that it is our duty constantly to steer the conversation back into sacred quarters, confronting people with Islam, that they might have no argument against us at the Resurrection?

More generally, what is our view of the wider world of unbelief, which, despite the breathless predictions of some of our co-religionists, continues to grow more powerful and more prosperous? How much of it can we affirm, and how much of it must we publicly or privately disown?

We can, of course, take the easy way out, and avoid engaging with these questions, by retreating from the mainstream of society, and consorting only with Muslims. But this is not so easy. We need to be employed, since this is pleasing to God; and we need to maintain good ties with our relations, since this is also enjoined in the Sunnah. Wa sahibhuma fi dunya m’arufan. Keep company with them both in the world in keeping with good custom, says the Qur’an to converts who have unbelieving parents. And the Sunnah explains that non-Muslim parents have significant rights over their Muslim children.

But more significantly even than this, to solve the problems thrown at us and at our identity by the real world outside the mosque gates, we need to engage regularly with non-Muslim society. But for this, there would be no effective d’awah. People do not hear the word of Islam, generally, by being shouted at by some demagogue at Speakers Corner, or by reading some angry little pamphlet pushed into their hand by a wandering distributor of tracts. They convert through personal experience of Muslims. And this takes place, overwhelmingly, at the workplace. Other social contexts are closed to us: the pub, the beach, the office party. But work is a prime environment for being noticed, and judged, as Muslims.

There is nothing remotely new in this. Islam has always spread primarily through social interactions connected with work. The early Muslims who conquered half the world did not set up soapboxes in the town squares of Alexandria, Cordoba or Fez, in the hope that Christians would flock to them and hear their preaching. They did business with the Christians; and their nobility and integrity of conduct won the Christians over. That is the model followed by Muslims, particularly the Sufis, down the ages; and it is the one that we must retain today, by interacting honourably and respectfully with non-Muslims in our places of work, as much as we can.

If this is clear, then my initial question still begs a response. What is a British Muslim? What manner of creature is he, or she? The public consensus has clear ideas about other British identities: British Anglican, British Jew, British Asian Muslim or Hindu: all these are recognised categories and a certain community of expected response governs interactions between the majority and these groups. The Anglo-Muslim, however, is not a generally recognised type.

My own belief is that the future prosperity of the Anglo-Muslim movement will be determined largely by our ability to answer this question of identity. It is a question mainly for converts, but which many of whose dimensions will come to apply also to second-generation immigrant Muslims here, who have their own questions to ask themselves and this culture about what, exactly, they are.

To frame a response, I think it is useful to step back a little, and consider the larger picture of Islamic history of which we form a very small part. I mentioned earlier that Islam usually spread through the utilisation of commercial opportunities as opportunities for d’awah. That picture is one of the most extraordinary success stories in religious history. Compare, for instance, the way in which the Muslim world was Islamised to the way in which the Americas were Christianised. Islamisation proceeded with remarkable gentleness, at the hands of Sufis and merchants. Christianisation used mass extermination of the native Americans, the baptism of uncomprehending survivors, and the baleful scrutiny by the Inquisition of any signs of backsliding. A more extreme contrast would be impossible to find.

Perhaps no less extraordinary than this contrast is its interesting concomitant: Christianisation brought Europeanisation. Islamisation did not bring Arabisation. The churches built by the Puritans or the Conquistadors in the New World were deliberate replicas of churches in Europe. The mosques constructed in the areas gradually won for Islam are endlessly diverse, and reflect and indeed celebrate local particularities. Christianity is a universal religion that has historically sought to impose a universal metropolitan culture. Islam is a universal religion that has consistently nurtured a particularist provincial culture. A church in Mexico City resembles a church in Salamanca. A mosque in Nigeria, or Istanbul, or Djakarta, resembles in key respects the patterns, now purified and uplifted by monotheism, of the indigenous regional patrimony.

No less remarkable is the ability of the Muslim liberators to accommodate those aspects of local, pre-Islamic tradition, which did not clash, absolutely with the truths of revelation. In entering new lands, Muslims were armed with the generous Koranic doctrine of Universal Apostleship; as the Koran says:

“To every nation there has been sent a guide.”

This conflicts sharply with the classical Christian view of salvation as hinging uniquely on one historical intervention of the divine in history: the salvific sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. Non-Christian religions were, in classical Christianity, seen as demonic and under the sign of original sin. But classical Islam has always been able and willing to see at least fragments of an authentic divine message in the faiths and cultures of non-Muslim peoples. If God has assured us that every nation has received divine guidance, then we can look with some favour on the Other. Hence, for instance, we find popular Muslim poets in India, such as Sayid Sultan, writing poems about Krishna as a Prophet. There is no final theological proof that he was one, but the assumption is nonetheless not in violation of the Koran.

Even among Muslim ulema, who had not been to India, we find interestingly positive appraisals of Hinduism. For instance, the great Baghdad theologian al-Shahrastani, in his Book of Religions and Sects, had access to enough reliable information about India to develop a very sophisticated theological reaction to Indian religion. He accepts that the higher forms of Hinduism are not polytheistic. He notes that that although the Hindus have no notion of prophecy, they do have what he calls ashab al-ruhaniyat: quasi-divine beings who call mankind to love the Real and to practice the virtues. He names Vishnu and Shiva as examples, and speaks positively of them. He focuses particularly on the veneration of celestial bodies: the sun, the moon, and the planets. The reason why he fixes on these practices is that they seem to situate Hinduism within a recognisably Koranic paradigm. The Koran mentions quite favourably a group known as the Sabeans, who were by the second century identified with various star-worshipping but still vaguely monotheistic sects in Mesopotamia. The Sabeans are tolerated in Islamic law, although they are less privileged than the Jews and Christians, a position reflected in the ruling in Shari’ah that a Muslim may not marry their women or eat their meat.

Shahrastani explicitly assimilates many Hindus to this category of Sabeans. They are to be tolerated as believers in One God; and will only be punished by God if, having been properly exposed to Islam, they reject it.

Another example is supplied by the great Muslim epic in China. Those who believe that Muslim communities can only flourish if they ghettoise themselves and refuse to interact with majority communities would do well to look at Chinese history. Many of the leading mandarins of Ming China were in fact Muslims. Wang Dai-Yu, for instance, who died in 1660, was a Muslim scholar who received the title of Master of the Four Religions because of his complete knowledge of China’s four religions: Islam, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Many of the leading admirals in the navy of the Ming Empire were practising Muslims.

In China, mosques look very like traditional Chinese garden-temples, except that there is a prayer hall without idols, and the calligraphy is Koranic. In some of the most beautiful, you will find, as you enter, the following words in Chinese inscribed on a tablet:

Sages have one mind and the same truth. In all parts of the world, sages arise who possess this uniformity of mind and truth. Muhammad, the Great Sage of the West, lived in Arabia long after Confucius, the Sage of China. Though separated by ages and countries, they had the same mind and Truth.

In these examples from India and China, we see a practical confirmation of Islam’s proclamation of itself as the final, and hence universal, message from God. In a hadith we learn:

“Other prophets were sent only to their own peoples, while I am sent to all mankind.”

It is not that the Koranic worldview affirms other religions as fully adequate paths to salvation. In fact, it clearly does not. But it allows the Muslim, as he encounters new worlds, to sift the wheat from the chaff in non-Muslim cultures, rejecting some things, to be sure, but maintaining others. In Islamic law, too, we find that shara’li man qablana, the revealed laws of those who came before us, can under certain conditions be accepted as valid legal precedent, if they are not demonstrably abrogated by an Islamic revealed source. And Islamic law also recognises the authority of urf, local customary law, so that a law or custom is acceptable, and may be carried over into an Islamic culture or jurisdiction, if no Islamic revealed principle is thereby violated. Hence, we find the administration of Islamic law varying from country to country. If a wife complains of receiving insufficient dower from her husband, the qadi [judge] will make reference to what is considered normal in their culture and social group, and adjudge accordingly.

