Islamic Finder - Lectures Khutbas

Lawsuit seeking to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from US currency

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSzLRUmPzpDR5YRXHZqwtG4ssu4m83u2XeWTa3rb6vvJQ2dchQdLTAJreb-4IxJstJ5V5sH8QEEteLdZDv1SamXZgAMfU_aHUuDUae-0JD-SYjKCvyfFOE6ahHAiXaKz4Rghuxi546SNN/s1600/Lawsuit+seeking+to+have+the+words+%25E2%2580%259CIn+God+We+Trust%25E2%2580%259D+removed+from+US+currency.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="482" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieSzLRUmPzpDR5YRXHZqwtG4ssu4m83u2XeWTa3rb6vvJQ2dchQdLTAJreb-4IxJstJ5V5sH8QEEteLdZDv1SamXZgAMfU_aHUuDUae-0JD-SYjKCvyfFOE6ahHAiXaKz4Rghuxi546SNN/s640/Lawsuit+seeking+to+have+the+words+%25E2%2580%259CIn+God+We+Trust%25E2%2580%259D+removed+from+US+currency.JPG" title="" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Recently a lawsuit seeking to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from US currency was filed in a federal court in Ohio. The suit was brought on behalf of 49 plaintiffs, only some of whom are named, with the rest listed anonymously. 
 
Referring to God using the designation “G-d,” the 112-page complaint–which can be accessed here–was filed by attorney Michael Newdow, who as you might guess is Jewish (or was born, at any rate, into a “nominally Jewish family,” as Wikipedia puts it). 
 
The suit alleges that by being forced to use coins and currency containing the in-God-we-trust motto, the plaintiffs are “burdened” insofar as they are forced to pass along to others “messages” that contradict their own beliefs. One such plaintiff,  one of the named ones at any rate, is Mitchell Kahle, a lifelong atheist who “is so deeply and personally offended by Monotheistic religious dogma that he declined to attend the religious funerals of both of his parents.” 
 
Newdow thus wants the word “God” excised from American notes of tender, but apparently he’s fine with having “Federal Reserve” left upon them. It kind of tells you who holds divine status in the US political system these days. 
 
A Post-Christian America 
 
The lawsuit has been denounced by evangelical pastor Franklin Graham, but Graham is an ardent supporter of Israel who warns that “Muslims” are “heavily influencing” the Obama administration–that’s presumably as opposed to AIPAC–and who once preached a service at the Pentagon (on Good Friday, no less!). 
 
“An atheist group is trying to sue the U.S. government to remove ‘In God We Trust’ from our money,” Graham announced to his followers in a Facebook post. “Not a smart move.” 
 
He goes on to warn of the Zionist Supreme Being’s impending judgment on America and sums up finally with a quote from the Bible (the Old Testament, of course): “The Bible says, ‘Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God” (Psalm 20:7).'” 
 
Reportedly 70 percent of Americans identify as “Christians” to one degree or another. It’s a number sufficient to give politicians incentive to continue pandering to the Christian vote, but of course political power, real political power, resides no more in the hands of Christians than it does with the bottom 99 percent of income earners. 
 
We no longer are a Christian country. Rather, we have entered what I would describe as America’s “post-Christian era.” It’s hard to say precisely when this era began, but I would place it some time in the 1970s. That’s when film directors like Woody Allen and David Cronenberg rose to public prominence and career atheist Madalyn Murray O’Hair, with a successful Supreme Court ruling against against school prayer in her portfolio, vaulted to celebrity status with interviews in Playboy and appearances on the Donahue Show. 
 
And finally today–Larry David, Sarah Silverman and other comedians can mock Jesus, demean Christianity, and rather than be repudiated, are applauded for it. Thus we clearly are in a post-Christian era, although…to be sure…even in the current presidential race, we have candidates, at least on the Republican side, proudly proclaiming their putative Christian faith. 
 
“It’s exactly right,” Ted Cruz boasted recently, “that in terms of who I am, I’m a Christian first. I’m an American second. I’m a conservative third. And I’m a Republican fourth.” 
 
“Let me be clear about one thing,” Marco Rubio declared following the Iowa caucuses, “there’s only one savior and it’s not me. It’s Jesus Christ who came down to Earth and died for our sins.” 
 
The trouble is that both Rubio and Cruz, like Graham, apparently are unable to discern even the tiniest contradiction between the teachings of Jesus and Israel’s genocidal treatment of the Palestinians. Both are ardent supporters of Israel and in essence cheer on the genocide. 
 
Do the pastors of the churches they attend subscribe to the same outlook? Or do they simply remain silent and say nothing on the matter? It is a crucial question because when church leaders fail to take a stand on the most pressing issues of our day, when they refrain, for instance, from calling for justice, and offer no pulpit denunciations of US wars and sanguinary regime change operations–when the best they can do is say a prayer for the troops and leave it at that, to preside at funerals or visit someone’s sick grandmother in the hospital–then they risk making themselves, and their churches, increasingly irrelevant. 
 
Did Jesus denounce the corrupt leaders of his day? He certainly did. Why do Christian pastors today fail, by and large, to do likewise? Is it out of cowardice? Or is it simply that they have no eyes to see or ears to hear? 
 
If you do a search using the words “Is America a Christian nation?” you will turn up a plethora of articles, the overwhelming majority of which answer the question in the negative. Some take the position that America never was a Christian nation; others use the same “post-Christian” term I have coined; a few advance the thesis that the concept of a Christian nation was invented by “corporate America”; and one article I found goes so far as to offer the view that Christians in America are “pampered by the state.” In a way, the writer is correct. Christian leaders today never make waves for the powers-that-be, so why wouldn’t they be pampered? 
 
And just who are these  ‘powers-that-be’ they prefer not to make waves for? If we no longer are living in a Christian land, how exactly do we define today’s America? Is it simply a secular country? Or would it perhaps be more accurate to describe it as a Jewish state? I posed that very question in an article I wrote a little over three years ago. 
 
“With Jewish power in America standing at unprecedented levels, it is only natural we should begin to see Jews reap gains and benefits disproportionately greater than those available to other segments of the population,” I wrote, and among the examples I cited were: 
 
More than $25 million in college Pell grants used to pay full tuition for Jewish students studying at yeshivas and universities in Israel–this at a time when student loan debt for a majority of young Americans was already making major headlines in the media; 
A staggering 97 percent of Homeland Security grants, under DHS’s Nonprofit Security Grant Program, being awarded to Jewish organizations–you can go here and listen to then-DHS Director Janet Napolitano justifying the lopsided awarding of the grants and explaining why she thinks Jews face special risks the rest of us don’t have to worry about; 
Numerous inroads into the US economy by Israeli companies, including Elbit Systems, a manufacturer of electronic surveillance technology, which has opened offices in Talladega, Alabama and Fort Mill, South Carolina; 
A strange mutation in local and regional Chamber of Commerce organizations, with a new emphasis on promoting business partnerships between US and Israeli companies (see here, here, here, and here for examples). I referred to it as a “multitude of tentacles.” 
But perhaps most striking is a $1 million US Department of Commerce grant awarded to the Keshet Dance Company, a repertory in Albuquerque, New Mexico that stages a variety of shows including an annual holiday production called “Nutcracker on the Rocks,” a rock-and-roll version of the Tchaikovsky ballet. “Keshet” is a Hebrew word meaning “rainbow,” and the nonprofit performing arts group is directed by Shira Greenberg, a dance instructor who has ties to Israel, where she attended Hebrew University in Jerusalem. 
 
The grant was given in 2012 to establish a “Keshet Ideas and Innovation Center” that would be housed in a newly renovated “Keshet Center for the Arts.” One million dollars is of course a lot of money to award to a local community arts group, and as I commented: 
 
Virtually every city in America, large and small, has struggling arts groups of one kind or another—musical, dance, theatrical, and so forth. So why, one might wonder, would this particular group be singled out for such a large grant? And why by the Department of Commerce, when normally one thinks of the National Endowment for the Arts as the main provider of federal grants to the arts? 
 
The award was approved by acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank and publicly announced on September 12 by New Mexico Senator Tom Udall. “The arts are a defining part of New Mexico’s history, community and identity,” said Udall. “This innovative public-private partnership will help provide entrepreneurs with the tools and support they need to grow art-focused businesses.” 
 
Was this a new commitment to the arts on the part of the Obama administration? Or was it a commitment to a certain type of art? 
 
Performances of The Nutcracker have for many years been a Christmas tradition by theater and dance groups all over America, but in its rock-and-roll version, Keshet has given the ballet an innovative twist–with a dance segment set to the song “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones. Here  is a video from their 2014 production: 
 
Keshet has professional, salaried dancers on its staff, something almost unheard of among local community arts groups. It has also staged productions about the holocaust; presently maintains an international exchange program; and last year it launched a tour of Europe. 
 
Sympathy for the Devil or a Tectonic Shift? 
 
“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,” said the poet Robert Frost… 
 
Many, many changes have overtaken America in the past century. This is true in terms of inventions–from automobiles to airplanes to mobile phones to genetic engineering–as well as in the political arena, and specifically in that regard I’m referring to the level of hucksterism and fraud, as well as outright treachery and depravity, we have seen members of our political ruling class willing to stoop to. Though Americans were shocked at disclosures of the Teapot Dome scandal, and that a member of Warren G. Harding’s administration had accepted bribes from oil companies, it is probably a safe bet that neither Harding nor Interior Secretary Albert Fall ever, in their wildest dreams, contemplated a US alliance with terrorist head-chopping cannibals or collaborating or colluding in the carrying out of false flag attacks on American cities. 
 
The concept of what is, or is not, “laudable” or “morally acceptable” quite obviously has become hugely warped over the past century. In the America of today, spirituality and belief in God have been derogated and de-emphasized, and–in a good many American homes–are missing altogether. Hardly surprising, then, we see the spreading phenomenon of teenage sociopaths in so many American communities. 
 
Rather than a kind and loving God, we worship the false idols of money and Wall Street, and rather than the teachings of Jesus, we now seem to follow the teachings of Hollywood. 
 
But is something about to change? 
 
“Maybe just maybe we’re turning the page on a dark part of American politics, because tonight the light overcame the darkness of negative campaigning and you made it happen,” said former Ohio Governor John Kasich after placing second in the New Hampshire Republican primary on Tuesday. 
 
It’s a nice thought. But a political system in which money plays such a dominant factor in determining who gets elected has little hope of turning any dark pages. Donald Trump’s popularity would suggest that Americans are finally starting to catch on to that in large numbers. They don’t, for now, seem to be waking up to certain other crucial matters, but at least they are waking up to that. 
 
Like Cruz and Rubio, Trump also touts his Christianity, but the strategem behind this touting seems characterized by a more subtle objective, and unlike those two senators, he doesn’t talk much about Israel. On January 18, Trump gave a speech at Liberty University–that school that was founded in the 1970s by Jerry Falwell, a pastor so zealous in his Christian Zionist beliefs that Israel once rewarded him with his own private jet. The educational institution is still run today by Falwell’s son, Jerry Falwell Jr., who serves as president, though it has grown into one of the largest, if not the largest, Christian universities in the world. 
 
