Guarding the Tongue is Part of Iman (1)

To know Allah is to know the key to our purpose on earth. Dr Husni invites us to ponder Allah’s 99 Beautiful Names in the Holy Quran, and therewith to find inspiration in sharing and caring for all Allah’s creation.

To hear this audio khutbah, please click here:

Bradford Synagogue's Rudi Leavor with the Bradford Council of Mosques Zulfi Karim

By Jessica Elgot

Huffington Post, 19 March 2013

With only just over thirty members and an extravagant Grade II listed Moorish building, the tiny Jewish community of Bradford have for many years been in despair about their finances – until the local Muslim community stepped in to help.

The grand-looking Reform synagogue, is on an unassuming street, between the Yorkshire Tandoori, Al-Hijaab Islamic Clothing and the Jamia Shan-E-Islam Educational Centre.

Built in 1880, it has long been under threat of closure, but several Muslim organisations in the city have pledged to stop it falling into ruin, with donors giving £2,000 to save the synagogue’s roof.

Zulfi Karim, the secretary of the Bradford Council of Mosques, said he hoped that the story of local collaboration, amid global Muslim-Jewish tensions, would be an inspirational one, and one that would improve the image of the city.

“Many people do seem to be massively taken aback that the Jewish and Muslim community are working hand-in-hand, when all you seem to hear about Bradford are the nasty things,” he told HuffPost UK.

“We want to make sure this synagogue is protected, long-term, a heritage site for the whole community.”

Rudi Leavor, chairman of the synagogue, told HuffPost UK he had originally begun to talk to his Muslim neighbours when they lobbied together to stop the conversion of a local building into a restaurant, and they successfully stopped the planning application.

“When I told him about the parlous state of our finances because of low membership, he referred me to the Carlisle Business Centre.

“He sat on the committee and though the organisation was nominally non-denominational, it was Asian orientated. I was awarded several hundred pounds,” he told HuffPost UK.

Since making the contacts, Leaver said the synagogue had received a lot of assistance from different Muslim organisations, and has formed a close relationship with Mahmood Mohammed, a development officer for Bradford Council.

Leavor told HuffPost UK: “At the time, rain has entered through a faulty roof and an adjacent building costing about £2,000 to repair most urgently. Mahmood said he had an anonymous donor who would underwrite the cost.

“In the mean time he introduced me to Karim, of Bradford Council of Mosques. He met me at the Synagogue and was impressed with the building.”

“There’s been a Jewish community in Bradford for 100 years, and now there’s barely a trace. I was so impressed by the architecture and the history of the synagogue, we couldn’t let this go to waste,” Karim told HuffPost UK.

The anonymous benefactor turned out to be Kahlid Pervaiz, owner of the Drummond Mills Complex near the Synagogue, who also offered its members free parking.

Leaver said that if their collaboration can “contribute just a little towards peace and harmony, then so much the better.”

George Galloway, the Respect MP for Bradford West, has published an Early Day motion congratulating the Council of Mosques, which has been signed by 11 MPs. The EDM congratulates “the members of the Bradford Muslim community for their extraordinary ecumenical gesture in raising a very large sum of money to repair the roof of Bradford’s last remaining synagogue, thereby enabling members of the Jewish community to continue to worship there; and believes that this generous gesture shows the true spirit of Islam towards other People of the Book.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/03/19/bradford-synagogue-muslims_n_2908254.html

The French Muslim Council (CFCM) voted to start using astronomical calculations to set the date rather than relying on the naked eye to sight the new crescent moon.

World Bulletin/News Desk and OnIslam.net

France’s Muslim leaders have agreed to end almost 1,400 years of Islamic tradition and use modern astronomy to determine the start of the holy month of Ramadan and other Islamic holidays.

The French Muslim Council (CFCM) voted on Thursday to start using astronomical calculations to set the date rather than relying on the naked eye to sight the new crescent moon.

Ramadan traditionally begins the morning after the sighting, which has in the past been delayed by a day or even two by weather.

Council President Mohammad Moussaoui said the old method played havoc with French Muslims’ schedules for work, school and festivities. France’s five million Muslims are the largest Islamic minority in Europe.

“Now all this will be simplified,” he said, and promptly announced the Ramadan fast would begin on July 9 this year.

Turkey began using scientific calculations to set the start of Ramadan decades ago. Muslims in Germany, who are mostly of Turkish origin, and those in Bosnia also use this method.

Muslim minorities elsewhere in Europe often start Ramadan according to its beginning in their countries of origin, or in Saudi Arabia. That can lead to different ethnic groups starting it on different days, even in the same country.

“This is historic. Now all Muslims in France can start Ramadan on the same day,” said Lyon Muslim leader Azzedine Gaci.

Muslim scientists have been arguing for using astronomy to determine Islamic dates for years, especially now that globalised communications make it increasingly awkward for different countries to start Ramadan on different days.

The Islamic lunar calendar is 10 to 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar developed in Europe, so the dates for Ramadan fall a week and a half earlier as each year in the western calendar passes.

Moussaoui said French Muslims were not planning to ask for their holidays to be included in the national calendar.

“It would be more important for us that they are taken into consideration, that’s all,” he said.

For over 1400 years, the first day of Ramadan and moon sighting have always been a controversial issue among Muslim countries, and even scholars seem at odds over the issue.

While one group of scholars sees that Muslims in other regions and countries are to follow the same moon sighting as long as these countries share one part of the night, another states that Muslims everywhere should abide by the lunar calendar of Saudi Arabia.

A third, however, disputes both views, arguing that the authority in charge of ascertaining the sighting of the moon in a given country announces the sighting of the new moon, then Muslims in the country should all abide by this.

This usually causes confusion among Muslims, particularly in the West, on observing the dawn-to-dusk fasting and celebrating the `Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of fasting.

In Ramadan, adult Muslims, save the sick and those traveling, abstain from food, drink, smoking and sex between dawn and sunset.

Muslims dedicate their time during the holy month to be closer to God through prayers, self-restraint and good deeds.

It is customary for Muslims to spend part of the days during Ramadan studying the Noble Qur’an.

Many men perform i`tikaf (spiritual retreat), spending the last 10 days of the month exclusively in the mosque.

http://www.worldbulletin.net/?aType=haber&ArticleID=108564

http://www.onislam.net/english/news/europe/462583-france-muslims-synchronize-ramadan.html

https://soundcloud.com/abul-kalam-3/status-of-a-mother-in-islam-at

Arnoud Van Doorn in Saudi Arabia with the Imam of Masjid Quba, The Honorable Sheikh Emad Zuhair Hafiz

By: Majed Al-Sugairi

Source: Saudi Gazette

MADINAH – Former Dutch Islamophobe and a former leading member of far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ party Arnoud Van Doorn visited the Prophet’s Mosque in Madinah to pray and say sorry for becoming part of a blasphemous film.

Doorn was among the Freedom Party leaders who produced the blasphemous film, Fitna. Last month he reverted to Islam after an extensive study about the religion and the Prophet (peace be upon him).

He said that the worldwide outrage against the film made him study about the Prophet (pbuh) and that eventually led to his conversion.

He headed for Makkah to perform Umrah after meeting the two imams of the Prophet’s Mosque, Sheikh Ali Al-Hudaifi and Sheikh Salah Al-Badar, who enlightened him on how to lead the life of a good Muslim and confront challenges facing Islam in the West.

A member of the Dutch parliament and The Hague City Council, Doorn announced his decision to accept Islam on his Twitter profile. He also posted a tweet in Arabic declaring that “there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his Prophet.”

At first, other users took the news as a joke. After all, an active supporter of a notorious Dutch hater of Islam, Wilders, he repeatedly approved Islamophobic statements and public actions, and personally participated in them.

But Doorn, who now serves as a regional adviser at the City Hall in The Hague, personally confirmed his decision to practice Islam in an official letter to the city mayor.

Most recently, the politician filed a formal application to the mayor of the city to allow him to perform prayers obligatory for Muslims during his working hours.

“I can understand people are skeptic, especially that it is unexpected for many of them,” Doorn told Al-Jazeera English satellite channel.

“This is a very big decision, which I have not taken lightly.”

“In my own close circle people have known that I have been actively researching the Qur’an, Hadith, Sunnah and other writings for almost a year now,” he said.

“In addition, I have had numerous conversations with Muslims about the religion.”

Driven by his party’s anti-Islam discourse, Doorn decided to dig in for the truth about the religion himself.

“I have heard so many negative stories about Islam, but I am not a person who follows opinions of others without doing my own research,” he said. “Therefore, I have actually started to deepen my knowledge of Islam out of curiosity.”

The 46-year-old has continued on The Hague Council as an independent candidate since splitting from Wilders’s party. Doorn’s decision to embrace Islam has won mixed reactions in the Netherlands.

“According to some people I am a traitor, but according to most others I have actually made a very good decision,” he told Al-Jazeera.

“The reactions are generally positive and I also received quite some support via twitter.

“It feels good that people who do not know me personally have understanding of my situation and support me in my choice.”

Asked if he now regretted joining the Freedom Party, he replied: “I have learned that every experience in life has a purpose. However, with the knowledge I have today, I would have undoubtedly made a different choice.”

For the Dutch politician, finding Islam was finally guiding him to the true path in his life. “I have made mistakes in life as many others. From these mistakes I have learned a lot,” Doorn said.

“And by my conversion to Islam I have the feeling that I finally found my path. I realize that this is a new start and that I still have much to learn as well.”

by A K M Muhiuddin

from www.islamicity.com

The more one reflects on Muhammad (sallallahu alayhi wa sallam – saws), the more one is bound to marvel at this noble Messenger of Allah (subhanahu wa ta’la) and to grasp the truth of these words in the Qur’an: “Surely you have been created in an exalted stature.” (Al-qalam, 68:4) Let us consider just five aspects of our beloved Prophet’s character.
First, we see in Muhammad (saws) a perfect integration of words and deeds, of all aspects of his inner and outer life. He practiced what he preached. There was no discord in his character. His speech and actions perfectly reflected his true nature. This is why his keenly observant and sensitive wife Ayesha (radi Allahu ta’la anha), when asked years later what he had been like, could say without a moment’s hesitation that the character of Muhammad (saws) was the Qur’an itself.

Muhammad (saws)’s life was a seamless and rounded whole. His entire life was one of worship. Yet this life of intense worship never stood in the way of his everyday life. He had a unique capacity to transform the minutest mundane activity into an act of worship. He saw every activity of life in its proper perspective, as part of a divinely ordained scheme. With perfect ease and grace he fulfilled all his roles as a man as well as those of his divine destiny. Thus his life was one of unimaginable beauty and harmony.

In real life we see people who are painfully fragmented and full of irreconcilable contradictions. Our beliefs clash with our actions. Our emotions and desires are in conflict with each other and repeatedly overthrow our best instincts. We make solemn pledges to ourselves only to break them. We are a hodgepodge of ideas, impulses and actions that make very little or no sense. We hardly know what we want and where we are heading. Nothing in us is in its place. Inside us is a huge boiling cauldron endlessly cooking strange broths.

A second feature of the character of Muhammad (saws) is the combination of tenderness and firmness. Many direct and personal accounts testify that he was a very gentle and shy person. At the same time he was a man of resolve, never lacking in courage and will. Time after time he demonstrated this; take Hudaibiyyah, for example. What is hard to fathom is how his tender heartedness could never shake that resolve or weaken the call of duty. While making hard decisions and taking firm action he was never harsh or vindictive. He felt no joy in the pain and suffering of even his fiercest opponent. His tenderness always tempered and mitigated the hardness the situation imposed on him. The rareness of such a blend of softness and firmness can be gauged if we look around us. On the one hand we find people who are gentle and kind but who lack strength of will, and on the other, people who are resolute but show no tenderness or sympathy.

Thirdly, Muhammad (saws) presents the unique sight of a man of both contemplation and action. The tumult and bustle of action could not prevent him from reflection. His contemplative nature was never put on hold. In our world this is hardly ever the case. While men of contemplation are found deficient in action, the men of action are seldom given to much reflection. Even if we can recall a few rare cases in history of men with both qualities, exercising those qualities simultaneously in any given moment, as Muhammad (saws) did, is unheard of.

A fourth quality worth noticing is how unobtrusively and gracefully Muhammad (saws) wielded his authority. He had unparalleled power and influence over his followers; they would haven given their leader anything to earn his satisfaction. Yet he was never aloof, overbearing or impatient with his followers, and never imposed himself or encroached on their rights. Without any of the well known trimmings of power he led men and women in every kind of situation. To the end he remained one of them, absolutely humble, approachable and affectionate. His care and concern for their welfare, his love and sympathy for them never diminished. He was ever ready to serve them and attend to their multifarious needs and demands. At times he was even indistinguishable in the company of his followers. Any child could take him by the hand in the streets of Madinah. Great leader though he was, he treaded Allah’s earth softly and humbly, ever as His most obedient servant.

Finally, let us consider Muhammad’s (saws) use of language. He was always brief, clear and to the point; anyone could understand him. He expressed the weightiest of matters in the simplest of words. Yet nothing of substance was ever lost. His words were the most appropriate and appeared in their most fitting order. Not a single word could be replaced or rearranged. On his tongue words followed smoothly in natural succession. He never tried to be witty or attempted to impress. Yet he was marvelously eloquent, expressive and deeply moving. One needs just to take a look at some of his du’a to see how high language can soar and what feelings it can arouse. The most consummate of writers have not yet been able to attain what this ‘unlettered’ man of seventh century Arabia did with language.

These five qualities are by no means the only features of Muhammad’s (saws) character. But they unmistakably show how unparalleled he was as a human being, how he climbed the summit of human perfection. Muhammad (saws) was guided and shaped by Allah (swt) in such a way that he could function as the best model for human beings. Muhammad (saws) was like perfect yielding clay that Allah (swt) moulded and shaped to fulfill His design for mankind.

Allah (swt) has given mankind three signs through which we can recognize His power and glory and accept Him as the only one worthy of worship. The physical world of nature around us, with its beauty and harmony, is the earliest sign. The two other signs came together: the Qur’an, His glorious Book, and the Messenger who received, followed and taught it, Muhammad (saws). Like the other two signs, nature and the Qur’an, Muhammad (saws)’s character is also a wonder and a sign. Thus as Muslims we admire, love and follow him.

*****

A. K. M. Mohiuddin is a retired university professor of English literature living in Bangladesh. He can be reached at this address: akmm45yahoo. com

It is hard to take claims of religious intolerance from Christians seriously when UK Muslims are daily subject to real hate crimes

British Muslims celebrating Eid

By Haroon Moghul

Al Jazeera, 3 January 2013

Muslims are subversive jihadists. The Middle East is perpetually unstable. “Islam has bloody borders.” If you’ve already made up your mind, you’ll find a way to twist the facts to support your conclusion. And if the facts don’t do the job, you can always hire new ones.

In the last year, American anti-Muslim hate groups have increased threefold. As playwright Wajahat Ali and others have found, the farther we move away from the September 11 terrorist attacks, the worse discrimination, prejudice and violence against Muslims become.

There’s a simple enough reason for this: Islamophobia has become an industry. In the absence of alternative narratives, which can make sense of Muslim extremism, place it into context and guide American domestic and foreign policy, we are stuck with the voices we have – too often, these have been unqualified and uninformed.

It will take us a long time to get past the damage done by years of well-funded Islamophobes, who have dominated the media landscape (finally answering, incidentally, why it is that “Muslims don’t do more to condemn terrorism” – nobody was listening). But the resistance to bigotry has already begun and has already scored a number of successes.

There is only so long, after all, you can lie to people.

The boy who cried Islamist

Islamophobia promotes a racialised view of Islam, viewing Arabs and Middle Easterners and Muslims generally as one interchangeable, subversive, homogenous mass; the actions of the few represent the intentions and aspirations of the whole. Thus we were led to believe there could be a plausible connection between bin Laden and Saddam. The resulting cost in American lives, treasure and credibility, is hard to quantify. This is Islamophobia’s fruit: poisonous policies.

For reasons of strategic shortsightedness alone, Islamophobia would be discredited soon enough. But there’s another reason: Islamophobia doesn’t correspond to reality. The more likely an American is to know a Muslim, the more likely she is to have a positive view of Islam. Exposure undermines prejudice. That is, meeting real Muslims pushes aside the media narrative that is so pernicious and harmful. Why? Because much of what Islamophobia peddles is hyperbolic, fanciful, or meaningless.

Let’s see how Islamophobia does its damage. The value extends beyond anti-Muslim bigotry, by the way. The same type of “reasoning” is employed by all bigotries – radical Muslim voices, who require a conflict between a homogenous West and an ideally homogenous Islam, make the same types of arguments, often down to the disturbing details. But then it shouldn’t be any surprise that extremisms are broadly similar, or that they need to see opposites in the world, for their own identities to take root and thrive.

A lie told often enough feels true

Consider this interview from The New York Times, in which a prominent anti-Muslim voice makes the followingremark:

Why isn’t it a shrine dedicated to the victims of 9/11 or the 270 million victims of over a millennium of jihadi wars, land appropriations, cultural annihilations and enslavements?

The woman behind these words, who I have no interest in naming (I don’t want to give her any more attention than she already has), used to be a regular on Fox News, but has lost even that perch. Her extremism was too extreme. (Indeed, one of the best ways to fight Islamophobia is to give the bigots a microphone and let them keep talking. Their disturbing rhetoric will soon unsettle the overwhelming majority of people, who recoil from such extremism.)

But let’s spend a moment to reflect on this allegation; namely, that “270 million” are victims of a homogenous jihadi juggernaut. It is certainly an amazingly precise claim. It is often frequently repeated – Islamophobia resembles nothing if not an echo chamber of incorrectness. In the months since, I’ve encountered many anti-Muslim voices repeat or inflate this number. Most recently, I’ve been challenged to explain the “300 million” killed by “jihad”.