All of these historical observations have, I hope, served to make quite a simple point: Islam, as a universal religion, in fact as the only legitimately universal religion, also makes room for the particularities of the peoples who come into it. The traditional Muslim world is a rainbow, an extraordinary patchwork of different cultures, all united by a common adherence to the doctrinal and moral patterns set down in Revelation. Put differently, Revelation supplies parameters, hudud, rather than a complete blueprint for the details of cultural life. Local mindsets are Islamised, but remain distinct.

This point is obvious to anyone who has studied Islamic thought or Islamic history. I reiterate it today only because some Muslims nowadays reject it fiercely. Those who come to Islam because they wish to draw closer to God have no problem with a multiform Islam radiating from a single revealed paradigmatic core. But those who come to Islam seeking an identity will find the multiplicity of traditional Muslim cultures intolerable. People with confused identities are attracted to totalitarian solutions. And today, many young Muslims feel so threatened by the diversity of calls on their allegiance, and by the sheer complexity of modernity, that the only form of Islam they can regard as legitimate is a totalitarian, monolithic one. That there should be four schools of Islamic law is to them unbearable. That Muslim cultures should legitimately differ is a species of blasphemy.

These young people, who haunt our mosques and shout at any sign of disagreement, are either ignorant of Muslim history, or dismiss it as a gigantic mistake. For them, the grace and rahma of Allah has for some reason been withheld from all but a tiny fraction of the Ummah. These people are the elect; and all disagreement with them is a blasphemy against God.

We cannot hope easily to cure such people. Simple proofs from our history or our scholarship will not suffice. What they need is a sense of security, and that, given the deteriorating conditions of both the Muslim world and of the ghettos in Western cities, may not come readily. For now, it is best to ignore their shouts and their melodramatic but always ill-fated activities. Our psychic problems are not theirs; and theirs can never be ours.

Islam is, and will continue to be, even amid the miserable globalisation of modern culture, a faith that celebrates diversity. Our thinking about our own position as British Muslims should focus on that fact, and quietly but firmly ignore the protests both of the totalitarian fringe, and of the importers of other regional cultures, such as that of Pakistan, which they regard as the only legitimate Islamic ideal. So far, however, we have been too busy restating the initial question with which this chapter opened, and defending its legitimacy, to propose any substantive answer. It is time now to attempt a brief sketch of what I construe our cultural position and prospects to be.

As I have tried to emphasise, Islam’s presence in Britain is not an Islamic problem. Islam is universal, and can operate everywhere. It is not an Islamic problem, but it may be a British problem. Europe, alone among the continents, does not have a longstanding tradition of plurality. In medieval Asia or Africa, in China or the Songhai Empire, or Egypt, or almost everywhere, one could usually practice one’s own religion in peace, whatever it happened to be. Only in Europe was there a consistent policy of enforcing religious uniformity. The reason for this lay of course in the Church’s theology: unless you had some part in Christ’s redemptive sacrifice, you were in the grip of original sin, and hence were an instrument of the devil. Medieval Catholics were even expected to believe that unbaptised infants would be tormented in Hell forever. Given that absolute view, it was only natural that Europe constantly strove for religious uniformity.

Britain, as part of the European world, has traditionally suffered the same totalitarian entailments in its history. Hence, although it has always been possible to be a Christian in a Muslim country, it was against the law to be a Muslim in Britain until 1812, with the passage through parliament of the Trinitarian Act. Nonetheless, three centuries before that, with Henry VIII’s Act of Supremacy, England cut itself off from formal submission to Vatican doctrines; and from that time a type of religious diversity has been, within severe constraints, at least a possibility. In fact, Britain was the first major European country to break with the medieval European tradition of absolute religious conformity. Perhaps it is because of this fact that exclusivist and xenophobic political manifestations are less common in Britain today than in most Continental countries. The National Front is a lunatic fringe party in the U.K., whereas its equivalents regularly scoop twenty percent of the votes in some regions of France, Belgium, Italy, Germany and Austria.

When England threw off the Papist yoke, opportunities arose for questioning ancient errors of understanding, which had been introduced into Christianity by the Church Fathers. These opportunities, however, were not properly grasped. The English Reformation was an attempt not to extirpate bid’ah in the Muslim sense, and return to the religion of Jesus of Nazareth, which had been distorted by the Church on the basis of the Hellenising agendas of the anonymous gospel authors, but to reform the doctrines and liturgy of the medieval church. Hence the reformers did not attempt to return to the simple monotheistic worship of the Apostles, but, in the Book of Common Prayer published in 1549, created a new vernacular liturgy based largely on medieval trinitarian and incarnationist precedents.

This English willingness to challenge tradition, however, was to have immense repercussions. Despite the lack of awareness of the instability of the gospel texts, as revealed by 20th century scholarship, for the first time Europeans, and notably Britons, were questioning the innovations of the Church magisterium, and attempting to grope back towards the faith revealed by God to His prophet Jesus, upon whom be peace.

One repercussion of the Reformation on our ancestors was the revival of a mystical tradition, whose most obvious manifestation was the Cambridge Platonists. English mysticism has usually been of a moderate type: one thinks of the Cloud of Unknowing, or Julian of Norwich. Extreme feats of asceticism, or extravagant and obsessive preoccupations with visions and miraculous happenings, have never been part of the English style of spirituality. The Cambridge Platonists drew on this moderate mysticism, but insisted that mystical inspiration must work hand in hand with rational judgement, and with sound doctrine derived from the Scriptures. This position, which influenced John Locke in particular, again evinces the English style of religion: profound but not verbose, rational but not rationalistic, and scriptural but not literalistic.

This very English approach to religion in due course led to serious questions being asked about the centrepiece of medieval Christian dogma: the Trinity. Milton, and later John Locke himself, are known to have held discreetly Unitarian beliefs, having been unable to find convincing justification for trinitarian and incarnationist views in the Scriptures. Locke’s close friend Newton was even more frank, writing of the vehement universal and lasting controversy about the Trinity … Let them make good sense of it who are able. For my part, I can make none.

The period around the Civil War threw up many Englishmen who were likewise concerned about the distortion of the teachings of Jesus by the Church; and the term Unitarian comes into being sometime during this period. But side by side with this tradition of dissent, and in often obscure ways interacting with it, went an even more revolutionary change: improved information about the Blessed Prophet of Islam.

The medievals chose to remain in ignorance about Islam. For them, Muslims were summah culpabilis: the sum of everything blameworthy. Knights from Britain had been at the forefront of the Crusades. The sack of the Muslim city of Lisbon in 1147 during which perhaps 150,000 Muslims were massacred, was largely the work of soldiers from Norfolk and Suffolk. But the same quest for simplicity and honesty which made the Reformation possible, also made of England the first country in Europe where medieval images of Islam could be challenged.

To an extent, which we cannot now determine, largely because an excess of sympathy with either Islam or Unitarianism could result in the dissenter being hung, drawn and quartered, new perspectives on Islam informed and reinforced the discreet Unitarian movement. This is implied by the title of Humphrey Prideaux’s hate-filled book of 1697, which he called, The true nature of Imposture, fully displayed in the life of Mahomet … offered to the consideration of the Deists of the present age.

Prideaux is clearly implying that some radical Dissenters were being drawn towards Islam, and he is writing his polemic to hold back that tide. But a far clearer insight into this process is supplied by another author, a certain Henry Stubbe.

Stubbe is the first European Christian to write favourably of Islam. In fact, he writes so favourably that we can only conclude that he had thrown off the heritage of Christianity, and privately adopted it. He was educated at Westminster and Oxford, and worked as a physician in Warwick, and as personal physician to King James. His biographer Anthony Wood described him as the most noted person of his age that these late times have produced. He died in 1676, after being accused of heresy, and spending some time in prison.

Stubbe was a child of the Civil War, and the spiritual chaos of the Interregnum prompted him to question the official tenets of his inherited Anglicanism. He was also a scholar, who had mastered Latin, Greek and Hebrew, and was fully conversant with the new critical scholarship on the Bible. Putting all these gifts together, and thanks to his friendship with Pococke, the Laudian Professor of Arabic in Oxford, he wrote a book, which for the nineteenth century would have been advanced, but which for the seventeenth is positively astounding. Just the title alone gives some hint of this:

“An Account of the Rise and Progress of Mahometanism, and a Vindication of him and his Religion from the Calumnies of the Christians.”

