… A ‘let me explain you’ type article has been floating across mailing lists…
A’isha was young of body but emotionally and intellectually mature beyond her years.
Neoconservatism’s Liberal Legacy
Words are the physicians of the mind diseased.
[Aeschylus (525 BC - 456 BC), Prometheus Bound]
Surfing Lessons — How to swim the net with grace — The University of South Carolina Beaufort
Alone, alone,—all, all alone;
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
[Coleridge,The Ancient Mariner. Part iv.]
Alternative Ways To Improve Your English: Shakespearean Insulter
“Do you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters of age? Have you not a moist eye, a dry hand, a yellow cheek, a white beard, a decreasing leg, an increasing belly? Is not your voice broken, your wind short, your chin double, your wit single, and every part about you blasted with antiquity? And will you yet call yourself young?”
[Taken from: Henry IV, part 2]
Sidi Faraz: (Spanish) Llorar en la noche
Pregunta:
El asunto es que lloro mucho en la noche, especialmente recostado en mi cama y al tiempo del Isha, cuando pienso en mis pecados, en la tumba y en mis cuentas con Allah. Me siento muy deprimido y siento que el único lugar para mí es el Infierno, el Fuego.
Respuesta…
… from the SunniPath Academy course on Imam Ghazali’s Ihya’ `Ulum al-Din
Audio: Sheikh Nuh: How do we know whether a particular scholar can be followed?
Taqwa, dispensations, and the Prophetic example.
Shakespeare, the Sonnet, Shaykh Hamza, and the Challenges Facing Islam — BBC Radio
Found on the “mainstream organization, the Zaytoona Institute” website.
It is also known as Zaytuna Institute: www.zaytuna.org
Main: Can You See My Voice? A ‘Modest’ Manifesto
They like us not…
“For more comical examples of the intellectual liquidation of our Umma I refer you to www.sunnipath.com, a site I was referred to by an even more mainstream organization, the Zaytoona Institute.”
Dreams
“We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.” [Shakespeare, The Tempest]
Qasida - Yaqulu al-Nas Ya Tayba - Ustadh Sa`d al-`Itri
Expressing love and longing for the city of the Beloved of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him, his family, companions, and followers).
DeenPort Lessons: Shaykh Abdal Aziz — Towards Tranquility
Understanding the Qur’anic concept of sakina (tranquility).
See: Lessons section at www.DeenPort.com
His book–Zinsser–is very good “On Writing Well” that is.
O to be writing in Angrezi
Now that we all are Angrezi.
Wired News: Internet Porn: Worse than Crack?
“Verily, Allah is with the steadfast.”
[link given by a dear friend]
Sunni Sister: Wanna-Be Puppet-Masters, Makers of Muslims: The RAND Report and the RAND Corporation
Divide and conquer.
BBC NEWS | Magazine | How animal rights took on the world
“…. Whether people support them or not, it cannot be denied that their tactics have had an impact. So what have been the key elements of their approach?”
Audio: Qasida - Ya Rasulan fi hayati (’O Messenger in my life’) - Sung by Ustadh Abul Joud al-Halabi
Expressing love for the Beloved of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him).
NPR : An Islamic Journey Inside Europe
Five-Part Series Examines Continent’s Growing Muslim Population. From last year, yes, but still relevant.
DeenPort presents: A Midsummer Night’s Mawlid - with Shaykh Salah al-Kurdi (Amman, Jordan)
A beautiful and inspiring rooftop gathering with Shaykh Salah al-Kurdi, son of the noble spiritual guide Shaykh Muhammad Sa`id al-Kurdi (Allah have mercy on him), in Amman (Jordan).
Available in the DeenPort MP3 Qasida/Dhikr Section, where many other gems can also be found.
The New York Review of Books: Must Schools Fail? — Race in Schools
Black is black, and white is white… and never… ???
Be fair, it is closer to piety.
“Be aware of the bad, in order to be able to avoid it.”
WorldWideWords: Gender-neutral pronouns
“Use another pronoun instead, in particular they/their (if that spectator keeps waving their arms about, someone is going to get hurt). Some people dislike seeing this in print, though it is increasingly common in speech and informal usage and is rapidly becoming a standard. There are many historical precedents for it (see, for example, Henry Churchyard’s collection of examples).”
