Salam, No, it is not Shirki.

Alhambra Productions Podcast: Shaykh Hamza Yusuf - The Burda Insight Shaykh Hamza Yusuf provides an insight into The Burda by Imam al-Busiri. The Burda is arguably the greatest classic poem in the Arabic language in praise of the character and exalted rank of the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him). Composed by Imam al-Busiri in the 13th century CE it has been recited ever since throughout the Muslim lands from East to West and North to South, and has always been perceived as containing real benefits, blessings and miracles. To listen, please visit: http://www.alhambraproductions.com/podcast/index.php?id=27

Way of the Sufis By Shaykh Abdal Qadir as-Sufi The fuqara must ask always to be in change. The du’a of the Muslim is, “O Allah, keep me in change.†Keep me always changing because everything is changing and every day Allah is on a new creation. You must be renewing and renewing yourself. You have to always be in change. You must remember that the company of the fuqara is the highest company. You must keep each other company. You must travel to other places where there are fuqara. You must sit with the fuqara in every place. You must be an example to them and take example from them when you meet people of quality. Seek the people of knowledge, seek the people of love of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, and the people of love of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. To take the adab of the great ones you have to sit with them, you have to sit with the people of knowledge. It is by your company that you are purified. Tasawwuf is keeping company, then tasawwuf is listening, then tasawwuf is acting upon what you hear. There is only one enemy and that is your self. The nafs has nothing good in it. The worst of all things to the Sufis is the recognition of their own good qualities over and against that of other people – it is what sets them back and smashes them on the rocks of destiny. You must not look at your good qualities. You must consider them something that in themselves have been spoiled even by your being conscious of them. You do not look at your self. You do not find fault with others, you find fault with your self. You must look at your self and say, “What is wrong with it?†Harith al-Muhasibi went over his day, then went over his hours and then went over his minutes, then went over his breath until he had verified that it was pleasing to Allah, that it was acceptable to Allah. Two great ‘ulama met in Baghdad and they argued and fought with each other. At the end one of them said, “Let us meet tomorrow and discuss this matter further and the other one said, “No, let us meet tomorrow and make peace and forget all about it.†This is the way of the Sufis – to begin again. You must not be limited in your forgiveness of the faults of others but you must not have any measurement of any attention to yourself. Any consciousness of your self you must turn from. You must turn away from the nafs and the method of turning away from the nafs is not a psychological method, it is dhikrullah. (Surat ar-Ra’d, 28 ) “Only in the dhikr of Allah can the heart find peace.†You must do dhikr of Allah. You must remember Allah standing, sitting and reclining on your side. You must call upon Allah. You cannot afford to be out of the company of the people who love Allah for any amount of time in this age that we live in. You must be with the people who love Allah, you need them. You need the people of Allah because they will remind you of Allah. You need the people of knowledge because you have to be strong in your Deen and you have to be correct in your Deen in an age where every mosque has a different way of going into sajda, let alone the higher things of the Deen. You must speak well of people and have a good opinion of people. You must become people of futuwwa, you must become these people who are spoken of because of the high aspiration, the high himma you have which is on a universal scale that when you go to the Ka’ba, with all the troubles that are there, you must look for the people of Allah there and sit with them. Beware of the people of dunya. Beware of the people of dunya until you are safe, and when you are safe it does not matter where you go. If you are not safe then you must be careful. You must have taqwa and you must have wara’. You must take care, take care, watch, until you are on Sirat al-Mustaqim because when things go wrong you have to remember that all you have got is then to turn to Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala. Remember, even tawba is nothing to do with you – it is because Allah has decreed for you tawba because He wants you, so even that is not yours, it is not your good achievement. Your asking forgiveness is not your good achievement, it is simply Allah claiming you and you recognising that He has claimed you. You belong to Allah. You have come from Allah and you are going to Allah. This is what you have to tell yourself. You must not be hypnotised by dunya. Remember that Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, indicated that the small coin of the poor person is as dangerous as the gold of the rich, so you must be generous. To be generous is to follow the way of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. You must be generous, you must have a good opinion of other people, you must not say bad things about other people and if you do say them you must go back and clean it out and you must ask their forgiveness. If someone is totally against you and totally in the wrong then you have to forgive them and you have to forget it and you have to go back and put things right. This is how the Deen has always been. This is how these great men have lived in the past. Just finally to remind you – look what has become of futuwwa – the elders of the organisation of people calling themselves al- Fatah are tying dynamite to youngsters’ bellies and shoving them out to blow themselves up, when the people who fought with Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, pushed the young people aside in order that they could go and fight fisabilillah, fight in the service of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam. So the whole Deen has to start all over again. You are the people who must start it and in this continent is where it will begin. It is from your people and from your children, but you must have an adab to them, you must treat them with courtesy. You must treat your children with courtesy, you must treat the young with courtesy just as you must treat the old with courtesy. You must become the people of adab and if you become the people of adab you will be safe. If you become people of adab you will be Sufis. At-Tariqa kulluha-adab. The Tariqa is nothing but adab, that is all it is – adab. You must also have some respect for yourself. That respect for yourself is only manifest by the fact that all the people around you are at ease and in harmony with you and pleased that you are there. This is how you must be. You must be a blessing on the earth. You must be a baraka for everybody. You must be ones that when you enter a room it all lights up because of your love of Rasul, sallallahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, your love of Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, and because your tongue is supple with the name of Allah and not the matters of dunya. Dunya will not fail to happen. All its strategems and spoils will not fail to crash about your ears, they have always done it and they will continue to do it. When the People of the Cave came out, there they were again faced with the world and all its problems and all its difficulties, but Allah loves the people of tawhid and loves the people who love Him and this is the company, the company of the Sufis. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, that we prefer to go to the company of people who only want to go to Allah in preference to anyone who may do anything to help us and give us advantage in this world. We ask Allah, subhanahu wa ta’ala, to make us ready for the tests that come so that we can respond to Him and remember to praise Him in every situation. Alhamdulillahi ‘ala kulli hal.

The Lebanon Crisis by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi As Muslims we have to review the realm of events not once, but twice. Or rather, we must first look with the eye of Tawhid and then we must look with the eye of Furqan. If we do not approach the matter with the gravity and at the same time the illumination that comes from the light of Tawhid, we will fail in the subsequent discrimination. However shocking and distressing the matter may be to us, we must recognise that the event is by Allah. With Allah there is no injustice. Allah has set up existence by an intricate pattern of laws which never cease to function at any given moment. All living creatures perform, bounded by those natural laws that Allah has programmed into them. The organisation of the termitiary and the beehive are well known to us. Also the laws by which, when the higher organisms collapse, lower organisms take over. While an animal is alive, it carries in its blood and tissue living micro‑organisms. When it is hunted and killed, it is then hung. During that time these micro-organisms die which might infect the human. If the carcass is allowed to hang, new micro-organisms come to life which can be nutritious and give taste. It is only with the human species that there is, among the kuffar, the great illusion. The great illusion is that man can do what he likes. The truth, which is clearly laid out in the Qur’an, is that the human creatures live under a charge from Allah, glory be to Him. They have a beyond-time contract which they are called upon to fulfil in the in-time. Read the whole article from http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/content/articles/Art063_20072006.html

The Cure of Power By Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi (Moussem 1992, Granada) A'udhu billahi min-ash-shaytan ir-rajim. Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim The dhikr of Qur'an that we have heard speaks of the mumin and the kafir, of two ways of understanding existence. The kafir with his garden and all its wealth, exultant in his achievement and his possessions and his riches and saying that he will have it forever. And the mumin understanding something else and then when disaster comes, then when everything is laid in ruins the meaning and the wisdom of the mumin emerges. The mumin has said, "Why did you not say, 'Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah. Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah"? This was on the seal of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahu'llah. Why? Because as the Qutb of his time, this was the maqam of the highest knowledge, beyond which there is no knowledge in this world. "Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah." This is the will of Allah, and there is no power except form Allah. This word quwwa in Arabic has no other meaning. It has no root but itself. Quwwa is only quwwa. It does not mean anything. It does not go anywhere. It does not change in Arabic. Quwwa is absolute because quwwa is what belongs to the secret of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, because he was Rahmat al-'Alamin, said to his Sahaba: "I will give you a treasure of the treasures of the Garden if you say, 'La hawla wala quwwata illa billahi'l-'Aliyyi'l-Adhim.'" Now this was a gift of Rasulullah, peace and blessing be upon him, to be step to the knowledge of the ayat because he added, "La hawla wala quwwata." If we see that hawl in Arabic is not just strength, but the root of hawl is change, which is tahwil. La hawla wala quwwata. Allah is the One who makes change so there is no change but of form. Sidi 'Ali al-Jamal, rahimahu'llah, said that the du'a' of the 'arifin, the gnostics, was: "Allah, keep me in change!" Let me always be changing because this is the Sabil of Allah, the tahwil, the change. In other words, in the things everything is changing. In the beginning the garden was rich and providing wealth, and the man thought it was from him. It means that it is from the mashi'ah of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala'l-'Aliyyi'l-Adhim. Now this means that you cannot change your position about your place in existence. The muminun and the 'arifun are in the degrees of understanding. "La hawla wala quwwata illa billahi'l-'Aliyyi'l-Adhim," The great, "Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah." It is like they have surrendered any idea that they have any action that is other than what is the action of Allah, without shirk, because Allah is the Actor. Allah is One in His acts, in His attributes, and in His essence. Everything goes back to Him. The difference between the kafir and the mumin was not the difference of the gardens – it was the difference of their knowledge, of their understanding. When you understand that Allah is the Mover, Allah is the Doer, then you can do two things. You can become mad, majnun, because it is terrible. Or you can take this path that is Sirat al-Mustaqim. This path is that you remember, and when you forget, you remember: "Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billahi'l-'Aliyyi'l-Adhim." Sayyiduna Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said that of dhikr of "La hawla wala quwwata illa billahi'l-'Aliyyi'l-Adhim." would purify you of power, it would cure you of power. In other words, the idea that you have got power is to be sick. It is a sickness. It is not in your hand. When you know it is in His hands, when you know the matter returns to Allah, the affair returns to Allah. This is the mashi'atu'llah. The mashi'atu'llah means that then when you act, you act the way He wants. This is the meaning of the order to: "Love with the love of Allah and hate with the hatred of Allah." This is the meaning of the adab of Rasulullah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, when Sayyida 'A'isha, radiya'llahu 'anha, said: "He loved what Allah loved and hated what Allah hated in the Qur'an." This was his permission to act. Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahu'llah, says something very, very strange in his Diwan. He says: The 'arifin are just like engines, motors moved by divine power." They do not move until it is on the sabil of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. This is the moment in Badr when the Rasulullah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, took the sand and threw it at the enemy. In this he was on the sabil of Allah because Allah said to him in His Book: "When you threw, you did not throw, but Allah threw." The basis of Islam is that there is no shirk. So what was this? It was that the Rasulullah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was in fana' of the moment of the waqt so he was not present in that instant: it was directed from Allah. This is the foundation of knowledge. This was the centre of the victory of Badr. At Uhud they had soldiers, they had weapons, they had strength, and they lost. In Badr they were a few and they went on the Sabil of Allah and this moment was the truth of it and they had the victory of Badr. This is the moment of the 'arifin. This is why Hasan al-Basri, radiya'llahu 'anhu, said, "I saw forty of the men of Badr and they all wore wool. (They all wore the 'suf')." The men of Badr were the sufis, the mutasawwifun, the people who put on the wool. So the sufi is someone who has annihilated his knowledge in the understanding, in the vision of his non-existence and Allah's truth. Therefore they are the people who change everything. They are in this change, this tahwil of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Hawla also means in Arabic "to surround", and Allah surrounds everything. There is no form but that He encompasses it. He encompasses it by His existence and its non-existence. Therefore this is another kind of person. This is the one who can change the world. Allah makes times when the 'arifin withdraw. He makes times when the people of knowledge go into the desert, into the Sahara, and disappear. Shaykh Moulay al-'Arabi ad-Darqawi said to Shaykh al-Huwari to go into the desert and plant sweet dates. He hid him in the desert. Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahu'llah, hid Sidi Muhammad ibn al-Qurshi in the desert, out of the way. There is another time when the man of Allah rises up to fight. Then he must fight fi sabili'llah, not the jihad of this or that organisation, or this group or that group, but with this banner of Allah and the Rasul, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. This is the jihad with victory. All the jihads and all the struggles of the Arabs in this age have been disaster because they did not raise the banner of the Prophet, salla'llahu 'alayhi wa sallam. The day the Muslims move fi sabili'llah with this knowledge: "Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah." Then they will have victory. This will be the victory because it will be what is written all around this city by the Murabitun: "La ghaliba illa'allah." There is no victor except Allah, This is in your hands. Now you must do it. But this jihad is not first with the sword. The jihad is first to clean everything. There are times in tasawwuf when the tarbiyah of the Sufis is 'ilm an-nafs, nafs, hawa, shaytan, to clean the heart. The purification of this age is not interior. The purification of this age to make everything exterior clean. To make the behaviour clean, to make the street clean, to make the adab clean. To separate the enemy from the friend. This is the tarbiyah of this age. This is the jihad an-nafs of this age. It is that the market is not haram, that the money is halal. That the exchange is halal. That all the dunya exchange is halal. How can we make the hadrah if we are in a dirty place? Everything is clean. Everything about Islam is water. Before salat there must be wudu'. Before Hadra ar-Rabbaniyya there must be the Shari'ah of Islam, but the people who today say Shari'ah of Islam do not want this cleanness too. Why is it not clean? Because they are not doing it with the knowledge of Masha'allah. When they know it is Masha'allah, it is not they who are doing it. Then they will not say: "Islam! Islam! Islam!" They will say: "Allah! Allah! Allah!" This is the truth of this age. The people who say: "Islam! Islam! Islam!" cut the throats of the young men. When we say 'Allah!' and fight in the Way of Allah, we will have victory fi sabili'llah, insha'allah. So you must understand for the purification of your character you need the زilm an-nafs, suluk. Suluk is today himma. Suluk was himma in the time of Shaykh Ibn al-Mashish. It has always been himma. Now sometimes it is one way and sometimes it is another. Shaykh Moulay al-'Arabi ad-Darqawi said, "Everybody is in muraqaba." The power was physical and wealthy, and he said, "No, you are masakin." To purify the time. When Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahu'llah, came, this great man said, "Muraqaba. The best jallaba." Why? Because they wanted to kill this knowledge. So he hid the faqir in the beautiful jallaba. So only the men of Allah said, "No, no, this is not a beautiful jallaba. This is a rajulu'llah." The enemies said, "Where are the fuqara'? Where are the masakin?" in order to kill them. There were all these people in jallabas saying, "As-salamu 'alaykum." This is the thing. Now in this age you have to take on the deen of Islam. You have to protect it by Qadi 'Iyad, by Imam Malik, by the knowledge of the fiqh. You must protect your heart by taking on Masha'allah, la quwwata illa billah. This is dhikr of the great and you must make it yours. Not lightly on your tongue, but with weight and with awe and with majesty and awareness of the power of Allah. You see in the language of the people of tasawwuf the Sufi moves between qabd and bast, between contraction and expansion. He is between fear and hope. If you move between fear and hope, you will not be a strategist. You will not look for strategy. You will say: "Masha'allah. La quwwata illa billah." If you become people of this knowledge, you can change the whole world. If you follow this, you can make the whole world for your sons and daughters completely clear, completely clean. This is the way of Shaykh Muhammad ibn al-Habib, rahimahu'llah. The way has not changed. Shaykh al-Fayturi, rahimahu'llah, said: "Tariqa is not wird or wazifa or baya or silsila, but tariqa is ma'rifatu'llah, ma'rifatu'llah." Ma'rifatu'llah is embedded in the jewel.

THE FOUNDATIONS OF ISLAM By QADI ‘IYAD Translated by Aisha Bewley SHAHADA This must include belief with the heart and pronouncing with the tongue. In detail there are 40 BELIEFS – 10 – THE NECESSITY OF WHICH IS ACCEPTED 10 – THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF WHICH IS ACCEPTED 10 – THE EXISTENCE OF WHICH IS ESTABLISHED 10 – THE COMING OF WHICH IS CERTAIN THE TEN NECESSARY THINGS (WAJIBA) THAT YOU ACCEPT ARE: 1. That Allah is One, undivided in His essence. 2. That there is no second with Him in His divinity. 3. That He is Living, Self-Subsistent. 4. That He is neither diminished (by time) nor does sleep overtake Him. 5. That He is the God of everything and its Creator. 6. That He has power over everything. 7. That He knows what is outwardly apparent and what is inwardly hidden: ‘Not an atom’s weight escapes Him, neither in the heavens nor in the earth.’ 8. That He wills every created thing – bad or good – ‘What He willed came into being and what He did not will, did not.’ 9. That He hears, sees and speaks without any bodily parts and without instrument – rather, His hearing, seeing and speech are some of His attributes, and His attributes do not resemble ordinary attributes. 10. Similarly, His essence does not resemble ordinary essences. ‘There is nothing like Him – and He is the Hearer and the Seer.’ THE TEN IMPOSSIBLE THINGS (MUSTAHILA) THAT YOU ACCEPT ARE: 1. That coming into being in time is impossible for Him, may He be exalted. 2. That non-existence is impossible for Him – rather, He is by His attributes and names Pre-Existent, Going-On, Eternally Existent, standing in judgment over every self for what it has earned. He has no first and no last – rather, ‘He is the First and the Last.’ 3. That it is impossible that there is a god other than Him: ‘If there had been any gods except Allah in heaven or earth, they would both be ruined.’ 4. That it is impossible that He is not independent of all His creation, and impossible that He needs any supporter in His kingship. 5. That it is impossible that one affair takes His attention from another in His decreeing and His giving orders. 6. That it is impossible that any place in His heavens or His earth contains Him – rather He is as He was before the creation of place. 7. That it is impossible that He is either substance or body or that He has a shape or a form, or that anything resembles Him and that He has a likeness – rather He is the One, the Eternally Self-Subsistent who has not given birth, nor was He born, nor does He have any equal. 8. That it is impossible that events and changes change Him or that defects and damage reach Him. 9. That it is impossible that injustice attaches to Him – rather the whole of His decree is wisdom and justice. 10. That it is impossible that any of the acts of His creation is without His decree and His act of creation and His will – rather, ‘The words of Your Lord are complete in their truthfulness and justice – no-one can change His words’ – ‘He leads astray whom He wishes and He guides whom He wishes’ – ‘He is not asked about what He does but they will be asked.’ THE TEN THINGS, THE EXISTENCE OF WHICH IS ESTABLISHED, THAT YOU ACCEPT ARE: 1. That Allah, may He be exalted, sent His Prophets and His Messengers to His slaves. 2. That He sent down on them His signs and His books. 3. That he sealed messengerhood with our Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. 4. That He ‘sent down on him the Qur’an as a guidance for mankind with clear proofs in its guidance and discrimination.’ 5. That it is the speech of our Lord, neither created nor creating. 6. That the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was truthful in what he told. 7. That his law (Shari’ah) abrogates all the other laws. 8. That the Garden and the Fire are real. 9. That they are both in existence, prepared for the people of misery and happiness. 10. That the angels are real – some of them recording, writing the deeds of the slaves, and some of them messengers of Allah to His Prophets and some of them ‘severe harsh angels who do not disobey Allah in what He orders them to do and who do as they are commanded.’ THE TEN THINGS WHICH IT IS BELIEVED ARE CERTAIN TO COME ARE: 1. That this world will come to an end and ‘everything that is on it will come to an end.’ 2. That people will be tried in their graves and they will be given ease and given torment therein. 3. That Allah will gather them together on the Day of Rising – as He made them originally, they will return. 4. That the Reckoning and the Balance are real. 5. That the Path (Sirat) over the Fire to the Garden is real. 6. That the Pond (Hawd) is real. 7. That the people of right action will be in bliss in the Garden. 8. That the kafirun will be in the Fire in intense heat. 9. That the muminun will see Allah, the Mighty, the Majestic, with their eyesight in the Next World. 10. That Allah the Exalted will punish with the Fire whoever He wants of the people of serious wrong action (kabira) among the believers and will forgive whichever of them He wishes, and He will take them out of the Fire to the Garden by the overflowing generosity of His mercy and the intercession of the Prophets and the right-acting people among His slaves, until none but the kafirun will remain in Jahannam – ‘Allah does not forgive that any partner be associated with Him, but He forgives whoever He wishes for what is less than that.’