Even if we stick with the lower number, I can tell you that this number was probably pulled out of thin air. (Even if it wasn’t, as I will show, it doesn’t matter.) But for the sake of argument, let’s take this claim seriously. Namely, that “Muslims” killed somewhere between two or three hundred million. Can that be possible? Where does this number come from? Does it reveal a uniquely and dangerously recurrent Islamic aptitude for mass violence? In short, no, out of nowhere, and no.

1,000 years of jihad

First, I think, it’d make sense to choose a time period. We’re told there were 1,000 years of jihad, although to be fair, elsewhere the same person described millions of years of jihad, but this is a thought exercise. I imagine she means the period from roughly 600 to 1600 AD, which covers the time when Muslim states were generally not (as was subsequently true) on the receiving end of colonial conquest.

When Islam emerged in western Arabia, around 610 AD, the total population of the world was likely between 300 and 400 million. Fast forward to right past our period. The United Nations Census Report suggests that the world’s total population in the year 1800 was 1 billion; since then, of course, it has shot up to some seven billion.

At that point, the world’s largest Muslim population, which would be located in South Asia, was almost entirely under British rule. (In 1947, the population of the Indian subcontinent was under 350 million.) We are being asked to believe that jihadis killed, by the year 1600, more people than lived in South Asia in the year 1600. Keep in mind that India is one of the most densely populated parts of the planet and has long been a centre ofworld culture and civilisation.

How did Muslims kill so many people?

India, or properly most of northern India, was under Muslim rule from 1200 to 1800. By the Islamophobe’s logic, millions of these Indians should have been slaughtered. But by whom? Muslims were never more than a minority and Islam was never imposed by force. The proof for this is in the geography – the capitals of Muslim India rotated between cities like Delhi and Agra, but conversion proceeded most widely on the fringes of these empires, in what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh. This is like saying the Roman Empire imposed Christianity and Christian populations were found farthest from the centre of imperial power.

Further, under Muslim rule, India became increasingly wealthy. (The same happened, by the way, in Muslim Spain, as Arab rule brought with it an agricultural revolution and an urbanising boom.) How was India becoming increasingly wealthy while its Muslim rulers were slaughtering Indians left, right and centre? How were they able to cause so much damage, for so long, without being overthrown? Muslims never enjoyed the kind of decisive advantage in military technology the West enjoyed after 1800. And the organisation of Muslim India gives the lie to the entire edifice of eternal jihadism.

The capital of the world

We often look to the Ottomans as the world’s most powerful pre-modern Muslim dynasty. But the Mughals, rulers of much of South Asia, ruled over far more people and were far wealthier – compare Istanbul’s monuments to the Taj Mahal and you’ll see what I mean. There is however one thing both empires had in common: both ruled over majority non-Muslim populations.

Under the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, who built the Taj Mahal, some 30 percent of this Muslim dynasty’s nobility were not Muslim, a proportion that had risen to 50 percent in the reign of his son Aurangzeb (1658-1707). By nobility, I mean those individuals given land and status based on their ability to muster troops to defend and expand the realm. If Islam was perpetual jihadism, why would so many non-Muslims join in – and be allowed to join in?

If Muslims were savages bent on perpetual terror, by what moronic logic would they arm their enemies, teach them to fight and incorporate them into their armies? What would we make of the fact that the greatest threat to late 17th century Mughal rule was the remarkable rebellion of a Hindu king named Shivaji, who was finallycaptured and defeated by the Mughals’ senior most general, whose name was Jai Singh – he, too, was not a Muslim.

Somewhere jihadis are killing everyone they come across, more or less, but still Muslim dynasties remain in power, their wealth increases, the urbanisation of their population increases and they leave behind magnificent public and private structures, which suggests they had quite a bit of free time. When the Ottoman Empirefinally collapsed at the end of World War I, its capital, then called Constantinople, was over 50 percent non-Muslim. This is not to suggest the Ottomans were liberal democrats. But it also suggests they were remarkably tolerant for their time. Probably no other city in Europe was so diverse.

And we’re not even talking about most of the planet.

Muslims aren’t everywhere

Many of the territories conquered, ruled or dominated by Muslims, such as Central Asia, North Africa and Arabia were comparatively empty. Muslim dynasties never touched the Americas, Australia or East Asia; the last of these undoubtedly held a significant percentage of the world’s population throughout the last 1,000 years plus.

So Muslims, who ruled over vast desert spaces and many sparsely populated areas of the world, still killed something of the equivalent of one-quarter of the world’s population in 1800. When the first Mughal emperor Babur conquered north India – from another Muslim dynasty, I might add – his army is estimated to number around 10,000; his opponent’s army is estimated at several times than that.

Is it conceivable that Muslim empires, such as the Umayyads, Ottomans and Mughals, who ruled over majority non-Muslim populations, could have contributed to the killing of huge percentages of the world’s population while staying in power for centuries? How would they, as minorities, have been capable of sustained carnage for decades at a time? When did they get the time to build huge public works projects, establish towns, rebuild cities, fund wells, hospitals, mosques, pools and fountains?

What technological advantage did they have that made them so superior to their enemies that they could sustain such a bloody and vicious record – for 1,000 years? The Mongols exploded out into the world and caused horrific damage, but they managed that for only a few centuries and left nothing of the kind of legacy the great Muslim empires did. Indeed, the Mongols ended up adopting the religion of the peoples they conquered, whereas the reverse happened early in the Muslim period.

A most post-modern warfare

And thus we are left with an implausible and absurd suggestion that jihad killed 270 million people. But even with all this, still three more points need to be stressed, because in recognising their significance, we recognise the ultimate absurdity of the Islamophobic worldview.

First, more Muslims died fighting each other than died in battles against non-Muslim dynasties. Armies were often mixed too, which drives bigots off the wall; when the Ottomans were defeated at Vienna in 1683, they were finished off by a charge of Polish Muslim cavalry, allied with their enemies. Where do these casualties fit in? Should we arbitrarily decide that “intra-Muslim jihad” killed 50 percent of the total number? Why not, considering most of Islamophobia’s made up? How were Muslims who so often fought each other also able to fight everyone else?

Unless of course it’s not about Islam versus non-Islam.

Second, this isn’t real history. It’s dumping “facts” on the unawares, hoping that the sheer flood of information covers up the lack of an explanatory framework. Not only does the Islamophobe play loose and fast with very different eras, places and peoples, but she ties events together without attempting to explain why. If jihad is really the most murderous ideology ever and it is equal to Islam, then why would so many people become Muslim? What motivated their violence? What sustained it? And how come most Muslims live peaceable lives?

Bigots make up history because actual history undermines them.

Third, let’s say for the sake of argument Muslims killed 300 million people over a 1,000 year span. That doesn’t mean anything. One could just as easily construct a counter-narrative that works like Islamophobia does: arbitrarily, ignorantly and entirely unself-consciously. I mean, we’d link disparate events based on the religious (or cultural) identity of the culprit.

We could construct a narrative of Western perfidy in response.

According to Charles Mann’s 1491, which explores the pre-Columbian Americas, nearly 100 million perished during the European “Age of Discovery”, making that the most violent contact between peoples in human history. Nothing in Islamic history remotely compares. With the typical sloppiness of the Islamophobe, we could note how Western ideologies like Communism and Nazism led conservatively to the deaths of another 120 million people; we could note the brutal colonial exploitation of Africa and Asia, in which millions more perished and then breathlessly announce, “Five Hundred Years of Western Civilisation Kills Hundreds of Millions!”

We could toss in the fact that the West has invented weapons of mass destruction and used them in ways no other parts of the world have. (Chemical weapons in World War I; aerial bombing was invented by the Italians against Libyan civilians; and, of course, only America has used nuclear weapons, and twice, both times against civilian targets.) But this would be stupid, because it assumes that people in different times and places are the same, responsible for each other’s actions and should only be judged by the dark chapters of their history.

Osama bin Laden portrayed the history of Islam and the West as one long narrative of confrontation, as do many intemperate and extremist voices. He chose to ignore all the countervailing evidence and ignored the differences between times and places, peoples and their leaders. He downplayed and dismissed the achievements of Western culture and civilisation, of which there are so many I’m hard-pressed to know where even to begin. Penicillin? Goethe? The modern museum?

Islamophobes play a similar game, linking events that take place across the planet and hundreds of centuries apart, and they want us to take this seriously. And so you get numbers like “270 million” or “300 million”. And these are brought up talismanically, as if they constitute overwhelming proof. The Islamophobe is completely and congenitally incapable of reflexivity. They cannot, in other words, look in the mirror; their mind has been made up, and what history is marshalled is not to engage in discussion but to preclude it.

The jihad on accuracy

There is this last little problem.

The Muslim proportion of the world’s population has accelerated dramatically in the past centuries and continues to do so today; during our 600-1600 AD window, there were far fewer Muslims in the world, proportionally speaking. Which means we have to figure out what everyone else was up to.

What about the people killed by other peoples – or, the biggest killer of all back then – disease and its most vulnerable victims, infants and the young? Where do we put the Crusades, the Aztecs and the Incans, the Eastern Roman Empire, the Mongols (good heavens), Slavs and Byzantines, the Chinese, Korean and Japanese?

Add them all together, and more people were probably killed than ever lived, which is about as accurate as you can expect this kind of nonsense to be.

Haroon Moghul is a Fellow at New America Foundation and the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding. He is an author and a graduate student at Columbia University.

Follow him on Twitter: @hsmoghul

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial policy.

Rabbi Allen S. Maller

For many people, especially in today’s world, it is very hard to reconcile the personal suffering of good and pious people, with Divine justice and love. Believers of all religions face this challenge. There are many answers from Karma to reincarnation. Muslims and Jews have traditionally given the same answers with some variation. This is to be expected since both Jews and Muslims share the same belief in God’s oneness, goodness and justice; and both reject the doctrines of ‘bad luck’,  of inherited sin from previous lives, and of original sin. The Qur’an tells us that just because you become, or already are, a believer doesn’t mean that you are exempt from personal suffering. “Do men think that they will be left alone on saying “We believe” and that they will not be tested? (29:2) this is not correct: “Ye shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions and in your personal selves.” (3:186)

You will be tested by fear of, and hunger for, the loss of: material goods, loved ones lives, and the failure of your efforts to bear fruit. Yet if you patiently persevere all will be well “Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, or lives, or the fruits (of your toil); but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. (2:155) The glad tidings might come from a reversal in your bad fortune in this world, as happened to Job: or in your life in the world to come.

Jewish sages and rabbis would have agreed with all of the already quoted verses in the Qur’an as well as the following Ahadith: “Anyone for whom Allah intends good, He makes him suffer from some affliction.” (Bukhari) and “When Allah intends good for His slave, He punishes him in this world, but when He intends an evil for His slave, He does not quickly take him to task, but calls him to account on the Day of Resurrection. (Tirmidhi)

Most important God never puts any burden on a soul that is beyond its ability to bear. “No burden do We place on any soul but that which it can bear.” (6:152) and “Those who believe and do good – We do not impose upon any of them a burden beyond their capacity. (7:42)  The rabbis were in full accord with these statements. They extended them even further to conclude that believers who were afflicted with severe calamities should take comfort that those who have a strong faith are given harder trials, as Prophet Muhammad said when asked about who suffers the greatest afflictions: The prophets, then those who come next to them, then those who come next to them. A man is afflicted in keeping his religion. If his religion is firm, his trial is severe; but if there is weakness in his religion, it is made light for him, and it continues like that until he walks on the earth without sin. (Tirmidhi)

If this seems very unjust and unfair remember that “The magnitude of the reward goes along with the magnitude of the affliction. (Tirmidhi) Thus, “The believing man or woman may continue to have affliction in their person, property and children so that they may finally meet God, free from sin. (Tirmidhi)

It is probably easier to understand this philosophy of life, if it is first expressed in terms of the suffering that comes from human love. To love another person is to expose your heart to heartache. If it is worthwhile to love another human, how much more so is it desirable to love God who desires our love. The Torah declares, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength (Deuteronomy 6”4-5) and “What does the Lord your God require of you, but to revere the Lord your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul”. (Deuteronomy 10:12) This can be illustrated by the following parable (Martin Buber is the name of a famous 20^th century Jewish philosopher):

One day a young man stood in a town square proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and all admired his heart, for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. It was an ideal heart. As beautiful as a Greek stature of an ideal youth. The young man said that his perfect, beautiful heart, was due to his philosophy of following a path of self realization, calmness and detachment.

Then a Rabbi named after Martin Buber appeared at the front of the crowd and said, “Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine.” The crowd and the young man looked at the Rabbi’s heart. It was beating strongly, but it was full of scars. It had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didn’t fit quite right and there were several jagged edges. In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared. How could Martin Buber say his heart was more beautiful than the heart of the ideal youth?

The young man looked at the older man’s heart and laughed. “You must be joking,” he said. “Compare your heart with mine, mine is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.”

“Yes,” said  Rabbi Buber, “yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to people, and often they give me a piece of their heart, which fits into an empty place in my heart. But because the pieces aren’t exactly equal I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared. Sometimes I give pieces of my heart away, and the other person doesn’t return a piece of his or her heart to me. These are the empty gouges…giving love is taking a chance. And then there are places where my heart is broken, reminding me of the love I have had, and lost. I say Kaddish then to praise God for the pains of living a life of loving and caring; for it is better to love and lose than never to love at all.”

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the older man, reached into his perfect, young and beautiful heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. The Rabbi took the young man’s offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young man’s heart.

It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore, but more beautiful than ever, since love from Rabbi Buber’s heart now flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

Rabbi Allen S. Maller’s web site is: rabbimaller.com

(To hear the audio version of this khutbah, please click here):

For the text version, please read further:

“A-úthu billáhi minash shaytánir rajeem. Bismilláhir rahmánir raheem

Al hamdu lillahi nahmaduhu wanasta’eenahu, wanastagh-firuhu, wanatoobu ilayhi, wana’oothu Billaahi min shuroori an-fusinaa, wamin sayyi aati a’maalinaa. May- Yahdillahu fa huwal muhtad, wa may- yudlill falan tajidaa lahu waliyan murshida. Wa ash-hadu an Laa ilaaha ill-Alláh, wahdahoo laa shareeka lah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhoo warasooluh”

All Praise is due to Alláh, We praise Him and we seek help from Him. We ask forgiveness from Him. We repent to Him; and we seek refuge in Him from our own evils and our own bad deeds. Anyone who is guided by Alláh, he is indeed guided; and anyone who has been left astray, will find no one to guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Alláh, the Only One without any partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad, peace and blessings on him, is His servant, and His messenger.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem! Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, haqqa tuqaatihee wala tamu tun-na, il-la wa antum Muslimoon.”

O You who believe, – Be aware of Allah, with correct awareness, an awe-inspired awareness, and die not except as Muslims.

Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, wa qooloo qawlan sadeedaa. Yuslih-lakum a’maalakum wa yaghfir lakum thunoobakum, wamay yu-til-laaha warasoolah, faqad faaza fawzan atheemaa.”

O You who believe, – Be aware of Allah, and speak a straightforward word. He will forgive your sins and repair your deeds. And whoever takes Allah and His Prophet as a guide, has already achieved a mighty victory.

In the opening verse of Sura An-Nisaa’, Allah says:

O mankind! Show reverence towards your Guardian-Lord Who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate and from the two of them scattered (like seeds) countless men and women;― Be conscious of Allah, through Whom ye demand your mutual (rights) and (show reverence towards) the wombs (that bore you): for surely, Allah ever watches over you.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Two days ago Britain’s ex-Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, was laid to rest with much pomp and ceremony. This is of course not the way ordinary people are buried. The average citizen has a much humbler experience, and our Muslim burials are quite simple and low-key by comparison.

Regardless of the grandeur or simplicity we attach to that final journey we must all make to the grave, one thing is certain. When we die, we leave our earthly status and we return to our maker, willingly or unwillingly, ready or not. At death we are all equal. “Death is the ultimate democracy,” says one writer. In death, no-one’s wealth or status confers any advantage over others. 400 years ago, James Shirley wrote a poem entitled “Death the leveller.” His poem ends with these words,

“Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet and blossom in their dust.”

The Holy Quran speaks of death in many places. Here it reminds us in a very short verse:

“Kullun nafsin thaa ikatul mawt.”

“Every soul will have a taste of death.” [Sura Al-Imran 3:185]

We are also reminded that

“Wherever you are, death will find you, even if you are in towers built strong and high.” [Quran 4:78]

With the inevitability of death in mind, Islam teaches us to go through life as strangers, as travellers passing through. This life is not all that there is. It’s not our final destination.

“Inna lil Laahi wa inna ilayhir raaji oon.”

“From Allah do we come, and to Him do we return.” [Sura Al Baqara 2:156]

Our origin is from Allah and our destiny is to return to Him. We must hope and pray that our return will be a happy reunion with our Lord.

(Say: Ameen!)

Yesterday as I sat in the airport lounge in Cape Town, waiting for my flight to Heathrow, I couldn’t help thinking: This experience is really a metaphor of our earthly life. The airport is like our life on earth, it’s not our destination, only a place to prepare for the last leg of our journey home: home to the eternal life, akhira, home to Allah!

Every human being, old and young, rich and poor, we are already in Allah’s departure lounge. From the moment we were born, we’re waiting for our flight to be called. We don’t know whether our departure gate will lead to that blissfully happy place, al-Jannah firdaws, to that great furnace which the Quran describes as one “whose fuel is men and stones.” (Q.2:26)

When our flight finally takes off, our ruuh, our soul will then bid farewell to the body and soar like a celestial bird through the heavenly spheres as it returns to Allah.

The All-Merciful has given us life, and the All-Merciful will reclaim that gift of life however and whenever He pleases.