WorldWideWords On The Singular They
Education - Students Say Homeschooling Prepared Them For College
Hmm… To homeschool or…
See:
The National Home Education Research Institute
The Observer | Food monthly | Mimi Spencer takes a look at French women’s eating habits
A weighty matter.
Audio: (Arabic) Shaykh Muhammad Sa`id Ramadan al-Buti on Minority Fiqh
Shaykh Buti, one of the greatest living scholars and thinkers of Islam, gives a khutba on the issue of fiqh for minorities.
The text, in Arabic:
Minority Fiqh — The Latest Means for Messing Around with the Religion of Allah
A related article (in Arabic) by him:
Thought of the Month - On Minority Fiqh
As one of the righteous scholars of our times said, “The purpose of fiqh is to promote deen in the lives of Muslims. When fiqh does this, it is beneficial knowledge. Otherwise, it is closer to being a farce.”
Imam Shatibi stated in his Mawafaqat that the primary interests (masalih) that the Shariah came to promote are the interests of the next life. As for the interests of this worldly life, they are considered insofar as they promote the interests of the next life. When the interests of this worldly life conflict with the interests of the next life, the Shariah clearly gives precedence to the interests of the next life.
As Allah tells us in the Qur’an,
“Verily, the next life is better for you than this life.” [Qur’an, 93.4]
And Allah alone gives success.
Mozilla releases Firefox 1.0 | CNET News.com
O Firefox, nothing compares to you…
(well, in the browser world, that is)
Audio: The (English) Usage Wars
Bryan Garner (author of Garner’s Modern American Usage) and David Foster Wallace, in an informative interview.
Bryan Garner’s books:
Garner’s Modern American Usage
The Elements of Legal Style
David Foster Wallace:
Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage
Audio: Richard Lederer - How to Use the English Language
He has his own site, too: http://www.verbivore.com/
yaledailynews.com - Former model follows spiritual path at Yale
Shaykh Dawood Yasin is one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve met. It is one of the interesting twists of fate that we flew to Damascus on the same plane when each of us began our formal quest for sacred knowledge…
Audio: Dealing with stray children
The Question:
“My daughter moved out of the house. She likes her independence, wear revealing clothes, stay out late, listen to loud music… Now my son has started acting the same way. We have always been good parents, went to the Mosque together, taught her Surahs, I don’t know what has gone wrong. I feel very sad inside and at the same time very angry at my children. I feel that at times I don’t want them around - I don’t want to hear their music or hear them swearing. Please advice us what to do….”
Roots of Misunderstanding - “Bernard Lewis Revisited” by Michael Hirsh
“America’s misreading of the Arab world—and our current misadventure in Iraq—may have really begun in 1950. That was the year a young University of London historian named Bernard Lewis visited Turkey for the first time. Lewis, who is today an imposing, white-haired sage known as the “doyen of Middle Eastern studies” in America (as a New York Times reviewer once called him), was then on a sabbatical. Granted access to the Imperial Ottoman archives—the first Westerner allowed in—Lewis recalled that he felt “rather like a child turned loose in a toy shop, or like an intruder in Ali Baba’s cave.” But what Lewis saw happening outside his study window was just as exciting, he later wrote. There in Istanbul, in the heart of what once was a Muslim empire, a Western-style democracy was being born…”
Shaykh Hussary - Opening Verses of Surat al-Mu’minun - from: Qura’ Al-Quran :: qquran.com
The verses describing the characteristics of successful believers.
Wired 12.11: The Decline of Brands
Sometimes, our attachment to particular manifestations of religious affiliation is rather like attachment to a particular brand: very comfortable, but also not very difficult to leave…
We see in the sunna of the Beloved of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) that those who have “tasted the sweetness of faith” would find leaving what they hold to be true as difficult as disbelief…
Cornel West: Public Intellectual — In These Times
“…And do good, for Allah loves those who do good…”
Scientific American: Music and the Brain
Makes you understand the stance of the Sacred Law in limiting the permissibility of music using instruments…
(Arabic) Interview with the “Shaykh of Munshids” Ustadh Amin al-Tirmidhi
Ustadh Amin al-Tirmidhi is considered to be one of the top living masters of the art of inshad (devotional singing).
You can find many of his songs at www.DeenPort.com
Shaykh al-Hussary was one of the greatest Qur’an reciters of the 20th Century.
Here, in a rare and powerful recording, he sings:
“All praise be to Allah, who illuminated all being with the manifestation of the best of creation,
Our Master Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him…”