LOVE EVEN THOSE WHO REVILE YOU Interview with Shaykh Hamza Yusuf (Source: Q-News ) Q: The convenient response to those who revile your religion is to return the favor. The more virtuous position however is to forgive. Forgiveness as you know, while less in virtue when compared to love, nevertheless, can result in love. Love, by definition, does not require forgiveness. What many Muslims today seem to forget is that ours is a religion of love and our Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, was the Habib, the Beloved. How did love, the defining virtue of our community, come to be replaced by an urge to redress wrongs, to punish instead of to forgive? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: It is the result of Muslims seeing themselves as victims. Victimization is a defeatist mentality. It's the mentality of the powerless. The word victim is from the Latin “victima†which carries with it the idea of the one who suffers injury, loss, or death due to a voluntary undertaking. In other words, victims of one’s own actions. Muslims never really had a mentality of victimization. From a metaphysical perspective, which is always the first and primary perspective of a Muslim, there can be no victims. We believe that all suffering has a redemptive value. Q: If the tendency among Muslims is to view themselves as victims which appears to me as a fall from grace, what virtue must we then cultivate to dispense with this mental and physical state that we now find ourselves in? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: The virtue of patience is missing. Patience is the first virtue after tawba or repentance. Early Muslim scholars considered patience as the first maqam or station in the realm of virtues that a person entered into. Patience in Islam means patience in the midst of adversity. A person should be patient in what has harmed or afflicted him. Patience means that you don’t lose your comportment or your composure. If you look at the life of the Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, you will never ever find him losing his composure. Patience was a hallmark of his character. He was ‘the unperturbed one’ which is one of the meanings of halim: wa kaana ahlaman-naas. He was the most unperturbed of humanity. Nothing phased him either inwardly or outwardly because he was with Allah in all his states. Q: Patience is a beautiful virtue…the cry of Prophet Yaqub.... "fa sabran jamil." Patience, it appears, is not an isolated virtue but rather it is connected to a network of virtues. Should Muslims focus on this virtue at the expense of the other virtues? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: The traditional virtues of a human being were four and Qadi Ibn Al-Arabi considered them to be the foundational virtues or the ummahatul fadaa'il of all of humanity. They are: prudence, courage, temperance, and justice. Prudence, or rather practical wisdom, and courage, are defining qualities of the Prophet. He, upon him be peace and blessings, said that God loves courage even in the killing of a harmful snake. Temperance is the ability to control oneself. Incontinence, the hallmark of intemperance, is said to occur when a person is unable to control himself. In modern medicine it is used for someone who can’t control his urine or feces. But not so long ago the word incontinence meant a person who was unable to control his temper, appetite or sexual desire. Temperance is the moral virtue that moderates one’s appetite in accordance with prudence. In early Muslim scholarship on Islamic ethics, justice was considered impossible without the virtues of prudence, courage and temperance. Generosity as a virtue is derived from courage because a generous person is required to be courageous in the face of poverty. Similarly, humility is a derivative from temperance because the humble person will often restrain the urge to brag and be a ‘show-off’ because he or she sees their talents and achievements as a gift from Allah and not from themselves. Patience as a virtue is attached to the virtue of courage because the patient person has the courage to endure difficulties. So 'hilm' (from which you get 'halim'), often translated as forbearance or meekness if you wish, is frown upon in our society. Yet it is the virtue we require to stem the powerful emotion of anger. Unrestrained anger often leads to rage and rage can lead to violence in its various shades. Our predecessors were known for having an incredible degree of patience while an increasing number of us are marked with an extreme degree of anger, resentment, hate, rancor and rage. These are negative emotions which present themselves as roadblocks to living a virtuous life. A patient human being will endure tribulations, trials, difficulties, hardships, if confronted with them. The patient person will not be depressed or distraught and whatever confronts him will certainly not lead to a loss of comportment or adab. Adab, as you know, is everything. Allah says in the Quran: ‘Isbiru was-sabiru.' “Have patience and enjoin each other to patience.†The beauty of patience is that ‘inallaha ma'assabirin’ Allah is with the patient ones. If God is on your side you will always be victorious. Allah says in the Quran "Ista`inu bi-sabiri was-salat.'" Isti'aana is a reflexive of the Arabic verb `aana which is “to help oneself.†Allah is telling us to help ourselves with patience and prayer. This is amazing because the Prophet, peace be upon him, said “if you take help, take help from God alone.†And so in the Quran Allah says: ista`inu bi-sabiri was-salaat. This means taking help from patience and prayer because that is the means by which Allah has given you to take help from Him alone. How is it then that a person sees himself as a victim when all calamities, difficulties and trials, are ultimately tests from Allah. This does not mean the world is free of aggression and that victims have suddenly vanished. What I’m talking about is a person’s psychology in dealing with hardships. The sacred law has two perspectives when looking at acts of aggression that are committed by one party against another. When it is viewed by those in authority the imperative is to seek justice. However, from the perspective of the wronged, it is not to seek justice but instead to forgive. Forgiveness, `afwa, pardon, is not a quality of authority. A court is not set up to forgive. It’s the plaintiff that’s required to forgive if there is going to be any forgiveness at all. Forgiveness will not come from the Qadi or the judge. The court is set up to give justice but Islam cautions us not to go there in the first place because ‘by the standard which you judge so too shall you be judged.’ That's the point. If you want justice, if you want God, the Supreme Judge of all affairs, to be just to others on your behalf, then you should know that your Lord will use the same standard with you. Nobody on the ‘Day of Arafat’ will pray: “Oh God, be just with me.†Instead you will hear them crying: O Allah, forgive me, have mercy on me, have compassion on me, overlook my wrongs. Yet, these same people are not willing to forgive, have compassion and mercy on other creatures of God. We are not a people that are required to love wrong-doers. We must loath wrong actions, but at the same time we should love for the wrong-doers guidance because they are creatures of God and they were put here by the same God that put us here. And Allah says in the Quran “we made some of you a tribulation for others, will you then not show patience.†In other words, God set up the scenario, and then asked the question: ‘will you then not show patience?’ Will you subdue the inordinate desire for vengeance to achieve a higher station that is based on a conviction that you will be forgiven by God if only you can bring yourself to forgive others? Q: Imam Al-Ghazali and earlier Miskawayh in his Tahdhib al-akhlaq, argued that for these virtues to be effective they had to be in harmony. Otherwise, they said, virtues would quickly degenerate into vices. Do you think that these virtues exist today among Muslims but that they are out of balance? For example, the Arabs in the time of the Prophet had courage, but without justice it was bravado. Prudence without justice is merely shrewdness. Do you think that Muslims are clamoring for justice but have subsumed the virtues of temperance and prudence? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Yes. Muslims want courage and justice but they don't want temperance and prudence. The four virtues relate to the four humors in the body. Physical sickness is related to spiritual sickness and when these four are out of balance, spiritual and moral sickness occurs. So when courage is the sole virtue, you no longer have prudence. You are acting courageously but imprudently and it's no longer courage but impetuousness. It appears as courage but it is not. A person who is morally incapable of controlling his appetite has incontinence and thus he cannot be prudent nor courageous because part of courage is to constrain oneself when it is appropriate. Imam al Ghazali says that courage is a mean between impetuousness and cowardice. The same is true for incontinence. The person who has no appetite is not a temperate person but an impotent person and that's also a disease. Someone may have immense business acumen but uses it to accumulate massive amounts of wealth. That is not a prudent person but a crafty or clever person. Prudence is a mean between the extremes of ********* and craftiness or what the Arabs call makr. The maakir is the one who is afflicted with the same condition that has afflicted Iblis the maakir, the clever. The interesting point to note about the four virtues is that you either take them all or you don’t take them at all. It’s a packaged deal. There is a strong argument among moral ethicists that justice is the result of the first three being in perfect balance. Q: What I've realized is that people who don't have patience are often ridden with anxiety and tend to behave as if they can control the outcome of events in their lives. They even think that destiny is in their hands. They argue that if you do this and this you will achieve power, as if we have the ability to empower ourselves. Most of the contemporary Islamic movements seem to think that without state power a moral or an ethical Islamic society is impossible to achieve. Why do you think that is the case? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think victimization is the result of powerlessness. The point is that powerlessness is our state. Powerlessness is a good state, not a bad one because all power is with God alone and He will make you powerful or powerless. I'll give you an example. If you go into the Alhambra Palace in Granada you will see written everywhere al `izu-lillah which means that strength, dignity and power is with God alone. By the time you get to the end of the last room it is changed to al` izu li maulana Abi `Abdillah or power and authority is with the protector Abu Abdallah, the last Caliph of Andalus or what is now southern Spain. So it begins with power and strength is for God alone and it ends with power, strength, and dignity is for our master Abu Abdillah. The point here is that if you want power, God won’t give it to you, but if you want to be powerless for the sake of God, God will empower you. That's just the way it works and here I am talking about the people of God. Allah has divided the world into two types of people - those who are God- focused and those who are focused on other than God. The people that are focused on God will always follow certain principles and God will always give them the same results. The people who think that they are focused on God, but in fact are focused on other than God will never get success from God. The reason is that if they did indeed get success from God they would end up disgracing the religion of God by claiming to be people of God. There are many outwardly religious people on the planet that think they are the people of God and they get frustrated when they are denied victory. This causes them often to get angry and you see their methods becoming more and more desperate. They fail to recognize that authority is not given to them because they’re not truly focused on God. They are instead focused on worldly power and they are self-righteous and self-centered in their arrogance, thinking that they are right while everyone else is wrong. The verse in the Quran that sums this up is in Sura Baqarah. Allah says, “They say no one will enter paradise unless they be a Jew or a Christian, These are vain wishes. Say to them, bring your evidence if you are speaking the truth. “Balaa man aslama wajhahu lillahi wa huwa muhsinun.†“No, rather the one who resigns his entire being to God is the one.†Ibn Juzay al Kalbi says: aslama wajhahu means he who submits his entire being to God which is Ihsan or excellence in one’s worship. When the human being is in a state of submission - wa huwa muhsinun - everything that comes from him is beautiful and virtuous. Ihsan - ethics, virtuous, beauty, excellence - indicates that a human being will have his reward from his Lord. This is not from the God of a religion, but the God of the individual in a state of absolute submission. “Upon them there is no fear nor will they grieve.†To me, this is the greatest testimony that Islam is not about identity politics. Some among us want to reduce Islam to identity politics. They label themselves and point accusing fingers at each other. Allah says “indeed the one who has resigned his entire being to God and is virtuous, that is the one whose reward is with his Lord and upon them shall come no fear nor will they grieve. Replace the Jew and the Christian for some modern-day Muslims and you end up with the same phenomenon described above. The hadith says you will follow the Jews and the Christians to the extent that if they go down a lizard’s hole you'll go down with them. This is an authentic hadith. The hadith says every child is born with an inherent nature. The Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, didn't say every child is born a Muslim as a sociological identity. It says every child is born in a state of fitra and it’s the parents who determine its sociological category, to give it a modern interpretation. Q: You have painted a very interesting landscape in terms of Muslim behavior in the contemporary period but we are seeing evidence of resentment among some Muslims today which is very strange indeed. I am wondering how this might be related to a sense of victimization? Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: Of course it is. Look for example at the word injury. It comes from injuria, a Latin word that means unjust. So if I perceive my condition as unjust it is contrary to the message of the Quran. Whatever circumstances we find ourselves in we hold ourselves as responsible. It gets tricky to navigate especially when it comes to the oppressor and the oppressed. The Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, along with the early Muslim community, spent 13 years purifying themselves in Mecca. These were years of oppression and thus serious self-purification accompanied by an ethic of nonviolence, forbearance, meekness, and humility. They were then given permission to migrate and to defend themselves. At this point they were not a people out to get vengeance and they were certainly not filled with resentment because they saw everything as coming from God. I’m not talking about being pleased with injustice because that's prohibited. At the same time we accept the world our Lord has put us into and we see everything as being here purposefully, not without purpose, whether we understand it or not. We believe evil is from the Qadr (decree) of Allah and it's for a purpose, but there are two sides to choose from - the side of good and the side of evil. In order for you not to fall into the Manichean fallacy, God reminds you that not only is the struggle an external struggle but evil is an internal struggle as well. Therefore, those very things that you see on the outside they are also on the inside and to make it even clearer, the struggle inside is the greater Jihad because if you are not involved in the internal struggle you are not going to be able to fight the external one. Maulana Rumi said whenever you read Pharaoh in the Quran don’t think that he is some character that lived in the past, but seek him out in your own heart. Q; So, if we've got all these negatives, vices, not virtues active in our hearts, love, it appears is an impossible task. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: The modern Christian fundamentalists always talk about Islam as a religion devoid of love. It’s a very common motif in these religious fundamentalist books that attack Islam. They say “our religion is the religion of love and Islam is the religion of hate, animosity, and resentment.†Unfortunately, many Muslims have adopted it as their religion, but that doesn’t mean resentment has anything to do with Islam. Love (Mahabba) is the highest religious virtue in Islam. Imam Ghazali said that it is the highest maqam or spiritual station. It is so because trust, zhud (doing with out), fear, and hope are stations of this world and so long as you are in this world these stations are relevant, but once you die they can no longer serve you. Love is eternal because love is the reason you were created. You were created to adore God. That’s why in Latin the word adore which is used for worship in English is also a word for love, adoration. You were created to worship God, in other words, to love Him because you can't truly adore something or worship something that you don't love. If you are worshipping out of fear, like Imam al Ghazali says, it's not the highest level of worship, but its lowest. In other words, if you are worshipping God out of fear, if the reason that you are doings things is because you are afraid of Him, that he is going to punish you, that’s the lowest level of worship. That’s why it was said about the Prophet’s companion Suhaib al Rumi that had there been no fire or paradise he still would have worshipped Allah. Q: A vast number of young Muslims today who have the energy to run down the road of hate do so thinking that it is a display of their Iman. What do you say to help them understand that hating wrongs has to be balanced with the virtues of mercy, justice, forgiveness, generosity, etc. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: I think one has to recognize that there are definitely things out there to hate but we have to be clear about hating the right things for the right reasons in the right amount. The challenge is to get your object of hate right and hate it for the right reason. In other words, there are things that we should hate for the sake of God. Oppression is something that you should hate. Its not haram to hate the oppressor, but don’t hate them to the degree that it prevents you from being just because that is closer to Taqwa (awe of Allah). The higher position is to forgive for the sake of God. God gives you two choices -- the high road or the low road - both of them will get you to paradise. We should strive for the highest. Anger is a useful emotion. God created anger in order that we could act and respond to circumstances that need to be changed. Indignation is a beautiful word. Righteous indignation is a good quality and even though it is misused in modern English it’s actually a good thing. It means to be angry for the right reasons and then it is to be angry to the right degree because Allah says, “Do not let the loathing of a people prevent you from being just.†In other words get angry but don’t let that anger get the best of you, don’t allow it to overcome you to the point where you want vengeance because vengeance is God’s alone. Allah is al-Muntaqim, The Avenger of wrongs. Human beings are not here to avenge wrongs they are here to redress wrong, not to avenge them. The ideal of loving those who revile you is the station of the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him. In the midst of the worst battle of his career, the battle of Uhud, he prayed, “Oh God guide my people for they do not know what they are doing.†He could not have uttered that if he had hatred in his heart. He could not have embraced Wahshi as his brother, the man who killed his most beloved uncle, if he had hatred in his heart. He could not have taken the oath of allegiance from Hind who ordered and paid for the assassination of Hamza and then bit into his liver to spite the Blessed Prophet if he had hatred in his heart. He took her oath of allegiance and she became a sister in faith. The Messenger of Allah is the best example. He is the paragon who said: “None of you truly believes until he loves for his fellow man what he loves for himself.†And the reason why I say fellow man is that I think it’s a very accurate translation because Imam an Nawawi said that he is your brother because we are all children of Adam and Eve. So we should want for our fellow man guidance, a good life, and a good afterlife. None of you truly believes, in other words our Iman is not complete until we love for others what we love for ourselves and that includes the Jews, Christians, Buddhists and the Hindus. Q: That breaks down the 'us versus them' paradigm that tend to inform the way Muslims see the world and themselves in it. That has been taken to a new level now in some of our mosques where the kuffar is a degree under and we don't have to pay attention to anything they say either about us or to us. Did our Prophet, upon him be peace and blessing, behave like this at all? I mean was he dismissive of anyone who wasn't from his community? It seems preposterous to convince anyone that we care about their welfare when we deride them. Shaykh Hamza Yusuf: The point is that if you want to guide them then you have to be concerned with the way they perceive you. You have to be concerned with how they feel. The reason the Prophet upon him be peace and blessings, did not kill hypocrites was because he did not want the non-Muslims to say Muhammad kills his companions as a way of scaring people from entering into Islam. So he preferred an action that will cause non-Muslims to look at Islam as a religion they would prefer to enter. The Prophet, peace be upon him was concerned to such an extent with what others thought that when one of his companions said that the Persians and Byzantines did not take letters seriously unless they had a seal on them, he told his companion to make him a seal. He was concerned about how he presented himself to the people. Once he was combing his hair and Aisha, his blessed wife, asked him why he did that before he went out and he said my Lord commanded me to do this. In other words, to go out looking presentable to people is not vanity. Some Muslims get caught up in clothes and they get upset when others wear a tie and suit. They think it’s hypocrisy and that it is inappropriate. On the contrary, if one’s intention is correct, it’s actually an act of worship because you are doing it in order to present Islam, not yourself. You are, like the Prophet, recognizing that you are an ambassador of a religion and it becomes like the seal that the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessing, pressed onto the letters. Many Muslims have divided the world into two groups - us and them. They will support Saddam Hussein because he’s a Muslim. In other words, they will support a man who may have killed more Muslims than any Muslim leader in the history of Islam or perhaps all of them put together. The argument from this segment of our Muslim community is that “I will back a mass murderer and go to a demonstration with his picture because he’s a Muslim and other people are Kuffar.†On the other hand, many Americans will back unjust American intervention simply because they believe “my country right or wrong.†Both sentiments is a form of tribalism and we are people of faith in God Almighty, not people of tribal allegiance.