We should therefore gratefully enjoy the life of this world, but with a good measure of detachment. This isn’t our final destination. We weren’t made for dunya. Our bodies are from the earth but our ruuh, our soul is from heaven: timeless, space-less. Therefore, while our bodies crave earth-bound pleasures, our soul yearns for something higher, nobler. We must nurture this instinct towards goodness, love, justice, truth and beauty. We must worship Allah with love. Be like a lover, anticipating, longing to be re-united with his Beloved. Don’t be deceived by Shaitaan, who sets his traps for us. The attractions of this life can beguile us, but Allah promises us something better, if only we would trust Him.

“Bal tu’ thiroonal hayaat ad dunya, wal aakhiratul khairul wa ab’qaa”

“Behold, you prefer the life of this world, when the life hereafter is much better, and lasts forever.” [sura al-Alaa ch:v]

Let us ask Allah to help us remove the veils from our eyes, so that we see things for what they really are. We do not only want to have a superficial view of the world (In Arabic: basar). May Allah grant us deep insight (baseerah) so that we can have the wisdom, the heavenly wisdom to understand things with the penetrating inward sight of the heart. May Allah help us to purify our spiritual heart so that we can return to him with a sound heart (qalb saleem). Ameen.

“Alhamdu lillahi Rabbil ‘Aalameen. Was-salaatu was-salaamu alaa Khairil mursaleen. Muhammadin-nabeey-yil Ummiy-yee, wa-‘alaa aalihee, wasah-bihee, aj-ma’een.                               Ammaa ba’ad:

“Innalláha wa malaaikata yusallúna alan nabi. Yá ay yuhal latheena ámanu sallú alayhi wasalli mú tas leema. Allahumma salli alá Muhammad, wa ala áli Muhammad, kama salayta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali Ibrahim. Allahumma barik ala Muhammad, kama barakta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali ibrahim. Fil ála meen, innaka hameedun majeed.”

Second Khutbah:

“Soob’ hanallahi wal hamdu lillah, wala hawla wala quwwata illah billah yu althi yual theem”

Glory to Allah!  Praise to Allah! There is no power and no strength except from Allah!

My dear sisters and brothers,

Let us always remember our death, how suddenly it can appear. Right now, I can’t even be sure, 100%, that I’ll still be here for Asr or Maghrib prayers! No one knows that. No one can guarantee that. There is no way of delaying our death beyond the time Allah has decreed for us. Let us therefore remember that our life on earth is so fragile, so tenuous. We should expect to die at any time. We have to prepare for death even while we enjoy the peak of health, in the noonday of our youth.

Kings and Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers also die just like common folk do. Allah makes no distinctions between rich and poor, high-born or humble. Allah will hold each and every one of us to account, whether our responsibility was to run a country or to run a kebab shop down the road. We will all be held to account. When Allah gives us wealth, power and authority, we should remember where it came from, and to whom we owe thanks. We should use it to serve Allah, to benefit those in real need. Rulers often forget that they are not the masters, but the servants and guardians of their people. When they forget this, they abuse their power and behave like Pharaohs. In recent years we’ve seen how some of them have come to a rather sticky end.

Let this be a lesson for us also. We are all kings, queens, presidents and prime ministers in our own homes. Let us take our God-given responsibility seriously. Let’s learn to tame our whimsical and capricious ego, our lower nafs, otherwise our ego becomes king. And when the nafs becomes king, then tyranny and injustice will surely follow.

The Quran also reminds us:

“No soul knows what it will earn tomorrow, and in which land it will die.”

None of us knows how and when our life will end. Whether we leave this world with pomp and ceremony watched by the world’s media networks, or whether we are buried quietly by a handful of friends and family, we cannot escape the fate that Allah has decreed for every one of us.

My dear sisters and brothers: no matter where we started from, no matter where we were born, how we grew up and how we spent most of our youth, let us work, hope and pray for a good ending. It’s much more important to have a good ending, even if you had a poor beginning. Rather have a bad beginning and a good ending, than to start off well and end very badly. Also, remember: there’s no point in brooding too much about the past, the mistakes we’ve made and the lost opportunities. Allah is Al-Ghafurur-Raheem, the Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful.

Some people can be so consumed with guilt over their past sins, that they become emotionally paralysed. They really believe they’re so bad, they’re beyond redemption. They really believe there’s no hope for them and that Allah will never forgive them. This is not just a big mistake. Despair is a grave sin in Islam. Allah is capable of forgiving anything, except “shirk” [i.e. associating partners Him]. For anything else, we can still seek forgiveness, and make amends, but we can’t change the past. However, we can make the future better, by turning to Allah. Let us strive hard so that our last days are pleasing to Him. We all want a good ending. Let us pray that all our children, grandchildren and the future generations will also have a good ending on the siraat al mustaqueem, the Straight Path leading to Al Jannah. Say: Ameen!

Brothers and sisters, to conclude our khutbah:

InnaAllaha, Yamuru bil adel, wal ihsaan, wa eetaa-i zil qurba; wa yanha anil fuhshaa-i, wal munkari walbaghi; ya-idzukhum lallakum tathak-karoon. (Sura 16:90),

“Surely Allah commands justice, good deeds and generosity to others and to relatives; and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, so that you may be reminded.”

Fadth kuroonee adth kurkum, wash kuroolee walaa tak furoon [2:152].

“and remember Me: I will remember you. Be grateful to Me, and do not reject faith.”

wala thikrul-Laahi akbar, Wal-Laahu ya’lamu maa tasna’oon.” [29:45].

“and without doubt, Remembrance of Allah is the Greatest Thing in life, and Allah knows the deeds that you do.”

Ameen.    Aqeemus salaah

The Ummah of Moderation

by Haroon Yahya

(from www.islamicity.com)

Jesus (‘Isa)  (Upon whom be peace), just as all the other prophets, is a chosen slave of Allah whom Allah assigned to summon people to the true path. However, there are some attributes of Jesus  distinguishing him from other prophets, the most important one being that he was raised up to Allah and that he will come back to earth again.

Contrary to what most people believe, Jesus  was not crucified and killed nor did he die for any other reason. The Quran tells us that they did not kill him and they did not crucify him and that Allah raised him up to Him. In none of the verses, is there an actual reference to his murder or that he was killed, apart from the verse (ayah) which denies that it happened. Furthermore, the Quran acquaints us with some events from the life of Jesus  which have not yet happened. Thus, his second coming to earth is a prerequisite for these events to happen. There is no doubt that the Quran’s revelations will surely happen.

Despite this, however, many people assume that Jesus  passed away some thousands of years ago and that thus it is unlikely that he will return. This is a misconception arising from lack of knowledge about the Quran and the Sunnah. A careful scrutiny of the Quran will render an accurate understanding of the verses about Jesus  possible.

Our Prophet  also told us that Jesus  will be sent back to earth and related that in that time, which is called “the end of time”, there may be a period in which the earth will attain unprecedented peace, justice and welfare. The “end times” refers to the period of time close to the end of the world. According to Islam, in this time, there will be the terrible trials of the Dajjal (Anti-Christ), many earthquakes and the emergence of Yajuj and Majuj (Gog and Magog) after which the ways of the Quran will prevail and people will extensively adhere to the values it introduces.

In their dreams, people always long for better. A more beautiful landscape, a more delicious food, a more socially promising society .. The later period of “the end of time” expresses a period which entirely embraces all these favorable concepts, “the better”, “the more beautiful” etc. It is a blessed period people have been longing for ages. It is the glorious time of welfare and abundance, of justice and peace. It is the time when all these blessings will supersede injustice, immorality, conflict and wars. It is surely the blessed time when Islamic morals will penetrate to every aspect of life.

THE EXPECTED SAVIOR

In every age, Allah answered the call of His slaves who desperately needed His help. This also holds true for this age and for the future. As it was the case with the earlier ages, in our day, too, it is expected that Allah will save people from the injustice of the system of disbelief and present them with the beauties of Islam.

It is especially expected that the Islamic world will find a way out of the corruption it experiences today and the sincere believers will communicate the values of Islam to the whole world. Surely, as in every age, today people hope that a savior will appear. This savior, who will take mankind from the “darkness to the light,” is the religion of Islam. The people leading the way to live by these superior values will defeat all the systems that deny Allah, and they will render corrupted ideologies invalid.

In brief, Allah will help each people as He did in previous ages. Allah promises this to His slaves who sincerely turn to Him and have deep fear of Him.

THE RETURN OF JESUS TO EARTH

An examination of the verses about Jesus  in the Quran indicates that Jesus neither died nor was killed, but he was raised to the presence of Allah. In Surat an-Nisa, it is related that Jesus  was not killed but raised to the presence of Allah. The related verse follows:

And (on account of) their saying, “We killed the Messiah, ‘Isa son of Maryam, Messenger of Allah.” They did not kill him and they did not crucify him but it was made to seem so to them. Those who argue about him are in doubt about it. They have no real knowledge of it, just conjecture. But they certainly did not kill him. Allah raised him up to Himself. Allah is Almighty, All-Wise. (Surat an-Nisa: 157-158)

From what has been related so far, it is clear that Jesus  did not die but was raised to the presence of Allah. However, there is one more point that is underlined by the Quran: Jesus  will come back to earth. That Jesus  will come back to earth towards the end of time is related in another verse 43:61. [detailed references are available in the book related to other verses: 3:45-48; 3:55; 4:157-159].

Starting from Surat az-Zukhruf: 57, there is reference to Jesus :

When an example is made of the son of Maryam (‘Isa) your people laugh uproariously. They retort, “Who is better then, our gods or him?” They only say this to you for argument’s sake. They are indeed a disputatious people.

He is only a slave on whom We bestowed Our blessing and whom We made an example for the tribe of Israel. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43-59)

If We wished, We could appoint angels in exchange for you to succeed you on the earth. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43-60)

Just after these verses, Allah declares that Jesus  is a sign of the Day of Judgment.

He is a Sign of the Hour. Have no doubt about it. But follow me. This is a straight path. (Surat az-Zukhruf: 43:61)

Ibn Juzayy says that the first meaning of this verse is that Jesus  is a sign or a precondition of the Last Hour. We can say that this verse is a clear indication that Jesus  will come back to earth at the end times. That is because Jesus  lived six centuries before the revelation of the Quran. Consequently, we cannot interpret his first coming as a sign of the Day of Judgment. What this verse actually indicates is that Jesus  will come back to earth towards the end of time, that is to say, during the last period of time before the Day of Judgment and this will be a sign for the Day of Judgment. Allah surely knows the best.

The Arabic of the verse “He is a Sign of the Hour” is “Innahu la ‘ilmun li’s-sa’atiÉ” Some people interpret the pronoun “hu” (he) in this verse as the Quran. However, the preceding verses explicitly indicate that Jesus  is mentioned in the verse: “He is only a slave on whom We bestowed Our blessing and whom We made an example for the tribe of Israel” [1]

In Sahih Muslim, it is also stated that the Hadith in which it is said that the Prophet Jesus  will descend amongst people at the end of time have reached the degree of being mutawatir, i.e. narrated by so many people in each generation that it is not possible to have any doubt of their authenticity, and that it is counted as one of the major signs of the Day of Rising. (Sahih Muslim, 2/58)

Hudhayfah ibn Usayd al-Ghifari said, “The Messenger of Allah (saas) came to us all of a sudden as we were (busy in a discussion). He said: ‘What are you discussing?’ We said: ‘We are discussing the Last Hour.’ Thereupon he said: ‘It will not come until you see ten signs before it’ – and (in this connection) he made mention of the smoke, the Dajjal, the beast, the rising of the sun from the west, the descent of ‘Isa the son of Maryam, Yajuj and Majuj, and landslides in three places, one in the east, one in the west and one in Arabia at the end of which fire will burn forth from the Yemen, and drive people to the place of their assembly.” (Sahih Muslim)

JESUS IN THE RISALE-I NUR COLLECTION

In the Risale-I Nur collection, a Quranic commentary written by Said Nursi, also known as Bediuzzaman (the Wonder of the Age),one of the greatest Islamic scholars of the 20th century, there is extensive reference to the end of time and the second coming of Jesus .

It is a fact that today Muslim communities embrace different thoughts. However, a great number of Muslims from various cultures agree that Bediuzzaman was one of the greatest scholars of the 13th century (Muslim Calendar). That is why the detailed descriptions of the end of time by Bediuzzaman are of great importance for all Muslims.

In his explanations regarding the end of time, Bediuzzaman states that two philosophical movements, described as serious endeavors to establish disbelief, would cause disorder on earth. The first one will be a covert threat to Islam while the second class of movements will openly reject the existence of Allah. The second current is materialist and naturalist understandings that affirm that matter is an absolute being, which has existed since eternity and which will exist until eternity. The two movements further hold that living beings accidentally came into existence from non-living matter. (Naturalism is known as the philosophical dimension of Darwin’s theory of evolution.)

This definition surely provides the basis of all ideologies denying the existence of Allah. Since early times, materialists opposed all religions revealed by Allah, fought against their supporters, oppressed people, waged wars and opened the way to every sort of degeneration in society.

Jesus , too, in his second coming to earth, will struggle against these materialist and naturalist movements and, by the will of Allah, will gain victory over them. Bediuzzaman draws attention in his books to the materialist movement:

The Second Current: A tyrannical current born of Naturalist and Materialist philosophy will gradually become strong and spread at the end of time by means of materialist philosophy, reaching such a degree that it denies God. [2]

Bediuzzaman heralds that Jesus  will come to earth at such a period when disbelief will dominate the earth. As stated in the following words of Bediuzzaman, in his second coming to earth, Jesus  will rule with the Quran and eliminate all bigotry in Christianity. Uniting against disbelief, Christians who have embraced Islam and Muslims will prevail over the disbelieving ideologies by the guidance of the Quran. The related section in the Risale-i Nur follows:

At that point when the current appears to be very strong, the religion of true Christianity, which comprises the collective personality of Jesus , will emerge. That is, it will descend from the skies of Divine Mercy. Present Christianity will be purified in the face of that reality; it will cast off superstition and distortion, and unite with the truths of Islam. Christianity will in effect be transformed into a sort of Islam. Following the Quran, the collective personality of Christianity will be in the rank of follower, and Islam, in that of leader. True religion will become a mighty force as a result of its joining it. Although defeated before the atheistic current while separate, Christianity and Islam will have the capability to defeat and rout it as a result of their union. Then the person of Jesus , who is present with his human body in the world of the heavens, will come to lead the current of true religion, as, relying on the promise of One Powerful Over All Things, the Bringer of Sure News has said. Since he has told of it, it is true, and since the One Powerful Over All Things has promised it, He will certainly bring it about. [3]

In all his descriptions of the second coming, Bediuzzaman indicates that Jesus  will remove all the systems of disbelievers in that period. He further adds that he will receive great support from Muslims. Jesus  will act as a Muslim and pray behind the imam of the Muslims, and work together with the right-acting people from the Islamic world, and will assume leadership in spreading the Quran and its teachings, and remove the ongoing violence of the system of the disbelievers:

It will be the truly pious followers of Jesus who will kill the gigantic collective personality of materialism and irreligion which the Dajjal will form – for the Dajjal will be killed by Jesus’ sword – and destroy his ideas and disbelief, which are atheistic. Those truly pious Christians will blend the essence of true Christianity with the essence of Islam and rout the Dajjal with their combined strength, in effect killing him. The narration: “Jesus  will come and will perform the obligatory prayers behind the Mahdi and follow him,” alludes to this union, and to the sovereignty of the Quran and its being followed. [4]

CONCLUSION

In the history of mankind, that Jesus  will be sent back to earth for a second time by Allah is surely a divine favor to all humanity. Only a minority of people will enjoy this occasion. He will then be a blessed “savior” sent to all mankind. Indeed, in times when violence and disorder were increasingly experienced in the world, human beings begged a “helper” from Allah. Accordingly, Allah responded to their plea:

What reason could you have for not fighting in the Way of Allah – for those men, women and children who are oppressed and say, “Our Lord, take us out of this city whose inhabitants are wrongdoers! Give us a protector from You! Give us a helper from You!”? (Surat an-Nisa: 75)

As mentioned earlier, the “savior” in our time is the penetration of the Quranic values to our souls and society. Upon his second coming, Jesus  will wholeheartedly adhere to these revealed values favored by Allah and strive purely to spread them to people all over the world.

The knowledge of unseen and future events is something only known to Allah. Yet, it is certain that those who expect this blessed period and this person must at that time undertake important obligations. Just as Jesus  will protect and guide all believers, the believers will also have to give wholehearted support to Jesus  and help him in the services he renders for the sake of Allah. This time, in other words, during his second coming, believers should never make him ask again, “Who will be my helpers to Allah?”(Surah Al ‘Imran: 52) Otherwise, one will feel deep regret and torment both in this world and hereafter. Allah clearly threatens those who are ungrateful:

Then we sent our Messengers one after another, at intervals. Each time its Messenger came to a community they called him a liar so We made them follow one another too and turned them into myths and legends. Away with the people who have no faith! (Surat al-Muminun: 44)

On the other hand, those who follow him, who provide him sincere support and adopt the revealed values brought by him may well hope to earn the good pleasure, mercy and eternal paradise of Allah. This is a definite promise and good tidings given by Allah:

Allah has sent down a reminder to you, a Messenger reciting Allah’s Clear Signs to you to bring those who have faith and do right actions out of the darkness into the Light. Whoever has faith in Allah and acts rightly, We will admit him into Gardens with rivers flowing under them remaining in them timelessly, for ever and ever. Allah has provided for him excellently! (Surat at-Talaq: 11)

We are grateful to Allah, the Almighty, Who will honor such of His slaves as He wills on such a great occasion as the second coming of Jesus  and grant them this important opportunity to gain merit for their lives in the hereafter.