Now one of the most striking things about Trump’s speech there last month–and which was scarcely remarked upon by the mainstream media–was his total omission of any comments about Israel. You can go here and watch a video of the event which includes not only Trump’s speech in its entirety, but also the rather lengthy introduction given him that evening by Falwell Jr. Astonishingly, not anywhere in the entire 109 minutes that the video runs is Israel even mentioned–either by Trump, Falwell or anyone else. 
 
Now you would think that a leading presidential contender, in a stump speech at a major Christian university like Liberty, would have used the occasion to tout his Christian Zionist credentials. But no. Not once the entire evening was the subject of Israel even brought up. It would suggest that Trump’s political strategists have made a determination that the Jewish state is rapidly losing public support, not only among the the population as a whole, but even amongst that subset who identify as evangelical Christians. 
 
And if this is the case, we could be on the verge of something like a tectonic shift in US politics. 
 
By Richard Edmondson 
 
<a href="https://richardedmondson.net/2016/02/12/god-and-zionist-politics-in-post-christian-america/" target="_blank">https://richardedmondson.net/2016/02/12/god-and-zionist-politics-in-post-christian-america/</a> 
 
 </div>

Lawsuit seeking to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from US currency

Recently a lawsuit seeking to have the words “In God We Trust” removed from US currency was filed in a federal court in Ohio. The suit w...

Sunday, February 14, 2016

Muhammad Ali giving an amazing speech - 1977

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HsDH9SXKZtI/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="366" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/9S8VwT2CEAA?feature=player_embedded" width="620"></iframe></div>
 
Question: What are you going to do when you retire? 
 
What are you doing right now? 
Because we do not know when we are going to leave this world? 
This could be our last pray! 
This could be our last day! 
 
Live life as if it was your last moment in this world. 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
 </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-gxI8FWSB5w/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="366" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-gxI8FWSB5w?feature=player_embedded" width="620"></iframe></div>
 
THE IMPORTANCE OF TIME IN ISLAM 
 
There are among those who believe in the popular saying as "Time is Gold." Time in Islam is more than Gold or any precious material thing in this world. Of all religions, only Islam guides mankind not only to the importance of time but also how to value it. Allah the Almighty and His Messenger, Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), very clearly tell us the value of time, why we must not waste it and how we can make use of our time wisely to increase our Eeman (Faith) and thus attain success, especially eternal success in the life hereafter. 
 
TimeThe following are some of the most important duties demanded of Muslims: 
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Ensuring benefiting from time</li>
<li>Utilizing leisure time</li>
<li>Racing for good deeds</li>
<li>Learning from the passage of time</li>
<li>Seeking the superior times</li>
<li>Planning and organizing time</li>
<li>Fulfillment of time commitments</li>
<li>Necessary awareness of time wasters</li>
<li>Both the Qur'an and the Sunnah enjoin Muslims to be conscious of time. We are reminded that life in this world is nothing but temporary. We never know when death has been appointed for us. We must value time for the satisfaction of Allah the Almighty. For our guidance and success, we must never waste time nor abuse it.</li>
</ul>
Ibn Abbas narrated that Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) said: 
 
"There are two blessings which many people lose: (They are) health and free time for doing good." (Bukhari 8/421) 
 
Indeed, we displease Allah the Most High when we abuse time. We must remember that time must be spent to fulfill our very purpose in life that is to worship Allah all throughout our lives. Allah makes this very clear in the Qur'an when He says: 
 
I have only created Jinns and Men, that they may serve Me. No Sustenance do I require of them, nor do I require that they should feed Me. For Allah is He Who gives (all) Sustenance, Lord of Power, Steadfast (for ever). Qur'an (51:56-58) 
 
But celebrate the praises of thy Lord, and be of those who prostrate themselves in adoration. And serve thy Lord until there come unto thee the Hour that is certain (i.e., death). Qur'an (15:98-99) 
 
Everything we do in accordance with the Qur'an and the Sunnah is an act of worship. Such worship must be done sincerely for the pleasure of Allah alone. We should make use of our time (which includes our "free time") in doing beneficial things especially those that will make us closer to Allah and earn His Mercy. 
 
We have to make use of our time wisely by knowing more of the Qur'an and the Sunnah. We must have correct knowledge of what Allah and His Messenger Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) have commanded us to do and at the same time to refrain from what they have forbidden us. This is imperative so that we earn Allah's pleasure and reward. Allah the Exalted makes it very clear, when he says: 
 
O ye who believe! Obey Allah, and obey the messenger, and make not vain your deeds! Qur'an (47:33) 
 
Corollary to the above divine commandment, we must ask ourselves: Have we been obeying Allah and His Messenger? To what extent have we used our time learning the Qur'an and the Sunnah in order to have correct Eeman (Faith), to do righteous deeds, to enjoin the Truth or do Da'wah, and be patient and constant? As time passes by, are we sure we are devoting our time for the sincere worship and pleasure of Allah the Most High? Are we taking guidance from the following very enlightening Ayat (Qur'anic verses)? 
 
By (the Token of) Time (through the ages), Verily Man is in loss, Except such as have Faith, and do righteous deeds, and (join together) in the mutual teaching of Truth, and of Patience and Constancy. Qur'an (103:1-3) 
 
In line with the above Qur'anic injunction, we have to discipline ourselves by giving value to the importance of time. We must be prompt in doing good deeds, which will increase our faith and subsequently enable us to gain Allah's pleasure and mercy. 
 
Islam encourages Muslims to care for time, to utilize it wisely and not to waste it and to benefit from it. Besides, it holds them responsible for their time. 
 
We have to remember that on the Day of Judgment we shall be asked how we spent our lives, wealth and knowledge. In other words, we will be questioned on how we spent everything that Allah has given us as implied in the following Hadith: 
 
Narrated Abdullah Bin Mas`ud Allah's Messenger (PBUH) said: 
 
"A man shall be asked concerning five things on the day of resurrection: concerning his life, how he spent it; concerning his youth, how he grew old; concerning his wealth, whence he acquired it, and in what way he spent it; and what was it that he did with the knowledge that he had." 
 
The Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), used to call on Muslims to take the initiative to do good deeds before any obstacles arise. For instance, he said, "Lose no time to do good deeds before you are caught up by one of seven calamities awaiting you: a starvation which may impair your wisdom; a prosperity which may mislead you; an ailment which may damage your health; an old age which may harm your senses; a sudden death; the Dajjal (Antichrist); or Doomsday, which is indeed the hardest and most bitter." (at-Tirmidhi, al-Baihaqi) 
 
The above Hadith urges Muslims to take the initiative, and not to delay good deeds; man's life is not free from impediments, such as those calamities, which can prevent him from accomplishing what could have been done earlier. Wise are those who grab available opportunities before being handicapped by obstacles. 
 
If we are to evaluate ourselves objectively, have we been spending our time wisely for the pleasure of Allah the Almighty? Have we been spending our lives based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah? Have we been practicing Muslims? How many of us are Muminoon (Faithful Muslims) and/or Mutaqqoon (God Fearing Muslims)? How much knowledge of the Qur'an and the Sunnah do we know? Do we practice what we learn and impart the same to others or at least share them to our families and kin? Have we ever enjoined to others what is right and forbid what is wrong? 
 
To be successful, we have to manage our time wisely by making plans for virtuous deeds that please Allah the Almighty. We must spend time learning Islam based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah. 
 
 
Opportunity is something which is quick to vanish and late to return. Imam Hassan Al-Mujtaba (AS) 
Another Year Passes By and Time Marches On 
 
O ye who believe! Fear Allah, and let every soul look to what (provision) He has sent forth for the morrow. Yea, fear Allah: for Allah is well-acquainted with (all) that ye do. Qur'an (59:18) 
 
Another year has passed; minutes move into hours => into days => into weeks => into months => into years - seemingly faster than ever; yet every moment is a precious component of life and every moment counts. 
 
Time - Use it, do not abuse it 
 
Our attitude towards time indicates our attitude towards the value of the capital of life. If we want to purchase something, we require financial capital; and if we want to do something in life, we require the capital of life, time. That is why the Qur'an exhorts us to value the time we have before life is up. Qur'an (63:10) 
 
Realize that... 
 
Time is the measure of life, time is an amaanah (trust), time is a gift from the Creator and its proper use will determine our outcome for eternity. 
We are born in time, live in time and die in time; time is the ambit within which we operate. What we do with time is what we do with our lives. 
Each one must realize that every moment that passes by is an opportunity gone, used or abused; never to return. Soon time will be up and we'll have to leave this physical world and give account for our lives. 
The more we remind ourselves of the responsibility of the present the better we get at living the moment and the better we live the present moment the better the consequence for the future. 
Our attitude towards the future influences our mind-set towards the rest of life. Being positive about life ahead is among life's greatest motivators. Hope is the best attitude one can harbor towards the future; this realistic expectation that something good or better could/will happen if only we continue doing the best we can. Remember that today well-lived makes yesterday a dream of happiness and every tomorrow a vision of hope. 
 
Wise are the words of the one who said ... "I expect to pass through this world but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now; let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." 
 
"O Allah! Make life a means for every dimension of goodness." [Prayer of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)] 
 
The Characteristics of Time 
 
We are to bear in mind that time has certain characteristics, among of which are the following: 
 
Time passes quickly. 
Time that passes can never return, nor can it be compensated for, for time is irretrievable. 
Time is the most precious thing that man possesses. 
Muslim's Duty towards Time: 
 
Having all this great value and importance, time is to be duly appreciated and managed. In Islam there is no room for slogans like the so-called "killing time", for in Islam time is really valuable. In fact, wasting time is much more dangerous than squandering property, because unlike property, time cannot be compensated. Free time is a blessing that is overlooked, and not wholly appreciated by many people. 
 
This indicates that it's very important for a Muslim to try his utmost to husband his time and make the best use of it in beneficial things. A Muslim may use portion of his time in making invocations and supplications, celebrating the praises of Allah. The Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), used to supplicate: "O Allah! I seek refuge in You from sorrow and distress, and I seek refuge in You from disability and laziness." 
 
A Muslim should learn how to organize his time, and make a realistic plan for his worldly and religious duties, without any of them overlapping the other. That is to say that one should know how to arrange his priorities: the most important and the most urgent comes first, and carried out according to schedule. Organizing time also includes leaving a place for relaxation and entertainment, for 'all work and no play make Jack a dull boy.' 
 
One of the methods of managing his time properly is for a Muslim to get up early and sleep early, for early hours always yield great blessings. Starting his day with prayer and the supplication of the morning brings the Muslim Allah's grace. A Muslim should always bear in mind that every time has its own task that suits it. Doing tasks in their due times brings about peace of mind and comfort. 
 