The book begins with a chapter demonstrating how the message of Jesus Christ has been perverted by the Church. He stresses the fact that Jesus, upon him be peace, had remained faithful to the Mosaic Law, and would have been horrified by the idea that later generations might use his name to justify the eating of pork, for instance. He says, of the Disciples:

They did never believe Christ to be the natural Son of God, by eternal Generation, or any tenet depending thereon, or prayed unto him, or believed the Holy Ghost, or the Trinity of persons in one Deity … The whole constitution of the primitive Church Government relates to the Jewish Synagogue, not to the Hierarchy. The presbyters were not Priests, but Laymen set apart to their office by imposition of hands . . . Nor was the name of Priest then ever heard of. He concludes that the sacraments of the Church, particularly baptism and the Eucharist, are pagan rituals introduced into Christianity several decades after Christ.

Stubbe then provides a chapter on a brief History of Arabia and the Saracens, followed by four on the Prophet. Chapter Eight is a vindication of the Prophet; chapter 9 is a vindication of Islam, and chapter 10 explains the moral necessity of the doctrine of Jihad.

His polemical intentions throughout are clear: he constantly shows Islam to be a purer and more rational form of religion than Christianity. Here is Stubbe, for instance, summahrising the Prophet’s teaching:

This is the sum of Mahometan Religion, on the one hand not clogging Men’s Faith with the necessity of believing a number of abstruse notions which they cannot comprehend, and which are often contrary to the dictates of Reason and common Sense; nor on the other hand loading them with the performance of many troublesome, expensive and superstitious Ceremonies, yet enjoining a due observance of Religious Worship, as the surest Method to keep Men in the bounds of their Duty both to God and Man.

And a little further on he adds:

Let us now lay aside our prejudices … Their Articles of Faith are few and plain, whereby they are preserved from Schisms and Heresies, for although they have great diversity of opinions in the explication of their Law, yet, agreeing in the fundamentals, their differences in opinion do not reach to that breach of Charity so common among the Christians, who thereby become a scandal to all other Religions in the world. Their Notions of God are great and noble, their opinions of the Future State are consonant to those of the Jews and Christians. As to the moral part of their Religion . . . we shall see that it is not inferior to that of the Christians. And lastly, their religious Duties are plainly laid down, which is the cause that they are duly observed, and are in themselves very rational.

He allocates an entire chapter to show the moral significance of the Jihad. This chapter is perhaps the most remarkable in the entire book, since it had long been a Christian ide fixe that Islam could only spread by the sword. He goes to some length, quoting travellers to the Ottoman Empire, to show that Christian minorities are usually protected better under Muslim rule than under the rule of their fellow Christians. He observes, for instance:

It is manifest that the Mahometans did propagate their Empire, but not their Religion, by force of arms . . . Christians and other Religions might peaceably subsist under their Protection . . . it is an assured truth, that the vulgar Greeks live in a better Condition under the Turk at present then they did under their own Emperors, when there were perpetual murders practised on their Princes, and tyranny over the People; but they are now secure from Injury if they pay their Taxes. And it is indeed more the Interest of the Princes & Nobles, than of the People, which at present keeps all Europe from submitting to the Turks.

Having sung Islam’s praises in these terms, Stubbe could hardly expect to publish his book. He published several others, but this one languished discreetly in manuscript form until 1911, when a group of Ottoman Muslims in London rescued it from obscurity and published it.

At least six manuscripts did, however, circulate in a more or less clandestine fashion. No fewer than three of them were preserved in the private library of the Revd John Disney, who at the beginning of the 19th century shocked the established church by publicly converting to Unitarianism. Some historians have suggested also that Gibbon was familiar with the work. For instance, Stubbe observes:

When Christianity became generally received, it introduced with it a general inundation of Barbarism and Ignorance, which over-run all places where it prevailed.

And Gibbon, several decades later, closes his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with the words:

I have described the triumph of barbarism and religion. Gibbon himself was known for his private scepticism about Trinitarian dogma.

Stubbe’s book, as I have said, is the work of a brave pioneer. But it is also a considered reflection upon the religious instabilities of the interregnum period, which generated it. It shows a sensitive and immensely cultivated English mind shaking off the complications of old dogma, using modern scholarship to reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, and of the Prophet Muhammad. Instead of something exotic, we see here a very English kind of religion expressing itself. Stubbe is spiritual, but not superstitious. He likes simplicity: the blank, Puritan wall of the mosque rather than the elaborate stone metaphors of Catholicism or of the dizzyingly high Anglicanism of Charles. He values wholesome morality that is pragmatic rather than irresponsibly idealistic: so he commends polygamy, and shows the moral dangers of legally imposed monogamy. He regards with distaste traditional Christian strictures on the flesh – a century beforehand, Englishmen had rejected the arguments for a celibate clergy and had firmly quashed monkery as both unnatural and parasitic. For Stubbe, the Prophet’s approach was in accord with nature: the love of woman is as natural as the love of God. The Prophet, like the great Hebrew patriarchs, showed that sacred and profane love can and indeed must go together.

A generation earlier, John Donne had suffered passions for both woman and for God; and found his religion finally unable to reconcile the two. His early poems are among some of the most touching, and also sensual, love poems in the English language. Later, as Dean of St Paul’s, he realised that he must renounce the flesh as the instrument of the Fall and the perpetrator of original sin. Hence his agonising, tragic spiritual career, renouncing the flesh to serve God, composing poems wrapped in his winding sheet: Donne’s great Muslim soul caught in the flawed dialectic of a theology that regarded spirit and body as eternally at war.

Stubbe is also drawing on a particularly English pragmatism in his treatment of the Jihad. Far from regarding the Islamic institution of the just war as a reproach, he extols it, contrasting it with what he regarded as the insipid and irresponsible pacifism of the unknown New Testament authors. Stubbe is an English gentleman of a generation that had known war, and knew that there are some injustices in the world that cannot be dissolved through passive suffering, through turning the other cheek. He had sided with Parliament during the civil war, holding, with Cromwell, that the righteous man may sometimes justly bear the burden of the sword. An admirer of Cromwell, he became an admirer of the Prophet. For him, the Prophet was not a foreign, exotic figure: his genial vision of human life under God exactly conformed to what a civilised Englishman of the seventeenth century thought necessary and proper. In Stubbe’s work, in other words, we find a vindication of Muhammad as an English prophet.

There is more that can be said about the convergence of Islamic moderation and good sense with the English temper. Tragically, the rise of Dissent in England coincided also with the rise of nationalism and xenophobia, which reached its intoxicating heights with the empire of Queen Victoria and the Edwardians. Under such Anglocentric and frankly racist banners, sympathy with Islam became once more a receding possibility. But there were exceptions. Perhaps the most celebrated was that most English of intellectuals, Carlyle. Carlyle, like Stubbe two centuries before, was a free spirit, unhampered either by obsessions with Trinity, or modern delusions about the ability of material progress to secure human happiness.

On May the 8th 1840, in a stuffy lecture room in Portman Square, London’s intellectual elite were hearing Carlyle speak about the Prophet. They had anticipated the usual invective; and they were astonished to watch him holding up the Prophet as a heroic, adventurous figure, whose sacrifices had brought a natural theism to his people, and had much to teach a materialistic Victorian England. The climax came when the lecturer cried:

Benthamee Utility, virtue by Profit and Loss; reducing this God’s world to a dead brute Steam-engine . . . if you ask me which gives, Mahomet or they, the beggarlier and falser view of Man and his Destinies in this Universe, I will answer, it is not Mahomet.

Stung to the quick, John Stuart Mill leaped to his feet, and cried out:

No!