And peace be upon the Messengers. And praise be to Allah, the Lord of all the worlds! (Surat as-Saffat: 181-182)

---

Notes:

*. : Upon whom be peace

1. Prof. Suleyman Ates, Yuce Kur’an’ın Cagdas Tefsiri (The Contemporary Tafsir of the Holy Quran, vol. 6, p. 4281)

2. Said-i Nursi, The Letters, The Fifteenth Letter, p.53

3. Said-i Nursi, The Letters, The Fifteenth Letter, p.54

4. Said-i Nursi, The Rays, The Fifth Ray, p. 493

Excerpts taken from Harun Yahya’s book, titled “Jesus will Return”. First English edition published in February 2001.  To order this book, click here.

by Imaam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah

MuslimVillage, 10 November 2012
Among the negative effects of persistent sin, according to Imam Ibn Qayyim (God have mercy on him), are:

1: The prevention of knowledge: Knowledge is a light which God throws into the heart and disobedience extinguishes this light. Imam Shafi’ee said: “I complained to Wakee’ about the weakness of my memory, so he ordered me to abandon disobedience. And informed me that the knowledge is light. And that the light of God is not given to the disobedient. “

2: The prevention of sustenance: Just as Taqwa (the consciousness of God’s presence)brings about sustenance, the abandonment of Taqwa causes poverty. There is nothing which can bring about sustenance like the abandonment of disobedience.

3: The prevention of obedience (to God): If there was no other punishment for sin other than that it prevents one from obedience to God then this would be sufficient.

4: Disobedience weakens the heart and the body: Its weakening the heart is something which is clear. Disobedience does not stop weakening it until the life of the heart ceases completely.

5: Disobedience reduces the lifespan and destroys any blessings: Just as righteousness increases the lifespan, sinning reduces it.

6: Disobedience sows its own seeds and gives birth to itself until separating from it and coming out of it becomes difficult for the servant.

7: Sins weaken the hearts will and resolve so that the desire for disobedience becomes strong and the desire to repent becomes weak bit by bit until the desire to repent is removed from the heart completely.

8: Every type of disobedience is a legacy of a nation from among the nations which God destroyed. Sodomy is a legacy of the People of Lot, taking more than one’s due right and giving what is less is a legacy of the People of Shu’ayb, seeking greatness in the land and causing corruption is a legacy of the People of Pharaoh and pride/arrogance and tyranny is a legacy of the People of Hud. So the disobedient one is wearing the gown of some of these nations who were the enemies of God.

9: Disobedience is a cause of the servant being held in contempt by his Sustainer. Al-Hasan al-Basree said: They became contemptible in (His sight) so they disobeyed Him. If they were honourable (in His sight) He would have protected them. God the Exalted said: ”And whomsoever God lowers (humiliates) there is none to give honour.”

10: The ill-effects of the sinner fall upon those besides him and also the animals as a result of which they are touched by harm.

11: The servant continues to commit sins until they become very easy for himand seem insignificant in his heart and this is a sign of destruction. Every time a sin becomes insignificant in the sight of the servant it becomes great in the sight of God. Ibn Mas’ood said: Indeed, the believer sees his sins as if he was standing at the foot of a mountain fearing that it will fall upon him and the sinner sees his sins like a fly which passes by his nose so he tries to remove it by waving his hand around. [Bukharee]

12: Disobedience inherits humiliation and lowliness. Honour, all of it, lies in the obedience of God. Abdullah Ibn al-Mubarak said: ”I have seen sins kill the hearts. And humiliation is inherited by their continuity The abandonment of sins gives life to the hearts. And the prevention of your soul is better for it.”

13: Disobedience corrupts the intellect. The intellect has light and disobedience extinguishes this light. When the light of the intellect is extinguished it becomes weak and deficient.

14: When disobedience increases, the servant’s heart becomes sealed so that he becomes of those who are heedless. The Exalted said: ”But no! A stain has been left on their hearts on account of what they used to earn (i.e. their actions).”

15: Sins cause the various types of corruption to occur in the land. Corruption of the waters, the air, the plants, the fruits and the dwelling places. The Exalted said: ”Mischief has appeared on the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have earned; that He may give them a taste of some of (the actions) they have done, in order that they may return.”

16: The disappearance of modesty which is the essence of the life of the heart and is the basis of every good. Its disappearance is the disappearance of all that is good. It is authentic from the Messenger (pbuh) that he said: Modesty is goodness, all of it [Bukharee and Muslim] A Poet said: ”And by God, there is no good in life or in the world when modesty goes.”

17: Sins weaken and reduce the magnification of God, the Mighty in the heart of the servant

18: Sins are the cause of God forgetting His servant, abandoning him and leaving him to fend for himself with his soul and the devil and in this is the destruction from which no deliverance can be hoped for.

19: Sins remove the servant from the realm of Ihsan (doing good) and he is prevented from (obtaining) the reward of those who do good. When Ihsan fills the heart it prevents it from disobedience.

20: Disobedience causes the favours (of God) to cease and make His revenge lawful. No blessing ceases to reach a servant except due to a sin and no retribution is made lawful upon him except due to a sin. Alee said: No trial has descended except due to a sin and it (the trial) is not repelled except by repentance. God the Exalted said: ”Whatever misfortune afflicts you then it is due to what your hands have earned and (yet) He pardons many.” And the Exalted also said: “That is because never will God change the favour He has bestowed on a people until they change what is with themselves.”*

Source: jamiat.org.za; Imam Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyyah, from his book Al-Jawab al-Kafee

http://muslimvillage.com/2012/11/10/31351/the-effects-of-sins/

Islamic Sciences Encyclopaedia laucned in Cairo

OnIslam, 16 February 2013

CAIRO – In an attempt to correct misconceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West, a new encyclopaedia on Islamic religious sciences has been launched in Egypt, meeting the needs of a large number of non-Arabic speaking Muslims around the world.

“The encyclopaedia, which holds the title “Introduction to study Islamic religious sciences” is presented in the English language in a very simple way,” Dr Ibrahim Negm, a senior advisor to Egypt’s Grand Mufti, told Egypt State Information Service on Saturday, February 16.

“It includes thirty disciplines of Islamic sciences as Qur’an, Islamic jurisprudence, theology, comparative religion and Islamic ethics studies, research methods in Islamic sciences and many other fields.”

Negm said the new encyclopaedia would also tackle a number of modern controversial issues such as Jihad, women in Islam and renewal of Islamic thought.

The launch crowns two years of extensive work under outgoing Mufti Ali Gomaa who established connections with biggest European and American universities.

A copy of this encyclopaedia would be uploaded on Dar al-Ifta media centre page on the Facebook.

Egyptian scholars hope the encyclopaedia would help correct misconceptions about Islam and Muslims in the West.

“The encyclopaedia will help the non-Arabic speaking Muslims to get acquainted with the Islamic sciences and serve as the defence line for the mediated Islamic thought,” Negm said.

“This encyclopaedia will stand against the fierce attacks on Islam that are based on misinterpretations and misunderstanding of Islamic Shari`ah.”

In Islam, Shari`ah govern issues in Muslims’ lives from daily prayers to fasting and from to inheritance and marital cases to financial disputes.

The Islamic rulings, however, do not apply on non-Muslims, even if in a dispute with non-Muslims.

Earlier in 2011, another educational encyclopaedia was launched in Saudi Arabia, compounding scholarly work on Islam, human rights and inter-religious affairs in modern ages.

Titled “An Educational Encyclopaedia of Islam”, the two-volume encyclopaedia includes scholarly work on Islamic cultures, religion, history and politics, the entries of the encyclopaedia are arranged alphabetically.

The encyclopaedia places particular emphasis on nineteenth and twentieth centuries, containing over a thousand articles in two volumes on Islam, Muslims and the Islamic culture in the Arab mainland, South and Southeast Asia and Europe.

Source: http://www.onislam.net/english/news/global/461389-islamic-sciences-encyclopedia-issued.html

Picture: http://muslimvillage.com/2013/02/23/35743/islamic-sciences-encyclopedia-issued/

Islam on good governance

By Amin Valliani

Dawn.com, 14 December 2012

NO nation can dream of development without good governance. It is an essential prerequisite for all state and non-state organisations to abide by the principles of good governance in order to move forward and attain the goal of public welfare.

At the state level, it is considered important and connected with a nation’s overall development and its sustainability. People cannot make progress unless they follow the principles of good governance. Good governance is a culture that makes people act responsibly, thoughtfully and conscientiously.

They behave with restraint and avoid abuse of power. People in authority act within the parameters of the law and take upon themselves the country’s concerns and hardships. They remain impersonal in the discharge of their duties and imperturbable in front of critics. They respect popular will but never go beyond their tether.

Unfortunately, during the course of Muslim history we have hardly seen any worthwhile examples of good governance. The majority of Muslim lands remained under dynastic rule; most rulers were despots, self-serving and a law unto themselves.

Their princes used to fight for the throne and their infighting often led outsiders to invade. They were least concerned about the welfare of their subjects. Common people had very limited access to the corridors of power.

However, we have a shining example when the Holy Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) became head of the state of Madina and exemplified good governance. He created a bond of brotherhood among the Muslim citizens, concluded agreements with non-Muslims and remained concerned about their welfare. He upheld the Islamic value system in which justice remains central. He declared that all humans are the offspring of Adam and that there is no difference between Arab and non-Arab (Ajam).

Islam is a religion which guides us in all aspects of human life. Our value system originates mainly from the Holy Quran and our progress is forever dependent on its application. We find a number of Quranic injunctions considered to contain the essentials of good governance.

First is the concept of amanah (trust). God says that to Him belongs whatever is in the heavens and whatever is on earth.

Every human being is a trustee on earth. All his possessions, including health, wealth, livelihood, power and status belong to God. One who performs his or her duties honestly and diligently is upholding his amanah.

God enjoins believers to “…Betray not God and His Messenger, nor betray knowingly your amanah [things entrusted to you and all the duties which God has ordained for you]” (8:27). In the light of this concept, no one in authority is absolute; one has to remain answerable to his conscience.

Another important principle of good governance is that the ruler must be sincere and of impeccable character. He must consider himself not a ruler but a servant. Similarly, he should be mindful of his every act, that it should not harm his subjects. Those who transgress their limits are the most disgraceful, and the Quran refers to them as zalimoon.

Merit is also one of the important principles of good governance, whereby all appointments in state and non-state organisations are made on the basis of competence. Every human is born with certain inherent competencies and those who actualise their competencies with hard work, integrity and honesty get a premium.

Nature rewards them for being active and hardworking. The Quran says “And that man can have nothing but what he does” (53:39). In meritocratic societies people upgrade themselves professionally and grow economically due to their performance, competence and ability.

Islam encourages Muslims to acquire knowledge and occupy the best position in their societies. We read the life story of Joseph (Yousuf) (PBUH) who was in captivity but was called to head the food ministry because of his high degree of competence and knowledge. He was thus able to prevent the impending famine.

Here knowledge became fundamental in governance. Many Western societies are ahead of us because of knowledge and it is the demand of the present time that our parliament and all lawmaking and law-enforcing bodies be occupied by knowledgeable people.

Similarly, the concept of taqwa (the consciousness of God’s power presence) is also closely linked to good governance. It is an all-inclusive concept which says that every believer should be mindful of God’s omnipresence and be aware of accountability. We live in the constant presence of God. No act goes unrecorded and no one escapes the accountability of his or her doings. If a public servant develops such a sense of God’s presence in his mind and heart, it would result in peace and well-being in society.

The absence of taqwa in any society often leads towards unethical practices. For example, our present-day society is in the grip of widespread corruption. This is the result of poor governance over the years.

When a politician submits a fake degree to stand in elections, when a police party kills a person in a fake encounter, when a businessman evades taxes, when a builder uses outdated material, when a teacher skimps on class work in order to sell his time privately and when a doctor recommends a drug to gain commission from a pharmaceutical firm then the concept of taqwa is grossly violated. The foundations of society are undermined and the nation’s future is ruined.

Many think they will escape judgement but the Quran says “And We have fastened every man’s deeds to his neck and on the Day of Resurrection We shall bring out for him a book which he will find wide open” (17:13).

The writer is an educationist.

amin.valiani@itrebp.org

http://dawn.com/2012/12/14/islam-on-good-governance/

https://soundcloud.com/abul-kalam-3/the-mercy-of-allah-taala-at

To hear this audio khutbah, please click here:

http://soundcloud.com/abul-kalam-3/the-importance-of-giving-up

St John's church in Aberdeen is believed to be the only place in the UK where Muslims and Christians worship side by side. Photograph: Narendra Shresthaepa/EPA

Aberdeen Church opens door to Muslims

Rev Isaac Poobalan makes chapel at St John’s church available to Muslims after mosque proves to be too small for worshippers

By Tamsin Rutter

The Guardian, Tuesday 19th March 2013

A Scottish reverend has invited Muslims to pray alongside Christians in an Aberdeen church because the nearby mosque is so small that some worshippers were forced to pray outside.

The rector of St John’s church, Rev Isaac Poobalan, has made parts of the building available to the congregation of the mosque. Up to 100 Muslims now pray in the main chapel five times every Friday.

Church leaders believe this may be the only place in the UK where Christians and Muslims worship side by side; there have been similar moves in the US, including in Memphis two years ago.

The building which now acts as the Syed Shah Mustafa Jame Masjid mosque was built on the grounds of St John’s Church at St John’s Place, off Crown Street, in the mid-1980s. In 2006 it was turned into a prayer room, but developers did not anticipate that up to 200 Muslims would want to worship there.

“If they all squeezed in very tightly about 60 or 70 people could fit inside,” said Poobolan. “One day when I was walking past the mosque, I found 20 or 30 people outside on the ground around the pavements with their hands and feet exposed. You could see their breath. When I spoke to people at the church about the situation, someone actually said to me this was not our problem, but I had seen it with my own eyes, so it was a problem.”

The two faiths have been working closely together in Aberdeen for several years. On Christmas Eve 2010 the church and the mosque held simultaneous prayers and then both opened their doors to provide food for local people.

An evangelical Christian reads passages from the bible on an iPad mini. Photograph: Reuters

On 11 September 2011, Poobalan and the chief imam held a joint service, and together read from scriptures of the Bible and the Qur’an, commemorating the 10th anniversary of the US terrorist attacks. “We had the sense that we were in this together and we really wanted to convey the message that, if we are genuinely seeking peace, we had to work together and pray together,” said Poobalan.

Poobalan grew up in India and had many Muslim and Hindu friends. He said: “Religiondoes not play a role when it comes to friendship and hospitality. They transcend the religious divide.”

St John’s Church also opens its doors to people from a local mental health hospital every Wednesday. Poobalan said some members of his congregation were reluctant to accept those with mental health problems into the church, and later hesitant to accept Muslim worshippers, but they were learning to “transcend” such instincts.

The church is part of the Scottish Episcopal Church, which belongs to the Anglican Communion and not the Church of Scotland.

The Bishop of Aberdeen and Orkney, the Right Rev Dr Robert Gillies, said: “Internationally, the news speaks of tension and struggles betweenIslam and Christianity. Yet, here in Aberdeen, a mosque and a church have built bonds of affection and friendship. It must be stressed that neither has surrendered or compromised any aspect of the historic faith to which each holds. But mutual hospitality and goodwill exists.”

By Caryle Murphy

Al-monitor.com, 7 February 2013

On March 30, 2012, a little-noticed but remarkable document from young Saudis was posted online.

Beneath its cumbersome title — “Statement of Saudi Youth Regarding the Guarantee of Freedoms and Ethics of Diversity” — it challenged a central tenet of the kingdom’s ultraconservative religious establishment: That it has the right to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on all Saudis.

“No one can claim monopoly of truth or righteousness in the name of Islamic law (Shariah),” declared the statement, many of whose 2,600 signatories were in their 20s. “We are young citizens who seek to create a … community that follows the example of the prophet, peace be upon him, under pluralism of thought … [and] we reject this patriarchal guardianship which forbids us from practicing our God-given right to think and explore for ourselves, as we can listen and judge.”

The statement underscored the religious ferment brewing in the kingdom, especially among young people. Official religious orthodoxy has ruptured, religious attitudes are more fluid and diverse, and there is greater questioning of long-held assumptions.

How this youthful religious exploration plays out will be key to the kingdom’s governance in the years ahead because of the Saudi government’s close alliance with a clerical establishment that sees its primary charge as upholding — and spreading — the austere, anti-intellectual and inflexible version of Salafi Islam known as Wahhabism.

Young Saudis overwhelmingly want the kingdom’s commitment to Islam to remain firm and in their personal lives they remain devout, observant followers of their faith.

But increasingly, they demonstrate less willingness to accept their religious heritage without re-examination, as their parents did. They are more willing to question a fatwa or ignore it; some are daring to openly discuss taboo subjects like atheism. Increasingly too, they favor a religious practice that is more voluntary, less enforced by the state, and more respectful of differences among Muslims.

Portending a crisis of religious authority in Saudi Arabia, young people complain that state-employed clerics are too negative, always stressing what’s forbidden, and that they focus too much on trivial matters without addressing the problems of youth and morally perplexing issues of modern life.

“Before, if anyone talked about religious [things], I listened,” said a 25-year-old high school teacher in the religiously conservative town of Buraida, north of Riyadh. “But now, even if you are a religious man, I don’t trust you because you always talk about things that are not very important for society. Sometimes society has a lot of problems and you are silent. I don’t want that.”

A 28-year-old from Asir studying for his doctorate abroad declared in an interview: “I do not trust Saudi [religious] scholars. Ones from Kuwait and Egypt are more open-minded, they are telling the truth. Ours are not telling the truth. They lost their credibility.”

Disillusioned with official sheikhs, young Saudis are searching elsewhere, even abroad, for spiritual guidance. Two of the most popular religious figures among young Saudis do not hold official positions. Like most Saudi clerics they are accessible on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, as well as their own websites.

Salman Al Audah is a long-time critic of the government and his praise of the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt brought sanctions from the Saudi government: He was banned from traveling abroad and his popular television show was canceled. By contrast, Mohammed Al Arifi, a professor at Riyadh’s King Saud University, supports the government unreservedly. Sometimes called the “Tom Cruise of Wahhabism” because Saudi women regard him as handsome, he is less scholarly than Al Audah, using an earthy humor to attract a youthful audience.