Finally, we would like to cite the following Hadith of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), quoting from the Book of Ibrahim, peace be upon him: "A sane person, unless he is mindless, should have four hours: an hour to invoke to his Lord, an hour to count his own deeds, an hour to contemplate about the creation of Allah and an hour to satisfy his worldly needs." 
 
Verily, time is very important for our success both in this temporary world and the eternal world to come. If we waste time, if we abuse it, then we waste and abuse our lives. In the Life Hereafter we will be among the losers, who will suffer the torments in the Hell Fire, if Allah the Almighty will not forgive us. Therefore, if we really give value to our lives then, we must give due value to the importance of time. 
 
http://www.ezsoftech.com/akram/time.asp 
 
 
 </div>

Muhammad Ali giving an amazing speech - 1977

Question: What are you going to do when you retire? What are you doing right now? Because we do not know when we are going to leave t...

Saturday, February 13, 2016

What Have We Achieved in Our Life by Mufti Menk

What Have We Achieved in Our Life by Mufti Menk

Allah did not send an Angel. Because people would have made excuses for not following. We sent amongest you a messenger.

Thursday, February 11, 2016

To Know US Black History is to Know US Islamic History

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOeItfe7hGvzafCrugugB-2dFuVM6enqclLEMiBcgGzP1wNQ26FGVZypM6yLT3do6Ie5RgQZclA7uIgbUIETniWdCMBnOBar8YQ_AfaySSKO8IgtVjwziODnd9cvXtJedArFrVpF9yKJM/s1600/islamic-art-wall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtOeItfe7hGvzafCrugugB-2dFuVM6enqclLEMiBcgGzP1wNQ26FGVZypM6yLT3do6Ie5RgQZclA7uIgbUIETniWdCMBnOBar8YQ_AfaySSKO8IgtVjwziODnd9cvXtJedArFrVpF9yKJM/s640/islamic-art-wall.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
US Black History Month in the USA 
True Black history has been obfuscated and replaced with nefarious Eurocentric myths. Africa is portrayed as a place without history: primitive, inferior and impoverished. The noble descendants of Africa are by extension portrayed as incompetent and inconsequential actors in world history. To counter these Eurocentric tall-tells that masquerade as objective history, Carter G. Woodson first proposed Black History Week, which later expanded to a month. 
 
Muslims, who have been duty-bound to submit to Quranic revelations of getting to “know each other,” cannot truly fulfill this duty unless we counter this epistemic racism that inhibits accurate knowledge about Africa and its descendants. To do this, we must look at our own tradition to learn about the contributions that Africans made to Islam from the beginning of our faith’s history to the present. 
 
It was an African woman, Umm Ayman, who first told Aminah, “You shall give birth to a blessed child who will bring goodness,” when the Prophet was still in the womb of his mother. It was Bilal who proclaimed the oneness of God, refusing to acknowledge the false deities of his slave master even in the midst of torture. 
 
It was Sumayya who became the first martyr of Islam for refusing to denounce her belief of One God to her persecutors. Refusing to succumb to oppression, it would be the brave Black generals Zayd and his son Usama who made invaluable contributions to ensure that the Muslim community was able to survive and eventually prosper, allowing the call to prayer, first stated by Bilal, to be heard globally. 
This call to prayer would spread to Mali, where Black Muslim Mansa Musa would emerge as the wealthiest man in world history. Later, this call to prayer would be heard by Askia Muhammad, who led Songhai to become the largest empire in West Africa’s history. Crafting such a scholarly environment, Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu, saying more profits were made from the book trade than any other line of commerce. 
 
In Timbuktu, subjects such as mathematics, science of hadith, astronomy, jurisprudence and rhetoric was taught and studied. Ahmad of Timbuktu wrote more than 70 books and was an expert in Arabic grammar. This legacy of Black Muslim scholarship would continue through the centuries and be taken to new heights by the great Uthman Dan Fodio. 
 
Fodio founded the Sokoto Caliphate and was a staunch advocate of women’s education. His daughter, Nana Asmau, emerged as an Islamic scholar who memorized the entire Quran and wrote a biography on the life of the Prophet, which was read throughout Sokoto. There were also other phenomenal Black Muslim scholars in Sokoto: Muhammad Bello, Sultan Muhammed Bello and Sultan Abu Bakr Atiku. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxbKTvZTOp3IwBzsCnWTVYWv2MngyIzFy4-2WNE713BfQkMufGUvWXKZWF_haU7JTcAisOJqC54P8JM7ovtVKY5xdM2E1BqC9oZu0d7uf1b9L_kzUNzVBfxhhtEUqSkF-TZT1KLaz_Uhx_/s1600/hijra-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="416" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxbKTvZTOp3IwBzsCnWTVYWv2MngyIzFy4-2WNE713BfQkMufGUvWXKZWF_haU7JTcAisOJqC54P8JM7ovtVKY5xdM2E1BqC9oZu0d7uf1b9L_kzUNzVBfxhhtEUqSkF-TZT1KLaz_Uhx_/s640/hijra-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
This Black History month, learn the names of  enslaved Islamic scholars, including Bilal Lictuan, Shaykh Dandaa, Shaikh Sanim, Malam Bubakar Ahuma and Manuel Calafate, who were victims of the slave trade and forcibly taken to Brazil. There, they would spark the Male Revolt, which historian João José Reis referred to as “the most effective urban slave rebellion ever to occur on the American continent.” 
 
Court documents revealed that African slaves utilized Arabic documents to organize the slave revolts, completely shocking European settlers.  Since most whites in Brazil were illiterate, Reis indicates, “It was hard to accept that African slaves possessed such sophisticated means of communication.” 
 
Though their rebellion would eventually be subdued with the leaders being given the death sentence, their defiance to oppression and courageous quest for justice should be remembered. 
African genius would also manifest through Ayuba Diallo, an African Muslim slave who wrote four copies of the Quran from memory. His intellect as a slave won him his freedom; he would be inducted into an intellectual fraternity called the Spalding Gentlemen’s Society, which included the likes of Isaac Newton. 
 
This Black History month (USA), learn about Bilali Muhammad: Though a slave on a plantation, he produced a book on Maliki Jurisprudence, which was later discovered to contain verbatim quotes on Islamic Law produced by Al-Qauirawani in 900 A.D, demonstrating he committed portions of the books to memory. Also learn about Omar Ibn Said whose slave narrative states that he was out on a quest to seek knowledge. After traveling back home from his studies, an army came to his village and kidnapped him, forcing him into slavery. 
 
In his slave narrative, Said states he can no longer write Arabic according to true grammar. Through the years of slave bondage, efforts were taken to erase Islam from the slave population, eventually reaching a point where it was no more. 
 
Then learn about the resurgence of Islam among the descendants of African slaves through movements such as the Nation of Islam. Learn about the economic accomplishments of Elijah Muhammad. Under his leadership, this movement changed the life of a young Malcolm Little, reaching him while in prison where he intensively studied history. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GSPT5CevIijzWNC-1b2cNNgyTKDYN3Bpdp8R6DpuoE02VC-U0Gwge_WvtDQnsaZzXs2dsdrTKV8hd5rSU2ZU5JcwsvHYLJ_o_7XmGcnAfXh_M9aCuz5B6eVs_YM4j10QosrpVMSvi7hQ/s1600/111-Sheikh_Zayed_Mosque12.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="512" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-GSPT5CevIijzWNC-1b2cNNgyTKDYN3Bpdp8R6DpuoE02VC-U0Gwge_WvtDQnsaZzXs2dsdrTKV8hd5rSU2ZU5JcwsvHYLJ_o_7XmGcnAfXh_M9aCuz5B6eVs_YM4j10QosrpVMSvi7hQ/s640/111-Sheikh_Zayed_Mosque12.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Malcolm X was motivated to not only change his life but fellow prison inmates, telling themthat “some slaves brought from Africa spoke Arabic, and were Islamic in their religion.”  To Malcolm X, history was transformative and utilized to motivate change in the present. Part of this change came through the school system of the Nation of Islam. 
 
Describing these schools, Malcolm X states, “In Detroit and Chicago, school-age Muslim children attended our two Universities of Islam.”  Malcolm X emphasized those students at these schools, “learned of the black man’s glorious history.” This Black History month, learn about the first teacher in what would become the largest black-operated independent school system in America: Sister Clara Muhammad. 
 
Malcolm X further states, “I had always had a high opinion of Wallace Muhammad’s opinion.” This Black History month, learn about the son of Clara Muhammad, Warrith Deen Muhammad, who brought millions of his followers towards Sunni Islam. Later, Malcolm X also spoke of “Boston Temple’s outstanding young Minister Louis X.” It would be this brother, who would rebuild Muhammad University of Islam, a pinnacle of my childhood, where I would learn to be proud to be Black, proud to be Muslim. 
 
Here I first learned that Islamic history is Black History and that history is transformative. We must learn from it to influence the present. 
 
By Hakeem Muhammed 
Hakeem Muhammad is an avid researcher, lecturer and blogger. He has taught African American philosophy at Spartan Debate Institute at Michigan State University and Cal State debate and Speech Institute at UC Berkeley. While finishing his senior year, Hakeem is currently working at the African American Male Initiative at West Georgia University and in the future seeks to study Islamic thought in Africa. He is also a 2016 MuslimARC- Muslim Anti-Racism- AMEL Fellow. 
 
Stay in touch! Like altmuslim.com on Facebook: 
 
<a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/altmuslim/2016/02/to-know-black-history-is-to-know-islamic-history/" target="_blank">http://www.patheos.com/blogs/altmuslim/2016/02/to-know-black-history-is-to-know-islamic-history/</a> </div>

To Know US Black History is to Know US Islamic History

US Black History Month in the USA True Black history has been obfuscated and replaced with nefarious Eurocentric myths. Africa is por...

Thursday, February 11, 2016

The Creation & Knowledge of Prophet Adam (pbuh)

Beginning and End is a video series based on the book بداية و نهاية‎,. Sheikh Omar Suleiman goes through this entire text weekly to bring stories and reminders to you. For more lectures with Shaykh Omar Suleiman visit <a class="yt-uix-redirect-link" dir="ltr" href="http://bayyinah.tv/" rel="nofollow" style="background: rgb(255, 255, 255); border: 0px; color: #167ac6; cursor: pointer; font-family: Roboto, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank" title="http://bayyinah.tv">http://bayyinah.tv</a> 
 
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aYjxEAcgldw?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>

Islam provides us with the astonishing details of the creation of Adam.  Both Christian and Jewish traditions are remarkably similar yet importantly different to the Quran.  The Book of Genesis describes Adam as being made from “the dust of the earth,” and in the Talmud, Adam is described as being kneaded from mud. 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
 
And God said to the angels: 
 
“‘Verily, I am going to place mankind generations after generations on earth.’  They said: ‘Will You place therein those who will make mischief therein and shed blood, while we glorify You with praises and thanks and sanctify You.’  God said: ‘I know that which you do not know.’” (Quran 2:30) 
 
So begins the story of Adam, the first man, the first human being.  God created Adam from a handful of soil containing portions from all its varieties on Earth.  Angels were sent to earth to collect the soil that was to become Adam.  It was red, white, brown, and black; it was soft and malleable, hard and gritty; it came from the mountains and the valleys; from infertile deserts and lush fertile plains and all the natural varieties in between.  The descendants of Adam were destined to be as diverse as the handful of soil from which their ancestor was created; all have different appearances, attributes and qualities. 
 