Carlyle was lecturing on The Hero as Prophet; and again we see the English realism towards the use of force, which had made possible the creation of the British Empire, inspiring a more positive appreciation of the Prophet of Islam. The great Christian blindness towards Islam has always been the belief that there can be only one type of perfection, namely the pacifist Jesus, who taught men to turn the other cheek, and who said, Resist not him that is evil. For minds nurtured on such an image, the hero-Prophet is a difficult figure to comprehend. In the Far East, of course, there is no such mental block. Spirituality and the cultivation of the martial arts there went hand in hand. The love of women was also seen as a necessary part of this ethos. The samurai tradition in particular, of the righteous swordsman, a meditator who was also a great lover of women, ensures that a Japanese, for instance, will have few difficulties with the specific genius and greatness of the Prophet of Islam. But for Christians, there is no such model, although knightly ethics in the early Middle Ages, learned from Muslims in Spain and Palestine, dimly suggested it. But even for the Crusader knights, the ideal of celibacy was often accepted: the Knights Templar, for instance, a monastic warrior order, who were influenced enough by Islam to comprehend the importance of a sacred warriorhood, but who never quite got the point about celibacy.

With Carlyle, the Hero as Prophet, or the Prophet as Hero, reveals itself as a credible type for the English mind. And Carlyle’s insistence on the moral exaltation of the Prophet who transcended pacifism to take up arms to fight for his people was understood by at least one later British writer: George Bernard Shaw. For Shaw, as for Carlyle, there was no doubt about the correct answer to Hamlet’s question.

Whether it is nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them.

Edmund Burke had already pointed out that “for evil to triumph, it is enough that good men do nothing.” Shaw, like Carlyle, recognised that this principle calls into question the Gospel ethic of passivity in the face of suffering and injustice. Let me read to you a few words from Hesketh Pearson’s biography of the generally post-Christian Shaw:

For many years (this was 1927), Shaw had been meditating a play on a prophet. The militant saint was a type more congenial to his nature than any other, a type he thoroughly sympathised with and could therefore portray with unfailing insight. In all history the one person who exactly answered his requirements, who would have made the perfect Shavian hero, was Mahomet.

In his diary for 1913, Shaw himself wrote:

I had long desired to dramatise the life of Mahomet. But the possibility of a protest from the Turkish Ambassador – or the fear of it – causing the Lord Chamberlain to refuse to license such a play, deterred me. And so, as Pearson records, he wrote Saint Joan instead.

Perhaps we can close this brief parenthetic summary of the convergence between British martial theory and traditions and Islam, with a final insight; this time offered by Colin Morris, former head of the BBC in Northern Ireland:

The false prophet is a moralist, he tells the world how things ought to be; the real prophet is a realist, he tells the world how things really are.

Let us try to sum up the above arguments. Firstly, Islam is a universal religion. Despite its origins in 7th century Arabia, it works everywhere, and this is itself a sign of its miraculous and divine origin. Secondly, the British Isles have for several hundred years been the home of individuals whose religious and moral temper is very close to that of Islam. To move from Christianity to Islam is hence, for an English man or woman, not the giant leap that outsiders might assume. It is, rather, simply the logical next step in the epic story of our people. Christianity, formerly a Greek mystery religion advocating a moral code against the natural law, is in fact foreign to our national temperament. It is an exotic creed, and it is now fatally compromised by its positive view of secular modernity. Islam, once we have become familiar with it, and settled into it comfortably, is the most suitable faith for the British. Its values are our values. Its moderate, undemonstrative style of piety, still waters running deep; its insistence on modesty and a certain reserve, and its insistence on common sense and on pragmatism, combine to furnish the most natural and easy religious option for our people.

I should close by saying that nothing in what I have said is intended in a jingoistic sense. That the British have a convergence with Islam is to the credit of our people, certainly. But I am not commending any smug ethnocentrism; precisely because Islam itself came to abolish a tribal mentality. Islam is the true consanguinity of believers in the One True God, the common bond of those who seek to remain focussed on the divine Source of our being in this diffuse, ignorant and tragic age. But it is generous and inclusive. It allows us to celebrate our particularity, the genius of our heritage; within, rather than in tension with, the greater and more lasting fellowship of faith.

[Currently, he is a Research Fellow at the University of Oxford. He studied at the universities of Cambridge and al-Azhar, Egypt, and has also translated a number of Islamic works including Imam al-Bayhaqi's The Seventy Seven Branches of Faith (Quilliam Press, 1992).]

OnIslam.net, 12 June 2011

{Unquestionably, by the remembrance of Allah hearts are assured.} (Ar-Ra’d 13: 28)

When we try to figure out why we are so often bothered, why we feel disturbed internally, or why we feel sad – we need to go back to our hearts.

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said:

“Do not talk too much without remembering and mentioning Allah (God), for too much talk without mentioning Allah hardens the heart, and the person farthest from Allah is the one with a hard heart.” (At-Tirmidhi)

Subhan Allah (glory to Allah) – our heart hardens when we do not remember God. The heart’s nourishment is the remembrance of God, and when we fail to remember Him, it is no wonder that we feel down for no apparent reason.

The Muslim Scholar, Ibn al-Qayyim stated: “In the heart there is hardness which can only be softened by remembrance of God. So the slave must treat the hardness of his heart with the remembrance of God.” For those of us who feel that Islam itself has become heavy upon us, look at the answer the Prophet Muhammad gave to a man who said:

“O Messenger of Allah, the laws of Islam seem to be a lot for me (to remember), so tell me something that I should stick to.” The Prophet replied: “Let your tongue never cease to be moist with the remembrance of Allah.” (At-Tirmidhi)

And what is the effect of this remembrance? It acts as a polish for the hearts from its rust, and causes us to be remembered by God the Most High. God tells us in this amazing hadith qudsi:

“I am to my servant as he expects of Me, I am with him when he remembers Me. If he remembers Me in his heart, I remember him to Myself, and if he remembers me in an assembly, I mention him in an assembly better than his…” (Al-Bukhari and Muslim)

So What Exactly Is Remembrance?

Remembrance of God includes specified dhikr (such as saying subhan’Allah, la ilaha ila Allah, etc.), but it is also anything you do related to God or mentioning God. Anything that you do with God in mind – whether it is thinking well of Him, giving charity with the specific intention of doing it for His sake, making du’a’ (supplication) and so on is within the realm of dhikr.

Ways of Dhikr

Let’s get more specific. What are the things we can do that are included indhikr?

Intention

We need to immerse ourselves in good works. That said, when we do good, we must always try to be conscious of the fact that we are doing it for God. Talk to God as you are doing the good deed, ask Him to accept it from you, and to enable you to do more good. Add intentions – such as doing it for God, following the Sunnah (tradition of the Prophet), helping fellow Muslims and people – the more you remember God, the more He will remember you. And inevitably you will feel that in your life.

Remember, when we do good, we need to do good with the heart. We probably do certain things anyway – such as giving charity here and there, making du`a (supplicating to God)’ and so on. But we do them without heart, without any feeling or emotion that this is for God. We need to do these things knowing that in them is a cure for what is in our hearts, and that when we feel down, we go to these things – whether it is helping out others or pleading with God in our sujud (prostration).

Turning to Him

“Whoever comes to me walking, I go to him at speed.” (Al Bukhari)

It is impossible for you to return to God and He rejects you. Look at all these hadiths on those who return to Him:

”Allah is happier when a servant of His repents to Him than a man who was on his camel in a waterless desert and the camel escaped from him with his food and water. When he has lost hope of finding it, he retired to a tree and lied down under its shade. As he was there, the camel suddenly appeared in front of him. He took hold of its halter and said in his state of excessive joy: ‘O my Lord You are my servant and I am Your Lord.’ He uttered this erroneous statement as a result of his being overjoyed.” (Muslim)

God says in a beautiful hadith qudsi (sacred hadith):

“O son of Adam, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me, I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O son of Adam, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky and were you then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O son of Adam, were you to come to Me with sins nearly as great as the earth and were you then to face Me, ascribing no partner to Me, I would bring you forgiveness as great.” (At Tirmidhi)

“Remember Allah during times of ease and He will remember you during times of difficulty” (At Tirmidhi)

Thanking Him

{And [remember] when your Lord proclaimed, ‘If you are grateful, I will surely increase you [in favor]…} (Ibrahim 14: 7)

Thanking is recognizing and appreciating. The more you thank, the more you will see. The more you see how God has blessed you, you see His presence in your life and this in itself should create a certain soothing of the heart. By thanking God, you are recognizing He is al-Wahhab (the Giver of gifts), ar-Razzaq (the Sustainer), al-Wadud (the Most Loving) and insha’Allah (God willingly) you will be able to recognize how He manifests His attributes and Names in your life. Take the time out every evening to thank God for the blessings in your day – not only will you be overwhelmed because you will never be able to enumerate them, but you will truly recognize God’s presence in your life.