Jihad is Not Perpetual Warfare By Imam Zaid Shakir One of the fundamental ideas underlying the argument of those who advocate a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West is the thesis that Islam is a religion that advocates perpetual warfare. This warfare, in their formulation, is what Muslims know as ‘Jihad.’ In his provocative book, Islam Unveiled, Robert Spencer unequivocally states: The Jihad that aims to increase the size of the dar al-Islam at the expense of the dar al-harb, is not a conventional war that begins at a certain point and ends at another. Jihad is a “permanent war†that excludes the idea of peace but authorizes temporary truces related to the political situation. Other Western writers and ideologues go further by linking the idea of Jihad to an effort by Muslims to obtain global domination. For example, Daniel Pipes, writing in the November 2002 edition of Commentary, states, In premodern times, jihad meant mainly one thing among Sunni Muslims, then as now the Islamic majority. It meant the legal, compulsory, communal effort to expand the territories ruled by Muslims at the expense of territories ruled by non-Muslims. In this prevailing conception, the purpose of Jihad is political, not religious. It aims not so much to spread the Islamic faith as to extend sovereign Muslim power (though the former has often followed the latter). The goal is boldly offensive, and its ultimate intent is nothing less than Muslim domination over the entire world. As the premodern world never came totally under the sway of Islam, Jihad, in the formulation described by Pipes, meant permanent war. Pipes doesn’t see modernity mitigating this pre-modern tendency in Jihad, for he goes on to say, In brief, jihad in the raw remains a powerful force in the Muslim world, and this goes far to explain the immense appeal of a figure like Osama bin Laden in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001. It is interesting that Spencer, Pipes, and others, buttress their arguments with formulations and concepts associated with classical Islamic political theory. However, their understanding presupposes a single, narrow reading of the Islamic tradition, based on certain ideologically determined parameters, which limit their ability to accommodate an alternative reading. Read the whole article from http://www.zaytuna.org/seasons/seasons2/53-64%20Seasons.pdf

Salam. The author has not changed his views on “suicide bombingâ€. Yes, it is a 2-year old article, but still relevant and of importance.

Fatwa on Suicide as a Tactic by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir As-Sufi Because of the terrible suffering and grief that the practitioners of suicide have brought on their families and loved ones, in the first instance, and because of the damage this has done to the honour of the Muslims in the second instance, and because of its being a cause of rendering some kuffar deaf to the call of Islam in the third instance, many brothers and sisters have come to us asking for clear guidance in this matter. Read the whole article from http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/content/articles/Art001_17022004.html

Religion, Violence, and the Modern World By Shaykh Hamza Yusuf Many of us, in the hustle and bustle of modern life, have little time for reflection; yet as these days are marred by violence of the worst kind, reflection – on the part of those who regard themselves ‘religious’ as well those who consider themselves ‘secularists’ – is more needed than ever. With continual terror in Iraq and Palestine, and now, most recently, with the bombings in Turkey, Muslims are confronted with the increasingly tragic reality of religious violence and the subsequent retaliations of secular violence. A strange dual consciousness pervades the Muslim when it comes to modern violence. When Khalil Sarakiti, the Palestinian intellectual of the 40’s and 50’s reminded the Palestinian leadership of the importance of adherence to the highest principles of engagement in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he remarked in his journal that they viewed it as romantic chivalry, incompatible with the realities of modern warfare. And sadly, this is the reality of modern man: expediency has won out over principle. The modern Muslim has learned well the lessons of his secular counterpart. American military action rarely distinguishes between combatants and civilians. The Pentagon callously refers to them as ‘secondary effects’ or ‘collateral damage.’ When some Muslims use tactics of indiscriminate violence toward objects of hate, too often other Muslims are quick to point out that, ‘They kill our innocents and expect us to sit by and watch.’ Defenders of American foreign policy parry with, ‘Collateral damage can never be equated with terrorism because we don’t specifically target civilians and in fact attempt to avoid civilian casualties.’ Apologetics for wanton killing of women and children on both sides nauseates anyone who considers the very real impact of innocent blood spilt so injudiciously. Like all things in which humans engage, religion has many paradoxical aspects. On the one hand, it elevates our ideals and aspirations to the heavens themselves giving us such priceless principles as, “The entire Torah can be summed up in two statements: love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself; everything else is commentaryâ€; “Do unto others as you would have others do unto youâ€; and “Taking one life unjustly is as if you have killed all of humanity.†These are taken from the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim faiths, respectively. Meanwhile, some adherents to each faith justify with their teachings the most heinous depredations against their fellow men. Jonathan Swift remarked, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.†Perhaps that is true; for many people, religion is no longer a solution to anything but very much part of the problem. The great tragedy of modern religion is that it is now seen as a toxin polluting the waters of possibility. We who claim faith and commitment have too often made our faiths the objects of hatred. With our zealousness, we have driven away countless people who see the worst aspects of humanity embodied in religious peoples. For some of us, it is easy to write them off as skeptics, mockers, or secularists who just hate religion, but the truth is that most of them are not so. They are simply people who know intuitively that the behavior of those claiming to be religious is both inhumane and irreligious, and they seek other philosophies to guide them. They look to Epictetus or the Tao Te Ching or even Deepak Chopra, or they give up the search for meaning altogether, contenting themselves with film and music as fulfilling past-times. Organized religion, with its self-righteous pugnaciousness and its officious meddling in the affairs of others, has driven many moderns to relegate it to the dustbin of discarded ideas. The irony, of course, is that the religious people feel the secularists are the pugnacious ones forcing secularity down their throats, ignoring their most sacred beliefs or relegating them to a few minutes on shows such as Thought for the Day. The more religion is marginalized, the angrier religious people get; the angrier they get, the more others want to marginalize religion, ad nauseam. We have found ourselves in a vicious cyclical clash between secularists, who, in many ways, abandoned the Englightenment project of a more humane world long ago, and religious utopians battling for a piece of turf in the modern world – both sides bitter, both sides with minorities that use indiscriminate violence to lesser and greater effectiveness, both sides becoming increasingly intolerant. Tragically, the very reason so many Europeans felt disillusioned with Christianity was the centuries of intolerance and pointless religious violence. The Muslims, on the other hand, were far less prone to internal religious violence, and the level of tolerance toward other faiths was unparalleled in the premodern world. Unfortunately, explosions in Riyadh, Karachi, Turkey, and countless other places show that violence and intolerance have become the paths of pursuit among religious thrill-seekers in much of the Muslim world. The unexpected side-effect is that it is not just non-Muslims that find Islam odious, but many modern Muslims are increasingly becoming disillusioned with Islam, blaming the behavior of the practitioners on the religion, seeking alternatives in other faiths or philosophies. I believe many Muslims are in deep denial about this, refusing to even consider it, but I am seeing its signs everywhere, and it troubles me deeply. Those of us who are committed to Islam should seriously ask ourselves if we are indeed representatives of the Religion of ar-Ra^mÂ¥n, the Merciful: “The servants of the Merciful are those who tread lightly on the earth, and when ignorant people deride them, they reply ‘peace’†– are we as the Qur’an so wonderfully describes the true servants of God? Muslims are commanded to avoid backbiting, slander, lying, cheating, treachery, pride, anger, sloth, greed, and all of the other tragic qualities of beastly humanity. We must remember that much of the worst crimes we see in the world are simply our own sins magnified on a grander, more grotesque scale. The vice of setting aside our principles in small matters that apparently harm no one leads to the heinous enormities of our time as the vice continues while the scale increases. Religious people who set aside every true and universal religious principle in the name of religion are worse than any secular beast doing the same in the name of ‘might makes right.’ The reason is obvious: one acts in the name of religion and causes others to hate religion; the other acts in the name of power and causes others to rightly hate the worst qualities of man. It has been said that a religious fanatic is someone who redoubles his efforts after forgetting his cause. I think a sounder definition is someone who cannot risk considering that his life’s work has been meaningless; that his efforts have been in vain; that his victories are, in truth, defeats; and that his successes are utter and bitter failures. Violence is not a religious truth – it never has been, and it never will be. The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, “Never desire to meet anyone in battle, but if ever forced to do so, be virtuous.†He also said, “Kindness is never present in an act except that it embellishes it and is never removed from any act except that it defiles it.†In addition, he said, “God gives with gentleness what He will never give with harshness.†The Qur’an speaks to the Prophet (peace be upon him), reminding us about his noble character: “It is a mercy from God that you were made gentle in nature, and had you been harsh and hardhearted, people would have fled from your presence.†In a sound tradition narrated by Imam Tirmidhi, the Prophet oe is reported to have said, Toward the latter days of indiscriminate violence, be like the first and better of the two sons of Adam who said, “If you raise your hand to kill me, I will not raise mine to kill you; surely I fear God, the Lord of the worlds.†In an increasingly violent world in which the individual can now inflict harm that armies of the past were incapable of, religious people in particular must categorically reject and condemn any vigilante retaliations for injustices and question deeply the compatibility of modern warfare with religiously sanctioned military action that emanates from pre-modern just-war principles in the Abrahamic faiths.

The European Muslims and Globalisation By Abu Bakr Rieger Whenever today we discuss globalisation - its problems and Islam, then the impression is often conveyed that it is the Muslims who are part of the problem but not part of the solution. People are fond of conveying the impression that we Muslims are against globalisation and that we feel threatened. This is a paradox. De facto Islam has always been a global phenomenon and our traders have always been interested in global networking. Therefore it is certainly not the European Muslims who are the enemies of globalisation, although they are of course capable of making an ongoing critical assessment of the phenomenon and of getting to the bottom of the matter. In this respect we would like to make a contribution – and an absolutely positive one, one inspired by the Islamic sources. The theme then of my talk is “European Muslims and their contribution to globalisationâ€. Following the power shift from the political to the economic arena which had already become manifest in the second half of the 20th century, the 21st century seems to be going down in the history books as a more or less apolitical century. It is no longer the old ideologies which are being fought over today but it is rather a matter of mundane conflicts over dwindling resources. What is at stake is the economic exploitation of the world - not so much about the spreading integration of rules and systems or a new global nomos. At the same time we also see in global hunger the repercussions of the most terrible “weapon of mass destruction†of this time. We can state from the outset: the relevant core questions of this time are of an economic nature. But let us proceed step by step. First of all – who are the European Muslims? Read the whole article from: http://www.abubakrrieger.de/page.cgi?key=11&nr=550

Salam. Here are few. Just follow the links to download audio/video lectures. Enjoy: www.harunyahya.com http://www.alhambraproductions.com/podcast/ http://www.zaytuna.org/podcast.asp http://www.zaidshakir.com/

Heidegger for Muslims by Umar Pasha 1.-Introduction First, you have to know what to expect as a Muslim out of the study of Heidegger. He was not a Muslim, so we are not looking for answers about what is Islam. He cannot give them to us. What Heidegger can help us with is to understand the way of thinking that has become predominant in the West, and by extension all over the world. He called it Metaphysics. The word is not his, but he re-captured the original meaning of the term and gave it an encompassing meaning as a tool to define the way of thinking of the West. That way of thinking can also be called Philosophy. Heidegger gave also a new meaning to this word taking from the original meaning and intention of its Fathers, the Ancient Greeks. He placed the beginning of Philosophy with the works of Plato and then Aristotle. And he said that this way of thinking, philosophy, carried an inherent error from its beginning. He called that error: "the forgetfulness of Being.". As a first approximation to his thinking we will say that Heidegger maintained that Philosophy cannot think Truth; or -which is the same-, that what philosophy calls truth is not Truth. Why is Heidegger important to us? Because all of us have been educated to think in the Western way of thinking. The only way of thinking which is available in our schools and Universities, that is, the thinking of science, the thinking of technology, the thinking of theology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc. We have accustomed ourselves to think this way. It is so normal, that we do not even find the need to explore our way of thinking any further. We take for granted that we way we think "is" the way of thinking. Full stop. So, why go any further about something which is normal? We simply do not see it as necessary. Then Heidegger appeared. When he said: "our way of thinking has a fundamental defect", everybody was shocked. Heidegger's new thinking put in question the unquestionable, the unthinkable: the very essence of our thinking. But what is so peculiar about Heidegger's critique is that he did not bring another epistemology, another philosophy. He did not question philosophy within philosophy. He declared nothing other than "The End of Philosophy". He closed the shop of a way of thinking that had been around for the last 2,500 years. The awesome thing is that this thinking was not just "a thinking" it is "our thinking". The thinking with which we have created everything around us, the thinking with which we think about ourselves, the thinking with which we think technology, democracy, economics and even God. This is what was so shocking. And this is why Heidegger is so important. And it is even more important to us, Muslims, than to anybody else. We can understand Heidegger in a way the kaffir never will. In a sense Heidegger, without knowing, was speaking for us, and the kuffar who have not understood him, probably never will. The Limits of Heidegger Heidegger left something unresolved. He finished Philosophy. But he could only vaguely point out the way forward. He resolved this problem with what he calls "poetry", not just any poetry, but the poetry of the one who is no longer himself. The one that lets "the things show themselves" to him. The one who is no longer the observer, but the observed. But he could not go any further. I would not say that what he pointed out was nothing, it was very important. But nobody yet has picked up this unfinished affair. Because the resolution of the End of Philosophy is only one: Islam. After Heidegger's closing of the shop of philosophy, only Islam can take over. The only possible destiny of the thinking of the West, of the West itself, is Islam. This is why I say that Heidegger spoke to us, because only we, the Muslims, can finish his affair. How to Read Heidegger You have to understand that Heidegger is questioning our own way of thinking. But how are we going to think Heidegger other than with our way of thinking? This is all we have. Would not our way of thinking prevent us from thinking Heidegger? And the answer is: it would. This is why to think Heidegger you have to prepare yourself. You have to allow yourself to walk with him a little. You have to lose yourself a little. If you do not, if you hold onto your way of thinking too early, you will not get the picture. You have to walk with him long enough so that you can understand. Once you have reached this level, you will be able to understand Heidegger with the same easiness that you read a novel. Then Heidegger becomes extremely easy. If not Heidegger becomes obscure and difficult, which is how most people (philosophers) experience him. Who Was Heidegger? Martin Heidegger was born in Germany in 1889 and died in 1976. He was the last of the philosophers, the one who declared that End of Philosophy. His main work was “Being and Time†(1927) which was a major breakthrough in thinking. It was received with enormous enthusiasm and fear by his contemporaries, many of who realised the vastness of the achievement. Then he wrote over a 100 other books that cover thousands of articles and essays. His work is still not completely published. In a sense we have not finished discovering Heidegger. Other important books are: On the Essence of Truth, Holderlin and the Essence of Poetry, Early Greek Thinking, The Question Concerning Technology, Letter on Humanism, On the Way to Language, and many others equally interesting. It is important also to know who Heidegger is not. He is not an existentialist, because Heidegger was a lot more than that and you cannot put him in the same category as Sartre. He was not a phenomenologist, because although he learned from Husserl, he went beyond his teacher. A Warning Thinking with Heidegger is to think at the edge of thinking. You are moving into the frontline of thinking. This is a bit like going ahead of your time. You will be experiencing the possibilities of a world that is not yet there. Heidegger will change for ever the way you look at sciences, anthropology, politics, sociology or theology. You will not be able to be persuaded by their proofs and their reasoning, which you will find deficient and partial. This is going to make you feel like a man sent back to the Middle Ages. You will say to yourself: what are these people doing surrounded by superstitious beliefs, fantasies which they endorse with their own fantasy way of thinking? You are going to be at odds with your time. But the reward, the immense reward is that you will be able to experience the glory of your deen with all its magnificent wonders and possibilities free of all the clouds of nonsense and superstition with which it has been surrounded in our present days. But also at an individual level, you will be able to get rid of the clouds that our way of thinking inevitably imposes on the personal understanding of our own religion. When you look in retrospect you will think that you are different. Be prepared for a great adventure that will set you free to enjoy your Islam even more. Now we can start. Read the whole discourse from http://alhambraproductions.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=322