Soil or Clay? 
 
Throughout the Quran, the soil used to create Adam is referred to by many names, and from this we are able to understand some of the methodology of his creation.  Each name for soil is used at a different stage of Adam’s creation.  Soil, taken from the earth, is referred to as soil; God also refers to it as clay.  When it is mixed with water it becomes mud, when it is left to stand the water content reduces and it becomes sticky clay (or mud).  If it is again left for some time it begins to smell, and the colour becomes darker – black, smooth clay.  It was from this substance that God moulded the form of Adam.  His soulless body was left to dry, and it became what is known in the Quran as sounding clay.  Adam was moulded from something akin to potter’s clay.  When it is rapped it produces a ringing sound.[2] 
 
The First Man is Honoured 
 
And God said, to the Angels: 
 
“And (remember) when your Lord said to the angels: ‘I am going to create a human (Adam) from sounding clay of altered black smooth mud.  So when I have fashioned him and breathed into him (his) soul created by Me, then you fall down prostrate to him.” (Quran 38:71-72) 
 
God honoured the first humman, Adam, in countless ways.  Allah blew his soul into him, He fashioned him with His own hands and He ordered the Angels to bow down before him.  And God said to the Angels: 
 
“....Prostrate to Adam and they prostrated except Iblees (Satan)....” (Quran 7:11) 
 
While worship is reserved for God Alone this prostration by the Angels to Adam was a sign of respect and honour.  It is said that, as Adam’s body trembled into life, he sneezed and immediately said ‘All praise and thanks is due to God;’ so God responded by bestowing His Mercy upon Adam.  Although this account is not mentioned in either the Quran or the authentic narrations of the Prophet Muhammad, may the mercy and blessings of God be upon him, it is mentioned in some commentaries of the Quran.  Thus, in his first seconds of life, the first man is recognized as an honoured creature, covered with the infinite Mercy of God.[3] 
 
It was also said by the Prophet Muhammad that God created Adam in His image. This does not mean that Adam was created to look similar to God, as God is unique in all His aspects, we are unable to comprehend or form an image of Him.  It does mean, however, that Adam was given some qualities which also God has, although incomparable.  He was given qualities of mercy, love, free will, and others. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBN827x98cOZjpN63mBu5GbCbczxHMtjgnD_jDdD5M4LwcHlgsnOYa15ZdDaCGBANoDjJIpsmua5Fkb6bAMQKi-wcT3IIjSdDkupIfF7grdc32O38A0f8PSthBl7Txd5L7sG0r2JuEHoGr/s1600/Allah-faith-destiny.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="610" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBN827x98cOZjpN63mBu5GbCbczxHMtjgnD_jDdD5M4LwcHlgsnOYa15ZdDaCGBANoDjJIpsmua5Fkb6bAMQKi-wcT3IIjSdDkupIfF7grdc32O38A0f8PSthBl7Txd5L7sG0r2JuEHoGr/s640/Allah-faith-destiny.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
The First Greeting 
 
Adam was instructed to approach a group of Angels sitting near to him and greet them with the words Assalamu alaikum (May God’s peace be upon you), they answered ‘and also upon you be God’s peace, mercy and blessings’.  From that day forward these words became the greeting of those submitted to God.  From the moment of Adam’s creation, we his descendents were instructed to spread peace. 
 
Adam, the Caretaker 
 
God told mankind that He did not create them except that they should worship Him.  Everything in this world was created for Adam and his descendants, in order to aid us in our ability to worship and know God.  Due to God’s infinite Wisdom, Adam and his descendants were to be the caretakers on earth, so God taught Adam what he needed to know to perform this duty.  God mentions: 
 
“He taught Adam all the names of everything.” (Quran 2:31) 
 
God gave Adam the ability to identify and designate names to everything; He taught him language, speech and the ability to communicate.  God imbued Adam with an insatiable need for and love of knowledge.  After Adam had learned the names and uses for all things God said to the Angels... 
 
“‘tell me the names of these if you are truthful.’  They answered ‘Glory be to You, we have no knowledge except what You have taught us.  Verily it is You the All Knower, the All Wise.’” (Quran 2:31-32) 
 
God turned to Adam and said: 
 
“‘O Adam!  Inform them of their names,’ and when he had informed them of their names, He said:  Did I not tell you that I know the unseen in the heavens and the earth, and I know what you reveal and what you have been hiding?” (Quran 2:33) 
 
Adam tried to speak with the Angels, but they were occupied worshipping God.  The Angels were given no specific knowledge or freedom of will, their sole purpose being to worship and praise God.  Adam, on the other hand, was given the ability to reason, make choices and identify objects and their purpose.  This helped to prepare Adam for his coming role on earth.  So Adam knew the names of everything, but he was alone in Heaven.  One morning Adam awoke to find a woman gazing at him. 
 
Article: <a href="http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1190/story-of-adam-part-1/" target="_blank">http://www.islamreligion.com/articles/1190/story-of-adam-part-1/ </a> 
 </div>

The Creation & Knowledge of Prophet Adam (pbuh)

Beginning and End is a video series based on the book بداية و نهاية‎,. Sheikh Omar Suleiman goes through this entire text weekly to ...

Thursday, February 11, 2016

6 Awesome Things About the Quran I Love

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZ1wUuWS3YTm2i98Pk9bCeqd89_zBUhh4MC3GpjQ4EsZGUL8Q910UGmDqxygkhdfkg7bsZpmNxMW-VxNU0GBuhcXtuYtFI-IHuFgIXcR6DePrw7A5DePPNydAAieDkgsAalXH52CSStA/s1600/Nasir+Al-Mulk+Mosque55.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIZ1wUuWS3YTm2i98Pk9bCeqd89_zBUhh4MC3GpjQ4EsZGUL8Q910UGmDqxygkhdfkg7bsZpmNxMW-VxNU0GBuhcXtuYtFI-IHuFgIXcR6DePrw7A5DePPNydAAieDkgsAalXH52CSStA/s640/Nasir+Al-Mulk+Mosque55.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Too often in the news, Islam is only associated with terrorism and fanaticism. An uninformed viewer may think to himself: How could anyone in their right minds find inspiration and solace from such a faith? But, to billions of people, Islam is their avenue for seeking liberation and peace. 
 
My spiritual journey, believe it or not, began on a dull evening with a lot of time to spare on my hands. It so happened that on that particular day, the electricity was down in my home, and I couldn't find anything to do. Browsing through my cellphone, I stumbled across a Quran app I had downloaded earlier. And, for some reason, I felt an urge to finally read the book I professed to "believe" in. Within the next few days, I had finished it. 
 
The Quran, I found, was truly a fascinating book: very different to how some Muslims practice Islam. Above all, it was a book I could very much relate to, and find answers to the dilemmas I often thought about. Naturally, the more time I spent with it, the more it seemed to give me back. Thus, as I went deeper and deeper into the Quran, I was left mesmerized by its structure, cohesiveness, and the language it employs that happened to reflect my own being so precisely. 
 
Through all the ups and downs - the sudden moments of euphoria and multiple crises of faith - it is fair to say that this journey completely changed me for the better. It liberated me from an ordinary existence and gave my life a meaning, and a purpose. 
 
Without further ado, here are 6 things I love most about the Quran: 
 
1- The Quran Encourages People to Contemplate & Think For Themselves 
 
2- The Quran Discourages Blindly Following Ancestral Ways and Religious Preachers 
 
3- The Quran Promotes Pluralism & Acknowledges There Being Multiple Paths to God 
 
4- The Quran Champions Freedom of Conscience. 
 
5- The Quran Asks Muslims to Be Social Activists 
 
6- The Quran Considers Belief as a Means to an End, and Not an End in Itself 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRw3UkcvO-8gD3lcVr0CS7DHkD5Uf3Hl8y82NFV-vWULZ6Ud7D5B37Hk8Ccd_lF0JG7FsE6RmYukc8ZT2J3Q2zBVTNd2BgjTMZSj7-uvCC0g7QRxcxEqAvBzUy3pjukPjbNyaKP6oTq-g/s1600/Nasir-al-Mulk-Mosque6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="424" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRw3UkcvO-8gD3lcVr0CS7DHkD5Uf3Hl8y82NFV-vWULZ6Ud7D5B37Hk8Ccd_lF0JG7FsE6RmYukc8ZT2J3Q2zBVTNd2BgjTMZSj7-uvCC0g7QRxcxEqAvBzUy3pjukPjbNyaKP6oTq-g/s640/Nasir-al-Mulk-Mosque6.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
 
1- The Quran Encourages People to Contemplate & Think For Themselves 
 
Indeed, the most disliked created beings in the Sight of God are the deaf and the dumb who do not use their intellect. (Quran, 8:22) 
 
You shall not accept any information, unless you verify it for yourself. I have given you the hearing, the eyesight, and the brain, and you are responsible for using them. (Quran, 17:36) 
 
When I first started reading the Quran, my paradigm was drastically different to what it is now. Back then, whether a particular interpretation or belief was rational or not wasn't a prerequisite for believing in it. "It was the word of God, after all!", I thought, "Dare I question it?" 
 
However, it was the Quran, with its repeated emphasis on questioning and contemplation, that made me realize the merits of free-thought. The profound statement, "Will you, then, not think?" appears numerous times in the Quran, and at regular intervals! Gradually, instead of simply believing everything I heard and read, I started analyzing things. 
 
And that has truly changed my world for the better. 
 
When I hear some new-atheists say that the Quran is a medieval book that suppresses freedom of thought and is an exercise in surrendering the mind, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief. "Have these folks even read the Quran?", I think to myself. 
 
The idea that religion suppresses free thought and encourages blind belief certainly is, by no means, representative of the Quran. In fact, the opposite is true: those who do not reason are vehemently condemned (Quran 10:100) and are considered "no different from animals" (Quran 25:44). It is this emphasis on free-thought and acquiring knowledge that ultimately led to what we call "The Golden Age of Islam". 
 
However, a thinking population is always dangerous to the status quo, and hence these verses were gradually brushed aside, replaced by a bizarre sentiment of blindly following those in power (whether religious, or political). Add to that the notion of a heavenly reward for reading the Quran in Arabic (even for non-Arabic speakers) promoted by the clergy, and you've got a largely ignorant population at the whims of what religious figures teach them about Islam. 
 