Daily Word

{And remember your Lord much and exalt [Him with praise] in the evening and the morning.} (Al-Imran 3: 41)

We know that the Prophet Muhammad always remembered God – this is why we have du’a’ (supplication) and dhikr (remembrance) for almost everything we do: from entering into the restroom to what to say when someone compliments us. The Prophet also had specific remembrances that he said every morning and every evening. Each of these words and phrases are precious – not only do they polish your heart and cleanse them of their disturbances, but the Prophet would say them for protection, and that in itself should give us peace of mind and heart. Yaqeen (certainty) is so important – if the Prophet has told us that saying certain words will have an effect – we should have no doubt.

We should take the time to understand these words, so that they truly enter our hearts.

May Allah make us of people {who remember Allah while standing or sitting or [lying] on their sides and give thought to the creation of the heavens and the earth, [saying], “Our Lord, You did not create this aimlessly; exalted are You [above such a thing]; then protect us from the punishment of the Fire.} (Al-Imran 3: 191)

Source: Suhaib Webb.com - http://www.suhaibwebb.com

http://www.onislam.net/english/reading-islam/living-islam/growing-in-faith/452626-remember-me-i-will-remember-you.html

Kristiane Backer, ex MTV presenter

first published in

www.qantara.de, 6 September 2010

My first Ramadan, when I was 30 years old and a relatively new Muslim, was a bit of a disaster. Since becoming a Muslim, I’d had an eventful year. I had been an award-winning television presenter on MTV Europe and host of the youth show Bravo TV in Germany. But my conversion had sparked a negative press campaign in the German media which led to me losing my presenting work almost overnight.
The many inner changes I underwent on my way to becoming a Muslim had led to my outer world cracking up and falling apart. In retrospect, having been stripped of everything I had identified with – my relationship, which ironically had been my introduction to Islam, had also ended – was a blessing in disguise. It allowed me to concentrate on what really mattered: my connection with God, learning about faith, and beginning to reorient my life and, most importantly, myself.
The evening before my first Ramadan, I made the mistake of going out with friends and drinking a glass or two of champagne. The next day I lay in bed dehydrated and with a pounding headache. Finally, at three o’clock in the afternoon, I gave up, saying to myself, Ramadan is not for me. May God forgive me.

A test of faith, strength and character

The following year I landed a new job, hosting a daily cultural programme on NBC Europe. Ramadan coincided with the Christmas holidays. In order to have a Christmas break, we needed to produce twice the amount of programs a day, which meant recording links and voice-overs from morning to night. I thought I would never manage because I always drink water in between takes.
God made my mouth water by itself and I flew through the fasts. Of course it helped that by then I had given up alcohol. Many colleagues complimented me on how radiant and pure I looked. It was actually a wonderful experience. Since then I have fasted every single Ramadan for the last 13 years. In fact I look forward to it although I am always slightly worried about the long days coming up. But thankfully, God has endowed me with strength every time.
Last Ramadan I was on a filming assignment in Germany for the Travel Channel when I received numerous messages via e-mail, text, Twitter and Facebook from around the world wishing me a blessed Ramadan. I thought “I can’t possibly be a wimp and use the excuse of travelling to avoid fasting”. I asked the local hotel to prepare my breakfast at night so that I could have suhur, i.e. a pre-dawn breakfast before the daylight fast, just after 3 a.m. and drink as much water as I could.
I went back to bed and was ready at 9 a.m. to film all day. I only began to suffer from a headache in the afternoon, but luckily we were finished by then and I could rest in a comfortable seat at Frankfurt airport before boarding the plane. I opened my fast with a packed lunch just before landing and was lucky enough to be welcomed home by my girlfriends with a dinner.
I find the first day of Ramadan to be the most difficult. From then on, my body gets used to the new regime and I don’t even really feel hungry; I just get tired earlier and slightly exhausted towards the end of the month. I enjoy the feeling of light headedness and slight weakness and feel fasting helps me tremendously to reign in my ego and feel close to God, to others who fast, and to the needy.

Ramadan miracles

According to one hadith, “the gates of hell are closed and the doors of Paradise open” for those who fast during Ramadan. I have felt this to be true and have sometimes experienced what I call Ramadan miracles.

I once suffered a slipped disk just before Ramadan. It was painful, but the worst thing of all was being told by my doctor that I could forget my plans to go on the Hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca.
Thanks to intense physiotherapy and prayers, my disk healed without surgery during the month of Ramadan. A surgeon friend attested that this was indeed a healing miracle as mine had been a very bad case. So praise to God, I did go on the Hajj!
Of course work doesn’t stop during Ramadan in London so it can be a bit tough when dealing with non-fasting people, but that is part of the challenge. I don’t socialize or go to the movies unnecessarily. Instead I spend more time reading the Qur’an or religious books, praying and invoking God. And I try my best to fast from anger, impatience, gossip or any other negativity.
The community spirit of Ramadan

This year I may participate in the “Fast and Feed” project where Muslims invite homeless people to the mosque to share food and talk about the meaning of Ramadan. I may also attend an iftar, the Ramadan evening meal, with MPs and policy makers.
But what I really enjoy is breaking fast at my Arabic girl friend’s house; she often invites ladies round for iftar. This gives me a taste of love and warmth, the celebratory community spirit of Ramadan, and the sense of sharing, which we otherwise miss in the West, especially when one does not have a Muslim family, is single and works.

One time I was in Egypt the day before Ramadan started. I was moved to tears when I saw thousands of people in the main square near Saydna Hussain looking for the moon and crying out: Ramadan Karim, beautiful moon, where are you. When they saw it, it was like a party, a joyous community event.

Even in London I feel Ramadan is a very special and blessed time. I believe this annual spiritual discipline is a key to transforming and bettering myself as a human being – of course there is still a long way to go. I take stock of my life, think about what I want to improve, actively work on forgiving people who may have hurt me and dissolving any resentment in my heart, and pray to God for forgiveness.

A higher state

Through fasting in Ramadan I feel closer to God, clearer, more aware and more sensitive. Even my sense of taste is heightened. It is as if I am in a different, higher state. I always want this sensation to last as long as possible, but somehow everyday life sets in again once Ramadan is over.
I enjoy the communal Eid prayer tremendously; it is so beautiful and melodic and one feels truly united with fellow Muslims in faith and in God. I also feel an unparalleled joy that I am strong and in control of my body and my impulses – and not the other way around. May this strength we gain from fasting last for the rest of the year.

Kristiane Backer

http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php?pwcn=741_94&wc_c=478&wc_id=1089

Raw with grief, in a voice steady but tight with emotion, his appeal for calm on Wednesday was a beacon of hope amid the tumult and carnage of a horribly dark week for Britain.

Hours before he spoke, Tariq Jahan had lost his 21-year-old son Haroon, murdered in the Winson Green area of Birmingham by thugs who drove at him in their car in what appears to have been a racist attack.

Faith: Tariq Jahan is embraced by members of his community after Friday prayers at the Dudley Road mosque in Birmingham

No one could be more aware of the simmering racial tensions between Asians in his neighbourhood and those of Caribbean ancestry.

Yet Mr Jahan had the dignity, the compassion and the common sense to demand an end to the violence that had shattered his life. ‘Blacks, Asians, whites — we all live in the same community,’ he said. ‘Why do we have to kill one another? Why are we doing this? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, calm down and go home — please.’
There was no mention of feral rats or of the sickness in our society. There were no calls for revenge. If he had screamed for retribution, if he had chosen the emotional occasion of his son’s death to denounce whole swathes of the community, there could easily have been an unspeakable outbreak of racial violence.
Instead, Mr Jahan made an open and straightforward declaration of his faith. ‘I’m a Muslim. I believe in divine fate and destiny, and it was his destiny and his fate, and now he’s gone,’ he said. ‘And may Allah forgive him and bless him.’