STATE OF THE 'UMMAH By Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi Allah, glory be to Him, has declared in Surat al-Ahzab (33:35-36): Men and women who are Muslims, men and women who are muminun, men and women who are obedient, men and women who are truthful, men and women who are steadfast, men and women who are humble, men and women who give sadaqa, men and women who fast, men and women who guard their private parts, men and women who remember Allah much: Allah has prepared forgiveness for them and an immense reward. When Allah and His Messenger have decided something it is not for any man or woman of the muminin to have a choice about it. Anyone who disobeys Allah and His Messenger is clearly misguided. The primary responsibility of the Muslims is worship of Allah, glory be to Him, according to what He has decreed in His Divine Revelation of the Qur’an together with the Sunna of the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and his foundational model, that is to say, the ‘Amal of the People of Madinah al-Munawwara, the Illuminated City. If the atheist materialists, even if they pretend they are christians or jews, enact procedures which interfere with the Muslims’ Divinely commanded obligation to glorify Him, may He be exalted, it is incumbent on the Muslims to oppose and remove that hindrance to the practice of the Deen al-Haqq. The Muslims must bear in mind that the enemies of the Deen cannot succeed, since they are acting contrary to the very laws on which all existence has been set up. The laws of the creation are not hidden. Indeed, they are well-known and recognised, not only by scientists, but by all thinking people. The financial system of the kuffar devours the earth’s natural energy with such a ferocity of greed that the very harmony of the natural world, which is set up on that perfect balance of Allah’s Rububiyya, is shattered. The kufr of the kuffar is, that knowing the exploitation of the world’s mineral resources means the destruction of the eco-system, they cover up this reality and so bring about their own and everyone’s destruction. Mass suicide is the social project of kufr, but since their nature is to cover up, they will call it a one-world system of peace and harmony governed by the freely elected representatives of a universal franchise. In 1901, H.G. Wells, the leading thinker of atheist materialism, wrote ‘Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought’. In it, Wells foretold: ‘for a multitude of contemptible and silly creatures, fear-driven and helpless and useless, unhappy or hatefully happy in the midst of squalid dishonour, feeble, ugly, inefficient, born of unrestrained lusts, and increasing and multiplying through sheer incontinence and ********* , the men of the New Republic will have little pity and less benevolence.’ A.N. Wilson notes: ‘One of the scientists who worked on the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, Leo Szilard, said that the idea of nuclear chain reaction first came to him when reading Wells’s The World Set Free (1914), in which atom bombs falling on world cities during the 1950s kill millions of people.’ He goes on to say, ‘It was not some Napoleonic tyrant who authorized the bombing of Hiroshima but a small-town lawyer, President Harry S. Truman, whose face could easily have been used to adorn the jacket of an H.G. Wells suburban comedy.’ So it is that the repeated acts of genocide, mass slaughters, the destruction of whole cities, Hamburg, Dresden, Guernica, the chemical pollution of Agent Orange in Vietnam and Cambodia, the seemingly mindless destruction of nations, Iraq and Afghanistan - all this we are told is to make the world free for democracy. It follows from this that the defining principle of what is clearly a mutually assured destruction is this categorical imperative on which all the acts of horror are based. It is incumbent on us, therefore, to know just what in reality it is. Even in its official definition for the masses it is remarkable how ambiguous and strange are its necessary conditions. Democracy declares that in a universal suffrage, men and women in a national entity of prior definition may elect those who will govern their affairs. Thus, while the elected leader and his government are licensed to rule a limited period over that zone, the Nation State, the matter does not end there. Apparently, this blissful perfection is not attained where the regime is solely governed by a President, or is under single-party rule. This, to them, unsatisfactory situation also contains those countries with monarchal rule, that in turn is with the exception of the Kingdoms where the monarch is subservient to a parliament, as in Britain. It is in the nature of the motor-force of the democratic juggernaut, that these groupings will be re-structured, and must in their present form be considered transitional. In the final configuration, the only exception to democratic rule will be Vatican City for all the christians (whether they like it or not), and Kerbala for both the Shi‘a and Islamic religions, finally unified (whether they like it or not). In the rhetoric of this apparent united world urge to give to the masses their right to chose their leaders and their government, there is a false historical perspective designed to silence those who might reject this exalted idea. There is a scenario now enshrined in every school-book from Helsinki to La Paz, in every History Magazine from London to Sydney, in every TV History Channel beamed worldwide, which tells the tale of tyrannical monarchs (Peter the Great killed his son, Henry VIII beheaded two wives) and even more terrifying dictators, Hitler and Mao, experts in genocide. It must be said that today’s media version of political history is a clear fabrication which cynically shrugs off the total rejection by the diminishing class of historians, and the increasingly inaccessible evidence of the historical archives in elite Universities. In other words, it is not as simple as that. I have had the direct and bitter experience of working with the leadership of two Muslim nations which tried to emerge into independence following the collapse of the communist system. On 30 September 1996 Hojakhmed Noukhaev, the then-Deputy Prime Minister, appointed me Honorary Consul of the Chechen Republic Itchkeria. It should be recalled that there were two Chechen Wars. The first War was fought by the whole Chechen people, united by allegiance to the Sufic Tariqas which had so successfully preserved them under communist rule, to such a degree that a Stalinist agent reported back to Moscow: ‘You can make any man in the world a Soviet Man except a Sufi!’ The first Chechen War came to an end with a de jure ratification of the independent status of the Chechen Republic. In these urgent and dramatic days, the struggle over, there was a sudden international input, all of which manifested as a deep concern that the new Republic should be firmly based on ‘sound Democratic principles’. I warned the military leaders of the Independence Struggle that if the peace was to be defined through a ‘democratic process’, the unity that had been achieved on the battlefield would be shattered, the leadership would turn against itself, and the resulting disorder would license intervention. I urged on them that the logic of war dictated that the victors should determine their political future, and if they did not, it would be taken out of their hands. In Paris I requested Maitre Jacques Vergès to help us urgently draft a founding document for the new independent State. This great lawyer, whose life has been a continuous struggle to defend the principles of justice for the individual, immediately offered his services free. We met together with Noukhaev, and he began to gather together the necessary documentation. Vergès promised to put the matter before the Minister of State in their Foreign Affairs Ministry. In the end, despite all our efforts, the worst happened, and that worst was organised, planned, and successful. Part of the scenario was to lure Noukhaev away from both Yanderbiyev and Aslan Maskhadov, this was done by attaching to him a Polish jew whose job it was to turn him from the political conflicts to a subsidised retirement in the oil industry of Azerbaijan, where at least he has blessedly survived while the rest of the Leadership, one by one, have been assassinated. What followed is well known, that is, the organised infiltration of the Wahhabi Movement, and its usual cohort of low-life mercenaries, bringing with them not only defeat but in the end the unthinkable slaughter of innocent school-children. At the outbreak of the Bosnian War, I flew directly to Geneva to support President Izetbegović. There were two incidents during that War which I can never forget. The first occurred while we sat huddled in the President’s hotel suite, trying to make sense of the rapidly unfolding horror story that was being enacted across the former Osmanli province. As we talked, a young equerry entered with another piece of terrible news from the war zone. Having told us, he stopped, and a look of bewilderment crossed his face. He gasped out, ‘I don’t understand it! It is as if they just wanted to murder all of us!’ It was only when the full and final outrage of the Dayton Peace Agreement was laid before us that I realised the young warrior’s exclamation was a political truth. Genocide is the necessary servant of acceptable demographics, as true then in Bosnia as it is today in Palestine. President Izetbegović was in an intolerable situation. Neither the kafir world system nor its army of mercenaries, NATO, were prepared to see an Islamic Republic in Europe. It was unthinkable. As we learned in Geneva, it was equally certain that the Muslim nations were not prepared to enter the struggle. There could be Aid, but there could not be rescue. The Organisation of Islamic Conference invited him to attend a Special Session. The Prime Minister of Turkey offered his private plane to the President. I begged him not to go. I pointed out to him that he was exhausted, this would exhaust him further, and he was needed for the struggle ahead. In some way, and I say this without any blame, he believed in these structures, though he was soon to find out what damage they could do. As we studied the map of the Balkans, I begged President Izetbegović to make the struggle an Islamic one and not one of either ethnic or national liberation. I pointed on the map to Bosnia, to Kosovo, to Macedonia, and to Montenegro. I begged him to open up the war on all these fronts simultaneously, and I assured him that if he did not do that, then they would be picked off one-by-one to their complete destruction. It was his own politicians who held him back. His treacherous Foreign Secretary, Haris Silajdžić, shocked the Muslim world with his infamous sentence, ‘I am not a Muslim, I am a Bosnian.’ In the last stage of the conflict, something happened. I later discussed this with our great General Alagić, and even in consultation with his colleagues we could not ascertain what it had been. I record this because of my observation that in these compromising conclusions that end armed struggle, there is a moment when the protagonists are isolated with the dominant exterior power-force, and, following that encounter, somehow submit to a new remit which is precisely not the radical and liberating doctrine for which they fought. It has happened to Arafat, Mandela, Makarios, Sukarno, Noukhaev, and Izetbegović. The incident I refer to in Bosnia was brief, dramatic, and to this day unexplained. At a certain point of the War which saw both negotiations and hostilities happening side by side, Izetbegović, caught up in negotiation, aggravated by a concern for his daughter’s welfare, inexplicably found himself inside an armed enemy zone, that is to say, behind the lines and in the hands of the enemy. As strangely as he was captured, he was then later released after a significant period of time within which he was able to confer with the enemy. It was after this event that President Izetbegović abandoned his previous and well-known position of a man whose life was dedicated to creating an Islamic State, and turned into one who was prepared to fly to the USA and sit inside a military encampment, utterly isolated from the outside world, and sign an Agreement which created a hybrid State in which the demographics reassured the world that it could not be governed by a Muslim democratic majority. It was some time later, sitting with General Alagić and some of his High Command in Istanbul, that I put this question to him: ‘General, at the drawing-up and the signing of the Dayton Agreement, can you tell me which or how many of the Generals who had fought the War sat at the Peace Table?’ There was a stunned silence. The Bosnian officers looked at each other, and then lowered their heads. General Alagić replied: ‘There is the whole story! Not one!’ There was a long silence, and then he added: ‘This means - it is unfinished business!’ This was that other unforgettable moment which is with me today. Let us now cast a cold eye on some of the current ‘Democracies’ in the Muslim world. Tunisia. Officially defined as a Presidential Democracy. The current President was chosen by Bourguiba. Shaykh Shadhili an-Nayfar, the Sultan of the ‘Ulama in his lifetime, publicly declared Bourguiba to be a kafir. The present ruler threw thousands of Muslims in prison, made the beard illegal, controls the ‘ulama, issues Khutbas, and employs widespread torture. He is encouraged in his position by the EU and USA. Algeria. The tragic events in Algeria were the first open indication that the official definition of democracy as a submission to the will of the majority of the electorate was sheer nonsense. With the election of an Islamic Party (my own personal abhorrence of this Party is simply irrelevant in our present examination of the meaning and evaluation of democratic process), the response of the atheist State, itself a direct product of the Badisi Islamic modernists, was to throw the winning Party’s leadership into prison and begin the wholesale massacre of both the political class and the innocent electorate. The Generals who controlled the atheist State were not just ‘the Military’, they were the owners and directors of Algerian Oil. The systematic persecution of the Algerian electorate was greeted with vociferous enthusiasm by the French State and an obedient silence from the EU. Pakistan. A democratic government and a legal Prime Minister. It could be said that he represented Pakistan with all its inherited issues, both its qualities and its vices. However, a massive trans-national operation was about to take place which could not be accomplished unless Pakistan was a vassal player to the project about to be launched. The carefully groomed and monitored figure of the puppet Musharaf received his orders and seized power in a trumpeted rhetoric of overthrowing corruption. Democracies need ****** at the helm, but it is always a little embarrassing when they say, like Musharaf, ‘They want a referendum? They want elections? That’s easy!’ Egypt. Everyone knows about Egypt. Even the Americans know about Egypt. With his jails crammed with political opponents, it is the talk of Cairo that to get someone to stand against him as President, Mubarak had to promise that afterwards he would not fling him in prison. With the killing-fields of Iraq and Afghanistan we are again faced with this strange category, ‘in-transition to democracy’ It is clear from this examination of the term democracy that it simply is not what it says it is. The reality is that democracy has obligatory protocols, which, while not secret, are never questioned, as if they were facts of nature. For example, when Izetbegović signed the Dayton Agreement granting democratic status to the invented political entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the first paragraph following the definition of its name was that the said entity would accept a substantial loan from the World Bank. It further obliged the new State immediately to impose a Value-Added Sales Tax on all items, thus guaranteeing a quotidian stability to its banking system. It is not what it says that reveals the pernicious evil of democracy, but what it so gracefully avoids saying in its high Jeffersonian rhetoric of People’s Rights. The democratic system of the political classes, atheist and materialist by policy, while not denying personal interior convictions, categorically removes governmental control over two things: the supra-national financial system and the supra-national Military-Industrial Complex, to use President Eisenhower’s damning definition. Wealth and War remain the unique domain of a series of interlocking elitist groupings, some permanent (like NATO), and some ad-hoc (like the Venezuela Enquiry). No universal franchise gave a mandate to the current ugly sub-human dwarf who heads the World Bank, or for that matter any of the world’s banks. The Military do not deal with Senates or Assemblies, they have their own internal hierarchies devoid of any personal oath of allegiance, the only kind fighting men can ever truly take. The reason for this is that the Military have another allegiance with a high monetary reward. In other words, they are now the Siamese twin of the wealth-producing armaments system, in short, they are a Military-Industrial Complex. The people are free to choose! Umar Pasha, our Muslim World’s unique expert in Islamic Law relating to modern finance, is on record as having said that people are not free to choose their own currency. In political terms, the dynamics of human existence are dependent on the activation of wealth and war. ‘Amr is the ability to command the wealth and order the war. It is the ‘Amr which commands appointed Zakat Collectors to gather the Zakat according to its rules, and it is the ‘Amr which commands the people to the Ghazwat - these two indicate the presence of an Islamic ‘Amir. It is the hidden nature both of those who today command, and of the command itself, which is the hellish kufr under which we all live. Let us now look at three Muslim countries on which the curse of democracy has currently fallen. Palestine. Well, now you know. As if the Palestinians had not brought enough shame upon the Muslim ‘Ummah with their suicide-bombing, we now have to watch aghast as this self-styled Islamic Party ran screaming and shouting through their missile-damaged streets wearing American baseball caps and the latest new-democracy outfit, a slogan-scarf with the national colour of choice, like a Georgian or a Ukrainian. Reflect for a moment, oh Palestinian Youth, on what the victory of the ‘people’s choice’ means. Inverting the centuries-old Islamic tradition of Preference, which is the hallmark of Futuwwa, for before this the Fateh was a man of high principle and moral superiority, the fighters of Hamas have another preference. Where once the father would die to save his son so that his cause and his line could continue, for the first time in Islamic history, the fathers sent their sons off to die. The suicide dimension in itself was sheer cynicism. It has been demonstrated that almost 80 per cent of suicide-bombings could have achieved their target without the need of the suicidal subject. The significance of the suicide technique was, that following the death of the youth, it enmeshed the whole family in a loyalty to a political cause which they might never have acquiesced in had they not lost a son to it. This was an Isma‘ili technique of terror, and it was passed on to the Muslims of Palestine during their period of interaction with the Lebanon. Let us be quite clear. There is no injunction against fighting the enemy. There have been times in the history of Islam when very great leaders have sown terror, even among the Muslims, to purge them, as with Tamerlane and the Wars of the Ta’ifs. What can never be excused or accepted, let alone defended, is a conscious act of suicide for whatever motive. The famous French writer Henri de Montherlant, who committed suicide, wrote that suicide was the highest act of atheism a man could perform. First of all, it is to despair of the Mercy of Allah. Secondly, it is a nihilistic act which inescapably indicates that there is no hope in the situation. It is to declare - may Allah forgive us for even setting it down - that Allah cannot and will not, of His Power and Majesty, resolve the situation. Thirdly, and perhaps just as offensive to Muslim peoples, is the idea that a nation led first by Arafat, who by Islamic Law merited execution for his public insults against ‘Aisha, in the city of Oxford, and then by the quite dreadful personnel of the Palestinian Authority, a self-confessed mafia, could in any way present itself to the world as an Islamic struggle. I sat a whole day in Madinah in the house of a great Mauritanian ‘Alim, and refused to budge until he gave me an official definition of Jihad. His reluctance to give judgment finally overcome, he said to me, ‘The first necessity of Jihad is that the Banner of Islam must be raised high.’ What this profound definition means is that however great the moral justification in human terms for any struggle against tyranny, oppression and occupation, these as such do not fall into the same category as that event, which could be initiated by one of these elements, but which could only express itself in its true form as the challenge to establish the Deen of Islam. To fight Fisabilillah is not the same as to fight under the kafir slogan of ‘The just rights of the such-and-such a people’. The Palestinian people have achieved nothing and will achieve nothing. The only pitched battle they fought was not against Israel, but against their fellow Palestinians in Jordan. This is the ultimate tragedy of Palestine. The people have voted to be governed by people who send their own sons to their death. The situation is not without hope. There is a solution. It is to see from the past what is needed in the present. Palestine was a province of the great Osmanli Dawlet. The noblest of all the Sultans, Abdulhamid Khan II, was driven into exile uniquely because of his refusal to hand it over to the jews. The only just determination that can be settled on the matter of Palestine is that the Palestinian people take new leaders from outside the political class, and, under their aegis, go with humility to Istanbul and say to its leadership: ‘We have failed to do this. Our place is with you. Come and take over our government, our debts, and our needs. Protect us and rescue us in the Name of Allah.’ This action would change the face of this great cursed territory that once produced scholars that lit up the world, from Aleppo to Basra. Iraq. We are told we must be happy. It has a Constitution. It has a government. It even has a standing agreement with the World Bank and the IMF. Who could ask for anything more? At the heart of the Iraqi crisis is not the matter of democratic government. At the heart of Iraq is a certain unfinished business. Two events during the still-continuing Iraq War laid bare this unfinished matter. Two Iraqi cities rose up in resistance against the foreign occupying force. In the uprising of Kerbala there emerged a figure who was given enormous prominence and respect. The creation of this figure was a media event initiated by CNN but soon taken up by that new pack of dogs, the Media Experts in Muslim Affairs. This was a Shi‘a ‘Alim who was soon elevated to a kind of Papal status. He was always referred to with shock and awe - His Eminence the High Ayatollah Sistani. The other leading actor was another Mullah, who was presented as the radical activist and extremist. In the drama which followed, Kerbala was repeatedly defined as both a ‘Holy City’ and also as ‘one of the great shrines of Islam’. At the end of this carefully staged Siege of Kerbala, the militant leader who had been killing the Army of Occupation was allowed to make an orderly retreat on the understanding that it was a peace that had been brokered by the Most High Ayatollah. The second siege was that of Fallujah. It was declared to be the scene of Muslim resistance to the occupation. This time the media confusedly had to define its inhabitants as a mixture of Saddamites and what they called Sunnis. Perhaps the most important political re-alignment of the Iraq War was the determination to end up with an Islam divided into two sects: the Shi‘as and what they call the Sunnis. The passive acceptance of this nomination is perhaps the most damaging event in the history of the modern Muslims. Politically it was clear to any thinking Muslim that once Islam could be seen as viable in one of these two forms, then the next task of the kuffar would be to decide which form it could most easily assimilate and gently tolerate out of existence, as it had already done to a Catholic and Reformed christianity. A financially and militarily helpless Pope in Rome and an equivalent Ayatollah in Kerbala offered a perfect end-game. The response to the uprising in Fallujah was the opposite of the treatment given to Kerbala. With an indifference to the presence of men, women and children inside the city, and after a pretence that the innocent were asked to leave, the assault took place. The attack on the city was devastating, and whole districts were bombed and left in ruins. The taking of the city was clumsy, brutal, and with a shocking death-toll that the experts declared excessive. In January 1843, on the orders of the Khalif of all the Muslims, Serasker Sadullah Pasha with three infantry regiments and one of cavalry, along with twenty guns, laid siege to Kerbala. This was because of the deliberate attempt to move central Iraq out of the Islamic Dawlet and set it up around the two Holy Shi‘a Cities of Kerbala and Najaf. The growing mercantile strength of the Iraq-Iran Axis needed a theological force to drive its material expansionism, in the same way that a Northern expansionism in the Thirty Years War used a theological basis for that terrible struggle. It was in the early eighteenth century, with a Safavid Bahrain re-activating Shi‘a doctrines, that the whole new religion began to re-define itself. The dialectic between the two main Shi‘a schools dynamised the imperatives of political growth. Put crudely, the Akhbaris derived their teaching from Ta’wil of the Qur’an and the sayings of the Shi‘a Imams, while the Usulis, on the other hand, represented that strong rationalist strain that underwrote any necessary pragmatic re-alignment of their religion. One is tempted to define the two schools as follows: the Akhbaris say - the Imams give us permission to practice Taqiyya. The Usulis say - That is irrational. We do NOT practice Taqiyya! The internal conflict inside the Shi‘a religion is much greater even than its struggle against the Islamic religion, but as I have said, the changes in Shi‘ism were motivated not by spiritual insight but by the need to provide a module for an expanding economy. In the early days of the Shi‘a religion, Muslims could still consider that perhaps it was a sect of Islam. But in 1501 Shah Isma‘il became the Shah of Iran, imposing Shi‘ism on the country. He ordered the ritual cursing of the Sahaba and Muslim ‘Awliya. He burned mosques. He expropriated the land of the Muslims. In mid-16th century, under the Safavids, their scholars began to make great changes in the practice of Shi‘ism. Shaykh ‘Ali al-Karaki (died 1534) re-instituted Jumu‘ah, which had been considered invalid during the Occultation, and ordered blessings on the Safavid dynasty from the Mimbar. He adopted the Islamic Kharaj, also previously illegal. He ordered the abandonment of Taqiyya, now they were under Safavid protection. He instituted the public cursing of Islam’s first two Khalifs, may Allah forgive us for setting down these words. Since the Shi‘a religion cut itself off from the Deen itself as it was founded by the Messenger, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, contradiction and alteration become inevitable, ending up with something that is the opposite of our Deen. For example, in the 1830s Sayyed Muhammad Nasirabadi, the leading Mujtahid of Lucknow, said that interest could be taken from jews, christians, hindus, and Muslims (that is, not Shi‘a). Sayyed Muhammad confirmed that interest could be taken from mushriks by consensus, and that Sufis should be considered ritually unclean and mushrik. The proximity of this judgment to that of Muhammad ‘Abduh is not accidental, and reminds one that when he gave his judgments on banking and usury, he had just been sipping coffee with Al-Afghani, the notorious Iranian. It was the Muslim Afghan invaders who swept down with a cleansing fury which put an end to the Safavid dynasty. It is this which reminds us that the destinies of the Iraqi lands and the mighty Afghan Amirates are not things that can be determined by a handful of young American graduates in geo-politics using a barely comprehensible vocabulary, even to themselves, under the patronage of an illiterate President and the High Priest of the World Bank spitting furtively on his comb before he tidies himself for the world’s media. Only we, in our manner, and in the time of our choosing, can settle the tragic dilemma of Iraq, and it must take linkage from the actions of Sultan Abdulhamid II, whose order to his Shaykh al-Islam was that Da’wa should be done to the Shi‘a, and indeed that the application of reason and historical study would call them back to the Deen. As for the matter of Afghanistan, we must look things squarely in the face and not be intimidated by the fascistic declarations of a US President already hopelessly out of his depth. Afghanistan has been invaded with greater ruthlessness and abomination than was practised by the Russians. The Taliban were a national army. Their dismal ignorance shown in their treatment of women was something that we could have and still must put right. In their brief spell of governance, they had totally eliminated the heroin cycle of production and export. Make no mistake, this was one of the vital and necessary causes of the US Invasion. Within one year, they had the heroin trade up and running at full production - something that could not have been done without a military infrastructure. It is now vital that our people send in sociologists to examine the extent and the damage caused by the growing need for a functioning industry of prostitution, bearing in mind that in the US Army they see no restriction of sex or age in the gratification of sexual pleasure. The news that the collapsing yet still subservient government of Britain is sending a massive contingent into Afghanistan has been met with a numb submission by the whole country. There are two bodies in the country who must actively oppose this. One is the Scottish people, for as has been the practice since the First Afghan War in mid-19th century, it has been the Scottish regiments that have been chosen to be the Illustrious Dead. One should reflect that the political class, not only would reject the idea that a Prime Minister and his Cabinet on the act of declaring war should go to the Front Line, as kings and princes once did, but would smile cynically as if such an idea were sheer impertinence. In order to have these troops brought back, the British Muslims should not take to the streets in useless demonstrations, but should avail themselves of a revitalised Conservative Party and its moral leader so that they become an active lobby which can influence affairs. Our view of democracy gives us all the more reason to use it positively, so that we are also able to act when those inevitable days come that it will collapse. To summarise the situation in Afghanistan - the country has been invaded and a worthless puppet has been set up by the Occupying Army, like Quisling in Norway under the Nazis he will surely meet the same end. The so-called NGOs and Aid Organisations must be considered as part of that apparatus designed to destroy the historically powerful social structure of the land and to obliterate the Deen of Islam. The Taliban at its inception made a fatal error in their submission to an unworthy ‘Amir. He in turn was financially and morally seduced by the former CIA operative, an uneducated fantasist, Bin Laden. The ‘ulama of Afghanistan dis-associated themselves from the Taliban ‘Amir, and this judgment was correct. Taliban fighters are another matter, and we must strongly reject the idea that they are terrorists - they are young Muslim men in need of our leadership and protection. It is the now-urgent necessity of our ‘ulama and our Qadiriyya Shuyukh on both sides of the Khyber Pass to show that they cannot cooperate with the two puppet Presidents and their ineffective governments. To show that they consider the invading force brutal, uncultured and indifferent to the suffering of our people. It is incumbent on the Qadiri Shuyukh to speak up in a clear voice in defence of the survival of the Deen of Islam across the land. They must declare that the Fataawa ‘Aal-‘Amgheeri, and not the Kabul Constitution, is the governing document under Qur’anic authority which must dominate the region. Allah the Exalted has said in Surat al-Ahzab (33:41-44): You who have iman! remember Allah much, and glorify Him in the morning and the evening. It is He Who calls down blessing on you, as do His angels, to bring you out of the darkness into the light. He is Most Merciful to the muminun. Their greeting on the Day they meet Him will be ‘Peace!’ and He has prepared a generous reward for them.