2- The Quran Discourages Blindly Following Ancestral Ways and Religious Preachers 
 
O you who believe, many religious leaders and preachers take people's money illicitly, and repel from the path of God. (Quran, 9:34) 
 
And they (the common people) will say: O our Sustainer! Behold, we paid heed unto our leaders and our great men, and it is they who have led us astray from the right path! (Quran, 33:67) 
 
If you obey the majority of people on earth, they will lead you astray from God's way. Most of the people follow nothing but conjecture and they only live by guesswork. (Quran, 6:116) 
 
It would come as a surprise to many (even Muslims who haven't read the Quran) that the Quran warns people about the dubious ways of many religious preachers, and asks people to be wary of them. A religion that was only devised to control and cheat people would never expose religious preachers like this, for it would be against their very interests! 
 
Time and time again, we find passages in the Quran about people blaming themselves on the Day of Accountability because they had not reasoned for themselves, and had blindly adopted the ways of their ancestors and/or religious and political leaders. These serve as excellent reminders to continually re-evaluate one's beliefs. As Mark Twain also once said, "Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." 
 
What did I learn from these verses? That just because a belief and/or practice is popular and accepted by many does not necessarily make it true or beneficial. These verses have taught me to question everything - be they cultural norms, religious opinions or whatever else. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YUooOG8WHG6lJ3RVRPFBXRsiEu56kRdJWs3rEdoeRLcCN3ItiOUj5Brq2Vrz_pfNHOOOr9_B5Z2ja_0E1THN5Fu1HS1p5i1zH3PwZwVHTxfLBWojPicYSrukwBd4UR0zGneVe9bP1bc/s1600/Nasir+Al-Mulk+Mosque.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6YUooOG8WHG6lJ3RVRPFBXRsiEu56kRdJWs3rEdoeRLcCN3ItiOUj5Brq2Vrz_pfNHOOOr9_B5Z2ja_0E1THN5Fu1HS1p5i1zH3PwZwVHTxfLBWojPicYSrukwBd4UR0zGneVe9bP1bc/s640/Nasir+Al-Mulk+Mosque.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
3- The Quran Promotes Pluralism & Acknowledges There Being Multiple Paths to God 
 
Surely, those who believe (in the Qur'an and call themselves Muslims), and those who are Jews, and Christians and the Sabians; whoever acknowledges God, The Day of Accountability, and does acts of reformation - their reward is with their Sustainer. For them shall be no fear from without, nor shall grief touch them from within. (Quran, 2:62) 
 
As for those who sincerely strive for Us, We shall most certainly guide them onto paths that lead unto Us: for, behold, God is indeed with the doers of good. (Quran, 29:69) 
 
Sectarianism thrives on the idea of there being only one correct way to worship and serve God. By acknowledging that there are, in fact, multiple paths that lead to God, the Quran entirely discredits and nullifies sectarianism. 
 
Truth be told, there was a time when I believed only I and people who shared my beliefs were "rightly guided." However, these verses eventually changed my stance for the better. They made me realize that no faith or school of thought has a monopoly on truth, and that has really "broadened my horizons", so to speak. Irrespective of where a truth comes from, a truth is a truth and should be accepted on its own merit. And, what a liberating thought this is! 
 
4--The Quran Champions Freedom of Conscience. 
 
"If your Sustainer willed, all who are on earth, would have believed (by not providing free will). Would you then, compel people to become believers?" (Quran, 10:99) 
 
"There is no compulsion in matters of faith." (Quran, 2:256) 
 
Despite what some modern Muslim majority states do in the name of God (namely, anti-blasphemy & apostasy laws), the Quran advocates total freedom of speech and expression. This is, after all, a fundamental human right. Otherwise, what would be the point in endowing human beings with free-will? 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_ZUuiH13wNwF5tqzdfcWPdL20GdLuQj0Fes_A9aF5-7xt0Kkf9uzp8_dTcoV8mCg3j7Yb5gMcfsqr5v819J-PEJli5nS-ReRulNEBU-YPbVzp_v_mtnMhI3GYifXSJlEjcHHHQrczvE/s1600/Nasir-al-Mulk-Mosque8.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_ZUuiH13wNwF5tqzdfcWPdL20GdLuQj0Fes_A9aF5-7xt0Kkf9uzp8_dTcoV8mCg3j7Yb5gMcfsqr5v819J-PEJli5nS-ReRulNEBU-YPbVzp_v_mtnMhI3GYifXSJlEjcHHHQrczvE/s640/Nasir-al-Mulk-Mosque8.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
5- The Quran Asks Muslims to Be Social Activists 
 
O You who have chosen to be graced with belief! Stand up firmly for justice, witnesses for God, even if it is against yourselves, your parents and your relatives, and whether the case is of a rich person or a poor person. God is nearer to them than you are. 
 
Do not follow your emotions lest you fall short of justice. If you distort your testimony or turn away (from this command, know that) God is Aware of all your actions. (Quran, 4:135) 
 
The Quranic program is centered in the pursuit of social justice, and fighting oppression. Islam is not a faith that only gives you a dogma to believe in, in return for paradise; but rather expects you to utilize your resources in helping the vulnerable and in becoming agents of peace and justice! 
 
This repeated emphasis on social and economic justice by the Quran has restored my belief in my capabilities that I can make a difference, no matter how small. It has inspired me to be more involved in my community, and help those in need. 
 
6- The Quran Considers Belief as a Means to an End, and Not an End in Itself: 
 
Do people think that they will be left (at ease) simply because they say, "We believe", and will not be put to test? (Quran, 29:2) 
 
I am so glad that this verse is so explicit, because so many religious people (Muslims included) today exhaust all their energies on "believing this" and "believing that", all the while failing to translate that belief into some meaningful action. It is unfortunate that for many, religion has devolved into a list of things they must believe in, in order to be eligible for paradise. 
 
But, it is what you do that is the main concern of the Quran: how you translate that belief into action. And this teaches me that "believing" in values like honesty, justice, loyalty etc. is not the point - living these values is. 
 
And that's how my faith inspires me to evolve as a human being! 
 
by Ro Waseem, Blogger on Islam @ <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/quranalyzeit" target="_blank">www.patheos.com/blogs/quranalyzeit</a> 
Follow Ro Waseem on Twitter: <a href="http://www.twitter.com/Quranalyzeit" target="_blank">www.twitter.com/Quranalyzeit</a></div>

6 Awesome Things About the Quran I Love

Too often in the news, Islam is only associated with terrorism and fanaticism. An uninformed viewer may think to himself: How could anyo...

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

How We Lose Our Iman (by the choices we make)

How We Lose Our Iman (by the choices we make)

Listen very carefully Muslims! The choices we make reflect the depth of our Iman (or may be it is just a dried out river bed). How W...

Wednesday, February 10, 2016

'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSdFRbz3TraG54QQQlrFwxaAwJpL4mwU479e5gWjr1DWZ1C3BKJ7zT218ywgCHRk9aenT94oxHmr4iKFIB1rPkRIMI6tObd6VXYXqWy3LC0mfHj4EgqBmR3uJEWMbJRY0quqjCdH6RQK8/s1600/bible-more-voilent-than+quran.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="536" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzSdFRbz3TraG54QQQlrFwxaAwJpL4mwU479e5gWjr1DWZ1C3BKJ7zT218ywgCHRk9aenT94oxHmr4iKFIB1rPkRIMI6tObd6VXYXqWy3LC0mfHj4EgqBmR3uJEWMbJRY0quqjCdH6RQK8/s640/bible-more-voilent-than+quran.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
A study by non-Muslims of the three books, the project found, the Old Testament is the most violent, with approximately 5.3% of the text referring to "destruction and killing" — the Quran clocked in at just 2.1%, with the New Testament slightly higher at 2.8%. 
 
While the New Testament led in mentions of the concept of love, the Quran leads heavily in mentions of mercy — thanks partially to Allah's title, "the merciful." 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60j1uWEgoHXlQAbMsgti3CP95CZU7pVL3qRuTOZ-elhTV1wIiOcGf1oP_AiPcWZuoSABQN8N1LvmDULLPa4zmxt87jh4gIBvKCVCxrPUk3y1orN3_cuVElWGyQYJx3L3CCMRtHXeWbMAH/s1600/quan-bible-comparison.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="440" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh60j1uWEgoHXlQAbMsgti3CP95CZU7pVL3qRuTOZ-elhTV1wIiOcGf1oP_AiPcWZuoSABQN8N1LvmDULLPa4zmxt87jh4gIBvKCVCxrPUk3y1orN3_cuVElWGyQYJx3L3CCMRtHXeWbMAH/s640/quan-bible-comparison.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Perhaps the most notable difference, though, was between the frequency of positive emotions that surfaced in the Quran when compared to both books of the Bible, as depicted in the chart below. 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM8aCykuotgeFcFsHc2Ndzt2_c0pf5aCySJ4bok9WWSMZglfL7g-1hjlCUx7kyK2xvljfKLxVU_UD8YzaELA6uBL5RiHiwe-n8ePhFHvFO4mtCLaG6uBNUbIPUzk4YL-sRVSm-uwSwZU5/s1600/quan-bible-comparison-2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMM8aCykuotgeFcFsHc2Ndzt2_c0pf5aCySJ4bok9WWSMZglfL7g-1hjlCUx7kyK2xvljfKLxVU_UD8YzaELA6uBL5RiHiwe-n8ePhFHvFO4mtCLaG6uBNUbIPUzk4YL-sRVSm-uwSwZU5/s400/quan-bible-comparison-2.JPG" width="400" /></a></div>
 
<a href="http://www.islamicfinder.info/2016/01/how-do-people-perceive-bible-verses-if.html#more">Also see this article comparing Quran to Bible</a> 
 
Project Summary: 
Is the Quran really more violent than the Bible? by Tom H. C. Anderson 
To understand a religion, it’s only logical to begin by examining its literature. And indeed, extensive studies in a variety of academic disciplines are routinely conducted to scrutinize and compare the texts of the world’s great religions. 
 
We thought it would be interesting to bring to bear the sophisticated data mining technology available today through natural language processing and unstructured text analytics to objectively assess the content of these books at the surface level. 
 
So, we’ve conducted a shallow but wide comparative analysis using OdinText to determine with as little bias as possible whether the Quran is really more violent than its Judeo-Christian counterparts. 
 
A few words of caution… 
 
Due to the sensitive nature of this subject, I must emphasize that this analysis is by no means exhaustive, nor is it intended to advance any agenda or to conclusively prove anyone’s point. 
 
The topic and data sources selected for this project constitute a significant departure from the consumer intelligence use cases for which clients typically turn to text analytics, so we thought this would be an interesting opportunity to demonstrate how this tool can be much more broadly applied to address questions and issues outside the realm of market research and business intelligence. 
 
Again, this is only a cursory analysis. I believe there is more than one Ph.D. thesis awaiting students of theology, literature or political science who want to take a much deeper dive into this data. 
 
About the “Data” Sources 
 
First off, it seemed sensible and appropriate to analyze the Old and New Testaments separately. (The Jewish Torah makes up the first five books of the Christian Old Testament, of course, while the New Testament is unique to Christianity.) 
 