It was a solemn, peaceful message that will make everyone who stereotypes Muslims as terrorists and fanatics feel ashamed of themselves. Tariq Jahan is a deeply impressive man, and like the great majority of Muslims in this country, he is hard-working, clean-living, guided in his conduct by religious belief, and unshakeable in his devotion to the ideal of family life.

Father: Tariq Jahan holds a picture of his son Haroon as a schoolboy

In London at the height of the riots, we saw another clear expression of faith when more than 700 Sikhs lined up to defend their temples from potential arsonists in the suburb of Southall to the west of the capital. The Sikhs have a proud tradition of valuing each human being, male and female, as equal in God’s eyes. Theirs is a religion in which family is paramount.

We do not know the size of the bank balance of those Sikhs, any more than we know how wealthy are the Muslims of Winson Green. From looking at the streets and houses where they live, and the shops where they buy their food, it is safe to assume that they are not rich.

It is probable, too, that their teenagers would like to have large-screen televisions and fashionable trainers and BlackBerries.

But you can pretty well guarantee they would not have been among the looters.

Instilled into them would have been the importance of working hard for money to buy these things, rather than hurling a brick through a shop window to help themselves.

Paramount among their moral values would be concern for others, a sense of altruism that could not be more different from the sense of self-entitlement that been so grotesquely on display this week. The reason for this is that they are from religious families.

All the main religions are unshakeable when it comes to self-evident truths about right and wrong; about stealing, harming others, coveting goods, instant gratification and so on.

‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the more often and the more seriously reflection concentrates upon them: the starry heaven above me and the moral law within me’.

So wrote the greatest philosopher of the 18th-century, Immanuel Kant, in 1788 in his work of moral philosophy, the Critique of Practical Reason.

It was in 1991 — and the memory is still vivid — that I interviewed Immanuel Jakobovits on his retirement as Chief Rabbi in Britain, and he told me that it was on the basis of Kant’s quotation that his father had named him Immanuel.

During that interview, Rabbi Jakobovits — who died in Israel in 1999 and was said to have been Margaret Thatcher’s favourite clergyman — stressed the absolute centrality of family life to our learning the paths of virtue.

His parting message as he retired, not only to the Jewish community but also to the British people, was that marriage and family life need to be learned; that if necessary we should have classes for young people, teaching them the importance of family life, of how to bring up children, how to discipline them kindly but firmly, and how to instil the sense of that moral law within.

Without that sense, human life falls into absolute chaos, anarchy, and unpleasantness. Yet in our secular age — an age in which, tragically, the Church of England appears to do little more than wring its hands as congregation numbers plummet — this moral bedrock is being steadily eroded.

Today, we live in a society where religion is something for which apologies must be made.

A Christian woman working for British Airways who wears a cross round her neck is asked to remove it for fear of offending other people. A nurse who prays with a patient in hospital is committing an almost criminal act. Catholic adoption agencies which disapprove of gay adoptive parents on religious grounds have their licences taken away.

And all the while, our governing classes and academics and teachers chip away at the fundamental truths of the great religions — truths that have stood the test of time for thousands of years — in their arrogant certainty that there are no moral absolutes and that the human race can make up the rules as it goes along.

At the nuttier fringes of the chattering classes there are those, like the geneticist Richard Dawkins and the journalist Christopher Hitchens, who actually believe that religion is a mental poison responsible for all the evils in the world.

The misguided and vacuous thinking of these so-called intellectuals is compounded by a sordid celebrity-culture which holds up role models who should be despised rather than admired.

Amy Winehouse, a pathetic drug-infused alcoholic girl of very modest talent, is held up as great diva; and when she died, her house was surrounded by fans, laying empty vodka bottles as a ‘tribute’.

Jade Goody, the foul-mouthed, racist daughter of a pimp and drug-pusher who died of a heroin overdose in the lavatory of a Kentucky Fried Chicken, appears on Big Brother and becomes a heroine despite — or because of — her ignorance and tendency to strip off in front of the cameras.

Fornicating footballers, who swagger through public lives dripping with gold and jewellery, parading the vulgar acquisitions of their vast wealth — whether it is fleets of fast cars or call girls, are venerated by generations who have never so much as heard of the very real heroes of history.

In the absence of a moral law, we see a decline in standards in all walks of life. Bankers continue to fill their boots even after they have brought the country to the brink of bankruptcy; politicians fiddle expenses and see no reason to resign when they have committed wrongdoings; town hall fat cats pay themselves ever greater salaries as Britain slips further into debt.

By contrast, every day, Muslim men like Tariq Jahan go to the mosque and fall prostrate before the mystery which Immanuel Kant knew lay at the heart of existence.

The Sikhs likewise build temples because they feel awe at the starry heavens above them and the moral laws within their hearts — laws which all men, women and children can recognise when they reflect deeply and in silence.

The catalogue of the great men and women in the past hundred or so years — from Leo Tolstoy in Russia, to Mahatma Gandhi in India, from the Lutheran student Sophie Scholl executed by guillotine aged 22 for her part in a resistance movement to Hitler, to Archbishop Tutu presiding over the peaceful Truth and Reconciliation committees in South Africa — has been the same.

All these people have held fast to values which they believed ultimately to be eternal and God-given.

Go back 100 years to Winson Green, to Southall, and to Wolverhampton, and to all the other scenes of urban violence scarred by horror in the last week.

The years before and after World War I were marked, for the people who lived in these places, by very great economic hardship.

The poverty endured by the inhabitants of Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham and the poor parts of London led to great programmes of political and social reform.

But the crime rate among the people themselves was much, much lower than it is today. All sorts of reasons have been adduced for this. But there is surely a very simple one that towers over all the others.

In each of these places, there were chapels, often Methodist, which kept alive the human capacity for awe at the starry heavens above and the moral law within.

Not everyone attended the services, though thousands did. Nearly everyone, however, in these communities, whether church or chapel, subscribed to the idea that Good and Evil are given things, not human inventions.

The Jewish religion of Lord Jakobovits told the story of the Law of God being written in stone on the mountain-side of Sinai, and delivered to Moses. Some people choose to believe this happened literally as an historical event.

In a memorable episode of Radio 4’s The Moral Maze, over 20 years ago, historian David Starkey (an atheist) ribbed Rabbi Hugo Gryn about this.

The Rabbi took the teasing in good part of course, but as someone who as a child had been interned in Auschwitz, he knew what a society could be like if it embraced the motto of Milton’s Satan, ‘Evil be thou my Good’.

He knew that whatever the historical truth about the Sinai story in the Book of Exodus, there was an absolute truth in the words Thou Shalt Do No Murder, Thou Shall Not Steal, and Honour thy Father and thy Mother. He’d lived in a country ruled over by a satanic Nazi dictator who thought you could disregard moral truth.

I suspect that when time passes and we look back on this week, it is the religious sincerity of Tariq Jahan that we shall remember. All of us — Muslims, Sikhs, Jews, Hindus, Christians — have a rich religious inheritance.

At the core of this inheritance is a sense of right and wrong. And in all these religions, the school where we learn of right and wrong is the family. Muslims, Jews, Sikhs and Hindus have all, very noticeably, retained this twin strand of family structure and ethical teaching.

Faith in Christianity itself began to unravel long ago, and the majority of those whose forebears were Christian are now completely secular. They would not even recognise simple Bible stories.

The events of the past week have shown the enormous value of a living religious faith.

Not only was Tariq Jahan more impressive than any of the commentators or politicians who spouted on the airwaves this week. He was more human.

By his religious response to his son’s death, he humanised not only the dreadful and immediate tragedy. He showed us that without a religion we are all less than human.