Islam and Bosnia A brief introduction to the theme of Islam in Europe at the FIN in Sarajevo (2nd of September, 2005) By Abu Bakr Rieger In any event, Goethe and Tolstoy prepare the path for a deeper encounter between Europe and Islam in an age where dialogue is uncomfortable. They recognised that – as Ibn al-‘Arabi formulated it – “Allah governs the universe from inside the universe.†Neither did either of them hold any prejudices against Islam. Goethe, the creator of the ‘East-Western Diwan’, who wrote that he “does not refute the suspicion that he himself is a Muslim,†also reveals himself as one familiar with Islamic thinking methods. He reminds us, the Muslims, that within our Revelation we do not think dialectically. Goethe states: “The Mohammedans thereupon begin their teaching of philosophy with the doctrine that nothing exists about which you cannot say the opposite. They exercise the minds of their youth by having them find and articulate the contrary opinion of every proposition, which inescapably leads to great skill in thought and speech. “Then, once the opposite has been claimed about every proposition, the doubt arises as to which is actually true. But they do not remain in the doubt. Rather, it drives the intellect to examine more closely and to ascertain; and, if performed correctly, from there derives that certainty which is the goal in which man finds complete reassurance. You can see that this teaching is lacking nothing, and that for all our systems we are no further on than them, and that one in fact cannot get any further than that.†Goethe is by no means naive. In the East-Western Diwan he writes: “The actual, only and most profound theme of world and human history, the theme under which all others are subsumed, remains the conflict between non-belief and belief.†Today especially, where the Muslims like to define themselves dialectically as “against the enemy†or “against America†or “against the Westâ€, these words remain current. Islam is not “against†anybody – Islam is for Allah. And together, especially as European Muslims, we should perhaps adopt a certain sensitivity when Islam is presented to us from outside as something dialectically opposed: Islam as narrow-minded fundamentalism, or Islam as unimportant esotericism. The example of our beloved Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who was known to avoid the extremes, teaches us to choose the middle way. Of course, for European Muslims as for other Muslims, the Fard ‘ibada – the obligatory practices of Islam – escape political categorisation . The Shadada, the Prayer, Fasting the Zakat, the Pilgrimage – I cannot perform them in a ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘European’ fashion, I can only perform them correctly. Praying only once a week does not make me ‘European’, and regularly attending Jumu’a does not make me a fundamentalist. On the basis of this insight we can confidently define the content of a positive vision for Islam in Europe. One special characteristic which perhaps distinguishes Islam in Europe and the European Muslims, is that we have a very thorough knowledge of the thinkers and thinking methods, systems and ideologies that have originated in the West. A good example of this relationship is modern terrorism. When confronted with terrorism and modernism today, we naturally also recognise those elements that originate from the poisoned sources of Western thinking. Take, for instance, the darkly inscrutable conviction of nihilistic ideologies that “a world is better without its enemiesâ€, and the exterminatory logic that arises thereof. Absolute territorial domination fantasies, the techniques of control and the organisation of power all constitute chapters in their own right. There is no doubt that the infiltration of this thinking into so-called modern, Islamic movements has led to a change in the fundamental nature of Islam. For many centuries, such totalitarian outlooks were completely foreign to the Muslims. We Muslims – and I am certain that the teachings of Islam in Bosnia will play their part in this – we of course recognise the disastrous nature of such hybrid forms. The rejection of terrorism and of suicide attacks is a natural imperative for educated Muslims. Islam in Bosnia has a special authority in these issues, since here, despite the war and its tens of thousands of victims – and despite Srebrenica – we have thankfully been spared a ‘European’ terrorism. Read the whole article from http://www.emunion.org/index.cgi?action=artikel&id=37

The Legal Situation of the Muslims in Europe By Abu Bakr Rieger "Religion and social cohesion" and the University of Granada. A dramatic change of climate has certainly taken place regarding the presence of 16 million Muslims in Europe. It is precisely this general political climate in Europe which is of such great significance for the future legal situation of the Muslims. Without a positive climate with respect to Islam and the Muslims, inner political conflicts and discrimination will threaten one of the largest minorities of Europe. The dangers in this are obvious. It is beyond doubt that after the collapse of communism Islam has come to the fore in the external and inner political debate. Basically these debates revolve around the question as to whether Islam poses a threat to western society. As a result this new dialectic against Islam could produce not only alarming new friend-foe relations but also prevent other debates which are just as important. The question, for example, as to whether western democracies are more severely endangered and undermined by modern capitalism has today been relegated to the background (one only has to think of the concentration of the media, the crisis of parliamentarianism etc). One cannot simply merely define Europe as democratic or sympathetic to women simply because islamism – to which one is opposed - is “antidemocratic†and “misogynisticâ€. The debate about islamism should not replace or repress the debate about the relationship of today’s democracy to global capitalism – a debate which must be accorded equal weight and importance. At the same time Muslims and non-Muslims are concerned that the global war against terrorism could undermine little by little the former European civil rights; or as defined by the Italian philosopher Agamben - that the war against terrorism could lead to a “permanent state of emergencyâ€. Unfortunately the establishment of camps (here the keyword is Guantanamo) whose inmates have no legal status is today part of a new and threatening form of political sovereignty of an absolute nature. From a Muslim point of view, this phenomenon corresponds to Dostojewski’s gloomy prophecy that “in a world without God no laws would hold goodâ€. How do things stand then regarding Islam in Europe? Nowadays in Europe two issues in particular – which one could cite as typical – are being fiercely debated. On the one hand, there is the debate about Turkey, that is the question as to whether Turkey may enter the European Union - in other words, that it is not, as the Turkish prime minister formulated, a “christian clubâ€; on the other hand, there is the question as to whether the Islamic headscarf can be integrated into the index of European values. In the course of both debates western ideas about Turkey and the Islamic scarf are discussed within the context of political Islam and its ideological form: islamism. The danger of the dialectic against Islam is revealed here – thus, for example, the slogan “Europe against Islam†contributes for the European conservatives to a renaissance of the western-conservative fund of ideas. One must be careful to ensure that the exclusion of Islam from Europe does not become the new defining element of Europe’s political-intellectual ethos. Will there also be a mosque in the house of Europe? At the same time one must recognize that the permanent presence of Muslims in Europe - despite persecution and civil war - is still, and has long been, a historical reality. It is important for us European Muslims to understand this presence of Islam in Europe in a positive way and to safeguard its legal status. Without doubt we Muslims in Europe are still inadequately prepared for this debate - both with regard to content and organization. The reasons for this are the following: 1. The Muslim organisations have been representative for too long of guest workers rather than of European citizens. The nationality-based orientation of these organisations is out of date. 2. Politically speaking Islam is still dominated by imported, i.e. non-European, ideological arguments. (see France, for example) 3. The role of the European Muslims is still predominantly marginal in the societies in which they live. As the climate surrounding Islam in Europe is of crucial importance to the legal situation of the Muslims, let me briefly define in a positive manner a few basic criteria for a future Islam in Europe. I believe that if we Muslims take these important points seriously, then we should be able to prevent ourselves from being pushed aside - either into esotericism or extremism. 6 basic points for the identity of European Muslims: 1. Islam is not a culture, and the thesis of Huntington – look for example at this mosque in Europe – is clearly false. 2. The segment of the population known as “European Muslims†cannot be defined racially but rather must be characterized by linguistic capacity (i.e. Muslims originally from the Balkans, Europeans who have accepted Islam as well as the Muslims of the third generation). This is crucial for a future non-racial definition of the “Europeanâ€. 3. European Muslims are not characterized by ressentiment but rather by an indigenous, historical sphere of experience. One has only to think of Sarajevo, Weimar and Granada; of Sebrenica, Goethe und Andalusia. 4. European Muslims also have a concrete, economic and social contribution to make: the imaret. The imaret could contribute to the cultural regeneration of Europe. 5. European Muslims have a contribution to the debate, a contribution based on revelation – namely, the question as to how the economy may be limited or contained by means of the prohibition of usury. Future intellectual debates regarding the consequences of usury will be conducted in this light. 6. Islam has a fascinating connection to European philosophy – whose historical course one could define as characterized by the coming to terms with, and the search for, unity. Let us first enquire further as to the actual, legal situation of the Muslims in Europe. I would like to highlight this issue, taking Germany as an example. The legal situation of Islam in Europe. The public debate about Islam has become more and more intense in Germany. Of course the Muslims still profit as before from the exemplary social institutions and various constitutional warranties. However, concern is also growing here as to how people will interact with the Muslims in the Federal Republic of Germany in the future. For several reasons the general situation of the Muslims has not become any less complicated. Germany is quite typical of the situation of Islam in Europe: The umbrella organisations of the Muslims have not been fully recognised as dialogue partners by the Government. No dialogue is at present in process with the Muslims - with a view to placing them on an equal footing with the Christians and Jews in the Federal Republic. This is because a suitable dialogue partner is lacking - in the eyes of the government. There is hardly any positive awareness of the Muslims in the German public arena. There is not only a lack of public relations but also no suitable lobby on their behalf in Berlin. As a result, fear and anxiety concerning Islam as a religion continue to grow amongst the population. Under the blurred catchword “islamism†and “Islamistsâ€, terrorists, criminals and fanatics are subsumed together with normal, committed Muslims and representatives of Islam in the German public domain. For this reason more and more Muslims hesitate to take part in public activities. Subjective reporting with an openly negative tone predominates in the German media. Muslims are not represented in the important control-bodies which govern the television stations subject to public law. Let us briefly go into the Islamic scarf debate in Germany. In doing so we are of course aware that for Muslim women there are certainly also more important things than the famous headscarf. However, the current debate about the Islamic headscarf can be taken as proof of the further aggravation of the climate. The German lady teacher Fereshta Ludin attempted through legal action to become a state employed teacher. The State Government in Stuttgart, however, refused to give her a post citing the scarf as grounds for their refusal. The highest German court - the federal constitutional court – conceded that this female Muslim was fully in her rights and declared unequivocally that her rights had been violated. However, the court also pointed out to the States of the Federal Republic that they were free to pass new laws forbidding the scarf, as long as they were not of a discriminatory nature. Various Federal States – in particular Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg - immediately presented the necessary bills. However, these were openly discriminatory. Contrary to the requirements of the court, Jewish and Christian symbols were expressly excluded. The legal expert in the realm of constitution, media and education, Prof. Dr. Ernst Gottfried Mahrenholz, [six words deleted here] challenged the proposed measures by writing “that the Federal Constitutional Court has pointed out that ‘members of different religious communities’ must be ‘treated equally’. Then he wrote: “However, the State Government has not thought the formulation (of its bill) out properly. It does not really fit into the whole concept. Furthermore the bill does not employ the concept of ‘applicability or appropriateness’ correctly. What is being referred to in basic constitutional law by ‘applicability or appropriateness’ is ‘a highly personal concept’. It is not permitted to apply interpretations across the board. This, however, is exactly what is being done by the law. This suspicion - leveled at a specific group of people but without any justification - which has become enshrined in the law amounts to a political discrimination of this group for which I see no parallel in German legislation.†Conclusion: despite our comment (see above) that for Muslim women the Islamic head scarf is not of central importance, the debate nevertheless may serve as an example for Europe. It is a question of the future nature of the state. In Germany the debate about the Islamic headscarf is becoming a question as to whether Germany – as in France – can be redefined as a secular state. This would have consequences for Europe in the future. In the middle term, there is a fear that Germany will further politicize its stance towards Muslims - leading to an erosion of civil rights. D. Outlook From a Muslim point of view, one is deeply concerned that the European debate about Islam should not be further ideologised. A new friend-foe front line should not be created at the expense of European Muslims. In the end, we Muslims not only want to live at peace with our non-Muslim fellow-citizens, but we also do not want Islam in Europe to be forced out of public and social life. It is of particular importance therefore for us - and from an Islamic point of view - that we can live our Islam in Europe. It would be a sad state of affairs if - in public opinion - a Muslim were only truly a European or “liberal†Muslim when he prays just once or when he behaves in an incorrect way, Islamically speaking. The five pillars of Islam cannot be practiced in a European way but rather only – in a legal sense – a correct way. As European Muslims, what we want is nothing less than to practice an Islam which is based on correct foundations - without losing any influence in the umma. It is important therefore to define a legal framework in which Muslim society can exist and practice. It is especially important therefore to give a legal formulation to - and safeguard - the following four requirements: -Zakat and Salat – the Muslim community is based on the establishment of the prayer and on internal and, to the greatest possible extent, autonomous self-administration of its affairs. -The legal and architectural implementation of the mosque as imaret – that is the establishment of this public and integrated architectural concept with a view to its making a positive, social contribution to European society. -The strengthening of the auqaf form of social organisation - which is opposed to centralistic or ideological thinking and which guarantees the political and financial independence of the Muslims. -The ensuring of an independent Islamic teaching without any state patronage. I believe that it is these issues too which will occupy us in the future in Europe. Granada is conceivably a favourable place for this debate. Of course legal terminology like “human rights†and the “imperative of tolerance†was foreign to Muslims in Andalusia, but the right of the minorities and the day to day interchange between different groups was not only de facto ensured but was also something which was absolutely normal, existentially speaking. Source: http://www.emunion.org/?action=artikel&id=15