We decided to split them for analysis for a couple of reasons: 1) They were written hundreds of years apart and 2) their combined size relative to the Quran. 
 
Though all data (Old Testament, New Testament and Quran) were combined and read into OdinText as a single file, the Old Testament is the largest with over 23K verses and about 623K words, followed by the New Testament with just under 8K verses and 185K words, and then the Quran with just over 6K verses and less than 78K words. 
 
Secondly, there are obviously multiple versions and translations of the texts available for study. We’ve selected the ones that were most accessible and best suited for this kind of analysis. 
 
With regard to the Christian Bible, instead of the King James version, we opted to use the New International Version (NIV) because the somewhat updated language should be easier to work with. 
 
In selecting an English translation of the Quran, we considered the Tafsir-ul-Quran (1957) by the Indian scholar Abdul Majid Daryabad, but decided to go with The Holy Qur’an (1917, 4th rev. ed. 1951) by Maulana Muhammad Ali because this version is more widely used and the data are more easily accessed. 
 
We do not believe the text in either of these choices to differ materially. 
 
Approach: A ‘Top-Down/Bottom-Up’ Inquiry 
 
We recommend and OdinText employs a  ‘Top-Down/Bottom-Up’ approach to text analysis. 
 
This means that identification of issues for investigation will be partly a priori or ‘Top-Down’ (i.e. the analyst determines specific topic areas to explore such as “violence”). 
 
But there will also be a data-driven or ‘Bottom-Up’ aspect in which the software helps to identify topics or areas that may not have occurred to the analyst, but which could be important given the data. 
 
For example… 
 
OdinText looks for sentiments and emotions in the data as soon as it has been uploaded to our servers; however, as this particular data set is rather unique, certain custom dictionary definitions—what we refer to as “issues”—will also need to be created through the Top-Down/Bottom-Up approach. 
 
One simple and unbiased way to do this is to allow the process by which these definitions are created to be as data-driven as possible. There are several ways to look to the data for information. For instance, we might start by looking at the top words mentioned in each source to understand what concepts cut across our data, and how they might be defined. (See figure 1) 
 
3Way Text Analytics Comparison 
 
In this way, an overarching concept for comparison in each of the three sources can then be developed. For instance, a concept like “God” would need to include all common terms for this concept in each text source. 
 
We can name such a concept something like “God All Inclusive,” and allowing all common definitions/terms for God in each of the texts to be picked up under this concept. 
 
Accordingly, “God All Inclusive” would include any mention of “Lord” (28%) or “God” (11%) in the Old Testament, as well as any mentions of “Jesus” (17%), “God” (16%), “Lord” (8%) or “Christ” (7%) in the New Testament, and any mentions of “Allah” (30%) or “Lord” (14%) in the Quran. 
 
As mentioned earlier, in order to keep this analysis as unbiased as possible (and in order to do it as quickly as possible), we will also rely on OdinText’s built in functionality to understand broader concepts such as positive and negative sentiment as well as other psychological constructs and emotion in text.  In other words, when we look at positive and negative emotion we will be using this broad-based metric across the three texts without any customization at all. 
 
Now that I’ve laid the groundwork for this project, please join me tomorrow as we take a look at the initial results! 
 
Considering many people take at least a year to read just one of these texts, you may find it interesting that it took OdinText less than 120 seconds to read, parse and analyze all three texts at once! 
 
<a href="http://odintext.com/blog/text-analysis-answers-is-the-quran-really-more-violent-than-the-bible/" target="_blank">http://odintext.com/blog/text-analysis-answers-is-the-quran-really-more-violent-than-the-bible/</a> </div>

'Violence more common' in Bible than Quran, text analysis reveals

A study by non-Muslims of the three books, the project found, the Old Testament is the most violent, with approximately 5.3% of the text...

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

Skills for Success as a Student

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRs0Xig-y3WjGPPFCsZ6DkVrYKaDZUghhVrYe-rT7RwchU8-Gr0PPUevyqDMEAyVLxYL_Vuy-ltZzfgcC2ljvm0PW10ab5_6z6h5WZW1AU0Xumesl9YUSVZl5QVg07iGGAA_RpnIWFan5V/s1600/china.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRs0Xig-y3WjGPPFCsZ6DkVrYKaDZUghhVrYe-rT7RwchU8-Gr0PPUevyqDMEAyVLxYL_Vuy-ltZzfgcC2ljvm0PW10ab5_6z6h5WZW1AU0Xumesl9YUSVZl5QVg07iGGAA_RpnIWFan5V/s640/china.jpg" width="640" /></a> 
 
Success as a student only comes if one assesses what they are bringing to the learning experience. As a student, you must be aware of not only your study skills, but the presumed philosophies about education, the teacher-student relationship, on line learning, traditional learning and your history as a student/learner. 
 
Many of us find that public schooling has left us without understanding of what 'education' truly is. 
Our natural love of learning, which Allah placed in our fitra as human beings, has been covered up. It is important to understand that the experience of education is different than schooling, and one must rid oneself of the negative impact public education has had on us. 
 
A good reading for this is John Taylor Gatto's "7-lesson School Teacher" which can be found at <a href="http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt" target="_blank">[http://www.worldtrans.org/whole/schoolteacher.txt]</a> 
 
In drawing nearer to Allah, we draw nearer to our fitra, and our love of learning. 
 
Traditional Knowledge 
In deciding to become a student with SunniPath Academy, you have taken the initiative to learn the traditional knowledge presented here. As the student, you are responsible for completing the readings, doing necessary research, asking questions and keeping an open line of communication with your teachers. 
 
There are neither grades nor any responsibilities to any of the staff or teachers. As Imam Zarnuji states in Instruction of the Student, the purpose of study is to 
".strive for the pleasure of God, the abode of the Hereafter, the removal of ignorance from himself and from the rest of the ignorant, and revival of religion, and the survival of Islam." (Zarnuji, p. 5) 
 
We at SunniPath Academy highly recommend that you read Imam Al-Zarnuji's book in its entirety. 
As a starting point, here are a few of the methods of learning Imam Al-Zarnuji recommends to students. 
 
Each point is expounded upon in great detail in the book: 
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Pure intention, sincerity, and high resolve</li>
<li>Seeking Allah's assistance, through earnest supplication. Among the Qur'anic supplications for seeking knowledge is, "O Lord, increase me in knowledge." [Rabbi zidni `ilma]</li>
<li>Respecting knowledge and those who have it, for the sake of Allah.</li>
<li>Earnestness, perseverance and diligence in the pursuit of learning</li>
<li>Being organized and not overwhelming oneself-rather, to strive for consistency.</li>
<li>Relying on Allah entirely.</li>
</ul>
Choosing the best times for study, which are those went one's mind is clear and one does not have other distractions-such as dawn and late evening. Take notes, in all lessons you attend, and of all beneficial knowledge you hear or read. In this way your knowledge will be firm. If you try to just memorize, it will flee. Be wary of what you eat, that it is pure and not contaminated, both physically and spiritually. Be wary of falling into idleness, excessive sleep, or wasting time through idle talk. 
Sit facing the Qibla, whenever possible. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUm2AfpuqRmaXGYhTWtb0ahyoMqzRt8SYRYoPYo4JC_nPSPan7Qu4FEE3_9qtVjQ5Ot66jWfXhTE3YkmA0KzfBRxNfqCU2KkxDrxiJucDcm9zU7g3yyBIDlSUwtHwP8myd2xLk_PSasmd7/s1600/sea-rocks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUm2AfpuqRmaXGYhTWtb0ahyoMqzRt8SYRYoPYo4JC_nPSPan7Qu4FEE3_9qtVjQ5Ot66jWfXhTE3YkmA0KzfBRxNfqCU2KkxDrxiJucDcm9zU7g3yyBIDlSUwtHwP8myd2xLk_PSasmd7/s640/sea-rocks.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
How to increase memory 
Memorizing and retaining knowledge is a skill. Like other skills, it takes practice to perfect. The following are some of the recommendations of scholars: 
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Be industrious and committed</li>
<li>Be patient, repeat what you are trying to memorize, and then review it regularly</li>
<li>Try to memorize when you mind is clear of concerns</li>
<li>Reduce your eating</li>
<li>Increase night prayer</li>
<li>Read Quran</li>
<li>Send blessings on the Messenger of Allah (Allah bless him and give him peace)</li>
<li>Use a siwak</li>
</ul>
Acquiring Knowledge 
The Companion of the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace), Mu`adh ibn Jabal (Allah be pleased with him) said, 
"Acquire knowledge because doing so is good. Seeking it is worship. Reviewing it is glorifying Allah. Researching it is jihad. Teaching it to the ignorant is charity." 
 
Serving the scholars is a way of drawing near to Allah because knowledge is the path of ascension to the stations of Paradise . It is a companion in isolation and a comrade in distant lands. It speaks to you in solitude. It is a guide to prosperity and a shield against adversity. It beautifies one among friends and is a weapon against enemies. With it Allah elevates people and makes them guides and bellwethers of good. 
 
"The scholars are people whose words are sought and whose actions are imitated. The angels long for the scholar's company and comfort them with their wings. Everything, the fish of the sea, the beasts of the earth, the predators of the land and sea, and the cattle pray that blessings come upon him. 
 
"This is because knowledge enlivens the heart against ignorance, illuminates the eyes against darkness, and strengthens the body. It transports the servants to the mansions of the select and the righteous and to the highest ranks in the world and in the Hereafter. Contemplating it is equivalent to fasting, and reviewing it is equivalent to the Night Prayer vigil. With it, kinship is united and the lawful is distinguished from the unlawful. Knowledge is an imam which leads to righteous actions. It is craved by the people destined for Paradise and shunned by people destined for Hell." 
 
Source: al-Hanbali, Imam Ibn Rajab (d. 1392 CE). The Heirs of the Prophets (translated by Imam Zaid Shakir, pg. 37-38. Chicago , U.S.A. Starlatch Press, 2001). 
 
http://uaekhutba.com/index.php/articles/50-education/41-skills-for-success-as-a-student </div>

Skills for Success as a Student

Success as a student only comes if one assesses what they are bringing to the learning experience. As a student, you must be aware of n...