(One reader commented: “This article has just moved me to tears. I will never tarnish all Muslims with the same brush again. I feel so ashamed that I have done so in the past. God Bless all those decent, God fearing folk. I am humbled.”  - LF, London, 13/8/2011 10:30)

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2025393/UK-riots-Haroon-Jahan-death-Legacy-society-believes-nothing.html#ixzz1UyndVyE6

Tariq Jahan has been hailed as a voice of reason. Only hours after holding his dead son in his arms, the grief-stricken father has provided hope for a peaceful resolution to a most horrific tragedy. His voice, full of pain, urged his community to stay away from any reprisal attacks for the killing of his son Haroon and two fellow young Muslim men.

If Jahan’s is a voice of reason then his message is of patriotism. Jahan is of my late father’s generation. They belonged to the first generation of Pakistani Muslims who migrated in large numbers during the 60s, 70s and 80s to find economic prosperity in the land of their once masters. For many, the plan had been to seek the riches that they could only dream of in the villages back home and return as made men to a life of bliss.

Of course, it never quite worked out like this. While in Britain, these men saw beyond the short-term gain that a return to village life with relatively vast sums of money would bring them and their expanding families. Britain offered stable jobs, relative prosperity, healthcare and the freedom as a minority to practice their faith openly by allowing the building of mosques and community centres. Their children had a chance to gain education and attend universities – a dream for many village and even city folk in Pakistan.

My father also told me that subconsciously there was also a great appreciation of the law and order that Britain had. It was a far cry from the endemic police corruption and unpredictability that is a hallmark of a Pakistani villager’s life.

Having seen both sides of the proverbial coin these men are fiercely protective of their adopted homeland. They cherish the stability and the peaceful lives they are able to live. It makes them proud to be British. In some instances, more so than their children who are born here. It is noticeable that the actions of some hardline young Muslims who turn to fundamentalist teachings are almost always at odds with the views of their parents, many of whom have seen less fortunate times.

I experienced this personally when as a conflicted teenager I adopted a deeply anti-British stance, much to the disapproval of my father. My dad would often say: “You’ll realise one day how fortunate you are that this is your home.”

It has taken the experience of a postgraduate education and the company of classically trained religious teachers to make me realise my fortune in being born and bred in Britain. A statement from one of my teachers that is found in classical Islam is relevant here:

“Anyone who wishes ill for his leader and his society is a fool as your fate is never inseparable from theirs.”

Perhaps Haroon Jahan, Abdul Musavir and Shazad Ali also knew this – and they paid for such allegiance with their lives.

In responding to the deaths of the three young men, Jahan was solemn in suggesting: “A day from now, maybe two days from now, the whole world will forget and nobody will care.”

If anything, the deaths of Haroon and his friends should live as a reminder that despite the claims of some, the vast majority of Muslims in Britain also care about their country and their communities. So much so that their sons gave their lives to protect them.

By Khurram Murad

www.islamicity.org

¹ Read the Quran with no purpose other than to receive guidance from your Lord, to come nearer to Him, and to seek His good pleasure.
What you get from the Quran depends on what you come to it for. Your intention and purpose is crucial. Certainly the Quran has come to guide you, but you may also go astray by reading it should you approach it for impure purposes and wrong motives.

Thereby He causes many to go astray, and thereby He guides many; but thereby He causes none to go astray save the iniquitous (al-Baqarah 2:26).

The Quran is the word of God; it therefore requires as much exclusiveness of intention and purity of purpose as does worshipping and serving Him.

² Do not read it merely for intellectual pursuit and pleasure; even though you must apply your intellect to the full to the task of understanding the Quran. So many people spend a lifetime in studying the language, style, history, geography, law and ethics of the Quran, and yet their lives remain untouched by its message. The Quran frequently refers to people who have knowledge but do not derive benefit from it.

³ Nor should you come to the Quran with the fixed intention of finding support for your own views, notions and doctrines. For if you do, you may, then, hear an echo of your own voice in it, and not that of God. It is this approach to the understanding and interpreting of the Quran that the Prophet, blessings and peace be on him, has condemned.

⁴ Nothing could be more unfortunate than to use the Quran to secure, for your own person, worldly things such as name, esteem, status, fame or money. You may get them, but you will surely be bartering away a priceless treasure for nothing, indeed even incurring eternal loss and ruin.

⁵ [Do not limit the Quran to just healing of bodily afflictions, psychological peace, and deliverance from poverty.] You may also derive other lesser benefits, from the words of the Quran, such as the healing of bodily afflictions, psychological peace, and deliverance from poverty. There is no bar to having these, but, again, they should not become the be all and end all that you seek from the Quran nor the goal of your niyyah (intention). For in achieving these you may lose a whole ocean that could have been yours.

Reading every single letter of the Quran carries with it great rewards. ⁶ Remain conscious of all the rewards, and make them an objective of your intention, for they will provide you with those strong incentives required to spend your life with the Quran. But never forget that on understanding, absorbing and following the Quran you have been promised much larger rewards, in this-world and in the Hereafter. It is these which you must aim for.

Nothing brings you nearer to your Lord than the moments you spend with His words. For it is only in the Quran that you enjoy the unique blessing of hearing His ‘voice’ addressing you. ⁷ So let an intense desire to come nearer to God be your one overwhelming motive while reading the Quran.

Finally, ⁸ your intention should be directed to seeking only your Lord’s pleasure by devoting your heart, mind and time to the guidance that He has sent to you. That is what you barter when you surrender yourself to God: ‘There is such as would sell his own self in order to please God’ (al-Baqarah 2:207).

Purpose and intentions are like the soul of a body, the inner capability of a seed. Many seeds look alike, but as they begin to grow and bear fruits, their differences become manifest. The purer and higher the motive, the greater the value and yield of your efforts.

So always ask yourself: Why am I reading the Quran? This may be the best way to ensure the purity and exclusiveness of purpose and intention.

Excerpted and adapted from the book “Way to the Quran” by Khurram Murad

http://www.islamicity.com/articles/Articles.asp?ref=IC1012-4374

Dear Anders Behring Breivik,

A lot of the friends I met at Utoya are dead and you are the perpetrator. You are the man who, by coincidence, didn’t kill me. I was lucky.

You might think that you have won. You might think that you have ruined something for the Labour Party and for people around the world who stand for a multicultural society by killing my friends and fellow party members.

Know that you have failed.

You haven’t only made the world stand together, you have set our souls on fire and should know we’ve never stood together as we do now. You talk about yourself as a hero, a knight. You are no hero. But you have created heroes. On Utoya that warm day in July, you created some of the greatest heroes the world has seen, you unified people from all over the world. Black and white, man and woman, red and blue, Christians and Muslims.

You made your victims martyrs, immortals, and you have shown the world that when one person can show as much hatred as you have done, imagine how much love we can show when we stand together? People who I thought hated me have given me hugs on the street, people I haven’t been in contact with for years have written 300 to 400 words about how much it means to them that I survived. What can you say about that? Have you broken anything? You have united us.

You have killed my friends, but you haven’t killed our cause, our opinions, our right to express ourselves. Muslim women got hugs of sympathy from random Norwegian women on the street and your goal was to protect Europe from Islam? Your actions worked against its purpose.

You deserve no thanks; your plan failed. A lot of people are angry, you are the most hated person in Norway. I am not angry. I do not fear you. You can’t touch us, we are greater than you. We do not answer evil with evil, as you wanted it. We fight evil with good. And we win.

~ Ivar Benjamin Østebø, aged 16.

Originally posted by Ivar Benjamin Østebø on his Facebook profile in Norwegian, translation by The Independent

- The Guardian – Saturday 6th August 2011

Donald Reeves

Europe needs a grassroots movement to tackle the threat of Islamophobia

“We must expose this racist ideology drawn from nazism, in which Muslims have now become the new Jews of Europe…”

Following the events of 22 July in Norway – when Anders Behring Breivik, driven by a hatred of Islam, killed 77 people – there have been ample expressions of outrage, analysis and commentary, but little indication as to what must to be done to prevent Islamophobia spreading.