Some young Saudis are going even further in a search for new ways to interpret Islam. For the past three years, a small group has met outside the kingdom in neighboring states to discuss such matters at an annual conference called Ennahda ["Renaissance"] Forum.

“We want to talk about how to change. … So we created a forum to just talk and share ideas with a high ceiling of freedom of speech,” said Mustafa Al Hasan, 36, an assistant professor of Qur’anic exegesis at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran and one of the Forum’s organizers.

In an interview, Al Hasan said that between the annual conference people are meeting in small, informal discussion groups that don’t follow any particular sheikh, which he called a new development in the kingdom’s religious landscape. Participants are mainly 18 to 30 years old, he added, and insist on one thing: no violence.
“They don’t trust the old form of Islam, the old clerics,” Al Hasan said. “They are against the old and not yet to the new. They are thinking.”

Unlike in the past, youths today are not mainly concerned with what Islam prescribes about how to dress, how to wear their hair or how to deal with the opposite gender, Al Hasan said. Rather, their “main concern now is citizenship, freedom, human rights. … We want to have these ideas connected to Islamic thinking.”

These trends are likely to grow for several reasons, including easy access to the Internet and exposure to other cultures during study overseas. Some ultraconservative clerics, fearful that young Saudis are straying from the Wahhabi tradition, have strenuously objected to the government’s overseas education program, which currently supports 145,000 Saudi students in 30 countries, about half of them in the United States.

Young Saudis also are being affected by the intensified debate about Islam’s role in public life sparked by the Arab Awakening and the new preeminence of Islamist political parties, particularly in Egypt. They of course come to this debate from a different starting place than their Tunisian or Egyptian peers, who reached adulthood under secular-oriented states. For Saudis, the dilemma is not so much Islam’s leading role in governance and public life — which most are not challenging — but rather the enforced dominance of one sect, that is, Wahhabism.

The government is sensitive to these religious trends and has already made it clear that it won’t tolerate much theological dissent by arresting a handful of Saudis whose tweets about religious topics were deemed blasphemous. Clerics, both inside and outside the government, are also nervous as they see their influence waning.

“Among young people and the generations of tomorrow, I think religious people won’t have that much power over them,” said Muhammad Al Ojaimi, a 30-year-old Islamist political activist who works with Saudi youth and was instrumental in drafting the online statement.

“The flaws of being governed by religious principles are beginning to show now, Al Ojaimi added. “It’s not really the right way to govern people.… It’s just starting to [be accepted] that people should be governed not by religion but by laws in general, disregarding whatever religion has to do with them.”

http://muslimvillage.com/2013/02/07/35157/saudi-youth-question-wahabism/ (edited)

Dear Brothers and Sisters

Royal Holloway University of London is planning to appoint an Islamic Faith Advisor as from September 2013. Details of the position are attached.

Please read this carefully and pass it on to anyone you think might be interested and suitable for the post.

Many thanks and kind regards

Arshad Gamiet

Chairman, Islamic Welfare Association of West Surrey (IWAWS)

Member of the Faiths Council, Royal Holloway Univeristy

(for details of the vacancy, please click here): RHUL IFA advert (2)

Christians and Muslims: the other story

Arshad Gamiet/Royal Holloway University of London/16^th March 2012

(to listen to this khutbah, or to download the audio version, please click here)  

“A-úthu billáhi minash shaytánir rajeem. Bismilláhir rahmánir raheem

Al hamdu lillahi nahmaduhu wanasta’eenahu, wanastagh-firuhu, wanatoobu ilayhi, wana’oothu Billaahi min shuroori an-fusinaa, wamin sayyi aati a’maalinaa. May- Yahdillahu fa huwal muhtad, wa may- yudlill falan tajidaa lahu waliyan murshida. Wa ash-hadu an Laa ilaaha ill-Alláh, wahdahoo laa shareeka lah, wa ash-hadu anna Muhammadan ‘abduhoo warasooluh”

All Praise is due to Alláh, We praise Him and we seek help from Him. We ask forgiveness from Him. We repent to Him; and we seek refuge in Him from our own evils and our own bad deeds. Anyone who is guided by Alláh,  is truly guided; and anyone who has been left astray, will find no one to guide him. I bear witness that there is no god but Alláh, the Only One without any partner; and I bear witness that Muhammad, sws, is His servant, and His messenger.

Bismillahir Rahmanir Raheem! Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, haqqa tuqaatihee wala tamu tun-na, il-la wa antum Muslimoon.”

O You who believe, – be aware of Allah, with correct awareness, and die not except as Muslims.

Ya Ay-yuhal-latheena ‘aamanut taqul-laaha, wa qooloo qawlan sadeedaa. Yuslih-lakum a’maalakum wa yaghfir lakum thunoobakum, wamay yu-til-laaha warasoolah, faqad faaza fawzan atheemaa.”

O You who believe, – Be aware of Allah, and speak a straightforward word. He will forgive your sins and repair your deeds. And whoever takes Allah and His Prophet as a guide, has already achieved a mighty victory.

In the opening verse of Sura An-Nisaa’, Allah says:

O mankind! Show reverence towards your Guardian-Lord Who created you from a single person, created, of like nature, his mate and from the two of them scattered (like seeds) countless men and women;― Be conscious of Allah, through Whom ye demand your mutual (rights) and (show reverence towards) the wombs (that bore you): for surely, Allah ever watches over you.

My Dear Sisters and Brothers,

In the verse I just quoted, the Holy Quran reminds us that we are all descended from common ancestors, we are all children of Adam and Eve, peace be on them. Yet there are still people who forget this, and who treat others with unbelievable hatred and contempt. In recent days, some Christians have been burning Qurans and some Muslims have been bombing churches and committing acts of mindless terror. They claim they are defending their religion and serving God. But each group is equally misguided. They’re just massaging their own bruised egos. Senseless violence between followers of one great religion and another has nothing to do with real faith.

Wars between Crusaders and Caliphates tell us more about the political rivalry for wealth and power between two civilizations. It tells us nothing about the spiritual connection that has always existed, very strongly, between believing Christians and believing Muslims.

In today’s khutbah I want to focus on this topic. Let’s look at three remarkable Christians to illustrate the intimate connection between the followers of Jesus and Muhammad, may Allah’s peace and blessings be on both of them. We can learn some important lessons from their stories.

They are Bahira, Waraqa and Najashi, the king, the Negus of Abyssinia.

Let’s begin with Bahira the Monk. As we know, Prophet Muhammad was an orphan. His father died before he was born, and his mother died just a few years later. So he was left in the care of his uncle Abu Talib. One day Abu Talib decided to take him along with a caravan to Syria. Along this route was a monastery. Bahira, a Christian monk lived there.

As the caravan approached, Bahira noticed a small cloud was shading it from the sun, in an otherwise cloudless sky. When the caravan stopped by a tree, the cloud also stopped. This tree, by the way, is still alive, subhanallah! It’s still there. It’s the only tree, in fact the only vegetation of any kind, for more than 100 miles in any direction, between Jordan and Syria. This tree stands all alone in the empty desert, the last living sahaba, the last living entity still connected with our beloved Prophet, sws

Bahira invited the travellers to a meal, and after examining the boy Muhammad closely he recognised the mark of prophet-hood on his back. He advised Abu Talib to take good care of him, because his own people would seek to harm him.

Our story goes fast-forward to a mountain cave near Makka and Muhammad is now a man of 40. He often comes here to meditate, but tonight, one of the last 10 nights of Ramadan, a strange thing happens. Suddenly, the Angel Gabriel appears, and hugs Muhammad in a tight embrace, almost squeezing the life out of him, commanding him to read. He protests: I cannot read! I’m illiterate! But again and again he is commanded: Read! Until the first verses of the Holy Quran come forth from his lips:

“Bismillaahir Rahmaanir Raheem! Iqra! Bismi Rabbikal lathee khalaq! Khalaqal insaana min ‘alaq. Iqra wa rabbukal akram; Al-lathee ‘al lama bil qalam, ‘alamal insaana ma lam ya’alam”

In the name of Allah, the All- Merciful, the All-Compassionate.
READ! In the name of thy Lord Who created, (1) Created man from a clot of blood. (2) Read: And thy Lord is the Most Bounteous, (3) Who teaches by the pen, (4) Teaches man that which he knew not

This was the beginning of Muhammad’s assignment as God’s last Prophet. Gripped by fear and dread, he rushed home to his wife, Khadija, pleading, “Cover me, cover me!” He feared that he was losing his mind. But Khadija reassured him, saying “You always maintain family ties, always feed the poor and you stand by the downtrodden. Allah would never humiliate you or forsake you.” And where do you think she took him to find advice and consolation? To the rich and powerful, the grandees of Makka? No! She was rich and powerful herself. But she took him to her cousin, Waraqa,  a poor man in failing health who was a Christian. He was old and losing his sight, but he reassured Muhammad that this event was foretold in earlier scripture. “If I lived long enough I would stand by you, even when your people turn against you,” said Waraqa. “Will my people turn against me?” asked Prophet Muhammad. Waraqa replied: “Never has a prophet brought what your will bring without his people turning against him.”

We are reminded here, that Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus all met with ingratitude and violent rebellion from their own people, the very people who needed to be saved from themselves. Doesn’t that sound familiar? People of faith are always resisted by their own people who prefer to worship the false idols of power, greed and vanity.

Here’s another example of a great Christian of the time,The king, the Negus of Abyssinia, who protected a small group of Muslims from persecution from their own tribe, the Qureish of Makka.

As soon as Prophet Muhammad started preaching his message, he made enemies, lethal enemies. He called on people to worship the One God of Abraham and Moses and Jesus, not the many idols, 360 idols of wood and stone adorning the kaaba. This was bad for business. Imagine someone preaching against capitalism and consumerism in Trafalgar Square! Not quite the same earth-shaking message, but imagine! Prophet Muhammad urged people to stop burying alive their baby daughters, for the strong to stop oppressing the weak, for the tribes to stop genocidal warfare. He was calling for change, radical change, and his enemies, sensing a threat to their power and authority, started torturing and killing his followers.

Islam was now in mortal danger.

So as a precaution, Prophet Muhammad sent a small group to Abyssinia/ Ethiopia. “There you will find a just and tolerant Christian ruler who will protect you,” he assured them.  These were the world’s first Muslim Asylum seekers, given protection by a Christian king in Africa, 1,400 years ago! Today, Good Christians in Britain and Europe are still following this noble tradition, taking care of asylum seekers who fear persecution in their own countries!

What about Muslim hospitality towards Christians?

While he was the Governor of Madinah, Prophet Muhammad received a delegation of Christians from Najran in Southern Arabia. When it was time to pray, they had no place to pray, so he invited them into his mosque and allowed them to pray in there.

My dear brothers and sisters! How many of us Muslims will do that today? How many mosques anywhere in the Muslim world, will offer their Christian neighbours that courtesy exemplified by our own Prophet?

Here at Royal Holloway University, in a few weeks time when students write their exams, we’ll have to do our Friday prayers in another hall. For years, we’ve used the Jurgens Centre at exam time. The Jurgens Centre belongs to the local Catholic Church. Remember that. We Muslims do our Friday prayers in a hall owned by the Catholic Church. 1400 years after the Najran Christians prayed in Prophet Muhammad’s mosque, Christians in Englefield Green are returning the favour!

When believers of any faith treat believers of another faith with kindness and respect, they are also showing a courtesy to God, to Allah.

My dear sisters and brothers, let’s remember the Golden Rule, the Ethic of Reciprocity: Nabi Isa, Jesus saidl “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” 600 years later, Prophet Muhammad expressed the same message in different words. He said that we are not believers until we desire for others what we desire for ourselves.

“Innalláha wa malaaikata yusallúna alan nabi. Yá ay yuhal latheena ámanu sallú alayhi wasalli mú tas leema. Allahumma salli alá Muhammad, wa ala áli Muhammad, kama salayta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali Ibrahim.Allahumma barik ala Muhammad, kama barakta ala Ibrahim, wa ala ali ibrahim. Fil ála meen, innaka hameedun majeed.”

Allah and His angels send greetings on Prophet Muhammad, O you who believe, send greetings on him, and salute him with a worthy salutation! O Allah, send peace on Muhammad and his family, just as you sent peace on Abraham and his family. O Allah, send blessings on Muhammad and his family, just as you sent blessings on Abraham and his family. In both worlds, You are Praiseworthy and Exalted.

Second Khutbah:

“Soob’ hanallahi wal hamdu lillah, wala hawla wala quwwata illah billah yu althi yual theem”

Glory to Allah!  Praise to Allah! There is no power and no strength except from Allah!

My dear sisters and brothers,

The Islamic Calendar, the Hegira, began when Prophet Muhammad evaded assassination in Makka and migrated to Madinah. Jews, Christians and Muslims welcomed him as their new leader. They eagerly awaited his first speech, his first sermon, khutbah. It was short, eloquent, and powerful.

He summed up the entire teaching of Islam in one short sentence:

“Spread salaam (peace), feed the hungry; pray for a part of the night and you will enter paradise.” (Hadith)

That’s all…   That’s what Islam is all about: Spreading peace between people, feeding the poor, thanking our generous Provider every night, and hoping for his good pleasure.

A few years ago my wife and I visited the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt. In the middle of the Sinai desert we found Mount Sinai, where Moses received the 10 Commandments. At the foot of the mountain is the ancient St Catherine’s Monastery. We were amazed to find a mosque inside this monastery. We were also amazed to find that local Muslim Arabs have been coming to the monastery every day, for over 1,400 years, to knead the dough and bake the bread there, side by side, with Coptic Christian monks.

But the monks showed us something even more amazing. High up on a wall is a gold-framed Charter of Privileges to the Christians. It is written in Arabic, and it is signed by Prophet Muhammad, with the seal of his ring imprinted in red wax. The one we read was a copy, as the original Charter is in the Topkapi Museum in Istanbul. It reads:

This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.
Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them.
No compulsion is to be on them.
Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries.
No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses.
Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate.
No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight.
The Muslims are to fight for them.
If a female Christian is married to a Muslim it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray.
Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants.
No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).

This charter of privileges has been honoured and faithfully applied by many Muslim regimes throughout the centuries. Imagine that! Despite wars between Crusaders and Caliphates, Christians were safe here, making bread and breaking bread with local Muslims. There’s a powerful message for our troubled world today.

Those who ‘spoil God’s Covenant’ and disobey clear instructions from Prophet Muhammad will have to answer to Almighty Allah. Let us therefore show respect and love for fellow believers among the ‘People of the earlier Scriptures.’ This is what Allah commands us to do, and for more than 14 centuries, Prophet Muhammad’s letter has reminded us of this Covenant.

Brothers and sisters, to conclude our khutbah:

InnaAllaha, Yamuru bil adel, wal ihsaan, wa eetaa-i zil qurba; wa yanha anil fuhshaa-i, wal munkari walbaghi; ya-idzukhum lallakum tathak-karoon. (Sura 16:90),

“Surely Allah commands justice, good deeds and generosity to others and to relatives; and He forbids all shameful deeds, and injustice and rebellion: He instructs you, so that you may be reminded.”

Fadth kuroonee adth kurkum, wash kuroolee walaa tak furoon [2:152].

“and remember Me: I will remember you. Be grateful to Me, and do not reject faith.”

wala thikrul-Laahi akbar, Wal-Laahu ya’lamu maa tasna’oon.” [29:45].

“and without doubt, Remembrance of Allah is the Greatest Thing in life, and Allah knows the deeds that you do.”

Ameen.                   Aqeemus salaah

by Hasnet Lais

The Independent, UK  8 February 2013

You’d think after watching BBC Three’s Make me a Muslimdocumentary, being a female convert to Islam is so riddled with fault lines. Not really. My recent interviews with Muslim converts offered a rare glimpse into the lives of three women who would flatly reject such comparisons. And they’re all buzzing with spiritual ecstasy, retelling what caused them to halal-ify their wardrobes and Islamise dress codes.

“Being Muslim keeps me from wanting to impress others and gives me more personal confidence,” says Chantelle, a 19-year-old convert from Hackney. Today, she goes by the name Khadija, as a sign of respect for Muhammad’s first wife and insists there’s more to British women trading bare midriffs for abayas than what meets the eye. “I wear the hijab because I want to. Because it’s between me and Allah. It’s not a fashion statement. Yes, I don’t go to clubs and don’t sleep around. It gives me a comfort which I know so many of my friends would love to have.”

One of those friends is Monique, who recalls how Chantelle’s embracing Islam inspired a raw honesty and emotion in her, helping her sense power and security in a head-to-toe cover-up: “I can’t really say for certain that I became Muslim because I read the Qur’an. But in a weird way, I felt Chantelle had more freedom than I did by covering herself, instead of letting it all out like me. I thought to myself ‘this was worth trying’. I can’t say I don’t miss our clubs and parties but I’d rather live like this. We still do what other girls do but it’s more toned down if you catch my drift. I haven’t looked back since”.

Both girls were gearing up for a lifetime of prostration, meditation and single-sex socialising and offered gleaning insights into how their lives had taken a better turn from the moment they embraced Islam. As we entered deep into our discussions, they also took a moment to discuss the challenges which lay in their wake.

We talked about everything from relationships, sex and family, and it was clear the prospect of love and marriage lingered heavily over their heads. Chantelle spoke candidly about some common anxieties with converts: “It’s not just what friends and family are going to say. ‘Oh my God, why are you dressing like that etc.’ I don’t care about being unpopular. But I do wonder whether I can have a boyfriend or what my chances of marrying a native Muslim will be. I guess I’ll have to stick to another convert”.

Similar emotions skittered across Monique’s face when I asked her the same question. Despite being saddled with the weight of conversion, theirs was a genuine humility and grace with which both accepted their “good fortunes” of becoming Muslim and as Chantelle put it, “Women who can at last be themselves and please themselves and not men”. Neither of them was borne of any resignation and were at pains to convince others that their new identities hadn’t sapped their career ambitions or aspirations in the slightest.