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz known as Malcolm X Autobiography Summary

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHobJmIoVAnfNXK8hBuCn5N7PYjbfC5_Bxfdr_vLNdh3Pv8QSVML09EzMR7TCpoRTq25Vjwf9VE8ttnkIFsY_FJ_x9M05-ZpXBVxS7LjX6RGG_-sDSChhTTR9Z16M39M6p80sO7bOAAcs/s1600/malcolm-x-muslim.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="489" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHobJmIoVAnfNXK8hBuCn5N7PYjbfC5_Bxfdr_vLNdh3Pv8QSVML09EzMR7TCpoRTq25Vjwf9VE8ttnkIFsY_FJ_x9M05-ZpXBVxS7LjX6RGG_-sDSChhTTR9Z16M39M6p80sO7bOAAcs/s640/malcolm-x-muslim.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
FROM MALCOLM X TO EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ 
The Transformation of Malcolm X 
 
        Malcolm X was perhaps one of the most controversial elements in the civil rights movement. In his early years, Malcolm X became a member of  Nation of Islam, a religion that borrowed basic ideas from the orthodox teachings of Islam and combined with racist views regarding whites taught by Elijah Mohammed. Malcolm X was a very influential and prominent priest for the Nation of Islam. However, Mr. Mohammed and his Nation of Islam turned against Malcolm when he questioned some of the beliefs and actions of Elijah Mohammed. This uncertainty forced Malcolm to embark on a quest over seas seas to find his true beliefs. Upon his arrival to  Arabia, he found a truly different society, where race played no factor on a person's status (Davies, 98). This made a very positive change in Malcolm X's beliefs. This unity of human kind had forced Malcolm to change many of his ideas including his beliefs about the the solution to the racial problem in America. 
 
        Malcolm X had his first religious enlightenment while serving time for various crimes he had committed when he was young. While Malcolm was in prison, he learned and adopted the teachings of  Nation of Islam, a religious sect of  Orthodox Islam which believes in strict moral codes and radical views about race led by Elijah Mohammed. By the time he left prison, Malcolm had completely changed himself from a drug dealing burglar to a religious priest for the Nation of Islam. Malcolm X had completely submitted himself to the racist teachings of Elijah Mohammed. It is through the Nation of Islam and Elijah Mohammed's teachings that Malcolm developed his radical views about race in America. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRy_NJuZjAIylduSqME-jjONs-alD-yhluYc8Q6I1fF75YzeEWmQj5-OFa8VZrEQ9GuYyHQfPooOp9GVl7y5GQagH7aS2VaHfVGklEvD4Su_1L6VI_HscwPFjKNlh8p2tLVDFnWH8bnyjG/s1600/malcolm-x-stand-for-nothing.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="486" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRy_NJuZjAIylduSqME-jjONs-alD-yhluYc8Q6I1fF75YzeEWmQj5-OFa8VZrEQ9GuYyHQfPooOp9GVl7y5GQagH7aS2VaHfVGklEvD4Su_1L6VI_HscwPFjKNlh8p2tLVDFnWH8bnyjG/s640/malcolm-x-stand-for-nothing.JPG" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Under the teachings of  Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm X had targeted all whites and blamed them for position of blacks in society. He had referred to whites as devils, who sought to lower the standards of blacks even more, by bringing prostitution, liquor, etc. into black neighborhoods. (Life, 0:06:03).  Malcolm X believed that complete segregation between blacks and whites was the only answer to the racial problem in America. Malcolm felt that all the actions committed against blacks in history was due the white race in its entirety, and not because of specific individual actions (X, 238-239). He also believed that blacks should not only segregate but all blacks should migrate to Africa, and establish a society there (Perry,196). 
 
Fifteen years after Malcolm embraced the Nation of Islam, he started to question the religion. Allegations of  sexual misconduct and illegitimate children against Elijah Mohammed had arisen (Mack-Williams, 101). When Malcolm confronted Mr. Mohammed regarding the situation, Mr. Mohammed admitted to his actions. Malcolm then began to question the beliefs of Elijah Mohammed, and his involvement with the Nation of Islam. During this time, according to Malcolm, Elijah Mohammed and other leaders of the Nation of Islam grew increasingly jealous of  Malcolm's success, and created lies about Malcolm to discredit his name (X, 290). Malcolm finally left the Nation of Islam in 1964. 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXYRXBYesu2myljaBT6IiS633ki0qIx5HsXCPmml0nYLUp3WFj7PCXoirD080ya3kM9KkshYz3kAn0fX1sNU6f_7ifjf7kFshwi2HWGvfCVYVi_-gVxxT8ABQ8_w0gTrjUJtTPWOG3X-m/s1600/malcolm-x-on-media.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="500" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtXYRXBYesu2myljaBT6IiS633ki0qIx5HsXCPmml0nYLUp3WFj7PCXoirD080ya3kM9KkshYz3kAn0fX1sNU6f_7ifjf7kFshwi2HWGvfCVYVi_-gVxxT8ABQ8_w0gTrjUJtTPWOG3X-m/s640/malcolm-x-on-media.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Later that same year, in an attempt to find the true religion of Islam, as it is practiced by the millions of followers around the world, Malcolm embarked on a voyage that would ultimately change his beliefs, life, and attitude about America. Malcolm X landed in Mecca, Arabia to undergo the holy pilgrimage, an act that all well-to-do orthodox Muslims are required participate in . This experience had a very positive impact on Malcolm X. Despite the racial frustrations Malcolm carried, he wrote in a letter to his wife, 
 
 Never have I witnessed such sincere hospitality and the over     
        whelming sprit of true brotherhood as is practiced by people of all 
        colors and races here [Mecca].... this pilgrimage... has forced me 
        to re-arrange much of my thought patterns... and toss aside some of 
        my previous conclusions.... In the words and in the actions and in 
        the deeds of 'white' Muslims I felt the same sincerity that I felt 
        among the black African Muslims of Nigeria, Sudan, and Ghana (qtd. 
        in X, 339-340). 
 
While racial hatred, in America, had forced blacks into the lowest depths of society, Malcolm had encountered a land where the color of the skin played absolutely no factor in any aspect of life. While Segregation in America had forced blacks to survive in poorest of living conditions, the white leader of Arabia had invited Malcolm to stay not only in his extravagant palace, but in his own room (X, 333). While whites had  beaten, raped, and attacked blacks,  while fire hoses were unleashed at black civilians, while hungry dogs were released on black protesters, while white supremacist groups like the KKK used violence to intimidate blacks, Malcolm X had "eaten from the same plate, drunk from the same glass... while praying to the same God with fellow Muslims, whose eyes are the bluest of blue, whose hair was the blondest of blond, and whose skin was the whitest of white" (Malcolm X tape II, 1:38:48). It is from this trip to Arabia, that Malcolm learned about the value of brotherhood  He learned to trust people, whites in particular. Malcolm learned the color of one's skin does not reflect what kind of person you are, rather that ones actions reflect the quality of a person (X, 333).  He learned that coexistence can and will work, something that Malcolm previously believed could never happen. From this trip, Malcolm abandoned all his racist and segregational views about the American society, and adopted the more Orthodox Islamic approach of racial coexistence and equality. 
 
 When Malcolm returned to his trip, he immediately started preaching his new philosophy. He developed new ideas about race in America and how its relation in the world, foreign policy and politics, and African American unity. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest change in Malcolm's beliefs were his ideas regarding relationships between whites and blacks. His conversion to orthodox Islam had changed his views about whites completely. In one of his speeches after his Mecca trip, he writes: 
 
        I am not a racist... In the past I permitted myself ... to make   
        sweeping indictments of all white people, the entire white race, 
        and these generalizations have caused injuries to some whites and 
        perhaps did not deserve to hurt. Because of my spiritual       
        enlightenment... as a result of my pilgrimage [to Mecca, Arabia]... 
        I no longer subscribe to make sweeping indictments of any one race 
        ( "Malcolm X", MSA internet site). 
 
It is at this time Malcolm X had changed his name from the Nation of Islam trademark of "X" to a traditional orthodox Muslim name, Malik El- Shabazz. This change in his name probably signified his complete separation from the Nation of Islam's radical philosophy about racial separation to orthodox Islam's beliefs in racial equality. This is what Malik El-Shabazz said about his new found religion: "When you become [a true] Muslim, you don't look at a man as being black, brown, red, yellow. You look at him as being a man" (qtd. in Decaro Jr, 72). 
 
 Mr. El- Shabazz  practiced his new found philosophy. After Malcolm's separation from the Nation of Islam, he created his own orginization called Muslim Mosque Inc., which abandoned the Nation of Islam's anti-symetic views and called for black unity both in America and abroad. (Myers, 158). Perhaps the most shocking difference between Muslim Mosque Incorporated and the Nation of Islam was its views regarding whites. According to Malik's friend, Dr. Mahmoud Shawarbi, Malik El-Shabazz wanted whites to join his organization. In fact, Mr. El- Shabazz felt that it would help his organization grow (DeCaro Jr., 249). This was a complete reversal from his previous beliefs under the Nation of Islam where he not only didn't trust whites, he referred to them as devils (Malcolm X tape 2, 0:27:36). 
 
 In Arabia, Malcolm witnesses coexistence between all races. He brought this positive ideology to America. In his years with Nation of Islam, Malcolm called for complete separation of blacks and whites. He felt that the only way blacks could exist the way they deserve to exist is if they governed and lived by themselves (Malcolm X tape II, 1:11:19). However, Malik El- Shabazz no longer believed this way, infact he completely changed his views on this subject. Mr. Shabazz went as far as to state that relationships between races was permissible saying, "...when you are dealing with humanity as a family there's no marriage of intergration or intermarriage" (qtd. in X, 424).  Malik El- Shabazz truly felt unified with the people of all nations who held common beliefs. He believed that the solution to the racial problems lies in the mind of the people, not segregation. Malik El- Shabazz had felt that that many of the whites in America had developed a superiority attitude which dates back to the time of slavery. This superiority attitude was the root of the racial problems in America, and unless it is removed, theses problems could never be solved. (DeCaro Jr, 1^9) 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2K9pkqu4Alulaswjt_6W1HeQkTiD6wxRqC8WxGWz_OmGXOQlDQiIBUWleRhsEmdUJjfW6Li37iW5X1Ncz_c3SyQyQp6dhXQpBc-GbDUCTnNebzXWIK-Q4RAWF5JJdOMaJGyVs_TWbpPc/s1600/malcolm-x-patriat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="490" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig2K9pkqu4Alulaswjt_6W1HeQkTiD6wxRqC8WxGWz_OmGXOQlDQiIBUWleRhsEmdUJjfW6Li37iW5X1Ncz_c3SyQyQp6dhXQpBc-GbDUCTnNebzXWIK-Q4RAWF5JJdOMaJGyVs_TWbpPc/s640/malcolm-x-patriat.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
 The way Malik El- Shabazz viewed other black organizations changed as a result of his spiritual rebirth. Previously, under the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X denounced all black leaders who supported "non-radical" solutions to the racial problems in America. He argued, "... when the white man wants to attack Negroes, they can't defend themselves, because [Martin Luther] King has put this foolish philosophy out- you're not supposed to fight or you're not supposed to defend yourself." Malcolm made direct criticisms against Martin King and others like King (qtd. in Gallen, 139). However, since the conversion to authentic Islam, Malik El- Shabazz looked at other black leaders differently. On his trip to Mecca, Malcolm witnessed a tremendous amount of unity of people, despite their differences. He had felt that unity is what strengthened brotherhood. Malik El- Shabazz wanted to bring this unity to America (Malcolm X tape II, 1:19:52). When Malik El-Shabazz returned to America, he gave full support to all black organizations, which wanted to achieve positive results. He began to set the stage for working with  Martin Luther King  and perhaps other black leaders (Curry, 5). 
 
