IHT: For New York’s Muslim cabbies, faith calls louder than fares
Interesting… but the inaccuracies are obvious…
Moral Responsibility and Divine Will. Re: Blaming Destiny?
Question: If Allah wills everything, then can we say that Allah willed me to do x and y sins, and Allah is responsible for my not repenting, and Allah willed that I am a bad Muslim …
Answer…
Moral Responsibility and Divine Will
Guidance from one of the brilliant young Shafii fuqaha’ of our times.
The Secret of Success
Allama Shabbir Usmani said that if 4 matters are present, success is guaranteed:
1) one’s intention must be true;
2) one’s goal must be true;
3) the means one takes must be true; and
4) the way one takes the means must be true.
Allama Shabbir Usmani is author of Fath al-Mulhim, a commentary on Sahih Muslim considered by many (including Imam Muhammad Zahid al-Kawthari) to be the best commentary on Sahih Muslim, bar none.
The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said, “I was only sent to perfect noble conduct.” [Related by Imam Ahmad and others; rigorously authenticated (sahih)]
Noble conduct and proper manners are two keys to true success in any worthy field of activity.
How India funds Bush’s campaign - Asia Times Online
“NEW DELHI - There is more than one reason US President George W Bush should thank Indians, whether in the United States or India, as the buildup to elections in the US slated for November gathers steam. Indians are contributing handsomely to Bush’s campaign funds while, until recently, there was a band of more than 100 dedicated call-center executives who were handling Bush’s fundraising and vote-seeking campaign for the Republican Party from the outsourcing hubs of Noida and Gurgaon, which adjoin the national capital Delhi…”
Monday 24 May 2004
Conserving Water at Home
General , Islam | No Comments
The average shower uses 25-50 gallons of water (5-10 gal/min, 5-min. shower); that is 95 to 190 litres.
The average standard flush uses 6-7 gallons of water (with people typically flushing 5 times a day. This amounts to 23 to 26 litres per flushing; or 30-35 gallons a day (113 to 132 litres).
Our Beloved Messenger Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) saw a person performing ablutions and said to the person, "What is this wastefulness?" The person asked, "Is there wastefulness in ablutions?" The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him said, "Yes, even if you are besides a flowing river." [Ibn Maja, with a sound chain of narrators]
Wastefulness is defined as being a trait that leads one to spend or consume beyond need, as determined by the Sacred Law and dignified behavior. [Barkawi, al-Tariqa al-Muhammadiyya]
Slight wastefulness is improper; that which is normally considered "wasteful" is sinful; gross waste can be a major sin.
Allah tells us in the Qur’an,
007.031 O Children of Adam! Look to your adornment at every place of worship, and eat and drink, but be not wasteful. Lo! He loves not the wasteful.
Guardian - Well, science does have its limitations…
“Well, science does have its limitations…Award-winning cosmologist George Ellis tells Tim Radford that physics can’t explain everything”
Means take the ruling of their ends
Imam Ibn Daqiq al-`Id, the Shafii jurist and usuli, mentions an important principle in his work Ihkam al-Ahkam Sharh `Umdat al-Ahkam, stating,
وسيلة الطاعة طاعة , ووسيلة المعصية معصية , ويعظم قبح الوسيلة بحسب عظم المفسدة وكذلك تعظم فضيلة الوسيلة بحسب عظم المصلحة
“The means to acts of obedience are themselves acts of obedience; and the means to sin are themselves sinful.
The lowliness of means is in accordance with the the gravity of the harm [of its end]; and the virtues of means is in accordance with the extent of the benefit.”
[Ibn Daqiq, Ihkam al-Ahkam, 2.266]
One the many implications of this principle–which was also mentioned by other jurists and established by decisive texts of the Qur’an and Sunna–relates to repentance:
* The means of that enable one to leave sin or fulfill one’s duty to Allah (whether outward or inward) are themselves acts of worship, even when in of themselves merely permissible.
* The means that lead one to fall into sin or to fail on fulfilling one’s duty to Allah are themselves sinful, even when per se praiseworthy.
Thus, when we seek to do the good, we must not only determine to do good but must also take the means to do so. And when we seek to avoid sin, we have to also cut the means that lead us to these sins.
And Allah alone gives success.
Beautiful.
Another naat sung by Ustadh Muhammad Mushtaq Qadri, expressing yearning for the streets of Madina and its noble inhabitant (peace and blessings be upon him: Hum Faqiron ko Madine ki Gali…
DeenPort Interviews…. Faraz Rabbani
Hmm… I didn’t want to do it… But Sidi Omar Tufail (www.DeenPort.com)twisted my arm enough that I did it.
As one of the poets said,
“You see me instrumental while it is He who moves me
I am but a pen, and Destiny the fingers.”
Ustadh Amin Tirmidhi is one of the living masters of Islamic singing (inshaad). You can download the closing songs of a beautiful mawlid (gathering to praise the Prophet (peace be upon him) and celebrate his birth) from www.DeenPort.com from the Downloads section.