Discourse given to his Fuqara (at Masjid al-Mansoor, Constantia, Cape Town, 17 June 2006) by Shaykh Dr. Abdalqadir as-Sufi Now you see the tremendous weight of this. What is true about you is true about all the previous peoples. In other words, everybody has gone through this process of test, from the time of Sayyiduna Adam and the two sons of Sayyiduna Adam. One son behaved in one manner, and the other son behaved in another manner. But they were destined to it, they were designed for it. Every time there is a flood, or a disaster, or a famine, you see all the christians, astaghfirullah, asking, ‘Why does God allow this to happen?’ as if He was supposed to run a tight ship and suddenly things had gone wrong and He was to blame, and it meant He was not compassionate, astaghfirullah! This is ignorance, these are the people who believe that the bread is flesh that the wine is blood. It is primitive ********* . What it really means is: if it happened like this, then this is how it was to be. Rasul, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, has said, ‘Famine is next to kufr.’ Darfur – is next to kufr. If you have lost your worship of Allah and your fear of Allah and your Iman in Allah, then you are going to end up with this anarchy. It is not the fault of the government of Sudan, it is not the fault of the government of Mali, or Chad. It is because people have stopped worshipping Allah, subhanahu wa ta‘ala. When there is knowledge, people behave differently. A doctor coming on a man bleeding behaves differently from an ignorant person, does he not? Because he knows what to do. But life is like that – and you have to know what to do when these things happen that are the difficulties of life. Shaykh Ibn al-Habib, rahimahullah, said, ‘As far as I am concerned this whole world is a hospital, and the Shuyukh and the Salihun are the doctors and the nurses.’ In other words, the ones who know what to do. This is what you have to take on. This is what you take on by being Sufis, that you understand this. Part of this is that you cannot find that what is happening inside your own household has a prior importance and intensity and ferocity and seriousness than what is going on with your neighbours and all the rest of the world. Do you follow? You have two things. One is, if there is trouble inside the household, if there is trouble with you at a personal level, ‘We have given each thing its Khalq and We have given it Hada.’ So you say, ‘I must take the guidance. I must put it right. How do I put it right? I have been told how to put it right.’ Rasul, sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, said, ‘Anger is fire, if you become angry, water puts out fire – do wudhu, that by the mercy of Allah the anger will leave you.’ It will calm you down. It is something so simple, but no, people lose their tempers, people rush out, and they fight in the household. More terrible things happen inside the household than happen in the battlefields. The guidance is there, but you must take the guidance, you must see that your life is under this – not microscope – but beam, so to speak, of illumination, and you must take benefit from it. Read the whole discourses from http://www.shaykhabdalqadir.com/content/articles/Art062_17062006.html

1st Annual International Praise the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) Poetry Competition (Submission Deadline is August 31st, 2006) In light of recent conscious acts of denigration and subsequent reactions we, at IslamicPoetry.org, would like to invite Muslims and non-Muslims of all ages to take part in a contest of English poetry in praise of the most praiseworthy creation, the beloved of God Almighty, His messenger and prophet, Muhammad, Allah bless him and given him peace. Another reason behind this is that we hope to encourage people to address themselves to an aspect of Islamic literature, which has to a degree been neglected in the West. We all know that poems in praise of the Prophet, Allah bless him and give him peace, are found in abundance in the lands of Islam: in Urdu, Malay, Senegalese, Dari, Pashto, Chinese, Arabic, Punjabi, Turkish, and many more. It is our intention to help spark a conscious effort to promote this tradition in the English language and therefore pray that you will join us in this effort. For more information, please visit http://praisetheprophet.islamicpoetry.org/index.php

Originally posted by Salafi da'wa: ...Al Buti would debate with an unknown commmoner then claim victory. Unknown? I am sure that the Imam has debated lots of people and I don't see the Imam putting up all those debates. So why would he feel the need to put up this debate only? No, it was indeed with a well known/famous Salafi. The Imam was kind and courteous enough not to reveal his name by observing proper Adab, very much unlike those sites that you posted which goes on left/right/centre calling Muslims misguided/kaffir and what not.

Methods of Memorization in Mauritania By: Abu Umar Abdul 'Aziz Al-Hamdulillah, we praise Allah and seek His aid and forgiveness. May the Salah and the Salam be upon the Messenger of Allah, and upon his family and companions and all who follow his path with goodness until the Day of Judgment. To proceed: Once, the great scholar and grammarian, Shaykh Muhammad Salim al-'Udud ash-Shinqiti of Mauritania was attending a meeting for the international jurisprudence council in Cairo Egypt. After the meeting, the Shaykh went out with an Egyptian scholar to have dinner and converse with. During the course of the modest dinner, lively discussion took place about the various differences between Mauritania, a large extremely poor country situated in the Sahara desert, and the fairly developed and modern Egypt. The two scholars discussed the methods of Islamic study in both countries and this led the Egyptian scholar to jokingly ask him, "Which scholars are more knowledgeable, the scholars of Egypt or the scholars of Mauritania?" In response to the question, Shaykh Muhammad Salim said: " Your scholars are more knowledgeable in the day time, and our scholars are more knowledgeable in the night." Due to the extremely harsh existence in the deserts of the Sahara and the near impossibility of preserving large amounts of written works from the fierce and constant sand storms, the scholars of Mauritania have relied upon a tradition of rote memorization of everything that is studied. Upon visiting the small villages that are devoted to study [Mahdharah], you will not see large libraries wherein a person may research and benefit. For this reason, you will find in many books in Arabic written about the methods and manners of studying mentioning that they divide the study styles in the Islamic world into two: 1. The style of Tanqih and Mutala'ah- the method of perusing large amounts of written works after mastering the fundamental sciences at the hands of the scholars. This is the most well known method in the Muslim world. In places such as Egypt, Sham [Levantine], Hijaz, and even as far as India and Indonesia, the students of knowledge employ this method. 2. The style of Hifdh and Itqan- the method of intense memorization and mastery. This less popular method is commonly employed in places such as Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and most of North Africa. Pros and Cons Both methods of learning have their positives and negatives from them: Tanqih and Mutala'ah method. Pros: • It provides the detailed knowledge of issues due to the heavy reliance upon the written works of the scholars. • It enables the student and scholar to research the difficult issues and see the evidences and opinions of past scholars. • It links the person with the scholars of the past. Cons: • Without proper training, a person cannot properly learn from the books. • Often times, people pick up books and, without any principles and background learning, they fall into error. • Due to the presence of books, many a time a person will have a false sense of security-even though he/she has not learned the basics that will enable them to put what they read into proper perspective. • The presence of books weakens one's desire to memorize what is learned. Thus, the scholar who is most knowledgeable in the day is the one who can refer to his books and without which, say in the darkness of night, they would not be able to go into the degree of detail that he would normally do after his research. • The limited amount of memorization that is performed through this method means that whatever a student memorizes; be it the Qur'an, Hadith, or any other text, he will spend lots and lots of time reviewing and revising because the material was not vigorously memorized. Method of Hifdh and Itqan Pros: • It enables the student to focus on the fundamental issues that are presented in the small texts as opposed to drowning in piles of books. • It gives the student the ability to teach others and educate in any situation because it is a part of his long-term memory and experience. • It grants time for the student to concentrate and focus on his subject of study and to master it. • It saves lots of time in revision because everything that is memorized is ingrained in the long-term memory. Cons • It is often very time consuming and tedious. • It is not uncommon for a person to rely on this method without going back to written works for more detail, thus much knowledge passes him by. • Most people are too weak to continue with this method for very long. Ideally, the student of knowledge should combine the two methods to assure maximum benefit. How to memorize? In brief, we wish to outline the Mauritanian method of memorization so that we can all take advantage of its strong points. The method of memorization in Mauritania is divided into three categories: 1. Memorization of the Qur'an 2. Memorization of texts 3. Group review as an aid to memorization Because the Mauritanian method of memorization of the Qur'an and texts are largely the same, we will mention them both in one category. Getting started Getting started, here are a few points: • Memorization is usually easy. The real challenge is the repetition and review. • The goal that we have is to place all memorized texts, be they from the Book of Allah or other texts, into our long-term memory. Basically, that means that we are attempting to memorize everything and recall it just as we recall Surah al-Fatihah. • In Mauritania and North Africa in general, they memorize off of a small wooden tablet called a lawhah. This lawhah is both held like a book and viewed, or it is propped up against something-standing upright. Allah knows why, but if you try memorizing in a similar manner, it will become easier for you. Perhaps it is the tan-brown color of the board that is relaxing to the eyes as opposed to the sharp color of white paper. Allah knows best. • Try getting some brown/tan colored drawing paper and writing whatever you are to memorize. Prop this up or tape to the wall where it is level with your head- for some reason, writing it with your hand helps in memorizing it. • I know this may be controversial to some, but in order to memorize in this method, you will need to have with you a Misbah' [Dhikr beads] in order to count your repetitions. Most of the scholars hold the opinion that the Misbah is not an innovation in the religion and is allowed to use-even though using the hand is preferred for Dhikr. In this memorization, you are using the Misbah as a tool to count and nothing more. So, if you hold the opinion that the Misbah is not good, in sha Allah there is no harm because it is nothing more than beads used to count. If you are afraid of being attacked by people for carrying Dhikr beads around, then why not just go out and purchase a mechanical counter [like the ones that bean counters use]? After getting your supplies [wooden board or tan paper, ink pen, and Dhikr beads (or bean counter)] you are ready. How to do it 1. Write the page [or two or three or four-if it is Qur'an] on the board or tan paper in legible writing. If you are memorizing a text such as Imam Nawawi's Forty Hadith collection, or a small text on Fiqh or grammar, you should only memorize one Hadith at a time or-as with texts that are often in poetry form-only write four lines per day. [Note: For memorizing Qur'an in this method, you must read what is written to one who knows the Qur'an. It is not uncommon to mistakenly write something and start off reading it incorrectly] 2. Proceed to read the text out loud while looking at the board or paper just as you would with a book. Read and read until you can read it without looking at all. 3. After memorizing the text, proceed to repeat what you memorized 300 times-using the Misbah to count with. If you are memorizing the Qur'an, repeat it 500 times. As you are reading this, I can imagine that you are probably shaking your head thinking that maybe what I wrote was a typo. It is not a typo- in Mauritania they repeat each page of Qur'an 500 (five-hundred) times in their memorization. With the Qur'an, it is possible to lower that two 150. However, as was mentioned before, this will mean that you will have to review more to ensure that you don't lose what you memorized. With other texts, 300 times is the maximum number of repetitions. I remember once memorizing Lamiyatul Af'al in the science of Sarf [morphology] and I thought that I was supposed to repeat each line of that poem 500 times! After spending days and days with that misunderstanding, I could hear myself reading the lines in my dreams, not to mention having that strange feeling you get when you say one word hundreds of times without stopping! 4. Occasionally, read the text while looking at the board or paper to insure that you have not left off anything. 5. Go easy on yourself. You don't have to read the text 300 times in one sitting! Take it easy and break the task into manageable parts. Try repeating it with the Misbah 100 times and then take a break. Continue like this until you complete 300 repetitions. Based on my own experience, I would say that it will take you about an accumulated 3 hours to repeat on part of a text 300 times and a total accumulated time of 4 ½ hours to read one page of Qur'an 500 times [with the average quick reading time of one minute for one page of Qur'an]. 6. After completing 300 repetitions [or whatever high number you choose] take a break. You are done…at least for today. J 7. Now on day two you will memorize new material and that means 300 more repetitions. With that however, you still have not finished from yesterday. After memorizing and repeating the new material, proceed to repeat yesterday's material 150 times from memory. 8. On day three, you will memorize new material and that means 300 more repetitions. Don't forget though, you still have to repeat yesterdays [day 2] text 150 times and the day before that [day 1] text 50-75 times. 9. On day four, you will memorize new material and that means 300 more repetitions. Don't forget though, you still have to repeat yesterday's [day 3] material 150 times and the material from the day before [day 2] 50-75 times and the material from day one 10 times. Sounds like a lot? Of course it is! That is all the fun! With this program, you will need less time to review what you have memorized because it will have entered into your long-term memory. Even though you know it well, it is advisable to read everything that you have memorized [from texts] 5-10 times from beginning to end just to make sure that you can connect ever part together as one unit. The same is said with regard to memorization of the Qur'an. You should always review from front to back on a consistent basis. What's next? Traditionally, a student would either memorize and repeat his lesson for that day and then proceed to sit with the Shaykh who would then go on to explain the lines that he memorized. The student would only learn the meaning of those 4 or 5 lines and depart once more to memorize. Memorize what you ask? He would then go out, write the brief explanation of the lines he memorized on the other side of the lawhah [or in our case, on another sheet of tan paper] and memorize that as well. How? At this point, the student understands the lines that he memorized, be it in Fiqh or grammar. Now, he will read the explanation and put it into his own words,explaining the meanings of what he memorized and what it entails of finer points. On day two, the student will repeat those first lines from day one 150 times. After each tenth reading, this student would then read, in his own words, the meaning of the lines he read-as if he was teaching some one else. This will continue every day for all material, be it from day one, two, three, or four and beyond. After one engages in this time consuming program for more than two weeks or so, he will have the following: Day 1: 300 reps Day 2: 300+150+explanation 15 times Day 3: 300+150+75+explanations for material of day one and two- totaling 23 times Day 4: 300+150+75+10+explanations for material of day one, two, and three- totaling 33 times. Day 5: Continues as day four along with reading everything at once a few times to ensure proper connection etc. With this method, you will memorize with strength in sha Allah. One thing to keep in mind also is that you are not bound to the numbers mentioned above. If you don't have the time to sit for hours upon hours, at least repeat your material 50 times on day one and then 25 on day two and 10 on day three and so on and so fourth. A little is better than reading it a few times thinking that you memorized it, only to stumble the next day as if you did nothing at all. Group review as an aid to memorization Last but not least, I would like to mention a bit about the group reviews in Mauritania and how we can implement that in our communities. The group reviews are nothing more than a memorization mini study group. In Mauritania, a student will link up with a handful of other students that are studying the same book and all will do their part in the group study. The way this is done is by starting with one person [perhaps the most senior]. He will read four to ten lines that everyone has already memorized and studied. After reading them from memory, he will then start from the first line, read it and explain it's meaning in his own words. He will read each line in this manner, reading and explaining until he reaches the end of the selected amount. After he is finished, the student next to him will read and explain in the exact same manner. This will continue until everyone in the circle has read and explained to the others. From the technique, there are numerous benefits. From them: • It is like hearing the lesson 5, 6, or 7 times, or as many students are there. This helps the meaning of the lesson stick. • One gets to hear it explained by others who might express a concept better and thus the student benefits more and more. • One might have a faulty way of explaining a concept; in that case, the senior student or anyone else in the circle will correct him as soon as he says in. • One reads this in a group setting and thus works at getting over the nervousness of public speaking [to a smaller extent]. These gatherings can take place every day, or every few days according to the need. One thing to keep in mind with this method is that you are not giving a full fledged, 45-minute or one-hour lesson when you read and explain. The most it would take is 15 minutes per-person according to the subject matter. One way this program can be implemented in our communities is by us gathering a group of serious dedicated individuals who want to learn. All of them agree to memorize in this method [even if adapted somewhat] and either learn the meanings of what is memorized through a Shaykh or teacher, or through the cassette tapes of scholars who have explained that book. If everyone goes at the same pace and all are either attending the classes of the Shaykh or teacher or are listening to the tapes, they may then gather together and hold small study sessions. This is an attempt to learn the basics with strength and mastery. The goal behind this should not be out quoting another person and bombarding them with opinions in the subject that is being learned about. The focus as we mentioned should be on the main meaning of the text that is being read and repetition repetition repetition. This is the method of memorization that I was blessed to learn. I am sure that there are variations of this technique in Mauritania that differ slightly. And Allah knows best. I hope and pray to Allah the Most High that this was of benefit to you and that you read it, implement it even if in a small way, and that you make Dua' for me. Wa Sallallahu ala Nabiyyina Muhammad wa ala aalihi was Ashabihi Ajma'in.

The purpose of Study By ImÄm Al-ZarnÅ«jÄ« Intention is necessary in the study of science, since every deed is rooted in intention, as attested to in the words of the Prophet [sA], "Deeds [are measured] by their intentions." This is an authentic tradition. The Messenger of God [sA] also said: How many are the deeds which bear the image of the deeds of this world but then become –through their good intention –among the deeds of the Hereafter! And how many are the deeds which bear the image of the Hereafter but then become –through their evil intention –among the deeds of this world! It is necessary for the student in his quest for knowledge to strive for the pleasure of God, the adobe of the Hereafter, the removal of ignorance from himself and from the rest of the ignorant, the revival of religion, and the survival of Islam. For the survival of Islam depends on knowledge. And the disciplined life and piety are not complete when there is ignorance. Imam Burhan al-Din, author of the Hidayah, recited a poem by an unnamed author: An immoral man of learning is a great evil; Yet a greater evil is an ignoramus leading a godly life. Both are a great trial everywhere to whomever clings to his religion. One must intend [with knowledge] to being thankful [to God] for a healthy mind and a sound body; one should not, however, [intend] to attract people toward himself, or reap the vanities of the world, or obtain honors from the king, and the like. Muhammad ibn al-Hasan said, "If the people, all of them, were my slaves, I would emancipate them and free myself from being their patron." This is because he who finds pleasure in knowledge and in acting according to it, rarely does he desire man’s [worldly] possessions. Imam Qiwam al-Din Hammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ismail al-Saffar al-Ansari recited a poem by Abu Hanifa: Whoever strives for knowledge for the life to come obtains great gain in righteousness. But he is in utter loss who seeks [knowledge] to obtain an advantage over people! [This is true] with the possible exception of one who seeks position in order to command what is good and forbid what is evil, and in order to promote the truth and strengthen religion –but never in order to satisfy his ego and his desires. [The repression of selfish aims] becomes more possible the more [the learned] undertakes to enjoin what is good and forbid evil. It is essential for one who strives for knowledge to reflect on this. One should seek knowledge with great [personal] assiduity and not apply it to this base, small, and perishable world. [As the poet said]: This world is more worthless than the worthless, And its lover is baser than the base. It renders people deaf by its magic and makes them blind so they become perplexed with no guide. It behooves one who seeks knowledge not to debase himself by desiring what should not be desired; and [it behooves him] to abstain from that which degrades learning and its bearers. One should also be modest, for modesty lies between arrogance and self-abasement. Chastity, too, is like this, [that is, the mean between two extremes]. This can be learned from [the book] Kitab al-Akhlaq [A treatise on Human Character]. Imam Rukn al-Islam, who is known as al-Adib al-Mukhtar, recited for me a poem that he himself composed: Indeed, modesty is a quality of the God-fearing, and by it do the pious ascend [to sublime heights]. A wondrous thing is the wondering of the ignorant about his condition, whether he is happy or wretched. Or [his wondering] about how his life will end, or whether his soul on the day [of his death] will descend or ascend. Truly, pride belongs to our Lord, an attribute peculiar to him. So avoid it and fear God. Abu Hanifa yet said to his companions, "Make your turbans ample and enlarge your sleeves." He said this so that scholarship and its bearers will not be slighted [by people]. And it is compulsory for him who seeks knowledge to acquire the Kitab al-Wasiyya [the Bequest], in which Abu Hanifa wrote to Yusuf ibn Khalid al-Samti when he returned to his people. Our late teacher, Ali ibn Abi Bakr [al-Marghinani], commanded me to write out [Kitab al-Wasiyyah] upon returning to my country, which I did. He who teaches higher levels of knowledge and he who gives legal opinions [mufti] cannot dispense [with this book] in their dealings with people.