Contrary to the sneering stereotypes of some sections of the press, British women converting to Islam do not enter the realm of the socially immobile and culturally policed. Like those I interviewed, they’ve found a new lease of life as tee-totalling Brits, dragging women from under the voyeuristic yoke. If Chantelle and Monique are anything to go by, then sex doesn’t have to sell for women to compete on the same terms.

Then there was 32-year-old mother of two, Jessica. Defiant, unrelenting and unapologetic, she sat before me, niqaab-clad- a far cry from her early adolescent years which were “adrenaline soaked” and “godless”. “I’m just so thankful to Allah that I’ve left everything behind. The hangovers, the guilt, the promiscuous sex. Basically, I feel completely transformed and hate to be reminded of my past because that was me then, and this is me now”.

She claimed becoming Muslim was a “welcome distraction” from her previous, unspiritual lifestyle and was relieved to be confronted by a siege of female converts after she took her shahada (testimony of faith). There was a lot of frenzy surrounding her conversion, not least from her family: “My mum dismissed it as a case of teenage rebellion,” says Jessica, who spends much of her spare time buying and selling the intricate embroideries and jewel works of hijabs and jilbabs.

As I probed a little deeper, I realised the reason why she, like some other converts I’ve met in the past, came across as a lapsed Briton, cut off from their indigenous culture: “No one from our politicians to our newspapers are doing anything to fight the prejudice against women. Our culture has become so sex obsessed, its making parenting tougher than I thought”.

We spoke in length about the misogynistic gaffes served up by the media, and the recent description by The Daily Mail of an eight-year-old as a ‘leggy beauty’ unwittingly added fuel to her fire. “You see that’s exactly my point. My decision to become Muslim was a safety net from all this filth. My children are not going to grow up without realising that although we’ve got a lot of things right in Britain we’ve also messed a lot of things up, especially when it comes to respecting our girls”.

For Jessica, grubby tabloids and the casual sexualisation of British society helped explain the irresistible appeal of puritanism for some British females. Accepting Islam was a way of her silently reproaching the cultural failure to improve the lot of women: “Why do you think so many women are becoming Muslim in this country? Because the ‘wonderful’ freedoms in the west have only enslaved us.”

As interesting as it was hearing these converts share memories from the past and express delight at their leap of faith, I was looking more forward to interviewing native Muslims who had grown up in British Muslim families, to find out what they thought about their convert sisters in faith.

Like me and Shanna Bukhari, the documentary’s presenter, Fatima felt converts to Islam claimed an ambiguous spiritual advantage: “Seeing them offer voluntary prayers and study the Qur’an led me to a lot of soul searching and reflection. They’re much better at being Muslim than I could ever have imagined” she says.

For practising Muslim Lutfa, the no-nonsense hard-line exteriors of some converts bring a certain noise and colour to the religion which she feels can only be good for the faith. “If you look at Islam from a historical point of view, then you will see that we really owe a lot of our genius to the energy of converts”. I couldn’t agree any more. Among my Muslim friends, we’re often left feeling that converts have seized the initiative and run with it and to keep apace, we’ve got to step our God-game up so to speak. Lutfa also agrees that women converts offer Muslims a refreshing change of pace “Convert sisters are definitely setting a standard for others to follow”.

Whatever we may think of these converts, their decision to become Muslim may be a powerful indictment of some women’s lives in the west. That’s the impression they all left me, especially Jessica who would repeatedly ask whether feminism had delivered on its promise. So amidst all the everyday sexism and cultural creepiness hounding British women, is Islam somehow squaring their circle?  Are burkas, niqaabs and hijaabs breathing soul in the lives of girls which desperately lack a higher calling, helping them reclaiming the watchwords of feminism? Does the conversion to Islam among British women bode healthily for Britain’s future? For Chantelle, Monique and Jessica, the answer to these questions is a resolute yes.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2013/02/08/are-female-converts-to-islam-part-of-a-new-wave-of-feminism/

It was a hot day in 1961, and a man was travelling on business in the Buhera district of what was then called Rhodesia. It just so happens that he was a Muslim, one of the 4, 000 or so descendants of Asians and Malawians who had settled in the country after the turn of the century.
On this particular occasion he found himself miles from the nearest town; he had been driving all day and badly needed water. In despair, he stopped at a’ kraal’ or small settlement of African villagers, members of the Varemba tribe.
Typical of rural people of the area they lived a traditional life, very much as their ancestors had done for centuries. They were friendly and welcoming to the stranger who, trying to make polite conversation asked them their names. The answers, when they came, astonished him.
“My name is Ali” said one of the tribesmen brightly. “I’m Yusuf” said another, “and I’m Mustafa” added a third. The visitor looked at them, openmouthed. “Are you a Muslim?” he asked incredulously. The word seemed to have little meaning for the villagers but, as the visitor started to describe his own beliefs and customs, they nodded in agreement.
Yes they too would never eat pork. Yes, they too circumcised their sons it seemed an extraordinary coincidence – they seemed to have no knowledge of the doctrines of Islam. After he left the kraal, the Muslim traveler could not stop puzzling over the phenomenon. He alerted his friends in the established Muslim community and they sent out more representatives to meet and talk to the tribe.
Gradually, the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle started to fit together.
It seems that when, back in the Middle Ages, Arab merchants set up trading posts on the east African coast, Islamic culture gradually spread further and further inland. Archaeologists excavating the Great Zimbabwe ruins, the ancient heart of the country which now bears their name, have found bracelets and a number of other objects of typically Islamic design.
This was apparently how the ancestors of modern day Varemba tribe first came into contact with Islam and later, when they reverted to African religious beliefs, they kept on many of the outward signs of Islamic culture, without really understanding why they did so.
After that first historic meeting between the thirsty Muslim traveler and his Varemba hosts, contacts were at last established between the indigenous and immigrant Muslim communities. But the contact was as yet with only a small proportion of the tribe, and only the beginning of what has since evolved into a fascinating story.
In August 1974, Sheikh Adam Moosa Makda leader of the country’s Islamic community, visited Masvingo, in the area of Great Zimbabwe ruins. While he was there, he was approached by a frail old man, one of the Varemba tribe, who spoke to him in the native language of Shona.
The old fellow insisted the he had a dream in which he had been told to go to Masvingo to find an ‘Arab’ who would explain to his people how to perform their rituals. He was convinced that Sheikh Makda was his man.
The Sheikh was intrigued by the old man’s story. He gently explained to him that by the word ‘Arab’ he probably meant ‘Muslim’ and accepted the invitation to come and meet his tribe.
Sheikh Makda arrived in Chinyika, headquarters of that particular branch of the Varemba, to find 400 villagers sitting expectantly under a wood and grass shelter. Not sure what to say, he started about his religious beliefs. As he saw the reaction to his words, tears come into Sheikh Makda’s eyes.
The villagers were beaming with delight, nodding and clapping their hands. To them, it must have seemed as if a great door had been opened into the past. Now at last they understood why they observed such particular customs, why their tribal groupings had such ‘foreign’ sounding names, like ‘Sharifi’ and’ Bakari’(names, in fact, lifted almost straight from Arabic). At last they understood the words, meaningless in their own language, which they had taught to say by their ancestors before slaughtering an animal: “Allah Akbar!”
Sheikh Makda pondered over how best to reintroduce the Varemba to the mainstream of Islam. In the end, he decided that the way would be to send three members of the tribe, one young, one middle-age and one old, to the Muslim Society in Masvingo, where a trained Imam could instruct them in Islamic beliefs and rituals. They could then go back and explain things in their own way to their own people. The scheme was an unqualified success.
An appeal was the made to the local chief for some land, and in October 1976, the first lorry load of bricks was delivered which would eventually become the Islamic Centre of Chinyika. Since then, the Varemba have embraced Islam in greater and greater number-up to a thousand in the first two years. They have taken instruction with enthusiasm, while insisting they have been ‘real’ Muslims all along, just needing a ‘refresher course’! Many of them trudge for miles to come to Chinyika.
More than two dozens of Varemba youngsters are among the several young Muslims in Zimbabwe now in the process of memorizing the Qur’an and one of the tribe, Ali Mutazu, is now a qualified Imam.
But now, in recent months, yet more amazing facts are coming to light. Independence, and the end of the civil war in 1980, has made the remoter parts of Zimbabwe more accessible to researchers and recent findings by a young lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, Ephraim Mandivenga, who, thought not himself a Muslim has become fascinated by the story.
His book, Islam in Zimbabwe (Mambo Press). The first to be published on the subject shows that this may just be the tip of the iceberg. There may be as many as 150, 00 members of the Varemba tribe in Zimbabwe – all, in a manner of speaking, indigenous Muslims!’ says Mandivenga. If this is true, it must alter our whole picture of Zimbabwe’s Muslims who, previously, were chiefly an immigrant community.
There are two main immigrant groups of Muslim who have settled in Zimbabwe. The first are the Asian Muslims – now numbering about 20,000 who arrived after the British colonists hoisted the Union Jack at Fort Salisbury in 1890.
When being laid and the engineers decided to construct a fantastic iron bridge, which still today carries steam trains in splendor across the Zimbazi gorge into Zambia, the labour force was recruited from the Indian subcontinent. Muslims came from what is now Pakistan stayed and intermarried with the local Africans.
Other came from the Gujerat province of India, making the long, rolling journey by ship from Bombay to Beira on the Mozambican coast and then by train to Untali. They started off working in the chrome mines; some built up successful businesses and now every town along the main railway routes of Zimbabwe has its sprinkling of Asian shop front names.
The second group, that of the Malawian Muslims is larger – about 50,000 strong. They are descendants of Malawian tribes Islamized by the coastal Arabs and, after the British colonized Rhodesia, many of them migrated there to look for jobs, chiefly unskilled work in farms, the steel and tobacco industries and as domestic servants and gardeners.
The various strands of the Muslim community in Zimbabwe are well known for their generosity to each other. The oldest mosque in the capital, Harare, was built in 1927.
An island of calm on the noisy, traffic filled corner of Charter Road and Julius Nyerere Way, it began as a place of worship for the Asian community, but the Malawians were soon also made welcome. In 1961, Asian Muslims donated 10, 300 british pounds sterling to the Malawians so that they could have their own mosque.
Now that the Varemba Muslims have been ‘discovered’, both the Asian and Malawians communities are chipping in to help educate and encourage them. The work is coordinated by the Zimbabwe Islamic Mission, or ZIM, headed by Sheikh Adam Moosa Makda, who was educated in Saudi Arabia and whose special concern is with poor and underprivileged Muslims.
In Kwekwe, where ZIM has its headquarters, is Zimbabwe’s most beautiful mosque, insured by Moorish and Indian tradition, reminiscent of the Taj Mahal, it took eight years to build and was finished in 1977. There are mosques located in nearly all of the larger towns. There are 18 mosques in the capital city of Harare, the largest which was completed in 1982 is located in Ridgeview, a suburb of Harare.
The Ridgeview mosque can take 2,000 people – a reflection of the needs of the diplomatic community which has grew up in the city since the end of international isolation in 1980.
There are 8 mosques in Bulawayo, and a number of mosques in rural areas. The Muslim community has expanded its outreach efforts with the aid of the Kuwaiti-sponsored African Muslim Agency (AMA); the Harare AMA office has had increased success proselytizing among the majority black indigenous population, in part because of its humanitarian projects in rural areas. Some chiefs and headmen in the rural areas have reportedly converted from Christianity to Islam. A training center for Imams has been set up in another suburb of Harare, Waterfalls.
Several scores of young black Zimbabwean Muslims have passed out there and many others drop in for help and information.
Muslims in Zimbabwe seem to exist harmoniously with the rest of the country’s population. They are fortunate in not having been tarred with the brush of colonialism – in fact, the Patriotic Front, who fought the white regime of Ian Smith, received support from Islamic countries, notably Pakistan, Libya and Algeria.
I heard the story of how, when the Chinyika Islamic Centre was being built in the 1970s, the Imam was surprised by some Patriotic Front guerillas who burst into the compound.
Fed with horrific tales of alleged atrocities against Christian missions, he was sure his last hour had come. But, to his amazement, when the intruders discovered that he was a Muslim, they just patted him on the back and said “keep up the good work!”
The main problem for Zimbabwe’s Muslims is lack of funds – the Malawian group, particularly, are chiefly unskilled workers with very limited resources. To help the huge task of incorporating the Varemba, teachers, scholarships and Islamic publications are just some of the things that are needed. Still, the future looks bright and the Islamic Community of Zimbabwe would like everyone to know that they are very much a going concern!

http://www.tripolipost.com/articledetail.asp?c=4&i=3979

https://soundcloud.com/abul-kalam-3/khutba-on-virtues-of-dua-at

https://soundcloud.com/abul-kalam-3/helping-each-other-reality-of

The Wisdom of Luqman

Avoiding Shaitaan\’s Traps

Shaykh Abdal Hakim Murad

the problem with anti-madhhabism

by Shaikh Abdal-Hakim Murad ©

The ummah’s greatest achievement over the past millennium has undoubtedly been its internal intellectual cohesion. From the fifth century of the Hijra almost to the present day, and despite the outward drama of the clash of dynasties, the Sunni Muslims have maintained an almost unfailing attitude of religious respect and brotherhood among themselves. It is a striking fact that virtually no religious wars, riots or persecutions divided them during this extended period, so difficult in other ways.

The history of religious movements suggests that this is an unusual outcome. The normal sociological view, as expounded by Max Weber and his disciples, is that religions enjoy an initial period of unity, and then descend into an increasingly bitter factionalism led by rival hierarchies. Christianity has furnished the most obvious example of this; but one could add many others, including secular faiths such as Marxism. On the face of it, Islam’s ability to avoid this fate is astonishing, and demands careful analysis.

There is, of course, a straightforwardly religious explanation. Islam is the final religion, the last bus home, and as such has been divinely secured from the more terminal forms of decay. It is true that what Abdul Wadod Shalabi has termed ‘spiritual entropy’[1] has been at work ever since Islam’s inauguration, a fact which is well-supported by a number of hadiths. Nonetheless, Providence has not neglected the ummah. Earlier religions slide gently or painfully into schism and irrelevance; but Islamic piety, while fading in quality, has been given mechanisms which allow it to retain much of the sense of unity emphasised in its glory days. Wherever the antics of the emirs and politicians might lead, the brotherhood of believers, a reality in the initial career of Christianity and some other faiths, continues, fourteen hundred years on, to be a compelling principle for most members of the final and definitive community of revelation in Islam. The reason is simple and unarguable: God has given us this religion as His last word, and it must therefore endure, with its essentials of tawhid, worship and ethics intact, until the Last Days.

Such an explanation has obvious merit. But we will still need to explain some painful exceptions to the rule in the earliest phase of our history. The Prophet himself (pbuh) had told his Companions, in a hadith narrated by Imam Tirmidhi, that “Whoever among you outlives me shall see a vast dispute”. The initial schisms: the disastrous revolt against Uthman (r.a.)[2], the clash between Ali (r.a.) and Talha, and then with Mu`awiyah[3], the bloody scissions of the Kharijites[4] – all these drove knives of discord into the Muslim body politic almost from the outset. Only the inherent sanity and love of unity among scholars of the ummah assisted, no doubt, by Providence overcame the early spasms of factionalism, and created a strong and harmonious Sunnism which has, at least on the purely religious plane, united ninety percent of the ummah for ninety percent of its history.[5]

It will help us greatly to understand our modern, increasingly divided situation if we look closely at those forces which divided us in the distant past. There were many of these, some of them very eccentric; but only two took the form of mass popular movements, driven by religious ideology, and in active rebellion against majoritarian faith and scholarship. For good reasons, these two acquired the names of Kharijism and Shi’ism. Unlike Sunnism, both were highly productive of splinter groups and sub-movements; but they nonetheless remained as recognisable traditions of dissidence because of their ability to express the two great divergences from mainstream opinion on the key question of the source of religious authority in Islam.

Confronted with what they saw as moral slippage among early caliphs, posthumous partisans of Ali (r.a.) developed a theory of religious authority which departed from the older egalitarian assumptions by vesting it in a charismatic succession of Imams. We need not stop here to investigate the question of whether this idea was influenced by the Eastern Christian background of some early converts, who had been nourished on the idea of the mystical apostolic succession to Christ, a gift which supposedly gave the Church the unique ability to read his mind for later generations. What needs to be appreciated is that Shi’ism, in its myriad forms, developed as a response to a widely-sensed lack of definitive religious authority in early Islamic society. As the age of the Righteous Caliphs came to a close, and the Umayyad rulers departed ever more conspicuously from the lifestyle expected of them as Commanders of the Faithful, the sharply-divergent and still nascent schools of fiqh seemed inadequate as sources of strong and unambiguous authority in religious matters. Hence the often irresistible seductiveness of the idea of an infallible Imam.[6]

This interpretation of the rise of Imamism also helps to explain the second great phase in Shi’i expansion. After the success of the fifth-century Sunni revival, when Sunnism seemed at last to have become a fully coherent system, Shi’ism went into a slow eclipse. Its extreme wing, as manifested in Ismailism, received a heavy blow at the hands of Imam al-Ghazali, whose book “Scandals of the Batinites” exposed and refuted their secret doctrines with devastating force.[7] This decline in Shi’i fortunes was only arrested after the mid-seventh century, once the Mongol hordes under Genghis Khan had invaded and obliterated the central lands of Islam. The onslaught was unimaginably harsh: we are told, for instance, that out of a hundred thousand former inhabitants of the city of Herat, only forty survivors crept out of the smoking ruins to survey the devastation.[8] In the wake of this tidal wave of mayhem, newly-converted Turcoman nomads moved in, who, with the Sunni ulama of the cities dead, and a general atmosphere of fear, turbulence, and Messianic expectation in the air, turned readily to extremist forms of Shi’i belief.[9] The triumph of Shi’ism in Iran, a country once loyal to Sunnism, dates back to that painful period.[10]

The other great dissident movement in early Islam was that of the Kharijites, literally, the seceders, so-called because they seceded from the army of the Caliph Ali when he agreed to settle his dispute with Muawiyah through arbitration. Calling out the Quranic slogan, “Judgement is only God’s”, they fought bitterly against Ali and his army which included many of the leading Companions, until, in the year 38, Imam Ali defeated them at the Battle of Nahrawan, where some ten thousand of them perished.[11]

Although the first Kharijites were destroyed, Kharijism itself lived on. As it formulated itself, it turned into the precise opposite of Shi’ism, rejecting any notion of inherited or charismatic leadership, and stressing that leadership of the community of believers should be decided by piety alone. This was assessed by very rudimentary criteria: the early Kharijites were known for extreme toughness in their devotions, and for the harsh doctrine that any Muslim who commits a major sin is an unbeliever. This notion of takfir (declaring Muslims to be outside Islam), permitted the Kharijite groups, camping out in remote mountain districts of Khuzestan, to raid Muslim settlements which had accepted Umayyad authority. Non-Kharijis were routinely slaughtered in these operations, which brought merciless reprisals from tough Umayyad generals such as al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf. But despite the apparent hopelessness of their cause, the Kharijite attacks continued. The Caliph Ali (r.a.) was assassinated by Ibn Muljam, a survivor of Nahrawan, while the hadith scholar Imam al-Nasai, author of one of the most respected collections of sunan, was likewise murdered by Kharijite fanatics in Damascus in 303/915.[12]

Like Shi’ism, Kharijism caused much instability in Iraq and Central Asia, and on occasion elsewhere, until the fourth and fifth centuries of Islam. At that point, something of historic moment occurred. Sunnism managed to unite itself into a detailed system that was now so well worked-out, and so obviously the way of the great majority of ulama, that the attraction of the rival movements diminished sharply.