Before 22 July, the Soul of Europe, together with the Soest Forum of Religions and Cultures (a German Muslim archive institute), had begun planning how to interrupt, undermine and dismantle Islamophobia. Beginning in France, Germany, UK and Scandinavia, we are establishing a coalition across Europe of institutions and organisations which are already engaged with Muslim communities. Our aim is to deepen, broaden and strengthen the foundations of those bridges between Muslim and non-Muslims, particularly among the younger generations – above all in practical ways.

One way is to develop patterns of solidarity. For instance: when a religious building is vandalised, whether a mosque or a church or a synagogue, communities will come together to condemn these actions. For condemnation to be effective, more than words are needed. Much depends on the slow, patient building of relationships.

Another way is for local communities to speak up on behalf of others, not least when Muslim communities complain of intimidation and harassment by police. These interventions emerge from relationships that have been established over time. Local politicians and religious leaders – vicars, imams and rabbis – will have to watch their backs. These actions will be seen as divisive among their own constituencies and congregations.

As Marwan Muhammad, director of the Collective Against Islamophobia in France, told the Soul of Europe: “We are scapegoats and are blamed for all of Europe’s problems.” Muslim communities need to be invited in from the cold. There should be no “them” and “us”. We are all “us”. Umar Mirza set up the Dutch website We’re Here to Stay as “an attempt to create an alternative space … a way of providing a stage upon which the voices of young Muslims can be heard”. Dutch Muslims are not going anywhere. The Netherlands is their country, their home.

From among the many different European Muslim communities there are those who are saying: “Enough. We have had enough of discrimination, of being crudely stereotyped, of being scapegoats – of being victims.” These men and women are not “extremists”. In a debate on Britishness set up by the London-based Young Muslim Voices, a definition was agreed: a cosmopolitan country where people are respectful of different faiths and backgrounds.

Expressions of outrage are no longer enough. There needs to be a grassroots movement across Europe to stand up to those who peddle bogus religious justifications, resurrecting memories of the Crusades; to expose the racist ideology drawn from nazism, in which Muslims have now become the new Jews of Europe; and to tackle the myth of “Islamification” and those who claim to be defending western civilisation, Christian and secular, from conquest by Muslim immigration and the spread of sharia law.

Interreligious dialogue is just one of the links between different religions and religious communities. At a conference I recently attended, a speaker described interreligious dialogue as taking place on the top floor of a high-rise building while on the ground floor a fire was raging out of control. So it is time for those of us who cherish dialogue of every sort to join those who are trying to put the fire out.

Ramadan fast: Cowboys backrower Cory Paterson has converted to Islam. Picture: Evan Morgan

Source: The Daily Telegraph

During the last few days two sports stars across the globe announced their reversion to Islam. In South Africa, Proteas cricketer Wayne Parnell announced his reversion to Islam whilst in Australia, professional rugby league footballer for North Queensland Cowboys, Cory Paterson, did likewise. Both sports personalities will observe their first period of fasting during the month of Ramadan this year. These stories were covered by the Press Trust of India and The Daily Telegraph.

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South Africa’s Wayne Parnell converts to Islam

Press Trust of India, 28 July 2011

Johannesburg: South African fast bowler Wayne Parnell has converted to Islam after a period of personal study and reflection and will celebrate his 22nd birthday on Friday as a Muslim.
Parnell confirmed in a statement on Thursday that he converted to Islamic faith in January this year and is considering a name change to Waleed, which means ‘Newborn Son’.
“While I have not yet decided on an Islamic name I have considered the name Waleed which means Newborn Son, but for now my name remains Wayne Dillon Parnell. I will continue to respect the team’s endorsement of alcoholic beverages. I am playing cricket in Sussex and this is my immediate focus,” said Port Elizabeth-born Parnell.
“As I am approaching my first period of fasting, I ask that this special time is treated with respect. I am a young man, a professional cricketer by trade, and while I can appreciate and am grateful for the public interest in my personal life, my faith choice is a matter which I would like to keep private,” said the promising Warriors left-arm seam bowler.
Proteas team manager Mohamed Moosajee, himself a Muslim, said Parnell’s Muslim teammates Hashim Amla and Imran Tahir had not influenced his decision to convert from Christianity.
“Wayne already decided a few months ago to follow Islam,” Moosajee said of the cricketer, who excelled during the ICC World Cup on the subcontinent.
“The decision to convert was his own decision, but I know nothing of the name change,” added Moosajee.
Fellow players, preferring to remain anonymous, said they believed Parnell was very serious about his choice of religion and that he had not touched a drop of alcohol, forbidden to Muslims, since the recent Indian Premier League series.
Supporting Moosajee’s denial of influence by Amla, the players said he had never attempted to convert them to his religion, although they had all been very impressed by the discipline and strict adherence that Amla showed to his religion, by refusing to participate in celebrations with them that involved liquor, staying steadfast in his daily prayers even while on tour, and refusing to wear the kit sponsored by South African beer brand Castle Lager.
In his first two years after making his debut for the Proteas in 2009, Parnell developed a hard-living reputation.
In October 2009, he was kicked out of the provincial side Warriors following an incident in a night club in the city of Port Elizabeth in the early hours of the morning.
He came to limelight when he captained the South African Under-19 team in the U-19 World Cup in 2008. He was the youngest player to get a central contract in 2009 at the age of 20 years.
He is the second Christian to have converted to Islam after Pakistan’s Yousuf Youhana (now Mohammad Yousuf) in 2006.

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North Queensland Cowboys NRL star Cory Paterson converts to Islam

Josh Massoud, The Daily Telegraph, 2 August 2011

COWBOYS back-rower Cory Paterson will complete the premiership rounds on a demanding Islamic fast after recently becoming a Muslim.

Paterson yesterday emulated Bulldogs great Hazem El Masri as just the second player in NRL history to tackle the holy month of Ramadan, which forbids Muslims from eating or drinking during daylight hours.
Given the physical demands of full-time training in tropical Townsville, it’s a huge challenge that yesterday prompted discussions with North Queensland officials.
Paterson will also be involved in four matches, however all will be staged at night when he is permitted to rehydrate.
Unlike El Masri, a Muslim since birth, Paterson has never fasted before and it’s understood the 24-year-old’s religious conversion only took place around the time he transferred from Newcastle in June.

When contacted yesterday, Paterson confirmed he was now a Muslim and had started fasting. But he declined to elaborate until speaking with new manager Khoder Nasser, a devout Muslim who was instrumental in Anthony Mundine’s conversion a decade ago.Paterson also spent yesterday afternoon discussing his new routine with North Queensland coach Neil Henry and football manager Peter Parr, both of whom were unaware of the Perth product’s personal sacrifice.
Paterson convinced the pair that his ability to train or play would not be compromised, because Ramadan allows necessary exceptions based on employment – and particularly so for first-timers.
“He’s explained how it won’t impact on his preparation or performance,” Parr told The Daily Telegraph. “There’s no hard and fast rule for everyone. Given the nature of his employment, there’s an opportunity there to do what he has to do (to be his best).
“It’s not for me to go into Cory’s personal life, other than to say that Neil (Henry) and I are comfortable with the way it’s being done.”
Paterson joined Nasser’s camp after becoming close with stablemates Mundine and Sonny Bill Williams during the latter’s preparation for a fight in Newcastle early this year.
His conversion to Islam was immediately tipped, but not confirmed until Sunday when Paterson used his Twitter account to inform followers of his impending fast.
“Big challenge for me starting tomoro (sic),” he tweeted. “Looking forward to it and the satisfaction and discipline it will bring.”
Paterson subsequently received several messages of support – including one from Mundine – and peppered his replies with Arabic phrases such as “salaam” (peace) and “Insallah” (God willing). “Thank u. Will test me but Insallah it all goes well,” he tweeted.
Unwanted by incoming Newcastle coach Wayne Bennett, Paterson was given permission to join North Queensland on a three-year deal mid-season.

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Sources:

http://sports.ndtv.com/cricket/news/item/176446-south-africas-wayne-parnell-converts-to-islam

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/nrl/north-queensland-cowboys-nrl-star-cory-paterson-converts-to-islam/story-e6frfgbo-1226106289628

Photo:

http://www.sportpulse.net/content/wayne-parnell-now-whallid-parnell-1326