The Advice of Al-Habîb ‘Umar bin Hafîz (Advice recorded on videotape, in Tarim, by Br. Hasan Sidky, translation prepared by Br. Khalîl Abû Asmâ, August 2000) In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the sentient beings, and may peace and blessings be upon His Messenger and upon his family and companions. We request from your dignified person, may Allah be pleased with you, a comprehensive word and a general advice for the inhabitants of America, especially those that are living in the Washington D.C. area, and our families and friends. (We also would like that you) specifically address how they should interact with the different groups from amongst the Muslims, as well as how they can realize taqwâ (God-Conciousness) within themselves. May Allah grant you a goodly reward. The Sheikh, Al-Habîb ‘Umar bin Muhammad bin Sâlim bin Hafîz, may Allah preserve him, responded: May Allah bless in us, and in you, and in them, with the greatest of blessings. And may He make us firm upon the truth, and right guidance, in whatever we say, do, and believe. For verily He is the Most Generous of the generous and the Most Merciful of the merciful. Our counsel and our advice to these, our brothers, the ones whom the rope of “Lâ ilâha illah Allah†(There is no god but Allah) has brought together and the ring of connection has enveloped, by the Sacred Law of Allah, and the revelation of Allah and the Religion of Truth and Right Guidance; the way that Allah raised up His beloved and Chosen One, Muhammad with (peace and blessings be upon him and his family and companions). So upon all of these (my brothers): “As-Salamu Alaikum Wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuh.†We ask the Truth (Allah), may He be glorified and exalted, to fortify their hearts and to make us and them from the people of Iman (Faith) and the people of certainty (yaqîn). Certainty (yaqîn) is an expression which means the strength of Iman, its firmness and deep rootedness in the heart, so much so that it becomes as if a lofty mountain. Certainty is the noblest thing that has been sent down from the heavens to the earth. So our advice to them is to have concern for the enhancement and beautification of their certainty. Our master, the Imam, Abdullah bin ‘Alawi Al-Haddad said, “You must strengthen and beautify your certainty. For verily, when it is perfected the unseen will become seen without any possibility of rejection.†In other words, the unseen becomes as if it is the seen. This is the special feature and characteristic of the one who is ennobled by a connection to the message that Allah has commissioned their Prophet Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets and Messengers, peace and blessings be upon him and his family, and upon them (the Messengers), and each and every of their families and all of their companions and followers in righteousness until the last day. And upon us (peace) with them and in them. Verily He is the Most Generous of the generous and the Most Merciful of the merciful. This certainty (yaqîn) is strengthened and beautified by certain causes: - From the greatest of these causes is perfecting ones attentiveness and careful listening to the “signs†of Allah (the Qur’ân) and the narrations of His Messenger, His Chosen One, with humility, submissiveness, exaltation and reverence. - Then, reflecting on and looking at the realms of the heavens and the earth and what is contained in them of indicators towards the immensity of the Maker and His awesomeness, majesty, knowledge and encompassment. - Then, reflecting deeply about the journeying to Him, the affairs of the Hereafter, the affairs of the life in the barzakh, the affairs of the grave and what happens to its people, and the affairs of the gathering and resurrection. - And pondering on the stories of the prophets and messengers, may Allah bless them and grant them peace. - And reflecting upon the various (and numerous) blessings that He has bestowed upon us. This should be repeated over and over again in the mind until a light flashes in the heart that causes shyness in front of this Bestower who has bestowed the greatest of blessings, in spite of our boldness in front of Him. - And reflecting on the fact that we have not upheld the right of His Lordship, while at the same time we have laid ourselves open to His wrath by preferring our desires and lusts in many of our situations and conditions. This will help us to develop brokenness in front of Allah, blessed and exalted is He, and for His sake. Then, persevering in the daily Salâh, with the congregation, as well as the supererogatory prayers and Sunnah prayers, especially the Sunnah prayers that are performed before, and or, after every Salâh: - Two rak’ahs before the Subh prayer - Two or four rak’ahs before and after the Dhuhr prayer (in the hadith it says, “Whoever is consistent in performing four rak’ahs before Dhuhr and four after it, Allah will make his hair and his skin forbidden (haram) for the fire of Hell.â€) - Four before the ‘Asr prayer (in the hadith it says, “May Allah have mercy on the person who prays four rak’ahs before ‘Asr.â€) - Two rak’ahs after the Maghrib prayer - Two rak’ahs before and after the ‘Ishâ prayer - Then the Witr prayer, the least of which is three rak’ahs - Also, the Duhâ prayer (which is in the morning, after the sun has risen). All of these prayers should be observed with the utmost concentration and humility. Everyone should have a portion of Qur’ân that they recite everyday, as well as a portion of Dhikr, which has been narrated to us from the Sunnah, in the morning and the evening. And from amongst what has been abridged in that regard is Al-Wird Al-Latîf, by Imâm Al-Haddâd. This is a collection of great prophetic traditions and devotions. Also, reading the books of the righteous (scholars and friends of Allah). (We add to) what we have mentioned, sitting with those whom one’s faith is increased by sitting with them, from amongst those who are characterized by praiseworthy qualities. These are the causes of certainty (yaqîn). Among the best of the books of the righteous, that are widespread in the Muhammadan nation, are the books of the Imâm Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Muhammad bin Ahmad Al-Ghazzali, Imâm ‘Abdul-Wahhâb Ash-Sha’rânî, Imâm ‘Abdullah bin ‘Alawî Al-Haddâd and others from amongst the righteous. Their books have a great effect in procuring certainty and in enlightening and purifying the heart. Indeed, of the most necessary and emphasized things, which these our brothers should know concerning the greatness of their Dîn, is the acceptance of its people from amongst all those who have born witness that “Lâ ilâha illa Allah, Wa anna Muhammadan Rasulullahâ€, “None has the right to be worshipped but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allahâ€. For it may be that some groups may differ with them in many opinions, yet they shouldn’t make from these differences any type of rancor, hatred, intolerance, or enmity. This is not permissible in the Sacred Law. Whosoever carries on these intolerant campaigns of hatred then he has indeed answered the call of passion and lustful desire, the call of zealous partisanship and the preference of one’s own opinion. So it is upon us to revere the sacrosanctity of this immensely blessed statement of “Lâ ilâha illah Allah, Muhammadun Rasulullahâ€. For if the seven heavens and the seven earths were to be placed in one side of a scale and this statement were to be placed in the other side of the scale, “Lâ ilâha illah Allah†would have outweighed it! So we should revere this statement in anyone who believes in it. Furthermore, we should not take them as enemies. Allah, may He be exalted, said, “Verily, the Believers are nothing but brothers†(Qur’an). Then, when we have become certain about the guidance, the truth and the right way, especially with what the heart is at rest, along with being in touch and connected with Sheikhs that are firmly established in knowledge and certainty, we should call to this way and clarify it to others with kindness and gentleness. So whosoever accepts that from us, then we praise Allah for that and we make supplication (dua’) for that person and cooperate with him. And whosoever doesn’t accept that from us, we make dua’ for him, and we are not pleased to open the doors of argumentation that are not beneficial, neither the doors of enmity, quarreling or dissension. Our Lord has said to us, guiding, teaching and directing us to the right path, “And sow not dissension amongst yourselves, for you will fail and the wind that blows you along will desist. And have patience, verily, Allah is with those that are patient.†So it is upon every true person from amongst our brethren, every one of them that is focused on Allah, to be certain and know for sure that the final end and the ultimate victory is for the people of purity, loyalty, cleanliness of heart and sincerity to Allah; those who are connected and in touch with those who are close to Allah (the Awliyâ’). The goodly outcome will be for them. Therefore, whatever they see of angry arguments and challenges should not frighten them. Rather, they should avoid all of that and seek out the realization of sincerity with Allah, and being colored with noble prophetic characteristics in their interaction with their brethren in a beautiful way, even if they, in turn, are rude and disrespectful. They should also overlook their mistakes and their spreading of their faults. For indeed, the existence of these groups, with regards to the one who embodies the characteristics of righteousness, is a great blessing upon him from Allah. That is so because these characteristics raise him and make him an inheritor of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him. For if it wasn’t for the existence of these groups he would not have had the opportunity to show righteousness to those who are rude to him, nor to forgive those who have wronged him. If the non-Muslims were the only ones who were around, then he wouldn’t have found the opportunity to show goodness towards the Muslims, while they are wronging him, nor would he have found the reward for enduring with the people of the Dîn. So, by the existence of these dissenting factions, he can develop beautiful characteristics and amazing qualities. This, in itself, should be considered as a great blessing upon him from Allah, exalted is He. He should accept this training from Allah. The acceptance of this training is to have kind interaction with those individuals and having patience with what comes from them. So it is not acceptable, in the eyes of such a person, to call someone (from amongst the Muslims) a “kâfir†or a “mushrik†or an “innovator†or a “deviantâ€. At the same time, he manifests his goodly characteristics and he busies himself with those who want to benefit and take heed, all the while avoiding those who oppose him and want to block his way. But he does not react to them with unacceptable deeds, rather, he leaves them so that they come back to the right way or, at least, the Truth (Allah, exalted is He,) will push them away, as well as their evil, with whatever He wills. However, he should not hold anything inside of him except a good opinion (concerning them). When Allah sees him like this, He will choose him. And if Allah chooses him, He will make him of those upon whose hands this Deen will be renewed in this century that we live in (the 15th Islamic Century). Hence, it is obligatory upon every believer to become overflowed with certainty that Allah will indeed renew His Deen in this century, as He renewed it in the centuries of old, and even greater than that. This is due to the fact that more weakness, division, separation, disruption and harm has occurred in this our century, than has ever happened in previous generations. So it is inevitable that this renewal will be more intense and much stronger, with a special attention from Allah, than what occurred in previous generations. All this in order that the promise of Allah to His Prophet may be realized, may Allah bless him, his family and his companions, and may He grant them peace. So it is upon every single person to seek his lofty rank within this lordly gift by holding firm to sincerity, truthfulness, striving in the spread of Da’wah and benefiting those around one with whatever is possible. One should also remain in touch and tied to the people of righteousness (amongst the scholars and friends of Allah) and standing firm upon that until the Ultimate Reality (Allah), exalted is He, chooses him and makes him of those who will renew for this nation the affair of their Deen. He will also make them of a force that our Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said concerning: “The son of Mary will find a group of people in my nation like his disciples.†In other words, like the disciples that helped our master ‘Isâ (Jesus, peace be upon him). He will find them in this nation when he comes down from the sky to the Earth. He will rule according to the Sacred Law of the Prophet Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and will take guidance from his way and be lead by his example, just as he was lead by him on the occasion of the Night Journey and the Ascension at Bait Al-Maqdis (in Jerusalem). He, peace and blessings be upon him, said, “How will you be when ‘Isâ, the son of Mary, will descend among you as a just ruler and your Imam is from amongst you?†In other words, you will have a great Imam amongst you. The Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, refers to him here and he praises him. That Imam is the great awaited Imam, the “Mahdiâ€. So it is upon our brethren to seek nearness to Allah so that He may choose them. They should not trade this for argumentation with people and excessively discussing: “Who is the Mahdi? When will the Mahdi come? How is the Mahdi?†He will come in his appointed time, as Allah wills. And when he does come he will not be concerned with whether or not you can talk a lot, rather, he will be concerned if you can be upright a lot, upon the right way, and that you have been preparing completely, with the purification of your self, the cleansing of your heart and the strengthening of your faith. It is strong faith that he wants from you, not a lot of talk. The Mahdi is not in need of a lot of talk from us, nor is anyone else for that matter. Rather, he needs from us to have pure hearts, sincere intentions and true striving in the path of Allah, blessed and exalted is He. This striving should be against our lower selves, so that we go against our passions, give good counsel to our brethren, serve the Sacred Law of our Lord (Allah) and benefit the Muslims, and the people of the Deen, by means of it. This is our advice to them. So everyone that hears it must reap its benefit in this life and the next. And whoever turns away, in such case they are Your slaves (O Allah). “If You punish them, verily, they are Your slaves. And if You have mercy on them, then indeed, You are the Most Strong, the Wise†(Qur’ân). (And as the Prophet Ibrâhîm said,) “And whosoever follows me, then verily he is from me. And whosoever disobeys me, then indeed, You are the Most Forgiving, the Most Merciful†(Qur’ân). O Allah, forgive us and have mercy on us; look upon us and aid us; take care of us and give us success; make us firm and make us of the accepted, amongst those whom you have chosen for this immense good and for this lofty and great goal. And make us of the rightly guided and successful guides towards every good, protected from every evil, O Lord! By the rank of Your Prophet Muhammad, the Chosen One, through the secret of the Fâtihah…unto the presence of the Prophet.

FIVE STEPS TOWARDS BEING A BETTER DAD By Suhaib Webb The role of the father in the life of his child is paramount. The Qur’an likeness this relationship to that of the Sun. Allah says, “I saw in my dream 11 stars and the Sun and the Moon prostrating towards me.†It is well known that the 11 stars represented the brothers of Yusuf (as). However, according to Al-Tabari, the Sun represents the father. Fatherhood is a great honor representing ones ability to pass on the Prophetic legacy to his offspring. However, in many communities fathers are AWOL? Young boys and girls are left alone replacing the important guidance and teachings that a father provides with DVD’s, video games, DSL and television. Here are 5 important steps that, inshallah, will help us actualize fatherhood, lead our families and fulfill the command of Allah, “Oh you who believe, protect yourself and your families from the fire of Hell.†1. Passionately love your wife The Prophet (sa) said about Aiesha, “I love this woman.†When asked, “Who is the most beloved person to you?†The Prophet (sa) responded, “Aiesha (ra).†The Prophet (sa) said, “If you love someone for the sake of Allah, then you should tell them.†The Prophet (sa) once said to Mu’ath, “I swear by Allah that I love you.†The Prophet (sa) informed us that Allah (swt) will say on the last day, “Where are those who’ve loved each other for my sake?†Loving one’s wife is extremely important. Once a sister (may Allah bless her and her family) told me, “If I could choose any man in the world to marry he must be like my father.†Once a small girl started yelling at her younger sibling and suddenly her mother asked, “Why do you talk to him like that?†she responded, “Because this is how you and baba talk with each other.†As men we set an important precedent in the home. By loving our wives and treating them with compassion and mercy, inshallah, those qualities will fall into the hearts of our children. It is well known that children of abusers have a great potential to abuse. The child is a reflection of the parental shadow. Mercy towards women and represents a baton passed from father to son. ACTION ITEMS A) Make sure before you leave the house to tell your wife you care for her B ) Continue to buy gifts for her even after the honey-moon is over C) Give her your time and organize, at least, a night a week to take her out alone and show her that you care. D) Talk to your wife with care and love. Avoid using harsh words and tones. 2. Be a man of integrity–or your words will fall on deaf ears It is said that a man’s worth is found in his words. The Prophet (sa) was asked if a Muslim could be miserly and he said. “Yes.†He was asked if a Muslim could be a liar and he said “No.†Allah commands us, “Oh you who believe why do you say what you don’t do? The most disliked thing to Allah is that you say what you don’t do.†Allah says, “Do you order others to do well and forget to practice yourself.†Fathers, do you keep your appointments and promises with your children? Do you exercise as much effort to be with them as, say, with your friends or business appointments? Once a parent was asked to introduce himself to his son’s classmates, After listing his accomplishment the son said, “You know, those things are nice, but they don’t mean anything to me. What means the most to me is that my dad is in private what you see in public.†This really applies to the people involved in Islamic Work and the Masjid. Are we the same behind close doors as we are in public? What type of image is developing in-front of our children? It is important to have one face as best we can. Nothing shatters the heart of a child then parental inconsistencies. Let us keep our promises and stick to a positive behavior pattern at all time. The Prophet (sa) said, “Fear Allah where ever you are.†He didn’t say, “In the Masjid.†Nor did he say, “In front of the brothers.†But he (sa) said, “Wherever you are.†3. Your children’s importance to you can be measured by how much time you spend with them Once a father told me of all the things that he had showered on his son, the son, no doubt, received a large amount of gifts and gadgets from his father. However, when I asked this young man what he wanted most from his father he said, “I just want him to spend time with me.†Make a schedule and spend at least an hour a day with your kids. Believe me, Inshallah; it will make all difference in the world. A lot of important things can be discussed while throwing a foot-ball, playing hoops, board games, or taking a short walk or trip to the park. While you’re with your kids turn off your hand-phone and lose yourself in their world. Could you imagine if Luqman suddenly told his son, “Wait that’s an important phone call?†Or Ibrahim telling Ismael, as they were building the K’aba, “Just one minute I have an fax coming in� Keep notes of your conversations and listen attentively. Offer feedback, sincere advice to them and surprise them at times with pats on the back, hugs and small notes of appreciation. Action Items: A) Find out what your child likes to do and do it with them. B ) Schedule a time to spend with them and break your back to keep it C) Surprise them by taken them out to lunch from school 4. You, more than anyone else, can give your children lifelong self-worth As a son I remember many great things that my mother told me. However, it was always the praise of my father and his advice the truly struck a cord in my heart. We, as men, can make or break our children. It is important to avoid harsh words and over inflated perceptions of our children. Instead, let’s advice them, praise them and nurture their growth. Allah (swt) describes the childhood of Mariyam (as) as, “And she sprouted and excellent sprouting.†My heart loves this expression as it causes you to look at your child as a seed. Seeds need nurturing and, at times, might develope abnormally. Thus, the tiller looks after the seed with velvet gloves on a daily basis offering love and warmth until it grows. Allah said about the companions, “Their likeness in the Injeel is like a seed that sprouts weak stem.†LET’S ENTER THE MADRASSAH OF Al-FAROUQ (RA) Once Umar was walking with his son Abdullah and Abdullah informed his father that he knew an answer to one of the questions the Prophet (sa) put forward to them. Upon hearing his son’s answer Umar turned to him and said, “If you had said it, it would have been sweeter to me than anything in this world.†Ya Rab! This is Umar! This is the Umar that we see has being strong and forceful. But, here we see Umar the builder of a man. When our children succeed, or even fail, to succeed let us use caution in our dealings with them. The Prophet (sa) said, “Give good news.†And he said, “Make things easy and don’t make things difficult.†Anas (ra) said, “The Prophet (sa) never yelled at me.†Our children build their worth from our words and actions. Avoid being negative and saying, “You always do things wrong.†Such words are like bricks that lay the foundation of our future men and women. It is important to give them support and love. Allah (swt) describes noble words as, “A good tree.†Thus, our good words and advices will plant the seeds that will sprot into worthy adults and noble citizens. Action Items: A) Lower your standards: Many parents’ goals are ridiculously high. Once a youth told me, “If Abu Bakr (ra) presented himself to my parents; they would want Muhammad (sa).†It is important to set goals for our children, but they should share in them and they should be realistic goals Parents should avoid having unreasonable standards. A Muslim, in my humble opinion, must always have high standards, must always try to reach for the best, but a parent needs to able to set reasonably high standards for his/her child based on what his child can handle, is talented in…etc. In other words, have standards that can be realistically achieved and achieved well. There is research literature on motivation which indicates that people sometimes set extraordinarily high standards as a compensation for not being able to accomplish certain goals they value. The research also show that when people set unattainably high goals they end up feeling helpless and reaffirming their “inability†to accomplish anything, thus losing the motivation to want to achieve in the first place. This drives a fear of failure that can actually thwart a child’s growth instead of help. This is not ideal for a Muslim child and so setting reasonable standards (rather than lowering them) seems to be the key here.†B ) Remember that it’s their future: All through my college days I would meet brothers who were forced to be doctors, lawyers, or engineers. When I would ask them, “What do you want to be?†They would respond, “Not this. But, it is what my parents want.†We should allow our children to express and discover their own personalities and offer guidance when needed. An important rule to remember is, “Be and advisor, not a supervisor.†5. Communicate as a family It is common to see Muslims complaining about the injustices and human rights violations that exist in many Muslim countries. However, there is no need to call others pharaoh when one is practicing the pharonic model at home. Allah (swt) described the believers as a people of consultation and the Prophet (sa) and the companions placed great importance in shura. In fact, during the nomination of Umar it is said that S’ad bin Abbi Waqqas took the shura of everyone in Medina including the young veiled women. As a father it is easy to push one’s opinions on the household. However, it is not necessarily the most fruitful method. Talking and listening to others will further allow them to feel that you truly respect them and value their thoughts and ideas. In addition, it will increase their self worth and guide them towards the important qualities of listening, sharing and offering input. Action Items: A) Set up a weekly shura in one’s home. Keep notes and follow up each week with the issues discussed. May Allah help us to improve as fathers and touch the lives of those around us. Your brother and father in the making Suhaib Webb I want to dedicate this article to Yahya Shahed. A close friend, great student of knowledge and, inshallah, an even better father. I love you for Allah’s sake.