What happened was this. Sunni Islam, occupying the middle ground between the two extremes of egalitarian Kharijism and hierarchical Shi’ism, had long been preoccupied with disputes over its own concept of authority. For the Sunnis, authority was, by definition, vested in the Quran and Sunnah. But confronted with the enormous body of hadiths, which had been scattered in various forms and narrations throughout the length and breadth of the Islamic world following the migrations of the Companions and Followers, the Sunnah sometimes proved difficult to interpret. Even when the sound hadiths had been sifted out from this great body of material, which totalled several hundred thousand hadith reports, there were some hadiths which appeared to conflict with each other, or even with verses of the Quran. It was obvious that simplistic approaches such as that of the Kharijites, namely, establishing a small corpus of hadiths and deriving doctrines and law from them directly, was not going to work. The internal contradictions were too numerous, and the interpretations placed on them too complex, for the qadis (judges) to be able to dish out judgements simply by opening the Quran and hadith collections to an appropriate page.

The reasons underlying cases of apparent conflict between various revealed texts were scrutinised closely by the early ulama, often amid sustained debate between brilliant minds backed up with the most perfect photographic memories. Much of the science of Islamic jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh) was developed in order to provide consistent mechanisms for resolving such conflicts in a way which ensured fidelity to the basic ethos of Islam. The term taarud al-adilla (mutual contradiction of proof-texts) is familiar to all students of Islamic jurisprudence as one of the most sensitive and complex of all Muslim legal concepts.[13] Early scholars such as Ibn Qutayba felt obliged to devote whole books to the subject.[14]

The ulama of usul recognised as their starting assumption that conflicts between the revealed texts were no more than conflicts of interpretation, and could not reflect inconsistencies in the Lawgiver’s message as conveyed by the Prophet (pbuh). The message of Islam had been perfectly conveyed before his demise; and the function of subsequent scholars was exclusively one of interpretation, not of amendment.

Armed with this awareness, the Islamic scholar, when examining problematic texts, begins by attempting a series of preliminary academic tests and methods of resolution. The system developed by the early ulama was that if two Quranic or hadith texts appeared to contradict each other, then the scholar must first analyse the texts linguistically, to see if the contradiction arises from an error in interpreting the Arabic. If the contradiction cannot be resolved by this method, then he must attempt to determine, on the basis of a range of textual, legal and historiographic techniques, whether one of them is subject to takhsis, that is, concerns special circumstances only, and hence forms a specific exception to the more general principle enunciated in the other text.[15] The jurist must also assess the textual status of the reports, recalling the principle that a Quranic verse will overrule a hadith related by only one isnad (the type of hadith known asahad), as will a hadith supplied by many isnads (mutawatir or mashhur).[16] If, after applying all these mechanisms, the jurist finds that the conflict remains, he must then investigate the possibility that one of the texts was subject to formal abrogation (naskh) by the other.

This principle of naskh is an example of how, when dealing with the delicate matter of taarud al-adilla, the Sunni ulama founded their approach on textual policies which had already been recognised many times during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh). The Companions knew by ijma that over the years of the Prophets ministry, as he taught and nurtured them, and brought them from the wildness of paganism to the sober and compassionate path of monotheism, his teaching had been divinely shaped to keep pace with their development. The best-known instance of this was the progressive prohibition of wine, which had been discouraged by an early Quranic verse, then condemned, and finally prohibited.[17] Another example, touching an even more basic principle, was the canonical prayer, which the early ummah had been obliged to say only twice daily, but which, following the Miraj, was increased to five times a day.[18] Mutah (temporary marriage) had been permitted in the early days of Islam, but was subsequently prohibited as social conditions developed, respect for women grew, and morals became firmer.[19] There are several other instances of this, most being datable to the years immediately following the Hijra, when the circumstances of the young ummah changed in radical ways.

There are two types of naskh: explicit (sarih) or implicit (dimni).[20] The former is easily identified, for it involves texts which themselves specify that an earlier ruling is being changed. For instance, there is the verse in the Quran (2:142) which commands the Muslims to turn in prayer to the Kaba rather than to Jerusalem.[21] In the hadith literature this is even more frequently encountered; for example, in a hadith narrated by Imam Muslim we read: “I used to forbid you to visit graves; but you should now visit them.”[22] Commenting on this, the ulama of hadith explain that in early Islam, when idolatrous practices were still fresh in peoples memories, visiting graves had been forbidden because of the fear that some new Muslims might commit shirk. As the Muslims grew stronger in their monotheism, however, this prohibition was discarded as no longer necessary, so that today it is a recommended practice for Muslims to go out to visit graves in order to pray for the dead and to be reminded of the akhira.[23]

The other type of naskh is more subtle, and often taxed the brilliance of the early ulama to the limit. It involves texts which cancel earlier ones, or modify them substantially, but without actually stating that this has taken place. The ulama have given many examples of this, including the two verses in Surat al-Baqarahwhich give differing instructions as to the period for which widows should be maintained out of an estate (2:240 and 234).[24] And in the hadith literature, there is the example of the incident in which the Prophet (pbuh) once told the Companions that when he prayed sitting because he was burdened by some illness, they should sit behind him. This hadith is given by Imam Muslim. And yet we find another hadith, also narrated by Muslim, which records an incident in which the Companions prayed standing while the Prophet (pbuh) was sitting. The apparent contradiction has been resolved by careful chronological analysis, which shows that the latter incident took place after the former, and therefore takes precedence over it.[25] This has duly been recorded in the fiqh of the great scholars.

The techniques of naskh identification have enabled the ulama to resolve most of the recognised cases of taarud al-adilla. They demand a rigorous and detailed knowledge not just of the hadith disciplines, but of history, sirah, and of the views held by the Companions and other scholars on the circumstances surrounding the genesis and exegesis of the hadith in question. In some cases, hadith scholars would travel throughout the Islamic world to locate the required information pertinent to a single hadith.[26]

In cases where in spite of all efforts, abrogation cannot be proven, then the ulama of the salaf recognised the need to apply further tests. Important among these is the analysis of the matn (the transmitted text rather than the isnad of the hadith).[27] Clear (sarih) statements are deemed to take precedence over allusive ones (kinayah), and definite (muhkam) words take precedence over words falling into more ambiguous categories, such as the interpreted (mufassar), the obscure (khafi) and the problematic (mushkil).[28] It may also be necessary to look at the position of the narrators of the conflicting hadiths, giving precedence to the report issuing from the individual who was more directly involved. A famous example of this is the hadith narrated by Maymunah which states that the Prophet (pbuh) married her when not in a state of consecration (ihram) for the pilgrimage. Because her report was that of an eyewitness, her hadith is given precedence over the conflicting report from Ibn Abbas, related by a similarly sound isnad, which states that the Prophet was in fact in a state of ihram at the time.[29]

There are many other rules, such as that which states that ‘prohibition takes precedence over permissibility.’[30] Similarly, conflicting hadiths may be resolved by utilising the fatwa of a Companion, after taking care that all the relevant fatwa are compared and assessed.[31] Finally, recourse may be had to qiyas(analogy).[32] An example of this is the various reports about the solar eclipse prayer (salat al-kusuf), which specify different numbers of bowings and prostrations. The ulama, having investigated the reports meticulously, and having been unable to resolve the contradiction by any of the mechanisms outlined above, have applied analogical reasoning by concluding that since the prayer in question is still called salaat, then the usual form of salaat should be followed, namely, one bowing and two prostrations. The other hadiths are to be abandoned.[33]

This careful articulation of the methods of resolving conflicting source-texts, so vital to the accurate derivation of the Shariah from the revealed sources, was primarily the work of Imam al-Shafi’i. Confronted by the confusion and disagreement among the jurists of his day, and determined to lay down a consistent methodology which would enable a fiqh to be established in which the possibility of error was excluded as far as was humanly possible, Shafi’i wrote his brilliantRisala (Treatise on Islamic jurisprudence). His ideas were soon taken up, in varying ways, by jurists of the other major traditions of law; and today they are fundamental to the formal application of the Shariah.[34]

Shafi’i’s system of minimising mistakes in the derivation of Islamic rulings from the mass of evidence came to be known as usul al-fiqh (the roots of fiqh). Like most of the other formal academic disciplines of Islam, this was not an innovation in the negative sense, but a working-out of principles already discernible in the time of the earliest Muslims. In time, each of the great interpretative traditions of Sunni Islam codified its own variation on these roots, thereby yielding in some cases divergent branches (i.e. specific rulings on practice). Although the debates generated by these divergences could sometimes be energetic, nonetheless, they were insignificant when compared to the great sectarian and legal disagreements which had arisen during the first two centuries of Islam before the science ofusul al-fiqh had put a stop to such chaotic discord.

It hardly needs remarking that although the Four Imams, Abu Hanifa, Malik ibn Anas, al-Shafi’i and Ibn Hanbal, are regarded as the founders of these four great traditions, which, if we were asked to define them, we might sum up as sophisticated techniques for avoiding innovation, their traditions were fully systematised only by later generations of scholars. The Sunni ulama rapidly recognised the brilliance of the Four Imams, and after the late third century of Islam we find that hardly any scholars adhered to any other approach. The great hadith specialists, including al-Bukhari and Muslim, were all loyal adherents of one or another of the madhhabs, particularly that of Imam al-Shafi’i. But within each madhhab, leading scholars continued to improve and refine the roots and branches of their school. In some cases, historical conditions made this not only possible, but necessary. For instance, scholars of the school of Imam Abu Hanifah, which was built on the foundations of the early legal schools of Kufa and Basra, were wary of some hadiths in circulation in Iraq because of the prevalence of forgery engendered by the strong sectarian influences there. Later, however, once the canonical collections of Bukhari, Muslim and others became available, subsequent generations of Hanafi scholars took the entire corpus of hadiths into account in formulating and revising their madhhab. This type of process continued for two centuries, until the Schools reached a condition of maturity in the fourth and fifth centuries of the Hijra.[35]

It was at that time, too, that the attitude of toleration and good opinion between the Schools became universally accepted. This was formulated by Imam al-Ghazali, himself the author of four textbooks of Shafi’i fiqh,[36] and also of Al-Mustasfa, widely acclaimed as the most advanced and careful of all works on usul,usul al-fiqh fil madhhab. With his well-known concern for sincerity, and his dislike of ostentatious scholarly rivalry, he strongly condemned what he falled ‘fanatical attachment to a madhhab’.[37] While it was necessary for the Muslim to follow a recognised madhhab in order to avert the lethal danger of misinterpreting the sources, he must never fall into the trap of considering his own school categorically superior to the others. With a few insignificant exceptions in the late Ottoman period, the great scholars of Sunni Islam have followed the ethos outlined by Imam al-Ghazali, and have been conspicuously respectful of each others madhhab. Anyone who has studied under traditional ulama will be well-aware of this fact.[38]

The evolution of the Four Schools did not stifle, as some Orientalists have suggested,[39] the capacity for the refinement or extension of positive law.[40] On the contrary, sophisticated mechanisms were available which not only permitted qualified individuals to derive the Shariah from the Quran and Sunnah on their own authority, but actually obliged them to do this. According to most scholars, an expert who has fully mastered the sources and fulfilled a variety of necessary scholarly conditions is not permitted to follow the prevalent rulings of his School, but must derive the rulings himself from the revealed sources. Such an individual is known as a mujtahid,[41] a term derived from the famous hadith of Muadh ibn Jabal.[42]

Few would seriously deny that for a Muslim to venture beyond established expert opinion and have recourse directly to the Quran and Sunnah, he must be a scholar of great eminence. The danger of less-qualified individuals misunderstanding the sources and hence damaging the Shariah is a very real one, as was shown by the discord and strife which afflicted some early Muslims, and even some of the Companions themselves, in the period which preceded the establishment of the Orthodox Schools. Prior to Islam, entire religions had been subverted by inadequate scriptural scholarship, and it was vital that Islam should be secured from a comparable fate.

In order to protect the Shariah from the danger of innovation and distortion, the great scholars of usul laid down rigorous conditions which must be fulfilled by anyone wishing to claim the right of ijtihad for himself.[43] These conditions include:

(a) mastery of the Arabic language, to minimise the possibility of misinterpreting Revelation on purely linguistic grounds;

(b) a profound knowledge of the Quran and Sunnah and the circumstances surrounding the revelation of each verse and hadith, together with a full knowledge of the Quranic and hadith commentaries, and a control of all the interpretative techniques discussed above;

(c) knowledge of the specialised disciplines of hadith, such as the assessment of narrators and of the matn [text];

(d) knowledge of the views of the Companions, Followers and the great imams, and of the positions and reasoning expounded in the textbooks of fiqh, combined with the knowledge of cases where a consensus (ijma) has been reached;

(e) knowledge of the science of juridical analogy (qiyas), its types and conditions;

(f) knowledge of ones own society and of public interest (maslahah);

(g) knowing the general objectives (maqasid) of the Shariah;

(h) a high degree of intelligence and personal piety, combined with the Islamic virtues of compassion, courtesy, and modesty.

A scholar who has fulfilled these conditions can be considered a mujtahid fil-shar, and is not obliged, or even permitted, to follow an existing authoritative madhhab.[44] This is what some of the Imams were saying when they forbade their great disciples from imitating them uncritically. But for the much greater number of scholars whose expertise has not reached such dizzying heights, it may be possible to become a mujtahid fi’l-madhhab, that is, a scholar who remains broadly convinced of the doctrines of his school, but is qualified to differ from received opinion within it.[45] There have been a number of examples of such men, for instance Imam al-Nawawi among the Shafi’is, Qadi Ibn Abd al-Barr among the Malikis, Ibn Abidin among the Hanafis, and Ibn Qudama among the Hanbalis. All of these scholars considered themselves followers of the fundamental interpretative principles of their own madhhabs, but are on record as having exercised their own gifts of scholarship and judgement in reaching many new verdicts within them.[46] It is to these experts that the Mujtahid Imams directed their advice concerning ijtihad, such as Imam al-Shafi’i’s instruction that ‘if you find a hadith that contradicts my verdict, then follow the hadith’.[47] It is obvious that whatever some writers nowadays like to believe, such counsels were never intended for use by the Islamically-uneducated masses. Imam al-Shafi`i was not addressing a crowd of butchers, nightwatchman and donkey-drovers.