 Shabazz's enlightenment in Arabia changed his attitude regarding the solution to the racial problems. Since Malik El- Shabazz gained a sense of unity with the people of the world,  he no longer felt that the racial problem existed only in America. He felt the civil rights cause should be addressed as human rights and should be treated as a human problem, not just a national one (Davies, 104). In that regard Malik El- Shabazz presented proposition to sue the United States for violating human rights in front of the United Nations (Curry, 5). However, because of the mind-set of the black community in America at the time, the proposition had minimal support. In addition this movement was completely stopped as a result of Shabazz's assassination. 
 
 Malik El- Shabazz also made direct criticisms against Elijah Mohammed and the Nation of Islam.  He believed that the religion of Nation of Islam is a completely different entity than Orthodox Islam, and Elijah Mohammed was a fake. Regarding the Nation of Islam and Elijah Mohammed, Malcolm writes: 
 
 For 12 long years I lived within the narrow minded confines of the 
        straight jacket world created by my strong belief that Elijah     
        Mohammed was a messenger direct from God... and my faith in what I 
        now see to be a pseudo-religious philosophy that he preaches. . . . 
        I shall never rest until I have undone the harm I did to so many 
        well-meaning, innocent Negroes who... now believe in him even more 
        fanatically and more blindly than I did (Malcolm X Quotes,       
        Internet). This passage reflects Shabazz's new beliefs regarding 
        the Nation of Islam, Shabazz's previous religion. He had felt that 
        the Nation of Islam was blinding many blacks, which in turn could 
        hurt the human rights movement. 
 
Malik El- Shabazz, not only criticized the Nation of Islam, he preached for many blacks to convert from Nation of Islam to Orthodox Islam. Malcolm had insulted the Nation by calling it "cult like" (De Caro Jr., 166). An action that threatened Elijah Mohammed and his Nation of Islam. El- Shabazz had felt that this threat may lead the Nation of Islam to inflect violence, in particular, against himself. (DeCaro Jr., 254). El- Shabazz was correct. On February 21, 1965, Malik El- Shabazz was assassinated while delivering a speech in New York. Three Nation of Islam leaders were convicted and sentenced for the killing (Myers, 196-197). 
 
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/tuHYZdf-ad0?rel=0" width="640"></iframe>

Malik El- Shabazz had said, " My whole life has been a chronology of changes" (Malcolm X Quotes, Internet). El- Shabazz had three main stages in his life. As Malcolm Little, he was a drug addict and a criminal. As Malcolm X, he had transformed from a petty thief to a prominent priest for the Nation of Islam . He taught racial hatred and radical views on solving the racial problems in America. As Malik El- Shabazz, he had transformed from preaching segregation to preaching racial unity and equality.  If someone was to hear the beliefs of Malcolm X and hear the beliefs of Malcolm as Malik El-Shabazz, they might beleive that Malcolm and Malik were two entirely different people, with drastically opposing views. Perhaps what made Malik El- Shabazz so great was that bettered himself  by acknowledging his mistakes, learning from them, and was committed to teaching the lessons of his mistakes to others, so others could better themselves. 
 
From: "zameer@castleweb.com" <Zarina.F.Baber-1@tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: Re: Malcolm X paper  Date: Sat, 1 Jun 1996  Friday May, 10th 1996 
https://www.unix-ag.uni-kl.de/~moritz/Archive/malcolmx/zameerbabermalcolmx.txt 
 
Sources: 
Curry, George E. "The Last Days of Malcolm X." Emerge Feb. 1995: 1-5. SIRS 
Researcher Article 49. 
 
Davies, Mark. Malcolm X: Another Side of the Movement. New Jersey: Silver 
Burdett Press Inc., 1990. 
 
DeCaro Jr., Louis A. On the Side of My People: A Religious Life of Malcolm 
X. New York: New York University, 1996. 
 
Gallen, David. Malcolm X: As They Knew Him. New York: Caroll & Graff 
Publishers Inc., 1992. 
 
Life and Death of Malcolm X. Dir. James Washington. Narr. Kingston Ducoeur. 
 Simitar Entertainment, 1992. 
 
Mack-Williams, Kibibi. Malcolm X. Florida: Rourke Publications Inc., 1993. 
 
Malcolm X. Dir. Spike Lee. With Denzel Washington and Angela Bassett. 
Warner Bros., 1992. 
 
Moritz, Elke.  Malcolm X Quotes. http://www.unix-ag.uni 
kl.de/moritz/daten/afroamer/mxquotes.aa. Online. Netscape. Internet. 30 
April 1996. 
 
MSA. Malcolm X. http://www.csun.edu/~hbcsc103/malcolmx.html. Online. 
Netscape. Internet. 5 May 1996. 
 
Myers, Walter Dean. Malcolm X: By Any Means Necessary.  New York: 
Scholastic Inc., 1993. 
 
Perry, Bruce. Malcolm: The Life of a Man Who Changed Black America. New 
York: Station Hill Press Inc., 1991. 
 
 X, Malcolm. The Autobiography of Malcolm X. New York: Random House Inc., 
1965.</div>

El Hajj Malik El Shabazz known as Malcolm X Autobiography Summary

FROM MALCOLM X TO EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAZZ The Transformation of Malcolm X Malcolm X was perhaps one of the most controvers...

Monday, February 08, 2016

Cannibalism! Eating human flesh

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppRF9XRt6kRB2zgjNXVTUxbvQRY8OTUepaKWAxdEaAQQxQqut8Yr6nvLrcCTM8UfPu0RoYNCGYTUhKIS5uS9PBZTZZ27-bxju4oxwlH7k4QLQjCbo4Odir_3izF0rRd6fsJj85qp2yne9/s1600/trees-color-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjppRF9XRt6kRB2zgjNXVTUxbvQRY8OTUepaKWAxdEaAQQxQqut8Yr6nvLrcCTM8UfPu0RoYNCGYTUhKIS5uS9PBZTZZ27-bxju4oxwlH7k4QLQjCbo4Odir_3izF0rRd6fsJj85qp2yne9/s640/trees-color-1.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Without a doubt, backbiting is forbidden in Islam due to the dire consequences that it brings upon Muslims, causing enmity, hatred and cutting-off ties of kinship. It wastes our precious time; and does not bring benefit or joy. This abhorable practice often involves making fun of how a certain individual looks,walks, talks, etc.,  in turn, resulting in mockery of Allah’s own creation! 
 
AllahSWT says: 
 
“O you who have believed, avoid much [negative] assumption. Indeed, some assumption is sin. And do not spy or backbite each other. Would one of you like to eat the flesh of his brother when dead? You would detest it. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Accepting of repentance and Merciful.” (Al-Hujurat, 49:12) 
 
Dear Readers, when you find AllahSWT comparing backbiting with eating dead human flesh (a repulsive image), understand what a huge and hateful sin this is! As-sa’di said in his Tafseer, “In this verse is a severe warning for backbiting as it is considered one of the major sins, because AllahSWT resembled it to eating the flesh of a dead person”. 
 
While many people cannot imagine eating human flesh, cannibalism is a practice that existed and still exists in few parts of the world. The people who engage in such acts have no shred of humanity in their souls and are classified as abnormal, savages and inhuman. We can pretty much say the same thing about people who engage in backbiting, but in the verse above, Allah SWT says backbiting is even worse that cannibalism, because while backbiting, we actually know our victim, whereas, cannibals may or may not necessary know theirs! 
 
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBniVlba9ZB4nHvAVEC7UrV1tpA9oZJ4nsWYHwjqJ6FyX5h-exgquvcPfbBii4u5xunj6ahNR-k7A9ck9QwStnSYPzm0wd9HOjNYq6g6XtDfwJVTz-hPztptjvlpxZakjHp9gKJeeXa6k/s1600/511+kitab.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdBniVlba9ZB4nHvAVEC7UrV1tpA9oZJ4nsWYHwjqJ6FyX5h-exgquvcPfbBii4u5xunj6ahNR-k7A9ck9QwStnSYPzm0wd9HOjNYq6g6XtDfwJVTz-hPztptjvlpxZakjHp9gKJeeXa6k/s640/511+kitab.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
 
Sadly, this disease has spread in such a way that even righteous people indulge in it. Satan is able to drag everyone into indulging in such a hideous sin. 
 
What causes this? 
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Mingling with a lot of people causes many backbiting hotspots, and even if some people are safe from doing it, they are not safe from engaging in it, and if they are safe from engaging in it, they are not safe from being silent about it.</li>
<li>The main cause of backbiting is the lack of remembrance of Allah and His messengerSAWS.</li>
<li>Huge amount of time is wasted in such gatherings,where people often tend to forget about the hereafter and engage in matters that do not serve our purpose of existence.</li>
</ul>
<div>
May AllahSWT cure us from such a disease. Ameen</div>
 
What can you do? 
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>You can either oppose such gatherings that indulge in back biting.</li>
<li>Leave such gatherings and not be a part of them at all.</li>
<li>If you are not able to leave, then at least try getting busy with the remembrance of AllahSWT.</li>
</ul>
<div>
No matter how ugly the sin of backbiting is, its effects appears to be pleasing, especially if the one we are backbiting about is hated or is considered an enemy. However, what if we ask the backbiter, “Would you be pleased if your enemy backbites about you and exposes your faults the same way you have exposed his?”</div>
 
Ask yourself… 
 
Have we become free from our own faults? 
 
What are we doing to fix them? 
 
Have we attained self righteousness and are free from sin? 
 
Have we mended our flaws that we waste time mentioning other people’s flaws? 
 
The Messenger of AllahSAWS said, 
“Blessed is he who is preoccupied with his defects rather than those of other people.” 
 
Its easy to backbite and does not require much effort. All it needs is a move from your tongue, especially if the one being backbitten is an enemy to those who are in the gathering, because they will be busy mentioning his or her flaws and become delighted with what they hear from others in the same way a thirsty person is delighted with cold water to extinguish the burning thirst inside him/her. However, backbiters are always defeated because when they know that the one they backbit about is present, they will turn their slur into praise! 
 
It is without a doubt that the tongue is what leads to such a grave sin, and this is why the best advice our beloved prophetSAWS said, 
 
“He who believes in Allah and the Last Day, must speak good or remain silent.” 2 
 
Let us all turn back to AllahSWT with regret for all the sins we have done with our tongues. Let us truly regret such an act and be firm in not returning to it. Let us seek forgiveness from those who we’ve spoken ill about, and let us seek forgiveness from the one whom we backbit about. Ameen 
 
http://blog.islamiconlineuniversity.com/cannibalism/</div>

Cannibalism! Eating human flesh

Without a doubt, backbiting is forbidden in Islam due to the dire consequences that it brings upon Muslims, causing enmity, hatred and c...

Monday, February 08, 2016