Brotherhood By Shaykh Habib 'Ali al-Jifri The following was taken from a lecture given by Habib ‘Ali al-Jifri in the blessed city of Tarim in the majestic valley of Hadramauwt, Yemen. Habib ‘Ali gave commentary on the book “The means of arrival to the characteristics of the Messenger (SS),†by Imam Yusuf al-Nabahani. He expanded the topic to encompass brotherhood and da’wah and said the following: You can extract an important principle of da’wah from the many names of the Prophet (SS); which are, the essence of da’wah…praiseworthy attributes. Without having praiseworthy attributes that have been inherited from the Prophet (SS), it is rare for a person to have Allah (SW) guide others by his hands. Struggling to acquire and inculcate these attributes into our being is preparation for the reality of the da’wah that must be given. From amongst the most important of these attributes is to love good for others. Whoever is sincere and a true caller to Allah, and the light of da’wah becomes firm in his heart, will want the greatest good for everyone. So how could it weigh heavy on one’s heart for people to receive blessings? A sign that you have begun to love good for others is the manifestation of this attribute in your relationship with your brothers who are near to you. If you see that Allah (SW) singles out one of your brothers with a particular blessing, either worldly or religious, it is incumbent that you search deep into your heart and find feelings of sincere happiness for him. It is stated in a hadith, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.†A sign of this love is that you do not become quickly angered if your brother makes a mistake while trying to do something good. Rather than opposing or criticizing him, you should assist him in the rectification of his mistake in a gentle way. It is not easy to have this attribute become firmly planted in the heart, because envy (hasad) is subtle, even among your companions. However, by being sincere and turning to Allah Most High continuously, this affair becomes easy. So, if you see that Allah (SW) has blessed one of your brothers with uprightness, enlightenment, or righteousness, and it weighs heavy on your heart, the cure for this is to pray that Allah ncrease him in what He has given him. Say: O Allah, increase him! O Allah, give him openings! O Allah, give him Divine success! O Allah, guide others by means of him! The existence of the darkness of envy in the soul is a sign of not loving good for others. If Allah bestows a blessing upon someone, you might say to yourself, “Masha-Allah, Allah has blessed him with that.†However, if he happens to make the slightest mistake, you become angered and say things like, “He doesn’t know what he is doing! He doesn’t understand! He’s not benefiting people!†Pay attention to what you are saying here. Which is greater, the good he was doing, or the mistake that he made? Another sign that the heart does not desire good for others is hastening to mention people’s errors. This does not mean that you remain silent about the mistakes. Rather, it is upon you to advise your brother and strive to rectify the fault, without diminishing their honor. Your duty when rectifying is to correct the mistake, not to diminish the stature of the one who made the blunder. There is a big difference there is between the two. From the subtle, evil aspects of the soul regarding this, is the claim that your self is perfect and the other is deficient. Take for instance, when one says, “I am more knowledgeable than him. How could he be the one who does that? How could he have more students? Why are people praising him?†This is claiming that the self is perfect. Or when one says, “I have been studying longer than him. I have more sincerity than him,†I. I. I. Do you know who said “I?†Pay attention! The one who said, “I,†was Iblis. “I am better than him. You created me of fire, while You created him of mud.†(7:12) He (Iblis), laughs at you and makes you his student when you say, “I†like he did. You are students of the inheritors of the Prophet (SS), not of Iblis. As for the other aspect of seeking deficiencies in your brother, when you say things like, “He does not know. He doesn’t understand. He made a mistake in that. He didn’t organize this, etc.†What is your intention in saying these things? If your intention is to try to rectify his mistake, may Allah bless you because loving good for people necessitates this. However, if your intention when he makes a mistake is that you don’t want him to do something good, sacrifice, or work hard… look into your hearts. Do you want to stop a good action from being done? Pay attention to what is going on. Also, from among the signs of not desiring good for others, is your desire to disassociate yourself from your brother and not advise him when you know he made a mistake. You might avoid speaking against, criticizing, or belittling him, but then say things like, “I don’t want to have anything to do with the affair. Leave it to him. Let him make mistakes. People will see later that he is wrong.†This is your intention? For your brother to be exposed? You know that he is wrong, yet you just leave him? It is your duty to give him advice. It is your duty to inform him. It is your duty to give him a hand. It is your duty to pray for him secretly. It is your duty to tell someone who will be able to advise him if you are unable to. However, to see your brother make a mistake, and not say anything to him about it, is treachery. This attribute should never be in religious people. Do not wait to implement this attribute. This is a principle of daw’ah that must be implemented now. Mutual concern for one other, giving advice to one another, desiring good for one another, hastening to serve one another, these are all signs that you are sincere. And if you are sincere, and implement these attributes, Allah will benefit others through you. People from the western countries come from societies that Allah has given a type of worldly advancement. From this advancement is the attribute of seriousness regarding worldly affairs that causes one to constantly work hard. If this attribute becomes separated from your connection with Allah Most High, it leads to a blameworthy attribute in the soul (selfishness) and not being concerned with others. We must take the good aspects of these societies, such as seriousness and hard work, and connect them to a divine meaning one that entails directing them towards the next life, not towards this world. The fruit of implementing this is deliverance from the blameworthy aspect of the self. Each one of you must feel that all of your brothers around you are a sacred trust upon you. You must think of ways to help them in everyway you can. In adapting these attributes of seriousness and hard work, the difference between a Muslim and a non-Muslim is that his seriousness and hard work is for the sake of Allah Most High, not for the life of this world. By focusing on this, you will be rid of selfishness and actualize the saying of the Prophet (SS) that, “None of you truly believes until he loves for his brother that which he loves for himself.†Seek this affair (of true brotherhood) by taking five steps of action. The first step of action is to have a daily litany (wird) of supplication (du’a) for your brothers. Seek closeness to Allah Most High by supplicating for your brothers. This is the first step of action. The second step of action is to devote a certain time of the day to serving your brothers, outside of your classes, study time, and other obligations. Don’t think that by devoting a short time to the service of your brothers will hinder your daily routine. Rather, it will be a means for openings, and will benefit you by giving you experience in service (Khidma). The third step of action is to not sleep at night with something in your heart against your Muslim brother; regardless of what happened, or whether you were right or wrong. If you are unable to rid your heart of it, go and speak to the person, but with love and sincerity. Say: “I feel in my heart such and such towards you. Maybe I am wrong, but help me rid my heart of this.†The one who is content to sleep while harboring something in his heart against his Muslim brother is treacherous. If you are unable to rid your heart of it, unable to speak to him, or find it hard for him to accept your approaching him, then go to a third person. Go to an understanding, trustworthy person that you rely on, and tell him that you are unable to rid yourself of what you have in your heart against brother. Ask that person: “How do I get rid of what is in my heart?†This animosity towards your brother is filth; don’t be content to sleep at night with filth in your heart. This is extremely important. The fourth step of action is to avoid speaking against any of your brothers. Don’t say anything that your brother would dislike if he were to become aware of what you said. You may only speak to the extent that is needed to rectify a wrong and give advice. You must address him first, if you are unable to, a third person that you know could benefit the situation by influencing him, or speaking to him. But to let your tongue loose and talk negatively about him saying things like, “So and so did this. So and so doesn’t know. So and so made a mistake. So and so just wants this for himself. So and so just wants to be known.†What does saying these things really mean? This is backbiting (ghibah), and completely impermissible. How could this be an action of one who is preparing himself to be from the elect of the Ummah by seeking knowledge and giving service to the Din? You can speak to the extent that is necessary to rectify the mistake, but it is not permissible to criticize or dishonor your brother. If you are able to gently allude to your brother’s imperfection (‘Aib) to rectify the situation, it is better than speaking to him directly. If you are able to simply move your lips to inform the person, it is better than raising your voice so that others can hear. If you can speak directly to him, it is not permissible to speak to another about it.. If there is one person that can help rectify the mistake, then it is not permissible to speak to two. If two people can rectify the mistake, then you can’t speak to three. You must speak to the minimal amount of people needed to rectify the mistake. This mistake is considered to be from the nakedness (‘awrah) of your brother so you should strive to veil the mistake and not expose it. If someone was sitting, and, unintentionally, part of his nakedness became uncovered, and you happen to see this, then you should inform him. If he is far and you are unable to speak to him, don’t tell a person to your right or left, or who is in front or back of you, only tell the person who is closest to him so that he can tell him. When the person tells him, he will cover his nakedness and say, “May Allah reward you.†But if you were to see the nakedness of someone exposed, and then say to the one next to you, “Look! His nakedness is exposed.†And then he says to the person next to him, “Look! His nakedness is exposed.†And then he says to the one next to him, “Look! His nakedness is exposed.†Did you rectify the situation or humiliate your brother? Is this an affair of our Din? The spiritual nakedness is more severe than the physical nakedness regarding your brother’s honor. The fifth step of action is to distinguish between judging something that is from the unseen and something that you clearly see. There is a difference between actually seeing a mistake of your Muslim brother and thinking that your Muslim brother had a bad intention. For instance, one of your brothers wears a big turban, robe, shawl, and carries prayer beads, and if someone wants to kiss his hand, he sticks it out for them to kiss. Yes, this type of action is blameworthy. The appropriate etiquette, as we have seen from our teachers, even the elderly of them, is that if someone kisses their hand, they also try to kiss their hand. So to advise your brother regarding this is acceptable because it was something you clearly saw. But to say things like, “So and so is just showing off! So and so just wants to be known by people!†Amazing! This is an intention that is in the heart, so how did you see it? It is impermissible to judge something that is from the unseen with a bad opinion (su’ al-dhann). Maybe your brother became heedless. Maybe he was negligent. Maybe he didn’t pay attention. In terms of his intentions, have the best of opinions regarding them, even when he makes a mistake. And, at the same time, don’t leave the mistake. Rather, give sincere advice and try to rectify the situation. Another example, for instance, if one of your brothers is given success (Tawfiq) by Allah to open a school and build a mosque, but he wants to do all of the arrangements and the activities himself. He doesn’t want his brothers to take any part. He wants to arrange the mosque. He wants to arrange the classes. He wants to arrange the Daw’ah activities. Him. Him. Him. This is a mistake because he is unable to do everything by himself. He must consult his brothers and include them in the work. However, we don’t say, “So and so is selfish, he only loves himself, so and so wants to be known by others. The first problem is with you not with him! Cure the filth that is in you! How could it be heavy on your heart for Allah to bring about something good on the hands of your brother? What if someone told him, “Your brother is saying that you are selfish and that you only want good for yourself?†Then, he says, “And he is envious! He also doesn’t want good for me!†Each one of them is judging the other about something that is from the unseen. Does this establish anything? Da’wah is not established this way. The proper way to deal with this situation is to offer your service to your brother. You should tell him, “I want to serve you. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to sweep the mosque? Do you want me to clean the bathrooms? Brother, you are doing something good, and I want to serve along with you in this good.†Don’t tell him, “You must take my opinion! You must consult me! Don’t do everything by yourself!†By saying comments of this sort, you are proving that your desire to give service is for the sake of yourself, not for the sake of Allah. At the same time, you don’t say, “He didn’t consult me so I am not going to help him. He can work alone. I don’t want to have anything to do with it.†What is this? Is this his da’wah or yours, or is it the da’wah of the Prophet Muhammad bin Abdullah (SS)? Wanting to give your opinion, even with a good intention, desiring good for your brother, is not praiseworthy in its essence. Loving to serve is what is praiseworthy. There is a difference between loving to serve and wanting to give your opinion, a big difference. Habib Umar once said, “Anyone who serves the Din in any way, in the east or the west, it is incumbent upon us to serve him to the extent that we are able.†We don’t say, “This is my school. This is my way (Tariqah). This is my institution. This is my organization. This is ours, and that is theirs.†As long as it is a part of the Din, done with the correct understanding and methodology, it is incumbent to serve them. They are building a foundation of the Din, which is in reality, one foundation. If someone is constructing something and you tell him that you want to help, but he tells you, “I don’t need you. You don’t know how to build.†Don’t leave. Say to yourself, “If he doesn’t want me to build, then I will help him by preparing what he needs so that he can build.†If he says to you, “You don’t know how to mix cement properly.†You say to him, “Okay, I will bring you the cement and pour water on top of it and then you mix it. I just want to serve.†But, if he says to you, “You don’t know the correct measurements of the cement and the water.†You say, “Fine. I will bring the cement and the water and you make the correct measurements.†If he says to you, “You don’t know how to carry the cement, you will ruin it (he is being stubborn and just doesn’t want you to help).†You say, “Okay. I will clean the car that carries the cement.†If he says to you, “You don’t understand anything! You are not able to do anything! You can’t help!†Remain quiet and leave him until he goes inside his room and takes his shoes off, and then clean his shoes for him with the intention that these are shoes that became dusty from serving the Din. How can we attain these attributes that were mentioned? How can it become a reality within us? First, by realizing that we are completely poor and in need to serve the Din and the Din does not need us. We should fear to meet Allah without having served His Din. Second, by realizing that we don’t deserve to serve the Din, rather, we should hope that by the grace of Allah, He will honor us to be from among those who serve the Din. If this becomes firmly implanted in your heart, Allah will use you for the service of His Din. But, if you believe that the service of the Din is in need of you, and say things like, “Leave them! They will eventually know who I am. They don’t know how to do anything. They will try, but fail, and then come running to me. I am the one who knows how to do it.†Does Allah need you? Are you crazy?! You believe that Allah needs you?! The Din needs you?! Or to say, “They didn’t give me a good position. I deserve a higher position than that which they gave me.†What do you deserve?! Or if you say, “I have this and this.†What do you really have?! Were Allah to expose your smallest sin, no one would even greet you. So, we must be humble and broken before Allah and annihilate ourselves in the love of service. One scholar recently took a daw’ah trip and was scheduled to give a talk at a certain university. The people of this university had certain views that differed from the views of the scholar who was going to give the lecture. When they found out about the ideologies of the scheduled speaker, they cancelled the lecture. After this, the students of the scholar were upset and complained about what happened. But the scholar said, “Let’s go visit them.†The students then said, “But they cancelled the lecture?†And to this the scholar said, “We are not going for the lecture. We are going to visit them for the sake of Allah Most High.†When he went, the administration was surprised to see the scholar and told him, “We’re sorry. Our students have exams. We are unable to have the lecture.†But, the scholar said, “I didn’t come for the lecture. I came to visit you for the sake of Allah.†The administration gathered with the teachers and they all sat together, and welcomed the scholar, and eventually forced him to speak. He spoke a light, gentle speech, without showing any anger, and then when he was leaving, the administration walked with him and asked his forgiveness for all happened. This is the correct way (minhaj), may Allah bless you. May Allah give all of us openings and prepare us to implement these meanings and place these principles firmly in our hearts and make us from the elect that adopt them and unto the presence of the Prophet (SS). [Al-Fatiha] like, “Leave them! They will eventually know who I am. They don’t know how to do anything. They will try, but fail, and then come running to me. I am the one who knows how to do it.†Does Allah need you? Are you crazy?! You believe that Allah needs you?! The Din needs you?! Or to say, “They didn’t give me a good position. I deserve a higher position than that which they gave me.†What do you deserve?! Or if you say, “I have this and this.†What do you really have?! Were Allah to expose your smallest sin, no one would even greet you. So, we must be humble and broken before Allah and annihilate ourselves in the love of service. One scholar recently took a daw’ah trip and was scheduled to give a talk at a certain university. The people of this university had certain views that differed from the views of the scholar who was going to give the lecture. When they found out about the ideologies of the scheduled speaker, they cancelled the lecture. After this, the students of the scholar were upset and complained about what happened. But the scholar said, “Let’s go visit them.†The students then said, “But they cancelled the lecture?†And to this the scholar said, “We are not going for the lecture. We are going to visit them for the sake of Allah Most High.†When he went, the administration was surprised to see the scholar and told him, “We’re sorry. Our students have exams. We are unable to have the lecture.†But, the scholar said, “I didn’t come for the lecture. I came to visit you for the sake of Allah.†The administration gathered with the teachers and they all sat together, and welcomed the scholar, and eventually forced him to speak. He spoke a light, gentle speech, without showing any anger, and then when he was leaving, the administration walked with him and asked his forgiveness for all happened. This is the correct way (minhaj), may Allah bless you. May Allah give all of us openings and prepare us to implement these meanings and place these principles firmly in our hearts and make us from the elect that adopt them and unto the presence of the Prophet (SS). [Al-Fatiha] Conclusion: There are five steps to follow when setting out on the path of achieving true brotherhood in the service of the Din. 1. The first step of action is to have a daily litany (wird) of supplication (du’a) for your brothers. 2. The second step of action is to devote a certain time of the day to serving your brothers, outside of your classes, study time, and other obligations. 3. The third step of action is to not sleep at night with something in your heart against your Muslim brother; regardless of what happened, whether you were right or wrong. 4. The fourth step of action is to avoid speaking against any of your brothers. 5. The fifth step of action is to distinguish between judging something that is from the unseen and something that you clearly see.