Other categories of mujtahids are listed by the usul scholars; but the distinctions between them are subtle and not relevant to our theme.[48] The remaining categories can in practice be reduced to two: the muttabi (follower), who follows his madhhab while being aware of the Quranic and hadith texts and the reasoning, underlying its positions,[49] and secondly the muqallid (emulator), who simply conforms to the madhhab because of his confidence in its scholars, and without necessarily knowing the detailed reasoning behind all its thousands of rulings.[50]

Clearly it is recommended for the muqallid to learn as much as he or she is able of the formal proofs of the madhhab. But it is equally clear that not every Muslim can be a scholar. Scholarship takes a lot of time, and for the ummah to function properly most people must have other employment: as accountants, soldiers, butchers, and so forth.[51] As such, they cannot reasonably be expected to become great ulama as well, even if we suppose that all of them have the requisite intelligence. The Holy Quran itself states that less well-informed believers should have recourse to qualified experts: So ask the people of remembrance, if you do not know (16:43).[52] (According to the tafsir experts, the people of remembrance are the ulama.) And in another verse, the Muslims are enjoined to create and maintain a group of specialists who provide authoritative guidance for non-specialists: A band from each community should stay behind to gain instruction in religion and to warn the people when they return to them, so that they may take heed (9:122). Given the depth of scholarship needed to understand the revealed texts accurately, and the extreme warnings we have been given against distorting the Revelation, it is obvious that ordinary Muslims are duty bound to follow expert opinion, rather than rely on their own reasoning and limited knowledge. This obvious duty was well-known to the early Muslims: the Caliph Umar (r.a.) followed certain rulings of Abu Bakr (r.a.), saying I would be ashamed before God to differ from the view of Abu Bakr. And Ibn Masud (r.a.), in turn, despite being a mujtahid in the fullest sense, used in certain issues to follow Umar (r.a.). According to al-Shabi: Six of the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh) used to give fatwas to the people: Ibn Masud, Umar ibn al-Khattab, Ali, Zayd ibn Thabit, Ubayy ibn Kab, and Abu Musa (al-Ashari). And out of these, three would abandon their own judgements in favour of the judgements of three others: Abdallah (ibn Masud) would abandon his own judgement for the judgement of Umar, Abu Musa would abandon his own judgement for the judgement of Ali, and Zayd would abandon his own judgement for the judgement of Ubayy ibn Kab.[53]

This verdict, namely that one is well-advised to follow a great Imam as ones guide to the Sunnah, rather than relying on oneself, is particularly binding upon Muslims in countries such as Britain, among whom only a small percentage is even entitled to have a choice in this matter. This is for the simple reason that unless one knows Arabic,[54] then even if one wishes to read all the hadith determining a particular issue, one cannot. For various reasons, including their great length, no more than ten of the basic hadith collections have been translated into English. There remain well over three hundred others, including such seminal works as the Musnad of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal,[55] the Musannaf of Ibn Abi Shayba,[56] the Sahih of Ibn Khuzayma,[57] the Mustadrak of al-Hakim,[58] and many other multi-volume collections, which contain large numbers of sound hadiths which cannot be found in Bukhari, Muslim, and the other works that have so far been translated. Even if we assume that the existing translations are entirely accurate, it is obvious that a policy of trying to derive the Shariah directly from the Book and the Sunnah cannot be attempted by those who have no access to the Arabic. To attempt to discern the Shariah merely on the basis of the hadithswhich have been translated will be to ignore and amputate much of the Sunnah, hence leading to serious distortions.[59]

Let me give just two examples of this. The Sunni Madhhabs, in their rules for the conduct of legal cases, lay down the principle that the canonical punishments (hudud) should not be applied in cases where there is the least ambiguity, and that the qadi should actively strive to prove that such ambiguities exist. An amateur reading in the Sound Six collections will find no confirmation of this.[60] But the madhhab ruling is based on a hadith narrated by a sound chain, and recorded in theMusannaf of Ibn Abi Shayba, the Musnad of al-Harithi, and the Musnad of Musaddad ibn Musarhad. The text is: “Ward off the hudud by means of ambiguities.“[61] Imam al-Sanani, in his book Al-Ansab, narrates the circumstances of this hadith: “A man was found drunk, and was brought to Umar, who ordered the hadd of eighty lashes to be applied. When this had been done, the man said: Umar, you have wronged me! I am a slave! (Slaves receive only half the punishment.) Umar was grief-stricken at this, and recited the Prophetic hadith, Ward off the hudud by means of ambiguities.”[62]

Another example is provided by the practice of istighfar for others during the Hajj. According to a hadith, ‘Forgiveness is granted to the Hajji, and to those for whom the Hajji prays.’ This hadith is not related in any of the collections so far translated into English; but it is narrated, by a sound isnad, in many other collections, including al-Mu`jam al-Saghir of al-Tabarani and the Musnad of al-Bazzar.[63]

Another example pertains to the important practice, recognised by the madhhabs, of performing sunnah prayers as soon as possible after the end of the Maghrib obligatory prayer. The hadith runs: Make haste to perform the two rakas after the Maghrib, for they are raised up (to Heaven) alongside the obligatory prayer. The hadith is narrated by Imam Razin in his Jami.

Because of the traditional pious fear of distorting the Law of Islam, the overwhelming majority of the great scholars of the past – certainly well over ninety-nine percent of them – have adhered loyally to a madhhab.[64] It is true that in the troubled fourteenth century a handful of dissenters appeared, such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn al-Qayyim;[65] but even these individuals never recommended that semi-educated Muslims should attempt ijtihad without expert help. And in any case, although these authors have recently been resurrected and made prominent, their influence on the orthodox scholarship of classical Islam was negligible, as is suggested by the small number of manuscripts of their works preserved in the great libraries of the Islamic world.[66]

Nonetheless, social turbulences have in the past century thrown up a number of writers who have advocated the abandonment of authoritative scholarship. The most prominent figures in this campaign were Muhammad Abduh and his pupil Muhammad Rashid Rida.[67] Dazzled by the triumph of the West, and informed in subtle ways by their own well-documented commitment to Freemasonry, these men urged Muslims to throw off the shackles of taqlid, and to reject the authority of the Four Schools. Today in some Arab capitals, especially where the indigenous tradition of orthodox scholarship has been weakened, it is common to see young Arabs filling their homes with every hadith collection they can lay their hands upon, and poring over them in the apparent belief that they are less likely to misinterpret this vast and complex literature than Imam al-Shafi’i, Imam Ahmad, and the other great Imams. This irresponsible approach, although still not widespread, is predictably opening the door to sharply divergent opinions, which have seriously damaged the unity, credibility and effectiveness of the Islamic movement, and provoked sharp arguments over issues settled by the great Imams over a thousand years ago.[68] It is common now to see young activists prowling the mosques, criticising other worshippers for what they believe to be defects in their worship, even when their victims are following the verdicts of some of the great Imams of Islam. The unpleasant, Pharisaic atmosphere generated by this activity has the effect of discouraging many less committed Muslims from attending the mosque at all. No-one now recalls the view of the early ulama, which was that Muslims should tolerate divergent interpretations of the Sunnah as long as these interpretations have been held by reputable scholars. As Sufyan al-Thawri said: ‘If you see a man doing something over which there is a debate among the scholars, and which you yourself believe to be forbidden, you should not forbid him from doing it.’[69] The alternative to this policy is, of course, a disunity and rancour which will poison and cripple the Muslim community from within.[70]

In a Western-influenced global culture in which people are urged from early childhood to think for themselves and to challenge established authority, it can sometimes be difficult to muster enough humility to recognise ones own limitations.[71] We are all a little like Pharaoh: our egos are by nature resistant to the idea that anyone else might be much more intelligent or learned than ourselves. The belief that ordinary Muslims, even if they know Arabic, are qualified to derive rulings of the Shariah for themselves, is an example of this egotism running wild. To young people proud of their own judgement, and unfamiliar with the complexity of the sources and the brilliance of authentic scholarship, this can be an effective trap, which ends by luring them away from the orthodox path of Islam and into an unintentional agenda of provoking deep divisions among the Muslims. The fact that all the great scholars of the religion, including the hadithexperts, themselves belonged to madhhabs, and required their students to belong to madhhabs, seems to have been forgotten. Self-esteem has won a major victory here over common sense and Islamic responsibility.[72]

The Holy Quran commands Muslims to use their minds and reflective capacities; and the issue of following qualified scholarship is an area in which this faculty must be very carefully deployed. The basic point should be appreciated that no categoric difference exists between usul al-fiqh and any other specialised science requiring lengthy training. Shaykh Sa`id Ramadan al-Buti, who has articulated the orthodox response to the anti-Madhhab trend in his book: Non-Madhhabism: The Greatest Bida Threatening the Islamic Shari`a, likes to compare the science of deriving rulings to that of medicine. “If ones child is seriously ill”, he asks, “does one look for oneself in the medical textbooks for the proper diagnosis and cure, or should one go to a trained medical practitioner?” Clearly, sanity dictates the latter option. And so it is in matters of religion, which are in reality even more important and potentially hazardous: we would be both foolish and irresponsible to try to look through the sources ourselves, and become our own muftis. Instead, we should recognise that those who have spent their entire lives studying the Sunnah and the principles of law are far less likely to be mistaken than we are.[73]

Another metaphor might be added to this, this time borrowed from astronomy. We might compare the Quranic verses and the hadiths to the stars. With the naked eye, we are unable to see many of them clearly; so we need a telescope. If we are foolish, or proud, we may try to build one ourselves. If we are sensible and modest, however, we will be happy to use one built for us by Imam al-Shafi’i or Ibn Hanbal, and refined, polished and improved by generations of great astronomers. A madhhab is, after all, nothing more than a piece of precision equipment enabling us to see Islam with the maximum clarity possible. If we use our own devices, our amateurish attempts will inevitably distort our vision.

A third image might also be deployed. An ancient building, for instance the Blue Mosque in Istanbul, might seem imperfect to some who worship in it. Young enthusiasts, burning with a desire to make the building still more exquisite and well-made (and no doubt more in conformity with their own time-bound preferences), might gain access to the crypts and basements which lie under the structure, and, on the basis of their own understanding of the principles of architecture, try to adjust the foundations and pillars which support the great edifice above them. They will not, of course, bother to consult professional architects, except perhaps one or two whose rhetoric pleases them nor will they be guided by the books and memoirs of those who have maintained the structure over the centuries. Their zeal and pride leaves them with no time for that. Groping through the basements, they bring out their picks and drills, and set to work with their usual enthusiasm.

There is a real danger that Sunni Islam is being treated in a similar fashion. The edifice has stood for centuries, withstanding the most bitter blows of its enemies. Only from within can it be weakened. No doubt, Islam has its intelligent foes among whom this fact is well-known. The spectacle of the disunity and fitnas which divided the early Muslims despite their superior piety, and the solidity and cohesiveness of Sunnism after the final codification of the Shariah in the four Schools of the great Imams, must have put ideas into many a malevolent head. This is not to suggest in any way that those who attack the great madhhabs are the conscious tools of Islam’s enemies. But it may go some way to explaining why they will continue to be well-publicised and well-funded, while the orthodox alternative is starved of resources. With every Muslim now a proud mujtahid, and with taqlid dismissed as a sin rather than a humble and necessary virtue, the divergent views which caused such pain in our early history will surely break surface again. Instead of four madhhabs in harmony, we will have a billion madhhabs in bitter and self-righteous conflict. No more brilliant scheme for the destruction of Islam could ever have been devised.[74]

Our Relationship with Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)

Dealing with Loss

By: Abida Aura Mustafa

No distress or loss is too difficult to deal with when we know God , and place our trust in Him to get us through everything, whether we consider the moments as good or bad. No distress or loss is too difficult to deal with when we acknowledge and apply that we certainly belong to God, and we certainly return to Him.

From suhaibweb.com

Whether through death, loss, or disagreement, when we lose someone or something dear to us, we become overwhelmed by the pangs of grief; the pain of loss feels overbearing as though it would never end. Having to face the consequences of detachment can be a traumatic experience. All we can think of is the pain enshrouding our hearts and consuming our minds. With tears streaming down our faces, our faces contorted with emotion and our hearts too feeling as though a heavy burden has landed-the misery takes a hold of us and, blinded by our tears, we fail to see the light.

But there is a light; a light to behold even in the darkest corner of the earth, even in the murkiest depths of the ocean. We don’t have to drown in the quicksand of trauma. Nothing and nobody by God’s  Will  has the ability to overpower the underlying depth of:

Inna lilLahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon.

Verily, unto God do we belong and, verily, unto Him we shall return. (Qur’an 2:156)

When we actually give some time and thought to reflect upon the words which constitute this statement, we come to realize that there is an extremely powerful and truthful message behind it-an answer to all our questions, grief and emotions.

This profound phrase captures the essence of our entire existence; it encapsulates where we came from and also where we are headed:

God! Allah!

Understanding the statement has the ability to eradicate regrets and past events. It holds the key to finding contentment during those times when we think, ‘Why did that have to happen?’ We can become immersed in questioning, and drown in the misery of relentless searching for the answer…Or we can discover patience by asserting that regardless of whatever has occurred, we will indeed return to God . We will certainly return to Allah, whence we came.

When we truly understand the meaning of inna lilLahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon, we find that no sadness will last forever, and that we shouldn’t destroy ourselves by holding even the slightest bitterness or anger within us. By understanding that God  is The One, the only One to Whom we belong, we should be able to move on from painful moments in our life (which we should accept as assert as happening only with Allah’s permission) and strive for our goal of meeting Him.

There should be no space for bitterness or anger when one truly comprehends the deep truthfulness of this phrase, and we should be able to forgive those who have intentionally or unintentionally wronged us because we know that God alone holds all sovereignty and that even our emotions belong to Him. By forgiving ourselves and others, by showing sabr (patience) in the face of death or loss, and by aspiring for God’s Mercy and Judgment, we open ourselves to a whole new level of understanding ourselves in the context of space and time. We can understand by His Will that God, Allah,  is all that matters, and everything else in this dunya (this current life, world) is a means for us to reach Him because we want to be able to See Him at the end, for without a doubt we will have to return to Him.

‘Inna’ meaning ‘verily’ or “truly” tells us that with certainty we belong to God , that is, He Created us and bestowed on us our beginning without a doubt. ‘Inna’ occurs twice in this phrase, providing an emphasis on the certainty of God’s Ever-Lasting existence, emphasizing the certainty of our beginning AND our end. So God  is Al-Awwal (the Beginning, the First) and Al-Akhir (the End, the Last). Al-Awwal ul Akhir (The Ever-Lasting) is the source of light in every single moment of despair, hardship, and difficulty where our tears and grief blind us. Instead of allowing or hearts and souls to become blinded by the darkness of sadness, we can train ourselves in times of positive feelings and negative feelings to find contentment in God’s Decree, for nothing happens without His decreeing it.

God tells us in Surah Baqarah, verses 155-156:

And certainly, We shall test you with something of fear, hunger, loss of wealth, lives and fruits, but give glad tidings to As-Sabirun (the patient). Who, when afflicted with calamity, say: “Verily! To Allah we belong and verily, to Him we shall return.” (Qur’an 2:155-156)

This is our Lord, the One Who Created us when we were nothing, telling us in His Divine Book-tanzil (sent down) to humans and jinn as a dhikr (reminder) – that He will definitely test us with trials, but that He has Promised reward for those who are patient.

And how can we be ‘patient’ in the face of turmoil?

Just as God  has created tests involving struggle, risk and loss, God  has also told us how to approach these tests; He has revealed to us that the patient are those who, when afflicted with calamity, say, “Inna lilLahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon.” In His infinite Mercy, God has allowed for relief to accompany difficulty. This also shows us that the losses and difficulties won’t last forever, and that everything which we regard as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in the dunya is only of a temporal nature.

No pain or grief or disagreement can last forever, but with certainty, God lasts forever and from Him we came to be and it is to Him we will with certainty return.

This means that the events which take place in this dunya are mere moments. We become so consumed by our grief that we fail to see that al-Qahhar (the Conqueror, the Ever-Dominating) has provided us with light and that even in the most difficult times, God provides ease with hardship.

“Fa inna ma’al usri yusra, inna ma al usri, yusra”

“With every hardship comes relief, surely with every hardship comes relief” [Sura 94:5-6]

Upon coming to terms with the truth and power imbued in “inna lilLahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon” and proceeding to integrate this magnificent statement into each moment of your daily life, when you are faced with any minor or major losses, you will see a whole new world of contentment and serenity opened up to you, insha’Allah  (God willing).

The trials faced by Umm Salamah , may God be pleased with her, teach us important lessons about how to handle tests, loss and situations in which we do not get something we had hoped for. Her approach towards calamity shows us what it means to be patient in the face of adversity and to recognize that God  will always restore what He takes away from a patient believer with something better.

All is NOT lost.

The beautiful way in which she approached her afflictions reminds us to rely on God  and to never despair for He is Able to do anything at any moment; God  is our Provider, and when we are struck by loss, and things don’t go the way we want them to, God  is Ever-Watching and He is the Best of planners. Umm Salamah’s first husband was Abu Salamah , may God be pleased with him, who returned to God  during Jumada Al-Akhir in the fourth year after Hijra, after receiving wounds in the Battle of Uhud. His passing away resulted in grief for she had loved him dearly; nonetheless, Umm Salamah  did not fail to turn to Allah in her distress. Heartbroken by her loss, she remained steadfast in her relationship with God  and supplicated to Him for our Rabb (Lord) is Al Mughni-the Enricher, the One Who satisfies the necessities of His Creation. In her grief-stricken state as she wondered who could possibly be better than Abu Salamah, she supplicated:

‘Truly, we belong to Allah and truly, unto Him shall we return. O Allah! Reward me for this calamity that has befallen me and grant me something better than it.’

Allah then answered her du`aa (supplication) by giving her Prophet Muhammad sws, the Messenger himself! In Shawwal of the same year in which Abu Salamah returned to God, the Messenger of God married her. Thus, because of her patience and acknowledgement that we belong to God and unto him we return, Allah gave her more than full compensation for her loss. Allah  elevated her and answered her question, “Who is better than Abu Salamah?” by blessing her with our beloved Messenger [peace and blessings on him].

This legacy speaks volumes of the reward and relief that Allah  grants to those who are patient, and those who have tawwakul (reliance) on God  to replace what is taken away from the believer who lives with patience. What we are provided with is His to give and take, and it is in acknowledging that He is the Owner of all that we are able to see through loss and hardship, and witness blessings.

If you are facing any trial in the present, know that Allah provides ease and that the cure is with you by Allah’s Will. Reflect on, and realize that none other than God  Knows best about what adversity or struggle you are going through for God  is the One Who is testing you, and on no soul does He place more than that which it can bear-God  is closer to you than your jugular vein, closer than than your own self, your own heart, and so He Knows what you are feeling. The next time you are faced with a grief or loss, or even happiness and blessing from God , recite these words:

Inna lil-laahi wa inna ilayhir raaji oon. When we say this with deep understanding, sincerity and feeling, Allah allows glimpses of light to make their way through our feelings of loss and loneliness.

For each time that you submit to God alone by not only uttering inna lilLahi wa inna ilayhi raji`oon but by understanding it and feeling its essence in your heart and limbs through acknowledging God’s Power, you will not only be rewarded insha’Allah, but God  will return His favors and blessings upon you for submitting to His Will with sabr (patience). Like Umm Salamah , place your trust in Him to get you through any manifestation of loss, however slight or major you may consider it to be, and trust God  to answer your supplications, for no du’aa (prayer) is lost.

No distress or loss is too difficult to deal with when we know Allah, and place our trust in Him to get us through everything, whether we consider the moments as good or bad. No distress or loss is too difficult to deal with when we acknowledge and apply that we certainly belong to Allah, and we certainly return to Him.

Source: SuhaibWebb – Abida Aura Mustafa