The full mawlid will be available shortly on www.SunniPath.com. On Sunni Path, can still listen to the beautiful mawlid with Shaykh Diya’. This mawlid includes a hadra and moving Qur’anic recitation…
“Still worried about ‘E’ numbers? Do try to keep up. How about sliced bread that lasts for months? Or steak and chips rustled up from the submolecular constituents of nothing more than fresh air? As David Rowan reports, food technologists are dreaming up ever new ways of feeding us - and the future is any colour you want…”
It is worth reading Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser:
Technology And The Fast Food Nation - SlashDot
A salty look at the industry that asks, ‘Would you like fries with that? - CSM’
James Meek finds that the American fast-food industry is no joke as he investigates Eric Schlosser’s blazing critique of assembly line food production - Guardian
Fast Food Nation - “If you don’t know about a problem, then you don’t have to deal with it.”
IHT: What Big Brother? Gmail from Google wins a fan, despite its ads
“Gmail appears destined to be one of the most useful Internet services since Google itself….”
Translated from a good abridgement of Imam Ghazali’s Ihya’ `Ulum al-Din (’Reviving the Religious Sciences’).
Sidi Mas’ud’s site (www.masud.co.uk) is famous beyond mention…
Beautiful rendition.
“In her new book, “Maternal Desire — On Children, Love, and the Inner Life'’ (Little, Brown; 402 pages; $25.95), Marin County mom and self- described feminist Daphne de Marneffe explains how she came to grips with the difficult realization that she preferred staying at home with her three children to continuing her practice as a clinical psychologist.”
Another review: Getting to the heart of the matter: “Maternal Desire”
My Favorite media player: JetAudio
JetAudio is very good: it plays all the major sound formats (including RealAudio), and has a solid interface and excellent features. Highly recommended…
“As soon as Ingrid Mattson saw the photo of the smiling American woman soldier pointing at the genitals of a hooded, naked Iraqi prisoner, she knew it would touch a deep, inner chord in Muslims, no matter where they are.
That image and others like it assault on a visceral level core Islamic values such as modesty and dignity while evoking feelings of humiliation that non-Muslims may not fully understand, say Mattson and other scholars of Islam…”
The Death of Habib Hasan ibn Abd Allah al-Shatiri, the scholar and saint of Tarim - A Letter from Shaykh Amjad Rasheed
Shaykh Amjad Rasheed, a teacher and dear friend, wrote this week, from Tarim,
“May you have a blessed month [of Rabi` al-Awwal, the month of the birth of the Beloved Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him). May Allah increase us all in reward, for the noble scholar and knower of Allah, Habib Hasan ibn Abd Allah al-Shatiri, the grand-shaykh of Tarim as a whole, died, at an age of around 80 years. His funeral was tremendous–I have never witnessed the like of it. The people of Tarim, young and old, attended. Its markets were closed, and many attended from other parts of Hadramawt, and even from outside Yemen. And all praise is due to Allah in all situations. I ask Allah to protect Sayyidin al-Shaghouri in his illness, and to have lutf towards him. May He make us and all our brethren and our parents of the righteous. Amin.
I am sorry for the delay in answering [to the Shafii fiqh questions], for I was very ill for several days, and my glasses broke, so I was unable to sit much for reseach or response on the computer…”
شهر مبارك ، وأعظم الله أجركم بالعالم العارف بالله الحبيب حسن بن عبد الله الشاطري رحمه الله شيخ تريم بأسرها ، وقد توفي عن سن يقارب الثمانين ، وحصلت له جنازة عظيمة لم أشارك بجنازة مثلِها ، فقد خرج فيها أهل تريم صغاراً وكباراً وأغلق سوقها وحضرها كثيرٌ من مناطق حضرموت وخارج اليمن ، والحمد لله على كل حال ، وأسأل الله تعالى أن يحفظ سيدنا الشاغوري ويلطف به في مرضه ، ويلحقنا وجميع إخواننا ووالدينا بالصالحين ، آمين . وسامحوني على التأخر في الأجوبة فقد مرضت أياماً وكسرت نظارتي فلم أستطع الجلوس للبحث والكمبيوتر كثيراً .
The link includes a translation of the text of the answer, by Sr. Shazia Ahmad.
A poem expressing the author’s love of the Messenger of Allah.
Recited by El-Hadj Mohammed El-Barrakh in Touba, Senegal.
“O Most Generous of Creation” (Ya Akram al-Khalq) - Ustadh Yasin `Allaf
Ustadh Yasin `Allaf was considered one of the masters of sufi singing (inshad) in the 20th Century. He was the lead singer in the majalis of Shaykh Abd al-Qadir `Isa of Halab (Syria).
In this song, he entreats the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), asking for assistance…
“You are the door of Allah; anyone who seeks to enter from any other door shall not be accepted…”
Another song, from the same site: “O You Who Grant Succor To Those Who Seek” sung by Ustadh Abu Sharif al-Na`san
Faith & Reason: Muslim terrorists embrace a very secular heresy
The Prophet taught that to find the enemy of peace we must look inwards - not out at others
Celebrating the Birth of Our Beloved Messenger (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, his family, companions, and followers).
Deen Port (www.DeenPort.com) has this beautiful mawlid, from April 30, 2004, in three parts in its Downloads section.
Diya’ al-Mawalid was a mawlid held in Kharabsheh (Amman, Jordan) at Faraz Rabbani’s house, with Shaykh Diya’ and his brother Sidi Abd al-Qadir as main munshids.
Shaykh Amjad Snobar said, “This is possibly the most beautiful mawlid I ever attended.”
It includes an excellent hadra (group dhikr).
Included is a 3-page Guide to Diya al-Mawalid PDF. Now available in DeenPort Downloads (3 Parts).